After Reading ‘The Great Turning’

After reading The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, by David Korten and The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, by Richard Heinberg, I am even more convinced of the necessity of creating a new civilization here in the Western Hemisphere based on Indigenous values. Korten’s analysis of the 5,000 year history of  Empire and the Dominator model, comes largely from Riane Eisler’s book, The Chalice and the Blade. It is clear that we are headed for economic and moral collapse, that the Empire cannot be sustained and a new path must be taken by all the different people here in our land.

The Party’s Over, made it clear that Peak Oil is basically here and that there is no escape from rising fossil fuel price rises that will cause modern industrial society to collapse because it will run head on into Capitalism’s iron rule  — Grow or Die.

I see three areas that Korten’s book has not addressed clearly enough:

1.) One is on the necessity of finding a way to heal society’s hurts, so that we do not fall back into the trap of Internalized Oppression, which keeps us locked into seeking victims to blame for our anger, disappointment and frustration, when we cannot find the true source of our oppression. This weakness is manipulated  relentlessly and skillfully by Empire and its main actors, government and globalized corporations, to keep us divided and at each others throats. It is the old and well perfected strategy of Divide and Conquer, using the tools of racism, sexism, homophobia and classism. Until we understand this dynamic clearly, we will not be able to build the unity and trust that is the foundation for a successful movement for social justice.

One tool for healing old hurts is practiced by the Co-counseling community. This is done in a peer community that helps individuals to recognize negative patterns that have developed because of old undischarged hurts. But it also recognizes that hurts can have a communal and ethnic base coming out of colonialism and the oppressions of Empire on entire nations.

2.) The other is how not moving into Restorative Justice from Retributive Justice, has kept revolutionary movements and governments locked into creating internal enemies (“class enemies”, “Kulaks”, bourgeois intellectuals”, etc) which are then thrown into prisons, Gulags, Re-Education Camps, etc. Revolutionary movements and People’s Governments morph into Dictatorships of the Proletariats, Leninist Vanguard Parties and other authoritarian, top down and undemocratic ruling edifices which just create a left version of what Korten calls Empire.

Restorative Justice, based in communities, not governments, starts out with the basic belief that all people are good underneath their patterns, and the way to deal with people who are hurting each other through ‘criminal’ acts, is not through violence and punishment (an eye for and eye) and isolation from society (except as a last resort) but a process of healing and restoration of trust and responsibility within the community.  If this process is integral to communities, especially as it relates to young people, society can deal with breakdowns of trust and harmony before they get too severe. Tribal and Indigenous people practiced forms of restorative justice that negated the need for police, prisons and a standing army.

In the modern world, beginning with South Africa under Nelson Mandela, a form of restorative justice was tried in their Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Despite some criticisms, it was considered mainly a good thing and many other countries have tried variations on it.

Retributive Justice, arising out of old patterns of allowing only the State to mete out punishment and isolation, is used in a top down manner to create law and order, so that the State and Empire can continue their oppressive control of society for the benefit of wealthy elites. This Oligarchy uses  the Criminal Justice System (Police and Courts), to repress dissent domestically. The Military (basically organized violence and legalized murder)  uses  Armed Force  to conquer, colonize and confiscate the resources of weaker nations. Even so called Revolutionary Governments are still locked into this old paradigm, which eventually causes their people to no longer support them or believe in their ideology. The Soviet Union is a prime example of a Revolutionary Government that morphed into a undemocratic Empire, and eventually collapsed when enough people withdrew their energy and support from it. The same thing could happen here, especially if Obama is unable to extricate himself and his government from the  control of the Oligarchy.

3.)  The third area that was not addressed fully was the role of Indigenous and Latino people would play in this Great Turning, especially in the Western Hemisphere.

It is my firm belief that Indigenous people need to take leadership in this movement. We are the original link to the this hemisphere — the First Nations — whose Earth centered values have been reminding the newcomers to this land of our role as stewards and spiritual firekeepers since time immemorial. We need to step up to our role as Elder Brothers and Sisters and adapt our Origin stories and Prophesies  to serve the needs of our people in the 21st Century. This would include understanding the role of Internalized Oppression in keeping us divided and demoralized, not only from our own peoples, but from our allies among the Latinos who are mostly indigenous. In reality, they are more than allies, they are our brothers in sisters in the struggle to protect Pachamama/Mother Earth.

