This is the complete transcript of the talk (and questions-answers) by Winona
LaDuke in the James A. Little Theater of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Catalina Reyes
of Gata `Burque Journalism Audio Production (P.O. Box 25822, Albuquerque, NM
87125-0822; 505/243-8625; fax 505/243-8630, gatabrq@hotmail.com) was the
engineer. We are grateful for her permission to represent the recording here
in text form. Rob Hager introduced Chris Wells. Winona LaDuke, Mississippi
band of Anishinaabeg, speaks as Green Party Candidate for Vice-President. She
is founding Director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project and Program
Director for the Honor the Earth Fund.[1]
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Fighting The Bad Guys And Trying To Do The Right Thing:
A Vision For Change
Winona LaDuke
Speaking in Santa Fe, New Mexico
August 28, 2000
Tonight, we're going to have the introduction done by a Santa
Fean, Chris Wells, who is the Director of the All Species Project
and we know him here in Santa Fe for the person who established
All Species Day and gave us a good party. We came back and partied
again this year. Let's welcome Chris back to Santa Fe. He's going
to the introductions for Winona.
Thank you. Hello friends and neighbors. It's great to see a full
house tonight. This is really exciting. I am honored to be here
and I wanted to say, for those of you who don't know All Species
Project, we are about ecological education and about reconnecting
kids with the Earth. We're not just about festivals, but a
festival is a wonderful way to bring the results of the learning
to the town. We hope to be able to keep doing that.
In the course of looking for the disciplines and skills that
reconnect children to the Earth and re-enfranchise our ability to
live well where we are and work towards sustainability in our
region, I came across the bioregional movement in the early '80s.
A movement that is based on regional sustainability and based on
watershed and topography, plant life and all of those things that
are more real than political boundaries. A bioregion is the real
province that we live in.
In the course of searching out some of this thinking and the
activities that went with it, I went in 1981 to the Ozarks area
Community Congress where I first met Winona. She was then, as were
many of us, trying to find ways to get America to stop supporting
the military regimes of Guatemala -- which Clinton had to
apologize for a couple of years ago. Winona has always been
working on regional issues. She's been to Santa Fe many times and
knows New Mexico politics better than many of us who live here.
The time between '81 and '84 was spent by many people in the
bioregional movement organizing something called the North
American Bioregional Congress, which happened in '84. During that
time there were committees formed to discuss whether it would be
worthy to form a Green Party, a third party in the United States.
It was doing rather well in Europe and we thought perhaps this
would be something that would further all of our needs and hopes.
Yet the discussion was always there: Will this split the vote?
This will be a big topic tonight. I'll let her and others deal
with that. I think those of us who are here know that we're not
splitting the vote. Because a vote for truth is different than two
parties that are essentially working within the same value system.
The Bioregional Congress formed the Committees of Correspondence.
Out of those Committees of Correspondence was formed the National
Green Party in 1984 which Winona was a part of. So she's not just
a Green on the ticket who joined later. She is a founding member
of the Green Party. One of the original Greens of the United
States. She brings to that a very strong ecological perspective
that is not just a ground for old leftists who feel
disenfranchised. This is a movement of deep ecological values that
have not been embodied in any previous politic that's been
articulated in the United States before. It brings an essential
politic that has been left out since the beginning of our country.
Imagine if we started off our Congressional bodies with a Thank
You Prayer for the Earth as many native peoples do in their
counsel.
At any rate, Winona has been there since the beginning of the
Green Party and now she is going to become a major leader of this.
I am nearly overwhelmed to look at all of you out there. It is so
amazing.
I want to say who she is from a personal perspective. She's a wild
rice grower. She is a maple syrup collector. She's started women's
shelters. She's worked with arts collectives, empowering native
artists. She's up three times a night nursing her baby on the
campaign trail. She has been devoted since day one.
I want to say that a vote for a Winona is a vote for the Earth.
It's a vote for the plants, a vote for the water. It's a vote for
those things which hold up our life every day. I am honored and
pleased to invite Winona to come here and speak with us tonight. I
want you to welcome her, Winona LaDuke, the next Vice-President of
the United States.
Thank you so much. Miigwetch, as we say in my neck of the woods.
Boozoo indinawaymuginitook. Hello, my relatives. Niin gagwe
gitimaagis. Beenaysikwe indigo, Makwa niin dodaem. Gahwah bah
ishkoniginiing indoojibaa. Miigwetch, indinawaymugunitook.
Miigwetch. Thank you again for being here. Thank you my relatives.
I am telling you where I'm from. I'm Bear Clan Mississippi Band
from the White Earth reservation in northwestern Minnesota. I am
very honored to be here with you tonight.
I am honored to look out there and some of the people I can
recognize in the audience that have worked for so long. I was
privileged to have dinner with Gilbert Sanchez, a great gift. Dick
Chaney is out there, 10,000 bucks a plate for lunch with him,
dinner with him. Dinner with Gilbert is priceless. Grateful for
his generosity in filling up my belly and my child's belly a
little bit before we came over here.
Rob Hager is a man who helped organize a lot of this. I've known
that guy for at least 20 years. He has done a lot for all kinds of
people. All of kinds of people and a lot of people don't know
that. Whether they were nuclear radiation victims, like Karen
Silkwood. Whether they are people in Bhopal, India who deserve
some justice from companies like Union Carbide. He is a great man.
I am honored to know him as a friend for all these years.
I see my friend Eda Gordon over there and Richard Erdoes. I am
very privileged to see them. They are long time organizers for
justice and great writers.
I come here to Santa Fe, I enjoy coming here to this town that
likes Indians. It's not exactly like a border town to my
reservation. But that's okay. It is a beautiful place you have
here and I am very honored that you all came here to visit tonight
about some of these issues of democracy and where we are going. I
thank all of you for coming and all the many people out there who
work earnestly on these issues with whatever gift you have. It is
a good thing. It is always a good thing if you can figure out what
your gift is early on rather than struggle too long to find it.
But thank you for your work.
I thought I would start by telling you a little about what brings
me to this. Because I don't know that many of you. I will tell you
that as I say I'm a mother of three children. My youngest who was
last heard walking or riding outside -- my 6-month old. As a
mother, I'm motivated to do this kind of work because I cannot
understand why I should be more concerned about how much sugar is
in my child's breakfast cereal than I am how much PCBs is in my
son's tissue. That is the reality of this day and age as a mother.
I have to be concerned, as we all do, about a whole array of
issues that are very dangerous issues for our children. Those
become the issues of parenting. Those become the issues of
mothering. Of how you look out for your kid over the years ahead.
That doesn't always involve just making sure they can read. It
involves making sure that somehow you do the best you can to avert
those other poisons from getting into their bodies and into their
lives.
I come to this work because I work on a reservation in
northwestern Minnesota. I spent most of my adult life working in
different rural and reservation communities around this country.
In doing so I came to the same questions as I worked here in the
southwestern United States in '78 and '79 on uranium mining and
coal strip mining issues. I came to wonder about and hear these
questions being asked: Who gave these corporations these rights?
Who gave them the rights to all our water? Who gave them the
rights to contaminate that ground water? Who gave them the rights
to all those minerals? Who signed all those leases? How did that
happen that their rights came to supersede ours?
I have worked in South Dakota with ranchers and Indians asking the
same question and able to avert huge bunches of uranium companies
that came in there looking greedily for uranium mining potential
in their area. But they were able to overcome the racism that had
come to grow between their communities and say that there is a
common enemy here. It is not an enemy that is a different color;
it is an enemy that is based on greed. We were able to avert it
there.
