excerpts from _Stickman_: interviews and words of John Trudell, edited by Paola Igliori; Inanout Press (year 1993?)
Thought a lot of people might find this valuable, so I'm posting it in various places, with hopes that those moved by this will pass it around. This is just the first excerpt of a large excerpt I hope to make available on the Net. (the part about \"quick change\" is near the end) Enjoy!
John in discussion with Paola Igliori:
<\/p>
...The internal predator...I don't place emphasis on the internal predator because I don't
think there is an internal predator, I think that the predator is truly external. It's in
the structures and creations of man....see, we just are<\/b>. We are human beings. ...We
got what would be defined as strengths and weaknesses. I think that our technologic
civilization is driving itself insane by going so far into the minute that it misses the
simplicity of one doing the best that they can with the best that they have. For the tribes,
for us here on this land, before the Europeans came here, we didn't have any problem with
love and fear and loss...that wasn't some internal predator running around in our mind or
our psyches or our souls or our spirits. That was something that the Europeans
brought...that's an equation, a perception that's unique to them.
...
It's like this whole concept of guilt, sin and blame...it's all bullshit. It's an external
programming being put inside of us. What we are is just natural human beings, natural human
beings when we're honest with ourselves, when we tell ourselves the truth and then we act
according to that honesty. See, I think that's what it takes, that's what it starts to take
to make things more clear for us, to make us healthier is to tell ourselves the truth.
[These] abstractions, to me, like love and pain and they become equated...that's too much
like that psychoanalysis that comes of of European psychiatric mind fucking, doing the
best that we can with the best that we have<\/b> and understand the power that is in that.
...Let's say it like that: value is in the material world; power, real power is in the world
of spirit.
(...)
Paola: The oppressor feels threatened by the power of awareness and it's a war that's
very real and not new. Hitler knew and conquered all the power spots in Europe as the first
thing; the Catholic church put its cross on top of Incas and Mayan pyramids and power spots
in general.<\/i>
<\/p>
It has put its cross on many, many of the European tribes, too. Europe's citizens were
tribes before they were citizens.
Paola: Yeah, I'm pretty aware of that, being Italian; we still are in some ways. Our
culture, somewhat like yours, I think, is more connected to celebration, to the earth, to
life. Even if the predator has crept in since longer time, our roots are strong.
Anyway...yes, Hitler...even very recently it was done in Europe...and yes, it's been done
throught the ages...So, there could possibly be an actual physical danger around people that
spread awareness even now, don't you think?<\/i>
<\/p>
Well, I think that what one would define as physical danger, I think the potential for that
is always there, but in context of people being hunted because of their thought and their
perception, that goes hand in hand with \"civilization\"...it has always been a part of
civilization and I don't expect it to go away now. It has been one of the main tools of
civilization, to attack the spirit of the people<\/b>...to persecute and hunt, and have
their search and destroy missions against thought...
(...)
<\/p>
Paola: ...I really hear what you say about deactivating the external predator, that preys
on our spirit, deactivate it through our perception of it,<\/b> as it lives in the
mind-set...
(next page)
So we all have associations in our subconscious that keep us stuck in repetitions until we
get really aware of them. Of where the links are. Usually pain is the communication to
pay attention, and if there isn't attention the price is more pain.
<\/b><\/i>
<\/p>
<\/p>
excerpts from \"American Indian Community House, New York; June 17, 1992\":
...we're part of the natural world,<\/b> we're not necessarily superior to it but we're a
part of it, and when we consider our role in that proper context--this predator energy feeds
upon living things--it has found a way to take fossils and mine them into a form of energy
to run its machine system--this predator energy has also found a way to mine the
spirit,<\/b> has found a way to mine our minds.
<\/p>
It feeds off all of us. And just as that fossil fuel system contaminates and pollutes the
environment around us--the air the water the whole life cycles--and it leaves it back with
its poisons and contamination [so we find the same in the way they mine our spirits]. As
they mine our spirit through our minds the contaminations and pollutants are the distortions
that are left and leave our minds foggy so that we can't see clear--that's the
insecurities--<\/b>that's the hatreds and the extremes of self trust and self respect and
many forms of masks and disguises that it wears within our minds--this is all very
deliberately done.
<\/p>
So in order for this system, this predatory energy system to work, we have to believe in it,
we have to believe it, and if we are to look clearly at what's really going on as this
process works, if we are going to believe in it then we can not believe in ourselves<\/b>,
we can not trust ourselves that's just the way this system works. We all have a commonality
and it's within our genetic memory--I am from the people that are indigenous to this
hemisphere but we are all indigenous to this planet. The DNA of the earth is in all of
us--it is in all of us and it's just part of what's being mined along with the rest of the
fossils--it's some elaborate system that I can't quite truly understand but it feeds upon
us.
