INTRO: Welcome, I’m Rose Aguilar, and this is Your Call. The FBI file on today’s guests says quote, “He is extremely eloquent, therefore extremely dangerous.” From 1969 to 1979 the FBI collected a seventeen-thousand-page file on John Trudell, an acclaimed poet, recording artist, and Indigenous rights activist, He’s well known for becoming one of the main voices of the occupation of alcatraz in November, 1969. In October, 1972 he took part in the American Indian Movement’s Trail of Broken Treaties caravan march on the Bureau of Indian Affairs in D.C. From November third to the seventh, they occupied the Department of the Interior. The Nixon Administration rejected their demands to revive native sovereignty, but instead authorized sixty six thousand dollars for gas money to send the caravan back where it came from. John Trudell continued his work with AIM, serving as chair from ‘73 to ‘79. And so much happened during that time. In February of ‘79, a fire of unknown origin killed Trudell’s wife, three children and mother in law. It was through this horrific tragedy that he began to find his voice as an artist and poet, writing in his words, to stay connected to this reality. John Trudell has also been a leading voice for the legalization of hemp through the project Hempstead Project Heart. Hempstead was created by the olders, Willie Nelson and John Trudell, to promote a conscious recognition of the qualities of industrial hemp as a renewable economic alternative, green energy resource. He says, hemp is one of the most important issues of our time. As part of the fourth annual Hemp History Week the documentary film Bringing it Home, which tells the story of hemp’s past, present and future, will be screened in San Francisco tonight at 7pm. Inner Mission, San Francisco, 2050, Bryant Street, and John Trudell will be at tonight’s screening and he joins me here in studio.
Rose Aguilar: Hi, John.
John Trudell: Hello.
Nice to see you! Thanks for coming in!
Well it’s nice to be seen.
Well, I was doing so much reading about you over the last couple days, and I’ve never heard you talk about the fact that you majored in radio and television in college.
Well, it doesn’t come up much, but yeah, that was my major. Radio and television. Programming and production, when I got out of the Navy.
You served two years in Vietnam, right?
I did two tours. I was in the Navy for three years and ten months and out of that I did two WestPac tours. They were six month tours. Six, seven months, something like that. And then when I got out yeah, my major, I went to San Bernadino Valley College. Because at that time I wanted to stay in California. And for radio and television, San Francisco State and San Bernadino had the two best programs in California. So I went to the junior college one because it was just an easier gig and deal to get into. So I spent a year and a half there before I dropped out, and went to Alcatraz. So with the radio, well radio and TV. So I wrote PSA’s. I did the [speech fun A?]. Learned all the history of the stuff, so you know, I did at the college, so I had my own radio–I did a couple different radio shows. One was a country music show and one was a some kind of a talk magazine show, with three or four of us did that kind of stuff, and I wrote, and at some point I wrote all the PSA’s, and that eventually came to the point where I just–and PSA’s basically that’s how you’re learning how to write commercials, but in college. They call them PSA’s right. So all that kind of stuff and then I did the same thing with TV, so I, I did you know on air in front of the cameras behind the cameras, boom, all the stuff.
And that gave you a lot of training for what you did with the occupation at Alcatraz?
I mean, I really had no coherent reason for taking that as my major anyway, I didn’t know what the hell I was doin. I just said ok I’ll do that. But yeah ironically. So I went through school from January or February of ‘68 till the fall of ‘69. So a little over a year. Three semesters, maybe, whatever you call em. And then I left school. I had a disagreement within my major and so I pretty much just turned off to it.
What with a disagreement?
A student job. There was a student job up for grabs and I needed the money. And I needed the job. And I was, in my own opinion, I was the best qualified to do it right, in my own opinion. But so we’ll put that in there, but the deal is somebody else got the job because two department heads were showing who has the most authority, so that’s why I didn’t get the job is because one department had wanted to show he was the big dog to the other department head, you know, and when I called him on it, I asked him why you know, and so in the end they just told me well that’s the way it is in the business and you have to learn to accept it and I said said no I don’t.
It’s interesting because you started in radio on television. What are your thoughts today about the power of the media?
