Description

Why, despite still 'owning' some of the most valuable land in America (most of the uranium reserves, 20% of the oil and natural gas, water rights throughout the arid West, et. al) do the remaining 2 million Native inhabitants live in conditions of poverty commonly found only in the Third World - a life expectancy averaging under 50 for both men and women; 60% unemployment; a per capita income on the Pine Ridge Reservation of $2000 a year?

More than 17 years after the firefight at Oglala Village on Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975, Leonard Peltier continues to sit in a cage in a federal prison. Not for anything anyone, including his prosecutor, at any point in the last 15 years has been prepared to say they actually believe he did... And what led to the deaths of over 60 American Indian Movement members between 1973-1976? How did the Black Panthers go from a powerful grassroots movement to a drug-and-strife-ridden organization with its best leaders dead?

Welcome to Counterinsurgency, American style. State financed, highly illegal methods of framing, blaming and murdering activists has quite a history. From anti-labor Pinkerton thugs and the Palmer raids on anarchists, to infiltration of the anti-globalization movement, Churchill traces the ugly history of the FBI and U.S. state repression.

In this keynote lecture, Churchill weaves together the themes for which he has become hailed as an activist and scholar - genocide, repression, and resistance - and amply demonstrates why the fate of Leonard Peltier, current state of Native America, and the long, sordid history of the state clampdown on dissent have ramifications across the globe.