I've worked on dam projects in northern Canada. I have two
children from far in northern Canada. This was in the 1980s, after
we were able to defeat development of many of the nuclear power
plants in this country. This is a story that many of you likely
know. The fact is that the Nixon Administration proposed to have a
thousand nuclear power plants in the United States by the year
2000.[2] What a nightmare that would have been. Instead now we
have 109 aging nuclear reactors that are a total disaster. But the
reason that we don't have a thousand nuclear power plants in this
country is because people got out and organized. That is how that
was defeated. The nuclear industry is very powerful. But the
people are more powerful.
When we were able to defeat nuclear power plants in this country a
lot of those northern utilities, particularly, looked towards
Canada and the vast rivers of the north and said Let us dam them
and bring the power here. Let us flood out those Indian
communities located in remote areas because that is such vast
potential for hydroelectric power. Let us keep our high level of
consumption going. Let us just replace one fix with another one.
We'll get our power from some place else and who cares about those
people. We took them on. We took them on in James Bay II and they
called us a `rag tag band of activists.' The New York Times said
How could a rag tag band of activists take on the largest
utilities in the world? And how could they win? That is what we
did. We defeated James Bay II.
Now of course the challenge we face, as people who live with the
Earth, who live with some reverence for the Earth, is that you can
defeat one dam, or your can defeat one power plant, or you can
defeat one mine, but they will always come back for more. That is
the problem that we face. This country is the largest consumer of
anything in the world. We consume one third of the world's
resources. This country is always intervening in other people's
countries and other people's human rights to take those resources,
to fuel this immense need that is driven by a paradigm that
ultimately will drive us to our own destruction.
I have come to understand, over the course of my life, that there
is a relationship which exists in this society that is a
predator-prey relationship; where the society is a predator upon
this land. There is nothing which is nourishing that prey except
for our prayers and the fact that the Creator, and that our Mother
Earth is so powerful. But the challenge we face in this society is
ultimately how to quell the hunger of the windigo, the excessive
windigo. That's what it is -- the excessive predator. How to quell
that so that we may actually continue living.
I have come to understand in the course of my work in many Indian
communities across this country, and in other poor communities
across this country, that there is also a direct relationship
between development and underdevelopment. Some people become
developed, some people become rich, while others become poor. That
is a worldwide phenomena. It has occurred in Africa, as much of
Europe underdeveloped Africa. It has occurred in much of Latin
America. It has occurred in every Indian community across this
country where theoretically Indian people should be the richest
people in this country. But we are today the poorest people in
this country. We have very little that is left in our lands and
our homelands. Then there is a country which has the immense
wealth of the United States. It is always held up as this great
prosperity. But what we must remember is that some people's wealth
is at the cost of other people's poverty. That is the relationship
that we have.
The companies that my friend Ralph and I talk about today or you
all talk about today, are not companies that began humbly. They
are not by-and-large companies who, like in the story of
Rumplestiltskin, spun their straw into gold. Many of these
corporations are corporations that took the land and resources of
other people to accumulate the wealth which they have today and
have come to use to rule many of the powers in the world.
I believe the fundamental challenge we have as people who live on
Mother Earth here -- as patriots perhaps, not always to the flag,
but always to the land -- is to figure how to reconcile those
relationships if we are to move into this next millenium. And that
is fundamentally the challenge that we bring to this electoral
process. That reconciliation with the Earth and reconciliation
with the people who live here. Let us talk first about that
reconciliation with the Earth.
You are a really smart looking bunch. So I do not need to tell you
all the statistics. Let us remind ourselves however. We have cut
most of the trees. 95% of the old growth is gone. We are fighting
over splinters that is left. And still this insatiable demand of
tree-growing companies, like Weyerhaueser, as it calls itself,
seems to be totally unsatisfiable. Just cries and cries for every
last tree we have in North America.
I am someone who was arrested once. I was arrested in 1995 in Los
Angeles because I chained myself to the front of a phone book
factory. In my gut I do not believe that a thousand year-old tree
should be turned into a phone book. I do not believe that we as
people of conscience should have to spend our time in jail arguing
over these things but sometimes that's what we have to do. You
have to stand up and sometimes you have to get arrested. I
fundamentally believe there are some trees we should just leave
be. That is probably the ones that are left.
99% of the tall grass prairie is obliterated. We've gone in the
Great Plains from 250 different species of grass down to, in a lot
of areas, like a Nebraska cornfield, one species. That would be a
species of corn with a little tag on it that says "Monsanto."
Total loss of bio-diversity from the Great Plains. The Great
Plains was the single largest biome in North America. It has been
the single largeest loss of life of any biome in North America.
There is that immense loss of bio-diversity that has been the hand
of our industrialism.
We are a society that has pretty much combusted ourselves to the
edge of oblivion. That is the reality. We can all be in deniable
about it. But you and I know that the polar ice cap melted. The
North Pole has melted. That is rather -- if I was even a little
bit stupid -- I would consider that to be an indicator of a
problem.
I try to take my clues as quick as I can. That would be a good
one. We are a society, which each year has more natural disasters
than the year before. In the last decade, we've had more natural
disasters than ever known in history. We have more hurricanes and
everything coming down the road. A lot of that is directly linked
to global warming and our level of combustion.
We are a society that has immense problems with nuclear waste. I'm
in New Mexico. We know that here. We have vast amounts of
radiation contamination in our ground water. We have abandoned
uranium mines all over. We have the problem of Los Alamos. We have
this law that every year comes up like a bad Bruce Willis sequel.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Each year, Congress discusses the
Nuclear Waste Policy Act which will take the nuclear waste from
109 aging nuclear power plants in this country and drive it or
train it across America -- on America's highways or on America's
railroad lines within a half mile of 50 million Americans -- to
Yucca mountain. Each of those nuclear waste casks has the
equivalent of over 250 Hiroshima bombs in it. They are talking
about 90,000 shipments of nuclear waste on America's superhighways
and on America's train routes. I consider that to be a public
health hazard.
We call that bill Mobile Chernobyl. That's a good name. But the
problem is that each year that bill reappears because we have a
really bad public policy. Now, I'm a parent. I don't how many of
you are parents out there but I have a little deal with my
household. The deal is with my kids and all those other kids that
play at my house. The deal is you cannot make a new mess until you
clean up your old mess. Why is this with nuclear power that
somehow there is this presumption that these nuclear industries
are allowed to keep making a mess year after year after year? And
somehow we would figure out what to do with the mess. And now,
those utilities, whether it is Private Fuel Storage or the Federal
Government, the Office of Nuclear Waste Negotiator -- that's a
really bad job to have, huh? -- Office of the Nuclear Waste
Negotiator; it's like a really ugly Avon lady, going across this
country trying to get somebody to take that nuclear waste. What we
have to do is quit producing nuclear waste.
We are a country which, in the new millenium this fall, the
Federal government will come up another EIS on the Yellowstone
Buffalo Herd that will propose continued lethal management of the
Yellowstone Buffalo Herd. That is the largest wild herd of
buffaloes in this country. Ironically, we are still talking in the
twenty-first-century about killing buffalo in America. That is
something that America should have learned a lesson from. That is
something that is absolutely wrong to reappear in public policy.
We are a society, which today has by-and-large reduced our
relatives -- all of those species, all our relatives, whether you
have fins, whether you have wings or whether you have or paws; we
have reduced them to poverty. They are living in ecosystems which
are withered away to barely anything. There are salmon running
their heads into dams and getting obliterated. There are buffalo
which try to leave a park and get shot. There are wolves in
northern Minnesota that are okay if they stay in certain area, but
once they cross out of that they are trapped or they are shot.
