RESISTANCE CONSCIOUSNESS with John Trudell, Lakota traditionalist indian, PART 2 of 2

First audio link (above?): thinking vs fighting (avoiding the same old traps as much as possible) 1:03; 1.34MB

First part of audio and text excerpts:
houston.indymedia.org/news/2005/04/38649.php

Background info: http://www.dickshovel.com/JTT.html
More info: http://www.johntrudell.com

NOTE:
The following quotes are published here, along with the audio, to aid in promoting John Trudell's message. I am doing so as a form of *resistance consciousness*, autonomously and anonymously, since I see no value in telling people who i am. My desire is to educate and inspire people who would not normally get a chance to read or hear his insights, not only because they are hard to find, but because even buying his CDs are not as easy as they ought to be to get (and of course, there is probably a major effort to block him this way as well).

RESISTANCE CONSCIOUSNESS with John Trudell, Lakota traditionalist indian, spoken word dude, actor in consciousness-raising films

INTRO:
John Trudell is a former chairman of the American Indian Movement (AIM) who learned that he has 17 thousand pages in his f.b.i. file when he was able to get 60 of them from the Freedom of Information Act. He was a main spokesperson in the American Indian take-over at Alcatraz Island, and is said to have led at least one march protesting f.b.i. tactics against Indian people in the 1970s (during the height of the f.b.i.'s illegal "Counter Intelligence Program" aka "COINTELPRO" which attacked a huge variety of legal dissent).

In 1979, during one of these angry protests challenging the u.s. government to live up to its own rule of law (re: Treaty Laws), Trudell apparently burned an American flag on the steps of the f.b.i. Headquarters. Less than 12 hours later a very suspicious fire killed his wife, his three young children and his wife's mother on the Shoshone-Paiute Reservation in Nevada in which they lived. The f.b.i., which has jurisdiction on federal Indian reservations, declined to investigate. John knows it was murder.

QUOTES FROM INDY Georgia MEDIA INTERVIEW:

"George Bush...is the 'Peter Jennings' for the real problem. And this has been going on for awhile." "We pretend that he's the problem. But he's not the problem.

"What Americans don't really quite get yet, is that the American ruling class, they needed the white people to kill the Indians and enslave the blacks to work the land. So they gave them certain privileges. [(NOTE: Howard Zinn also backs this statement in _A People's History of the United States-ed]]

"They [gave non-elite white people?] a little more say because it's all internal competition, made progress go. But the technology has advanced, they have globalized the planet now through trade and the military. When they realized this, maybe 20, 30 years ago, that the American people, the citizens, are too fuckin' expensive.

"They want to make a living wage, they want health care, they want childcare, they want days off to have babies, fuck -they want everything. That's just too expensive. Because [the ruling class is] into maximizing profit. So the world has opened up globally. So they have markets globally and they don't need the American consumer the same way they needed them before. Because there's two billion of them in the planet right now, and out of that 2 billion, one-and-a-half billion of then can pick up the slack that the Americans have to let go. And this is really what's *going on*.


QUOTES FROM _STICKMAN_ a book by Paola Igliori (from interviews she did with John):

(...) "'Democracy'-- think about this. How many women in this room are still trying to get equal pay, how many women in this room are still trying to get their rights recognized? Democracy did that. Allright. How many black people are still trying to get what is called their equality--get their rights recognized? Democracy did that. And the Indian people? Democracy just basically tried to kill all of us off, so that we became such a small physical minority that it doesn't matter......Democracy did this. And if you would take the time to go read the founding papers, the papers of your so-called founding fathers, you understand the reality versus the illusion.

"The reality is that if you were a rich, white male land owner, you got to decide what democracy was and if you were a white man and didn't have any property, then bye-bye Charlie--and if you were a woman you had no say--and if you were a Black you had no say--and if you were one of the Indian People you were the enemy. Now that is the framework of democracy.

[(comment (not from book): i wonder if it's valid to point out that even being a rich, land-owning white man was no sure prescription for control; certainly there was a situation in which "idealistic" or "crazy" rich men were dealt with, especially if they were much less organized; i.e. look at how Ross Perot was dealt with when he sought to run for president--being a billionaire didn't really help him when the owners of society decided he mustn't be viewed as valid. There's a hierarchy of comparisons that we ought to think about carefully, especially if we realize the value of possible bridge-making rather than perpetuating alienation)]

"That's the reality. It was the dark ages just given new terminology and another disguise so the peasants and the serfs would continue to accept it.

