Announcement: Winona's Endorsement for President 2020

Winona's Endorsement for President 2020

Coming to you from my windy Hemp farm while harvesting my beautiful crops, I wanted to share my endorsement for President.

As former Vice President Candidate, twice, for the Green Party endorses Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris to be our next President and Vice President. Winona encourages you to not only vote for Joe Biden but to vote Democrat across the board.

Winona's reasoning is "Our future generations count on our vote. Our collective well being is at stake. It is time to power up for change.”

This is a time of incredible change and transformation. Statues of confederates and conquistadors are falling and we are in the midst of a global pandemic.  There is no return to normal, so let’s make this world beautiful. We can be part of the change by voting for courageous and decent people.   

Winona believes Joe Biden has a plan, a plan we can work and live with that will protect our future generations. Winona stresses there is more work is to be done, but this is a great start that we can see in our future 2020 into 2021. Vote!

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Take Your Power Back - Make America Beautiful Again

by Winona LaDuke

Make America beautiful again. That’s what I say.  I remember those old advertisements of the Indian guy in the canoe, tear and all. And there was all this pollution, burning rivers and garbage. Ugly.  I want it to be beautiful again. But it’s not just environmental beauty, no more smokey skies or poisoned rivers, we want beautiful character and ethics in our society and in our government.  I want leaders who are not self serving, lying, or serving foreign companies and countries, we want them to take care of the little people, those who need champions. In other words, we want to be decent people.  We want to not have hatred, walls, and fear. I plan to be part of making  America beautiful again. 

Here’s my thinking. I’m not a Democrat or a Republican. After all, I ran two times for the office of Vice President of the United States as a Green Party candidate.  I am a Green.  That means I don’t really have a dog in this fight, neither of those parties likes a woman like me.  But this year, I am weighing in. And I am weighing in on the side of decency and for a return to a democratic process.  I’m voting for a world with less conflict, youth in detention camps, gutted environmental and civil rights protections, less hatred, no vote stealing, and fewer forest fires. 

First, I am going to ask people to vote. We know that voting makes a difference because this last mid term, Peggy Flanagan was elected to the position of  Minnesota Lieutenant Governor. We know voting makes a difference, because a young Puerto Rican woman named  Alexandria Ocasio Cortez  unseated a seven term New York City Politician Joseph Crowley to become a US Representative.  The other side had the money, but people mobilized to turn over power. 

And, her vision and ethics, combined with allies like Deb Haaland, from New Mexico, Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar  is changing this country. They  are leading the country and challenging business as usual in Washington DC.  Now is the time for solutions, and those are not going to come from the folks who got us into this mess. The solutions and a “ Moonshot”  for a better world, of a new economy are visionary. That’s what happens when people vote and organize.  Minnesota had the highest turnout in the midterm elections, and we need to do it again. 

About 700 young people became eligible to vote on the White Earth reservation for this election- and November 3 is about your future. It is about what jobs there will be, if we will have our wild rice, if we will be in ongoing crises of climate, police, riots and opioids. It is about ensuring justice, and about having enough for our communities- heat, food, and health. This is a vote during a pandemic, a vote when the world is changing, and we are the country with more cases of COVID than any in the world.  This vote is about the future of our country, our water and our people. 

Why vote Native Communities? Vote because there are Native people running for senate, house, city councils and county commissioner positions in Minnesota. And those people can bring a Native voice to the state. And, yet some of those native people, despite being tribal members do not always represent Native interests. That’s complicated, and maybe let’s vote on records and merits.  And, then let’s remember that change can happen. It’s inevitable. It’s a question of who controls the change. A surge in Native voting will change the political landscape of the North.  

Vote because it matters what kinds of leaders we have. This past week, Donald Trump’s tax returns became public, and we found out that he paid “$750 in federal income taxes for 2016 and 2017 and no personal income taxes in 10 of the 15 years previous years.”  And, he spent $70,000 on hair styling and deducted it from his taxes. 