That is what we have done to all of our relatives. We have reduced
them to virtual poverty. And somehow in the end, we must reconcile
our relationship. We must reconcile our relationship with all of
those relatives. Whatever creed they are, whatever wings they
have, we must come to some solution. There are, however,
solutions.
The reality is that this is a country that has immense
opportunity. It is not a country which is absent of opportunity.
This is the richest country in the world. The value of the United
States stock exchange is the value of all stock exchanges in the
world combined. We are not absent of any resources.
I was in South Africa in December at the World Parliament of
Religions. I was so privileged there to hear within the course of
three days, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama speak. I was so
grateful that in my life I could hear people like that speak whom
have spent their whole life struggling on these issues. And in a
country like South Africa, which has so been ravaged by hatred.
But yet that country has the courage, because they have recovered
democracy, to undertake a peace and reconciliation process. I am
not going to say that this is an easy situation that they have in
that country. And I'm not going to say that that is an easy
process for any country. But what I am saying is that they have a
political will and that is what we need in this country. A
political will.
So, we have some solutions -- no absence of them. We could quit
cutting our forests. No commercial logging on national forests.
Leave that which remains, there. The ecosystems deserve to be
preserved. Trees deserve to be left standing. There are plenty of
trees that Weyerhaueser is growing since it is a tree-growing
company that they should be cutting. If that's what they want to
do.
But more than that, we can look at things like hemp. Technically,
hemp is a four-letter word. But actually it should not be treated
as a four-letter word. Industrial hemp is the plant of over 25,000
uses. That is the reality. This is a plant which you can make food
out of; you can make oils out of, and fiber. It produces as much
fiber per acre as wood. You can make things like the parachute
that George W. Bush's father used in World War II when he jumped
out of a plane.
You can make sails. You can make clothes. We are a country which
imports hemp from countries like France and Canada who are making
millions of dollars on those imports. And yet, we deny American
farmers the right to produce hemp in this country. A crop for
which net returns on hemp are three to four times those returns
one gets from wheat or canola.
I live in northwestern Minnesota. A small Indian reservation. In
my area, you have a 10% decline in farmers every year. I look out
there and I say to myself, and those farmers say too, they just
want a break. They don't want charity. They want a fair price for
their crops. They don't want to fight Cargill every time they turn
around or Monsanto. A lot of those guys would really like to grow
hemp. So, that is one of the alternatives we have in this country.
We just have to have the courage to decriminalize it and allow for
the production of industrial hemp.
For years people of conscience, people with brains, have
introduced legislation or sought legislation under various names.
One of my favorite pieces of legislation is called NREPA --
Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act. It is a piece of
legislation which looks at the northern Rockies and says Right now
we have national parks in this area in which we are trying to
technically preserve a wilderness. In that, we let those animals
return, pretty much -- wolves, buffalo, mountain lions, bears --
they are allowed to be in those areas.
The problem is that with national parks we have essentially
created reservations. In those national parks, if those animals
cannot go outside of the borders of those parks, they are doomed
to genetic extinction. We must have the courage to create
legislation where we connect those national parks through
corridors that preserve a much broader wilderness state. That is,
indeed, how we do the right thing for our relatives. That is the
kind of preservation that we need in this country.
We are a country which has immense potential for alternative
energy. I am astonished that Denmark leads the industrial world in
wind energy. Followed by Germany. Obviously, they are very smart.
Those are not strange people over there. I think they are pretty
handy, apparently. But why is it that our country hasn't moved to
wind energy? The fact is that our country has for the past 40
years essentially squandered 65% of all research and development
money in the Department of Energy on nuclear and coal power.[3]
Those are two industries and some big businesses that certainly
don't need anymore corporate welfare.
Let us take that money and invest it full-scale into wind and
alternative energy. Let us support projects like Native Sun on the
Hopi reservation. My friend there Debbie Tewa has been involved
installing 350 solar units up on Hopi households. A lot of Navajo
households, as well. Those are people that decided, as I
understand it, that they didn't want to have a power line between
them and the creator. They also decided that they didn't want
Arizona Public Service to run a right-of-way through the middle of
their villages that are 10,000 years old. They didn't really get
how Arizona Public Service should have any sovereignty in their
village. They are kind of upstart. Just been around a little
while. But I guess that some of those Hopis wanted to watch Jerry
Springer. So they decided they wanted some power and they go out
there and get these solar units and stick them up on their roofs.
They have 8 panels, 4 panels, 12 panels, they rotate a little bit
in the sun and they pay them off over time. They have 350
households up there that are all on solar energy.
We need to invest in those kinds of alternatives. We need to
invest in community-based businesses that do that. We need to
invest in the technology to bring the price down. We need to give
credits for utilities or anybody who can get into these forms of
alternative energy. We need to look at the Great Plains. I was on
the Blackfeet reservation, a couple of weeks ago-- Blackfeet has
Class 5 wind energy. Class 7 is the highest you can get. That
whole reservation, almost all of North Dakota is Class 5.
Blackfeet have these wind generators they put up. They cannot get
enough money to put up the next set of wind generators. That is a
total shame.
The Federal government squanders it's money on all kinds of
absolutely ludicrous things. When a community like that could be
generating energy -- not only for their community but for the
whole region with wind energy. That is the kind of thing we need
to be financing. The Great Plains is considered the Saudi Arabia
of wind power. One third of the United States energy could come
out of the Great Plains itself. That huge ecosystem. That is what
we need to be financing. Those kinds of things. That is the
alternative. That is the vision that we have.
When I visit with my nine-year old son, ever since he was about
five or six he used to say, "Mom, what do you do?" I think other
parents must have to answer that question. And I used to say to my
boy, "Ashuwak" (that's this name), "Ashuwak, your Mom fights bad
guys and tries to do the right thing." I absolutely believe that
you have to actually do both.
In the work in my old community -- we have a small grass-roots
organization -- we work on all these issues. We are actually
putting up a wind generator now. I spend a lot of time fighting
clear-cutting. I'm really upset at Uncle Ben's. We produce wild
rice on my reservation. I wish that wild old silver hero would buy
rice from Indians up there. You guys go ask them about that. But
in our communities we produce these crops like wild rice. It's
wild rice grown on a lake. We go out there in a canoe and harvest
it. It's not grown in a dyked paddie in northern California. It is
a totally different product.
We try to fight for our rights; for our intellectual property
rights; for our cultural property rights. We try to keep our
forests standing rather than cut. We have a lot of water quality
issues. We have airborne emissions that are landing in our lakes
and affecting our fishing ability to feed our selves and our
families because we have got PCBs and mercury in our lakes.
So you have got to go out and fight those guys to try get them to
quit devastating your ecosystem. But at the same time, what I
figured out in the course of my 20 years of work is that you
cannot always say what is bad. You have to also say what is the
alternative. That is the vision that the Green Party has. The
Green Party has a vision, that is a beautiful vision for the
future. That is a beautiful vision for quality of life and our
future. That is a beautiful vision that all of us can live in good
harmony. And that in my experience is the best way to do things.
