We last left you discussing the concept of the bordertown and the racialized violence enacted there through settler vigilantism, which is obvious through physical violence. In a new era, however, what about online discourse? This is one thing I’d like to introduce to our discourse and hopefully help settler allies understand when they might accidentally dawn a hood and cape for the state. I see settler vigilantism as synonymous with Kluxism, or at least they stem from the same psyche. The spirit of Manifest Destiny seemingly possesses these settlers to act out in monstrous ways, depriving us and themselves of humanity and life. There are no more bounties to collect for a scalp, so this shows these actions to murder Indians are deeper than just monetary gain. It is always about the land. Briefly we spoke on Raymond Yellow Thunder and Wesley Bad Heart Bull, both victims of settler vigilantism. Raymond died due to injuries sustained in a fight, and Wesley was stabbed in a fight at a bar. Both resulted in AIMs activism, and ultimately pushed them further to Wounded Knee. Raymond Yellow Thunder was killed before the Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972, and inspired the famous “AIM Song” which is actually the Raymond Yellow Thunder Song and should be respected as such.There is a great deal of controversy still surround Raymond’s death, but from every perspective I’ve heard one thing remains true; it is colonialism that murdered him.

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Colonialism’s claws come from many directions, and it brings death in a systemic, planned and targeted manner, contrary to Engels' view of social murder. In a colony that target gives a slight reprieve for the colonizing nation’s working classes, and seemingly at the root of every boot strap story, is a mystified deluge of the eldritch horrors of capitalism and colonialism. These horrors which possess, steal, and murder are often described as primitive accumulation by contemporary Marxists (or the motor of capitalism), the tongue-in-cheek humor often becomes lost. Primitive accumulation which once derided the ruling class's view of themselves, now it is used by chauvinists to be synonymous with pre-Columbian political-economy. In the case of the Oceti Sakowin, we remained primitive in the eyes of these chauvinists until 1868. The people who make these arguments don’t seem to realize the cloak and hood they have proudly proclaimed as their own, but to us the colonized, we see the same two mouths our white siblings have become known for.

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English is known for its one word with many meanings, or perhaps many words with the same sounds, but each uniquely specific. In the case of Wesley Bad Heart Bull we can see this most clearly in the settler’s courts, which proclaim law and order, but really only on behalf of the landowner. When there is no clear land owner, it's about which party most represents the landowners. In a settler-colony with a case of assault with prior consideration to ‘kill him an Indian’ it is of course manslaughter when you kill somebody who was fighting another person. This is of course sarcasm, generally speaking when you “accidentally” kill someone it is still a degree of murder especially with prior expression to want to kill an Indian, and when the assailant wasn’t involved in the fight. Murdered in the street like so many before and after, and that was a well known fact of life in South Dakota. You could be murdered and like Raymond or Wesley, your attackers might get charged with a small fine and manslaughter, but when you ask every settler when justice comes they all play innocent. This is why AIM went to the streets. When you ask Pine Ridge elders when AIM became a symbol, you are told the Gordon protest. When Russell Means took the Chief of Police’s hat and threw it, David Swallow Jr recounted his feelings as “we can do that?” This is where a fire was reborn that still carries on today, as my nation’s president banned Kristi Noem from our reservation after she tried to stoke xenophobic fears at a rally. We are standing once again, and it is time to stand with us and learn our revolutionary history.

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So today on February 6th was the day of the Bad Heart Bull trial in Custer, South Dakota. To this day as landback grows more prominent and our elders and leaders move forward with decade old plans and conversations, the contradictions here grow. Because of this I’ve sought to see the perspective of various communities and generations, on the ‘Indian problem’ as it has always been called here. The Indigenous question is only the colonial question, and the communist movement has had a century, decade, and a year to discuss this since Stalin's publishing on the subject (1913, of course the conversation predates Stalin). One of Lenin’s last works was on this specific topic, and the question of who should be okay with having an autonomous region of their own in a larger state: is one that places great nations at the whim of the nations they oppressed.

