Winona LaDuke: Return to Rice Lake

“You can feel the wind talk to the rice.” 

Lew Murray, Rice Lake Village

It’s Rice Lake Village on the White Earth Reservation – at the site of the mother lode of wild rice, Lower Rice Lake. Lew Murray stands in front of the gathering — about 200 or so people. They have come together to greet the runners who’ve just covered 26 miles to honor the wild rice — and protect it. This is a joyful crowd. Local residents are just starting to get together out-of-doors after pandemic restrictions ease, and we are all happy to see each other.

Women Are the Protectors

Repost by Minnesota Women’s Press by Winona LaDuke (Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg)

03/17/2021

A “gathering of grandmothers opposed to Line 3” was held on the banks of the Crow Wing River near Park Rapids March 15. L to R: Tara Houska, Giniw Collective; Jane Fonda, actress and activist; and Winona LaDuke, Honor the Earth. Photo Keri Pickett

More than any time in my life, women are reclaiming our power.

When Enbridge comes in, there are big bulldozers, excavators, backhoes, and people that walk through the forest beheading trees before they come back for the rest. They are coming at the rivers with a high directional drill: the Mississippi, the Willow, the Shell, the Little Shell, the Crow Wing — 22 river crossings. They plan to shove in a 36- inch pipe, so it can move 915,000 barrels a day of the dirtiest oil in the world across 337 miles of Northern Minnesota to Lake Superior. All for a dying industry.

It feels a lot like rape.

We have been fighting this off for seven years so far. The carbon output is the equivalent of opening 50 new coal plants. Enbridge continues to drill. People continue being arrested for trying to disrupt rape.

On the bank of the Mississippi, in the pathway of the pipeline, there is a prayer lodge, a waaginoogan, a ceremonial teaching lodge, and we have been praying there. We have built lodges like this on the shores of the river for generations.

Indigenous people and our allies are resisting across the pathway of this pipeline, from near the Red Lake Reservation in the Northwest, to the Fond du Lac reservation on the eastern end. People are joining us in prayer for the earth: legislators; friends in the cities; people of all faiths; relatives from South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois; water protectors from all four directions.

More than any time in my life, women are reclaiming our power. You can see that in the surge in movements. It is a really beautiful and powerful shift that is making change.

---

To Be A Water Protector: The Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers By Winona LaDuke

$25.00

To Be A Water Protector: The Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers By Winona LaDuke  

For this book, Winona discusses several elements of a New Green Economy and the lessons we can take from activists outside the US and Canada. In her unique way of storytelling, Winona LaDuke is inspiring, always a teacher and an utterly fearless activist, writer and speaker.

This book is written in the spirit of acknowledging that Water is Life. This book is a testimony of the resistance and defeat of the Wiindigoo. The term, “Water Protector,” became mainstream under a hail of rubber bullets at Standing Rock. This book is about that spirit, and that spirit is forever.

Add to cart

Tribes Revive Traditional Hemp Economies A post-petroleum transition plan.

More than 20 years ago, Alex White Plume, a leader of the Oglala Lakota, planted his first hemp crop on Wounded Knee Creek, on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. I call White Plume “the Hemperer.” He’s considered to be one of the grandfathers of the cannabis economy for Native people. Like John Trudell, the great Dakota philosopher and musician, White Plume always said, “Hemp is the way.” 

But in 2000, Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided the reservation and seized White Plume’s crop. In fact, there were several raids on his crop between 2000 and 2002. Two years later, he was ordered to stop growing.  In 2016, the federal ban was lifted and in 2017, White Plume partnered with Evo Hemp to make hemp supplements. He’s just beginning again. 

Not surprisingly, White Plume feels a bit resentful of the profits being made in what’s now become a largely White-dominated industry, while his tribe had to sit on the sidelines.

But the potential for Native people to benefit economically in the hemp industry still exists.

Now White Plume is involved in processing hemp, and plans to make a vertically integrated Lakota industry. He envisions a sustainable industry that will create high-paying jobs and bring in a steady stream of income for Lakota tribes. 

GET YOUR FREE TICKET

“This is going to be all Lakota hemp, grown on Lakota [land], produced by Lakota, and we’re going to market it by Lakota,” White Plume says.

The hemp world is changing. 

With 10,000 uses, hemp is one of the most versatile plants to grow—and in many ways can be a catalyst for change for Native peoples. We see a New Green Revolution in Indian Country, tied to justice, economics, restoration ecology, and a return-to-the-land movement, and it’s growing.

Just last year, the Ft. Berthold Reservation, Colorado River tribes, Iowa Tribe (Kansas and Nebraska), Yurok, Sisseton and Santee Dakotas, to name a few, all got their hemp plans approved by the USDA, but more than that, tribal growers and thinkers are considering hemp as part of the future for Indian Country. And young leaders like Muriel Young Bear, a Mesquakie woman from Iowa, and Marcus Grignon—a Menominee and project director at Hempstead Project HEART, a John Trudell initiative—represent a new wave of commitment.   

Hemp Is the Way

With all but six states having either legalized, decriminalized, or medicalized marijuana, we’re experiencing a renaissance moment of cannabis, including hemp—its non-psychoactive relative. And it’s about time. In the next economy, hemp will be foundational to the just transition, or the New Green Revolution. 

Let me explain. 

In the 20th century, Norman Borlaug, called the Father of the Green Revolution, gave us advanced agricultural technology, including genetically modified plants. It’s been said among Native tribes that the United States had a choice between a carbohydrate economy and a hydrocarbon economy—an economy that depends on petroleum, coal, and natural gas. As I’ve written before, our current health, economic, and climate crises have proven we made the wrong choice.  

The carbohydrate economy is one based on plants. Hemp grows easily; it is resilient and doesn’t require huge amounts of chemicals or water, although there are specific soil requirements for it to grow. It can be foundational to such an economy.   

For the past five years, I’ve been a hemp farmer, with permits from the state of Minnesota. My business is called Winona’s Hemp, and our research partner is Anishinaabe Agriculture. In 2020, we grew 20 acres of fiber hemp, and are working with that hemp to create a local economy. We send off our high-quality, field-retted hemp to processers to make cloth for canvas textiles. Our plan is to restore a hemp economy without a lot of chemicals and fossil fuels. The traditional history of hemp is without fossil fuels. We’d like to do as much to restore that practice as possible—focused on appropriate technology, equity, and innovation. 

Our focus has been in fiber varieties, with an interest in reducing any fossil fuel use in production and in processing. We’ve sourced varieties from Canada and Europe, with the help of Patagonia and our friends at the Lift Economy. We grew those seeds in fields on and around the White Earth Reservation. We did our best to plant with organic fertilizers, using fish emulsion and horse manure to build our soils. We learned from our experience and by talking to as many folks as possible.  

That said, we have a lot of experience here in small field crops, horse cultivation, and traditional varieties. We grew in small plots, hand seeded, and in a larger 20-acre plot, mechanically harvested with some 40-year-old equipment. 

We also put in a field with horses because some of our partnerships here involve not only our own horse-drawn agriculture, but our Amish neighbors’. We’ve come to collaborate, as we have similar interests in terms of technology and geography. 

We provided seeds to tribes throughout the region, all interested in the same questions: How do you grow it? And, what can you do with it? 

What we found is that the plant will teach you—don’t be in a rush. We are re-creating an industry from the seed to the product—whether smokable or for manufacturing. Some tribes are looking at materials processing—car parts, bags, etc.—others are looking at hempcrete, an improvement on concrete due to its sustainability and the fact that it is a carbon sink.

There’s a lot of room in the New Green Revolution. After all, if you are going to change the materials economy—well, the whole economy—you will need a lot of producers and also some folks in manufacturing. That’s the goal. Indeed, if hemp’s potential is realized, we can transform the materials economy, and that’s revolutionary. That’s our work now, to investigate, vet, and find technologies and economic models that can be replicated. 

Tribes are in a unique position. Tribal sovereignty provides their governments leeway in the development of cannabis policies and will be a stabilizing force in turbulent times. Today, confusing regulations and lucrative growth in the cannabis industry set a complex scene, but tribal nations are in a position to continue a course they set. Tribes have the potential to revolutionize the industry. We have the land—we just need a bit of time, technology, and finances. This is an opportunity for justice—social and ecological—in this post-petroleum economic transition. And we are ready to go.

Winona LaDuke is a contributor to YES! Magazine

Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned environmentalist, economist, author, and industrial hemp grower. She is executive director of Honor The Earth and founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project and is known for her work on tribal land claims and sustainable tribal economies. She is an enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg of the White Earth Nation in northern Minnesota. In 1996 and 2000, she was the Green Party’s vice presidential candidate. Her books include Last Standing Woman, All Our Relations and In the Sugarbush. LaDuke is a YES! contributing editor.

To Be A Water Protector: The Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers By Winona LaDuke

$25.00

To Be A Water Protector: The Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers By Winona LaDuke  

For this book, Winona discusses several elements of a New Green Economy and the lessons we can take from activists outside the US and Canada. In her unique way of storytelling, Winona LaDuke is inspiring, always a teacher and an utterly fearless activist, writer and speaker.

This book is written in the spirit of acknowledging that Water is Life. This book is a testimony of the resistance and defeat of the Wiindigoo. The term, “Water Protector,” became mainstream under a hail of rubber bullets at Standing Rock. This book is about that spirit, and that spirit is forever.

Add to cart

Audio: Winona LaDuke, Attracta Mooney get down to Earth in David Suzuki Podcast, Episode 4

Winona LaDuke, Attracta Mooney get down to Earth in David Suzuki Podcast, Episode 4

By David Suzuki

Activist, author and farmer Winona LaDuke and financial journalist Attracta Mooney.

We are land animals, so it’s no surprise that we refer to our planet as “Earth,” even though water covers more than 70 per cent of its surface. For thousands of years, Indigenous cultures have understood that we and Earth are one. What happens to the planet happens to us, and there are natural limits to what we can take from it.

COVID-19 has confronted us with those limits. Sixty per cent of all diseases that afflict humankind have leapt from other animals. As we drive wildlife into ever-constricted spaces, the opportunity for novel viruses to spread to us increases, as we’ve seen with hanta, Ebola, HIV, dengue, SARS and now COVID-19.

Population growth and development have spread a layer of human protoplasm all over the globe, while hyper-globalization makes it difficult to contain a new disease. The pandemic reminds us that it is a delusion to think we are separate from the natural world. It also gives us a chance to rethink and reimagine our relationship with Earth, and how we can protect it now and into the future.

The fourth episode of my new podcast’s first season, “COVID-19 and the Basic Elements of Life,” brings together an international journalist and an acclaimed activist to help us understand how we might halt the destruction of our only home and offers hope that even the unlikeliest of cousins — environmentalists and financial leaders — can find common ground when it comes to the climate crisis.

Winona LaDuke is an Anishinaabekwe member of the White Earth Nation who has spent decades advocating for environmental protections. She’s travelled around the world speaking about Indigenous rights and the importance of protecting the environment. She’s executive director of the environmental organization Honor the Earth and has written five books on environmentalism and human rights.

“I’m all ready for the next economy, because the last economy didn’t work out too well for us,” she says. “Now is the time to make something that makes sense. A lot of it is local, because that’s the nature of what we really need to do. We need to diminish globalization and restart, regrow local self-reliance.”

Attracta Mooney, a financial journalist, has been the investment correspondent for the Financial Times since 2013. Not everyone immediately connects the dots between investment banks and fighting climate change. But, like Winona, Attracta sees something promising happening where COVID-19, climate change and investment meet.

That’s the nature of what we really need to do. We need to diminish globalization and restart, regrow local self-reliance.

Winona LaDuke

One might expect the pandemic to stop climate change from being a big issue for the investment community. But Attracta says the opposite has happened.

“We’ve seen that [investors] seem to have been taking climate change even more seriously than before,” she says. “One money manager said to me that this is because the pandemic has shown just how catastrophic a single event can be on their investments or on the world. And their concern now is that climate change could do the same thing.”

It’s fascinating to see that our current situation may be opening a door for us all — one that could lead us to a greener and more responsible financial future.

It’s no secret the health of Canada’s economy depends on the health of its natural resources, and one of those assets is the boreal forest. It is the largest intact forest on the planet, bigger than the Amazon.

Indigenous Peoples may consider a river, mountain or forest to be sacred; not as something to be sacrosanct, kept pristine and worshipped, but spiritually alive, culturally important or just worthy of respect.

In this episode, I am thrilled to speak with Melissa Mollen Dupuis as our guest expert. Melissa is a member of the Innu community of Ekuanitshit on Quebec’s Côte-Nord. A celebrated activist and filmmaker, Melissa is also a lead boreal forest and caribou campaigner for the David Suzuki Foundation, based out of our Quebec office.

“The boreal forest, for me, is one of the most beautiful forests in the world,” Melissa says. “There’s so many medicinal plants, small fruits, the animals. But that relation that we built has fed us for thousands of years. And if we were not managing to empty out the boreal forest, we could probably manage to have that equilibrium still there.”

The boreal forest is now at risk because of resource extraction, which is fracturing the land. The lives it supports are at risk.

“I think this is a wake-up call for Indigenous knowledge of living on the land,” Melissa adds. “For so long, [the boreal forest] has been seen as the fridge I describe, and now people are noticing how we know that relation — how we manage that relation and how we can live in that forest and not just see it as a space of resources.”

Nicknamed the “lungs of the north,” the boreal forest is truly one of the most magical ecosystems I’ve ever seen. It’s devastating to see it — and many of its key species like the boreal woodland caribou — at risk.

Historically — in the boreal and around the world — we’ve thought nothing of dumping our toxic compounds like pesticides, waste engine oil or paints onto the soil. We dig up the earth, push it around, drown it under dams or pave it over with roads and buildings. But as Melissa illustrates, soil is alive and makes it possible for us to feed ourselves. We must find a different relationship with soil, land and earth, and care for it so it can continue to nourish us.

A healthy relationship with Earth requires a healthy relationship with earth

SUBSCRIBE TO SCIENCE MATTERS

.

Redemption, reconciliation or restorative justice

http://thecirclenews.org/environment/redemption-reconciliation-or-restorative-justice/?fbclid=IwAR2fqI_rjlzN9VtW3IKSY0ki3w2HDSBzs70xmD8PM5sBJaQ7huh4yb9uDTo

By catwhipple October 6, 2020

By Winona LaDuke

“The world is undergoing an initiation. The ancient knowledge of our ancestors and elders is needed now more than ever as we navigate through times of illness, painful division and social disruption. It’s time to call on the world’s spiritual midwives- those who can bridge us to the new paradigm.” – Angaangaq

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was the president of Liberia, from 2006-2018, after the Civil Wars. Now mind you, she was the first woman president of an African nation, and hers had just been through hell. That’s to say, that they butchered each other – 250,000 died, and under the leadership of war lords they committed heinous crimes of mutilation, rape and cannibalism. She said, “I have to believe in redemption”. As do I. And I believe in healing.

I used to have an Economist magazine saved. The cover photo portrayed a Liberian soldier, fully armed with a sling of bullets stepping on the beheaded body of a pregnant woman. The article was on small arms, and pretty much the toll on a world of the violence. Ellen built her legacy around redemption, including redemption hospitals and a redemption council, to heal the wounds. Similarly, the African National Congress, and subsequently, the South African government under Nelson Mandela mandated a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Somehow you have to heal.

Indigenous peoples have had long term strategies to resolve conflict. Lacrosse, the medicine game, was used to resolve conflicts. Sadly, we do not play the Medicine game enough. Nor do we practice enough of our healing circles as Indigenous peoples. In colonization, there’s a lot of brutality and collateral damage. Today, we live as if people are expendable, we will throw them away for their crimes, and we will all be better for it. But we will not.

There’s a big difference between a reconciliation or restorative justice system, and a punitive justice system. We all know that as Native people, because, like our black, brown and poor relatives, we are thrown into the criminal justice system for years of our lives; often never returning as whole people to our villages. America is punitive, that’s why it has the highest prison population in the world. Indigenous peoples are restorative. People who live in communities need resolution, so we can continue to live together. We need solutions. And, we need community.

I have an extended family which has perpetrators and victims. Yes, I can say that. We have big families, and a lot of things have happened to our families. We suffer from the intergenerational trauma of abuse and genocide. We have scars and we mess up. They are still my family. How do we find resolution?

