The World According to Best Means
"Freedom is for Everyone" icon speaks his mind
by Brian Wright
Please everyone find an hour and a half today or within the next few days
to watch the video "Welcome to the Reservation," linked to the image on the right. It is an exclusive interview conducted by Infowars.com with American Indian activist and libertarian hero Russell Means. Means' assessment of the political plight in this country: Tyrannical US government (USG) is increasingly treating everyone else just like it has been treating the American Indian from the gitgo.
RM: "The US is the largest Indian reservation in the world."
Russell Means—My Personal Reflections
At the end of the (false-flag libertarian[1]) Reagan era, I was still in my thirties and helping out the Libertarian Party in Michigan (LPM) in various capacities following its disappointing decline after the Ed Clark presidential campaign of 1980.
Between jobs, I was asked by the LPM chair to chauffeur Russell Means
about southern Michigan for media interviews in the spring of 1987. Russell had declared himself a candidate for the LP presidential nomination, the convention for which was to be held in Seattle in late August of that year.
Quite a day: I pick him up in the morning from where he's staying in West Bloomfield (Detroit suburb), and he pries himself into my 1984 Honda CRX. He is dressed well, though casually, with long hair in braids on both sides, and beads and other adornments befitting his Lakota Sioux heritage. First impressions: this is a man with presence, what most of us called charisma back in the day. Slightly more than six-feet tall, he stands even taller and walks relaxed, with purpose. When we shook hands he looked me in the eye, not to challenge, but for awareness. If I had to use one adjective for the man, it would be regal, conveying the natural authority of, say, a George Washington... not some miserable little potentate.
The business of the day turned out disappointing, at least in terms of media in attendance at his three or four news conferences—in Grand Rapids and East Lansing (at Michigan State University). Russell comes across in public as authentic, confident, and informed; he's witty and engaging, basically the 'liberal media' eats him up. At MSU I catch the full measure of his appeal to the American Indian[2] community, as dozens of students and others of that community show up voicing enthusiasm, seeking autographs
or other gestures of his attention... freely given. This is theRussell Means, who stands up for his people on the world stage.
We return to West Bloomfield probably 10:00 that night. What I remember most of that special day are the long conversations
about ideas of liberty, which I feel—from years of reading and writing—I have a pretty good handle on. But in terms of actually confronting government tyranny, I am simply not worthy; he is the truth walker, I yet mostly a truth talker. Read more about Russell Means, the truth-walking icon and the real human being in his biography, Where White Men Fear to Tread.
The Matter at Hand
As you watch the video, you'll understand the conviction Russell Means carries and how that draws you into his energy field. It's the same aura I experienced in my day of political travel with him 24 years ago. On contemplation now, I find it and him wholly inspiring. This is exactly the sort of
personal quality I have been extolling from the work of Eckhart Tolle (and allowing to develop in myself)—as opposed to the verbal-judgmental 'no-win' political approach. From The Power of Now:
All evils are the effect of unconsciousness. You can alleviate the effects of unconsciousness, but you cannot eliminate them unless you eliminate their cause. True change happens within, not without.
If you feel called upon to alleviate the suffering [esp. caused by aggression] in the world, that is a very noble thing to do, but remember not to focus exclusively on the outer; otherwise, you will encounter frustration and despair. Without a profound change in human consciousness, the world's suffering is a bottomless pit. So don't let your compassion become one-sided. Empathy with someone else's pain or lack and a desire to help need to be balanced with a deeper realization of the eternal nature of all life and the ultimate illusion of all pain. Then let your peace flow into whatever you do and you will be working on the levels of effect and cause simultaneously.
— Page 167
So please watch the video in such a peace-flowing state. I could not find a transcript on the Web, nor a DVD, but I have no doubt both will be forthcoming soon. Friends, it simply doesn't get any better than this.
Kirkpatrick Sale, author of Conquest of Paradise, which I've recently reviewed, implies that the achievement of liberty in the Americas will be through resurrection of the American Indian. I'm convinced, too, that in that direction lies the New Paradigm of the Sacred Nonaggression Principle.
No one articulates the natural vision of liberty in America better than Russell Means. First he gives us the gory-detail assessment of the multitude of problems facing us politically and, especially, economically:
"The history of the Indian and the history of the American have now come first circle and we are intertwined: dictatorial policies of those that control the monetary system... "
... and all the other systems: sickness creation, dumbing down children, routine murder and mayhem. Then he proposes dismantling this patriarchal pyramid, understanding nature and natural law, asserting the Constitution, decentralizing power, how local control = freedom. "You don't need government when you have one another." Russell, thank you for your brilliant and timely insights to help us take our country back.
Mi country es su country!
[1]
Though I didn't fully realize at the time how destructive of liberty that whole Reagan faux-libertarian juggernaut was. For
an honest assessment, read Murray Rothbard's "Ronald Reagan: an Autopsy."
[2] Russell prefers 'American Indian' to 'Native American' usage, pointing out that anyone born in America is by definition a native American. I suppose he would find 'indigenous American' more exact, but probably doesn't like the less-familiar word 'indigenous.'
[3]
In those days, I still held the naive concept that the USG was not under control of a pathocracy immune from conventional democratic processes.
