Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media that.
Speaker 2: Wait, no, welcome to cool People who did cool stuff.
Speaker 3: The podcast where Margaret turns into a bat.
Speaker 2: That's right, and then I had to unturn into a
Speaker 2: bat just to bring you this here introduction about the podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and my guest today is
Speaker 2: the same guest as last week because it's a continuation
Speaker 2: of last week, and that means my guest is Miriam. Hi.
Speaker 2: How was your week so far?
Speaker 3: So good? Haven't heard any extensive histories of genocide in
Speaker 3: at least a couple of days, So here I am.
Speaker 2: This one's far more a history of resistance to genocide.
Speaker 3: Oh thank god, Hell yeah, here for it.
Speaker 2: We got through. It's not going to be without bad stuff,
Speaker 2: but there's a lot of I think this is one
Speaker 2: of the most important stories that I've told on the show.
Speaker 2: I wanted to like really get get going with the
Speaker 2: show before I talked about some of these things, and
Speaker 2: I've been looking forward to talking about this one for
Speaker 2: a long time, and I think this one is really good. Well,
Speaker 2: lots of bad stuff happens, but it's really important, really interesting.
Speaker 2: There's lots of cool people, they do really cool stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited to hear about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Our producer is Sophie Hi, Sophie.
Speaker 3: Hi, Margaret Hi, Miriam Hi Sophie.
Speaker 2: Our audio engineer is Ian and must say Hi Ian, Hi,
Speaker 2: Ian Hi Ian. Our music was made for us by Unwoman.
Speaker 2: I went to Unwoman and said, give me something that
Speaker 2: sounds sort of ironic compared to what we'll be talking about,
Speaker 2: and Unwoman was like, here you go, and now we
Speaker 2: have a theme song. So this is part three of
Speaker 2: a four parter about Lakota resistance to the American Empire.
Speaker 2: And one of the main reason, the main reason that
Speaker 2: we want to talk about it is that I want
Speaker 2: to talk about a political prisoner who's still in prison
Speaker 2: named Lenard Peltier, and I felt like this amount of
Speaker 2: context is necessary and useful when talking about his case.
Speaker 2: So here we're going to do it. The roots of
Speaker 2: the American Indian Movement or AIM started in ways that
Speaker 2: I'll be familiar to regular listeners of the podcast, which
Speaker 2: is to say it started when some folks were like,
Speaker 2: how come we never learn about our own history? And
Speaker 2: much like many resistance movements, it started in jail. The
Speaker 2: organization itself didn't start in jail, but a lot of
Speaker 2: its founders met and kind of toppled the first domino
Speaker 2: that led to the American Indian Movement in jail in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty two, in Stillwater State Prison in Minnesota, two
Speaker 2: ajibwemn Clyde Bellicourt and Eddie Benton BENII got together and
Speaker 2: started what they called the first real Indian studies program
Speaker 2: in the country. They organized forty six Indigenous prisoners in
Speaker 2: that jail, and Miriam, you will be shocked to know
Speaker 2: that the Indigenous people were and are vastly disproportionately represented
Speaker 2: in the criminal justice system in the US, because.
Speaker 3: I used up all my being shocked a while ago.
Speaker 2: This group that they started was called the American Indian
Speaker 2: Folklore Group, and Clyde Bellicourt had a kind of typical
Speaker 2: or maybe even almost archetypical upbringing as a young Ajiboy
Speaker 2: boy at the time he was born on the res
Speaker 2: was forced into a Catholic school when then his family
Speaker 2: fell victim to yet another kill the Indian save the
Speaker 2: Man style thing, the Indian Relocation Act of nineteen fifty six,
Speaker 2: which forced a ton of folks off of reservations and
Speaker 2: into cities and terminated their tribal status as part of
Speaker 2: the larger You know, there was a policy that lasted
Speaker 2: for decades in the twentieth century called the Indian Termination Policy.
Speaker 3: It's a nice and upfront for a policy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's about as evil as it sounds. This was
Speaker 2: a decades long policy of forced assimilation and ending travel
Speaker 2: sovereignty what little you know was remaining or whatever. Right.
Speaker 3: I also, I like how right wing Americans are always like, uh, cities,
Speaker 3: that's where the bad progressives live. Real Americans live out
Speaker 3: in the country, you know, unless you're dealing with indigenous people,
Speaker 3: in which case all of a sudden they're like, you know,
Speaker 3: where you need to go to be a real American
Speaker 3: to assimilate properly is those cities we hate so much.
Speaker 3: As long as you can fuck people over, really.
Speaker 2: And as long as you can ranch on their fucking land,
Speaker 2: as long as you can do resource extraction on their
Speaker 2: fucking land, as long as white people get to do it,
Speaker 2: that's going to be a huge part of all of
Speaker 2: this stuff that's coming up. And also, the Indian Termination
Speaker 2: Policy is sort of the big bad evil that we're
Speaker 2: talking about this week, the thing that people are fighting
Speaker 2: back against and actually successful in terms of the cultural
Speaker 2: thing that was the Indian Termination Policy, and that said,
Speaker 2: Indigenous people in North America have resisted genocide after genocide
Speaker 2: and are still here and fuck yeah, fuck yeah they're
Speaker 2: still here.
Speaker 3: Fuck yeah.
Speaker 2: So young Clyde, he's poor, miseducated, systemic, systemically oppressed. This
Speaker 2: didn't help him with job prospects, and pretty soon he's
Speaker 2: in prison for burglary and robbery. Another member of this
Speaker 2: first group in jail was a man named Dennis Banks,
Speaker 2: who's a little bit more remembered as a name leader.
Speaker 1: Later.
Speaker 2: He had been sent to a residential school and stripped
Speaker 2: of his language at five years old. This is one
Speaker 2: of the infamous Indian boarding schools, which from which he
Speaker 2: regularly ran away. He would just like get the fuck
Speaker 2: out of there and go home, right, and then they
Speaker 2: would come and get him again. When he was seventeen,
Speaker 2: he joined the Air Force and he went to Japan
Speaker 2: and he was like on the bases there when he
Speaker 2: was ordered to shoot, shoot to kill Japanese protesters because
Speaker 2: there was this whole protest movement happening where locals and
Speaker 2: leftists in Japan were mad as hell that the air
Speaker 2: force base was expanding and displacing local villagers and shit, right,
Speaker 2: because it's always the same fucking thing. It's always land grabs. Well, shit,
Speaker 2: I'm just like learning about new atrocities. Did US Air
Speaker 2: Force people shoot to kill Japanese protesters during these events?
Speaker 2: A ton were injured?
Speaker 1: I not.
Speaker 2: In my research of that, I did not find them
Speaker 2: actually killing people. But and so this is kind of
Speaker 2: a thing.
Speaker 3: I like, like, go a day without discovering like another
Speaker 3: like historic murder by recent historic murder by the US
Speaker 3: government like that.
Speaker 2: That would be cool. That will be about a thousand
Speaker 2: years in the future where we only have the cliff
Speaker 2: notes of what's left of America.
Speaker 1: Have it.