Because in my community, probably not unlike yours, we are all
kind of creatures of habit. We get accustomed to things. So to
say, These are some changes that could be made. It is much easier
sometimes if you can show them those changes. Show them that those
changes work. Show them that wind energy works. Show them that
organic food works. Show them that buying fair trade coffee is a
good thing. It tastes really good too. Those are the kinds of
things that if you show people that the quality of life is
improved in them, it is a good organizing tool. That is my
experience. That is where this comes from in some of these
strategies; that there is always an alternative. We are fortunate.
We are so fortunate as compared to many countries in that we have
many alternatives.
We believe deeply in economic reconciliation. In reconciling our
relations with each other. We are a country in which there is the
deepest disparity of wealth of any industrialized country. That is
an historic process. As I said, where some people become rich and
others become poor. That has increased over time.
Where today it is said that 10% of the population controls 73% of
the wealth. 90% of the population has 27% of the wealth. Bill
Gates himself, not a very poor guy, last year made as much 130
million Americans. Doing good. Bill Gates is perhaps not the best
example of it all but it illustrates this vast disparity of wealth
which, unfortunately, to be honest, as you and I know as parents,
is agrandized in this society. It is glamorized. That to be rich,
to look out for number one, to get ahead, is a good thing. I don't
think that is true. I don't think that is true.
Because what has happened in this society is that in the past
decade, the CEOs, the corporate executive salaries have increased
481% while 70-80% of the American workers' wages have leveled out
completely. A good portion of the American working class today is
today working at wages which, if they were adjusted for inflation,
are on par with wages paid during the Nixon Administration. We are
losing ground.
All that economic prosperity -- all those people going off welfare
and to work. A lot of them are going to work at places like
Wal-Mart as associates, seven bucks an hour. That is what a lot of
those people are paid. Two working adults in a household, working
really, really hard and their families are still at the poverty
level. That is an absolute disgrace in this country.
We are not asking for charity. We are asking for justice. In
communities like mine, people would sometimes say, when I started
running for Vice President -- it was kind of a joke when I started
out there, not in the community but in the outlying areas, they
said, "What is that woman doing?" Because what has happened over
time is that there is this presumption that the only people who
run for office are rich people who live in Washington. That means
that a lot of good people no longer run for office. That is
something that we have got to challenge. Because public policy in
this country should not be written by rich people for rich people.
As far as I can figure, the rich are doing very well. They don't
need any more public policy at all. Public policy in this country
should consider the interest of the poorest people in this
country. And when asked, I considered that I am pretty
well-equipped to discuss that set of issues. Because I live in one
of the poorest counties in the state of Minnesota.
I have seen economic policy after economic policy. I've seen job
training programs come to my reservation. There was a point on my
reservation where there were more people employed in job training
programs than employed. I got so many plumbers and electricians on
my reservation and they have no place to plumb or electrify. We
don't have any funding to electrify our houses. So, where are
those guys going to go?
And that is the absurdity of that kind of a Federal policy. Yet
now, our people get told, go off welfare. Welfare reform. There is
all this "Welfare Queens" and this and that. Where are my
community going to go? In my community, they get thrown off the
welfare roles and they get to go drive 70 miles to Fargo, North
Dakota to go work at a Wal-Mart for 7 bucks an hour. You guys know
what it's like -- by the time you go out there and pay your
insurance, you pay car bill, you put gas in your car, you pay your
childcare, you put food on your table, and then you have got to
pay for every other crisis that comes up when your kid is in
daycare and they get sick every couple of weeks. You cannot
actually afford to do that. You're below the poverty level still.
That is not a fair choice for working families in this country.
That is absolutely unfair.
They're always talking about the Welfare Queens. Well who is
talking about the Corporate Welfare Kings? Who is talking about
that your and my tax dollars are going at the rate of between $125
billion to $250 billion a year to corporations like McDonalds so
that they can peddle burgers in other countries. $70 million went
to corporations like McDonalds and Sunkist Orange.
Other examples, what about Squibb? One of my favorites. Taxol --
remember that? One of those miracle drugs for cancer. You and I
developed it with our tax dollars and our tax research. But
basically the patents were given to Squib. Who sells it back to
cancer patients -- doesn't give it back. We paid for it but they
make immense profits on that.
There is case after case like that of privatization where today
all those millions of Americans who don't even have health care.
We cannot even afford the drugs that we already paid for. That is
the shame. That is the disgrace in this country. And that is the
challenge that we must face. We must reign in those companies. We
must have the courage to reign them in and to begin the process of
recovering our democracy from them. We must begin the process.
When they talk about being tough on crime, we need to be tough on
corporate crime.
Why is that in the 1940s -- I always liked that George Bush Senior
-- wasn't he the one who said, "Read my lips, no new taxes."
Remember that? One of the few things I remember that he said. How
about this: I don't actually agree with that. What I think is we
should look at the historic patterns of taxation in this country.
In the 1940s, the American public provided about 40% of the
Federal tax budget. 33% was provided by corporations. Today, in
the 1990s, 73% of the Federal tax budget comes from individuals.
15% comes from corporations. They are totally underwritten, every
loophole is written for them. They are getting entirely handed to
them.
So I wouldn't say No new taxes. I would say reverse the taxation
process so that it is not regressive and punishing you and I who
are out there just barely making it as a middle class or working
class in this country. Those are the challenges we face on
taxation. Let us talk about it in those terms.
Let us consider that ultimately the challenge, economically in
this country, is to begin reconciling between the rich and the
poor. We have to somehow curb the privilege of the top. Whether it
is through taxation, whether it is through ending corporate
welfare giveaways, or whether it is -- one of my personal
suggestions is -- we should put a moratorium on mergers. I have
absolutely no idea who owns anybody anymore. Anytime I open up the
paper, there is a whole new number. It's like pretty soon
everything will be owned by Nike or by Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart's net
worth in an annual year, their annual income is larger than the
annual income of the nation of Ireland, of the nation of Portugal
and of the nation of Israel.
How did this immense disparity occur? And how do we change it? We
must absolutely put a moratorium on those mergers. We must
absolutely close those loopholes that allow those corporations to
get such benefits while you and I pay so heavily. We must
absolutely end corporate welfare and we must look towards our
people. We must argue for a living wage in this country. No more
working families in poverty. Corporate profits should not soar
while American workers are just barely getting by. Absolutely, a
living wage in this country and absolutely protect the right and
encourage the right and repeal Taft-Hartley so you can unionize in
this country.
My Grandmother heard me talk a couple of nights ago. It was so
touching. My Grandmother was sitting in the audience and I told
some stories about her. My Grandmother was a member of the
International Ladies Garment Workers Union. She made pocketbooks
her entire life. And I know that the reason that I have a 40-hour
work week is because of ladies like my Grandma. That we have
benefits is because of people like my Grandma in those unions. We
absolutely must protect the right of workers to unionize in this
country.
It is those processes, which will begin that reconciliation of
income in this country. It will stem that tide which is occurring
more and more in this country. Where each year we have more people
moving into gated communities, putting their kids in private
school, hiding themselves away from the disarray and the economic
poverty of this society.
I do not want to live in a prison. I don't think that we should
build a society based on prisons of privilege and imprison the
rest of us. The two million people in prison in America today.[4]
We have more people than Communist China in prison in this
country. That is the disparity that exists that we absolutely must
heal. You cannot heal that by school vouchers. You cannot heal
that by putting more cops on the street. You must absolutely bring
justice to these communities. You must begin a real long-term
process of healing these riffs, which are deep riffs that have
historic origins but are the riffs which tear at our very diverse
society.
You and I want to walk the streets of our towns and cities and
look out at an array of the beauty of diversity that is this
America. We want to look at other people and not live in fear.
