John Trudell
John Trudell
John Trudellwas a Native American author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist. He was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz. During most of the 1970s, he served as the chairman of the American Indian Movement, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth15 February 1946
CountryUnited States of America
dont-trust-anyone cant-trust-anyone dont-trust
Don't trust anyone who isn't angry.
lying blood civilization
The great lie is that it is civilization. It's not civilized. It has been literally the most blood thirsty brutalizing system ever imposed upon this planet. That is not civilization. That's the great lie, is that it represents civilization.
ignorance reality rights
We must go beyond the arrogance of human rights. We must go beyond the ignorance of civil rights. We must step into the reality of natural rights because all of the natural world has a right to existence and we are only a small part of it. There can be no trade-off.
spirit protect
Protect your spirit, because you are in the place where spirits get eaten.
feelings understanding trying
I'm just a human being trying to make it in a world that is very rapidly losing it's understanding of being human.
storm raindrops enough
Every human being is a raindrop. And when enough of the raindrops become clear and coherent they then become the power of the storm.
religious military reality
We have power... Our power isn’t in a political system, or a religious system, or in an economic system, or in a military system; these are authoritarian systems... they have power... but it’s not reality. The power of our intelligence, individually or collectively IS the power; this is the power that any industrial ruling class truly fears: clear coherent human beings.
native-american years savages
Historically speaking, we went from being Indians to pagans to savages to hostiles to militants to activists to Native Americans. Its five hundred years later and they still cant see us. We are still invisible.
native-american people humans
We’re not Indians and we’re not Native Americans. We’re older than both concepts. We’re the people, we’re the human beings.
All that I am is me. So I'm not really a poet or a writer or an actor or an activist; I'm me, and these are things that I do.
dealing solution understand
For decades, my identity was political, but I've come to understand that there's no political solution when you're dealing with someone else's rules.
art culture lives longer people rely society truth
When one lives in a society where people can no longer rely on the institutions to tell them the truth, the truth must come from culture and art.
cannot change chooses control economic hands intention meaning minority people sick social until
We cannot change the political system, we cannot change the economic system, we cannot change the social system, until the people control the land, and then we take it out of the hands of that sick minority that chooses to pervert the meaning and the intention of humanity.
best deal irrelevant matter staying time
For us, it's a matter of just staying alive and getting the best deal we can now. Eventually, this will all straighten out. It may be two generations away or 10 generations away, but time is irrelevant in that sense. As long as we, as a people, stay alive, we will survive.