Native people still own large amounts of land that could be taken out of control of the BIA and could be the basis for many organic farms or Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms. Such farms could greatly contribute toward healing our people from the ravages of Diabetes and cancer causing Industrial Agriculture. We could also ally ourselves with African American and Latino farms and farmworkers to create a powerful source of Food Security during times of crisis like the present. One such initiative is in Oklahoma, the Mvskoke Food Security Initiative (MFSI).

Most of our tribal land that is currently leased to non-tribal ranchers and farmers, but if we can ally with organic and permaculture based organizations and farmers nationwide, we could tip the balance away from Factory Farms and Chemical based food and fertilizers.

All in all, I highly recommend reading The Great Turning. I suggest that we also use the resources of David Korten’s People Centered Development Forum.

Robert Mendoza

Mexico on the Eve of Revolution or Civil War

This is an article I wrote for the Free News in Portland, ME in December, 2006.

On Dec. 12, there was a presentation by Professor George Caffentzis at the USM Law School, called The Next Mexican Revolution? Oaxaca’s insurrection, Obrador’s “Parallel Government” and the Zapatista’s “Other Campaign”. There were approximately 25 people there. Prof. Caffentzis has a group (Mainers for Democracy in Mexico) that involves students and faculty to support the Zapatistas, some of whom spoke also.

On January 1, 1994 the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN in Spanish) burst into the consciousness of the world by its armed takeover of several towns and cities in Chiapas, Mexico. They were an indigenous movement that rose up to oppose the beginning of the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) treaty and the degradation of the Constitution of Mexico. Eventually the armed insurrection ended and the Zapatistas said that they did not want to take over state power- “If power is taken, it is not real power.” Then, in their Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, they proposed the “Other Campaign,” in which they would travel to all the states in Mexico to dialog with ordinary people about what did they want to do to change Mexico from below. Subcomandante Marcos said last month that Mexico is “on the eve of a great uprising or a civil war.”

Then, there is the losing Presidential candidate, Lopez Obrador’ of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) and his ‘parallel government’. His supporters camped out in the thousands in the center of Mexico City, vowing to not let the winner, Felipe Calderon of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) take office.

A powerful libratory current is rising among Mexicans. Many intense discussions are going on in Mexico whether to follow Obrador’s ‘Parallel Gov’t” strategy or the Zapatistas “Other Campaign” strategy of mobilizing from the ground up all over Mexico. Friends in Mexico told Prof. Caffentziz that recently the situation has profoundly changed. This great crisis will affect not only Mexicans but also people in the U.S. Even Marcos talked about how this force is growing so much that it can’t even be contained by the country of Mexico, that to the North of the Rio Bravo there exists another Mexico, “one that we are not going to lose.”

Across the Rio Bravo, the largest demonstrations in U.S. history took place in 2006 among Latinos, both documented and undocumented demanding immigration reform that recognized their human rights – hence their slogan, “No Human Being is Illegal!” In Max Blumental’s March article in The Huffington Post, I quote:

“I have just returned from the largest, most energized demonstration I have ever witnessed in my life. Over 500,000 people filled the streets of downtown Los Angeles to march against HR 4437, a bill authored by Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner (heir to the Kotex fortune) which would turn 11 million undocumented immigrants into felons, punish anyone guilty of providing them assistance, and construct an iron wall between the US and Mexico.

The rally reached a crescendo as thousands of demonstrators lined the walls and bridges above the 101 freeway waving flags and cheering while an endless parade of cars and trucks blasted their horns in support. It was the sound of a sleeping giant awakening.”

Basically millions of undocumened workers said to the U.S. Congress – “You are not going to pass legislation to make us slaves.” Congress was forced to dump Sensenbrenners bill, recognizing that a powerful movement was rising in the U.S., and that the Latino and immigrant population was not going to take this lying down.

In Mexico, the situation in Qaxaca may be the spark that lights the prairie fire, as it arose almost spontaneously from a teachers strike that, due to brutal governmental and paramilitary attacks turned into a mass insurrection by hundreds of thousands of people from the city and surrounding Indigenous communities. Initially a group of teachers and their supporters camped out in the Zocalo, or center of Oaxaca City demanding a pay raise, better working conditions and help for the poor children who could not afford books and lunches.