I think the power of the media doesn’t diminish. I don’t think it ever has. I think that at whatever technological state of advancement the media is, they use it to their maximum effectiveness to psychologically manipulate people’s perceptions of reality. I don’t think that’s ever changed. That’s what the purpose of it is for. So I don’t think they’re more powerful than they were before when you place it in the context. When it was just radio come out and they could hear it well they did it to the best of their effects with that, and now we got instant holograms and stuff. See, but to me the system works as effectively–the primitiveness of the technology alright, it works as effectively as possible with whatever the technology is at any given time. So I think that basically the reality of it is there’s an industrial ruling class on this planet and people talk about communism, capitalism, all the different things, but in reality there’s an industrial ruling class on this planet. They own the capitalists, they own the communists, they own the socialists, they own, they own the religions. They create these things alright. So I think there’s a great deal of that kind of thing that goes on. And so in that context the media is just like religion, or like nationalism, or politics, right, it’s there to manipulate the mass. You know, I would sugges, there’s this BBC documentary called Century of Self and I would recommend that people watch that documentary. Because what it, basically what they’re talking about, it’s a very clear cut explanation of how the manipulation of the mass psychology was very deliberately created at the turn of the century, the 1900’s, and how they used Freud’s nephew to do it. Because at the turn of the century, of the 1900’s most Americans at that time America was now hitting the mass production line, where they can do stuff in mass. So the industrial age had hit that, but some Americans were still living from the last century, so they were only buying what they needed. Not what they wanted. What they needed. They were still frugal in that kind of way, so they brought Freud’s nephew over here, alright, to devise a plan to get people to buy more than they needed, to go into the realms of psychological manipulation on a mass scale.
And what’s interesting is, you know, I follow you on Facebook, and you really embrace social media.
I mean, I do and I don’t. What I know how to do on Facebook is post. I know how to post notes. But that’s basically what I do. Basically I post notes right that I write myself and once in a while an article here or there, right. And I do it for something to do.
Well it affects people because sometimes you post poetry that you write, or sometimes you post issues of things, articles about hemp, hemp legalization, and you get–a lot of people follow you and a dialogue actually happens.
Well, it’s a poor dialoge cause I don’t dialogue back.
Sometimes you do.
But generally, I don’t. But yeah, you know it’s there, I mean, but really my whole, my whole experience with the Facebook thing, because number one, I mean because in reality, I’m really preliterate with this technology, I mean, I can. I know how to send an email. I know how to do certain basic things on a computer. But if it goes beyond basic, same thing with Facebook. I know to do certain basic things. I went into Facebook. I wanted to see what it was all about. And for me it was a good way, I do my writing, so I just post it there and I have it there right, but that’s really what it is. Because I don’t really interact that much on the Facebook thing, but it gives me a good idea to see how people respond and to certain things.
Right and see what people are thinking about, right? You know, it’s interesting too, because a lot of people have learned about Hemp through your Facebook page and through everything that you’ve been through. Why did you decide to embrace this cause?
Well. I don’t have a real clear cut concise answer to why I decided, but when it comes down to, when I look at everything that’s going on right now in the world, so to speak, but let deal specifically with this country in America. Number one, I think that hemp is healthy for the planet. I know that it is. Because you don’t need chemicals to grow it. You don’t need to pesticide. You don’t need to poison for it to grow. And when we look at what’s going on, because in a large way, I think the activist communities are in a quandary. They’re not really, they don’t have any solutions to the problems that are goin on, you know. I mean, they don’t have any solutions. Don’t really know what to do, the activists community, other than to go out and protest the way that we’ve been doing it for years and years, but the same old beavior patterns going on and on and on but no solution. Then these same old behaviour patterns been going on and on all my life, right, and yet the problem is worse than it was when we started out. So something’s not happening here that just doesn’t, something just not synchronizing. So all right now when I look at it, well, the environmental situation, and what I mean by our environment, I mean global warming. I mean poisoning the water. I mean economics. Not enough jobs. And just the whole, the whole thing. So when I look at all these problems going on and then I look at hemp, see and I think hemp could address a great many of those issues, alright. It can address like, I question in my mind why environmentalists aren’t out there pushing for hemp, I really do. I mean, you know it’s like, because hemp would literally make fresh oxygen for the sky that’s being sufpocated with carbon dioxide. So I think that’s effective. It would help to deal with global warming. You can make fuel out of it, which helps to deal with the global warming. Getting away from the carbons. Alright, you can make clothing out of it. You can make shelter. You can make hempcrete. You can make shelter. You can make a vehicle out of it. The medicinal, and I’m not just talking about the medical marijuana. I’m talking about the medicinal aspects of hemp, from the oils and the things that don’t get you high. You know, and the food stuffs, the clothing, it makes a better quality of paper. See so hemp serves every need. And I heard, especially I remember hearing it when Obama was running first time and all this terminology being tossed out there about a green economy. You know, and a lot of people I hear that talked about green economy and wanting alternative energy, especially environmetalists, ’cause I got a little bone to pick with environmentalists to some degree on this, but they’re ignoring hemp. They’re not even thinking about hemp, you know, and yet, and my bone to pick is not that I think there’s something wrong with them, but I think, well, I understand that people don’t know about hemp because they’ve been deliberately, they’ve deliberately had the information withheld from them. But really, in reality, if we’re looking for solutions to protect the environment, then to me it’s up to, its environmentalists they have a responsibility to check all the possibilities, but people fall in this niche, they’re for wind energy or for solar energy or they’re for water energy. See and they stay in that niche and they don’t look, expand beyond it.