Ellen Sharif Johnson urged people to forgive each other in the Christmas season. In Jewish tradition, I have always loved the Yom Ha-Kippurim, English Day of Atonement, most solemn of Jewish religious holidays. As Rabbi Mordechai Liebling explains to me, “In Judaism the repentance process is three steps – one ask for forgiveness, do restorative action,  and is complete when one is in the same situation and does not repeat the offense.  Yom Kippur is to repent for our relationship with Spirit and the ten days before – the 10 days of repentance – we are encouraged to ask people we have wronged for forgiveness.” You can also, I’m told, ask for forgiveness from anyone, including your parents during that time. I summoned it up once with my mother, who is Jewish, to be forgiven for a party I’d thrown decades before. She laughed.

Forgiveness, redemption and reconciliation. That’s what we want. Our sweat lodge is where we have reconciliation with the Creator, the spirits see us there and in our ceremonies. We need, however, more. We have tools we need to use and we need to be proactive.

Instead of, clarity, and reconciliation, I see a lot of Facebook juries. Call Out Culture is like a machete, it’s effective and dangerous. Collateral damage is high. Former President Obama pointed out, “If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right, or used the wrong word or verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, because, ‘Man, you see how woke I was. I called you out.’ That’s not activism”. Indeed callout culture is powerful, it caused Minnesota Senator Al Franken to resign as a part of the Me Too Movement, unfortunately leaving Minnesota with a major political void, and most recently, Cancel Culture has brought a Minneapolis Palestinian restaurant empire, Holy Land deli to its knees. And, we still need reconciliation.

A frequently cited problem with call-outs is that it’s easy to get carried away and over-punish people, turning alleged perpetrators of upsetting acts into victims themselves. “What can often start out as well-intentioned and necessary criticism far too quickly devolves into brutish displays of virtual tar-and-feathering,” writes activist and writer Ruby Hamad. She asks: This leaves one question: how can we benefit from the social good call-out culture can help achieve, without succumbing to the toxicity and futility that has come to be associated with it?

Some advocate a softer path. By ganging up on an individual, “you’re taking this moral high ground, with a lot of righteous indignation, and inviting others to participate in a public shaming exercise”, which is rarely productive, says Anna Richards, a therapist specializing in conflict mediation. And what if the allegations are false? Well, they are out on the internet, so they must be true.

Here’s some of my most disturbing recent encounters. In the midst of summer, I had this bizarre expose done on me, “calling me out”. That’s to say, a quasi National Inquirer like podcast, suggested I was not Native, had a complex history with men including my father, and was affiliated with sexual predators. it even said that my father, Sun Bear, who has been dead for thirty years was a womanizer. Wow, not to give a lot more coverage to that story, but to say that’s a twisted tale. And it would have been nice to have been fact checked. And maybe, let the old guy Rest in Peace, he had a good run.

It reminded me of what the late Dakota philosopher John Trudell once told me, “There’s two ways to be recognized in the Indian movement, one is to do good work, and the second is to trash someone who does good work.” Some of us prefer the former.

Aside from the ridiculousness of the “expose”, full of crazy non-facts, it came to my attention that she’d embarked on a character assassination campaign against a number of prominent Native people, who live in communities, calling out their identities, sort of like the Birther Movement. The list is long. Now, without delving too far into the idea of “pretendians”, I will say she’s got some good points there, particularly in academia, where ethnic fraud is more prevalent.

We are not a university in my community, the White Earth reservation. Far from it. We’ve got some of the most gifted Ojibwe language historians and speakers around and they are not all enrolled members of tribes. That’s to say, that communities and nations define their membership and families themselves, and an outsider has no idea, nor right to determine tribal identity. And in this day and age, maybe check some facts. Then I’d humbly suggest, let us figure out how to heal, not how to hurt. As a double edged sword, the internet is an equalizer of power, and we need to use those powers well.

The internet augments Social Cannibalism. Some days it looks like a crazy feeding frenzy. I think this way of acting, is an indicator of what’s called late stage affluenza, the illness which impacts many Americans. Way too much time on our hands, lots of shopping, and a lack of boundaries. There’s even a legal case about it. Anthony Couch is a Texas youth who killed four people in a drunk driving case. His legal defense included “affluenza,” noting the disassociations, lack of boundaries, and privilege of those who live in a society which consumes a quarter of the world’s resources. Affluenza and social cannibalism are deadly. It’s obvious that there are a lot of people with too much time on their hands. That’s for sure, particularly during a pandemic. I keep thinking that we’ve got more to do, and I am also sure that there are a whole bunch of isolated , angry and fearful people out there.

I tell you what, in four months it is going to be minus twenty degrees where I live, and so I am going to focus on getting in wood and food for the winter. That’s the world I live in, and affluenza is not an option. Let us call upon each other for accountability, not destroy each other.

“… Don’t waste your hate, rather gather and create. Be of service, be a sensible person, use your words and don’t be nervous. You can do this, you’ve got purpose, find your medicine and use it.” – Nahko Bear.

In the end, I still come to the question of how we resolve these conflicts. I am sure it is through restorative justice. Perhaps it is the time to summon up our Society of Fearless Grandmothers to guide us. We are looking at a whole lot of hurt people, flawed, crazy worlds, locked up in a pandemic world. We need some redemption and peace. And we need some boundaries, there are none in a made up world of affluenza. And maybe, we need to get into the garden, and get those endorphins going, chop some wood, and think before we post or repost.

If peace can come to Liberia and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to South Africa, it seems that these battles of social cannibalism can find some resolution. Let us work towards that.

Winona LaDuke on earth-based economics in ‘the time of the seventh fire’

Winona LaDuke on earth-based economics in ‘the time of the seventh fire’

Nonviolence Radio shares a powerful talk by renowned Anishinaabe author and activist Winona LaDuke, plus Michael Nagler's latest Nonviolence Report.

Stephanie Van Hook

August 31, 2020

Audio Block

Double-click here to upload or link to a .mp3. Learn more

Renowned activist Winona LaDuke reflects on the power of an earth-based economics in a moment on our planet that is known in indigenous circles as “the time of the seventh fire.” She asks the questions: What are you going to do right now to heal our relationships with life? And are you going to choose the path of regeneration or destruction? Her talk comes to us from the organization Slow Money. In part two of the show, we turn to the Nonviolence Report with Michael Nagler to hear how kids are defying their parents by wearing masks, basketball players are showing up in solidarity for Black lives, and a leader clinging to power and position for 25-years in Belarus is on his way out.

—

Stephanie: Welcome everybody to another episode of Nonviolence Radio. I’m your host, Stephanie Van Hook. On today’s show, we’ll hear from Winona LaDuke. Winona is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development, renewable energy in food systems, and she lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. She’s also a two-time vice-presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party.

This is a keynote address to the SOIL 2017 conference which was hosted by Slow Money. You can find them at SlowMoney.org. Let’s tune in now to Winona.

Winona: Hello. Nice to see you all. [Native dialect] Hello, my relatives. Very nice to see you here today. I wanted to say a couple of things as I got here. First, you know, the crazy times that there are in that we are in. There are hurricanes to the south of biblical proportion, you know? Fires to west of biblical proportion. Some orange-haired crazy man screaming at us from the east. [Laughter] Pretty much, right? [Cheering] Causing problems of biblical proportion. Is that right? And I’m not even a Christian. So, I was just like, “Wow,” you know?

So, the question is, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And I feel like that’s a little bit of this moment that we are in and what we are – what we are going to do here. We’re going to talk about that. I want to also acknowledge the Arapaho people from here, in their land [Oma-akeen], upon which we stand. So, as I thought about what to discuss here today. I want to talk about this time. And what I refer to is kind of this time. In our prophesies this is called, “The time of the Seventh Fire,” or the time that is told by – A long time ago our prophets told us this time would come. It’s known as the time of the Seventh Fire.

And in that time, we are told that we will have a choice between two paths or two [miignas]. And they say that one path will be well-worn, but it will be scorched. And the other path they say will not be well-worn and it will be green. And it would be our choice upon which path to embark. And that is what the Anishinaabe prophets told our people many, many, many years ago.

And what I would say is that I think that that is not just where we are as Anishinaabe people. I think that’s where we are as North America. I think that’s where we are as a world. It’s a question of where you going to go? What are you going to do? And what are you going to do in this very moment that we are in?

So, I’m going to tell you some stories about that. I’m going to talk about two economies. The scorched path economy, I’ve come to refer to as the Wendigo economy. The Wendigo economy, or the economy of a cannibal, one which destroys its mother. One which destroys every source of wealth upon which it would live. Or the economy of land-based indigenous peoples. And I’m going to talk about that this is the time to move ahead.

So, to begin with, let me say this is where I live. [Native dialect] Round Lake. I live in the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. A reservation of 47 lakes and 500 bodies of water. I’m very privileged to live in the same place that a lot of my great-great-great-greats lived. In our territory, this is this month here would be the month they would call, [Native dialect]. When leaves start changing and then the leaves start falling. [Native dialect] which follows it. Which would be a moon that would be called, “[Native dialect], the Freezing-over Moon.” And then we have a moon that follows, [Native dialect] and then [Native dialect]. And then we have a moon called, [Native dialect] which is the Sucker Moon. That’s around February.

And then we have a moon called, “[Native dialect].” That’s a hard, crusted snow moon around March. I think that’s about the same here. Where you get a thaw and a freeze and then a thaw and you get snow again. And so, it’s the hard crust comes on the snow. [Native dialect]. That’s what we call that. Also known as the moon you don’t want to do a face plant in the snow. [Laughter]

The moon that follows that is [Native dialect] which is the Maple Syruping Moon. [Native dialect], the Flower Moon. [Native dialect], the Strawberry Moon. That’s the moon in my territory. [Native dialect] is the Strawberry Moon. [Native dialect], the Blueberry Moon, the moon that follows that in the north country is the Blueberry Moon. And then perhaps, the moon we waited for for so long which is [Native dialect] the Wild Rice Making Moon.

Those are the moons of the Anishinaabe people. And I thought I would share those with you because those are very much about the land and the water and the life that you have been talking about today. Because we have an entire worldview and an entire time, this calendar that’s really based on the natural world.

I thought you might like to hear some of the names in some of my language. And then did you also notice that none of those moons is named after a Roman emperor? [Laughter] Did you all see that? Right? So, I just want to say it’s okay. You’ll be good without empire. Just let it go, okay? Just let it go. [Cheering] It’s like way too much work. And that is really a little bit of this time, this time when we have this opportunity to think where we’re going. And it’s possible that some of the, you know, paradigm which got us into this situation may not have the answers to get us out.

And so, it’s going to be important to be the people that have the courage to look into the paradigms that will save us all as we work together.

I kind of feel like that’s where we are, you know, no matter where we come from, we’re all in the same boat. And so, let us figure what kind of a future we can make for our children. But as I think about this, I think about let us make America – let’s talk about making America great again, right? [Laughter] And so, my idea of when America was great was when there was 8000 varieties of corn.

And all those corn varieties were developed for so many reasons and are so beautiful. And many of them still exist, but none of those were developed by guys from Monsanto, right? None of those were developed by guys with white suits on. Most of those varieties were actually collected and chosen by women. And women are the best at seed selection because we know not only how it grows, but we know how it saves and how it cooks. And so, that is why historically the best seed savers and a lot of the great seed, you know, collections and development has been by women. And so, I just want to acknowledge that’s when America was great, with great agro-biodiversity, great biodiversity. You know, 50 million buffalo. Single largest migratory herd in the world. That’s when America was great.

You know, you talk about the 28 million cattle in agriculture today that are, you know, in the same territory that once had 50 million buffalo and those buffalo did not require feedlots. Those buffalo knew how to live on prairie grass, the 250 species of prairie grass that existed there. Those buffalo knew how to live. [Laughter] And this is where we got to, right?

And I think that this is kind of the choices that have been made and the choices that should be made in this moment that we are in. So, as I think about now, I’m going to tell you a little bit of my story. This is my territory. I live in a place where I would say we have a pretty sustainable economy. So, you could harvest wild rice on the same lake for 10,000 years. That’s pretty good, huh? And all you have to do is take care of the lake. All you have to do is make sure that you do your prayers and your ceremonies because your lake is going to be good because you’re going to make sure nothing crazy gets into your lake.

And you go out there in the [Native dialect], the Wild Rice Making Moon, and you put your prayers out, and you take your two sticks, your rice knockers and your partner and your pole and your canoe. And you go head out there into the lakes that your ancestors have been on for 10,000 years. And you go push out into the middle of the lake and you smell that fall. You smell what it is to be like in the middle of a lake. And you knock that rice into your canoe, bring one stick over and knock it over like this. That’s how you get that rice in.

And you fill your canoe with wild rice. And then you bring your wild rice in and you bag it up and you parch it over a fire. This is so old, our rice.

This is cosmo-geneology. That’s a painting of some of our magical beings that are spirit beings ricing. That is how long our economy is of this territory. That is how long our economy is and our understanding of wild rice. So, that is my territory.

I’m going to tell you the story of my territory and our little battle and our battle where it is now and our battle where we are going. So, this is our battle. I live in a place where there is no oil. I live in northern Minnesota and there are six big oil pipelines that cross our territory. Those pipelines are by Enbridge Corporation. They are the mainline corridor. They go through that north – along what’s known as Highway 2 because they’re all headed to Superior, which is not only the furthest inland port, the object of desire of many corporations. But it is also how you get into Wisconsin. And you get to Kalamazoo and the Straits of Mackinaw.

Those pipelines that people talk about, they come through us first to get there. And so, there are six old pipelines that have gone through there. And about five years ago a corporation named Enbridge announced that it wanted to bust a whole new corridor that went to the south through my reservation, the White Earth Reservation. Through new territory, some of our best wild rice lakes. And what they were going to is bring a 640,000 barrel per day fracked oil pipeline out of North Dakota. And they were going to bring that pipeline to Superior, and they absolutely had that route.

And the Enbridge Corporation is a Canadian corporation. It’s the single largest pipeline corporation in the world. And what they wanted to do, is that. And so, we said, “No.” We said, “We don’t really think that’s going to work out for us.” And so, we started a resistance, you know. But they had gotten a lot what they wanted in Canada because as nice as we can all say Canada is, it’s a petro state. 90% of their economy is based on their petrodollar and all their heavy extraction. And don’t forget that 75% of the world’s mining corporations are Canadian. The Canadian economy is not nice to anybody. The Canadian economy is lethal to the environment of the world.

And so, they’re coming towards us with this pipeline. And, you know, I said to Enbridge, I said, “That’s not going to work.” I said, “I know you ran over a lot of those reservations up north with 300 people on them and they live out there in the bush with diesel generators and you went right through their reserves.” I said, “We’re not those people. We have 22,000 members in my tribe. We have six big reservations. There’s seven big reservations, but six big reservations in the north. Many of them would be impacted by this pipeline.” I said, “And we’re not going to let you do it.”

And so, we started to fight, you know. And we worked with a lot of local people and a lot of non-Indians got involved. And MM350 got involved. And my friend Miriam Moore got involved. And a group called, “Friends of the Headwaters,” came out and it was a multi-racial alliance was built to fight this pipeline. And Friends of the Headwaters filed a lawsuit which forced an EIS, an Environmental Impact Statement on the pipeline because the State of Minnesota, not thinking about infrastructure, since actually the country doesn’t think about infrastructure – because we have a D in infrastructure. We would be thinking about an infrastructure if we, you know, would move on beyond that.

They were just planning to let it go ahead. And they were court ordered by the Minnesota court to complete an Environmental Impact Statement on that pipeline. And our resistance continued, and we prayed, and we rode our horses. And the lawsuit forced the EIS. And the Enbridge corporation became discouraged. And last year on August 2nd, the Enbridge Corporation announced the cancelation of the Sandpiper Pipeline. [Applause]

So, I want to tell you that it is possible to defeat a large oil pipeline. It is possible, but it is a lot of work, but you have to stay on it. But it is our water. It is our land. It does not belong to corporations. And I think you all know that. That’s why you’re all here.

