Russell Means
Native American
Lakotah
'Casinos are legalized robbery.'--- Russell Means
[vid] Russell Means Final Interview - The Sacred Feminine and Gender Roles
[2012] Native Americans ‘slaughtered,
sacrificed, fenced in reservations’ in US The United States is a
fake country that has no culture. It’s easy to manipulate such a country, and to
channel its people. The U.S. has a façade shown to the rest of the world, but
few know of its reverse side as thoroughly as Indians do. The picture people see
is not the reality of today’s United States. Even the President who’s in office
today wasn’t really elected, like back in the year 2000. Young people certainly
strive to get here to achieve their dreams. But really anyone coming only has
one reason: they want to become rich and successful, and they want to get their
opportunities [to succeed]. Once you talk to them you realize they don’t even
dream of anything beyond money-making. This was the reason Europeans came here.
This is the principle of the American life. The world is sick and tired of
American prosperity. The world is waking up.
...The life span is getting lower by the year. Men hardly live longer than 44
years, and few women are older than 47. This is worse than in the poorest
African countries. The unemployment rate is about 73%. .....Every fourth baby
dies. Pharmaceutical companies take the healthiest kids away from their
families, send them to orphanages and test drugs on them, including psychotic
ones. To make matters worse, people kidnap children from reservations and sell
them for organ removal or psychiatric experiments. A few cases have been started
against these kidnappers. Beating and corporal punishment is rampant in schools.
For kids from the reservations school embodies violence.
Scores of reservation dwellers are infected with
tuberculosis, polio, and other diseases which have been defeated in the US.
There are many more instances of hypertension and diabetes in reservations than
in the areas populated by white Americans.
The reason for that is this particular free fodder that
generations of our people have been fed. This free food contains nothing but
carbs, while two thirds of our people cannot afford buying proper food. No other
place in the United States has such death and disease rates as we do. Our water
is intoxicated by uranium mines located in the Reservation. People living near
uranium deposits suffer from cancer and all the associated diseases; women
suffer miscarriages, and deliver unhealthy babies. Poor living conditions,
uranium-intoxicated water and bad nutrition are the three reasons that have been
killing off my people. We tried going all kinds of other ways such as
rebellions, protests, marches, addresses, and strikes, but nothing got changed.
The Republic of Lakotah was declared in the name of rescuing our people that the
U.S. government didn’t care about. We began to die out, but we don’t want to
anymore.
Most of tribal unions aren’t doing anything but cooperate
with the colonial regime. They are like the Vichy Government under Hitler –
merely making an impression of self-governance in the reservations. But they are
even worse than the occupants. They are now spreading rumors that we hadn’t
consulted with our people and chiefs. This isn’t true. We did consult with those
who are respected by people rather than the authorities. We reached an agreement
with a hundred out of over 500 tribes, and with 480 families of several hundred
people each. There are those in our tribes who we call miniature oligarchs, the
caricature millionaires who made money on troubles of their people by selling
alcohol and TVs. They also want to keep the current state of things otherwise
they would lose their platform for developing their business. This mockery of
life had ended on 17th December 2007. We are free. The Indian ‘Vichy’ wanted to
keep their power over the Indian souls; but the Republic of Lakotah put an end
to it.
Russell Means poses for a portrait at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona,
October 28, 2011 (Reuters / Joshua Lott)