Speaks for the people
1st November 2014, 18:42
O ta sa la nv lvi, Mitakuye Oyasin, to all our relations,
The struggle of the American Indian today remains the struggle with greed and simply to be recognized as human beings. We are not, unlike how we often experience being treated by the US government, funny two legged animals stamped property of Uncle Sam. Yet the US government, which created the reservation system so often copied as a model for concentration camps up to the present, and including places like Gaza, still manages our relationship through the department of interior, as we are "managed" along with other wildlife and "natural resources".
I recall (the late) Russell Means once said the American Indian lives an entirely different "third" 'ism'. I never really thought of this as so strictly true myself, as I often found a lot of affinity with the perspective of the "libertarian" socialist. Certainly organizations like the US Communist League were equally interested in supporting what we were doing, on and off the reservation, unlike so many others, who would say they "come to help", but really meant to help themselves.
Like so many others, in what we call the 60's scoop, I was removed from my birth family and sold for adoption to be raised by a white family. Fortunately many of us who had experienced this never forgot who we were. By the 90's I became involved in free software activism, and also spoke about the threat of CALEA, at what has proven to be only the beginning of the modern surveillance state.
Much of last decade I worked on free as in freedom software for telecommunications in collaboration with people worldwide. My interests included enabling accessibility for the blind and telecenter projects for indigenous communities in Latin America. I also chose to work on enabling communication privacy, and found it nessisary to do much of this work outside of the United States for the safety of those involved.
By late last decade I supported and came to actively participate in the Lakota effort to separate itself from US occupation by formally terminating treaty with the United States government. This is where I received this particular name, from that phase of my life. Since then I became part of the tribal council of the Cherokees of Idaho, and was most recently elected vice chief.
Those who recognize and value the freedom of themselves and the freedom of others I consider my brothers and sisters, my comrades, those who I choose to walk with on their journey or share mine with regardless of the genes that they carry, the place they were born, or the culture they were raised in. Those who suppress others suppress themselves and deny their own humanity in the process. It is only those, who believe only in the values of this dominant culture or it’s extensions, that learned only the lessons of “self” and not of others, who have in learning “who am I” have forgotten “who are we”, and then try to fill their empty voids with consumption and cheap plastic throw-away toys, that I oppose.
This defines who I am and hence why I am here and why I share myself this way, for I wish to see all have the same chance to be free, both as individual human beings free to live, and to be free to live in the culture and model of their own choosing. We must do this so that the people will live.
The struggle of the American Indian today remains the struggle with greed and simply to be recognized as human beings. We are not, unlike how we often experience being treated by the US government, funny two legged animals stamped property of Uncle Sam. Yet the US government, which created the reservation system so often copied as a model for concentration camps up to the present, and including places like Gaza, still manages our relationship through the department of interior, as we are "managed" along with other wildlife and "natural resources".
I recall (the late) Russell Means once said the American Indian lives an entirely different "third" 'ism'. I never really thought of this as so strictly true myself, as I often found a lot of affinity with the perspective of the "libertarian" socialist. Certainly organizations like the US Communist League were equally interested in supporting what we were doing, on and off the reservation, unlike so many others, who would say they "come to help", but really meant to help themselves.
Like so many others, in what we call the 60's scoop, I was removed from my birth family and sold for adoption to be raised by a white family. Fortunately many of us who had experienced this never forgot who we were. By the 90's I became involved in free software activism, and also spoke about the threat of CALEA, at what has proven to be only the beginning of the modern surveillance state.
Much of last decade I worked on free as in freedom software for telecommunications in collaboration with people worldwide. My interests included enabling accessibility for the blind and telecenter projects for indigenous communities in Latin America. I also chose to work on enabling communication privacy, and found it nessisary to do much of this work outside of the United States for the safety of those involved.
By late last decade I supported and came to actively participate in the Lakota effort to separate itself from US occupation by formally terminating treaty with the United States government. This is where I received this particular name, from that phase of my life. Since then I became part of the tribal council of the Cherokees of Idaho, and was most recently elected vice chief.
Those who recognize and value the freedom of themselves and the freedom of others I consider my brothers and sisters, my comrades, those who I choose to walk with on their journey or share mine with regardless of the genes that they carry, the place they were born, or the culture they were raised in. Those who suppress others suppress themselves and deny their own humanity in the process. It is only those, who believe only in the values of this dominant culture or it’s extensions, that learned only the lessons of “self” and not of others, who have in learning “who am I” have forgotten “who are we”, and then try to fill their empty voids with consumption and cheap plastic throw-away toys, that I oppose.
This defines who I am and hence why I am here and why I share myself this way, for I wish to see all have the same chance to be free, both as individual human beings free to live, and to be free to live in the culture and model of their own choosing. We must do this so that the people will live.