So, then what happened is the thing that sleazy corporations do, is the Enbridge Corporation took $2.8 billion and invested it in a corporation called, “The Dakota Access Pipeline.” And they went and bankrolled, then Energy Transfer partners, which was not on the best financial terms, to make sure that they could finish that pipeline out there in North Dakota. And so, our people followed them out there, as did many of you. I know that a lot of you went to Standing Rock. How many of you went to Standing Rock? Thank you for going out there. Give them a hand. Give them a hand. And thank all of you for supporting us out there. Thank all of you for supporting the organizations out there and for supporting the people on the ground, any of your family that are water protectors – because we’re all water protectors.

So, this is what we found out there – and you know what we saw out there because a lot of you went out there and a lot of you were not watching Fox News. You actually saw what happened out there. And you know we took a lot of hits, you know? And the questions of should a corporation have more rights than the people? Is a corporation for civil society at this point where you’re in this era of the End the Fossil Fuel Era, where the fossil fuel corporations are thrashing to keep their pipelines?

And so, you know, you get a state like North Dakota, which we refer to as, “The Deep North.” That’s what we call that state. And I guess you all figured out why, huh? When they start doing that to our people and they think it’s okay, you know? And then things happen like this in North Dakota which happens everywhere, but this is when they take this equipment – this peace of equipment here is called, “The MRAP,” the Mine Resistant Armored Personnel carrier. And that’s intended to drive through buildings.

And that piece of equipment belongs to Stutsman County, as you can see on the side. And that piece of equipment was surplussed by the military to civilian police forces. And that is something that Obama stopped, but then Mr. Trump just rebooted, right? The is a piece of equipment that a civilian police force in North Dakota should not have, right?

That second piece of equipment there is called an LRAD which is intended to blow out your ear drums. That’s what was used on a lot of our people out there. Very, very violent, violent times and very violent battle over that pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline. A lot of our people were hurt. This is our camp in the winter. This is our camp when we left it. This is our camp when we left it. It was a brutal, brutal battle.

And I want to say that that was a brutal battle and a lot of us took a lot of hits. A lot of people were arrested. 840 people were arrested. A lot of us were injured. A lot of legal cases. And you know, police follow us and stay with your water protectors to make sure that they get justice. Stay with your water protectors and stay with this on our movement against these pipelines.

One of the things that was left there was this. This is the only thing that was left there out at Standing Rock. And this is at Ladona’s land, and this is Charles Rencountre’s art. And this is a peace called – it’s facing the Missouri, as you can see. And it’s a piece of art. It was an effigy pipe. I don’t know if anybody knows what an effigy pipe is. It’s like old school. So, this little dude was sitting on a pipe that you would smoke with your tobacco, right? You following me now?

So, he would be looking at the bowl, right? And the pipe had a name because the pipe was so powerful. And the pipe was called, “Not Afraid to Look at White Man.” Is that cool or badass or what, huh? [Laughter] So, this guy, Charles Rencountre decided he should make a statue called, “Not Afraid to Look.” And that statue, one version of it is at the Institute for American Indian Art. It’s the original. It’s at the American – Institute for American Indian Art’s Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And the second, the only other piece is here. And it’s still the only thing remaining in the camp at Standing Rock. It’s Not Afraid to Look.

So, I’m kind of proud of that. Kind of proud of that moment. So, I’m going to talk about the economy we’re going to build. And what I want to say is something that you all know because you’re all super smart. Which is, you know, there’s a few things. Like the guy to the east is a complete – completely dangerous idiot, right? This is my belief. My belief is that they took the political system, but they did not take the economic system. And so, what we’re going to do is we’re going to take – we’re going to retake control of the economic system through re-localizing it and through transforming it. So, let’s talk about how we’re going to do that, okay?

So, we’re going to grow our local food, but we’re also going to grow food that is specifically great for climate change, right? So, I tell you this because this variety of corn I grow here is called, “Bear Island Flint.” It’s a variety that came out of Bear Island, an island in the middle of the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota. It’s a hominy corn, pozole. Does this mean something to y’all? See, you guys are all farmers. It’s like so easy to talk to you, right? Okay, and this is what I grow. I’m a farmer too.

But so, we grow this variety and it’s about 90 days or 80 days. It’s a good – but it’s drought resistant. It’s frost resistant, and it’s – when the big winds came through, it’s standability is very good. It blew over Monsanto’s varieties, but my variety stood. So, my suggestion is – and then it’s got twice the protein and half the calories, right? So, grow for climate change.

The other thing about it is that this kind of corn – and you know, I got some other things we could talk about, but I know you were talking about like squash. Like you want low carbon foods too. Like don’t grow stuff that you got to do all kind of like crazy stuff to to keep. Keep some of your stuff simple, right? So, that hominy corn, it keeps good. You just keep it closed up. It like our wild rice. Keep for, you know, years. Just keep it good so it keeps dry. It’s a low carbon food.

So, think as we change and reduce the carbon impact and the footprint of each of our communities, you know, where we’re going to go. And these are all only grown with love and locally. You know, and I have to always say when I talk about this is that when I was a young woman at Harvard, my father had about an 8th grade education. You know, real smart, smart native man – really, a smart native man. And he was known as Sun Bear. Some of you may have known him. He’s known as Sun Bear. Vincent LaDuke was his legal name at White Earth.

You know, he came to see me one day and he said, “Winona, you’re a really smart young woman, but I don’t want to hear your philosophy if you can’t grow corn.” [Laughter] And so, that’s when I became a corn grower, you know. But anyone who grows knows that plants teach you. Plants teach you.

And first I thought I kind of failed when I grew mine out because it was so short. And then I met this – my good friend here, Frank [Kutka] and, you know, that’s how small his corn grew, right? But all it had to do was put on the ear, right? It doesn’t have to be all fancy and it doesn’t have to be all flamboyant. If you’re in the middle of North Dakota, that’s about what you want your corn to look like if it’s going to hang out, right? So, think about these things when we’re growing, growing that cool way.

A lot of you are already talking about this. You’re the Slow Money people. We’re going to divest from dumb stuff and we’re going to move to just cool stuff, right? That’s like the simple thing. You know, I’ve been doing some work on the divestment campaigns, particularly we just did have BMP announced that they are not going to invest in Enbridge.

So, we’re on our next round of pipeline battles on this new pipeline that we’re facing. A 915,000 barrel a day tar sands pipeline. I’m going to talk about that in a minute. We’re going to divest and we’re going to divest for other reasons like this. And I like to show this slide because a lot of you are – it’s money people. I’m an economist by training, but you know, I was looking at this chart and I was like, “Man, those guys are dumb.”

You know, so if you look at this, in 2011, these guys – they’re pretty smart guys, right? Exxon, Chevron, and Conoco Phillips, they had $80.4 billion in net income in 2011. And here in 2016, these guys was down to $3.7 billion in net income. The top three U.S. oil companies, you know. I feel like that they missed a memo. Do you feel like that they missed like a memo or something? You understand what I’m saying?

I’m like – and if I was the CEO of Exxon and I went from 40.1 billion in net income down to 2.7 billion in net income in 5 years, you know, I don’t think I have my job anymore. No. No. But I would have got hired by the smartest guy in the world, you know, because I would be Rex Tillerson. [Laughter] And now I would be the new Secretary of State, right? So, what I’m saying is, this is like these guys act like they’ve got this all. But just look at this, you know, from outside it don’t look like they’ve got this. [Laughter] You following me on my thinking on this?

Talking about the emperor’s clothes and stuff like that because like they don’t really have a good plan. And, you know, we can see that. It’s so funny to watch Mr. Trump with his fabulous ideas. Like, “Now I’m going to do this. Now I’m going to do this. Now I’m going to do this.” And like the best example is some of these pipeline examples because between him and Trudeau, they were like all happy. They approved all these tar sands pipelines, right?

Well, have you watched this at all? So, like last week, Energy East, the 1100-mile pipeline in Canada, the largest pipeline in Canada, Energy East, going to New Brunswick, it got canceled. It got canceled because there’s not enough oil in the tar sands and because the economics are not good, and they’re having a few problems with deregulation. The Transmountain Pipeline, Kinder Morgan Pipeline has, I think, like 11 lawsuits. The Province of British Columbia is suing them, not likely. Not likely that they’re going to be going too far.

A lot of people said since TransCanada canned that Energy East – because that’s the same corporation as Keystone, right? Remember how that guy out east with the orange hair who screams was like, “I’m going to make Keystone.” Remember that? Y’all remember that? We’re going to have Keystone. We’re going to make up things that are going to happen, you know? And then you look at that and they ain’t going to make Keystone. Do you know why they’re not going to have the Keystone Pipeline? Because they don’t have any shippers.

To have a pipeline you have to have shippers. Then they got that problem in Nebraska, besides. But what I’m saying is, is that they have spent billions of dollars on stupid ideas, you know? And so, you know, I’m someone – I’m like a big fan of infrastructure. I’m not actually opposed to pipes. I like water and sewer. How are you feeling? Are you thinking water and sewer is good? You know, I’m like – so, I’m like, for instance, in northern Minnesota we have 300 miles of pipes sitting in piles for a pipeline that is never going to be built.

And you know what I say to the Enbridge Corporation? I say, “Send those pipes to Flint.” [Cheers] You know what I mean? It’s time to invest in infrastructure that makes sense for people and for the planet. Not for some oil companies. And so, I’m saying like this is our moment. But in the meantime, the last pipeline battle, the last pipeline battle, there’s only one pipeline left out of those four. And that was a pipeline called Line 3 that they are trying to bring to Minnesota right now. Enbridge Corporation, same route, the same bad plan, barrelling towards us, permitted in Canada. Of course, permitted in Wisconsin, right? Barrelling towards us.

But you know what? There are water protectors camped. There are water protectors camped. Nobody in Minnesota wants that pipeline. We didn’t want it the last time. We did not want it the last time. And we do not intend to let them into our territory. And so, and what I want to say is that three weeks ago the State of Minnesota, Department of Commerce issued a note, issued a recommendation, an initial recommendation that the permit not be granted for that pipeline. [Applause] And we don’t know if that’s going to hold because, you know, they’re pretty slick – those oil company guys.

So, the last thing I want to say is that if you did not get a chance to get arrested at Standing Rock, please come to Minnesota in the spring. Okay? [Cheers and applause]

I guarantee – I guarantee this is the last big pipeline battle. This is the last big pipeline battle because it is the last tar sands pipeline they are going to be able to try to build and they are not going to build it. So, please stand with us.

So, while we fight them off with their stupid ideas, we’re going to build the next economy. Now, this is what we renewables looks like. And it turns out Indian reservations are the windiest place in the world. No idea how that worked out, but we’re really windy. We would just like to hook up to all that old dirty coal. We would like to not have Excel own all of it. We’d like to own some of the wind on the wires.

And this is a map by my good friend, Bob Goff who just passed away. And I just want to put it up there in his honor. But he’s a board member of Honor the Earth and a great man. And this is what the work that we’re all doing is to put renewables in a lot of tribal communities. This is the first offshore wind project in the United States. I don’t know if any of you have been watching this, right? Deep water wind. We’re going to need to do it at different scales. We’re going to need to do large scale and we’re going to need to do community. We’re going to need to own as much of it as we can. But we’re going to need to move it on out. That’s what we’re going to need to do. We’re going to need to be courageous with wind. We’re going to need to be courageous with solar.

And this the future of what it looks like. That’s the memo that those guys missed. The divestment in fossil fuel, the investment – the future in renewables. This is – you know, people say you can’t meet present energy demand by renewables. And I always say, “Why would you want to try?” I mean if 57% of your power is wasted between point of origin and point of consumption – right? Inefficient systems, stupid, stupid things, you know? Powerplants that are like – in northern Minnesota, they’re like 80-year-old powerplant. I’m like, “Come on.” You know what I’m saying? Like why would you want to reboot a system that inefficient? You would want to be the people that move on. That would be us.

And how I know this is all going to happen is because of that.

—

Stephanie: I’m here with Michael Nagler and he is going to fill us in on the Nonviolence Report, all the nonviolence in the news that is now reported or underreported and that you would like to more about. Michael, tell us what’s going on.

Michael: Thank you Stephanie. Yes, I’ll be happy to do that. One thing is that TESA, the Tesa collective, which is the people who are helping us bring out our board game have revised their, quote, “Guide to the collective movement.” It’s on their website. And all of their games and resources are on sale now because of the pandemic, but this is an interesting aspect of the nonviolence movement, is collectives. And they’re going to tell you how to do it.

There’s also a new article out called, “Conflict Resolution and Nonviolence Bibliography.” That’s by Patrick O’Donnell. And there’s so much going on. But I want to mention that the U.N. is designing a roadmap to the future we want. That’s part of their global governance forum. And I think anybody can register to attend. And last but not least, the Illuminate Film Festival will open on September 8th with our film, “The Third Harmony.” And then that will be followed by the Global Peace Film Festival on September 21st. And sometime in October, the United Nations Association Film Festival. So, there’s some of the resources – and really, just only a sampling of everything that you can check in on.

And now for some of the news. Closest to home of today’s accounts, I guess, is that in Milwaukee, the team – I’m sorry folks, I don’t even know what sport we’re exactly talking about. But the Milwaukee Bucks had a playoff game today and they are boycotting it as a protest against the police shooting of Jacob Blake. And other teams are considering joining them. And this constitutes a real escalation, probably started by Colin Kaepernick of bringing sports out of the pretend neutrality.

Sports are really – I coined this mantrum or metta motto recently, “All play is rehearsal.” The extreme competitiveness of sports, and they do not have to be played that way, is a reflection of what we think should be going on in business and other aspects of our society. So, just as the universities are not trying to drop the pretense that they have nothing to do with politicized external events, it seems to be happening in sports too.

And you know, there are pluses and minuses to this kind of development. But we should talk about that later. I wanted to say something about one of the most dramatic insurrectionary movements that’s going on in the world today, and that is in Belarus, this country on the western border of the Soviet Union, Russia. And they have been in insurrection against Lukashenko who has been in power for 26 years. And this was triggered, as things are frequently triggered, by an election which is widely considered to be rigged.

According to one poll, Lukashenko’s popularity was running at 3%. That’s the lowest I’ve ever heard of. And yet, he claimed to have swept the election. And so, people are in protest. The police repression has been quite serious. There’s a very informative blog that our friend Maciej has brought out. It’s in the ICNC, International Center for Nonviolent Conflict website. And he knows that part of the world very well, Maciej Bartkowski. And an interesting development here is that when two of the opposition candidates were respectively arrested and basically driven out of the country, their wives stepped up.

And now there’s a female triumvirate which is galvanizing thousands of Belarusians across the whole country. They have social media postings about their rallies are going viral. And there’s a tremendous enthusiasm that has not been seen in the country since it’s independence in 1991. So, I’m quoting now from another article. People’s response to an ugly and boring dictatorship is a beautiful humorous and carnival-like campaign.

Now, I want to comment on that. As we know, humor and beauty and fun can be extremely important forces within movement of people who are disenfranchised and in a disadvantageous position in terms of power. So, that’s a positive. And so, we have now two positives – the entry of women and the tone. As we know from Daniel Hunter, tone is important. So, the tone is very good.

Another good positive sign is that there are signs of defection from the police and security forces. This is Gene Sharp’s recognition that the pillars of support have to be withdrawn from an authoritarian ruler in order to overthrow him in most cases. But what I find not so positive is the movement is relying on mockery of Lukashenko. And in nonviolence, you never want to degrade a fellow human being. You never want to succumb to the temptation to use mockery or disrespect to diminish the power that the opponent has over you because that stuff backfires.

And just as we say, “A threat to justice anywhere hinders justice everywhere.” It’s the same with dignity. Human dignity everywhere is a unified field. When you degrade another person, you are degrading that whole field including yourself. So, but that’s the one negative that I see in this extremely interesting latest case of a nonviolent insurrection, the kind of thing that Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stefan studied in such detail.

And then Maciej goes on to list three things that the movement should do – this was a while back that he wrote this blog. And two of them are, quote, “Maintaining high levels of nonviolent discipline. Even if repression increases – which it has. And quote, “Developing resistance strategies for what comes after the expected rigged elections.”

I thought that was an interesting note for us to pay attention to because not just the nonviolence world, but almost the entire socially conscious world right now is quite concerned what will happen in this country in November.