On June 17, 2006, the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO) a coordinating organization was formed to lead the rising struggle. Recently Federal Preventive Police were sent to clear the square and New York City Indymedia reporter Brad Will was shot and killed by paramilitaries/police. The U.S. Ambassador used his death as a reason to call for more police to establish order. The EZLN has called for worldwide support for APPO as it seeks to oust the corrupt PRI (Partido de Revolución de Mexico) Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.

As the online journal narcosphere.com put it: “…the biggest force responsible for Oaxaca’s poverty is a global economic system bent on eradicating subsistence agriculture, replacing small farms with massive plantations, and turning farmers into low wage factory workers, all in the name of economic efficiency and maximizing profits. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) destroyed Oaxaca’s millennia-old corn growing culture in the 1990’s.”

At present, Nativity activities have caused a lull in activities, but the New Year will surely bring renewed people’s struggles all across Mexico and in the U.S. Southwest. The revolutionary movement in Mexico is inspiring activists in the U.S. into renewed interest in the new networking model and horizontal strategies of the Zapatistas which seek to create another way of doing politics – “from below and to the left.”

 

While Chicanos and other Latinos will lead the movement in the U.S., all committed activist in the U.S. can help build the movement here in the U.S. Below are some links and materials to help educate ourselves to the struggle in Mexico and inside the “brain of the monster,” as the Zapatistas call the U.S.

http://www.narconews.com
http://the-fourth-world.blogspot.com
http://fc.umit.maine.edu/~robert.mendoza/newjournal.htm
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm
http://aztlanrising.com/
http://zapagringo.blogspot.com/

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=18059817

A Political Earthquake of Historic Proportions

The tremendous explosion of marches in Los Angeles, Dallas and other cities across the U.S. heralds the rise of a new civil/human rights movement among undocumented workers and their allies. Max Blumental’s reported on the Los Angeles march on The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/sensenbrenner-awakens-a-s_b_17894.html I have just returned from the largest, most energized demonstration I have ever witnessed in my life. Over 500,000 people filled the streets of downtown Los Angeles to march against HR 4437, a bill authored by Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner … which would turn 11 million undocumented immigrants into felons, punish anyone guilty of providing them assistance, and construct an iron wall between the US and Mexico.

The rally reached a crescendo as thousands of demonstrators lined the walls and bridges above the 101 freeway waving flags and cheering while an endless parade of cars and trucks blasted their horns in support. It was the sound of a sleeping giant awakening.

The past weeks has been nothing less than a political earthquake, comparable to the beginnings of the African-American Civil Rights movement. The rumblings of this new movement are part of a continent wide indigenous awakening, starting among the Native and Inuit peoples and spreading to Mestizos/Chicanos/Cholos and mixed bloods. It will lead to the new Western Hemisphere/Turtle Island/Pacha Mama civilization of the Eagle-Quetzal-Condor.

John Curl, a European-American man went to the First Continental Conference of 500 Years of Indian Resistance in 1992 in Quito, Ecuador. His report back, The Dance of the Condor begins: Many thousands of years ago the Eagle of the North and the Condor of the South joined their tears to form Central America, concentrating their wisdom on that small piece of earth….[land of the Quetzal bird and the Zapatistas]“When the Condor of the South and the Eagle of the North come together again, the union of their tears will heal the wounds of the Indian peoples and fortify their spirit, body and thought. A new generation will spring forth who will reach out their hands to end oppression, exploitation and injustice, and will write the word liberty in the sky.”

This vision is elaborated further in my on line journal: Eagle-Quetzal-Condor:
http://fc.umit.maine.edu/~robert.mendoza/newjournal.htm

We may have a coup by an openly right wing Christian fascistic government in 2008, if it the defeat of the Republican candidate cannot be prevented by fear tactics and vote rigging. This new fascism, if it can direct this hatred against undocumented workers from Mexico, could lead to race/civil war. Samuel Huntington sets the stage for this in his book, The Hispanic Challenge: The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves—from Los Angeles to Miami—and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream.

A plausible reaction to the demographic changes …could be the rise of an anti-Hispanic, [really anti-Native] anti-black, and anti-immigrant movement composed largely of white, working- and middle-class males, protesting their job to immigrants and foreign countries, the ‘perversion’ of their culture, and the displacement of their language.