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Because of the words Lenin has spoken on the subject, people like Ho Chi Minh froze all night just for a chance to see the great man’s body. The pan-African revolution, the third world movement, fourth world theory and so much more have a red light shining on them from the star that is Lenin streaking across the sky: calling us to revolution. We don’t know if that star was shining at the time the molotov was thrown, but when the court house went up in flames, it certainly caused a stir. Nobody knows who threw it either, I’ve talked to a considerable bulk of living participants, but it was thrown after the cops pushed Wesley’s mother down the stairs with a billy club. Only 3 people were going to be allowed into the courtroom, and when Dennis Banks, Russell Means, and David Hill entered the cops stood in the way of the mother of the victim, and brutalized her. David punched that pig-fucker in the face and the riot ensued. Custer is THE symbol of settlement in the Black Hills, it's one of the first towns, and to this day makes its money from exploiting the land and treating it like an amusement park. While people on my reservation don't have water, Rapid City has a water park. Custer had a literal amusement park that flew a replica of the 7th Calvary's flag; we already had the real one, so during the riot that replica flag was also taken. Cy Griffin was a film maker from the video freak movement that was there, he went back to New York and told his friends about everything happening there. A war in South Dakota is how he described it. We call it the Reign of Terror. See, it wasn’t just in the bordertown we were being murdered in the street, on Pine Ridge a seemingly innocuous man named Richard Wilson (only one parent was Lakota) became Tribal chairman. He employed his family (legal in our laws) , began embezzling money (not legal) and established a right-wing paramilitary called the GOONs (Guardians Of the Oglala Nation, questionably legal). The GOONs would enact violence on Dick Wilson’s political opponents by firebombing, drive-bys, and gunning people down in the street. This spurred the organization OSCRO (Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization) to form, and begin collecting signatures to impeach Wilson. They were successful in collecting the signatures, however Dick was the one who presided over the impeachment, and of course found himself not guilty. OSCRO is an often overlooked organization, and I believe this to be the goal of federal agents to remove the grassroots elements from these struggles and obfuscate the lessons we could learn. As mentioned in a previous post, Dick Wilson would oversee the equivalent amount in deaths to Pinochet’s first 3 years. This is in South Dakota, and nobody knows these facts, and pretend colonialism is some bygone era. Because of the fire lit in Custer, in Gordon, in the Pacific Northwest, in DC and so many more places, we see the modern land back movements stem. Those movements stemmed from the wars, those wars stemmed from the early capitalists accumulation of wealth to jump start global capital today. In these circles we see how yesterday is today, and only by understanding both can we move on to tomorrow. We must pull capitalism up from its roots which are soaked in the blood of the colonized, until we do that we are doomed to fail. We mentioned briefly how these concepts go beyond physical violence, and one way is the erasure and silencing of Indigenous and other marginalized voices. This might sound farfetched to the insensitive, but in a critical period of rupture, we have to make sure we don’t get bogged down in what is socially mainstream. If the mainstream is saying our talking points then we have failed to stay at the head of the movement, and are merely another voice consumed into the acceptable protest movement. We have to stand arm and arm with trans comrades as opportunists and state agents both turn their sights on them across the country, seeking to separate them from would-be allies who are worried they will lose mainstream support for daring to stand against the face of oppression. Those who can’t stand in solidarity with everyone, yet voice opposition to Israel in this critical moment, are capitalizing and being opportunists. This has to be combatted. People like Jackson Hinkle make Trans and Indigenous people their target for a reason and you should learn why. Especially if folks like Hinkle can sell stolen Palestinian Gold, and people give passes to communists defending him. The movement is in a critical moment where it has to struggle with the colonial contradictions, failure to do so, means failure to form a vanguard. In our next post we will discuss Captain Cook and his death on February 14th, my birthday is then next so y’know if you like these posts and the work we do I recommend supporting us! We have a linktr.ee/chunkalutanetwork with all of our social media, gofundme efforts we are engaged in, a liberapay and a patreon that all go to supporting the work CLN does. This post was short as it's mostly a timely bridge to send us on our way to the real Wounded Knee 1973 post at the end of the month, so lots of learning to do. I also recommend checking out the Indigenous Anti-Colonial Institute podcast and the CLN podcast for more education. Our patreon also has a ton of episodes, and there’s also Marx Madness where we read you theory. Right now we are reading a custom Gramsci Reader that you can check out in our library listed on the linktr.ee. I also want to stress, don't wait for us to learn about this stuff, start with Blood of the Land by Rex Weyler, read the Erdoes biographies, and then ask what a Marxist perspective on this stuff should be. I will be releasing a companion to the book later this month hopefully, of a stream of thought journal kept on my 3rd read through.