So, I would like to move onto other things. There is a federal prosecutor named Kelly Zusman who has been listening to the demands of many demonstrators, demands to defund or abolish the police, which I always said is unrealistic. We’ve put them there to do a job. If we throw them out, who does the job? So, one response has been to increase trainings and do a lot more with restorative justice. Another very successful has been to send out a social worker for calls that do not involve violence. That is a large proportion of the calls that police get, are for various social problems, not for crimes. So, they’re the right people for that job.

And her approach, Zusman’s approach was to create a scholarship to encourage students of color to pursue criminal justice. And this is going on. And to pursue it actually as a major at Portland Community College. That will also be helpful.

Now there’s a group of kids at Enterprise High School in Enterprise, Utah. You may not have been very familiar with that town. It’s got a population that’s a little less than 2000. But last week they got a bunch of messages on Facebook calling for their parents to send the kids to school in defiance of the statewide mask mandate to teach those socialist tyrants in Salt Lake City and meaning of liberty.

This is really quite a disturbing phenomenon, that people are looking at perfectly reasonable health care motives as a kind of deprivation of their, quote, “Sacred liberty.” So, the kids instead responded by networking with each other to make sure that they all wore masks to school. And that happened just recently.

They did not want to have another school shutdown like they had to have before. And now, a senior by the name of Dali Cobb who had to sacrifice part of her season in track and field last year because as part of the cheering squad she didn’t want to see that happen again. So, before Saturdays’ football game, in front of a lineup of players and cheerleaders wearing masks, incidentally, she called on adults to please not mess up another school year.

There’s a very interesting article available now online in Scientific American. And it is called, “GDP is the wrong tool for measuring what matters.” Quote, “It’s time to replace the gross domestic product with real metrics of wellbeing and sustainability.” And you may remember about a decade back, the King of Bhutan creating an alternative for the gross national product, he said his GNP, his measure would be Gross National Happiness – GNH.

So, this is actually a quite important trend where economics is not kind of – I’m going to use the word mindlessly focused on numbers and money and much more interested in what really matters to human beings. Do they have meaning in their life? Are they happy? And there are ways that that can be measured in addition to, of course, anecdotal ways of just asking folks, “Hey, how you doing?”

Now, one of the great sources of news, nonviolence news that I rely on and I always like to recommend is Nonviolence News. And so, I want to share with you just a couple of samples from recent postings of Rivera Sun’s Nonviolence News website. One headline is, “Struggles for justice anywhere are connected to struggles for justice everywhere.” And I’m sure you get that reference because I just quoted that line of Martin Luther King.

And she shares many examples of how movement participants are borrowing tactics and ideas from one another. For example, in Portland, citizens who were bracing for an alt-right rally used a tactic that they copied from a little town, Wunseidel in Germany. It now has a name. It’s called, “An involuntary walk-a-thon,” where the more people show up, the more you contribute to something else.

So, this group in Portland raised $30,000 from immigrant rights groups by getting people to pledge to donate for every alt-right protester who appeared. I’ve always liked that kind of way of turning the tables on people. In Wunseidel it was used against a neo-fascist group. Let me give you a couple more examples and then make a comment.

So, as we are all aware, the pro-democracy movement is going on in Hong Kong and they acknowledge the Baltic protest of 1989 as an inspiration. And they created a 28-mile human chain. If you remember, there was a Baltic nation states at that time were suing for freedom from the Soviet Union and they created an enormous chain. I think I’m starting to remember. There was about million people who were involved. It went clean across the territory.

And finally, closer to home, here in the Bay Area of California, three communities are starting to follow Berkeley’s lead on banning natural gas infrastructure in new construction. All of this is very important to my way of thinking because I’ve been saying for quite a while that one of the things that the nonviolence movement as a whole needs to learn how to do is how to learn from past experiences.

And that has expanded tremendously within about the last 20 years. As I’ve sometimes mentioned, there’s even a group or an organization called, “CANVAS.” The Committee on Nonviolent Actions and Strategies.” That’s approximately what that stands for – to take the successful uprising in Serbia, that Otpor! Uprising of 2000 and literally go around the world helping people who have similar uprisings. I wouldn’t be too surprised if they’re in Belarus right now.

Now here’s a few things that were on Nonviolence News last week. So, in New Zealand as you know, there was a Christchurch New Zealand massacre at a mosque in which 51 people were killed and numerous others injured. And a number of things have come out of that. One of them is a weapon’s buyback. And 10,000 weapons have been turned in after that massacre. That is a really encouraging sign.

Then in Brazil, once again, it’s women – indigenous women who have occupied a building to protest the far-right policies of the Bolsonaro government. But the Piece de Resistance, Rivera says – and I agree – is something going on in Ireland. In Belfast, Ireland, shipyard workers for two weeks now – and it must still be going on. That was a week ago – are occupying the site. You may have seen a notice of this. They’re occupying the site that built the Titanic back then. There’s 130 of them. These 130 workers are refusing to leave until the U.K. nationalizes the facilities which are currently being held by an insolvent foreign company that were just planning to close them down.

So, they want them nationalized and here’s the real payoff, converted to producing renewable energy and green infrastructure. So, that would be a terrific example of taking something that’s harmful or neutral and converting it into something that the world desperately needs. And this being done by the workers, being done from the ground up.

Lucas Aerospace was a company in the U.K. that was producing – I’m going back now about 20-25 years. They were producing the majority of the weapons in the U.K. And the workers kind of took charge of the place and decided just plain not to do that anymore. Like the workers in the Mondragon cooperatives in Spain. And that they would produce instead of machine guns, baby carriages. Instead of tanks, tractors and so on and so forth.

So, there is hope coming from every corner of the world if we learn how to recognize it. So, that is a few – a sampling of some of the things that are going on in our world that are of a nonviolent nature.

Another one, a phenomenon that has really been expanding in a very encouraging way is the offering of trainings. And now a Catholic priest, Father Harry Bury who was the founder of Twin Cities Nonviolent. And incidentally, that is a URL, one word. TwinCitiesNonviolent.org. He has teamed up with, of course, our good friend Mel Duncan from Nonviolent Peaceforce to get NP to offer two days of training – that will be Saturday and Sunday, 9/11 – due note – 9/11 to 9/12.

And the cost for this is a whopping $20. But this is a very healthy response which is affecting police departments and large numbers of people all around the country, to our knowledge, or D.C. Peace Teams is playing a major role. A lot of it being coordinated by the Shanti Sena network that is headed up by Meta Peace Teams – M-E-T-A in this case. And people that is prepared to deal with violence in any form will be just much better to go forward with courage in the future.

And as we know from the example in Belarus – and I’m now quoting from one Yury Glushakov who wrote this in Open Democracy and Waging Nonviolence. His article was called, “Belarus will never be the same.” One of the things that creates that magical turn-around where people can no longer be dominated by an authoritarian regime is their ability to get over their fear.

Once that happens, the regime really doesn’t have much of a handle on them. So, things can still be very painful and very awkward. And it still does require a lot of training and strategizing.

So, that is basically my roundup for today. I mentioned the ICNC. I’ve mentioned Nonviolence News. There’s also a site called, “Popular Resistance.” And if you look at something called, “GoodNewsNetwork.org.” That’s again lowercase, all one word – goodnewsnetwork.org – you will find here and there things that are really of nonviolence import and a lot of stuff on the environment.

So, that is pretty much the roundup for this week’s episode and Stephanie, back to you.

Stephanie: Thanks so much, Michael. Can you please tell us more about The Third Harmony and this film festival and what The Third Harmony is and means?

Michael: I thought you’d never ask. No, of course I’d be happy. I’d be happy to do that. So, to start with what The Third Harmony is, it’s a model that we’ve modified from ancient Indian sources, from Shankara, who says that you have to be able to establish – if you really want to live in peace, you have to be able to establish three harmonies. First, harmony with the world – with the planet. Second, harmony with their fellow beings – especially human beings, but not only. And thirdly and most importantly, harmony within.

And in fact, the other two harmonies flow from the ability to establish harmony within. So, that’s the third harmony. But it probably is first in causality and first in importance. So, that Metta Center is now mounting a very ambitious project with three deliverables which are now just about all here.

The first is the film that I mentioned, which is a 43-minute documentary with many of the nonviolent greats are interviewed in it. And we cover – there’s kind of three acts, if you will, to the doc. One is, you know, what is nonviolence. We have Bernard Lafayette saying that nonviolence is love and therefore it’s something that everybody can learn to do.

Secondly, how does it work? And a lot of the new science comes in here. Mirror neurons and other aspects of science. I’m going to say more about that in a second. And then the third part of the film is, “Okay, what can I do?” And there’s where we really delve into that third harmony of inner resourcefulness and resiliency and how we offer these five steps that come from our Roadmap project on how to develop that and make ourselves happier, have more meaning in our life, and make our most effective contribution to a nonviolent world.

So, let me say a little bit more about that new science that I talked about because there’s a complementarity between the film, The Third Harmony, Nonviolence in Human Nature, and the book which is entitled, similarly, The Third Harmony, Nonviolence and the New Story of Human Nature. Because it goes back to something that we discovered a long time ago, that people’s resistance to the idea of nonviolence was rooted in the fact that their worldview or their paradigm doesn’t really make it possible. You cannot understand from the worldview of a materialistic separate random universe how nonviolence would work.

So, at Metta, we began to feel that, well, you know, we need to change the paradigm. And then we discovered that the best way to change the paradigm is through acts and theory of nonviolence. So, these two things really kind of go together. And I imagine some genius will come along and figure out one word that will incorporate both – encompass both. But right now, the film is about nonviolence with an emphasis on the New Story.

The book is about the New Story with an emphasis on nonviolence. And it’s available at Berrett-Koehler. And of course, from us at Metta. And of course, if you must, from Amazon. But if you have a local bookstore still, do support it by going and asking them for The Third Harmony. And the third deliverable is a wonderful boardgame called, “Cosmic Peaceforce: Mission Harmony Three.” And Stephanie, you had a lot more to do with that boardgame than I did. So, I’m going to ask you to say a word about it.

Stephanie: Absolutely. It’s a cooperative boardgame that is created as a kind of a mini-training for nonviolence and the new story through experiential learning. And hopefully, we’ll be able to dedicate a whole show to the boardgame soon.

Michael: Okay. So, we are right now working on how to package these three wonderful tools to make them available. And as mentioned, the film will be screening – and of course, all of these film festivals are now virtual, so you do not have to go to Sedona, Arizona to see this film. But it is the opening film in the season for the Illuminate Festival starting on September 8th. Tickets for just this film are $15. Or you can buy series tickets for closer to $100. Then originally coming out of Orlando, Florida is the Global Peace Film Festival. That will happen on International Peace Day, September 21st.

And third in this particular lineup, but the way things are developing, I have a feeling there will be a lot more – but third in this particular lineup is the United Nations Association. This is their 33rd film festival. And that will be coming out of Stanford sometime in October. There will also be other screenings and events but start with Illuminate.

Stephanie: Nonviolence Radio is community supported radio program. We explore nonviolence and we broadcast from our mother station KWMR in Point Reyes station. And we’re syndicated via Audioport and we’re Pacifica’s network. And you can find archives of our show at the Metta Center website and subscribe via iTunes. And if you want to learn more about nonviolence, visit us at the MettaCenter.org. Until the next time everybody, take care of one another.

Transcription by Matthew Watrous.

Renowned activist Winona LaDuke reflects on the power of an earth-based economics in a moment on our planet that is known in indigenous circles as “the time of the seventh fire.” She asks the questions: What are you going to do right now to heal our relationships with life? And are you going to choose the path of regeneration or destruction? Her talk comes to us from the organization Slow Money. In part two of the show, we turn to the Nonviolence Report with Michael Nagler to hear how kids are defying their parents by wearing masks, basketball players are showing up in solidarity for Black lives, and a leader clinging to power and position for 25-years in Belarus is on his way out.

—

Stephanie: Welcome everybody to another episode of Nonviolence Radio. I’m your host, Stephanie Van Hook. On today’s show, we’ll hear from Winona LaDuke. Winona is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development, renewable energy in food systems, and she lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. She’s also a two-time vice-presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party.

This is a keynote address to the SOIL 2017 conference which was hosted by Slow Money. You can find them at SlowMoney.org. Let’s tune in now to Winona.

Winona: Hello. Nice to see you all. [Native dialect] Hello, my relatives. Very nice to see you here today. I wanted to say a couple of things as I got here. First, you know, the crazy times that there are in that we are in. There are hurricanes to the south of biblical proportion, you know? Fires to west of biblical proportion. Some orange-haired crazy man screaming at us from the east. [Laughter] Pretty much, right? [Cheering] Causing problems of biblical proportion. Is that right? And I’m not even a Christian. So, I was just like, “Wow,” you know?

So, the question is, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And I feel like that’s a little bit of this moment that we are in and what we are – what we are going to do here. We’re going to talk about that. I want to also acknowledge the Arapaho people from here, in their land [Oma-akeen], upon which we stand. So, as I thought about what to discuss here today. I want to talk about this time. And what I refer to is kind of this time. In our prophesies this is called, “The time of the Seventh Fire,” or the time that is told by – A long time ago our prophets told us this time would come. It’s known as the time of the Seventh Fire.

And in that time, we are told that we will have a choice between two paths or two [miignas]. And they say that one path will be well-worn, but it will be scorched. And the other path they say will not be well-worn and it will be green. And it would be our choice upon which path to embark. And that is what the Anishinaabe prophets told our people many, many, many years ago.

And what I would say is that I think that that is not just where we are as Anishinaabe people. I think that’s where we are as North America. I think that’s where we are as a world. It’s a question of where you going to go? What are you going to do? And what are you going to do in this very moment that we are in?

So, I’m going to tell you some stories about that. I’m going to talk about two economies. The scorched path economy, I’ve come to refer to as the Wendigo economy. The Wendigo economy, or the economy of a cannibal, one which destroys its mother. One which destroys every source of wealth upon which it would live. Or the economy of land-based indigenous peoples. And I’m going to talk about that this is the time to move ahead.

So, to begin with, let me say this is where I live. [Native dialect] Round Lake. I live in the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. A reservation of 47 lakes and 500 bodies of water. I’m very privileged to live in the same place that a lot of my great-great-great-greats lived. In our territory, this is this month here would be the month they would call, [Native dialect]. When leaves start changing and then the leaves start falling. [Native dialect] which follows it. Which would be a moon that would be called, “[Native dialect], the Freezing-over Moon.” And then we have a moon that follows, [Native dialect] and then [Native dialect]. And then we have a moon called, [Native dialect] which is the Sucker Moon. That’s around February.

And then we have a moon called, “[Native dialect].” That’s a hard, crusted snow moon around March. I think that’s about the same here. Where you get a thaw and a freeze and then a thaw and you get snow again. And so, it’s the hard crust comes on the snow. [Native dialect]. That’s what we call that. Also known as the moon you don’t want to do a face plant in the snow. [Laughter]

The moon that follows that is [Native dialect] which is the Maple Syruping Moon. [Native dialect], the Flower Moon. [Native dialect], the Strawberry Moon. That’s the moon in my territory. [Native dialect] is the Strawberry Moon. [Native dialect], the Blueberry Moon, the moon that follows that in the north country is the Blueberry Moon. And then perhaps, the moon we waited for for so long which is [Native dialect] the Wild Rice Making Moon.

Those are the moons of the Anishinaabe people. And I thought I would share those with you because those are very much about the land and the water and the life that you have been talking about today. Because we have an entire worldview and an entire time, this calendar that’s really based on the natural world.

I thought you might like to hear some of the names in some of my language. And then did you also notice that none of those moons is named after a Roman emperor? [Laughter] Did you all see that? Right? So, I just want to say it’s okay. You’ll be good without empire. Just let it go, okay? Just let it go. [Cheering] It’s like way too much work. And that is really a little bit of this time, this time when we have this opportunity to think where we’re going. And it’s possible that some of the, you know, paradigm which got us into this situation may not have the answers to get us out.

And so, it’s going to be important to be the people that have the courage to look into the paradigms that will save us all as we work together.

I kind of feel like that’s where we are, you know, no matter where we come from, we’re all in the same boat. And so, let us figure what kind of a future we can make for our children. But as I think about this, I think about let us make America – let’s talk about making America great again, right? [Laughter] And so, my idea of when America was great was when there was 8000 varieties of corn.