White nationalism is “the next logical stage for identity politics in America,” … making the United States “increasingly at risk of large-scale racial conflict unprecedented in our nation’s history.”
“Such a transformation would not only revolutionize the United States, but it would also have serious consequences for Hispanics, who will be in the United States but not of it…There is only the American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican Americans will share in that dream and in that society only if they dream in English.”

But this Anglo-Protestant dream has never been Indigenous peoples dream.

Actually, the Indian-Dream-in-America was one of harmony and peace with the land and co-existing with all of the elements on Mother Earth. Since the European-Dream-in-America had little to do with peace and harmony, it became a nightmare for Native peoples.
Ramon Lopez-Reyes

While Huntington and his ‘Clash of Civilizations’ ideas speak for the elites of this country, I think that we Native and Chicano people need to follow the example of the Zapatistas. To organize our people as a revolutionary force for democratic change, and to set our goal as nothing less than a new Indigenous based civilization in the Western Hemisphere. The old Anglo-Protestant dream has turned into a nightmare for our people and for all poor and working class people in this hemisphere. It is time to start building a new civilizing movement in the U.S. that will replace it. Young people, poor/working class people of all races—all who also have a great love for this America/Turtle Island—will join us in this great undertaking.

John Curl talks further about the role of European-Americans in this new movement:

“…our civilization has not yet made its peace with this continent: we are on it but not yet of it. To become indigenous people, European-Americans must first make our peace with history and with the Indian people. What has been lost in the European-American version of liberty, is community. We have gained mobility but have paid the price of rootlessness. “

“… it is time for us to grow up and face the historic realities of the European invasion of the Americas in all its pain, time for us to turn to a new mythology…In looking for new myths, where is there to turn but backwards, to the very oldest stories of our hemisphere. Here in America (or in Appia-Yala, as they say in the Andes), perhaps our greatest hope for a livable future lies in the joining of the Condor’s and Eagle’s tears.”

Our people will lead this new movement, just like Blacks led the earlier civil rights movement. But we must reach out and makes alliances with other oppressed groups, especially Blacks and Asian Americans. We must also join with the anti-war, anti-globalization and environmental justice movements. Encourage them to take heart in the courage and organization shown in these huge marches. Imagine how large the size of the movement to stop the war in Iraq (and possibly Iran) could be if these movements joined together as allies in a common fight for justice, peace, economic democracy and environmental justice. This is how we can rise above strictly identity politics and become a broad based movement that will create lasting change for the better in the U.S. Si, si puede! Yes, we can!

Bio: I am Native (Muscogee) and Chicano (Spanish/Tarascan/Basque) and have been a writer and political organizer for the Native, Latino, anti-war, Bioregionalist and Green movements for over 35 years. I am currently helping organize a Maine Social forum and starting a new Journal of spiritual politics called: Eagle-Quetzal-Condor. I am also an intern with the Mexico Solidarity Network.
I can be reached at: quetzalhombre<<>>gmail.com

REFLECTIONS ON THE STRUGGLES OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN BIG MOUNTAIN

This article was written in the Eighties for the Maine chapter of Clergy and laity Concerned newsletter.

REFLECTIONS ON THE STRUGGLES OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN BIG MOUNTAIN

by Roberto Mendoza

The struggle of Indigenous people at Big Mountain in Arizona to resist forced relocation from their land has deeper significance than even repeal of Public Law 95-351. There are profound issues underlying their struggle to remain on their land and to maintain their traditional way of life–issues that are relevant to all people.

Native people have a name for this continent: we call it “Turtle Island”. The bones of our ancestors lie buried here for countless generations. Our legends and oral histories go back to time immemorial. We have our sacred places on this land, and the spiritual center of this continent is where the Hopi and Dineh (Navajo) people live.

The traditional Hopi people, following their ancient Prophesy, have been waiting patiently for Bahana, the True White Brother/Sister, who would join them in taking care of this, our Mother Earth, and in living in harmony and respect for her. This path of peace, (Hopi means ‘Peaceful People’), of acknowledging the sacredness of Land and Life, is the only way that non-Indians will stop being rootless, alienated occupiers who have wandered far from the graves of their ancestors. To become truly indigenous to this land, non-Indians will have to develop a loving and sacred relationship to this earth, hidden under their cities and concrete highways.