Speaker 2: We're not running out of atrocities yet. Yeah, And basically,
Speaker 2: there was this huge non violence civil disobedience campaign that
Speaker 2: actually won. A thousand people were injured non violently resisting
Speaker 2: and this led to the US dropping its number of
Speaker 2: troops in Japan by forty percent, and I believe stopped
Speaker 2: that particular air force expansion, air Force base expansion. We're
Speaker 2: like very much still there though. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's
Speaker 2: it's a dropped thing. It's yeah, it's the starting of
Speaker 2: the scaling back. Yeah. So Dennis Banks is like, fuck
Speaker 2: that shit fuck being told to go do this, and
Speaker 2: the courage of Japanese peasants against US imperialism was a
Speaker 2: major influence on him later too, So he went a wall.
Speaker 2: He was dishonorably discharged back in the States, and he
Speaker 2: gets caught for burglary. And it's actually it's mostly his
Speaker 2: statement that we have about that they were told to
Speaker 2: shoot to kill. I have no reason to disbelieve this,
Speaker 2: but there isn't a there isn't evidence that that specifically
Speaker 2: happened in a large number or anything like that. But
Speaker 2: I'm I'm certain he got told to do that. So
Speaker 2: all these folklore folks, they've started this Indian studies group
Speaker 2: in jail, They get out of jail and they keep organizing.
Speaker 2: Bellicourt and some others tried starting like a classic civil
Speaker 2: rights campaign because it's the mid sixties and it's like
Speaker 2: the thing to do, right, and they were focused on
Speaker 2: the rights of indigenous people who had been displaced into
Speaker 2: the cities. This didn't really work, according to Bellacourt. He
Speaker 2: said later quote, I tried to work within the system
Speaker 2: for four years, demanding a fair share of it for
Speaker 2: my people, but all the money was controlled by the
Speaker 2: churches and bureaucracies, and they weren't interested in any programs
Speaker 2: that might have led towards real economic independence for the Indians. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty eight, a bunch of folks sat down
Speaker 2: and they formed the CIA. The Concerned Indian Americans. Yay,
Speaker 2: what you got me?
Speaker 3: You faked me out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I went, I went for it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: One of their elders, a woman, was like, how about
Speaker 2: we call it the American Indian Movement instead?
Speaker 3: Okay, but sorry. Fun fact, the Culinary Institute of America,
Speaker 3: which is a like cooking school, a cooking school that
Speaker 3: I have driven by like many times. It's a slightly
Speaker 3: upstate New York, has existed for longer than the actual
Speaker 3: like CIA.
Speaker 2: And so they're like, fuck that, this is our name.
Speaker 3: I think it would be so cool if they sued
Speaker 3: the CIA, if just like a bunch of cooking nerds
Speaker 3: were like, excuse me, we are the Culinary Institute of America.
Speaker 3: Do you know how to make a goddamn soufle.
Speaker 2: No, you don't see on it. You are disparaging our
Speaker 2: good name exactly.
Speaker 3: I don't know shit about the Culinary Institute of America.
Speaker 3: Maybe they suck. I don't know they turned any like
Speaker 3: any democratically elected governments though.
Speaker 2: Well see I was thinking that's probably what they actually
Speaker 2: did do. And the CIA that we all talk about
Speaker 2: is actually pretty much just been twiddling their thumbs.
Speaker 3: So they want you to think.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty eight, AIM was formed and the lesson
Speaker 2: here has listened to your elders, and this group wasn't
Speaker 2: the rebirth of Indigenous resistance to the American Empire as
Speaker 2: far as I can tell, that has been going on
Speaker 2: every year since fourteen ninety two.
Speaker 3: Right, it can't be a rebirth if it never died.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly like it ebbs and flows, absolutely, and there
Speaker 2: is a new energy that AIM and the Red Power
Speaker 2: movement that we're going to talk about kind of brought
Speaker 2: into it. AIM originally was focused on the urban indigenous population,
Speaker 2: but it was inspired by the work of some other
Speaker 2: folks that I hope I'll be covering at some point also,
Speaker 2: such as the Pulleyupni Squally fishing rights battles and Oregon
Speaker 2: and Washington that were happening. There are these huge like
Speaker 2: fish ins right where people were like, you can't take
Speaker 2: away our salmon fishing rights just because you put up
Speaker 2: a bunch of fucking dams that are killing the salmon.
Speaker 2: Like that's a you problem. Get rid of your fucking dams.
Speaker 2: We were here first anyway, not that I'm bitter about.
Speaker 2: I spent a while on the Pacific Northwest as a environmentalists,
Speaker 2: and so I'm very aware of that fight. AIM was
Speaker 2: also influenced by land protests by the Hodnashone in the
Speaker 2: northeast and the growing Red Power movement that was picking
Speaker 2: up on the on the West coast, inspired by.
Speaker 1: The Black.
Speaker 2: And they started. Aims started doing work very similar to
Speaker 2: what panthers were doing. They set up street patrols to
Speaker 2: protect people from cops into film arrests. And it's I
Speaker 2: want to know how they were filming arrests because this
Speaker 2: is nineteen sixty eight. The portable Lincoln, Like the size
Speaker 2: of the cameras, Yeah, Like are they shooting on fucking
Speaker 2: sixteen millimeter film that they're hand cranking in a bulex
Speaker 2: because the portable video recorder was only invented one year
Speaker 2: earlier in nineteen sixty seven. And so they would go
Speaker 2: and they would film are and they would inform people
Speaker 2: of their rights and told them that they could stay silent,
Speaker 2: and of course the police were like, well, that's perfectly legal.
Speaker 2: We're going to totally let you get away with doing.
Speaker 3: That, or yeah, that's what cops do.
Speaker 2: Bellicourt was beaten by cops at least thirty times for
Speaker 2: jesustrol work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is so many times.
Speaker 2: Holy couldn't fucking stop him?
Speaker 3: Good, Oh my god, I love him.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The Indian termination policy was starting to go away
Speaker 2: by the end of the sixties. We're just starting to
Speaker 2: see a downturn. So some nonprofits and churches and government
Speaker 2: agencies were actually supportive of AIM in the beginning in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy they set up survival schools. This is survival
Speaker 2: schools like the Black Panther survival programs like the Survival
Speaker 2: of the People, not like throw you in the forest
Speaker 2: with a knife. And these were alternatives for young indigenous offenders.
Speaker 2: Instead of going to reform school, you would be sent
Speaker 2: to an AIM survival school. And this was approved of
Speaker 2: by the judiciary of most of talking about the Midwest
Speaker 2: at the time point. And so they taught kids how
Speaker 2: to handle white society without forgetting who they were and
Speaker 2: where they came from and all that shit, and it
Speaker 2: was like, so it's like survival almost, Like it's a
Speaker 2: like how to survive the white man's world without like assimilating.
Speaker 3: You know, Wow, I can't believe they got that approved.
Speaker 3: That they were like yeah, allowed to do that.
Speaker 2: For a little while. We'll talk about why the government
Speaker 2: was like wait, we changed our mind.
Speaker 3: I mean, the judiciary is sort of amazingly has kind
Speaker 3: of an amazing history of lack of oversight about like
Speaker 3: what programs they will approve, sending true to so like
Speaker 3: true and that they do approve programs that are basically
Speaker 3: like yeah, you can like take children and like throw
Speaker 3: them into a torture camp in the woods. I would
Speaker 3: fucking hope they would also be like, yes, you can
Speaker 3: teach children about resistance and identity and white supremacy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's like they they managed to leverage a
Speaker 2: weird kind of shitty loophole that was going on in
Speaker 2: the legal system.
Speaker 3: Got to get something good through that loophole for once.
Speaker 2: Yeah. As as we like established.
