ChunkaLutaNetwork

Fundraising has been extremely slow this year so anything helps.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-support-lakota-ceremony-and-community

Here are some pictures of work you all have helped enable in addition to last year's sundance.

This is the trailer home we purchased for one of the elders here.

This creek was barely running last year. We are cleaning it up and repairing the natural features that help slow the flow and raise the water level bringing back crawfish and other native plants and animals.

In addition to the sundance we are in urgent need of preparations for winter which means major repairs on homes among other needs. We raised funds for firewood last year but even still, one elder died of exposure when their fire went out overnight.

Thank you all for the support you have given us so far.

I originally tried harder but my computer got turned off while I was asleep so lost all my progress and am frankly out of time, sorry its not up to the usual standard of effortposting

So thank you all for reading

We are looking for help to buy as many of these 4 tipis as we can before they are gone, we will use them for temporary housing, and ceremonies to house guests and those who come who cannot afford their own tent. You can send donations to $ZitkatosTinCan or @zitkato on ven to help us get these or support our monthly via liberapay or patreon both found on linktr.ee/chunkalutanetwork any extra money will be put into a savings account we call the tipi/trailer fund

Update 700/2000

For those unaware of the totality of our goals this year:

What hick-up there have been were from self-serious people unaware of just how much opportunity actually laid before them, due to their lack of investigation. This is a drop in monthly donations via liberapay and patreon on an unfounded basis of "unprincipled behavior" Sungmanitu is accused of. This accusation comes from the IACI due to Sungmanitu following the proper procedures in handling disagreements (that they have yet to post the procedures we agreed to, and prefer to tell you orally so they can leave out convenient details), that they then project PlantsFanon's uncomradely and liberal attitudes to protect egos. "You have to admit that he played you like a fool" was what was said to me, as if they were unaware they are the ones vouching for him. At any rate, he went on to call me anti-science for having a critical position on nuclear (I am pro nuclear and we expect half the building if not all to be paid for by nuclear engineers lol Ideally we will use micro reactors but thats a lot of red tape, research, and democratic struggling).

Upon seeing the anti-science BS, I saw it for what it was, a colonial canard to distract from the actual criticism be leveed just as they did at TMT (Mauna Kea) and countless other places, Indigenous people had stolen and poisoned. The actual issue at hand however was about Plants willful and ignorant representation of Lenin wrt to the colonial question, and the policy of korenizatsiia (which was primarily written by Stalin, based on Stalins work, and implemented and not reinforced by everyone but Lenin who had suffered 2 strokes by the time it was instituted. I only write these first paragraphs to explain what we have not addressed officially (mainly waiting for the finished website which should be out by summer) rather than continue that drama groups drama, I should self crit for supporting them as long as I did, however part of my allying with them was to get to the root of their intentions in the larger movement which seems far more driven by clout than education but thats my opinion :)

Due to the position we have actually trying to determine energy policy in NDN country already, we felt we had to take a principled stand due to being called in by the communities we serve and are far better and more useful allies than podcasters and streamers with barely an audience. SO I will admit our decision was clout motivated, but it never had to be a public debacle as it was made by them (plants decided to vague post as he is known to do). Our clout is built on serious people, who actually take revolution serious, but want people to still be human beings as we discuss these things and understand people aren't perfect. Those complaints aside we are excited to announce that we have launched the food forest program, that will hit 4 primary objectives: 1)feed the people 2)return biodiversity 3)Stop desertfication 4)build community 2 and 3 are almost the same in so far as our plant to stop desertification is also one that returns biodiversity, but honestly we would say all 4 fit under the first and or better yet: landback. Our argument is simple, slogans are only slogans until you can materially back them. Therefore landback is a quicker way to say Peace Land and Bread if you want it to be, so why not make it so?

On their way from the South East to the Great Plains, a storm had been coming to meet them. Now many would see this as a set back, they saw it as a willing companion preparing the ground for the work ahead. Being forced to stop in Valentine Nebraska, they wondered around one of the nearest bordertowns to Rosebud reservation. They brought an entire food forest, tons of hand sanitizer, and has they stopped picked up a small library to help with the work that we showed above

These folks were really great about their opsec and remaining underground, but they see the same need we do, a need for the aboveground part of the movement to make moves to invent the future now. Because of this they are willing going to film the first hand accounts of the project, we will be doing a podcast interview with them, and ideally showcasing this stuff on streams. It is really an honor and a pleasure to have put this network together. We are trying to get to 2500-3000 a month to provide 500 stipends to field organizers to carry out their work in ways we dont have to oversee (a stipend is a good enough description for tax and disclosure purposes, helps keep specifics to entrusted circles) we have 8 candidates already we think could replicate everything we are doing and more where they are: the thing instead of supporting podcasts like ours people prefer bonus episodes. At any rate we are also in the middle of increasing the amount of content to make patreon more tantalizing to people who want more leftist content from us.