Native people have accepted their responsibility to be stewards of this land long ago. The traditional people in the Dineh and Hopi nations are trying to tell all North American people, through their words and actions–the way to a future of harmony and peace among the world’s peoples and the Natural World.

The traditional Dineh and Hopi are struggling to keep their way of life. A Way of Life is more than just a livelihood: it is a holistic, sustainable way of living that is economically, politically and culturally self-reliant. It depends on staying in harmony and balance with their environment and their natural resources. The traditional Dineh way of life is based on herding sheep for wool and meat; trading with the Hopi for corn and squash; listening to their elders; and daily earth-centered prayers to the Great Spirit. Most non-Indians have a livelihood, which usually consists of working at an alienating job, collecting a paycheck that is used to buy processed food, casting a vote every four years for smooth-talking politicians that they only see on TV, and sometimes sitting in a church on Sunday.

The way of life of the Dineh/Hopi people does not depend on ripping up the earth (they want to leave the coal and uranium in the ground), dosing their land and animals with harmful chemicals, or colonizing and oppressing other people for their resources or cheap labor. Their low-energy, ecologically sound and sustainable way of life does not produce a National Security State, with an imperialist foreign policy, avaricious global corporations, and a far-flung military machine armed with weapons of mass destruction.

The Hopi prophecy speaks of a Gourd of Ashes, which if we allow it to fall, will “scorch the earth and cause the seas to boil”. This is a warning of the nuclear holocaust that may befall us if we do not turn away from what the great English social historian, E.P. Thompson, called: the “path of Exterminism”. Externimism is rooted in the dynamics of greed, cancerous industrialism and the domination and exploitation of peoples and nature.

The Dineh/Hopi people are showing us a path based on simple living, sustainable bioregional economics, decentralized politics and a spiritual culture that sees Land and Life as sacred. The values that underlie this way of life are generosity, cooperation, a balance between male and female roles, and respect and harmony with nature. The values that grow out of this way of relating to the earth and all living things, may be what we need to halt what Einstein called our “drift towards unparalleled catastrophe”.

The love of the sacred Mother Earth is not like the abstract Patriotism of military parades and flag waving politicians talking about the good old USA (which is no more real than lines on a map). Theirs is an earth-centered, deep-rooted ‘Matriotism’, which comes from a daily connection to the cycles of planting, harvesting and birthing, blessed by sun and rain.

Native people are asking for a more holistic awareness of what it means to struggle for peace and non-violence. We must understand that without justice among peoples and respect for the Earth, peace cannot sustain itself.

Introduction to Eagle-Quetzal-Condor – A Journal of Spiritual Politics

WHY THESE THREE BIRDS?

Because these three great birds symbolize the spiritual heights from which we want to look at the Western Hemisphere—that of the Indigenous peoples of the North, Central and South America. At the Encuentro, the First Continental Meeting of Indigenous Peoples on the 500 Years of Indian Resistance, held in Quito, Ecuador in 1992, an ancient prophesy was retold:
Many thousands of years ago the Eagle of the North and the Condor of the South joined their tears to form Central America, concentrating their wisdom on that small piece of earth. Indian nations developed there oriented to the laws of Nature. Those nations passed through great trials, and were eventually split and dispersed into the four directions. Prophets instructed the elders to maintain the traditions during the dispersal, and to search for their paths to liberation. Every five centuries the life of the nations would be nourished and renewed. For our time period, the beginning of liberation would be symbolized by this prophesy: "When Condor of the South and the Eagle of the North come together again, the union of their tears will heal the wounds of the Indian peoples and fortify their spirit, body and thought. A new generation will spring forth who will reach out their hands to end oppression, exploitation and injustice, and will write the word liberty in the sky."

In this period in our history we can see that in Central America, in the Mayan bioregion, which includes not only Guatemala but Chiapas in Mexico, a powerful unifying force has arisen among the Indigenous and Mestizo peoples there, the Zapatista movement and its army, the EZLN. For this reason we feel compelled to include the Quetzal Bird, sacred to the Mayan people in this area, as the third great bird of the Western Hemisphere. The Zapatistas arose to confront the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which marked the end of all land rights in Mexico and the end of the way of life of millions of indigenous farmers. Now that CAFTA the Central American Free Trade Agreement has been passed, they have issued a new call to defeat FTAA.

