Winona Laduke is a long time writer, activist and academic on issues of environmental and indigenous rights in America. She’s run for vice President with Nader. Her views are a fair bit off the usual spectrum of “acceptable discussion” in America. In her talk, she speaks about the need for a new, green economy to not just use renewable energy for national energy independance, but for local, community level energy and food security with renewable power. Telling the story of installing wind turbines on her own dirt-poor Anishnabe reservation, she makes a very compelling case for us to stop buying power from toxic and repressive national power grids. As she notes, 70% of the world’s Uranium is under Native land in nations like America, Canada and Australia, as is much of the disposal. She touches on seed saving and traditional crops, as well as the evils of Monsanto. And most importantly, she makes re-localization of every kind a priority of green economics, something more people need to take into account.
Newsfeed
- An Open Letter to Peaceful Protesters February 4, 2013An Open Letter to Peaceful Protesters
- The Revolution: Back In Black - Al Jazeera February 4, 2013The Revolution: Back In Black - Al Jazeera: “The last time kids in black caused this much trouble in Egypt, it was Satan’s fault”
- The Idle No More Movement Doesn't Need Your Sympathy February 4, 2013The Idle No More Movement Doesn't Need Your Sympathy
- Back in the Hole - Anarchist Material Removed January 30, 2013Back in the Hole - Anarchist Material Removed: From Alex Hundert’s prison blog
- Canadian Special Forces now on the ground in Mali January 30, 2013Canadian Special Forces now on the ground in Mali
2 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 11, 2010 at 10:56 pm
WRCU2
I especially found her emphasis on food security compelling particularly concerning corn and biodiversity. What did the Kearny Nebraska farmers say when they saved the 25 kernels of 100 year old heirloom corn from extinction, “The corn remembered the land?” Hmmm? There’s that spiritual element I mentioned at RTH not long ago in a thread about RHVP flooding and climate change. Anyhow, she even quoted her dad as saying, “I don’t want to hear your philosophy if you can’t grow corn.” I guess I can take comfort in the fact that I can grow corn even if folks find my philosophy is still a bit corny all on IT’s own.
When Winona was asked, “Why do you think there is such a resistance to the ideas you are espousing?” she replies “…the paradigm of empire it deconstructs. In reality as we are re-localizing food and re-localizing energy are the two most revolutionary things you can do in this country.” She even called Prince Charles a “radical” for his ideals about food security in the 21st century. Who would have thunk there’s support for re-localization from the British empire?
Thanks for sharing an interesting talk Undustrial.
July 13, 2010 at 5:44 pm
augustspies
It’s a very spiritual way to talk about seed genetics, I must admit I was hoping she’d clarify it more. Scientifically, though, it’s exactly what you’d expect – plants develop very specific traits when bred locally, and it isn’t surprising that they’d do much better, even generations removed, when brought back to an area/climate they’d been grown in for centuries.
I’m not usually a fan of politicians, but I read a lot of her stuff in University, and I’ve always been impressed by it.