"I get frustrated sometimes and we got to deal with whatever is here because it is here. But I get concerned sometimes that maybe people are afraid to even think about challenging the concept of democracy and that's where all the good little nazis come from, the ones that are afraid to challenge the concepts when they see the contradictions in the concepts. That's where you get the good little nazis. And the distortion and the feeding process off of us to keep us distorted and insecure, that's to help us become good little nazis. It's all got to do with planting that seed and that idea and concept of fear.


"...Now before civilization encroaches upon and turns human beings into citizens--the human beings always take that responsibility very seriously--but once civilization turns human beings into citizens then they no longer consider those responsibilities. My feeling is it's because they have been severed spiritually from their consciousness, their spiritual consciousness, their spiritual consciousness and had it replaced with a religious consciousness which is very limited. And for us, when we make the decision that we are going to use our minds more clearly, when we make the decision that we are no longer going to accept the great lie--the great lie is no longer acceptable.

"I might not be able to act upon it in any major way and any way I can act upon it may seem insignificant to me, but it's not insignificant. Because it's got to do with our belief..our minds...and if we believe the lie if we believe there are presidential elections going on, that we really have a choice in, then we're denying ourselves reality. So at least people if we can't do anything about it at this point other than to recognize the truth for what it is, let'd do that. It's like we're all snowflakes and as soon as we sort our minds out and we make a more clear definition of reality in relationship to our responsibilities, then we will be a blizzard.


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From WE ARE POWER speech. See more excerpts: http://www.anti-politics.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=282
Background info: http://www.dickshovel.com/JTT.html
More info: http://www.johntrudell.com


"...This is a survival gathering. And one of the things I hope that you all learn while you are here is that you learn to appreciate the Energy and the Power that the Elements are--that of the Sun, the Rain, and the Wind. That you go away from here understanding that this is Power --and this is the only true, real Power...


"...We must not become confused and deceived by their illusions. There is no such thing as military power; there is only military terrorism...That is all that it is. They try to program our minds and fool us with these illusions so that we will believe that they hold the power in their hands...All they know how to do is act in a repressive, brutal way...They want us to believe in them and depend on them, and we have to assume these consumer identities, and these political identities, these religious identities and these racial identities [not to mention sexual ones]. They want to separate us from our Power...from who we are...

"...We must consider the Spiritual genocide that they commit against us. The spiritual genocide that the white people have been victimized by for thousands of years...

"We must move to the time when we truly understand our connection to real power because these people who deal with illusions and imitations...they want to keep us confused with [the confining concepts of?] sexism and ageism, racism, class. They want to keep us in a confusion so that [we] will continue to believe in one lie after another as they programmed them into our minds and into our society...The ruling class...are going to lie to us and they are going to create the illusions of change...

"We have to understand our role as a Natural Power. We have to understand that when our oppressor treats us this way and does these things to us, that we allow him to do it as long as we accept his lies...We have been allowing it for too long...


"We must be willing in our lifetime to deal with reality. It's not revolution; it's liberation. We want to be free of a value system that's being imposed on us... Liberation --we want to be free. But in order for us to be free we have to assume...our responsibility. We are going to have to struggle for it. We are going to have to work [and be] committed to it. We must never underestimate our enemy. Our enemy is committed against us 24 hours a day. They use 100% of their efforts to maintain their ...status quo. 100% of their effort goes into deceiving us and manipulating us against each other...


"...We are going to have to start working more realistically with a resistance consciousness, a resistance, something we can pass on as strength to the coming generations--a resistance where organizational ...[and] individual egos don't get in the way, a resistance where the infiltrators and the provacateurs and the liars and the betrayers...do not get in the way. We will not get our liberation if we do not seriously analyze the experiences of our own lifetimes.

"The other side ...has studied. They understand what we were up to in the 1960's. They understand what we wanted in the early 1970's...They create certain events, and they manipulate the economics, and they manipulate circumstances because they want us to react the same way that we did in the 1960's so that they can come in and they can smash our movements. We must become of a resistance consciousness. We must say that we will not allow you to smash us. Even if it means that we have to deal with the part of you that you have planted in me..."