In the Monday, March 12, 2001 issue of the Los Angeles Times, and I quote: The rebel leader,[Marcos] who, like the majority of Mexicans, is of mixed Indian and Spanish blood, emphasized the richness of the nation's rainbow of cultures, calling out the names of many of the Indian groups. "What they fear is that there is no more 'you' and 'us,' because we are all the color of the earth," Marcos said.

In Bolivia, the Indigenous people from Cochabamba and El Alto have embarked on a revolutionary path to reclaim their natural resources, including water and natural gas from the rapacious grasp of multinational corporations. They have thrown out two presidents using tactics of mass mobilizations and blockades by thousands of people. They have allied themselves with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and his Bolivarian movement and with Fidel Castro and the Cuban people. Their struggle is the clearest rejection of capitalist globalization and the IMF’s neoliberal policies in the hemisphere.

In the Monday, March 12, 2001 issue of the Los Angeles Times, and I quote: The rebel leader, who, like the majority of Mexicans, is of mixed Indian and Spanish blood, emphasized the richness of the nation's rainbow of cultures, calling out the names of many of the Indian groups. "What they fear is that there is no more 'you' and 'us,' because we are all the color of the earth," Marcos said.

The Eagle, Quetzal and the Condor, is a publication devoted to a new vision— A vision of the 21St century— arising out of the spiritual politics of Native people from the Arctic Circle to Patagonia. The Eagle, symbolizing the Indigenous people of North American, has been prophesized to meet with the Condor, symbol of the Indigenous people of South America. The Quetzal bird has risen up to bring the two great birds together. The logo shows them being linked with a Rainbow which symbolizes the many races that have mingled with our people and with each other, from every Nation and People on Earth here in America. The spirit buffalo symbolizes the White Buffalo, the sacred animal from the center of Turtle Island, our homeland.

We come out of a Native culture and tradition that is rooted in of a deep connection to the sacred lands of Mother Earth /Turtle Island/Pachamama, in this part of the world now known as North and South America. My people are Inuit, Metis, Native Nations, Mestizos, Chicanos, Indians, Indios, Naturales, Indigenous, and mixed bloods. We felt the need to begin an urgent but respectful dialogue with the other races that have come to this continent more recently, on how to make a better life for our children in the next Seven Generations. We have been through protests, struggles, debates, confrontations, and dialogues. We have been in jails and universities, reservations and cities. My people are young and old, women and men. But we all share a profound love for the Earth and our Indigenous Lands.

If the 2008 elections in the U.S. do not go the way the neocons wish, we may have a fascist coup d’etat. Eric Rudolf’s statement after he was sentenced for bombing gay bars, abortion clinics and the Atlanta Olympics was a call for death squads in the U.S. His call, along with Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Federal Bldg in Oklahoma city are the spear tip of this new fascism and could lead to race/civil war. Samuel Huntington sets the stage for this in his book, The Hispanic Challenge:
“Continuation of this large immigration (without improved assimilation) could divide the United States into a country of two languages and two cultures… The transformation of the United States into a country like these …would… be the end of the America we have known for more than three centuries. Americans should not let that change happen unless they are convinced that this new nation would be a better one… White nationalism is “the next logical stage for identity politics in America,” argues Swain, making the United States “increasingly at risk of large-scale racial conflict unprecedented in our nation's history.” The most powerful stimulus to such white nativism will be the cultural and linguistic threats whites see from the expanding power of Hispanics in U.S. society.

Such a transformation would…revolutionize the United States…There is no Americano dream. There is only the American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society”.

This is why a dialogue between the so called ‘Hispanic’ (really Mestizo) and Indigenous and non-Indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere is necessary if we want to avoid this horrific scenario. African-American people have lived under fascist condition during slavery and Jim Crow times in the South and could be our strongest non-Indigenous allies in the coming struggles. Hugo Chavez, the Bolivarian movement and president of Venezuela is a mestizo of African, Native and Spanish blood who could be a symbol of the merging of our three main races in a revolutionary path to the future.