And all those corn varieties were developed for so many reasons and are so beautiful. And many of them still exist, but none of those were developed by guys from Monsanto, right? None of those were developed by guys with white suits on. Most of those varieties were actually collected and chosen by women. And women are the best at seed selection because we know not only how it grows, but we know how it saves and how it cooks. And so, that is why historically the best seed savers and a lot of the great seed, you know, collections and development has been by women. And so, I just want to acknowledge that’s when America was great, with great agro-biodiversity, great biodiversity. You know, 50 million buffalo. Single largest migratory herd in the world. That’s when America was great.

You know, you talk about the 28 million cattle in agriculture today that are, you know, in the same territory that once had 50 million buffalo and those buffalo did not require feedlots. Those buffalo knew how to live on prairie grass, the 250 species of prairie grass that existed there. Those buffalo knew how to live. [Laughter] And this is where we got to, right?

And I think that this is kind of the choices that have been made and the choices that should be made in this moment that we are in. So, as I think about now, I’m going to tell you a little bit of my story. This is my territory. I live in a place where I would say we have a pretty sustainable economy. So, you could harvest wild rice on the same lake for 10,000 years. That’s pretty good, huh? And all you have to do is take care of the lake. All you have to do is make sure that you do your prayers and your ceremonies because your lake is going to be good because you’re going to make sure nothing crazy gets into your lake.

And you go out there in the [Native dialect], the Wild Rice Making Moon, and you put your prayers out, and you take your two sticks, your rice knockers and your partner and your pole and your canoe. And you go head out there into the lakes that your ancestors have been on for 10,000 years. And you go push out into the middle of the lake and you smell that fall. You smell what it is to be like in the middle of a lake. And you knock that rice into your canoe, bring one stick over and knock it over like this. That’s how you get that rice in.

And you fill your canoe with wild rice. And then you bring your wild rice in and you bag it up and you parch it over a fire. This is so old, our rice.

This is cosmo-geneology. That’s a painting of some of our magical beings that are spirit beings ricing. That is how long our economy is of this territory. That is how long our economy is and our understanding of wild rice. So, that is my territory.

I’m going to tell you the story of my territory and our little battle and our battle where it is now and our battle where we are going. So, this is our battle. I live in a place where there is no oil. I live in northern Minnesota and there are six big oil pipelines that cross our territory. Those pipelines are by Enbridge Corporation. They are the mainline corridor. They go through that north – along what’s known as Highway 2 because they’re all headed to Superior, which is not only the furthest inland port, the object of desire of many corporations. But it is also how you get into Wisconsin. And you get to Kalamazoo and the Straits of Mackinaw.

Those pipelines that people talk about, they come through us first to get there. And so, there are six old pipelines that have gone through there. And about five years ago a corporation named Enbridge announced that it wanted to bust a whole new corridor that went to the south through my reservation, the White Earth Reservation. Through new territory, some of our best wild rice lakes. And what they were going to is bring a 640,000 barrel per day fracked oil pipeline out of North Dakota. And they were going to bring that pipeline to Superior, and they absolutely had that route.

And the Enbridge Corporation is a Canadian corporation. It’s the single largest pipeline corporation in the world. And what they wanted to do, is that. And so, we said, “No.” We said, “We don’t really think that’s going to work out for us.” And so, we started a resistance, you know. But they had gotten a lot what they wanted in Canada because as nice as we can all say Canada is, it’s a petro state. 90% of their economy is based on their petrodollar and all their heavy extraction. And don’t forget that 75% of the world’s mining corporations are Canadian. The Canadian economy is not nice to anybody. The Canadian economy is lethal to the environment of the world.

And so, they’re coming towards us with this pipeline. And, you know, I said to Enbridge, I said, “That’s not going to work.” I said, “I know you ran over a lot of those reservations up north with 300 people on them and they live out there in the bush with diesel generators and you went right through their reserves.” I said, “We’re not those people. We have 22,000 members in my tribe. We have six big reservations. There’s seven big reservations, but six big reservations in the north. Many of them would be impacted by this pipeline.” I said, “And we’re not going to let you do it.”

And so, we started to fight, you know. And we worked with a lot of local people and a lot of non-Indians got involved. And MM350 got involved. And my friend Miriam Moore got involved. And a group called, “Friends of the Headwaters,” came out and it was a multi-racial alliance was built to fight this pipeline. And Friends of the Headwaters filed a lawsuit which forced an EIS, an Environmental Impact Statement on the pipeline because the State of Minnesota, not thinking about infrastructure, since actually the country doesn’t think about infrastructure – because we have a D in infrastructure. We would be thinking about an infrastructure if we, you know, would move on beyond that.

They were just planning to let it go ahead. And they were court ordered by the Minnesota court to complete an Environmental Impact Statement on that pipeline. And our resistance continued, and we prayed, and we rode our horses. And the lawsuit forced the EIS. And the Enbridge corporation became discouraged. And last year on August 2nd, the Enbridge Corporation announced the cancelation of the Sandpiper Pipeline. [Applause]

So, I want to tell you that it is possible to defeat a large oil pipeline. It is possible, but it is a lot of work, but you have to stay on it. But it is our water. It is our land. It does not belong to corporations. And I think you all know that. That’s why you’re all here.

So, then what happened is the thing that sleazy corporations do, is the Enbridge Corporation took $2.8 billion and invested it in a corporation called, “The Dakota Access Pipeline.” And they went and bankrolled, then Energy Transfer partners, which was not on the best financial terms, to make sure that they could finish that pipeline out there in North Dakota. And so, our people followed them out there, as did many of you. I know that a lot of you went to Standing Rock. How many of you went to Standing Rock? Thank you for going out there. Give them a hand. Give them a hand. And thank all of you for supporting us out there. Thank all of you for supporting the organizations out there and for supporting the people on the ground, any of your family that are water protectors – because we’re all water protectors.

So, this is what we found out there – and you know what we saw out there because a lot of you went out there and a lot of you were not watching Fox News. You actually saw what happened out there. And you know we took a lot of hits, you know? And the questions of should a corporation have more rights than the people? Is a corporation for civil society at this point where you’re in this era of the End the Fossil Fuel Era, where the fossil fuel corporations are thrashing to keep their pipelines?

And so, you know, you get a state like North Dakota, which we refer to as, “The Deep North.” That’s what we call that state. And I guess you all figured out why, huh? When they start doing that to our people and they think it’s okay, you know? And then things happen like this in North Dakota which happens everywhere, but this is when they take this equipment – this peace of equipment here is called, “The MRAP,” the Mine Resistant Armored Personnel carrier. And that’s intended to drive through buildings.

And that piece of equipment belongs to Stutsman County, as you can see on the side. And that piece of equipment was surplussed by the military to civilian police forces. And that is something that Obama stopped, but then Mr. Trump just rebooted, right? The is a piece of equipment that a civilian police force in North Dakota should not have, right?

That second piece of equipment there is called an LRAD which is intended to blow out your ear drums. That’s what was used on a lot of our people out there. Very, very violent, violent times and very violent battle over that pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline. A lot of our people were hurt. This is our camp in the winter. This is our camp when we left it. This is our camp when we left it. It was a brutal, brutal battle.

And I want to say that that was a brutal battle and a lot of us took a lot of hits. A lot of people were arrested. 840 people were arrested. A lot of us were injured. A lot of legal cases. And you know, police follow us and stay with your water protectors to make sure that they get justice. Stay with your water protectors and stay with this on our movement against these pipelines.

One of the things that was left there was this. This is the only thing that was left there out at Standing Rock. And this is at Ladona’s land, and this is Charles Rencountre’s art. And this is a peace called – it’s facing the Missouri, as you can see. And it’s a piece of art. It was an effigy pipe. I don’t know if anybody knows what an effigy pipe is. It’s like old school. So, this little dude was sitting on a pipe that you would smoke with your tobacco, right? You following me now?

So, he would be looking at the bowl, right? And the pipe had a name because the pipe was so powerful. And the pipe was called, “Not Afraid to Look at White Man.” Is that cool or badass or what, huh? [Laughter] So, this guy, Charles Rencountre decided he should make a statue called, “Not Afraid to Look.” And that statue, one version of it is at the Institute for American Indian Art. It’s the original. It’s at the American – Institute for American Indian Art’s Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And the second, the only other piece is here. And it’s still the only thing remaining in the camp at Standing Rock. It’s Not Afraid to Look.

So, I’m kind of proud of that. Kind of proud of that moment. So, I’m going to talk about the economy we’re going to build. And what I want to say is something that you all know because you’re all super smart. Which is, you know, there’s a few things. Like the guy to the east is a complete – completely dangerous idiot, right? This is my belief. My belief is that they took the political system, but they did not take the economic system. And so, what we’re going to do is we’re going to take – we’re going to retake control of the economic system through re-localizing it and through transforming it. So, let’s talk about how we’re going to do that, okay?

So, we’re going to grow our local food, but we’re also going to grow food that is specifically great for climate change, right? So, I tell you this because this variety of corn I grow here is called, “Bear Island Flint.” It’s a variety that came out of Bear Island, an island in the middle of the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota. It’s a hominy corn, pozole. Does this mean something to y’all? See, you guys are all farmers. It’s like so easy to talk to you, right? Okay, and this is what I grow. I’m a farmer too.

But so, we grow this variety and it’s about 90 days or 80 days. It’s a good – but it’s drought resistant. It’s frost resistant, and it’s – when the big winds came through, it’s standability is very good. It blew over Monsanto’s varieties, but my variety stood. So, my suggestion is – and then it’s got twice the protein and half the calories, right? So, grow for climate change.

The other thing about it is that this kind of corn – and you know, I got some other things we could talk about, but I know you were talking about like squash. Like you want low carbon foods too. Like don’t grow stuff that you got to do all kind of like crazy stuff to to keep. Keep some of your stuff simple, right? So, that hominy corn, it keeps good. You just keep it closed up. It like our wild rice. Keep for, you know, years. Just keep it good so it keeps dry. It’s a low carbon food.

So, think as we change and reduce the carbon impact and the footprint of each of our communities, you know, where we’re going to go. And these are all only grown with love and locally. You know, and I have to always say when I talk about this is that when I was a young woman at Harvard, my father had about an 8th grade education. You know, real smart, smart native man – really, a smart native man. And he was known as Sun Bear. Some of you may have known him. He’s known as Sun Bear. Vincent LaDuke was his legal name at White Earth.

You know, he came to see me one day and he said, “Winona, you’re a really smart young woman, but I don’t want to hear your philosophy if you can’t grow corn.” [Laughter] And so, that’s when I became a corn grower, you know. But anyone who grows knows that plants teach you. Plants teach you.

And first I thought I kind of failed when I grew mine out because it was so short. And then I met this – my good friend here, Frank [Kutka] and, you know, that’s how small his corn grew, right? But all it had to do was put on the ear, right? It doesn’t have to be all fancy and it doesn’t have to be all flamboyant. If you’re in the middle of North Dakota, that’s about what you want your corn to look like if it’s going to hang out, right? So, think about these things when we’re growing, growing that cool way.

A lot of you are already talking about this. You’re the Slow Money people. We’re going to divest from dumb stuff and we’re going to move to just cool stuff, right? That’s like the simple thing. You know, I’ve been doing some work on the divestment campaigns, particularly we just did have BMP announced that they are not going to invest in Enbridge.

So, we’re on our next round of pipeline battles on this new pipeline that we’re facing. A 915,000 barrel a day tar sands pipeline. I’m going to talk about that in a minute. We’re going to divest and we’re going to divest for other reasons like this. And I like to show this slide because a lot of you are – it’s money people. I’m an economist by training, but you know, I was looking at this chart and I was like, “Man, those guys are dumb.”

You know, so if you look at this, in 2011, these guys – they’re pretty smart guys, right? Exxon, Chevron, and Conoco Phillips, they had $80.4 billion in net income in 2011. And here in 2016, these guys was down to $3.7 billion in net income. The top three U.S. oil companies, you know. I feel like that they missed a memo. Do you feel like that they missed like a memo or something? You understand what I’m saying?

I’m like – and if I was the CEO of Exxon and I went from 40.1 billion in net income down to 2.7 billion in net income in 5 years, you know, I don’t think I have my job anymore. No. No. But I would have got hired by the smartest guy in the world, you know, because I would be Rex Tillerson. [Laughter] And now I would be the new Secretary of State, right? So, what I’m saying is, this is like these guys act like they’ve got this all. But just look at this, you know, from outside it don’t look like they’ve got this. [Laughter] You following me on my thinking on this?

Talking about the emperor’s clothes and stuff like that because like they don’t really have a good plan. And, you know, we can see that. It’s so funny to watch Mr. Trump with his fabulous ideas. Like, “Now I’m going to do this. Now I’m going to do this. Now I’m going to do this.” And like the best example is some of these pipeline examples because between him and Trudeau, they were like all happy. They approved all these tar sands pipelines, right?

Well, have you watched this at all? So, like last week, Energy East, the 1100-mile pipeline in Canada, the largest pipeline in Canada, Energy East, going to New Brunswick, it got canceled. It got canceled because there’s not enough oil in the tar sands and because the economics are not good, and they’re having a few problems with deregulation. The Transmountain Pipeline, Kinder Morgan Pipeline has, I think, like 11 lawsuits. The Province of British Columbia is suing them, not likely. Not likely that they’re going to be going too far.

A lot of people said since TransCanada canned that Energy East – because that’s the same corporation as Keystone, right? Remember how that guy out east with the orange hair who screams was like, “I’m going to make Keystone.” Remember that? Y’all remember that? We’re going to have Keystone. We’re going to make up things that are going to happen, you know? And then you look at that and they ain’t going to make Keystone. Do you know why they’re not going to have the Keystone Pipeline? Because they don’t have any shippers.

To have a pipeline you have to have shippers. Then they got that problem in Nebraska, besides. But what I’m saying is, is that they have spent billions of dollars on stupid ideas, you know? And so, you know, I’m someone – I’m like a big fan of infrastructure. I’m not actually opposed to pipes. I like water and sewer. How are you feeling? Are you thinking water and sewer is good? You know, I’m like – so, I’m like, for instance, in northern Minnesota we have 300 miles of pipes sitting in piles for a pipeline that is never going to be built.

And you know what I say to the Enbridge Corporation? I say, “Send those pipes to Flint.” [Cheers] You know what I mean? It’s time to invest in infrastructure that makes sense for people and for the planet. Not for some oil companies. And so, I’m saying like this is our moment. But in the meantime, the last pipeline battle, the last pipeline battle, there’s only one pipeline left out of those four. And that was a pipeline called Line 3 that they are trying to bring to Minnesota right now. Enbridge Corporation, same route, the same bad plan, barrelling towards us, permitted in Canada. Of course, permitted in Wisconsin, right? Barrelling towards us.

But you know what? There are water protectors camped. There are water protectors camped. Nobody in Minnesota wants that pipeline. We didn’t want it the last time. We did not want it the last time. And we do not intend to let them into our territory. And so, and what I want to say is that three weeks ago the State of Minnesota, Department of Commerce issued a note, issued a recommendation, an initial recommendation that the permit not be granted for that pipeline. [Applause] And we don’t know if that’s going to hold because, you know, they’re pretty slick – those oil company guys.

So, the last thing I want to say is that if you did not get a chance to get arrested at Standing Rock, please come to Minnesota in the spring. Okay? [Cheers and applause]

I guarantee – I guarantee this is the last big pipeline battle. This is the last big pipeline battle because it is the last tar sands pipeline they are going to be able to try to build and they are not going to build it. So, please stand with us.

So, while we fight them off with their stupid ideas, we’re going to build the next economy. Now, this is what we renewables looks like. And it turns out Indian reservations are the windiest place in the world. No idea how that worked out, but we’re really windy. We would just like to hook up to all that old dirty coal. We would like to not have Excel own all of it. We’d like to own some of the wind on the wires.

And this is a map by my good friend, Bob Goff who just passed away. And I just want to put it up there in his honor. But he’s a board member of Honor the Earth and a great man. And this is what the work that we’re all doing is to put renewables in a lot of tribal communities. This is the first offshore wind project in the United States. I don’t know if any of you have been watching this, right? Deep water wind. We’re going to need to do it at different scales. We’re going to need to do large scale and we’re going to need to do community. We’re going to need to own as much of it as we can. But we’re going to need to move it on out. That’s what we’re going to need to do. We’re going to need to be courageous with wind. We’re going to need to be courageous with solar.