You also question people who push for the legalization of medical marijuana who don’t talk about hemp.
To me we get into fine lines here, alright, I understand and appreciate the medicinal values of marijuana. Alright, but you know, but sometimes I think about it because most pot smokers, whether it’s recreation of marijuana see, they have this thing that they’re in on something. You know what I mean, that they have the answer to what’s going on. Pot’s the thing and this and that. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, but it’s kind of a whole, we figured something out, right. But yet at the same time when I see them talking about medicinal marijuana for people and not considering the earth. See earth needs medicine, too. And hemp is earth medicine. It is. See so what I kind of look at is hold on here, how enlightened are we really? Because while we want the medicine for us, but we don’t want it for the mother. Which kind of tells me this has got to do with levels of consciousness, you know. And which makes me and the medical marijuana–I understand that it is beneficial and helpful in the recreational marijuana. It’s beneficial and helpful, I understand all that and I don’t have a quarrel with that, but I do think that the medical marijuana people, you know if they want to talk about medicine. Then I think they should be inclusive to the hemp. Because I rememer just hearing it. A green economy. Well this is it. This is what people have been talking about saying what they want. Hemp can help to address that. And I think that I would like to see more environmentasts including hemp, whatever their environmental specialty is. I would like to see them including hemp. Because that’s what we all have in common. And if we want to get down to practical realities right. Hemp is the one, it’s maybe, if you really look at it, it’s the one, which I find interesting, it’s not as big of a polarization issue. Because when you look at the right and the left and there’s like nineteen states that have passed hemp legislation approving it for the state. They can’t do anying with it because it’s against federal law. But nineteen-states. But you know in almost every one of those states its republicans. Conservitives alright, that are advocating for it. So so the right and the left alright, The extremes, the right and the left are in agreement about this.
The Colorado governor just signed an industrial hemp bill into law.
Yeah see so there’s a lot of room there with this, for the hemp thing, and I think that it should be explored. Otherwise to me, you know it’s, I look at the antifracking people. Well, they need to get a grip on this. The fracking’s goin to happen if they don’t come up with something original to stop it. See I think the antifracking people should be talking about hemp. It’ll create economies in North Dokotea. It would create economies in these places, alright. It would create economies.
Well, you know and we’ve have a lot of environmentalists who listen to this show and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, because we’re talking today with John Trudell, who says that hemp needs to be near the top of our lists, and he is critical of the environmental movement because it hasn’t really embraced hemp. Doesn’t really talk about it. And John also we’re going to talk with him about like you said earlier that the activist community is in a quandary and not really focusing on solutions. So we’ll also talk about that and then I’m sure many of you are familiar with John and his work with the American Indian Movement. I mean, so much has happened during John’s life, and he will be speaking tonight at the airing of Bringing it Home, which tells the story of hemp’s past, present and future. 2050 Bryant in San Francisco. And then John and his band Bad Dog will be doing two special concerts to celebrate Hemp History Week tomorrow night at the Brower Center in Berkeley, Saturday night and then on Sunday in Padaluma at the Sunflower Centre, and you can find more information at Your Call Radio.org.
And, I’m not being critical of the environmental [movement] I’m being observational.
What are your observations? I often wonder what you think of when you look at what we’re facing today and what you dealt with in the late sixties, early seventies, when you know the FBI was collecting a seventeen thousand page file on you?