There are many forces operating in the world today that keep us apart and isolated, unable to gather the unified strength to create a new society based on love of the earth and cooperation among humans and the Biosphere. Capitalist globalization and its weapons of state violence, racism and internalized racism are some of the most powerful forces we face. We need to join not just the races of the original colonizers, the English, Spanish, French and Portuguese, but the African, Asian and Middle Eastern peoples who now share this land with us.

In this time of extraordinary threats to our land, air and water, our health and human rights, our sovereignty and religious freedom, We feel the need to add our voices to the ongoing debate as to the future of this hemisphere. Our spiritual ways unite the ancient wisdom of the Hoop/All our Relations to the modern science of ecology. Our politics are grass roots, democratic and respectful of the feminine powers arising out of Mother Earth. Though we respect other religions and spiritual traditions, we feel a need to counsel with people on the quest for a spiritual path that is Earth centered and human scale, serving all life and dedicated to healing and working in harmony with the sacred lands that we all share. This dialogue will attempt to create agreement on the basic principles and values that can lead our peoples into this new millennium.

As the First People of the Western Hemisphere, we have the right and duty to take a leading role in the movement to create a new nation (the U.S.) that can truly become a united, harmonious and a positive force in the world. There can be no valid, truly democratic movement in the U.S. without the inclusion of our values, visions and concerns. We are entering into a world historic period, where the emerging mostly white-led anti-capitalist movement, by itself, cannot summon up and inspire the vast majority of Americans/Americanos unless our indigenous peoples are an integral part of the planning and leadership of a new inclusive movement. We want to begin a dialogue as equals. The time of white founded organizations that try to 'outreach' to people of color for token representation is past.

But what about those of you who are descended from the original colonizers? John Curl, in his 1993 article, 'The Dance of the Condor', provides an answer: “ I think our civilization has not yet made its peace with this continent: we are on it but not yet of it. We are not yet indigenous. To become indigenous people, European-Americans must first make our peace with history and with the Indian people. What has been lost in the European-American version of liberty, is community. We have gained mobility but have paid the price of rootlessness. The Indians' struggle for control of their communities can light the way.”

“Perhaps it is time for us to grow up and face the historic realities of the European invasion of the Americas in all its pain, time for us to turn to a new mythology, based on truth instead of lies…In looking for new myths, where is there to turn but backwards, to the very oldest stories of our hemisphere. Here in America (or in Appia-Yala, as they say in the Andes), perhaps our greatest hope for a livable future lies in the joining of the Condor's and Eagle's tears.”

Calling on our long and respectful relationship to Turtle Island/Pacha mama, this sacred land that we now all share, Native people wish to propose that the different races and peoples that make up our America to join with us in an ongoing, respectful and openhearted dialogue. This dialogue will attempt to create agreement on the basic principles, values and strategy that can lead our peoples into this new millennium.

THE NEED FOR A NEW VISION:
CREATING NEW VALUES FOR A NEW NATION:

The past 500 years were filled with colonialism, genocide, materialist culture, and environmental destruction. But unless we of this generation make a profound commitment to changing our values, lifestyle and patterns of behavior very little will have changed. Governments, corporations and organized religions will continue their non-sustainable paths unless we the people decide to embark on a different, more positive and life affirming path.

We need to develop a vision that includes the concerns of people of color and poor people at its core. This calls for commitment to a fundamental change in values and lifestyle. We need to link that vision with a strategy that directly addresses the increasing gap between rich and poor. Ordinary people of all races need to see that an injury to one is an injury to all, that active solidarity needs to be at the heart of grassroots, people-to-people, community-to-community transformation.

To mark our turn away from the destructive values of materialism, consumerism and competition, which characterize our secular religion of capitalism, we need to publicly affirm and actively put into practice values that are counteractive to the core values of capitalism. Two key values that are common to both Native/Latino people and poor oppressed people around the world are:

SPIRITUAL POLITICS/ANTI-MATERIALISM

• Giving up consumerism and 'upward mobility' to embrace spiritually based values that allow for an economy of ecologically sustainable development and a civil society and government based on social and economic justice for all.
• Honoring and living in balance with the Earth, the sacred source of all life. Trying to live in a reciprocal relationship with the Natural World. Not just taking resources from Nature and returning it as garbage, toxic wastes and pollution (entropy/death), but in a form that the Natural world can recycle and use (sustainable life). Which means seriously questioning the use of poisonous chemical-based agriculture and non-biodegradable packaging and materials.
• Using only what we need and accepting responsibility for taking care of the Earth and all living things that share the Earth with us. Taking that responsibility to the seventh generation, for our children's children.