Speaker 3: In the previous episodes, I am not a lawyer.
Speaker 2: I am it's dad, right, Yes, absolutely, but getting.
Speaker 3: Good things through shitty loopholes is exactly what we should
Speaker 3: do with the law.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and there's gonna be you will be
Speaker 2: shocked to know that indigenous resistors have had some really
Speaker 2: cool lawyers and we're going to talk a little bit
Speaker 2: about some of the stuff that they did later.
Speaker 3: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then at the end there's going to be
Speaker 2: a big reveal as to why you're big reveal. Now
Speaker 2: you already know the reveals. It's for the audience. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but everyone else has to wait because that's at the end,
Speaker 2: all right, But don't skip to the end. No, yeah,
Speaker 2: don't do that, you would.
Speaker 3: Be I mean, it's not that good a reveal.
Speaker 2: No, better stuff is coming along the way. Yeah, much better.
Speaker 2: They're going to take over so much shit, just so much.
Speaker 3: Shit, amazing, Like, can't wait.
Speaker 2: They are absolutely the reigning champs of taking over shit
Speaker 2: in a good way. Anyway. While they're willing to work
Speaker 2: with the system here and there, they are not quiet liberals.
Speaker 2: They open carry it protests and soon enough they adopted
Speaker 2: a symbol. They picked a flag. The flag they picked
Speaker 2: was the American flag upside down, And Dennis Banks says
Speaker 2: about that quote, some ex Navy guy suggested it. White
Speaker 2: people protested, of course, and a lot of our Indian
Speaker 2: people protested too. A lot of the guys had been there,
Speaker 2: had been in the military, and in some way they
Speaker 2: were still Americans, and it made them uneasy to see
Speaker 2: the flag flown upside down. We had to explain that
Speaker 2: this was the international distress signal for people in trouble,
Speaker 2: and no one could deny that Indians were in bad
Speaker 2: trouble and needed help. So that's the American Indian movements
Speaker 2: getting its start. But then some other shit starts happening
Speaker 2: over in the bay, the the West Coast Bay, the
Speaker 2: San Francisco Bay, specifically, a different group of people had
Speaker 2: something else going on that's important to the story, which
Speaker 2: is to say, there's more cool people doing cool things. There's
Speaker 2: an island in San Francisco Bay. It's called Alcatraz. You
Speaker 2: ever heard of Alcatraz?
Speaker 3: Heard of that one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a prison for a while, perhaps most famously,
Speaker 2: but I sure don't mind that. What's going to happen
Speaker 2: next is just about as famous, or should be. The
Speaker 2: prison closed in nineteen sixty three. Some Indigenous folks got
Speaker 2: together and were like, you know, I've been reading through
Speaker 2: this treaty that's still technically on the books, the eighteen
Speaker 2: sixty eight Fort Laramie Treaty that Margaret spent last week
Speaker 2: talking about, and this is salvage land and we should
Speaker 2: be able to buy it for forty seven cents an acre.
Speaker 2: So a bunch of generous offer. Honestly, I know, I
Speaker 2: think they even actually adjusted it to like to inflation,
Speaker 2: and it was like, you know, still like we'll give
Speaker 2: you a thousand bucks for the island or whatever. You know,
Speaker 2: fucking nonsense. So in nineteen sixty four, a bunch of
Speaker 2: street theater activists folks tried to do just that, and
Speaker 2: they went out there and tried to claim it. And
Speaker 2: there are these.
Speaker 3: Indigenous street theater activists folks, okay, yeah, and then they
Speaker 3: fled when they were threatened with felonies.
Speaker 2: Five years later, the San Francisco Indian Center burned down
Speaker 2: on October tenth. Fleeing when you're about to be subject
Speaker 2: to felonies is a great strategy. Oh yeah, doing actions.
Speaker 2: A lot of people feel like, I think you got
Speaker 2: to get arrested for an action account It fucking rules
Speaker 2: when you go right up to the point where they're
Speaker 2: about to arrescue and then you're like, haha, bye. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: Another thing that you should flee from is not taking
Speaker 2: advantage of the sweet sweet deals offered by whoever chose
Speaker 2: to give this podcast network money. Here's the mats and
Speaker 2: we're beca So five years later, the San Francisco Indian
Speaker 2: Center burns down October tenth, nineteen sixty nine. And this
Speaker 2: was a place that helped hook people up with jobs
Speaker 2: and healthcare and legal aid and all that shit. So
Speaker 2: people were like, Oh, we need a new one, don't we.
Speaker 2: And there's that there's that island over there isn't there.
Speaker 2: So some student activists with the Native American Student Organization
Speaker 2: were like, fuck it, let's go. They got a three
Speaker 2: masted yacht. This isn't why I had you on, but
Speaker 2: there is a tall ship in this story. I do
Speaker 2: love a mast. Yeah yeah, and there's three on here. Yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 2: It's called the Monte Cristo and they bank it out,
Speaker 2: very fucking cool name.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They basically pay the captain, and the captain's not going
Speaker 2: to land on Alcatraz. They're just like, we'll pay you
Speaker 2: to go buy it. So he goes by it and
Speaker 2: four folks, including people representing the Cherokee, the Inuit and
Speaker 2: the ho Chunk Nation jump overboard, swim out and claim
Speaker 2: the right claimed the island by right of discovery.
Speaker 3: The coast has been well established, I know in American history.
Speaker 3: You're allowed.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The coast Guard dragged them off, so.
Speaker 3: They were.
Speaker 2: They gave up, and nothing never happened. No, fourteen people
Speaker 2: hired a fishing boat and then they went out to
Speaker 2: the island. The coast guard got them again this time
Speaker 2: I think because someone in the movement made a deal
Speaker 2: or whatever the fuck where they were like, oh, we're
Speaker 2: going to negotiate or whatever, you know. Then November twentieth,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine, eighty nine Indigenous people and not just
Speaker 2: students this time, but also some families and some other
Speaker 2: folks were in school. They set out. The coast Guard
Speaker 2: blocked some of them, but they couldn't get all of them.
Speaker 2: Fourteen people got passed and started an occupation of the island.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, third times the charm. The occupation lasted nineteen
Speaker 2: months and peaked at four hundred people.
Speaker 1: There was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't know it was that big. That's so cool.
Speaker 2: It's really fucking cool. That's like a town that is
Speaker 2: a small town. Well, they had daycare and healthcare set
Speaker 2: up awesome, and the Coast Guard blockaded it, but allies
Speaker 2: of all sorts snug past them in canoes to bring
Speaker 2: food to the occupiers.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, and.
Speaker 2: They're Their demand was an American Indian Cultural Center on Thanksgiving,
Speaker 2: an almost an almost absurdly reasonable demand.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: I think that one of the things I keep running
Speaker 2: across on the show is people who are like actually
Speaker 2: revolutionaries and down to take things really far often come
Speaker 2: in up with like they're like, look, just like, make
Speaker 2: it so we don't have to sleep in bunk beds
Speaker 2: and we can go to the doctor. And people are
Speaker 2: like no, and they're like, all right, fine, revolution what
Speaker 2: do you want?