Well, I’m just hearing on the news how they’re supeaonoed all the Vorizon phone users, their stuff. See, so now, how do I feel about it? Well, welcome to the club. I feel like a pioneer. They’re doing it to everybody now. That’s what I notice, alright, if we want to get right down to it. The difference [between] then and now, so to speak, just movement-wise, what’s going on. I think that nothing has really changed between then and now. Cosmetics. On the surface. Technology, terminology changed. But when you get right down to the ruling behavior systems and patterns, they haven’t really changed. The technology is now more advanced, right, and so they have more control over us. But when I look at it is we started out in the sixties, and our motives and our intentions were good. We were idealistic. And we were the majority. Young, you know, and all of that. And so we wanted a different world. So we threw everything we had into trying to get that to happen. And we did raise consciousness. About sexism, war, environment, all ther terminaology, but we did raise consciousness and stuff but when you get right down to it in the long run, we didn’t really change anything. On the surface we did, alright there are more Black students in college now. More Native students in college now right, but there are also more poor Natives and more poor Blacks that don’t have access to college. See, so you know, so I mean when you get right down to it, alright, women, they’ve made great advances in women’s rights but yet the same time women are still having–it’s a constant struggle. right. There’s still no equal parity in pay, and things, so see, so what has really changed? The thing that I see that has really changed is that the authoritarian state is more entrenched now than it was when we started out. And so the diffence between then and now is well now, the generation now, that’s got to deal with the problems are in front of us, right. I don’t know if my generation left them enough information. How to do it without repeating the mistakes of the past, you know, and I think that, what we did in my generation, what we did is we bought some time. We didn’t change anything we just bought some time alright, because the state is more entrenched than it was when we started, alright so we didn’t really change anything we bought some time. So when I looked back at that, but our intentions were good, our motives were good our idealism, so where did we not go right? And I think that we didn’t go right, because we didn’t think our way through it. We emotionally reacted alright. We used our intelligence to emotionally react, rather than using our intelligence to think with clarity and coherency. See, so we emotionally reacted and tried to break– we emotionally reacted and tried to create change using the same perception of reality that our oppressor was using. We didn’t change our perception of reality.
We’re going to take a quick break. We’re talking today with John Trudell, longtime Indigenous rights activist. The FBI collected a seventeen-thousand page file on him, calling him extremely eloquent. That gave you a nice compliment. And said therefore extremely dangerous. John does a lot of work today. He is a spoken word artist. He’s got a band Bad Dog and he’s also working to legalize hemp. We’d love to hear from you.
Let’s hear from Joseph in San Francisco. Hi Joseph, welcome to the show. Joseph: Thank you very much for taking my call. My question for you is, what is currently going on with AIM? And what’s happened with brother Ward Churchill?
Well, you know I really don’t know any more what’s going on with AIM. See, to me in my world, my perception of it, there’s two AIM’s. There’s the AIM of the ‘70s, the days when I was young and we were all part of that. And there’s the AIM that exists now. But I’m not active in that AIM. I know that AIM has chapters, active in different parts of the country, but I’m not active in it anymore. But I know that AIM is still functioning in different areas.
Why aren’t you active in it anymore?
Well, let me answer, as far as Ward Churchill, you know I don’t have a clue what’s going on with Ward Churchill, you know. I was never a part of his reality, so I really don’t know what the deal is with Ward. I never really did know and I still don’t really know. I mean, I’m not trying to say good or bad. I’m just stating, you know, what it is about that? Now, what was that you were saying?
Why aren’t you a part of AIM anymore?