Native people have been offering this value of anti-materialism since Columbus. John Mohawk, a Haudenosee (Iroquois) philosopher calls it Spiritual Politics. It's time we acknowledged the wisdom of this key value. This Spirituality is rooted in the real world, the Natural World, and is not a 'religious' or otherworldly theology, but a transcendent worldview, incorporating the latest discoveries in science, physics and ecology.

ACTIVE SOLIDARITY

This means committing ourselves to caring for each other with cooperative direct actions that break down the divisions of class, race and sex that oppress and exploit most of us. Active solidarity is a counteractive value to the core values of competition and individualism that sustain this present global market system. The 'active' part of solidarity goes well beyond passive liberal philanthropy. During slavery, the Underground Railroad was a form of active solidarity. Mississippi Freedom Summer during the Fifties and Detroit Summer during the 90's are other examples. So with the Mutual Aid societies of many Asian immigrants.

People's spiritual development is enhanced when they learn to let go of their attachment to material things. Over-consumption of goods and services is shown, over and over, to be harmful to the earth and all its inhabitants. Many of us know this to be true: that we will feel more whole if only we can forsake the lure of upward mobility and live a simpler, sustainable, more spiritual way of life.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to make and sustain such radical personal changes in isolation. In our movement, active solidarity replaces the isolation with real connection to a community in which car-pooling, cooperative living arrangements and the sharing of tools and appliances are an integral part of everyday life. Active solidarity would include forms of self-taxation by those able to afford it. The money and materials raised would be used to support the efforts of those in the movement who need financial and material aid to organize locally for sustainable development, democracy, and social justice. This would create a broader, less foundation-based fund-raising effort in support of the organizing and educational work of the whole movement.

An anti-materialist vision linked to an active solidarity strategy directly contradicts the inner dynamic of the capitalist system. The problems of race and class in the U.S. represent the biggest challenge to any movement seeking to inspire the people into the U.S. to unite and struggle for a new multi-cultural, just and ecological society.

What is needed is a strategy that inspires people to take direct action in their everyday lives to peacefully transform the core values that define the Western lifestyle: values which serve as the unconscious foundation for this pyramidal, hierarchical system. The values of active solidarity and Spiritual Politics/anti-materialism can only exist in a circular, holistic and egalitarian system. We need a clear understanding of the need for a truly unifying strategic and spiritual vision that can galvanize the millions of people of all races and classes, who— if they can cooperate on a grassroots level— could make the fundamental changes necessary to replace this life destroying system.

We face a system that uses racism, classism, and homophobia to keep us divided and our own internalized oppression to keep us turning our despair and anger onto ourselves, through drugs, alcoholism, over eating, etc. As a last resort, the ruling elites are willing to use brute force to keep their system in power. The recent savage U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan shows us the futility of using violence to try and undermine the system. But there are innumerable ways to organize non-violently yet powerfully. We will need much education, discussion, creativity and love for us to overcome these division and obstacles.

Part of our new understanding about organizing is realizing that struggling for peace is not enough. Justice is our real goal, and peace will result if justice prevails.

A hopeful vision acts as a catalyst for social change. Our people are largely depressed, angry and even despairing, especially those of us on the bottom. Hope, evinced through a combination of life affirming values, clear organizing strategy and a passionate belief in the goodness of people can liberate enormously creative and powerful energies, especially among our youth. We can and will prevail if we join together the passion and energy of youth, the organizing experience and love of parents and the wisdom and vision of the grandparents/elders.

The oppressive system is slowly cracking under the unjustness of its policies, both at home and abroad. If we organize to cooperatively withdraw our energies and legitimacy from it, it will collapse like the paper tiger it is.

I propose that Indigenous people, people of color, and any progressive poor/working class people of all races staunchly committed to these core values come together to discuss the formation of a new movement based on these values and strategy.

The important thing is to start moving on these new values immediately. The world's people, the plants, animals and the natural world on this beautiful blue green planet are all waiting for us to act.

If you are interested and would like to contribute in some way, email Roberto at: quetzalhombre >gmail.com