And this the future of what it looks like. That’s the memo that those guys missed. The divestment in fossil fuel, the investment – the future in renewables. This is – you know, people say you can’t meet present energy demand by renewables. And I always say, “Why would you want to try?” I mean if 57% of your power is wasted between point of origin and point of consumption – right? Inefficient systems, stupid, stupid things, you know? Powerplants that are like – in northern Minnesota, they’re like 80-year-old powerplant. I’m like, “Come on.” You know what I’m saying? Like why would you want to reboot a system that inefficient? You would want to be the people that move on. That would be us.

And how I know this is all going to happen is because of that.

—

Stephanie: I’m here with Michael Nagler and he is going to fill us in on the Nonviolence Report, all the nonviolence in the news that is now reported or underreported and that you would like to more about. Michael, tell us what’s going on.

Michael: Thank you Stephanie. Yes, I’ll be happy to do that. One thing is that TESA, the Tesa collective, which is the people who are helping us bring out our board game have revised their, quote, “Guide to the collective movement.” It’s on their website. And all of their games and resources are on sale now because of the pandemic, but this is an interesting aspect of the nonviolence movement, is collectives. And they’re going to tell you how to do it.

There’s also a new article out called, “Conflict Resolution and Nonviolence Bibliography.” That’s by Patrick O’Donnell. And there’s so much going on. But I want to mention that the U.N. is designing a roadmap to the future we want. That’s part of their global governance forum. And I think anybody can register to attend. And last but not least, the Illuminate Film Festival will open on September 8th with our film, “The Third Harmony.” And then that will be followed by the Global Peace Film Festival on September 21st. And sometime in October, the United Nations Association Film Festival. So, there’s some of the resources – and really, just only a sampling of everything that you can check in on.

And now for some of the news. Closest to home of today’s accounts, I guess, is that in Milwaukee, the team – I’m sorry folks, I don’t even know what sport we’re exactly talking about. But the Milwaukee Bucks had a playoff game today and they are boycotting it as a protest against the police shooting of Jacob Blake. And other teams are considering joining them. And this constitutes a real escalation, probably started by Colin Kaepernick of bringing sports out of the pretend neutrality.

Sports are really – I coined this mantrum or metta motto recently, “All play is rehearsal.” The extreme competitiveness of sports, and they do not have to be played that way, is a reflection of what we think should be going on in business and other aspects of our society. So, just as the universities are not trying to drop the pretense that they have nothing to do with politicized external events, it seems to be happening in sports too.

And you know, there are pluses and minuses to this kind of development. But we should talk about that later. I wanted to say something about one of the most dramatic insurrectionary movements that’s going on in the world today, and that is in Belarus, this country on the western border of the Soviet Union, Russia. And they have been in insurrection against Lukashenko who has been in power for 26 years. And this was triggered, as things are frequently triggered, by an election which is widely considered to be rigged.

According to one poll, Lukashenko’s popularity was running at 3%. That’s the lowest I’ve ever heard of. And yet, he claimed to have swept the election. And so, people are in protest. The police repression has been quite serious. There’s a very informative blog that our friend Maciej has brought out. It’s in the ICNC, International Center for Nonviolent Conflict website. And he knows that part of the world very well, Maciej Bartkowski. And an interesting development here is that when two of the opposition candidates were respectively arrested and basically driven out of the country, their wives stepped up.

And now there’s a female triumvirate which is galvanizing thousands of Belarusians across the whole country. They have social media postings about their rallies are going viral. And there’s a tremendous enthusiasm that has not been seen in the country since it’s independence in 1991. So, I’m quoting now from another article. People’s response to an ugly and boring dictatorship is a beautiful humorous and carnival-like campaign.

Now, I want to comment on that. As we know, humor and beauty and fun can be extremely important forces within movement of people who are disenfranchised and in a disadvantageous position in terms of power. So, that’s a positive. And so, we have now two positives – the entry of women and the tone. As we know from Daniel Hunter, tone is important. So, the tone is very good.

Another good positive sign is that there are signs of defection from the police and security forces. This is Gene Sharp’s recognition that the pillars of support have to be withdrawn from an authoritarian ruler in order to overthrow him in most cases. But what I find not so positive is the movement is relying on mockery of Lukashenko. And in nonviolence, you never want to degrade a fellow human being. You never want to succumb to the temptation to use mockery or disrespect to diminish the power that the opponent has over you because that stuff backfires.

And just as we say, “A threat to justice anywhere hinders justice everywhere.” It’s the same with dignity. Human dignity everywhere is a unified field. When you degrade another person, you are degrading that whole field including yourself. So, but that’s the one negative that I see in this extremely interesting latest case of a nonviolent insurrection, the kind of thing that Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stefan studied in such detail.

And then Maciej goes on to list three things that the movement should do – this was a while back that he wrote this blog. And two of them are, quote, “Maintaining high levels of nonviolent discipline. Even if repression increases – which it has. And quote, “Developing resistance strategies for what comes after the expected rigged elections.”

I thought that was an interesting note for us to pay attention to because not just the nonviolence world, but almost the entire socially conscious world right now is quite concerned what will happen in this country in November.

So, I would like to move onto other things. There is a federal prosecutor named Kelly Zusman who has been listening to the demands of many demonstrators, demands to defund or abolish the police, which I always said is unrealistic. We’ve put them there to do a job. If we throw them out, who does the job? So, one response has been to increase trainings and do a lot more with restorative justice. Another very successful has been to send out a social worker for calls that do not involve violence. That is a large proportion of the calls that police get, are for various social problems, not for crimes. So, they’re the right people for that job.

And her approach, Zusman’s approach was to create a scholarship to encourage students of color to pursue criminal justice. And this is going on. And to pursue it actually as a major at Portland Community College. That will also be helpful.

Now there’s a group of kids at Enterprise High School in Enterprise, Utah. You may not have been very familiar with that town. It’s got a population that’s a little less than 2000. But last week they got a bunch of messages on Facebook calling for their parents to send the kids to school in defiance of the statewide mask mandate to teach those socialist tyrants in Salt Lake City and meaning of liberty.

This is really quite a disturbing phenomenon, that people are looking at perfectly reasonable health care motives as a kind of deprivation of their, quote, “Sacred liberty.” So, the kids instead responded by networking with each other to make sure that they all wore masks to school. And that happened just recently.

They did not want to have another school shutdown like they had to have before. And now, a senior by the name of Dali Cobb who had to sacrifice part of her season in track and field last year because as part of the cheering squad she didn’t want to see that happen again. So, before Saturdays’ football game, in front of a lineup of players and cheerleaders wearing masks, incidentally, she called on adults to please not mess up another school year.

There’s a very interesting article available now online in Scientific American. And it is called, “GDP is the wrong tool for measuring what matters.” Quote, “It’s time to replace the gross domestic product with real metrics of wellbeing and sustainability.” And you may remember about a decade back, the King of Bhutan creating an alternative for the gross national product, he said his GNP, his measure would be Gross National Happiness – GNH.

So, this is actually a quite important trend where economics is not kind of – I’m going to use the word mindlessly focused on numbers and money and much more interested in what really matters to human beings. Do they have meaning in their life? Are they happy? And there are ways that that can be measured in addition to, of course, anecdotal ways of just asking folks, “Hey, how you doing?”

Now, one of the great sources of news, nonviolence news that I rely on and I always like to recommend is Nonviolence News. And so, I want to share with you just a couple of samples from recent postings of Rivera Sun’s Nonviolence News website. One headline is, “Struggles for justice anywhere are connected to struggles for justice everywhere.” And I’m sure you get that reference because I just quoted that line of Martin Luther King.

And she shares many examples of how movement participants are borrowing tactics and ideas from one another. For example, in Portland, citizens who were bracing for an alt-right rally used a tactic that they copied from a little town, Wunseidel in Germany. It now has a name. It’s called, “An involuntary walk-a-thon,” where the more people show up, the more you contribute to something else.

So, this group in Portland raised $30,000 from immigrant rights groups by getting people to pledge to donate for every alt-right protester who appeared. I’ve always liked that kind of way of turning the tables on people. In Wunseidel it was used against a neo-fascist group. Let me give you a couple more examples and then make a comment.

So, as we are all aware, the pro-democracy movement is going on in Hong Kong and they acknowledge the Baltic protest of 1989 as an inspiration. And they created a 28-mile human chain. If you remember, there was a Baltic nation states at that time were suing for freedom from the Soviet Union and they created an enormous chain. I think I’m starting to remember. There was about million people who were involved. It went clean across the territory.

And finally, closer to home, here in the Bay Area of California, three communities are starting to follow Berkeley’s lead on banning natural gas infrastructure in new construction. All of this is very important to my way of thinking because I’ve been saying for quite a while that one of the things that the nonviolence movement as a whole needs to learn how to do is how to learn from past experiences.

And that has expanded tremendously within about the last 20 years. As I’ve sometimes mentioned, there’s even a group or an organization called, “CANVAS.” The Committee on Nonviolent Actions and Strategies.” That’s approximately what that stands for – to take the successful uprising in Serbia, that Otpor! Uprising of 2000 and literally go around the world helping people who have similar uprisings. I wouldn’t be too surprised if they’re in Belarus right now.

Now here’s a few things that were on Nonviolence News last week. So, in New Zealand as you know, there was a Christchurch New Zealand massacre at a mosque in which 51 people were killed and numerous others injured. And a number of things have come out of that. One of them is a weapon’s buyback. And 10,000 weapons have been turned in after that massacre. That is a really encouraging sign.

Then in Brazil, once again, it’s women – indigenous women who have occupied a building to protest the far-right policies of the Bolsonaro government. But the Piece de Resistance, Rivera says – and I agree – is something going on in Ireland. In Belfast, Ireland, shipyard workers for two weeks now – and it must still be going on. That was a week ago – are occupying the site. You may have seen a notice of this. They’re occupying the site that built the Titanic back then. There’s 130 of them. These 130 workers are refusing to leave until the U.K. nationalizes the facilities which are currently being held by an insolvent foreign company that were just planning to close them down.

So, they want them nationalized and here’s the real payoff, converted to producing renewable energy and green infrastructure. So, that would be a terrific example of taking something that’s harmful or neutral and converting it into something that the world desperately needs. And this being done by the workers, being done from the ground up.

Lucas Aerospace was a company in the U.K. that was producing – I’m going back now about 20-25 years. They were producing the majority of the weapons in the U.K. And the workers kind of took charge of the place and decided just plain not to do that anymore. Like the workers in the Mondragon cooperatives in Spain. And that they would produce instead of machine guns, baby carriages. Instead of tanks, tractors and so on and so forth.

So, there is hope coming from every corner of the world if we learn how to recognize it. So, that is a few – a sampling of some of the things that are going on in our world that are of a nonviolent nature.

Another one, a phenomenon that has really been expanding in a very encouraging way is the offering of trainings. And now a Catholic priest, Father Harry Bury who was the founder of Twin Cities Nonviolent. And incidentally, that is a URL, one word. TwinCitiesNonviolent.org. He has teamed up with, of course, our good friend Mel Duncan from Nonviolent Peaceforce to get NP to offer two days of training – that will be Saturday and Sunday, 9/11 – due note – 9/11 to 9/12.

And the cost for this is a whopping $20. But this is a very healthy response which is affecting police departments and large numbers of people all around the country, to our knowledge, or D.C. Peace Teams is playing a major role. A lot of it being coordinated by the Shanti Sena network that is headed up by Meta Peace Teams – M-E-T-A in this case. And people that is prepared to deal with violence in any form will be just much better to go forward with courage in the future.

And as we know from the example in Belarus – and I’m now quoting from one Yury Glushakov who wrote this in Open Democracy and Waging Nonviolence. His article was called, “Belarus will never be the same.” One of the things that creates that magical turn-around where people can no longer be dominated by an authoritarian regime is their ability to get over their fear.

Once that happens, the regime really doesn’t have much of a handle on them. So, things can still be very painful and very awkward. And it still does require a lot of training and strategizing.

So, that is basically my roundup for today. I mentioned the ICNC. I’ve mentioned Nonviolence News. There’s also a site called, “Popular Resistance.” And if you look at something called, “GoodNewsNetwork.org.” That’s again lowercase, all one word – goodnewsnetwork.org – you will find here and there things that are really of nonviolence import and a lot of stuff on the environment.

So, that is pretty much the roundup for this week’s episode and Stephanie, back to you.

Stephanie: Thanks so much, Michael. Can you please tell us more about The Third Harmony and this film festival and what The Third Harmony is and means?

Michael: I thought you’d never ask. No, of course I’d be happy. I’d be happy to do that. So, to start with what The Third Harmony is, it’s a model that we’ve modified from ancient Indian sources, from Shankara, who says that you have to be able to establish – if you really want to live in peace, you have to be able to establish three harmonies. First, harmony with the world – with the planet. Second, harmony with their fellow beings – especially human beings, but not only. And thirdly and most importantly, harmony within.

And in fact, the other two harmonies flow from the ability to establish harmony within. So, that’s the third harmony. But it probably is first in causality and first in importance. So, that Metta Center is now mounting a very ambitious project with three deliverables which are now just about all here.

The first is the film that I mentioned, which is a 43-minute documentary with many of the nonviolent greats are interviewed in it. And we cover – there’s kind of three acts, if you will, to the doc. One is, you know, what is nonviolence. We have Bernard Lafayette saying that nonviolence is love and therefore it’s something that everybody can learn to do.

Secondly, how does it work? And a lot of the new science comes in here. Mirror neurons and other aspects of science. I’m going to say more about that in a second. And then the third part of the film is, “Okay, what can I do?” And there’s where we really delve into that third harmony of inner resourcefulness and resiliency and how we offer these five steps that come from our Roadmap project on how to develop that and make ourselves happier, have more meaning in our life, and make our most effective contribution to a nonviolent world.

So, let me say a little bit more about that new science that I talked about because there’s a complementarity between the film, The Third Harmony, Nonviolence in Human Nature, and the book which is entitled, similarly, The Third Harmony, Nonviolence and the New Story of Human Nature. Because it goes back to something that we discovered a long time ago, that people’s resistance to the idea of nonviolence was rooted in the fact that their worldview or their paradigm doesn’t really make it possible. You cannot understand from the worldview of a materialistic separate random universe how nonviolence would work.

So, at Metta, we began to feel that, well, you know, we need to change the paradigm. And then we discovered that the best way to change the paradigm is through acts and theory of nonviolence. So, these two things really kind of go together. And I imagine some genius will come along and figure out one word that will incorporate both – encompass both. But right now, the film is about nonviolence with an emphasis on the New Story.

The book is about the New Story with an emphasis on nonviolence. And it’s available at Berrett-Koehler. And of course, from us at Metta. And of course, if you must, from Amazon. But if you have a local bookstore still, do support it by going and asking them for The Third Harmony. And the third deliverable is a wonderful boardgame called, “Cosmic Peaceforce: Mission Harmony Three.” And Stephanie, you had a lot more to do with that boardgame than I did. So, I’m going to ask you to say a word about it.

Stephanie: Absolutely. It’s a cooperative boardgame that is created as a kind of a mini-training for nonviolence and the new story through experiential learning. And hopefully, we’ll be able to dedicate a whole show to the boardgame soon.

Michael: Okay. So, we are right now working on how to package these three wonderful tools to make them available. And as mentioned, the film will be screening – and of course, all of these film festivals are now virtual, so you do not have to go to Sedona, Arizona to see this film. But it is the opening film in the season for the Illuminate Festival starting on September 8th. Tickets for just this film are $15. Or you can buy series tickets for closer to $100. Then originally coming out of Orlando, Florida is the Global Peace Film Festival. That will happen on International Peace Day, September 21st.

And third in this particular lineup, but the way things are developing, I have a feeling there will be a lot more – but third in this particular lineup is the United Nations Association. This is their 33rd film festival. And that will be coming out of Stanford sometime in October. There will also be other screenings and events but start with Illuminate.