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the thing, right, If the people you're
Speaker 3: up against are going to deny you, like the fucking basics,
Speaker 3: then it sort of seems like you have no choice
Speaker 3: but to be like, fuck it, we're not dealing with
Speaker 3: you anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then almost everything that people successfully win is
Speaker 2: when they uh, you know, shoot for the stars and
Speaker 2: get the moon or whatever. You know, whereas you shoot
Speaker 2: for the moon, you don't get anything. There's a cliche
Speaker 2: in here that I'm not fully first in so on
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving Day, hundreds of supporters show up for the day
Speaker 2: to celebrate a future AIM member, John Trudell starts a
Speaker 2: pirate radio station called Radio Free Alcatraz. The the actors
Speaker 2: Jane Fonda and Marlon Brando visit. Of course they're gonna
Speaker 2: visit all this.
Speaker 3: They're going to put in an appearance. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I actually I think that they do more than an appearance.
Speaker 2: I think they're not like anyway, well, we'll talk about it.
Speaker 3: No, I think they're I think that I think that
Speaker 3: in that in that era, there were them and a
Speaker 3: couple other actors were actually like do materially supporting. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's why the FBI had Gene Sieberg because she was
Speaker 3: buying guns for the Black Panthers.
Speaker 2: Oh Jesus, no, I didn't know about this. No future episode, Okay.
Speaker 2: Creden's Clearwater Revival bought and donated a boat. Unexpected cameo.
Speaker 2: So the main transportation by the end was the boat
Speaker 2: the clearwater.
Speaker 3: Oh, like the boat the Clearwater, like Pete Seeger's boat.
Speaker 2: I will take your word for it. I'm now out
Speaker 2: of my element. I'm not a boat knower.
Speaker 3: There is a tall ship called a schooner called the
Speaker 3: Clearwater that was started by I don't know if like
Speaker 3: it was initially bought or set up, but Pete Seeger
Speaker 3: was like involved in the beginning and operating of this boat.
Speaker 3: It still sails the Hudson. It does education programs and
Speaker 3: like science programs and music programs. It has more banjo's
Speaker 3: per capita on that boat than any other tall ship
Speaker 3: I've ever been on, and like, you usually find a
Speaker 3: banjo or two on tall ships, and it's the only
Speaker 3: tall ship I've ever been on where they brew kombucha
Speaker 3: in the engine room because they're a bunch of fucking hippies.
Speaker 2: It's great. Is the banjo thing why everyone moved away
Speaker 2: from tall ships? Eh, it's fun to make fun of banjo's.
Speaker 2: As an accordionist, I gotta take I gotta get my
Speaker 2: shots in when I can.
Speaker 3: You know, it can't be the same clear water though,
Speaker 3: because we're talking west coast, east coast, and it is
Speaker 3: difficult to get out.
Speaker 2: There's no way to get from one boat from one
Speaker 2: side of the other. No, I have no idea.
Speaker 3: It's a pain in the ass. You can do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think this was a tall shop either.
Speaker 2: I think this was like a oh, a boat with
Speaker 2: a motor. But I don't know.
Speaker 3: You just accidentally made room for me to talk about
Speaker 3: tall ships.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, No, it's okay. The Black Panthers and the
Speaker 2: Brown Berets handled security to get food to the island,
Speaker 2: and I got to read you the occupier's proclamation because
Speaker 2: it goes so hard.
Speaker 3: Love a good proclamation. Let's hear it to.
Speaker 2: The Great White Father and all his We the Native Americans,
Speaker 2: reclaim the land known as Alcatraz Island in the name
Speaker 2: of all American Indians by right of discovery. We feel
Speaker 2: that this so called Alcatraz Island is more than suitable
Speaker 2: for an Indian reservation as determined by the white man's
Speaker 2: own standard. By this, we mean that the place resembles
Speaker 2: most Indian reservations in that one it is isolated from
Speaker 2: modern facilities and without adequate means of transportation. Two it
Speaker 2: has no fresh running water. Three it has inadequate sanitation supplies.
Speaker 2: Four there are no oil or mineral rights. Five there
Speaker 2: is no industry, so unemployment is very great. Six there
Speaker 2: are no healthcare facilities. Seven the soil is rocky and unproductive,
Speaker 2: and the land does not support game. Eight there are
Speaker 2: no educational facilities. Nine, the population has always exceeded the
Speaker 2: land base. Ten the population has always been held as
Speaker 2: prisoners and kept dependent upon others. Further, it would be
Speaker 2: fitting and symbolic that ships from all over the world
Speaker 2: entering the Golden Gate would first see Indian Land and
Speaker 2: thus be reminded of the true history of this nation.
Speaker 2: This tiny island would be a symbol of the great
Speaker 2: lands once ruled by free and noble Indians. Fuck that
Speaker 2: goes so hard, Yeah, so good. They had a couple problems.
Speaker 2: The biggest one was the coast Guard. Another problem was
Speaker 2: white people, specifically white allies, specifically hippies. For a while,
Speaker 2: white allies were allowed to join the occupation and spend
Speaker 2: the night, but pretty soon all the a political hippies
Speaker 2: were out there like doing drugs and shit and fucking
Speaker 2: everything up, and so they decided that only Indigenous folks
Speaker 2: could sleep there, which seems fucking reasonable.
Speaker 3: So so so reasonable, and such a good policy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I was at Occupy Wall Street.
Speaker 2: I Yeah. In the end, internal conflict and repression worked together,
Speaker 2: and eventually their numbers dropped low enough that the government
Speaker 2: just came in and arrested the people who remained. But
Speaker 2: this is more. This is a year and a fucking
Speaker 2: and a half.
Speaker 3: You know, I didn't know as it went on that
Speaker 3: long either.
Speaker 2: In nineteen months. Wow, the occupation said a precedent and
Speaker 2: really got shit going, and it shifted public opinion and
Speaker 2: eventually was part of shifting government policy away from termination
Speaker 2: and towards indigenous autonomy. It shifted so much that after
Speaker 2: this Nixon had to come out and say that the
Speaker 2: policy had shifted towards offering self determination, which is pretty
Speaker 2: impressive when you get fucking Nixon to say something progressive.
Speaker 2: You know, his pretend favorable opinion was going to revert later,
Speaker 2: of course, and a ton of folks from the occupation
Speaker 2: wound up AIM members later after, you know, as things
Speaker 2: really are getting going, a ton of spiritual leaders in
Speaker 2: the various nations supported AIM and the Red Power movement
Speaker 2: more broadly, even though it had started in the cities.
Speaker 2: So these kids who'd been stolen from their culture enforced
Speaker 2: into cities were folding back together with the traditional folks
Speaker 2: still on the reservations. Basically, one of the first spiritual
Speaker 2: leaders to endorse the American Indian Movement was Leonard crow Dog,
Speaker 2: the Great grandson of crow Dog, the guy who'd killed
Speaker 2: Spotted Tail for being a sellout in last week's episodes,
Speaker 2: And there's going to be a lot of like direct like, hey,
Speaker 2: this is the grand kid of the person that we
Speaker 2: talked about last time, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this goes to what you were saying before
Speaker 3: about this not being a rebirth, yeah, but a continuity.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The middle ground position, the middle of the road position,
Speaker 2: were people who supported the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and
Speaker 2: this was disappearing as people. More and more people are
Speaker 2: joining AIM and they're also joining the Indians of All Tribes,
Speaker 2: which is the group that started with the Alcatraz occupation.
