Russell Means

[heyokatwospirit]

All my life, I've had to listen to rhetoric about the United States being a model of freedom and democracy, the most uniquely enlightened and humanitarian country in history, a "nation of laws" which, unlike others, has never pursued policies of conquest and aggression. I'm sure you've heard it before. It's official "truth" in the United States. It's what is taught to schoolchildren, and it's the line peddled to the general public. Well, I've got a hot news flash for everyone here. It's a lie. The whole thing’s a lie, and it always has been. Leaving aside the obvious points which could be raised to disprove it by blacks and Chicanos and Asian immigrants right here in North America - not to mention the Mexicans, the Nicaraguans, the Guatemalans, the Puerto Ricans, the Hawaiians, the Filipinos, the Samoans, the Tammaros of Guam, the Marshall Islanders, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Cubans, the Dominicans, the Grenadans, the Libyans, the Panamanians, the Iraqis, and a few dozen other peoples out there who've suffered American invasions and occupations first hand - there is a little matter of genocide that's got to be taken into account right here at home. I'm talking about the genocide which has been perpetrated against American Indians, a genocide that began the instant the first of Europe's boat people washed up on the beach of turtle Island, a genocide that's continuing right now, at this moment. Against Indians there is not a law the United States hasn't broken, not a crime against humanity it hasn't committed, and it's still going on.

Russell Means
American Indian Movement (AIM)
October 12, 1992