With all that said we look forward to sharing more of what we are doing, showing how much so little has accomplished already, and proving the major parties and thought leaders could be doing more: they are choosing not to

Maybe not a megathread but still worth the read in my opinion, this effort post was brought to you by one of our amazing organizers with Eco Just Food Network, one of the more public parts of the CLN that operates in the Greater Toronto Area. Anyway this isn't about that amazing org (but there is a podcast episode coming soon c: ) instead we want to discuss an extremely influential Dakota Writer named Vine Deloria Jr who was born today. We feel discussing him and his work is a good starting point, to understanding a basic sentiment in NDN country, but also one that needs to be ruthlessly criticized through educated criticism instead of knee jerk reaction. His two biggest hot takes being 1) If Israel gets its land back we should get ours (zionist argument that legitimizes Israel, and can be said far better, but Deloria was being heavily influenced by the Mormon Zionist Hank Adams who helped play a large role in the 20 Points of the Trail of Broken Treaties. Ultimately what this means is of course the 20 Points are lackluster and demand a revolutionary update, but it should be noted that its influenced by the BPPs 10 Points) 2) The Indian New Deal brought prosperity to NDN people. In reality it was some NDN people, while many more were literally washed away by floods caused by dams built, that Vine is directly talking about and saying is good because "electricity could come to the reservation" when in many cases it still has not.

Ultimately we must remember Vine is a liberal, but that doesn't stop him from having banger quotes and relevant opinions cast decades into the future that we must update and wrestle from reaction. One of the most important things Vine set out to do, was to challenge white supremacist academia, and the false notions of history it perpetuated about Indigenous people almost always to diminish the level of "civilization" present here.

It is obscene that there are people who own homes and land in the US, that they can not work, and utilize without being forced to privatize, or forced to give it to a comprador political leader not chosen by the people and propped up by the colonial occupiers. When people have homes but freeze to death, what is a home? That's just shelter and bad shelter at that.

Despite the milquetoast liberalism, being an Indigenous person and the chair of the National Congress of American Indians, had brought Vine into contact with radical and non radical Natives alike. Colorado was well known for its radical Indigenous scene as Denver was one of the major cities used during the relocation program that coerced Indians off our land under false promises, so to steal the land. In fact that's where my grandma and my mom moved when leaving South Dakota, but you also already had a large Indigenous presence in the state historically so it lent itself to being a good geographic base. Floyd and my grandma actually used to hang out

My grandma is all the way on the right. She was his security during this photo, but it was this connection to Floyd that ultimately brought Vine in contact with the American Indian Movement, which had barely formed as Floyd and Vine met.

Their relationship would go on to inspire the Red Power movement, but it would also be what helped bring AIM into the Trail of Broken Treaties altogether. The Trail of Broken Treaties was a cross country caravan of people that went from California to Washington DC to demand changes, to stop the clear systemic murdering of Indigenous people and demand treaty rights be upheld. This culminated in the 1971 occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington DC which led to incredible acts of solidarity between the Black Panthers and AIM.

It is important when we listen to Floyd's song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWaI9UZ-LYw we recognize the amateur anthropology often deployed my Marxists, usually rooted in the anthro work of Marx and Engels themselves. The number one argument against landback (besides that they dont know what it means) is that not every Indigenous person wants that, however what we do want is everything it entails. This pointless distinction of whether agree with the slogan or not is meaningless, if you look at the content of said slogan and the masses needs and wants in this current period.

So when you see Marxist podcast, platforming but never paying Indigenous guests, that is an amateur anthro whose motives should be severely questioned. Especially when we consider the question, what have they given back with the wealth they accumulated beyond a podcast thats business model (whether for fiscal or social capital) doesnt work when you pay for peoples time and expertise?

When talking about "Indian Experts" Vine is specifically drawing on his introduction where he explains how easy it is to be an Indian expert, and when you look at the arguments people try to waste my time with, you will often see the same thing Vine describes in the following:

So much in the vein of opposing book worship, you must oppose Indian expertise! Unless you actually live with us you do not know us, and it is not enough to visit for a week. Some visit a powwow and suddenly they understand every nuance of an American flag in NDN country, albeit I think we should stop flying them.

The irony of seeing the flag is not lost on us, and it has been a central prop in many demonstrations and used many ways, to represent are discontent. It also has a deep effect on our communities when so many people gave their lives fighting a foreign war for the first time ever in our peoples history. What is worse, was we were promised we would only be national guards. This and many other tragedies will have people laughing with pain in their eyes as they recall the generational trauma, that repeats over and over, only with new lies that prey on people who are desperate

That's what makes it easy for white organizations reformist or revolutionary, to be quickly ignored in decolonial spaces, they often have barely even done the bare minimum to participate let alone not over step their station. There is a reason why no investigation, no right to speak, is such a crucial part of being a good communist.

So often people come without an invitation, and it causes a great deal of problems, and gives people less time to plan. At any rate all these quotes came for Custer Died for Your Sins original published in 1969 and updated in 1988. We think it is time to utilize the decades of work, revolutionary experimentation, and historical development to update and harness the frameworks of this work and this is a sort of "toe dip" into the water. If you enjoyed this please find a way to support the many things we are doing via our linktr.ee/chunkalutanetwork

Currently the most important ask we have is $900 to pay back our organizer who lent us the last bit we needed to get the shipping container on time, thats under the winter drive GFM and the remaining amount will be for our own broker/trucker or for another trailer depending on how fast Direct Aid is moving with their end of things (always have a plan b). In other news our permaculture experts arrive on Pine Ridge any minute now and we will have updates from their unload and everything else happening on that end. Anyway plenty of reasons to join the patreon or liberapay, but most importantly is to pay for these amazing organizers survival, and cost of organizing. I will be foregoing my own stipend as my organizing severely reduces to focus on my newborn kid. (also yknow if you want to say congratulations and help with diaper costs $ZitkatosTinCan) Thank you all for reading and look forward to the next thing. There wouldve been more but somehow I got Covid, weakened my immune system (my entire family then got sick), at the end of covid having our baby, then my firstborn got a double ear infection from the drainage of mucus caused by COVID. So Im exhausted lol. We are also always raising money for wood so if you are donating to wood make sure to leave a note!