Speaker 2: They started as that student group and then eventually they
Speaker 2: were like, we're the Indians of All Tribes as well
Speaker 2: as a There's another group that was picking up around
Speaker 2: this time as well, called the United Native Americans, which
Speaker 2: is a nonprofit that's still around today. And soon into
Speaker 2: all of this stuff that's happening comes this week's main hero,
Speaker 2: Leonard Peltier. Leonard Peltier was born on September twelfth, nineteen
Speaker 2: forty four, in North Dakota. His family was migrant workers
Speaker 2: who picked potatoes basically it was like indigenous folks picked
Speaker 2: the potatoes and folks were indigenous to Mexico picked the
Speaker 2: beats in the area that lived in Peltier describes his
Speaker 2: lineage as sue Ajibwe and one to eighth French. He
Speaker 2: grew up speaking English in a Jibwe. His father and
Speaker 2: uncle fought the Nazis in World War Two. His uncle
Speaker 2: died fighting fascism and his dad had his legs machine gunned.
Speaker 2: When his parents separated, he was raised by his grandparents,
Speaker 2: which was a fairly traditional way to be raised. He
Speaker 2: spent a few years as a kid on a ranch
Speaker 2: in the res. Then he was off to Butte, Montana,
Speaker 2: where his family worked in a copper mine. He was
Speaker 2: there for a little bit, but then white kids were
Speaker 2: bullying him for being indigenous. There's a couple indigenous kids
Speaker 2: and families at the copper mine, right, White kids were
Speaker 2: like throwing rocks and shit at him and yelling racial slurs.
Speaker 2: And finally, after being pelted with rocks, he threw one
Speaker 2: back and hit a kid in the head. And this
Speaker 2: is going to be a really good symbolism moment. It's
Speaker 2: almost too on the nose, but you know that where
Speaker 2: he hit the kid. Yeah, So the bully's mom, whose
Speaker 2: name was probably Karen, drove over, Yeah, drove over and
Speaker 2: was like, your son tried to kill my kid, and
Speaker 2: then started yelling racist shit. But the women of Leonard's
Speaker 2: family drove her away. They were like, yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 2: beat the shit out of you if you don't get
Speaker 2: the fuck out of here.
Speaker 3: Nothing nothing like showing up to complain and immediately justifying,
Speaker 3: you know, like, yeah, totally where I see where your
Speaker 3: shitty kid gets it from him? I wonder, right, no,
Speaker 3: wonder our kids threw a rock.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the violence started when the protesters threw the tear
Speaker 2: gas canisters back at the police, you know exactly. And
Speaker 2: so Karen, whose name was definitely Karen, was gonna go
Speaker 2: to the authorities and get young Leonard arrested. So the
Speaker 2: whole family up and moved that night to a tiny ran.
Speaker 3: Holy shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the women and the kids left first. The men
Speaker 2: stuck around to like pick up paychecks the next day
Speaker 2: and then got on the road. Because that's the that's
Speaker 2: what you got to do when your kid fights back
Speaker 2: against racism, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like that's the like threat level you're dealing with,
Speaker 3: especially like if you're trying to keep your family together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. And so they go to their grandfather's ranch, where,
Speaker 2: especially once the grandfather dies, Leonard is out hunting rabbits
Speaker 2: with a sling shot or the family is no meat,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like, oh, no, you better go kill
Speaker 2: a rabbit, which is really hard to do with a
Speaker 2: sling shot. He writes about this a bit. Yeah, you're like,
Speaker 2: I wish I had a twenty two, but I didn't
Speaker 2: have a fucking twenty two, you know. Then and he's
Speaker 2: like eight or nine. Right when he's eight or nine,
Speaker 2: the government came and fucking stole them off to an
Speaker 2: Indian school, wapetan Indian school. The kids heads were shaved
Speaker 2: long hair as a cultural indicator of indigeneity and like
Speaker 2: a very important like part of the traditional stuff that
Speaker 2: we'll be talking about. It's gonna come up a bunch.
Speaker 2: And they were powdered with DDT too, you know, because
Speaker 2: they're terrible, dirty kids or whatever, you know. And he's
Speaker 2: stuck there for a year before his mother gets the
Speaker 2: money together to come get him out. And he's like
Speaker 2: eleven at this point or so, him and him and
Speaker 2: some other kids steal some gas from an army reserve
Speaker 2: so the houses don't run out of fuel. They're like
Speaker 2: a storm's coming and they're like, oh, we don't have
Speaker 2: any fucking gas. We're gonna run out of fuel. We're
Speaker 2: gonna be screwed. And so the eleven year old goes
Speaker 2: and steals some gas from the like army. Right, he's caught.
Speaker 2: He spends two weeks in jail, and then he sent
Speaker 2: off again, this time to live with his father on
Speaker 2: Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota, where everyone is fucking starving.
Speaker 2: He used to go to community meetings just because there
Speaker 2: was sometimes food, where like everyone would like pot luck
Speaker 2: and you know, bring together what they had, you know.
Speaker 2: And when he was fourteen or so, he had this
Speaker 2: moment that changed his life. He saw an elder, a
Speaker 2: Gway woman basically say why are there no more warriors
Speaker 2: among our men? If there was, why did they not
Speaker 2: stand up and fight for their starving children? And he
Speaker 2: made a vow that he would help his people for
Speaker 2: the rest of his life, and he has he's never
Speaker 2: broken that vow. It's been a long time since. Then
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty eight, he's a young teen, he goes
Speaker 2: to witness an a legal son dance which was held
Speaker 2: secretly at night in a teepee, and the cops were
Speaker 2: afraid to bust it up because there's a lot of
Speaker 2: people and they were like adults, you know. So they
Speaker 2: arrested the kids outside because they're cowards, because they're because
Speaker 2: cops are brave. Yeah, exactly, as they are constantly telling us. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so they arrest Leonard for being drunk, even though
Speaker 2: he wasn't drunk. And this is still during the policy
Speaker 2: the period of termination that we're talking about, right, it
Speaker 2: isnteen late nineteen fifties, the BIA would announce literal policies
Speaker 2: like no food for those who are resisting termination. Like
Speaker 2: it's like fuck, Like it's not fucking subtle, like like
Speaker 2: these days it is. It is considered fashionable to at
Speaker 2: least pretend to not be evil.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like you're not supposed to just be like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is the Department of starving children.
Speaker 2: Yeah totally. Yeah. And then people are like as an
Speaker 2: adjective or a verb, and you're like, it's a verb,
Speaker 2: we will starve them the Department to starve children. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: don't worry. We have like a we have a whole
Speaker 2: budget set aside for implements to hit them with, Like,
Speaker 2: why are you like, like you come on, guys, you
Speaker 2: gotta at least pretend to be not evil. Yeah, although I.
Speaker 3: Don't know, it's kind of great. You know, it's kind
Speaker 3: of preferable, I guess, to be openly evil than sneaky.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, you know, it's half a dozen of one,
Speaker 2: you know. So he's fourteen years old and he moves
Speaker 2: out west after his mother, who's out there doing migrant labor,
Speaker 2: to get out of where he is. At seventeen, he
Speaker 2: tries to join the Marines to go fight in Vietnam,
Speaker 2: but he's rejected for medical reasons because his jaw was
Speaker 2: all fucked up from a bunch of fights he'd been
Speaker 2: in and hadn't been able to get medical care for.
Speaker 2: At twenty, he's living in Seattle, and he's not political
Speaker 2: at this point, right, but he's trying to do his
Speaker 2: best by people. He actually is political, it just calls
Speaker 2: himself not whatever anyway.
