Chile Forum

While I disagree with the 'libertarian' viewpoints of Russell Means I comment him for his courageous activism on behalf of the American Indian Movement (AIM). AIM has had considerable success (since its formation in 1968) in getting the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to modify its discriminatory (racist) policies toward the American nations. Regretably, BIA's record since its creation in 1824 is a very sad chapter in US history.

no country for young men wrote: .Wow, the more I read on the allchile.net crew the more interesting it gets. Guess the loose marbles roll south. ..

So you must be here strictly for the entertainment?

Russel I am sure is happy to take credit for it all, but the real wins for American Indians happened in the courts. Not in some protest march.

AIM went through a bunch of different phases, most Russel had nothing to do with. There has also been a rather big split in the 90's, one is Russel means' AIM and one is Belcourt's version of AIM, plus I am sure lots of little local versions. Perhaps to the point that the name is kind of meaningless.

First was the hippy civil rights phase when all the urban Indians ran back to the reservations in the early 70's with piece and love.
Second was the militant phase, say mid 70's to early 80's.
Third I would say was the legal phase. Where big wins started happening in the courts. Things that brought about for example the casinos, treaty rights enforcement, and so on. Much of that had nothing to do with AIM the organization, or Russel Means. It was done by the tribes directly. Real progress has been since the tribes have started getting economic clout from Casinos and other projects.
Finally, would be 90's where there is a lot of various AIM members romanticizing what happened in the 70's for money, support, and invitations to dinner parties.

What they did in their militant phase, and likely still do on some level, is the AIM I have problems with. They were a straight up terrorist organization, in many ways very similar to Hamas. They had a social political wing, and militant wing. I don't mean terrorizing white people, but terrorizing Indians to force political support and their agenda.

I was once involved in a project to film traditional stories and lives of the old Indians on the pine ridge reservation before they died. An old lady we were interviewing at her house leaned over to us in a low whisper and said, "I can't tell you the real stories or AIM will kill my family". She was not just being paranoid either. They had killed members of her family. AIM was trying to rewrite the history of the Lakota, to write themselves in as some sort of predestined warrior cult that was suppose to come back save them. I know many other traditional on the reservations that had similar death threats by AIM for telling traditional stories, in spite of their public claims that they represent the old ways or are the guardians of old ways.

For anyone that thinks AIM is a virtues civil rights organization, I would ask you to think about why it is that Leonard Peltier will not give up the name of the person that shot the FBI agent, but instead is willing to sit in prison. Either he did it, or as he has claimed in various interviews he did not do it and knows who did but can not say because AIM will kill his family. Either way, not really the sort of organization that makes it is easy to get behind their methods.

I am all for indigenousness rights. Just not the way AIM has gone about it.