Stephanie: Nonviolence Radio is community supported radio program. We explore nonviolence and we broadcast from our mother station KWMR in Point Reyes station. And we’re syndicated via Audioport and we’re Pacifica’s network. And you can find archives of our show at the Metta Center website and subscribe via iTunes. And if you want to learn more about nonviolence, visit us at the MettaCenter.org. Until the next time everybody, take care of one another.

Transcription by Matthew Watrous.

Why Pipelines Are Becoming Bad Business for the US Oil Industry

Why Pipelines Are Becoming Bad Business for the US Oil Industry

By Daniel Litwin - August 11, 2020

Why Pipelines Are Becoming Bad Business for the US Oil Industry | MarketScale

With several major pipelines in the United States having been halted, including the Keystone Pipeline and Dakota Access Pipeline, many are wondering what these changes mean for the future of the US oil industry. Winona LaDuke, Co-Founder of Honor the Earth and former Green Party vice president candidate of Ralph Nader provided expert insight into this topic.

According to LaDuke, there’s been a fleeing of industries from pipelines. “Pipelines are a risky business, you know? And just to be clear, like to me, this is really not just a pipeline question. It’s a question of infrastructure,” LaDuke said.

She emphasized that pipes are a necessity, but not for oil companies, “We do need pipes, we do need pipes, but we need pipes that are like water and sewer pipes. We don’t need pipes for oil companies. And so it’s a question of, you know, how are you going to spend your infrastructure money?”

For LaDuke, green energy is the best path forward for the industry. “It’s the end of an era. So anything you’re going to try to put in is going to be pretty much a last [ditch] effort. And the cost overruns of every project, you know, for the fantasy of a pipeline has been so egregious,” LaDuke noted.

LaDuke is optimistic that green energy will provide job opportunities, which is especially valuable in light of recent events. “One of the many things taught to us by the COVID pandemic is that we make everything in China,” she explained. LaDuke believes we need to make renewable energy in the US instead of importing parts from other countries. “We need to rebuild an industrial sector in this country. That makes sense. And that’s what the new green revolution is. That’s the one I’m part of.”

Intelligent and idealistic, Winona LaDuke turns to hemp farming, solar power to jump-start the 'next economy'

“Hemp can do almost everything petroleum can do,” Winona LaDuke said, “including replacing some cotton and plastics.” Photo by Sarah LittleRedfeather Design

Intelligent and idealistic, Winona LaDuke turns to hemp farming, solar power to jump-start the 'next economy'

By Dave Hage

"I wanted to have goats, too, but the kids sort of drew the line at that," she laughs. "I'd say the jury is still out on goats."

You may remember Winona LaDuke as Ralph Nader’s running mate on the Green Party ticket in 1996 and 2000 or, more recently, as a leader of oil pipeline protests at Standing Rock. But a more typical day finds the 60-year-old Anishinaabe activist at home on her farm near Callaway, Minn., on the White Earth Indian Reservation, riding one of her 22 horses, tending a garden of heritage vegetables and doing chores with her grandchildren.

“I could spend all my time fighting,” she says. “But, you know, we need to eat. If someone doesn’t grow and make good foods, the rest doesn’t matter.”

As it happens, the farm is home to the latest project in LaDuke’s ever-expanding portfolio of progressive initiatives. This one is a small acreage of industrial hemp that, she hopes, will start America thinking about “the next economy” and what she calls the Indigenous Green New Deal.

LaDuke’s path to White Earth was not preordained. She was born in Southern California, grew up in Oregon and attended college in New England. Her mother, Betty LaDuke, was an artist and art teacher who came from a politically active Jewish family in the Bronx. Her father, Vincent LaDuke, was a tribal activist and Hollywood extra who had grown up in the White Earth Nation.

LaDuke plunged into Native American activism while an undergraduate at Harvard and, after earning a master’s degree at MIT, took a job as a school principal on the White Earth Reservation. Before long, her work on behalf of Indigenous women’s rights and tribal land rights began drawing national attention. In 1988 she won a $20,000 Reebok Human Rights Award and established the White Earth Land Recovery Project to buy

reservation land back from nontribal owners. (At White Earth, like most reservations across the country, huge amounts of the land is owned by non-Indians.) In 1993, she produced the first of several national tours with the folk-rock duo Indigo Girls to raise money for Honor the Earth, a nonprofit that promotes Native American cultural and environmental values.

In conversation, LaDuke brings a scathing intelligence to the topics that trouble her — the fossil fuel industry, the abrogation of treaty rights, weak-willed government regulators. But she punctuates most observations with a trenchant joke, and her mind inevitably drifts back to solutions, new ideas and the people who are close to her.

Campaigning for vice president in 2000, she told a reporter that her politics were shaped by being a mother — she was breast-feeding her infant son while on the road — and family never seems far from her thoughts. She is a widow today but her six children — three biological and three adopted — are mostly nearby, and she seems intent on passing along the values she inherited from her own parents. When raising the children, for example, she says she always aimed to be 50% self-sufficient in the family diet.

“I wanted to have goats, too, but the kids sort of drew the line at that,” she laughs. “I’d say the jury is still out on goats.”

Danny Schechter Award for Journalism and Activism Goes to Winona LaDuke

Winona LaDuke, executive director of Honor the Earth, spoke to around 45 people during a Honor the Earth rally at the 121 7th Place East building in July of 2014. (Photo: Bruce Bisping/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

Published on Monday, June 15, 2020

by Common Dreams

Danny Schechter Award for Journalism and Activism Goes to Winona LaDuke

The Global Center, a non-profit educational foundation dedicated to developing socially responsible media, is proud to announce Native American leader Winona LaDuke as the recipient of the fifth annual DANNY Award, which honors the life and work of the late Danny "The News Dissector" Schechter.

by Rory O'Connor

Winona LaDuke, executive director of Honor the Earth, spoke to aroung 45 people during a Honor the Earth rally at the 121 7th Place East building in July of 2014. (Photo: Bruce Bisping/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

“With the country in turmoil over racial injustice, a public health crisis and devastating job losses, it should be no surprise that journalists are caught up in the tumult,” Washington Post media writer Margaret Sullivan recently noted in a column headlined “What’s a journalist supposed to be now—an activist? A stenographer? You’re asking the wrong question.” To Sullivan the “core question” is this: “What journalism best serves the real interests of American citizens?”

New York Times media writer Ben Smith also weighed in.  America’s “biggest newsrooms are trying to find common ground between a tradition that aims to persuade the widest possible audience that its reporting is neutral and journalists who believe that fairness on issues from race to Donald Trump requires clear moral calls,” Smith noted, before declaring that this “shift in mainstream American media—driven by a journalism that is more personal, and reporters more willing to speak what they see as the truth without worrying about alienating conservatives—now feels irreversible.”

It wasn’t always this way…

Decades ago, pioneering journalists like Danny Schechter took a stance toward such then-controversial topics as apartheid in South Africa and human rights abuses around the world. It led to his being branded with a metaphoric scarlet letter—“A” for Advocate. As one of the first to marry the two, Schechter often faced scorn for combining journalistic endeavors with advocacy and activism in support of causes for the social good. While at CNN and later ABC News, he pushed against the constraints of cable and broadcast news. He left ABC to partner in the independent production company Globalvision and began producing programming about such controversial topics as apartheid in South Africa and human rights abuses around the world.

The growing acceptance of journalist as activists is one welcome outcome of  the current protests. That’s why the board of The Global Center, a non-profit educational foundation dedicated to developing socially responsible media, is proud to announce Native American leader Winona LaDuke as the recipient of the fifth DANNY Award, which honors the life and work of the late Danny “The News Dissector” Schechter. The DANNY is given each year to those who best emulate Schechter's practice of combining excellent journalism with committed social activism. Previous winners include Jose Antonio Vargas, Patrice O’Neill, the reporters and editors of the Eagle Eye, the student newspaper of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The award is bestowed annually by The Global Center and includes a $3,000 grant to support the honoree’s work.  

An environmentalist, economist, author and activist, LaDuke has already published six non-fiction books and has a new one, To be A Water Protector, coming out this fall. (She’s also written Last Standing Woman, a novel about an American Indian reservation’s struggle to restore its culture.) A graduate of Harvard University, LaDuke has long worked in Native and community-based organizing and groups. In 1985, for example, she helped establish the Indigenous Women’s Network, dedicated to “generating a global movement that achieves sustainable change for our communities,” and later, with the proceeds of a human rights award, founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project to help the Anishinaabeg Indians regain possession of their original land base.

In the 1990s LaDuke became involved with the Green Party and was presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s running mate in both the 1996 and 2000 elections. Today she is the executive director of Honor the Earth, a Native environmental advocacy organization she co-founded in 1993 with the folk-rock duo, the Indigo Girls.The organization played an active role in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and remains a key opponent to proposals by the Canadian multinational corporation Enbridge to bring more tar sands to the United States.  LaDuke continues to write and speak in support of water protectors and in opposition to other pipelines and mega projects near Native land and waters.

Among her many previous honors and awards, LaDuke was chosen by TIME magazine as one of America's fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age; won a Reebok Human Rights Award and a Thomas Merton Award; was named the Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year for her work with Honor the Earth; and has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Whether or not activism and journalism should mix remains controversial, but in the face of allegations of “fake news,” the invention of “alternative facts,” charges that the news media is an “enemy of the people,” and outright police assaults on reporters covering protests, it has increasingly become embraced by professional practitioners. As Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times noted, "Journalism *is* activism in its most basic form.” Wesley Lowery, who quit his reporting job at the Washington Post in a dispute over his own activism, says the core value of news organizations “needs to be the truth, not the perception of objectivity.” America’s “view-from-nowhere, ‘objectivity’-obsessed, both-sides journalism is a failed experiment,” he believes. “We need to rebuild our industry as one that operates from a place of moral clarity.” A NewsGuild spokesperson added, “When people in power are sowing doubt about basic facts, journalism looks like activism.” And Lowery concludes, “Journalists perform acts of activism every day. Any good journalist is an activist for truth, in favor of transparency, on the behalf of accountability.”

Danny Schechter knew from firsthand experience that the commercial media world was not open to such coverage. So he offered it instead to public television. Rather than being welcomed there, however, he was told by top PBS executives that opposition to the racist regime in South Africa was too controversial and that human rights was "an insufficient organizing principle" for a television program. The PBS reaction, combined with deceitful right-wing protests, led to being told that advocacy on behalf of human rights meant that he wasn’t a journalist at all.

Sadly, such views are still prevalent in today's media world. But as the pace of change within the field of journalism continues to accelerate, many are raising questions about the role of advocacy and the concept of objectivity.  More and more, journalists with strong points of view are giving us news and insights we can’t find elsewhere. Should we even bother trying to distinguish between so-called “objective” journalism and advocacy? Many experts say the answer is no.

“I am enough of a traditionalist that I don’t like to see mainstream reporters acting like partisans—for example, by working on political campaigns,” says the WaPo’s Sullivan. “But it’s more than acceptable that they should stand up for civil rights—for press rights, for racial justice, for gender equity and against economic inequality.”

“We might have passed the point where we can talk about objectivity in journalism with a straight face,” Patricia Aufderheide, founder of the Center for Media & Social Impact at American University, has noted. “Objectivity was always a shortcut. It was a useful little shortcut of a concept to say you should be fair, you should be honest, you should have integrity, you should tell people accurately and responsibly what you think are the important things about what you saw or researched. If what we’re doing is advocating for the public, that’s our job.”

And if a piece of journalism “isn’t advocacy, it isn’t journalism,” declares Jeff Jarvis, Director of Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at CUNY's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. “Isn’t advocacy on behalf of principles and the public the true test of journalism? The choices we make about what to cover and how we cover it and what the public needs to know are acts of advocacy on the public’s behalf. Don’t we believe that we act in their interest? After all, what is a journalist, if not an advocate on behalf of the public?”

Perhaps the last word for now should go to someone who epitomizes the so-called “mainstream media,” Times publisher A. G. Sulzberger. While “we’re not retreating from the principles of independence and objectivity,” he told Ben Smith, “we don’t pretend to be objective about things like human rights and racism.”

Sounds like journalism and activism to me.

Earth Day at 50 by Inside Hook

Photo by Keri Pickett

HOW AMERICA LED, LOST AND HOPES TO RECLAIM THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

What do you think of when you think of Earth Day? Is it melting glaciers and greenhouse gases? Hairy armpits and saving the whales? Democrats versus Republicans versus Gen Z?

As it turns out, how you view the biggest day in environmentalism is likely tied to when you were born, something that’s become abundantly clear this year as Earth Day celebrates its milestone 50th anniversary.
Today, Earth Day is recognized as “the largest secular observance in the world.” But what you may not know, or remember, is that it was already a phenomenon when it began back on April 22, 1970.

Despite taking place on a Wednesday, roughly 20 million Americans participated in some way to show support for greater environmental regulations during the inaugural event — a number that constituted a mind-boggling 10 percent of the population at the time.

Even though greater awareness about climate change has led to a resurgence in environmental activism, it’s hard to imagine the country as it existed at the time of the first Earth Day: U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from Wisconsin, partnered with Congressman Pete McCloskey, a Republican from California, to kickstart a bipartisan political movement to better the environment, and thus the life of Americans, not with empty platitudes, but through “fundamental changes in the nature of the American economy.”
So what happened to the U.S.? How did we go from leading the planet on the environment to giving up that standing to countries like China and Norway?

In lieu of a time machine to travel through our country’s complicated history with the world around us, we’ve picked 50 of the most momentous events in environmentalism over the last 50 years, from the triumphant to the merely interesting to the downright tragic. We also reached out to environmental champions like author and 350.org founder Bill McKibben, Indigenous leader Winona LaDuke and actor James Cromwell to ask about the specific moments that inspired them to get involved in the fight for a habitable planet for all.

1993

28. Winona LaDuke founds Honor The Earth

“Being born Anishinaabe was my awakening to consciousness.”

— Winona LaDuke, Indigenous author, activist and speaker

In 1993, LaDuke founds Native environmental justice nonprofit Honor The Earth, of which she is currently Executive Director. She goes on to run as the vice presidential candidate for the Green Party alongside Ralph Nader in 1996 and 2000.

Check out the full article here: https://www.insidehook.com/feature/science/50-years-earth-day-american-environmentalism

Prophecy of the Seventh Fire: Choosing the Path That Is Green

Anishinaabe Prophecy - Prophecy of the Eighth Fire

In her Schumacher Lecture, Winona LaDuke speaks of the time of the Seventh Fire, which she argues we are currently experiencing. We must choose between two paths, one path will be well worn, but scorched; the other path will not be well worn, it will be green.

Read the article/transcript of the podcast here:

https://centerforneweconomics.org/publications/prophecy-of-the-seventh-fire-choosing-the-path-that-is-green/

Or listen to the entire podcast here:

https://the-schumacher-lectures.simplecast.com/episodes/prophecy-of-the-seventh-fire-choosing-the-path-that-is-green-winona-laduke-lbfLM1KE

Sally Field arrested at Jane Fonda's climate protest

Love these fearless women and young people who are taking action of a “just transition...”

Click here to play video

Join @sally_field and @WinonaLaduke in demanding a just transition with #firedrillfriday pic.twitter.com/JREMScWl6K

— Fire Drill Fridays (@FireDrillFriday) December 13, 2019

By Scottie Andrew, CNN

Updated 7:50 PM ET, Fri December 13, 2019

(CNN)Sally Field was the latest star to join Jane Fonda's weekly climate protests. She left Friday's rainy demonstration in front of the Capitol in plastic cable tie handcuffs.

Publicist Heidi Schaeffer confirmed the actress was arrested. US Capitol Police say 26 adults were arrested.

In what she said was an unrehearsed speech, Field urged attendees of Fire Drill Fridays, Fonda's name for the Washington protests, to get out of their comfort zones and embrace drastic change to protect the environment.

Jane Fonda is on her 10th climate crisis protest so far

"I am a mother, I am a grandmother," Field said in a speech shared by Fire Drill Fridays' Twitter account. "The time is now. We cannot sit back in our comfort zones, on our couches, and wonder, 'What can we do?'"

We don’t need oil pipelines in Minnesota we need water pipes in Flint. -@WinonaLaduke #firedrillfriday pic.twitter.com/50qZggZVf1

— Fire Drill Fridays (@FireDrillFriday) December 13, 2019

Field joined Winona LaDuke, an American environmentalist who protested the Dakota Access Pipeline, and Fonda for the 10th week of protests.