Speaker 3: By people can be pretty political.
Speaker 2: Oh he's he fucking good at it. So he owns
Speaker 2: an autobody shop in Seattle, and he uses the second
Speaker 2: floor as a halfway house for Indigenous folks recovering from
Speaker 2: alcoholism or needed a place to go after getting out
Speaker 2: of jail. He is twenty years old and he is
Speaker 2: running this by himself. I mean there's other people work
Speaker 2: at the auto shop and shit right, but like everyone
Speaker 2: loves him. He's a hard worker. He's kind and generous,
Speaker 2: and he's at this point always looking to de escalate
Speaker 2: fights and he's always about reminding people of who they are,
Speaker 2: you know. In nineteen seventy he gets involved in his
Speaker 2: first sort of like protest thing. Leonard joins the American
Speaker 2: Indian Fort Lawton Occupation Forces, which is a fucking go
Speaker 2: and hard name for an activist group because they well,
Speaker 2: you'll be shocked to know that the American Indian Fort
Speaker 2: Lawton Occupation Forces were a group of American Indians who
Speaker 2: occupied Fort Lawton Awesome in an Alcatraz style takeover of
Speaker 2: abandoned sir plus land around an abandoned fort called Fort Lawton.
Speaker 2: Veterans of the Alcatraz Occupation came up to help them,
Speaker 2: and after three weeks of occupation, the Indigenous folks won
Speaker 2: the Daybreak Star Cultural Center.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, because this time they didn't let the white
Speaker 3: hippies come along.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally just got it and fucking got it done.
Speaker 2: They did let Jane Fonda come. Okay, well again she
Speaker 2: was gonna she was required at most yost things. No,
Speaker 2: there's at the time, and there's some quotes they didn't
Speaker 2: make it into the script, but there's some quotes from
Speaker 2: folks who were part of that occupation who were like,
Speaker 2: we kind of it kind of worked. Jane Fondo is
Speaker 2: a big part of it working, you know, like the
Speaker 2: star power being used to draw attention. Like, yeah, Jane
Speaker 2: Fonda didn't do it. The indigenous people did it. But
Speaker 2: like she she she opened some doors. And this was
Speaker 2: not a nonviolent occupation. This was months of breaking into
Speaker 2: the fort, arrests, fighting riot cops, and just doing it
Speaker 2: all over again, all alongside court maneuvers to claim the land.
Speaker 2: When Leonard was arrested alongside thirteen others, all of them
Speaker 2: were beaten in custody and then they like were letting
Speaker 2: him go and he was like, I'm not fucking leaving
Speaker 2: until everyone leaves. And then like it was his idea
Speaker 2: he spread that they did jail solidarity. Basically they were like, well,
Speaker 2: we are not leaving until everyone leaves and they were
Speaker 2: all released.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, when people are getting beaten in custody,
Speaker 3: it's not a good idea to like let people just disappear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyone who's listening, you should look into jail solidarity.
Speaker 2: It is sometimes effective. I have used it successfully twice
Speaker 2: where you I only recommend doing this if you plan it,
Speaker 2: But it involves refusing to cooperate once you are arrested
Speaker 2: in a mass arrest type situation in order to prevent
Speaker 2: people from being singled out and like given escalated charges
Speaker 2: and things like that. Don't do it based on that
Speaker 2: one sentence description to your own reasons. Talk to your lawyer, yeah, Miriam,
Speaker 2: your lawyer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no dad.
Speaker 2: Oh right, don't talk to your dad about it. Well,
Speaker 2: you can talk to me. No, don't actually no, don't
Speaker 2: talk about crime with anyone that you're planning that. Don't
Speaker 2: talk about No. None of you have ever done crime
Speaker 2: and never will. No, don't do crime. It's bad, immoral,
Speaker 2: except all the crimes that I'm talking about that are cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: All right. So, after this particular fight was one only
Speaker 2: through peaceful law abidingness, despite what I just said, he
Speaker 2: wound up in Denver and he joined AIM, all the
Speaker 2: while continuing to do migrant labor right, because he's still
Speaker 2: got to eat, you know, he quits drinking. At this point,
Speaker 2: there's a growing sense of seriousness in the movement and
Speaker 2: a growing sense of discipline. There's actually already some divisions
Speaker 2: within AIM between people who wanted national leadership and those
Speaker 2: who wanted regional autonomy and people who are like more
Speaker 2: into not drinking and people are into drinking and discipline
Speaker 2: in it. I'm I'll talk about a little bit about that,
Speaker 2: but we'll get to that later, but it's not gonna
Speaker 2: be the main focus. And for a while at least,
Speaker 2: they refuse to let that split them, and people who
Speaker 2: would like lose votes would just stick it out with
Speaker 2: the main group. And they managed to do all of
Speaker 2: their most amazing shit after they already had had these
Speaker 2: fairly large disagreements. And I think that's fucking.
Speaker 3: Co Yeah, being able to still work with people with
Speaker 3: whom you have significant disagreement is like pretty crucial.
Speaker 2: Yeahs, the only way I've even gets done. Yeah, literally,
Speaker 2: Like yeah, white vigilanti groups are op being anti indigenous
Speaker 2: violence everywhere as folks start organizing more and more. One
Speaker 2: of the leaders of the Alcatraz occupation was a peaceful
Speaker 2: mohawk activist named Richard Oaks who had helped set up
Speaker 2: indigenous education everywhere he went. When he was thirty, he
Speaker 2: was murdered by a white guy named my Michael Morgan,
Speaker 2: who shot the unarmed man, claimed self defense and got
Speaker 2: away with it. And of course there's just generic racist
Speaker 2: violence that they're all dealing with too. But before they
Speaker 2: can deal with that, do you know what else they
Speaker 2: have to deal with? Miriam?
Speaker 3: Is this a fucking ad plug?
Speaker 2: They have to deal with pressing the skip button like
Speaker 2: three four times until they hear the bumper music come
Speaker 2: back on. Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a lot to deal with. I think all
Speaker 3: your listeners can deal with that, though, I hope so,
Speaker 3: except sometimes you're like listening if you're driving or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like they think you have to controls aren't really. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like like for me, it's like when I'm like doing
Speaker 2: like woodworking or something, and I'm like, ah, might or
Speaker 2: like there's a chainsaw in my hands, I can't. I'm
Speaker 2: just trying to out my butch points here. I'm exaggerating.
Speaker 3: You understand suffering?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly? God. Anyway, here's some ads and we're back.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy two, the American Indian Movement won the
Speaker 2: respect of the traditionalists who lived on the reservations and
Speaker 2: in particular on Pine Ridge. There was already some folks
Speaker 2: who were starting to respect them. But there's one thing
Speaker 2: that they did that really cemented this. A man named
Speaker 2: Raymond Yellow Thunder was treated badly enough that I won't
Speaker 2: go into details. He was beaten and stripped and paraded
Speaker 2: around in front of a white crowd in Nebraska, just
Speaker 2: across the border from Pine Ridge in South Dakota, and
Speaker 2: he died from his wounds the next morning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that like, like he was lynched, like that's
Speaker 3: it were less I mean categorizing it that way.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, I mean if you're taking lynches like taken
Speaker 2: from custody, then no, right, no, But he suffered that way.