In the meantime, millions of people are facing evictions, loss of jobs, and incredible despair, struggling to pay bills.  There are over 210,000 people dead from COVID, and over 7.4 million contracted this serious virus as a result of bad leadership, the economy is in an ongoing crisis, there are riots in the streets, people getting shot and the west coast is on fire. 

Death toll from the coronavirus pandemic could triple by year’s end, with the United States to 410,000, according to a new forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

In September, it was estimated 650,120 people filed new claims under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Act. 

Labor Department revealed that 837,000 Americans applied for jobless benefits in the latest week, in a release that did not include California, where the state has stopped accepting new claims as it investigates potential fraud.

And, then Trump has threatened that a transition may not happen.

My personal opinion: To have a Canadian corporation dictate and influence politics in the US is a problem. The guns they bring will also be a problem.  Hatred is ugly. While tribal governments wield significant economic power, politicians do not always pass bills for the benefit of tribes.  Our tribe has spoken and demands clean water and wild rice for the future. 

Some of us want peace, security and prosperity. That’s the vision of the Green New Deal. That’s the vision of renewable energy, healthcare for all, small farmers, funded education, organic agriculture, and justice. That’s the vision that needs to be here in northern Minnesota- solutions, not more problems. That’s a wave which is moving nationally, and can really change the course of our history. I say ride that wave. 

The forces at work in the north country are deep and every vote counts. President Trump did not come to Bemidji Minnesota to campaign just to see people with “good genes”.  He came because what is happening here matters. It matters to our future generations that we care for them being healthy and protecting the world for them. 

That’s a crisis.  In Northern Minnesota, the crisis grows as well. We have an opioid crisis, we have a rise in hateful behavior, we have polarized communities, and winter is coming. We are faced with the end of Wiindigo economics, the mines have run out of ore, except for a few pebbles, and the tar sands are collapsing.  Enbridge is hiring security forces and promising to bring in more militarization for a pipeline project which has been opposed by the Native people and 68,000 Minnesotans, as well as the Department of Commerce and the Attorney General of the State. This is a pipeline to nowhere. Sadly, many Democratic and tribal politicians lack courage, and are not against the pipeline, only David Suby running for House 2B, against Steve Green opposes Line 3.  

In comparison, Steve Green (House District 2B), a tribal member, is pro pipeline, and has opposed return of land to the White Earth tribe. 

Green tells us he “is addressing the nation’s energy issues by supporting the drilling of domestic oil, clean burning of coal and nuclear energy.” Senator Paul Utke has been in office since 2017, and has introduced 14 bills for the Native community, of which one passed. He is also pro Line 3, while our tribe has opposed the pipeline. 

That’s at a time when the oil industry is dying and renewable energy is surging.

This is a vision which is part of the Green New Deal, Just Transition, and needs to come to what we call the Deep North.  After all, Trump came to the Deep north because of the long history of Indian hating, and the desperation of the end of the road for late stage capitalism- that’s to say, that even the United Nations says that the kind of economics practiced by Enbridge, and RDO Offutt are not sustainable. 

This is a chance to vote for the Good life, to vote to be beautiful.
That’s what we can do today voting early and on November 3.

* A FAIR JUST ECONOMY
* RENEWABLE ENERGY
* PLAN FOR A CLEAN ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
* RIGHT TO CLEAN AIR AND CLEAN WATER #WATERISLIFE
* HEALTH CARE SYSTEM THAT WORKS. HEALTH CARE THAT IS INCLUSIVE AND EQUAL.
* PROTECT OUR VOTING RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY
* CLIMATE CHANGE
* RURAL AGRICULTURE SUSTAINABILITY
* STRENGTHENING AMERICA’S COMMITMENT TO JUSTICE
* JOE BIDEN’S COMMITMENT TO INDIAN COUNTRY

Follow Instagram @ojibwes4vote Facebook @ojibweforresponsiblegov “Ojibwes for Responsible Government,” a 501c4 Project for Indigenous Justice.