Normally when we talk about the history of "the pilgrims" and the first thanksgiving it is usually around, thanksgiving. However this story stretches across time to give us important lessons, as we repeat the story, when we need them. This is not some metaphysical process, but the natural result of learning a story, its ins and outs, and observing them from new perspectives in time that are accompanied by a plethora of new information to change what our conclusions might have previously been. The circular nature of Indigenous oral histories, is something I aim to capture with my work, and so if this sounds familiar: its because Ive probably said it before.

We of course are constantly dispelling Settler mythology that informs American jingoists, most commonly seen in the 'patsoc' but we really need to address how many people, believe the version of history taught to them in public school. Of course in communist spaces they've began to address the lies around the Cold War, but how often are they question not the information itself, but the LACK of information within the textbooks about Indigenous nations?

One of the more gruesome pieces of folklore is the idea (lied about by William Bradford himself) that the Pilgrims were giving burials to their fallen siblings, but instead they were turned into scarecrows out of paranoia to ward off any would-be attackers. They were tied to trees and armed with muskets to make the Mayflower appear well guarded, in reality so long as they weren't actively stealing, there was no risk of attack.

Their paranoia stemmed from their own ignorance or perhaps disparity, that drove them to steal from people they had never even met. The Nauset people only lived in the area during the summers (much like the rich) and so these stores were pivotal in surviving harsher weather later in the year. Once they found their stores being stolen from.

It was in the town of Patuxet, the settlers would become convinced that it was God's will that brought them here. The town had fertile fields with food growing, and the inhabitants had all become ill and died. Quickly they moved into pre-built homes that were the same quality and designs as European homes, and when the fires were lit, the smoke drew in Samoset. The people surrounding the area knew this was where the sick were being sent, and that nobody should be alive lighting fires. So when the English heard Samoset, speak English, they must have truly believe God had made these circumstances for them. The reality of this education of not only Samoset, but Tisquantum, is much darker

When looking at a guy like this I can't help but think of a variety of people who've had far too much money, like Elon Musk for example, and terrifies me to imagine what activities like Gorges they might copy. If Musk knew of aliens on Mars, it would not surprise me to learn Futurama had predicted English speaking Martians, that Elon had forcibly kidnapped and taught English. Perhaps that was a dumb joke, but the history is undeniable morbid, and before you ask: yes Matoaka (Pocahontas) was in Europe at the same time as Samoset and Tisquantum, but no they did not meet. She also died this month in 1617 on the 21st, were it not for being extremely ill and how welcoming a second child into the world, we were going to do an effort post then too. However because of the circumstances Im just trying to prevent brain damage from covid, and praying fever doesnt kill my kids.

The treaty mentioned here is what sets the precedent for the First Thanksgiving as depicted in children's stories, to come about. Really it was a response to the terms set in the treaty granting Patuxet to become Plymouth, that brought a group of warriors to the Pilgrims harvest celebrations. This included shooting guns for fun, it really is the most American thing you can do, which Ousamequin responded to believing the guns were the English fighting another group. Tisquantum would end up using his position as translator to subvert the Massasoit's traditional sphere of influence, but as soon as the English learned this was happening, they got a new translator. The peace wouldn't last of course when we would come to see the real first Thanksgiving as a celebration of the death of Ousamequin's son Metacom (King Phillip), whose head would sit in Boston's Town Square for decades.

Obviously the story we are telling this post is much larger, so I guess you will just have to follow our other social medias, or look for our effort posts on here in order to make sure you don't miss out. We have most of our podcasts already planned for the year, our organizing, and a great deal of effort posts which we are aiming for 2 a month. We are still working on videos though thats slower, but is becoming more streamlined as we grow and are able to pay people for labor. So this November you will also get a podcast episode to accompany this with the organizers of the National Day of Mourning, who are wonderful and were amazing hosts when I visited, so it will be great to talk to them again in such new context (I was still with The Red Nation when we last interviewed).

We will be launching a new GFM but for now we have a few still left unfinished that we would like to draw your attention to that you can find via linktr.ee/chunkalutanetwork. The first is a wheelchair drive where we are over halfway to our final goal to get an immigrant comrade of ours a wheel chair to prevent severe sores you can see on the GFM. She was paralyzed due to an accident during surgery and has really had a shit ton of bad luck for way too long. Had I known the fundraiser would stall out, Id have prioritized the wheelchair higher, and now Im left wrestling with the ableism implicated in that decision. As well as left to wonder how bad the ableism problem is when we get the donations for land in 2 weeks, and it takes a year to get a wheelchair.

The next fundraiser is Lost Sioux who is just a Lakota in Canada trying to survive, and survived the 60s scoop. Theyre not communist but you should help them survive anyway.

Lastly is the Winter Fundraiser which final amounts go to 3 things: the first 900 is for the loaned amount one of our organizers fronted to cover the costs of the storage container in time for our deadline. They believe we can get that money, and have kindly deferred what payments we could've given them to other important asks like housing elders. Which is the second thing the last bit of money goes to along with land, while the third thing is wood. We have seen trailers for as little as 1k this year, and think contributing to this fund is a lot more than most people do to fight the housing crisis.

