[On February 24th Indigenous Activist John Trudell stopped by the studios of Free Radio Santa Cruz for a chat with AC Sandino II and Phillip Meshekey, a native poet and musician traveling with John as a musical intro to his public talks. He spoke at Cabrillo later that night to a packed audience.]
Excerpts because the interviewers are not always on point and venture into their own stories for extended amounts of time. Relisten to this interview to double check all excerpts, including duplicates in the second half.
“I don’t know what to say about me. I’m just me. And I learned a long time ago not to tell on myself. I’m not tellin’, confessin’, admittin’, I’m not doin any of it. You got a question you wanna ask, I’ll answer it, the way I wanna answer it.”
“I don’t think of it in terms of being inspired. It was just a reaction. In ‘79 after my family was killed in Nevada. And this was just something that became a reaction. I mean it isn’t something I planned to do. I started writing and it just showed up. I started writing and at some point in the deal I decided I was going to follow the lines.”
“I don’t think of myself in terms of an artist or a poet or any of these things. I think these are just a lot of identities that we give to ourselves–we’re human beings. My whole notion of participation is participating as a human being. Because that’s who we are. Everything else is an added identity. Everything else, gender, race, all these, these are added identities. Our identity is, we are human beings. That’s who we are. So for me, understanding the experience of a human being, I can’t lead any parades, and I don’t belong in any parades. I’m just doing what I do. It’s not about good or glory. I’m just me doing what I do and I follow my life pretty much where it takes me.”
“I just live a crazy life. But in the course of it sometimes I make sense. Sometimes I can make a lot of sense, but other times I can make not a lot of sense. One of the things about it is getting through this life, in a way. In my mind when I look at it is, I want it to be even. Whatever I did that was damage, I want there to be basically an equal undamage, you know, that’s my goal. I’m not judging anything or anybody, none of it, you know, because we all got our own rides to ride and I think that really for us as human beings, it’s time that we start understanding that our responsibility is to recognize the reality of life, rather than to go around judging life. Because to judge is really a part of that alien predator virus that got imprinted into our consciousness. To judge, see but if you judge you can’t see clearly. I think to me it’s about having learned to experience this life and recognize the experience, you know. And because, I mean in the long run, I think when we recognize our reality rather than judge our realities, I think we can create more coherent realities. Because I don’t care if we’re the good guys, and I don’t care how righteous we are as good guys. If we’ve got turmoil in our heads, alright, that’s driving us. Then something needs to be sorted out because whatever our results and our solutions are going to be, they’re gonna have turmoil in the basis of them because that’s the energy we’re projecting out into it. And I think well, no, we gotta just look at ourselves, recognize ourselves and just learn to understand to like ourselves. See, I always like myself. I don’t necessarily always like what I do, but I don’t confuse it. I don’t confuse it.”
“I don’t do bad things. I do things that maybe–if we’re looking at bad as bad. I don’t do bad things. That’s right. I don’t do bad things. I’ve done irresponsible things, alright.”
“I think something that we need to look at. I mean something I want to put out there to think about. See, I think the whole ideas and concept of radical and revolution, I think they get in the way of us getting real solutions to the problems we’re confronted with, because we’ve been having revolutions. As long as there’s been an oppressor class we’ve been having revolutions and it hasn’t solved the problem has it? Alright, and radicalisation means to me–because it’s a term that got imprinted into our thing, it had a certain romaticism to it, especially my generation. Revolution. Radical. But if you want to deal with reality, if you’re approaching a thing from radical, then that means you are not seeing clearly and coherently. Because the ability to see, recognize, with clarity and coherency is distorted by the radicalisation, so I think that there are things we really need to understand. That we need to have a better understanding about, that deals with the power of our intelligence. Because if we go with the wrong imprints, no matter how good our intentions are alright, our view of it will be distorted. We can’t see clearly. See I’m of the mind, I’m not in it to fight the bad guys. You know, I want to help the good guys. Because what’s the point, you fight the bad guys, then you’re sucked into their energy and then you’re going to be doing bad guy stuff, but you’re righteous.”