That we will be scorned and ridiculed because of our race, our
sexual orientation, and our religion. We want to walk out there
and feel safe and secure and the only way that will occur is if we
we are all safe and secure in this society.
Ralph and I, as well as many of you, are also proponents of
transforming our budget from the military economy. This state, as
I know, is a big military state. But I also know that the military
is not only the number one producer of toxics in this country,
places like Los Alamos, for instance, but it has also totally
distorted the budget of this country. Today, we spend a third of
our money, at least, on the military.
Fiscal year '99, $271 billion spent on the military. Over ten
times that which we spend on education. Over ten times that which
we spend on natural resources and the environment combined. Over
ten times that which we spend on our children, on our health, on
our anything. We are a country which spends so much money on the
military we have become insane.
Now, if I went over to my house and I bought a whole bunch of
assault rifles and I let my kids go shoeless to a crumbling
school, and my Grandma was hungry, I would be locked up as
certifiably insane.
But that is essentially what we have as a country. We have a
certifiably insane country. We don't need any more F22 fighters.
We have no enemies. Nobody is going to beat us. In fact, we are
defending countries that already have a big military. It is not
only that we must move to a peace-based economy at home. But we
also must also absolutely transform our foreign policy away from
the military policy.
Last year, I lost perhaps one of my best friends in Columbia. Her
name was Ingrid Washinawatok El Issa. She was one of three
humanitarians who went to Columbia to work with the U'wa Indians
who are fighting for their existence against a company in which Al
Gore has a lot of interest, Occidental Oil.[5] She went there to
work in that community as they worked on their schools, as they
worked on their clinics. And my friend Ingrid was much more
courageous than I. She traveled all around the world and took up
this same fight for justice of people everywhere. When she was in
Columbia last year in February, she was kidnapped by the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia. That is supposed to be the
good guys. And five days later she was shot by them.[6]
Columbia is a microcosm of our foreign policy. Columbia is a
country, which is engaged in a civil war. It is a war in which we
have armed every body. Columbia is now the second largest
recipient of U.S. military aide after Israel. We just appropriated
a whopping 1.3 or 1.7 billion dollars in military aid to that
country. That is an example of what is the problem.[7] We have
armed every body in that country. I was reading in USA Today or
Albuquerque Journal, yesterday 17 people were shot, villagers, by
both the paramilitaries and the leftists in Columbia.
That is an example of what has happened in the chaos that we are
creating in the world as we continue to arm under one pretext or
another. The School of the Americas[8] -- the single largest
number of people who go to the School of the Americas, as
enrollees are Colombians.[9] I paid for the bullets and the gun
that shot my friend. We all did. That is the reality.
As a mother, I look out there around the world and I am deeply
disturbed by the fact today that the United States is arming the
world. We are arming the world.[10] We are the single largest
purveyor of small arms in the world. Probably the largest purveyor
of large arms too. We sell everything. But most of the wars going
on in the world today are not with ICBMs and F16s. Most of the
wars going on in the world today are with M16s and Kalashnikovs.
Those are the guns of choice. Those are called small weapons.
Perfected in Liberia. Those are the guns that are being used
throughout Africa, throughout South America and civil wars within
nations.
The fact is that in the first World War, 95% of the people killed
were combatants. Today in the wars going on in the world, 90% of
those wars are fought with small guns and 90% of the people killed
are non-combatants, that is women and children. That is people out
there working the fields. That is people who are mowed down. I
believe that we must have a foreign policy, which does not give or
sell guns to people with human rights violations.
We must stand up righteously in the world. Anywhere you go if you
are American or a person like me who lives on this continent and
you go around the world and often hear these stories. I've been
privileged. I went to the World Parliament of Religions. I went to
the UN Conference on the Status of Women. You hear these stories
and you just cry. You hear those stories and you say, "What could
I do to help you?" They say `Change your government's policies.
Change what your government does. Do not send us used clothes. Do
not adopt our children. Change your government's policies.' That
is the courage and the opportunity we have in the world.
We are the people who could change the fate of many people
throughout this world by having the courage to change America.
That is the vision that we have. Not only in this election, but
each day of our lives. That is a vision that we share and that we
work on each day of our lives. That is a vision that I'm committed
to. To make that change for the future generations.
There are solutions to all of this. As I said we end corporate
welfare, tax equalization, a living wage. But in this election
year, I will tell you that is also part of the solution. This is
the largest democracy. In this country, we have so disenfranchised
our people that less than 50% of the American electorate gets out
and votes. That is a huge dilemma in this democracy which we hold
up to the world and say, "Don't you just want to be like us?" Well
just watch it on TV. That is the largest party in America, the
non-voters.
I don't know what they are talking about the Republicans being the
largest party in America. They are not. Nobody is as large as the
non-voters. I myself, my public confession, I was a non-voter. I
was. I am someone who spent most of my life doing political work
but not working in the electoral arena. Because there are a lot of
ways to make change in this country. I worked in all those ways,
the best I could -- gardened, farmed, organized this, boycotted
that, all those things. I chained myself in front of factories.
All those things. Demonstrated. I've done all of those things.
That is other ways to make change.
But I decided in 1996 I should vote. I know you think that is kind
of ironic. I decided that if that guy Ralph Nader, who for my
entire adult life -- I turned 41 last week -- and that guy, Ralph
Nader, for forty years, has been out there battling evil.
He has been battling evil and doing the right thing. When I was a
little kid, I had three heroes. Ralph really blushed when I said
this the first time I did this big public thing for him. I said
there were three heroes I had: Batman, Spiderman, and Ralph Nader.
He is, indeed, the people's superhero. That is what I believe. And
if Ralph says, "We got to take back democracy for the American
people." And he says, "We're going to get up there and we're going
to do that." And he says, "Winona, I don't care if you're pregnant
and nursing, you better come along." And here I am.
But I say let us at least engage in a civic discussion about where
we are going. Let us vote. That's what I say. I say, let us allow
Ralph and me in the debates. You know that guy in my state, Jesse
Ventura with all those guns and the feather boa? He would not have
been allowed in the debates under the regulations set forth by the
Federal Debate Commission. He was only getting ten percent in the
polls. They wouldn't let him in the debates. But yet he was
allowed in the gubernatorial debate in the state of Minnesota. He
debated and they had the single highest voter turn out in the
history of Minnesota and he was elected. That is what engaging in
an actual debate of interest can do to America. Even if people
don't necessarily want to vote for me or Ralph, just let us in
there it would be way more interesting.
I ask those of you who are involved in political work in any arena
to keep up your good work and I thank you for it. For those of you
who are thinking about it in some way, Ralph's first proposal,
I've modified. I do that to him a lot. When we started this
campaign and were talking about campaign finance reform, he said,
"I want a million people to either give us 100 bucks or 100 hours
or both." That is actually the way campaigns should be financed.
People giving time and and people giving money -- no corporations.
I modified that because I come from a lower income bracket. I
said, "25 bucks or 25 hours." Four million people, means you have
got to organize harder. But I'm a mom and we can organize
anything. Moms know that.
Let us consider that is part of our challenge: to organize people
to participate civically in this society. If we do not organize
people to participate civically, we will continue as things are.
Because Wal-Mart has a ten, or maybe a fifty-year plan. Nike and
Occidental definitely do. We need those kinds of plans. We have
vision. We have dreams. We have opportunity. We need to articulate
those into public policy. We need to take those into action.
