I have always admired him, viewed many of his videos and followed his battle with the "Big C" as John Wayne use to call it. This is 1 1/2 hours, but most excellent.
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The amazing thing is how much of his prophecy has come to pass spot on, no grey area he just called it all right. I have admired him for your years, and no matter what some might think of him, he remains one of the greatest human beings I ever had the fortune to make acquaintance. Certainly food for thought . I especially love his take on Lincoln, the Civil War sic.......
Goodnight my friend.
T
The United States is one big reservation, and we are all in it. So says Russell Means, legendary actor, political activist and leader for the American Indian Movement. Means led the 1972 seizure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C., and in 1973 led a standoff at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a response to the massacre of at least 150 Lakotah men, women, and children by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry at a camp near Wounded Knee Creek.
American Indian Russell Means gives an eye-opening 90 minute interview in which he explains how Native Americans and Americans in general are all imprisoned within one huge reservation. Means is a leader for the Republic of Lakotah, a movement that has declared its independence from the United States and refused to recognize the authority of presidents or governments, withdrawing from treaties it made with the federal government and defining its borders which cover thousands of square miles in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana.
Means explains how American Indians have been enslaved within de facto prisoner of war camps as a result of the federal government's restriction of their food supply and the application of colonial tactics, a process that has now also been inflicted on the United States as a whole which has turned into, "one huge Indian reservation," according to Means.
Means warns that Americans have lost the ability of critical though, and with each successive generation become more irresponsible and as a consequence less free, disregarding a near-perfect document, the Constitution, which was derived from Indian law. Means chronicles the loss of freedom from the 1840's onwards, which marked the birth of the corporation, to Lincoln's declaration of martial law, to the latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th when Congress "started giving banks the right to rule," and private banking interests began printing the money.
American Indian Russell Means gives an eye-opening 90 minute interview in which he explains how Native Americans and Americans in general are all imprisoned within one huge reservation. Means is a leader for the Republic of Lakotah, a movement that has declared its independence from the United States and refused to recognize the authority of presidents or governments, withdrawing from treaties it made with the federal government and defining its borders which cover thousands of square miles in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana.
Means explains how American Indians have been enslaved within de facto prisoner of war camps as a result of the federal government's restriction of their food supply and the application of colonial tactics, a process that has now also been inflicted on the United States as a whole which has turned into, "one huge Indian reservation," according to Means.
Means warns that Americans have lost the ability of critical though, and with each successive generation become more irresponsible and as a consequence less free, disregarding a near-perfect document, the Constitution, which was derived from Indian law. Means chronicles the loss of freedom from the 1840's onwards, which marked the birth of the corporation, to Lincoln's declaration of martial law, to the latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th when Congress "started giving banks the right to rule," and private banking interests began printing the money.
Posted. Very good interview, the man is spot on. I love Russell Means I watch Last of the Mohicans several dozen times a year.
ReplyDeleteI love Russell Means
ReplyDeleteThanks and me too!
Mitakuye Oyasin, All My Relatives, is how Russell usually starts a public talk, and so do I since knowing him. I drove up the muddy road to Russell's house in Porcupine SD one March day and knocked on the door with a Lakota pastor friend. Russell had us in and we sat in his office and had a wonderful conversation after his beautiful wife had poured us coffee. One of the greatest days of my life. I have been to Pine Ridge several times and written much on the problems there.
DeleteRussell Means is one of America's greatest human beings.
Reading Hanta Yo several years ago changed my outlook on life And just now I found this beautiful web-site dedicated to Lori Piestewa, White Bear Girl, first Native American service-woman killed in action.
Deletehttp://www.hantayo.org/
If I could be allowed to add. My wife and I transferred to Salt Lake City in 1980 to make even bigger rockets. One of the first western books I read there was Hanta Yo. It was stunning. May I display the first two paragraphs entitled To the Reader? I believe it says something profound for our day.
ReplyDeleteTo The Reader
Admit, assume, because, could, doubt, end, expect, faith, forget, forgive, guilt, how, it, mercy, pest, promise, should, sorry, storm, them, us, waste, we, weed—neither these words nor the conceptions for which they stand appear in this book; they are the whiteman’s import to the New World, the newcomer’s contribution to the vocabulary of the man he called Indian. Truly, the parent Indian families possessed neither these terms nor their equivalents.
The American Indian, even before Columbus, was the remnant of a very old race in its final stage, a race that had attained perhaps the highest working concept of individualism ever practiced. Neither the word “free” nor any corresponding term occurs in the root language, in the primal concept: there never was anything for the Indian to free himself from. His was the spirit not seeking truth but holding on to truth. And his was the mind nourished on choice. Whatever he needed to know, nature sooner or later revealed to him. And that which he desired to know—the best way to achieve his maximum spiritual potential—was the only mystery he chose to investigate.
Hanto Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill, Warner Books, Inc., 1979, p. 15
Ah, let me seek to hold on to truth and nourish my mind on choice.
Thanks for your forebearance.
Neither the word “free” nor any corresponding term occurs in the root language, in the primal concept: there never was anything for the Indian to free himself from.
ReplyDeleteJust wonderful, as were your words. I'll be sure to tell T to check your comments and I'll check the link also. Thanks.