“In a lot of things you know, like for us with our identity Indigenous or however we’re taking our identities, you know, and we talk about respect in the old ways and things like this, but I think we really need to put serious consideration into, you know, I mean ther basic things alright, if we’re talking about taking responsibility for the gift and power of our intelligence and using it in a way that shows respect to all the things we say we respect, right. I think we really need to examine things like pride, alright, because I see that us as Indigenous people in trying to rerecognize ourselves we’re using pride, and I think we should be careful with that, alright, because again that’s the predator mindset that was brought here. When we talk spirituality, and we talk from this consciousness of light and these kinds of things, that was all based upon humility. Not one bit of it was based upon pride. None of it. It was based upon humility, because humility was consistent with the spiritual perception of reality. But we’ve been imprinted in such a way now, we’re trying to rerecognize ourselves. I was a part of a movement that tried to instill Pride. But when I look at it now I think well, maybe we overdid it. Because pride is getting in the way of us being able to recognize our own humility, no matter what our rhetoric and our words are.”
“Because what’s happening, see we talk about helping our youth. There are a lot of things we talk about. There are certain things like this that are really the core of all the rest of the stuff we’re gonna do, you know, and real thinking has to be put into this, to what we’re doing, rather than just emotionally reacting out of the anger and the fear and whatever it is we’ve had imprinted on us. You know, it’s really looking at finding some way about creating some clearer thinking because in the long run for us to make it, we’re going to have to think our way through it. Fighting our way through it, we will disappear in the fight and there will just be images of–we will be images of our ancestors, but we will have disappeared in the fight. Think our way through it and we will stay. We will stay authentic.”
“One of the things I think is kind of important to underunderstand, is it isn’t about capitalism or communism. It’s about, there’s an industrial ruling class on this planet. That’s who the predator is. That industrial ruling class that controls and owns that two per cent, that controls and owns all the rest of this stuff. See we’re dealing with a predator class. Everything is about energy. Everything that’s going to ever happen in this reality is about energy. We’re units of energy. Everything is about energy. That predator class eats energy. They create political religious economic systems alright, but it’s all means of eating the energy of the human being. And the way they eat this energy is they get, through the process of traumatizing us through having civilized us through the generations. They have imprinted us to believe in a parallel and an illusionary reality. They have imprinted us to believe that power is by authority, power is by force or money or all of these things, they’ve imprinted us to believe these things, and not recognize that, no, power comes from us. So what I may say is they should be real to themselves. They should never lie to themselves, never. We should never lie to ourselves, and be careful about self-rationalization, and self-justification, and self-denial, because sometimes these are the most dangerous lies, because we’re lying to ourselves about them being lies. Define our own reality. Think clearly and coherently. Don’t make emotional decisions. Do not make emotional decisions, or you may have an emotional reaction, and think it out clearly and coherently. And then make clear decisions.”
“When you’re dealing with perceptions of reality, perceptional consciousness, it was that invader predator class that replaced humility with pride. I don’t care where you goin in the Indigenous community. Humility is said, but pride is practised a whole lot more than humility. Not the humility is erased, cause we do see it and feel it, but when you look at it it’s the pride that keeps all the turmoil going within the Native community. You’ve got what oppression brings. That’s the main thing happening, but it’s pride, the pride that is within the Native community that has overwhelmed the humility. This pride is what is basically the engine driving the Native community right now in a whole lot of ways. And you know, we can just personalize it. How many times. I mean just from a personal experience. How many times has our pride really caused us to do something that just really probably shouldn’t have been done.”
“In America they’ve armed the haters. The haters in America are armed differently than any other country. The haters in America are armed weapon wise, rage wise, around race, pro-choice or anti-choice, around everything. The haters are there.”