In the words of a great American leader, Sitting Bull -- that is
one of the things when I get to the White House, we're going to
redecorate. There are a lot of other great American people whose
photos should be on the walls. My mother is an artist and we have
a little thing in my family about the limited number of women in
the National Gallery of Art. We must address those things. Because
that is what America is. It is this diverse mosaic that is so
beautiful. So that leader, he said 100 years ago which is of
course when Indians should have been allowed to vote. Things would
be different. If we had one man, one vote when Sitting Bull was
around. A lot different. He said, "Let us put our minds together
to see what kind of future we can make for our children." That is
what we must do. We must put our minds together.
And then we must put our hands into action and make that future.
Because we are the ones my little boy and all your little
grandchildren count on to do that. That's why I say to them -- I
talk to those youth and I say, "You know what, when I'm
65-years-old, I want to be doing beadwork and pow-wowing. I'm
going to come see you and I want you to be on that good road and
taking care of things. I won't worry about it." That is what we
deserve when we are that age. But we have to invest and make the
change so that that is possible.
I want to thank you so much for your time tonight. Encourage you
in your work and in your lives. And thank you for this privilege
of visiting with you.
Miigwetch.
It is 9 o'clock and Winona has graciously agreed to answer a few
questions or comments too -- this is Santa Fe. Open forum for a
few minutes here.
Q: Will there be tapes of this?
Rob: Yes, I believe. Catalina, you're giving me a tape, right?.
That's a commitment now. Yes, the Green Party should have tapes of
this. Catalina is the one who's doing it. And Wilhelm will have
videotapes. So contact the Green Party.
Q: Will you be coming to Maine?
Winona: I don't think I'll be coming to Maine. I'm going out to
the East Coast. My travel schedule is a little slower than
Ralph's. That guy moves. I've never seen someone move so fast.
First I'm going home. I have some kids I need to put in school
(like every other mother). I'm going to Connecticut and Rhode
Island and then Boston. We're coming back here in October. That's
another thing I should make an announcement about.
We're doing this tour that we do every couple of years for my
other job. I direct this fund called Honor the Earth which is a
National Native Foundation.[1] We do a tour with these musicians
known as the Indigo Girls.[11] We'll be back in Albuquerque in
early October. We'll be talking about native environmental issues
and social justice issues. We'll be coming back through on that
and maybe do some other appearances on that. I encourage you to
look for that and the announcements. I think we're doing two shows
at the Kimo and a show out on the Navajo reservation. We'll bring
some other musicians with us but we raise money for native
environmental issues. We've raised about a half a million dollars
so far. We have a really great time doing it. So I'll be on the
road the whole month of October doing that tour with the girls.
Q: I read an article in the New York Times about a month ago about
Ralph's investments; how he has become a millionaire from several
of his investments. I'm wondering if you would comment on that.
Winona: The guy doesn't spend any money. My wallet and my
checkbook are always empty. I usually have five kids in my house
and I have seven horses, three dogs and two cats. You don't need
to know all the details, but I can never make enough money to be
very well off. But that guy, for all these years, he never spent
any money. He doesn't own anything, except for those suits. He has
a watch. He showed me his watch -- he doesn't even have a
watchband anymore. So he's very frugal. He's kept that. I think
he's earned it. I just leave that be. That's good that he earned
that money and squirrels it away. For all these years I thought he
kept it in a shoebox under his bed. I was really surprised myself
when I read that. I myself when the FEC releases my income
statement, you guys will all feel that it is closer to your
pocketbook. Don't worry.
Q: He's gone after a lot of other people. But he's a lawyer. Has
he ever gone after the lawyers?
Winona: Rob, where are you? We'll ask a lawyer that question.
Rob: The lawyers that Ralph supports are the lawyers who protect
individuals against corporations. Some of them get rich and some
of them are downright thieves. I know I've dealt with some of the
downright thieves and Ralph has been on my side in those issues.
The answer to your question is Yes, he does go after lawyers who
are corrupt. But he's known as supporting what's known as the
Torte system which is when we get injured, people get injured, we
can sue the person who injured us. That is the basic principle.
Ralph is the strongest champion of that system in this country. A
large factor of why we still have that system is due to Ralph.
Q: Can you introduce the candidates that are running locally? I
know there are some big supporters here and it would be nice to
see them.
Winona: I would be happy to.
Rob: I know Xubi Wilson is here. Maybe Xubi is duffing his hat in
the back. Come down here a little further, Xubi. Xubi is running
for County Commission. Our county is a kind of good ole boy back
room system. They don't like people coming to their meetings. They
don't like telling us what they do because those are things where
private people can make some money. Xubi is trying to open the
door. If you live in his district, District 5, vote for Xubi.
Melissa McDonald told me she might be able to make it here. She
was out campaigning tonight and apologized. She was at the
previous meeting and spoke there. But Melissa is in the city
district in the internal Agua Fria district in Santa Fe running
for County Commission, same as Xubi. I want to add to that, this
is not just theoretical if we get one or two. If we get Melissa
and Xubi, Paul Durant has already been elected in his primary. We
have a majority of people on the County Commission. There will be
real changes in this county on issues of power, water.
Now I believe Marvin Gladstone is still here. He is running for
judge. Cliff Bain is running for Public Regulation Commission. He
got one-third of the vote in the last election against Jerome
Block, who represents the good ole boy system of basically the
Public Regulation Commission seems to be there to protect the
monopoly of PNM -- where you pay your utilities bill to. We are in
a crucial period right now on energy. If we can open up and get
what's called `net-metering' in our state, we can start producing
energy right here. Winona talked about wind, talked about solar,
and we can do that here. We can make a big change. It's not going
to happen unless Cliff Bain is elected. If Cliff Bain gets elected
you are going to see changes in this state in the Public
Regulation Commission.
Q: What can we do to get you and Ralph into the Presidential
Debates?
Winona: Thank you for asking that question. Suggestions to get
Ralph and I in the debates. You can write letters to your paper.
There were three Letters to the Editor in USA Today in the paper
today. I don't if any of you saw that. Write letters to the
Editors of the papers. Lay it on the Federal Debate Commission.
Same thing with the TV stations. Write to or call or go on the web
www.votenader.com or www.votenader.org. To get more information
about petitions. Ask the local Greens. It is just out of total
fairness to get us in there. And thank you for that question.
Q: Your campaign is calling for extremely radical changes in the
way we live in this country, which really need to happen, and I
appreciate it. I'm curious about what is your plan with Ralph to
deal with the obvious hostilities that will come from the backlash
in trying to make these changes like Congress and Political Action
Committees in Washington, DC. I know Ralph's been working in
Washington for a long, long time and is definitely not naïve. But
I'm just really curious how you're prepared to deal with that
hostility.
Winona: I have to be honest. I don't know if I have the answers to
all that. What I would tell you is that, I'll be honest with you,
I pray every day. I try to do the right thing and I look out there
and I really believe that these are the kinds of changes we need
to make in this country. And that only through curbing their power
are we going to be able to be here for the long term. That process
really resonates with a lot of people. Once they begin that
process of uncovering their own fears and mythologies about where
we are and how we're benefiting.
Sometimes my kids watch on TV. Yes, my kids watch TV. They are
watching those shows and I say "You know what? We are not those
people. We are not those rich people who live in Beverly Hills.
Those are not us." You have got to deconstruct your own mythology
and figure out actually where you stand in the whole thing and
where we are going. It is questions of values and I believe in
what we we're doing and I believe in our process and I know that
we are on the right road. That is how I go forward.
Q: How do we bring this message to a wider audience? What are your
words about the media and corporate domination of the media?