We are also sending out permaculture experts this month to live on the land permanently, this means they will live and suffer with the people, and means they need our help just as much as the people on Pine Ridge do. Our goal with this group is to set up systems to combat food insecurity cheaper and more effectively at this stage in our organizing capacity then a Buffalo Prairie. However the work fundamentally reshapes the land to host Buffalo better once again. We also hope to get a jump start on the Great Green Wall project we will be starting, which will couple with bringing back the Black Footed Ferret to the area. Hopefully solving desertification issues through a two prong approach 1) planting trees along the area under desertification and 2) by supporting Black Footed Ferrets who will naturally out compete prairie dogs, whose tunnels cause more severe erosion, and whose over represented presence is the result of settler colonial terraforming of the plains into mono culture crops and grasses. All of this to say by supporting our Liberapay and Patreon you are contributing directly to the stipends of our network of incredible organizers, who deserve to be supported like so many people support podcasters on the left. I hate podcasting I do it to attract donations for mutual aid work and organizing I support or am doing myself, and to educate people before my larger projects are ready to release and prime them for better understanding of the materials being covered. As my kids come to dominate my life, my stipend should go to another organizer who needs the support I had that enabled me to start CLN. This idea comes from a study that shows if you give a houseless person 700 a month no strings attached, they will become homeowners. What happens if you give a communist 500 a month? Well I certainly did a lot over the last 2 years, and see no reasons others couldn't. The biggest thing is these stipends represent employment for our people on Pine Ridge, who have no other access to a regular "pay check" beside from government assistance. We already know the next 5 people we think deserve 500 a month, and we believe their work will speak for itself as to why they deserve that stipend. As this year goes on you will be introduced to each of these people through various ways, and some of you might already know of them because their organizing is so influential. We are daring to invent the future, we are building a mass base, and we are creating infrastructure that generations can use for resistance. Walk with us, you won't regret it

https://linktr.ee/chunkalutanetwork

A lot of people are unaware of Marlon Brandos extensive efforts to bring attention to Indigenous rights issues. From attempting to platform an Indigenous person during the Oscars, to giving an RV to the American Indian Movement that the feds would pull over in Wichita, it is no wonder we find him at the Fish-ins during 1964. The title image shows Brando with Puyallup tribal leader Bob Satiacum, Brando is holding one of 2 steelhead salmon he caught during the protest.

It's important to note the real impetus of these protest not only being the Puyallup but the Nisqually people as well which, the right hand map shows in reference to Puyallup. Puyallup being in the middle of Tocoma, Nisqually is right outside the western city limits. All of this history of course is underpinned by settler-colonialism that we can't help but see being repeated (only with modern technology) in Palestine.

Of course we all know Lewis and Clark to be foundational to western expansion, their expedition having ended in the PNW, it makes sense why when Ft. Lewis was built they would name it after Meriwether. This is why we can't colonial occupation and land grabs to something "hundreds of years ago" considering Bill Frank was born only 25 years after their treaty was signed and lived to be 101. Our elders and leaders have a living memory of this time because it really wasn't that long ago

In total I have heard elders say 400 times the franks had been arrested, 40 were the times they were charged with a crime instead of only having property seized

And if you are ever lucky enough to meet the people who grew up learning from the Frank's, you will see why I felt the need to inform people more about this topic. You see February 12th marked 50 years since the courts ruled in favor of the organizers

Yet the salmon are not safe, and in fact are on the brink of extinction. When I went to the Pacific Northwest I went to Frank's Landing, I visited the Puyallup, and then I went North to Lummi. There I would have an interview with Children of the Setting Suns production crew, and would meet with Jewel James. There I learned about the effort to establish an International governing body to protect the salmon from over-exploitation called the Salmon Peoples Project, which would seek to connect people who rely on salmon for their way of life, to fight on behalf of the Salmon.

Solidarity on an International level has always been at the root of Red Power, and is why I think people should learn to put down their hubris, and humble themselves to hear about the kinship between our nations and the other-than-human nations that are often hard for settlers to understand.

There's a great song by the AIM activist Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman (a grandpa of mine) called "They Didn't Listen" which is painfully relevant today, as is his song "Where were you when" when I mention humbling oneself to hear another world. While in Lummi I learned their traditional river only saw 3 salmon return, and I was honored with a can of smoked salmon of one of them, and feasted with them after being invited to an incredible ceremony to celebrate the end of a totem journey.

This is despite the best conservation efforts of settler society, and the elders there believe this year there will be no salmon if the dams are not removed. There has been incredible efforts to do this, but the question remains what will happen? Have their predictions changed since 2019 and 2021 when I last heard them? We will see.

I can only talk so much about this specific story out of respect for the people who I was a guest to, but you can read about it https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/indigenous-carvers-totem-pole-to-journey-across-pacific-northwest-to-bolster-dam-removal-movement/ where I am actually behind the camera as the photo of the 3 of them is takem (Jewel being to the right). They were actually laughing and smiling right before the camera took the photo and had to take considerable effort to stop smiling. The totem pole shown above is my photo of the same one shown in the paper, and neither of us took a photo of the other side. On the other side was a red women waiting to be reborn through the salmon, this symbolized Indigenous resurgence through traditional food systems brought into the future and updated. It was an honor to have met these people and shared our stories, to hear how they valued the salmon like we value buffalo. I look forward to visiting again this year and to hear about the dams they are tearing down, and what theyre carving next.