“Looking at the oil thing, we’re dependent on it and we’re going to buy it, no matter who sells it. And that’s just plain flat reality. And I don’t care who we are. That’s the way it is in America. We’re going to buy it because it’s incorporated into everything we buy. But if we’re serious about the whole issue of fossil fuel and the oil industry, then I think that it’s in our best interest to turn and look into this country and let’s put serious consideration into alternative forms of energy. And I think that people should look at hemp, and I’m not talkin about pot. I’m talking about hemp. These people that are against the oil industry, the people that are for the environment, the people that are against all the bad stuff, if they would just take and look at hemp, and put all of this energy that they use to being enraged at the oil companies, and these other entities, take that energy and put it into getting hemp accepted as an alternative form of energy in this country, tthat would have more impact than somebody overthrowing a government in the Middle East.”
“There’s too much energy being put into fighting the bad guys and fighting battles that we’re never ever gonna win. More energy should be put into helping the good guys. If we looked at something like hemp and put serious consideration and energy into that, or at least an equal amount of energy into something like that as we’re putting into fighting the bad guys, we will persevere in the long run.
As an example with natural seed hemp. One acre of land, natural seed hemp, not this modified hemp, will produce five and a half barrels of oil. It’ll produce tons of fibre, the outer stalk and the innerstalk of which all material materials are made. Twenty five thousand different uses. Use it for everything. So it meets many many criteria. So, whatever’s going to go on in the Middle East, we have no control over it. We don’t. And the oil companies do. In the long run they do. So we can get emotional about that, but to me it’s about well, let’s find a way that is practical to really address it with a solution.”
“We know these things…and if we took the energy that we put into going over and over and frustrating ourselves with these things that we know, if we took that same energy and put it into creating something clear and coherent as a solution, this is how we will truly implement the change that needs to be done right, because it’s convenient to have a bad guy to blame. See it’s one of the things about blame. It’s really convenient to have a bad guide to blame. See then, as long as I got a bad guy to blame then I don’t have to take responsibility.”
________
“Well, I don’t know what to say about me. I’m just me and I learned a long time ago not to tell on myself. Not telling, confessing, admitting, I’m not doing any of it. If you got a question you want to ask, I’ll answer it. The way I want to answer it.”
“I don’t think of it in terms of being inspired. It was just a reaction to, in 1979 after my family was killed in Nevada this was just something that became a reaction. I mean it isn’t something I planned to do or any of those kinds of things. I started writing, it just showed up and I started writing and at some point in the deal I decided I was gonna follow the lines”
“I don’t think of myself in terms of an artist or a poet or any of these things. I think these are just a lot of identities that we give to ourselves. We’re human beings and my whole notion of participation is participating as a human being, because that’s who we are. Everything else is an added identity. Everything else; gender, race, all these. These are added identities. Our identity is we are human beings. That’s who we are, so for me I’m just having the experience of a human being. And I can’t lead any parades and I don’t belong in any parades. I’m just doing what I do. And it’s not about good or glory, I’m just me doing what I do, and I follow my life pretty much where it takes me.”
“I live a crazy life. But, in the course of it sometimes I make sense. Sometimes I can make a lot of sense. But other times I can make, not a lot of sense.”
“Getting through this life…I want it to be even. Whatever I did that was damage, I want there to be basically an equal undamage, you know, and that’s my goal…I’m not judging anything or anybody, none of it, because we all got our own rides to ride. And I think really for us as human beings it’s time that we start understanding that our responsibility is to recognize the reality of life, rather than to go around judging life. Because to judge is really a part of that alien predator virus that got imprinted into our consciousness. To judge. See because if you judge you can’t see clearly, you know, and I think to me it’s about having to learn to experience this life and recognize the experience. In the long run, when we recognize our reality rather than judge our realities I think we can create more coherent realities.”
“I’m not into fighting the bad guys. I want to help the good guys. Because, you fight the bad guys then you’re sucked into their energy, then you’re gonna be doing bad guy stuff.”
“I was a part of a movement that tried to instill pride right but when I look at it now I think maybe we overdid it, alright. Because pride is getting in the way of us being able to recognize our own humility, no matter what our rhetoric and our words are.”