Winona: Isn't it disgraceful? It is one of those immense
challenges that we have to overcome. What Ralph says is that the
public airwaves should belong to the public. Not everything should
be underwritten by, paid for, owned by -- but that is one of the
longer-term challenges that we face. In the meantime, I encourage
people to keep after their newspaper and keep after their TV and
keep after their media to say, actually this is what the debate is
about. This is what the electoral process is about.
When Ralph was in Portland on Friday night he was talking about
the front-page story in the Washington Post with the headline, "Al
Gore Relaxes". He said, ``I'm going to call up the Washington Post
and say, "I'm going to go relax." Do you want to come and do a
story on that?'' It is totally absurd what is going on in this
country. I don't care about where Al Gore relaxes. I care about
issues of substance in this country. We must challenge the media
and we must challenge to recover that. That is how this will
occur.
Q: I would like to know what you have to say about overpopulation?
I think that is actually the biggest and environmental challenge
facing us. Because the more people we have, the more houses we
need to build, the bigger the suburbs are going to get, the
smaller the farm lands are going to get and so on.
Winona: I will be honest with you in that I think the questions of
overpopulation are coupled with questions of consumption. That is
the argument that is always pushed on the South as, `You people of
color have too many children.' And then the South always responds
and says, `You Northerners consume one third of the world's
resources just in the United States.' Both are issues. I will not
dismiss that. All of us should have freedom of choice as to how
many children we have. I'm an absolute supporter of that. I think
we need to look at all those issues.
I have three children. That is actually one over the allowable
limit. I'm not going to apologize for that six-month over there.
That is three children between the six adults involved. You know
how that goes. We all equaled it out. We all got the right number
of children for each number of adults. So I encourage people to
think about how many kids they have for sure. And I don't want to
be dismissive of your issue. It is a very significant issue on the
worldwide scale. But it is equally if not overshadowed, to be
honest, by the consumption that occurs. Because a child born in to
a country like the Sudan or Ethiopia will consume no where near
the resources of a child born in North America. And a child born
in that country will not even have enough food to eat. Not
necessarily because of overpopulation in that country, but more
likely because of war in that country.
Q: Have you talked to Oprah Winfrey about being on her show?
Winona: No but give her a call. I'd love to visit with Oprah. She
is an interesting lady. But Ralph always says you have got to be a
total freak to get on TV anymore. Those of us who are normal, who
don't have really dysfunctional lives, haven't done anything
really strange, you can't get on TV to talk about substantiative
issues. So tell Oprah I'm not a freak. I'm really normal. I'd love
to talk about these issues.
Q: The rumors about the hospital is that the California Nurses
Association have endorsed Ralph Nader and your campaign. Is that
true?
Winona: That is true. She said that the California Nursing
Association has endorsed Ralph and me.
Q: I haven't heard anything about Health Care reform or Health
Care issues tonight.
Winona: Ralph is a supporter of a single payer health care system.
I believe that we should all have access to good health care in
this country. I also believe in a diverse health care.
I was in China in 1994 at the Women's Congress. We went to this
commune in this village. And China is considered, what? a third
world country? I walked into this little clinic. In that clinic
they had this Chinese acupuncture and cupping section. Then they
had this Chinese massage section up here. Then they had the
Chinese herb section over here. And then they had the Western
Medicine section over here. I said `That is so amazing.' How come
we can't have that when we go into our hospitals over here? That
is the diversity we need. Because not everything requires a
scalpel. There are different healings for different things. In
this country, we should be able to afford that.
Q: Winona, thank you so much for coming to Santa Fe. Could you
briefly comment on your and Ralph's position on the death penalty
and on political prisoners like Leonard Peltier and Mumia
Abu-Jamal.
Winona: Thank you for asking that. In my notes tonight, I was so
busy eating I actually didn't revise my notes to reflect some of
things I wanted to talk about. I was thinking, I hope someone asks
me about that. Of course, we are opponents of the death penalty
because it is unjust. Ralph generally says that we don't know
about all cases. So it is hard to weigh in on this one or that
one. But those two cases are obviously cases of injustice in this
country. I am absolutely of the mind that we need to end the
COINTELLPRO era in this country.[12]
We've had a war on people who do not agree with the government for
years. There are people who are still in jail for that. Those are
people like Leonard Peltier who are in jail because they were on
wrong side of the COINTELLPRO funding.[13] That is one of the
healings and reconciliation's that we must do in this country.
Geronimo Pratt recently came out. I just watched that movie,
"Hurricane." There are all these stories. We waste away the lives
of these beautiful individuals in prison because of a Cold War the
American government had against it's own people. I believe in
bringing that to a close and allowing clemency or commuting
Leonard's prison sentence two times served. And a new trial for
Mumia.[14] Thank you for asking that question.
Q: I was in the studio when you called in to the jury phone-in
program today. Diego had asked you about the concerns that some
people have about splitting the Democratic vote. I was hoping you
could speak to that for a moment of some fears people have that
the Republicans would be taking the election in certain states.
Winona: I will say that my gut feeling, and I'm afraid I've lost
track of what I told you or what I told someone else tonight. So,
if I repeat myself, forgive me. I believe that voting for Al Gore
is a waste of your vote. I believe it is a waste of your vote
because if you go to the polls and you vote for Al Gore because he
is the lesser of two evils, you are still voting for evil. And you
will still end up with evil. We deserve better than that.
Voting for them means that you do not give the Democratic party a
reason to change. Because right now, you and I are totally taken
for granted. There is a presumption by Al Gore that no person of
color, no woman, no environmentalist, no older person, would think
about voting for George Bush. Because if you voted for him, you'd
lose everything. So Al Gore does not even have to address our
issues. He does not even try to address our issues. Instead he
spends his time courting some imaginary middle. While he could
have the courage to stand up and say some of the same things that
Ralph or I say and say that he is going to stand up for these
issues. There is nothing that is stopping him. Except that he has
no will. That's the truth. He could do the right thing. But he
does not do the right thing.
Having worked with lots of women, I liken the situation we are in
now politically to a woman who is in a battering relationship.
Sometimes when you are in a battering relationship, you think,
Well, he's feeding me. Well, he's a good father to the kids. Well,
at least he's here. Well, he could be worse looking. We come up
with rationalization after rationalization although we are getting
battered.
WTO was not a piece of pro-labor, pro-environment or pro anything
work. It was totally pro-corporation. The absence of health care
-- anything in this country. Those issues we've been talking
about. So what I say to those women in that situation is, `You
have got to decide if you want to live.' That is what I say. You
have got to decide if you want to live and it's your choice,
ultimately.
What I say to American voters out there and I say to you all is
that you have to decide if you want to live your life basing your
decisions on fear. Or if you want to live your life and base your
decisions on voting and acting your conscience. And in the end,
you may or may not know me. But I know that that guy Ralph, he has
stood up for all of us for all of these years. If anybody is
running for a national office in this country deserves the vote,
it's that guy. He is standing up there and the rest of us, we have
always benefited from his very hard work. I think he deserves it.
Thank you for your question.
Q: The issue of water. The fact that there is not enough clean
drinking water on the planet for the people here; that 50 percent
of the people on the planet do not have safe drinking water is the
issue that I cannot shift away from and ignore. It keeps coming
back to me. And it seems that it is an issue that can bring the
insular group of people that populate this country back into the
world so that we see where all this mad dash for money is going --
how it really looks from here to the reality of the way life is
for most people on the planet. I wondered if you would like to
comment on that reality and help me.