Speaker 2: He suffered racial abuse. It's unclear whether they were like
Speaker 2: he was public in a racist attempt, in a racist attack. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that is a fair thing to say. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he died from his wounds the next morning. The two
Speaker 2: white dudes, the brothers, Uh brothers are the last named hair.
Speaker 2: They were like the people who did this, right, they
Speaker 2: were arrested but released without bail, and everything was in
Speaker 2: place for them to just get off unpunished. Yellow Thunder's
Speaker 2: family tried to go to like the cops and shit,
Speaker 2: and then they tried to go to BIA the Bureau
Speaker 2: of Indian Affairs. No one was helping them, so they
Speaker 2: went to AIM. AIM brought in a two hundred car
Speaker 2: caravan and forced the FEDS to file actual charges against
Speaker 2: the Hairs and for the chief of police to be fired.
Speaker 2: Like everyone listening has like probably been around some like
Speaker 2: how hard it is to get police to be held
Speaker 2: accountable for anything.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Aim got the chief of police fired for this.
Speaker 2: One of the main organizers for this protest was another
Speaker 2: AIM leader, Russell Means, who's also famous for voice acting
Speaker 2: in Pocahontas and playing a role in Natural Born Killers.
Speaker 2: Also he did a ton of other activism and there's
Speaker 2: like lots of complicated political debate with Indiandigenous right movements
Speaker 2: about blah blah blah blah blah, but he helped get
Speaker 2: justice for Raymond Yellow Thunder. Car caravans were clearly an
Speaker 2: effective strategy, so they got themselves together to a really
Speaker 2: fucking big one. Also in nineteen seventy two, various indigenous
Speaker 2: rights groups united and set off on the Trail of
Speaker 2: Broken Treaties. And this was a cross country caravan of
Speaker 2: cars that when it gathered and departed from Minneapolis. And
Speaker 2: this is only about three quarters. There's like four, there's
Speaker 2: four caravans from across the country. Right, Three of them
Speaker 2: gathered in Minneapolis and set out together. And one of
Speaker 2: them did a symbolic thing from Oklahoma reverse of the
Speaker 2: trailer tears. And the one that departed from Minneapolis was
Speaker 2: over four miles long, this caravan wow, and they drove
Speaker 2: to DC. In this caravan, there were seven hundred folks
Speaker 2: from two hundred different tribes and nations. Eight movements organized
Speaker 2: this only AIM is remembered partly because they were spicy,
Speaker 2: partly because of branding, and partly because of some lawsuits
Speaker 2: and crimes that we're going to talk about later. That
Speaker 2: is why AIM is remembered. So I just want to
Speaker 2: like shout all the eight groups out there was the
Speaker 2: American Indian Movement, the National Indian Brotherhood came down from Canada,
Speaker 2: the Native Americans Right Rights Fund, the National Indian Youth Council,
Speaker 2: the National American Indian Council, the National Council, Council on
Speaker 2: Indian Work, National Indian Leadership Training, and the American Indian
Speaker 2: Committee on Alcohol Drug Abuse. These eight groups got together
Speaker 2: to do this. Along the way, they stopped on reservations
Speaker 2: to hold demonstrations and workshops and listening sessions to be like, hey,
Speaker 2: when we go talk to the lawmakers, because they they
Speaker 2: promised they'd meet with us, what should we say? Like,
Speaker 2: what's going on? You know, which is an important thing
Speaker 2: that activists need to stay good at. Listening sessions. Oh,
Speaker 2: listening to people. Yeah, yeah, they ti I'm this caravan
Speaker 2: to reach DC the week before the nineteen seventy two election.
Speaker 2: Their goal was to show up and present Nixon with
Speaker 2: a twenty point list of demands that they had put together.
Speaker 2: And these demands are shit, like give us back the
Speaker 2: right to negotiate with the US's nations, that's the big one.
Speaker 2: Put together a committee to investigate all the broken treaties,
Speaker 2: replace the BIA with an Office of Federal Indian Relations
Speaker 2: and Community Reconstruction, and the termination acts. Give us some
Speaker 2: of the land back. They wanted a one hundred and
Speaker 2: ten million acres out of the two point four to
Speaker 2: three billion that is the US. This is roughly twice
Speaker 2: the acreage of all current reservations. This is the kind
Speaker 2: of stuff they were asking for later.
Speaker 3: And like almost absurdly reasonable.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Later, this document formed the basis of the two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven UN Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People. Nixon
Speaker 2: didn't bother to meet with them. And this is going
Speaker 2: to shock you again. Get ready to get ready to
Speaker 2: get shocked.
Speaker 3: Embracing myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the government went back on all its promises if
Speaker 2: meetings was Various officials way, the Department of the Interior,
Speaker 2: Labor and Commerce all canceled on them at the last
Speaker 2: minute without reason.
Speaker 3: Wait are you, margaret? Are you telling me that the
Speaker 3: US government broke promises to Indigenous people?
Speaker 2: I know, I know, that's clearly only happened a thousand
Speaker 2: years ago. The National Park Service denied them the right
Speaker 2: to gather at Arlington Ridge Park, and the government forbade
Speaker 2: the BIA from helping them out with housing and shit,
Speaker 2: even though usually when delegations of tribes and nations would
Speaker 2: come to DC, the BIA was in charge of like
Speaker 2: finding everyone housing and shit like that, and they like
Speaker 2: did they were like, Oh, there's like this church that's
Speaker 2: literally full of rats where I guess your elders could sleep.
Speaker 2: I don't know. And it's interesting because the I think
Speaker 2: the head of the BIA didn't put this in the
Speaker 2: script that I think the head of the BIA was
Speaker 2: actually like was an indigenous person and was like wanted
Speaker 2: to be supportive and was just like not allowed, you know.
Speaker 2: So the organizers were like, all right, fuck it, We're
Speaker 2: going to a sit in in the BIA until our
Speaker 2: elders have a place to sleep. Right, that's their fucking
Speaker 2: demand again, right, They're like, yeah.
Speaker 3: Don't put our elders in a rat church.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, like rat churches for rats and rat friends.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, the rats, the rat priests, the whole
Speaker 3: rat congregation, rat nuns, yeah, all of those guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can hang out a rat. But this was
Speaker 2: not any of the people who were there. So right,
Speaker 2: So they decided to sit in at the BIA building.
Speaker 2: More than a thousand people participated. The cops tried to
Speaker 2: evict them violently, so people rioted, drove off, the police,
Speaker 2: barricaded the doors. They put up a banner that said
Speaker 2: Native American Embassy and took over the Beerhouve Indian Affairs.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, They are the fucking raining champs of taking
Speaker 2: shit over in good ways.
Speaker 3: They're really good at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, they al So they spent a week in
Speaker 2: the building, and they spent that week coming through records
Speaker 2: that proved just how shitty that they'd been treated.
Speaker 3: Right, oh shit, because they're locked in there with all
Speaker 3: the records.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god. All the while they're defending the
Speaker 2: place with molotovs and the press ate it up, but
Speaker 2: they ate it up in the bad way where they
Speaker 2: were like, yeah, they were like, oh no, these like
Speaker 2: bad people. They like broke some furniture and they spray painted,
Speaker 2: and this action is what cements AIM's reputation as the
Speaker 2: bad kids. They are the vandals. Never mind that the
Speaker 2: cops actually did most of the damage to the building
Speaker 2: during all their various attacks and stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, also, like most government buildings could use a
Speaker 3: little spray paint and a little broken stuff, Like oh yeah,
Speaker 3: this is what I hate, like when people acted like
Speaker 3: the bad thing about the January sixth riders was that
Speaker 3: they like broke things in the Capitol. It's like that's fine,
Speaker 3: you know, it was the fascist stuff in the Capitol
Speaker 3: needs to be broken. The bad thing is it was
Speaker 3: fascists doing it to promote fascism. Fascists could hold a
Speaker 3: fucking bake sale to promote fascism and it would be
Speaker 3: like fuck you and your goddamn brownies. Like the issue
Speaker 3: is is promoting fascism, not breaking Pelosi's desk.