[(editor's note to John and others: in my view the external predator is fear which has
become a kind of rigid institution where all policies and imaginations emanate directly from
being stuck in fear; Russell Means called it *fear of the unknown*; i see this fear as
institutionalized in modern \"civilization\", and a way to overcome this situation may be to
institutionalize the opposite: i.e. bridging with fearers in ways that beautifully \"blow
them away\"! We're not going to solve the problem by increasing fear quotients!)]<\/b>
<\/p>
So this predator energy that feeds upon us--its got to do with clarity and how we use our
minds. Predator energy...like in this time, this historical time--let's use advertising--we
all accept advertising--it's an acceptable respectable part of this society--but the reality
of advertising is it's an attack against self-worth--it's a constant barrage it's a
relentless attack against the worth of the self because every time it is telling us that
others will like us better--others will like us better<\/b>--if we consume this or that
and you become programmed with that crap all of your life all of your life.<\/b> The
subtleness and the blatantness simultaneously of that type of an attack.
<\/p>
We enter into this reality. Technologic reality tells us that we were born to die. Tribal
reality is we enter into this reality, we believe this reality and we will continue as part
of the larger life cycle. Technologic reality is you were born to die and at the end of it,
it's all based upon the material aspects of reality...So if you behave like good little boys
and girls, then you will go to male dominated god heaven. If you misbehave little boys and
girls, then you will go to a male dominated hell. (...)
<\/p>
...In this room, every time any one of us accepts, rationalizes the great lie, because it
meets a need for us to know more, or even help us to hide from it, then they are getting us
to accept the illusion as reality. Every time we listen to a political pimp** come out here
and tell us his selling line, and we know he's telling a lie but we rationalize why we're
gonna vote for him or why we're gonna do this for him or why we're gonna accept that
lie--that is converting this illusion into reality and we aid and abet it--because we have
been programmed to do so.
[(ed's note: i question the use of the label \"pimp\" because it looks like John is making use
of a sex-negative power word, demonizing a whole group of people as the image we're
programmed with about what pimps do and who they are)]
<\/p>
And I find it very interesting to live in a \"democracy\"--all right a democracy--to me a
democracy is just puritans with neon glasses, right, and that's all that it is.
<\/p>
The democracy, whether the democracy is called communism or fascism or capitalism--no matter
what it's called--it's all what I call dark age ruling control forms--It's the dark ages
with neon.
<\/p>
<\/p>
Nothing has changed--you're still the peasants--you're the peasants and you're the serfs and
you gotta do the bidding of the landlords and the royalty--that is reality--it has not
changed, you know--you can turn on all the electric lights you want--reality has not
changed.
<\/p>
You can call yourself workers you can call yourself citizens you can call [yourself]
anything you want. Freedom?? Why does freedom end in \"dom\". Think about it--why does freedom
end in \"dom\"? Citizens don't feel oppressed because they live a hypocrisy, so they don't
feel oppressed, they feel powerless. The illusion converted into the reality--and it all
works on how we believe.<\/b>
<\/p>
...Now, if they they have all the power, then why do they have to have someone come here and
run back and tell them what we're talking about? Because they're afraid we might think. They
don't want us to think and they don't want us to clear the pollution out of our own minds
because we can do it by activating our thinking process--but if they have all the power,
then why are they so concerned about what we think? Because, it's of the mind.<\/b>
<\/p>
Theoretically if everyone that disagrees with the lie that has been imposed upon
us--tomorrow, theoretically if everyone got up and said, all right I changed my mind. I'm
not going to believe the lie any more--you would have nonviolent change--and you would have
quick change--because the system goes upon our self-rationalizations and self-justifications
and insecurity: lack of respect for self.<\/b>
[(ed's note: and what if this lack of respect for self is simply **The Reflection of the
'ruling class'**??!! And a language which we can catch onto, opt out, and begin seeking to
deal with via bridging beautifully with all these people so heavily stuck in this so-called
'ruling class')]<\/p><\/center>\n","contact":"","link":"www.dickshovel.com\/JTT.html","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"Theoretically if everyone that disagrees with the lie that has been imposed upon \r\r\nus--tomorrow, theoretically if everyone got up and said, all right I changed my mind. I'm \r\r\nnot going to believe the lie any more--you would have nonviolent change--and you would have \r\r\nquick change--because the system goes upon our self-rationalizations and self-justifications \r\r\nand insecurity: lack of respect for self. (pssst---pass it around!)","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2002\/02\/quick_chan.txt","filesize":"11.0 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2002\/02\/14764.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}