Most recently was a totem pole https://around.uoregon.edu/content/totem-pole-journey-will-make-stop-uo-campus that was an orca being ridden by an Indigenous woman in reference to the same orca from 2018 that inspired the journey I saw the end of. They call orcas the people under the sea, and I think when we see literal organized attacks on yachts, we should consider what that means for organizing given stories of crows collecting change for people when trained to. Theres a lot you can do thinking outside the box, to me this is how we invent the future

So if you learned something and want to help us out we are currently raising $1000 for an Anishinaabe families electric bill that got away from them with rising prices, and ultra cold, cold spells and weirdly warm spells making bills extremely unpredictable. As well, the utility is owned by enbridge who is being required to remove Line 5 from Bad River lands where this family lives, to us we believe there might be a case of mass retaliation through raising prices. We have 711/1000 we are also looking for help paying the storage costs of an elder and community leaders ceremonial items he has had to store to house 15 people during the winter. We have 87.50/200 needed to pay that bill.

You can of course support these people monthly and our organizers via the patreon or liberapay (found on https://linktr.ee/chunkalutanetwork) and hear the CLN podcast as soon as the episode is ready verse on the 20th of every month for the public feed. All content is eventually made free and we encourage that you steal and distribute it, who knows maybe a pirate RSS feed might appear to get patreon content for free at the same time. At any rate supporting us monthly will go towards paying $500 a month stipends for International organizers of a variety of orgs, that were they given that extra support could dedicate far more time to incredible work. We are increasing our first year goal to 3k/month as we have identified several candidates that we believe could do incredible work, if supported how people support podcasters doing the bare minimum. The podcast is a byproduct of easily produced theoretical and relevant discussions to the current moment and organizing our networks are doing. We are hoping to start writing more when the website launches and ask forgiveness for the delays in thats launch, as well as the delay in the audio documentary (we are doing some rewrites due to time constraints of the second narrator we wrote in and we are making all of the music ourselves now) anyway I promise it is worth the wait and things just take time to do right and not cheat people for the years of support theyve given me in pursuing this research. Its been a real honor and turned into the Chunka Luta Network so it really is just something else worth documenting the best I can the first time. However you can see rough drafts on patreon before publication lmao. Anyway thanks for reading all of this if you did

Is this how you thought the actual Wounded Knee post would be presented? Stroke of genius really, at any rate this is a history I have grown up hearing. I've known the broad strokes for so long it felt like I was an expert when I started the Bands of Turtle Island podcast when I was like 19 maybe just turned 20. I impressed people so much a producer from Jacobin reached out and offered 15k to tell this exact story, and we all know how much Jacobin sucks but it was a great little podcast called "People's History" named of Zinn's book. So I demanded artistic and editorial control. This was paid by 3 entities and paid to multiple people I received 10k which what I received for labor went back into the podcast to make it better. I visited 53 reservation communities and 18 urban organizers from a wide variety of parties/orgs to better understand the conditions of the US. Because of this I learned just how little I knew, and realized there is a missing piece to a larger question of why momentum of the movement slowed to a crawl and is properly better suited for a long form piece that doesnt need pictures to save characters. On February 27th, 1973 (51 Years Ago) my family helped lead the famous Wounded Knee Re-Occupation. There countless people came and went while a core 300 occupied the town for 71 days and declared the Independent Oglala Nation backed by the traditional chief Frank Fool's Crow and Matthew King who commanded considerable political sway among traditional communities on Pine Ridge (often "coincidentally" also the poorest) who were being harrassed and assaulted by Dick Wilson to coerce them into agreeing to sell off a tenth of the reservation to Uranium mines like Union Carbide.

They chose Wounded Knee because of the symbolism in protesting there, it didn't turn into a re-occupation effort until AFTER Richard "Dick" Wilson set up road blocks, and used arms supplied by the US government to blockade. In Dicks mind AIM was coming to kill him, when they drove by the Tribal council building instead he chased them to Wounded Knee to instigate a fight while claiming the American Indian Movement was. In fact one of their supporters had survived the 1890 massacre, and is pictured above.

My elders call this period the Reign of Terror. Dick Wilson killed the equivalent amount of people to Pinochet's first 3 years. My uncle Leo saw his uncle burned alive as the Dick Wilson and his GOON (Guardians of the Oglala Nation) Squad tried to firebomb Fool's Crow who wasn't in his home at the time. OSCRO was even able to successfully collect the signatures needed to impeach, only Dick Wilson oversaw his own impeachment trial. Of course he was innocent.

Their argument was premised on the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty which by precedent set by the Marshall Trilogy in the Supreme Court, was the supreme law of the land equal to the constitution. This led to it be conceived as a Civil Rights issue by the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (which is ironic considering Sioux is a slur), who would be the ones to ask AIM to come protect them as they collected signatures. After the impeachment failed, what recourse were we left with a literal dictator murdering his political opponents?

The reason this history is so mystified and hidden is because it lays bare so succinctly, the continuation of COINTELPRO after it was made public. The solution was a new far more encompassing program that was essentially a domestic Phoenix program called Garden plot at least at the time of the re-occupation. What its become now is anyone's guess but Newsweek uses the limited hangout phrase 'Signature Reduction' which stems from the Douglass Durham infiltration imo and is the premise of the book I am writing.