Winona: You are absolutely right. I remember when I was about 18
or 19 and I suppose Richard Erdoes here knew Philip Deer. Eda here
knew Philip too. I remember Philip Deer,[15] he was a Muskogee
Creek Elder who I had the privilege of traveling with a lot. I
used to visit with that guy. He was always a happy guy. He passed
away way very early. But he told a lot of us young Indian people,
he said, "One day there will be a time when water will cost more
than a gallon of gas. A gallon of water will cost more than a
gallon of gas." We looked at him and we could not imagine that
something like that would happen. How could water cost more than
oil? Cost more than gas?
That's what happened didn't it? That's what she's talking about.
Now you have to have money to have clean water in this society.
That is something that we cannot get around. You're right. Because
in the end, we may all be different, but in the end we are all
made of water. No matter what kind of creature you are, you must
have it to live. That is the challenge that we face.
We are told in our instructions a lot of times as Indian people,
that we are given a lot of gifts. Water is said to be the gift and
the responsibility of the women. That is what they say. I know
that that is true. I know that that is something that we are
responsible for. That is something that only through putting our
voice to action, putting our work to action will we actually be
able to protect and honor and care for. So that we have water for
all of us.
Thank you again so much for your time.
Footnotes
1. Honor the Earth
2801 21st Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55407-1226
800/327-8407
www.honorearth.org
2. For some of the historical perspective on this, see the
following articles by Dr. John W. Gofman, Chair of The
Committee for Nuclear Responsibility
(http://www.ratical.org/radiation/CNR/), of which rat haus
reality press is honored to present many of the articles and
some of the books Dr. Gofman has written concerning the
health effects of low-dose radiation: "Reacting to reactors -
The "peaceful atom": Time for a moratorium," 11/72; "What
About Reviving Nuclear Power?," 8/88; "Reflections on
"Mission Impossible" (30th anniversary of LLNL Biology
Programs)," 11/93; Poisoned Power, The Case Against Nuclear
Power Plants Before and After Three Mile Island, 1971 and
1979 editions combined.
3. See The Politics Of New-Energy Technology by Hal Fox, editor
of Journal of New Energy, 3/8/00
(http://www.ratical.org/ratville/newETP.html):
Under previous political administrations there have been no
major new-energy developments. The several discoveries that
have led to the production of new-energy devices and systems
being readied for market have not been acceptable to
government scientists. There is no DOE mechanism for the
support, evaluation, testing, and dissemination of
information about new scientific discoveries. By contrast,
older energy systems, that have been supported with billions
of dollars of government funds, serve to perpetuate
government bureaucracies, sustain government-funded national
laboratories, and academic projects. The energy bureaus, the
national energy laboratories, and the academic energy studies
have all been highly inefficient. (A recent study of the
results of funding for national laboratories cites an
estimated 95% waste of funds.)
The worst case is a political system that allows
lobbyists for one type of energy system to deny the
constitutional rights of inventors to their intellectual
property by the denial of patents. The second worst case is
the abysmal record of the multi-billion-dollar consuming
Department of Energy to fulfill a major objective of
supporting the development of new sources of energy. The
inability of DOE staff to recognize new technology is
deplorable. For DOE staff to support the hot-fusion lobbyists
and deny other more promising technologies is a national
disgrace. A suggestion that has merit is that the DOE and its
national laboratories be abandoned and replaced by an agency
that would support the development of non-polluting,
inexpensive, new-energy systems based on abundant energy
sources.
4. See Yes! Magazine's Discussion Guide for the Is it time to
close the prisons? issue (PDF format):
o American Gulag by Jerome Miller
o Choose Life by Sister Helen Prejean
o War Games by Carol Estes
o Resources for Reconciliation
See Also:
o World Drug War Charts. Just charts! Prison Industrial
Complex. Tables and rates. Very few notes. The majority
of the approximately 2 MILLION U.S. prisoners are
inmates because of the drug war.
o Nader Tells Corporations to Get Out of the Prison
Industry, 9/27/00
5. See for instance, excerpt from The Buying of the President
2000, Footnotes. "Center for Public Integrity Holds News
Conference on High-Dollar Contributions to Presidential
Candidates; Washington, D.C.," Charles Lewis - Speaker,
January 5, 2000. Excerpt mirrored on ratical at
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/Columbia/Gore+Oxy.html.
6. See Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa, O'Peqtaw-Metamoh, (Flying
Eagle Woman) 1957-1999, NATIVE AMERICAS, Akwe:kon's Journal
of Indigenous Issues, Summer 1999, and Statements: Death of
Ingrid Washinawatok & two other U'wa supporters in Colombia,
Alpha Institute
7. See materials about Columbia collected on ratical at
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/Columbia/.
8. See School of the Americas Watch (SOA) (www.soaw.org).
9. See SOA Students and Instructors from Colombia 1947-1996
(http://www.soaw.org/Graduates/co-grads.html).
10. See "Monopoly Militarism and the U.S. Monopoly on the
Militarization of the World, by Randall Caroline Forsberg,
IFG Washington - World Bank/IMF Teach-In, 4/14/00.
(http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/ifg041400RF.html)
See also: Global Action To Prevent War, A Coalition-Building
Effort To Stop War, Genocide, & Internal Armed Conflict
GLOBAL A CTION TO PREVENT WAR is a comprehensive program for
moving to a world in which deadly conflict is rare and brief
-- in other words, a program for abolishing war. The means
for doing this already exist. What GLOBAL ACTION adds is an
integrated program and a timeline for progress in conflict
prevention and resolution, peacekeeping and peace
enforcement, disarmament, and the implementation of criminal
law regarding genocide and crimes against humanity.
www.globalactionpw.org
11. Honor the Earth 2000 Tour, 800/327-8407,
(http://www.honorearth.org/tour2000/)
12. See COINTELPRO IN THE 90s and Beyond - TARGETS LEONARD
PELTIER, especially Jimmy Eagle, FBI Wrongdoing Not Admitted
Into Evidence (from Defense Case, US vs LEONARD PELTIER Trial
Transcript Excerpts, Case Number CR77-3003) and Search for
"COINTELLPRO". (http://ishgooda.nativeweb.org/peltier/)
See Also from First Nations, issues of consequence
(www.dickshovel.com):
o The Covert War Against Native Americans by Ward
Churchill (http://www.dickshovel.com/covertwar.html)
o COINTELPRO Revisited Spying and Disruption by Brian
Glick (http://www.dickshovel.com/coin.html)
o Caged Warrior: Boulder Weekly interviews Leonard Peltier
by Ben Corbett 3/13/00
(http://www.dickshovel.com/caged.html)
13. See The International Office of the Leonard Peltier Defense
Committee (LPDC) (www.freepeltier.org)
14. Amongst many sources, see:
o Mumia Abu-Jamal On Death Row/Political Prisoners/Racism
and Oppression (http://www.iacenter.org/imumia.htm)
o International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia
Abu-Jamal (http://www.mumia.org/index3.html)
o Mobilization To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (www.freemumia.org)
o Justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal (www.j4mumia.org)
o Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
(http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/mumia002.htm)
15. On Philip Deer, see the last three paragraphs of the Book
Review by Barbara A. Gray-Kanatiyosh of Basic Call to
Consciousness.
(http://www.peace4turtleisland.org/pages/basiccall.htm)
http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/WinonaLaDuke/082800.html (hypertext)
http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/WinonaLaDuke/082800.txt (text-only)
http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/WinonaLaDuke/082800.pdf (print-ready)