Previous demonstrations have seen actresses such as Kyra Sedgwick and Diane Lane and Ben & Jerry's co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield join Fonda in Washington.

What do we want?

A just transition!

When do we want it?

Now!

If we don’t get it?

Shut it down!#firedrillfriday demonstrating on the US Capitol steps. pic.twitter.com/TxzNElFXIW

— Fire Drill Fridays (@FireDrillFriday) December 13, 2019

CNN's Alec Snyder contributed to this report.

Audubon Convention 2019: Opening Address. Winona LaDuke

2019 Audubon Convention Keynote

Winona LaDuke + Naomi Klein: Land Rights and Climate Change

Winona LaDuke + Naomi Klein: Land Rights and Climate Change

As climate change is beginning to alter the planet before our eyes, two internationally recognized activists come together at the Rubin to discuss the economics associated with climate change, the role of First Nations in the climate movement, and the connections between violence against women and violence against the land. Naomi Klein, the award-winning journalist, author, and Rutgers Gloria Steinem Chair of Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies, joins in conversation with rural development economist and Indigenous land rights activist Winona LaDuke. Drawing from their experience on the frontlines of the struggle for a more just and sustainable world, they delve into a host of related questions: What is the best model of economic development? What can we learn from First Nations about how to measure wealth, poverty, and equity? What should the role of government be in confronting the causes of climate change? What are the implications of the global frameworks proposed for decarbonization and forest protection? What are the common themes and insights in the stories that women are voicing from the frontlines?

#TheFutureIsFluid #RubinMuseum

‘Everyone comes here with a backstory’ By Arlyssa Becenti

TU commencement spotlights Winona LaDuke, John Pinto

Navajo Times | Donovan Quintero
A Navajo Technical University graduate takes a selfie with guest speaker Winona LaDuke at the university's commencement last Friday.

Kyleigh Largo clasped tightly to her dad, Corwin Largo, who had just received his bachelor’s in industrial engineering with a minor in mathematics from Navajo Technical University.

“I really wanted my daughter to say that, ‘My dad is an engineer,’ said Largo. “That was my motivation to finish this degree. It was a challenge. I just want her to live comfortably. I want to take care of her and hope she follows in my footsteps.”

Largo received his degree on Friday, along with 23 others who received their undergraduate degrees, 84 who received certificates, 71 who received associates and 27 GED recipients.

Candid about how a tribal college wasn’t his first choice, Largo said that changed when he actually got on campus and began taking the classes.

“When you start applying for colleges you don’t think of coming to a tribal college until you are on campus,” said Largo. “Everyone comes here with a backstory. I’m glad I came here and finished here.”

Not a stranger to the Crownpoint area, commencement speaker Winona LaDuke gave an inspirational commencement speech.

She told the audience that she “owes a lot of debt” to the Navajo people, because while a student studying energy economics at Harvard University, she spent a lot of time researching uranium and coal strip mining on Navajo.

“I spent a lot of time here with people who changed my life,” said LaDuke. “I came here as a young woman and it taught me a lot. I saw the massive amount of exploitation, which occurred in our territories. From my experience here I learned more the value of water than I’ve learned anywhere else. Learned the value of what is right.”

Natives taking back their knowledge and education, LaDuke said, was a prophecy that was expressed.

The prophet she refers to came from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, where she is from, and foresaw the arrival of white people, the disappearance of Natives as well as their “things,” and the establishment of residential schools.

“They talked about these people who would be born,” said LaDuke. “These new people would find the things that was taken. They would go and reclaim things … in that we would remember who we are. I think that is the age of tribal colleges. When we, as Native people, take back the control of our education and knowledge systems.”

Graduating with her industrial engineering degree, Adriane Tenequer said NTU was close to home and it offered her numerous opportunities to work for various industries. She had worked with the Boeing Company, and now that she has graduated she will be heading to Alabama to work with Jacobs Technology at Marshall Space Center.

As a mother of two, she said her schedule revolves around her children, so with the help of her family and the close proximity of NTU, she was able to pursue her engineering passion.

“Engineering is something I’ve always wanted to do,” said Tenequer. “At one point I want to have my own business here so I can fulfill employment in this area. I’ve had a lot of opportunities through NTU.”

NTU President Elmer Guy spoke on the school’s 40-year evolution, from the Navajo Skills Center to Crownpoint Institute of Technology to Navajo Technical College and then Navajo Technical University.

He boasted that the university was ranked by bestcolleges.com the No. 3 college in New Mexico, outranking the University of New Mexico.

In its 40th year, Guy was proud to announce the school would be presenting its first honorary doctorate degree to New Mexico State Sen. John Pinto.

Pinto, 94, was a Navajo Code Talker and has served in the senate for the 3rd District since 1977.

“As a senator and a code talker he has always pushed Navajo Technical University for funding,” said Guy. “We are honoring that past that has made the university what it is today. In that context, we are honoring Senator Pinto with a honorary doctorate.”

Guy told the graduates saying that he hopes they continue with their education. An inspirational example of this message was AIHEC’s student of the year, Darrick D. Lee, who received his bachelor’s in electrical engineering.

In an emotional message to his fellow graduates, Lee, from Shiprock, said he slept in his truck and camped out at a friend’s house in order to commute to school.

“Whether you plan to go straight to work right after you graduate or continuing your education, just know it’s going to take a lot of hard work,” said Lee. “Everyone has a right to be here to get an education. You are privileged to be here. You are now responsible to use what you learned from here.”

 To read the full article, pick up your copy of the Navajo Times at your nearest newsstand Thursday mornings!

Are you a digital subscriber? Read the most recent three weeks of stories by logging in to your online account.

  Find newsstand locations at this link.

 Or, subscribe via mail or online here.

Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States paperback featuring Foreword by Winona LaDuke

Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States

Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health

Edited by Devon A. Mihesuah, Elizabeth Hoover, Foreword by Winona LaDuke

Centuries of colonization and other factors have disrupted indigenous communities’ ability to control their own food systems. This volume explores the meaning and importance of food sovereignty for Native peoples in the United States, and asks whether and how it might be achieved and sustained.

Unprecedented in its focus and scope, this collection addresses nearly every aspect of indigenous food sovereignty, from revitalizing ancestral gardens and traditional ways of hunting, gathering, and seed saving to the difficult realities of racism, treaty abrogation, tribal sociopolitical factionalism, and the entrenched beliefs that processed foods are superior to traditional tribal fare. The contributors include scholar-activists in the fields of ethnobotany, history, anthropology, nutrition, insect ecology, biology, marine environmentalism, and federal Indian law, as well as indigenous seed savers and keepers, cooks, farmers, spearfishers, and community activists. After identifying the challenges involved in revitalizing and maintaining traditional food systems, these writers offer advice and encouragement to those concerned about tribal health, environmental destruction, loss of species habitat, and governmental food control.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Devon A. Mihesuah, a member of the Choctaw Nation, is Cora Lee Beers Price Professor in International Cultural Understanding at the University of Kansas. She has served as Editor of the American Indian Quarterly and is the author of numerous award-winning books, including Choctaw Crime and Punishment, 1884–1887; American Indigenous Women: Decolonization, Empowerment, Activism; Recovering Our Ancestors' Gardens: Indigenous Recipes and Guide to Diet and Fitness; American Indians: Stereotypes and Realities; and Cultivating the Rosebuds: The Education of Women at the Cherokee Female Seminary, 1851–1909.

Elizabeth Hoover, Manning Associate Professor of American Studies at Brown University, is the author of articles about food sovereignty, environmental health, and environmental reproductive justice, as well as the book The River Is in Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community. She is a board member of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance and of the Slow Food Turtle Island regional association and has worked with the Mohawk organization Kanenhi:io Ionkwaienthon:hakie.

Winona LaDuke, an Anishinaabe writer and economist from the White Earth reservation in Minnesota, is Executive Director of Honor the Earth, a national Native advocacy and environmental organization, and the author of numerous articles and books.

REVIEWS & PRAISE

“Return and recovery is very much at the heart of this volume. Indigenous food sovereignty argues for rooted and collective continuance. More than about development and conservation—or resilience even—it is about sacredness and intimacy, health and sovereignty, food and identity; and it comes from a place deep within.”—Virginia D. Nazarea, author of Heirloom Seeds and Their Keepers: Marginality and Memory in the Conservation of Biological Diversity 

“The collective wisdom of Turtle Island’s indigenous peoples offered in Indigenous Food Sovereignty charts a course for decolonization and liberation—and a vision for a better food system and a just society.”—Eric Holt-Giménez, author of A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism 

“This thoughtfully curated collection of essays gives food scholars a vital window on the gorgeous and fierce resilience of indigenous food systems and the activists who work to preserve them against steep odds. It will shape the way we think about indigenous food systems for years to come.”—Amy Trauger, author of We Want to Live: Making Political Space for Food Sovereignty 

BOOK INFORMATION

17 B&W ILLUS., 1 CHART, 4 TABLES

390 PAGES

PAPERBACK 978-0-8061-6321-5

PUBLISHED AUGUST 2019

Book Review of Winona LaDuke: "A Bard for Environmental Justice"

Written by: Georgianne Nienaber

Writer and author

Winona LaDuke’s latest book reads like a prayer. These are holy words— inspirational stories taken straight from the heart of indigenous communities throughout the world. The Winona LaDuke Chronicles: Stories From the Front Lines in the Battle for Environmental Justice is lyrical, instructional, and infused with wry humor when the weight of the message becomes unbearable. LaDuke provides a roadmap through tribal nations’ belief systems; offering a spiritual compass and invaluable insight into the relationship of prophesy to the realities of climate change, economic collapse, food scarcity and basic human rights. As it happens, prophesy does come true and redemption is possible despite this encyclopedia of environmental and spiritual insults.

Are we hell-bent on embracing environmental calamity or is atonement and redemption possible through the lessons offered by indigenous belief systems? How fascinating to learn that corn has a history, that seeds have a profound spiritual meaning, and that plants have a sacred relationship with humans. Provide the environment in which food will flourish and there will be no need for genetic crop engineering.

LaDuke is one of the great overlooked orators of our time, and she brings this prowess to every page.

Her standard biography is well known. A two time Green Party vice-presidential candidate, LaDuke has 40 years of activism behind her. A graduate of Harvard University, LaDuke is an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band of Anishinaabeg. In the preface to Chronicles, she offers testimony to all that life teaches. As for those two losing vice-presidential campaigns, in the essay, “Recovering from the Drama of Elections,” LaDuke calls out Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and offers valuable and obvious advice. “People want to be heard.” American politics should be defined by diversity rather than establishment money and corporations afforded the status of personhood.

The metaphors of fire and resurrection infuse the story telling. 

“I have now more winters behind me than before me. It has been a grand journey. I am grateful for the many miles, rivers, and places and people of beauty,” LaDuke writes.

It was after the loss of her home to fire in the early days of a bleak 2008 winter; a loss that included books, a lifetime of memorabilia, and sacred objects, that the orator and writer temporarily lost her voice. LaDuke says she could not write, could not sleep and could barely speak. Memory became tenuous as she struggled with the even more profound losses of her father, the father of her children, and her sister. She equates the rock bottom feeling of PTSD with being “a casualty of the modern Indian Wars.” She had lost her loves, her heart and some of her closest friends. But “after the burn” indigenous people know that the fields, the forests and the prairies rebound with new growth. LaDuke found this growth in the writing and the story telling. Now a self-described “modern day bard,” she travels across the land, sharing stories from other lands and writing them down along the way.

These are her chronicles, at once universal and very personal.

In these days of the great Canadian fire that has devastated Fort McMurray, it is a stunning coincidence that in the early pages of Chronicles, LaDuke tells the story of a 2014 meeting with Archbishop Desmond Tutu there. The town, which has endured much suffering in the current news cycles, is the booming center of the Alberta Tar Sands projects. It is also the ancestral home of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. Tutu was there to speak about climate change and global warming. Media coverage criticized Tutu as being misinformed. Tutu warned that pipelines and oil contribute to the devastation of First Nation lands and livelihood and that the resulting climate change would be devastating.

Scientists attribute the Alberta firestorms to climate change. A prophecy fulfilled?

The essay “My Recommended Daily Allowance of Radiation,” slams the North Dakota Department of Health for approving the increase of radioactive materials scuttled in landfills by a factor of 10 or 1000 percent. (from 5 pico curies per liter to 50) It seems the fracking industry was dumping 27 tons a day at 47 pico curies per liter and the illegal dumping issue needed a quick fix. This all scary stuff and LaDuke lays out the rationale for avoiding radioactive materials, especially since not all of it was making it to the landfills. Radioactive filter socks were thrown in ditches and kids found them to be interesting toys.

In that characteristic flash of wry humor, LaDuke quotes a female representative from the North Dakota Oil and Gas Industry. “Nuclear radiation isn’t so bad,” the rep said. “It’s not like Godzilla or anything. It’s more like Norm from Cheers, just sitting at the bar.”

“I want more of whatever psychedelic drug she’s taking,” LaDuke writes.

“In the Time of the Sacred Places” describes two paths to the future. One is scorched and one is green, and the Anishinaabeg would have to choose. (So do we all) Ancient teachings speak of a mandate to respect the sacred. In the millennia since the ancient prophecy, sacred Beings still emerge. LaDuke writes that they emerge in “lightning strikes at unexpected times, the seemingly endless fires of climate change, tornadoes that flatten” and floods.

As the Haudenosaunee teaching says, “...Our future is seven generations past and present.” We must assume responsibility. LaDuke’s fine book is our map.

REVIEW ABOVE Written by: Georgianne Nienaber, Writer and author

Guardians of the Planet: 10 Women Environmentalists You Should Know Guardians of the Planet: 10 Women Environmentalists You Should Know

Guardians of the Planet:
10 Women Environmentalists You Should Know

Posted on April 9, 2016 by Katherine

"During April's Earth Month, we're celebrating the incredible women who are working to protect the environment and all of the creatures which share our planet. From groundbreaking primatologists to deep-sea explorers to determined activists, each of them has changed the way that we see the world — and our role in protecting it. Equally importantly, these women have shown all of us that we have an effect on the health of our plant: from the smallest decisions of our day-to-day lives to international policy — each of us can make a difference.

Below we share the stories of ten women and explore their contributions to making a greener and healthier world. And, if you'd like to learn more about any of the featured women or introduce them to children and teens, after each profile we've shared several reading recommendations for different age groups, as well as other resources that celebrate these remarkable women.

To discover fictional stories that show young readers how everyone can make a difference in making the world a little greener, check out our blog post, Mighty Girls Go Green: 20 Girl-Empowering Books for Earth Month.

To learn about more trailblazing women, don't miss the first post in our Women You Should Know blog series: Those Who Dared To Discover: 15 Women Scientists You Should Know."

Winona LaDuke (b. 1959)

American activist Winona LaDuke learned early in her life about the challenges facing Native Americans: her father, an Objibwe man from Minnesota's White Earth Reservation, had a long history of activism relating to the loss of treaty lands. But within her tribe's traditional connection to the land, she also saw the potential for a new model of sustainable development and locally-based, environmentally conscious production of everything from food to energy. Her non-profit the White Earth Land Recovery Project has revived the cultivation of wild rice in Minnesota, and sells traditional foods under its label Native Harvest. She's also the cofounder of Honor the Earth, a Native-led organization that provides grants to Native-run environmental initiatives. "Power," she says, "is in the earth; it is in your relationship to the earth." By providing a model for that relationship, she hopes that other peoples, as well as Native American tribes, can see the value of sustainable, connected living.

"... Miigwech! How humbly honored I am to be listed with these amazing women: Kate Sessions, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Rachel Carson, Dian Fossey, Jane Goodall, Sylvia Earle, Wangari Maathai, Vandana Shiva and Isatou Ceesay. The power of our women cannot be celebrated more." Winona LaDuk

Ralph Nader Radio Hour: Winona LaDuke, Kai Newkirk

Winona LaDuke, Kai Newkirk

Released Apr 23, 2016

In two very high energy and passionate interviews, Ralph talks to former Green Party running mate, Winona LaDuke, about her fight to stop a tar sands pipeline from running through tribal lands in Minnesota and Kai Newkirk, one of the organizers of Democracy Spring, a protest to highlight the corruption of money in politics.