During the period of 1965-1973 are 71 Red Power actions, one of which is led by Herb Powell and is the first example of a landback protest. This resulted in a lighthouse being returned and utilized as a Survival School and Indigenous spirituality led rehab center to combat the AA/NA Christianity underpinnings that often drove away Indigenous people. Akewsasne Notes are some of the most comprehensive resources available of the period beside archive footage and are archived online. Madonna is my aunt, sister to David Swallow Jr and Russell Means and you can learn so much about her in Warrior Women (just wait we will make it accessible)

Madonna's daughter Marcella actually incredibly went to Cuba for the 11th World Youth Festival in 1978, she went and met the youth movement of the PLO around the same period too, my mom wrote the Denver youth program charter, this has always been one generation building of the other. Madonna calls it "a movement of families" I argue what we need is a family of movements united under one.

It's no exaggeration either! David's grandpa rode with Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, Fool's Crow was 88 in 1974 (John Denver sang at his birthday oddly and we have the footage and me the people who filmed it) people think these things are so far away but literally up until the 90s you had to speak Lakota on my rez. Now the language is practically gone. Is it any wonder the ghost dance which caused so much fear they murdered a childs mother while still breastfeeding, while under a truce flag, caused just as much fear in the state agents hoping to kill more Indians?

This year we were the ones who funded the gas, water and part of the food being provided, we are housing the victims of this violence after decades of continuously being tossed around. The photo under this one was taken by my former boss Nick Estes, in it you see a Palestinian Flag next to the AIM Flag and next to an upside down American Flag. When the flag is upside down it means you are under duress during war, this is a war. Its still be raged, just in the 90s under Clinton the ATF, FBI and more raided our Sundance accusing David of forming a militia and having bazookas. They found only a Buffalo gun. They are so afraid of us picking up the rifle again, and this spring David will be going to the senate and demanding the BIA and Tribal Council dissolve operations on our reservation. He will be demanding the reinstatement of the 1868 land claims, as a starting point to honest relations and building a future. This will be denied. There will be turmoil. You need to be ready.

If you enjoy these posts, want to support this movement, and in general learn more about us check out our https://linktr.ee/chunkalutanetwork where you can see our other social media to get updates on our public works, read our first year organizing strategy, or find our patreon/liberapay links in order to support this work monthly. Otherwise right now we have a huge ask for $1000 for an electric bill that got away from the Indigenous family, enbridge owns their utility too and I just find it particularly moving to help them fight their electric being shut off by some one poisoning their lands right now as we speak. You can donate to $ZitkatosTinCan on cashapp and @zitkato on venmo we are hoping to fulfill this one by the 8th. We also have ask for that we currently are at 1500/4500 for a trailer to house an elder, unfortunately the trailers we got donated were falling apart and would definitely collapse on the journey to the Rez. This one is in Rapid City and we can haul it with a pick up and just need to winterize it and hook it up to electricity which we are estimating to be 1500+ as you can tell we always have a ton going on this will be the 2rd home we provided this year, and we are sending a permaculture crew to the land this March who will be staying in a Tipi until we build several A Frame Cabins this May-September during our construction caravans. We have been asked to also help develop an ID and passport production system like the Haudenosaunee have, and are looking for ideas and pointers. This is far more than a mutual aid organization, and people should learn just how much we are doing and how much our base already believes in us. I dont know any other party where we are, and we barely have our governing documents together so why not support us and see where we can go

Lastly fuck commas and the English language

Sorry for the late post, we wanted to get this uploaded for the 14th but due to a clusterfuck of several things occurring all at once, my time on the computer was eaten by moving and planning a funeral at any rate we wanted to share these photos on here (and they were already shared on instagram on time albeit without alt text) as time allows a statement will be made wrt to what happened as its relevant, Otherwise no we did not use CLN funds to untag people from Instagram posts. We did however ask them to remove us, so whoever did it did us a favor we asked for a week prior to any animosity. This decision was made due to the effort we put into our posts, and the lack of effort involved in screenshotting your posts from one site and re posting them. While the drama and theatrics were carried out, I was studying the genocidal campaigns of Cook for a week and plenty of real life issues for a reasonable criticism to have gone so poorly handled.

There is not a place on this Earth, Cook went, that he was actually respectful of the people. With all the typical euro-swagger of a "self-made" settler, turned explorer extraordinaire due to birth lottery, he sailed around the world finding himself related to the many colonial activities of the time carried out by Britain.

The French-Indian War, or Seven Years Wars holds a lot of the contradictions the affected the Great Lakes Region and later expulsion of Indigenous nations across the Mississippi. His cartography would directly help several massacres occur nearby where I currently live, or have lived thanks to helping people navigate the St. Lawrence river easier. This essentially exacerbated tensions with peoples in the Great Lakes regions leading to Pontiac (Odawa) and Guyasata's (Seneca) War which is most known for the takeover of Ft. Detroit through a LaCrosse game. Thats a story for another time (trust me I tried to write that story short and we decided its worth its own book because I can reach all the way to Tecumseh and later)

Cook's trajectory into later voyages was set by this initial colony effort, however benign his role seemed, mapping and land surveying are the first steps to colonial occupation. By using science as a means to fundraise efforts to colonize, one of the most insidious colonial tactics of claiming Indigenous people are anti-science for recognizing the white supremacy inherent in academia as it exists, was created.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/captain-cooks-1768-voyage-south-pacific-included-secret-mission-180970119/ you can find the quote above here, as we discuss the red line on the shown map. Which began with colonial activities in Tahiti and islands across the ocean as they went. Ultimately this was to beat the Spanish and Dutch to finding Australia

Of course they would map what was called New Zealand but is Aotearoa, being chased away for being assholes. Then due to sickness Cook was forced to stay close the ship when they landed in Australia

Now there is amazing groups like our friends at the Black People's Union who you can hear us talk to their president on the Chunka Luta Podcast on wherever you listen to podcasts, who are showcasing the horrors of this legacy and how to build toward a future where the colonial relation has ended.