“In the long run for us to make it, we’re gonna have to think our way through it. Fighting our way through it, we will disappear in the fight.”
“It’s just part of a process. There’s a realignment of the wealth. Redistribution of the wealth. On that level. But on another level everything’s about energy. So there’s a shift in how the energy is being used by the industrial ruling class systems, whether it’s Egypt, Libya, here, wherever it is. In the long run the industrial ruling class will do what it can, I think it will adapt and adjust to any fluctuations of energy that arise in these different countries or different places. I think you know, it’ll become flexible so that it can still control it. But for us as human beings who represent these energy things, if we use clarity, because we are the energy they feed on. So if we use well thought out decision making processes to deal with the issues that we’re confronting then I think the possibilities are in our favor. Alright, that we can have a better situation.”
“The Egyptians. Their whole thing was based upon non-cooperation. In America that’s an alien concept. People here don’t do things like that. They’ll do Civil Disobedience, but what happened with the Egyptians, it was based on non-cooperation in the sense that they went and they protested. The visual of Civil Disobedience. Wouldn’t go home and stuff. But when the state came in to attack them with violence and provoke them, they only fought enough to defend themselves, and then didn’t initiate anymore. See that was an act of non-cooperation that is beyond American concept right now to really get. Alright, it’s about non-cooperation. And so we’ll see how it unfolds with the unions, because this isn’t just Wisconsin. You know the lords of the land are just kinda now taking more from the peasants because that’s been the long term agenda, alright, this is just a salvo all that. And what I think’s going to happen though, so you have all these well-intended people, but in America they armed the haters. The haters in America are armed differently than in any other country. See and the haters in America are armed weapons wise, but rage wise, see they’re around the race, around pro-choice, anti-choice, see around everything, you know, the haters are there so they’re not going to allow, so the state is not going to allow there to be a transition the same way that happened let’s say in Egypt.”
“What I’m saying is, so looking at the oil thing see we’re dependent on it and we’re going to buy it no matter who sells it. Alright, that’s just plain flat reality. And and I don’t care who we are that’s the way it is in America. We’re going to buy it because it’s incorporated into everything we buy. But if we’re serious about the whole issue of fossil fuel and the oil industry then I think that it’s in our best interest to turn and look into this country and let’s put serious consideration into alternative forms of energy. And I think people should look at hemp, and I’m not talking about pot, I’m talking about hemp. These people that are against the oil industry, the people that are for the environment, the people that are against all the bad stuff. If they would just take and look at hemp and put all of this energy that they use to being enraged at the oil companies and these other entities. Take that energy and put it into getting hemp accepted as an alternative form of energy in this country, that would have more impact than somebody overthrowing a government in the middle east.”
“In America…there’s too much energy being put into fighting the bad guys and fighting battles that we’re never ever going to win. More energy should be put into helping the good guys…put your energy into that, or at least an equal amount of energy into something like that, as we’re putting into fighting the bad guys. We will persevere in the long run.”
“One acre of natural seed hemp, not this modified hemp that’s industrial world hemp…natural hemp on one acre of land will produce 5.5 barrels of oil. It’ll produce tons of fiber, the outer stock and the inner stock, of which all materials are made. 25000 different uses for it. Use it for everything. So it meets many many criteria. And I think so whatever’s going to go on the Middle East we have no control over it, alright. We don’t. And the oil companies do. In the long run the, they do. So we can get emotional about that but to me it’s about, let’s find a way that is practical to really address it, with a solution.”
“I’m not guilty of nothing.”
“We know these things. So it’s really a matter of energy and if we took the energy that we put into going over and over and frustrating ourselves with these things that we know. If we took that same energy and put it into creating something clear and coherent as a solution, this is how we will truly implement the change that needs to be done.”
“Revolution doesn’t really work in the long run because to have a revolution, in order to win it, you got to be badder than the bad guys. And then you become the new bad guys.” ~