Speaker 2: Fuck Pelosi's desk. Yeah, oh absolutely, And so the news
Speaker 2: runs with all these like look, how ungrateful these people
Speaker 2: are type stories and lots of things that are wearing
Speaker 2: more racist people only.
Speaker 3: Say ungrateful when they have done absolutely fucking nothing for
Speaker 3: the people they're calling ungrateful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And so at this point the FBI decides
Speaker 2: they were all communists and enemy of the state's enemies
Speaker 2: of the state, which is like not true, but I
Speaker 2: mean it's not the furthest but it's like whatever, it's fun.
Speaker 3: Like also, the state was the enemy of them, I know, exactly,
Speaker 3: showing up being like, hi, we have a very reasonable
Speaker 3: list of demands and the state is like getting the
Speaker 3: rat church.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like what the fuck you? Yeah, And at
Speaker 2: this Leonard Peltier is one of the two heads of
Speaker 2: security for AIM. He hadn't really volunteered, never trust the
Speaker 2: kind of person who wants to volunteer to be.
Speaker 3: I was just gonna say I was just gonna say, oh, wait,
Speaker 3: he was head of security. That's that's good. But if
Speaker 3: he didn't volunteer, then I trust him. I trust anybody
Speaker 3: who doesn't volunteer to be head of security.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, he he was volunteered. Basically, there was like
Speaker 2: him and someone else where. People were like, look, you
Speaker 2: all keep a you keep a calm head in crisis.
Speaker 2: You're in charge of security.
Speaker 3: Those are the two traits you want for a person
Speaker 3: in charge of security, keeps a calm head in crisis.
Speaker 3: Doesn't want that job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And so after this he gets called on
Speaker 2: for security all the time, and that's kind of one
Speaker 2: of his main roles within aim going forward. That and
Speaker 2: fugitive and political prisoner. But you know, we're not there yet. Yeah.
Speaker 2: In the end, the government gives in a little bit
Speaker 2: and offers them immunity from prosecution, as well as sixty
Speaker 2: six five hundred dollars as travel expenses for folks to
Speaker 2: get home. They also promised that they would set up
Speaker 2: a task force to consider the twenty points. And everyone
Speaker 2: points this as like, oh, they like really fucked up
Speaker 2: by taking over that building. No one was even going
Speaker 2: to give them that much as setting up a task
Speaker 2: force to consider it until fucking building takeovers and molotovs
Speaker 2: got involved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like the first offer was nothing yeah,
Speaker 3: and then the post occupation offer was something yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Shockingly, get ready to get shocked. The task force rejected
Speaker 2: the twenty points No one sick thing that happened as
Speaker 2: a result of the trail of broken treaties is the
Speaker 2: Piscataway people, one of the longest colonized indigenous peoples in
Speaker 2: North America. The folks who lived around what's now DC
Speaker 2: put together the Piscataway Resurrection to bring back cultural culture
Speaker 2: and history and memory as a result of this basically
Speaker 2: and finally receive state recognition as like existing in twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: But so the government withdraws its financial support of AIM
Speaker 2: survival schools at this point, right because of the bad kids.
Speaker 2: I promised that would happen, and it puts them on
Speaker 2: extremist lists and it starts fucking with them. The panthers
Speaker 2: are like winding down owing to the repression that they've faced.
Speaker 2: So the eye is sore on kind of turns towards aim.
Speaker 2: Shortly after returning to Milwaukee from the takeover, Leonard Peltier
Speaker 2: is framed up on attempted murder. Basically, he's hanging out
Speaker 2: this diner and these two undercovers are like trying to
Speaker 2: pick a fight with him, and he's like, what the fuck,
Speaker 2: and then they like pull a gun on him, arrest him.
Speaker 2: He didn't know there were cops. They search him, they
Speaker 2: find an old shitty bretta that like literally was proven
Speaker 2: in court like couldn't fire, and then they put him
Speaker 2: in jail for five months for attempted murder. Before he
Speaker 2: gets out on.
Speaker 3: Bail, attempted murder being near undercover cops.
Speaker 2: That's pretty much, Yeah, same thing gun rates for everyone
Speaker 2: except indigenous people and all other marginalized people. He spends
Speaker 2: most of what's coming next in a jail cell. But
Speaker 2: we are going to talk about the most hardcore of
Speaker 2: their occupations, all the shit that comes next on Wednesday
Speaker 2: instead of today, you're gonna have to wait, well, not Mariam.
Speaker 2: Miriam must wait like five minutes while I go pee haha.
Speaker 2: But everyone else has to wait till Wednesday because you're
Speaker 2: not Miriam. That's actually the one advantage of the name Miriam.
Speaker 2: You thought that Ian was the only one with a
Speaker 2: special thing related to the name.
Speaker 3: It's true. The advantage of the name Miriam is you
Speaker 3: get to hear things today instead of Wednesday and this week,
Speaker 3: like yeah, one in ten people you meet will be like,
Speaker 3: oh I knew an old lady named Miriam once.
Speaker 2: It's like when I used to play accordion and people
Speaker 2: will just stop me on the street to be like
Speaker 2: my grandfather and I'm like, uh huh yep, and me
Speaker 2: will you give me money? I need to eat food anyway. Uh.
Speaker 2: This is the end of the episode until except for
Speaker 2: the plugs, which is Miriam. What do you want to plug?
Speaker 3: What did I plug last time?
Speaker 2: Medical, land Back Aid.
Speaker 3: For Palestinians and land back Yeah, replug those. Replug those
Speaker 3: landback dot org.
Speaker 2: Do that.
Speaker 3: I'm not online. You can't find me.
Speaker 2: Ha ha, And I'm gonna plug an essay that people
Speaker 2: who if people are if white people in particular are
Speaker 2: thinking about how they want to be allies of indigenous
Speaker 2: people in all the direct action struggle that's happening for
Speaker 2: the environment. That's cool, and I would recommend that you
Speaker 2: read an essay that you can find online called accomplices,
Speaker 2: not allies, and it talks about the problems with the
Speaker 2: ally industrial complex and the ways in which people what
Speaker 2: it actually takes to be in solidarity with people. And
Speaker 2: I would recommend reading it if that's the thing you
Speaker 2: want to do.
Speaker 3: I like that you give your listeners homework.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, that's why everyone likes me, is the
Speaker 2: homework giver. That's a classically popular physician to be in
Speaker 2: that rules.
Speaker 3: Give them homework, yeah, make them work for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So if you got anything you want to plug.
Speaker 1: Oh, listen to Hood Politics with prop He's had some
Speaker 1: really awesome episodes lately.
Speaker 2: Elli. Yeah, that's been my cooking listening lately.
Speaker 1: That's a good show to listen to.
Speaker 2: You cook, I know, all right, see you on Wednesday.
Speaker 3: Bye.
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