I wish we could blame him for Climate Change, but Cook helps us understand the extent colonization changed the climate, with studies suggesting the genocide here on Turtle Island reduced the Earth's temperature. As well as acknowledging how the destruction of the bioregional agriculture practices established across the hemisphere, has sent the Earth's regulatory systems into a change.

So sorry this was so late, we are currently raising money to help people pay for groceries and their electric bills due to several programs running out of funding on Pine Ridge. We have another effort post planned for the 27th so whoever is in charge of those Megathreads let me know or I guess Ill ask Nikolai (hands broken so trying not to bother) about the Wounded Knee Occupation which we helped fund the 51st annual Liberation Day walk to remember the people who gave their lives for the movement.

If you are in the area I recommend you go see for yourself the gas we are cooking with. If you want to support those efforts and more related to send donation to $ZitkatosTinCan on CA or @zitkato for now as we finalize the org admin stuff to open up a collective bank account and have org accounts. You can also support us monthly via patreon or liberapay found on our linktr.ee/chunkalutanetwork

We also had a new branch begin public organizing in the Vancouver Canada area, which will be launching a program this April to help houseless relatives in the Area. Interac [email protected] PaypaI @vancouverchip And you can reach out to us to get ahold of them or email them at the same interac email

There's Always more but this was a late post anyway so forgive me for not trying as hard as I might normally

We last left you discussing the concept of the bordertown and the racialized violence enacted there through settler vigilantism, which is obvious through physical violence. In a new era, however, what about online discourse? This is one thing I’d like to introduce to our discourse and hopefully help settler allies understand when they might accidentally dawn a hood and cape for the state. I see settler vigilantism as synonymous with Kluxism, or at least they stem from the same psyche. The spirit of Manifest Destiny seemingly possesses these settlers to act out in monstrous ways, depriving us and themselves of humanity and life. There are no more bounties to collect for a scalp, so this shows these actions to murder Indians are deeper than just monetary gain. It is always about the land. Briefly we spoke on Raymond Yellow Thunder and Wesley Bad Heart Bull, both victims of settler vigilantism. Raymond died due to injuries sustained in a fight, and Wesley was stabbed in a fight at a bar. Both resulted in AIMs activism, and ultimately pushed them further to Wounded Knee. Raymond Yellow Thunder was killed before the Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972, and inspired the famous “AIM Song” which is actually the Raymond Yellow Thunder Song and should be respected as such.There is a great deal of controversy still surround Raymond’s death, but from every perspective I’ve heard one thing remains true; it is colonialism that murdered him.

Colonialism’s claws come from many directions, and it brings death in a systemic, planned and targeted manner, contrary to Engels' view of social murder. In a colony that target gives a slight reprieve for the colonizing nation’s working classes, and seemingly at the root of every boot strap story, is a mystified deluge of the eldritch horrors of capitalism and colonialism. These horrors which possess, steal, and murder are often described as primitive accumulation by contemporary Marxists (or the motor of capitalism), the tongue-in-cheek humor often becomes lost. Primitive accumulation which once derided the ruling class's view of themselves, now it is used by chauvinists to be synonymous with pre-Columbian political-economy. In the case of the Oceti Sakowin, we remained primitive in the eyes of these chauvinists until 1868. The people who make these arguments don’t seem to realize the cloak and hood they have proudly proclaimed as their own, but to us the colonized, we see the same two mouths our white siblings have become known for.

English is known for its one word with many meanings, or perhaps many words with the same sounds, but each uniquely specific. In the case of Wesley Bad Heart Bull we can see this most clearly in the settler’s courts, which proclaim law and order, but really only on behalf of the landowner. When there is no clear land owner, it's about which party most represents the landowners. In a settler-colony with a case of assault with prior consideration to ‘kill him an Indian’ it is of course manslaughter when you kill somebody who was fighting another person. This is of course sarcasm, generally speaking when you “accidentally” kill someone it is still a degree of murder especially with prior expression to want to kill an Indian, and when the assailant wasn’t involved in the fight. Murdered in the street like so many before and after, and that was a well known fact of life in South Dakota. You could be murdered and like Raymond or Wesley, your attackers might get charged with a small fine and manslaughter, but when you ask every settler when justice comes they all play innocent. This is why AIM went to the streets. When you ask Pine Ridge elders when AIM became a symbol, you are told the Gordon protest. When Russell Means took the Chief of Police’s hat and threw it, David Swallow Jr recounted his feelings as “we can do that?” This is where a fire was reborn that still carries on today, as my nation’s president banned Kristi Noem from our reservation after she tried to stoke xenophobic fears at a rally. We are standing once again, and it is time to stand with us and learn our revolutionary history.