Amid Blackout, a California Tribal Village Kept Lights On With Solar Energy by Winona LaDuke

BY Winona LaDuke, Truthout

PUBLISHED November 16, 2019

October’s 383,000-gallon spill of the Keystone Pipeline in Edinburgh, North Dakota reveals the pipeline for what it is: a deal with the devil. For those of us who live in the land of lakes, just imagine what 383,000 gallons of oil will do to the Hay Creek, Fishhook Lake watershed, and what “clean up” will look like. There’s no way to clean up or protect that aquatic ecosystem. There are no fish, wild rice or life after an oil spill.

That’s what a deal with the devil looks like. While Enbridge talks about the need for a new safe pipeline, the fact is that the Keystone pipeline is not even 10 years old. It is a new pipeline, and it still leaked. In fact, the October catastrophe was its second major leak; the 2017 pipeline rupture sent 407,000 gallons spewing into South Dakota groundwater.

North Dakota has sold its water and soul to the oil companies. Three years ago, a study by Duke University found:

Accidental wastewater spills from unconventional oil production in North Dakota … caused widespread water and soil contamination…. Researchers found high levels of contaminants and salt in surface waters polluted by the brine-laden wastewater, which primarily comes from fracked wells. Soil at spill sites was contaminated with radium. At one site, high levels of contaminants were detected in residual waters four years after the spill occurred.

In the meantime, the Lakota are making deals with the Creator for a better future. The first solar farm in North Dakota went up this year — the Cannon Ball Community Solar Farm on the Standing Rock Reservation. Born from the ashes of the Standing Rock battle over the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Cannon Ball solar project shows us all what the future looks like.

This past summer, many veterans of the siege at Standing Rock returned, this time to celebrate a victory: the establishment of the solar farm. Movie stars Mark Ruffalo (The Avengers) and Shailene Woodley (Big Little Lies) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) all came to Standing Rock. The Cannon Ball Community Solar Farm provides the Standing Rock Reservation with 300 kilowatts and will save the community an estimated $7,000 to $10,000 annually in energy costs.

The solar farm is just the beginning of energy sovereignty at Standing Rock. Cody Two Bears, executive director of Indigenized Energy and former Standing Rock tribal council member, says more projects are on their way. In the midst of Standing Rock’s battle with the Dakota Access Pipeline, the seeds of solar were planted.

“It’s one thing to protest about it, to talk about it, but now we got to be about it,” Two Bears said in an interview with Truthout. The solar farm was connected to the grid in February, and went live in August, powering the Cannon Ball Youth Center and the Veterans Memorial Building, where thousands of veterans who came out to support the pipeline opponents stayed in 2016.

In comparison, the state of North Dakota as a whole lags behind, with no utility scale solar, and with immense, unrealized wind potential.

Energy leadership is coming from Native people.

A Deal With Future Generations

Building renewable energy projects is about more than just post-fossil fuel economics. It’s about the future of electrification in this country. Think of it this way: This past month, Pacific Gas and Electric, northern California’s largest northern utility, blacked out 500,000 homes because of forest fires; last year’s Paradise Fire was actually caused by PG&E Lines. As fires raged, fanned by climate change and poor infrastructure, there were still lights on at the Blue Lake Rancheria, a Wiyot, Yurok and Hupa village near Eureka, California – with a megawatt of solar and a battery backup system.

Adopting a climate action plan in 2008, the tribe mobilized every resource at its disposal to advance a leading-edge strategy for eliminating its carbon footprint while bolstering climate resiliency. To date, the Tribe has reduced energy consumption by 35%and reduced greenhouse gas emissions 40%, utilizing biodiesel to power public buses and aggressive energy efficiency measures. Back in the Obama administration, Blue Lake was recognized as one of 16 communities designated as White House Climate Action Champions.

The grid went down, and the tribe still had solar. That’s a covenant, a deal with future generations. Change comes, it’s a question of who controls the change.

Looking down the barrel of a bad pipeline, I know that we don’t need to make a deal with the devil. North Dakota and Enbridge: Go grow your food with oil — I’m going to grow my gardens with water; I’m going to commit to solar and renewables. Let’s see who will eat.

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