So today on February 6th was the day of the Bad Heart Bull trial in Custer, South Dakota. To this day as landback grows more prominent and our elders and leaders move forward with decade old plans and conversations, the contradictions here grow. Because of this I’ve sought to see the perspective of various communities and generations, on the ‘Indian problem’ as it has always been called here. The Indigenous question is only the colonial question, and the communist movement has had a century, decade, and a year to discuss this since Stalin's publishing on the subject (1913, of course the conversation predates Stalin). One of Lenin’s last works was on this specific topic, and the question of who should be okay with having an autonomous region of their own in a larger state: is one that places great nations at the whim of the nations they oppressed.

Because of the words Lenin has spoken on the subject, people like Ho Chi Minh froze all night just for a chance to see the great man’s body. The pan-African revolution, the third world movement, fourth world theory and so much more have a red light shining on them from the star that is Lenin streaking across the sky: calling us to revolution. We don’t know if that star was shining at the time the molotov was thrown, but when the court house went up in flames, it certainly caused a stir. Nobody knows who threw it either, I’ve talked to a considerable bulk of living participants, but it was thrown after the cops pushed Wesley’s mother down the stairs with a billy club. Only 3 people were going to be allowed into the courtroom, and when Dennis Banks, Russell Means, and David Hill entered the cops stood in the way of the mother of the victim, and brutalized her. David punched that pig-fucker in the face and the riot ensued. Custer is THE symbol of settlement in the Black Hills, it's one of the first towns, and to this day makes its money from exploiting the land and treating it like an amusement park. While people on my reservation don't have water, Rapid City has a water park. Custer had a literal amusement park that flew a replica of the 7th Calvary's flag; we already had the real one, so during the riot that replica flag was also taken. Cy Griffin was a film maker from the video freak movement that was there, he went back to New York and told his friends about everything happening there. A war in South Dakota is how he described it. We call it the Reign of Terror. See, it wasn’t just in the bordertown we were being murdered in the street, on Pine Ridge a seemingly innocuous man named Richard Wilson (only one parent was Lakota) became Tribal chairman. He employed his family (legal in our laws) , began embezzling money (not legal) and established a right-wing paramilitary called the GOONs (Guardians Of the Oglala Nation, questionably legal). The GOONs would enact violence on Dick Wilson’s political opponents by firebombing, drive-bys, and gunning people down in the street. This spurred the organization OSCRO (Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization) to form, and begin collecting signatures to impeach Wilson. They were successful in collecting the signatures, however Dick was the one who presided over the impeachment, and of course found himself not guilty. OSCRO is an often overlooked organization, and I believe this to be the goal of federal agents to remove the grassroots elements from these struggles and obfuscate the lessons we could learn. As mentioned in a previous post, Dick Wilson would oversee the equivalent amount in deaths to Pinochet’s first 3 years. This is in South Dakota, and nobody knows these facts, and pretend colonialism is some bygone era. Because of the fire lit in Custer, in Gordon, in the Pacific Northwest, in DC and so many more places, we see the modern land back movements stem. Those movements stemmed from the wars, those wars stemmed from the early capitalists accumulation of wealth to jump start global capital today. In these circles we see how yesterday is today, and only by understanding both can we move on to tomorrow. We must pull capitalism up from its roots which are soaked in the blood of the colonized, until we do that we are doomed to fail. We mentioned briefly how these concepts go beyond physical violence, and one way is the erasure and silencing of Indigenous and other marginalized voices. This might sound farfetched to the insensitive, but in a critical period of rupture, we have to make sure we don’t get bogged down in what is socially mainstream. If the mainstream is saying our talking points then we have failed to stay at the head of the movement, and are merely another voice consumed into the acceptable protest movement. We have to stand arm and arm with trans comrades as opportunists and state agents both turn their sights on them across the country, seeking to separate them from would-be allies who are worried they will lose mainstream support for daring to stand against the face of oppression. Those who can’t stand in solidarity with everyone, yet voice opposition to Israel in this critical moment, are capitalizing and being opportunists. This has to be combatted. People like Jackson Hinkle make Trans and Indigenous people their target for a reason and you should learn why. Especially if folks like Hinkle can sell stolen Palestinian Gold, and people give passes to communists defending him. The movement is in a critical moment where it has to struggle with the colonial contradictions, failure to do so, means failure to form a vanguard. In our next post we will discuss Captain Cook and his death on February 14th, my birthday is then next so y’know if you like these posts and the work we do I recommend supporting us! We have a linktr.ee/chunkalutanetwork with all of our social media, gofundme efforts we are engaged in, a liberapay and a patreon that all go to supporting the work CLN does. This post was short as it's mostly a timely bridge to send us on our way to the real Wounded Knee 1973 post at the end of the month, so lots of learning to do. I also recommend checking out the Indigenous Anti-Colonial Institute podcast and the CLN podcast for more education. Our patreon also has a ton of episodes, and there’s also Marx Madness where we read you theory. Right now we are reading a custom Gramsci Reader that you can check out in our library listed on the linktr.ee. I also want to stress, don't wait for us to learn about this stuff, start with Blood of the Land by Rex Weyler, read the Erdoes biographies, and then ask what a Marxist perspective on this stuff should be. I will be releasing a companion to the book later this month hopefully, of a stream of thought journal kept on my 3rd read through.