Well, part of it had to do with the fire. But part of it had to do–I knew the AIM days were coming–they were winding down, I knew this even before the fire. I just knew that this has gone long as it can. I made the decision that I just didn’t want a political identity anymore. I don’t see political activists solving the problem, right. Ah, it was like when I looked at it and I was thinking well, when I was AIM political activist, I was viewing–that was my identity. I was viewing the world, I identified as a political activvist. That’s how I viewed the world. But you know when I really think about it, well that’s a very limited view of the world because as a political activist that’s how I’m going to see the world. I’d rather see the world as a human being right then I can see the world more succinctly, and more clearly. But when you go as a political activist then you’ve got your bias and your prejudice, so it’s about having more of an open objectivity, with part of it. Politics. I don’t trust politics. I don’t trust anybody’s politics. I don’t care whose they are. I don’t trust politics because politics are competitive, but there is no other way around it. They’re competitive. They are not collective and cooperative. They may pretend to be at times, but really the nature of politics is competitive. Nature of politics is territorial, and the nature of politics is egotistical. They develop ego’s, all of these things, see to me that’s a lot of confusion. That’s a lot of energy I just didn’t need to deal with. It creates all this chaos. So that was a part of why I left. And when I really look at it, in practical terms you know, and I don’t mean any disrespect to anybody, but in practical terms about facing reality. The political activists haven’t solved anything. And we haven’t. What have we solved? I mean, really, think about it. You know all we can do is we just go out, invent more frustrations at what’s going on? And so that’s also a part of it because it’s got to do with what I said earlier, the reason we didn’t pull this off in the sixties and we were the majority in our youth was because we didn’t think our way through. We emotionally reacted, we didn’t think outside, we didn’t think outside the perceptional reality we had been imprinted to believe in. We didn’t think outside. See, and that’s what I think is the missing part now is to think with clarity, to have enough respect for our intelligence to think clearly and coherently. To have enough respect for our intelligence to like ourselves. To have enough respect for the Creator and all the spiritual holy holies we say that we’re after. To respect our intelligence. And how do we do that? We use it to think. We use it to think, but it needs to be done with clarity and coherency, because we’re inside of a system where everything in this dimensional reality is about energy. Everything is about energy. Everything that’s ever going to happen here is about energy. An energetic reality. Living in this reality, so this industrial ruling class, western civilizations, the industrial ruling class basically controls the planet. Alright, they mine us by how they imprint us to perceive reality. You know, and how we’re imprinted to perceive reality through believing, rather than thinking. We’re not encouraged to think. We’re actually imprinted to believe.
Well then, and so when you talk about your activism you took that activism and turned it into art through your spoken word, and that’s another way to bring out these ideas and you’ve been really very effective at it.
Well, it’s just to me it’s about communicating. That’s what I want. I want to be able to communicate some coherency. But back to this thing, about the energy thing. So it’s a system designed to consume energy. So for us what we need to do is we need to put some thinking into what we’re doing. How do we prevent it from consuming our energy? How do we deal with the system alright, so that it doesn’t consume our energy? Alright, because if you go protest, with or without permission. With or without the permits, alright. It’s a system designed to consume that energy alright, and it is. It’s the police get to come out and they get to do war games and we buy magic markers and plastic bottles of water, and so everything, it’s all designed in such a way they can absorb that energy. So we need to be thinking in terms of how do we not cooperate. See, because we got imprinted into our minds, civil disobedience, nonviolent civil disobedience. That was the way. But it’s not the way. The way is noncooperation. See because civil disobedience has been going on since there have been oppressors and still there’s a need for it. It’s about non cooperation. How do we not cooperate with them. How do we not feed them our energy. And there are many degrees of this. How do we not feed them our energy. Like one of the degrees, how do we not cooperate with them? Well, how about liking ourselves? That’s an act of noncooperation. How many people truly truly like themselves? Seriously, how many people really really like themselves? I mean, in the sense that they don’t feel overwhelmed by their insecurities and their fears. Am I good enough stuff. You know and everybody that plays that game is co operating alright. They’re feeding their energy on any individual basis, alright, and on a collecting basis. You know, like using this Occupy thing as an example. Now, that’s a primary example of an emotional reaction to something rather than a well thought out well planned coherent objective. The Occupy Movement was an emotional reaction to the Arab Spring and George Bush and all the stuff that was going on, it was an emotional reaction to it, right, but it didn’t accomplish anything. Everybody got to feel good for a little while and the police in some cities the police got to come and beat people up. And I don’t mean any disrespect but when you just look at what the actual result of it is, this is an actual result. So in a way Occupy, that whole movement, not just them, but that whole idea was based upon cooperating with the system, through protest. Now let’s just think, if all the money, time, resources, all of the energy that had been put into the Occupy Movement had been put into organizing people not to spend any money on the same day. You know if they’re objective, let’s say, let’s try to get a third of the population not to spend any money on this date. That would have had an impact. And it would have.
We’re getting a lot of emails actually about Hemp, and we’ll get to those in just a minute. Listener Bella says, what do you think are the most pressing issues in Indian country?
What people need to really understand, the most dominant issue is the violation and breaking of laws. Treaties are laws. So America cannot break close to four hundred treaty laws with the various tribes and still be a nation of laws. And what people need to get a grasp of right, so whatever’s going on here, by fact, this isn’t a nation of laws. Because you can’t break these laws and still be a nation of laws. So the American citizens need to start thinking in terms of the laws and the breaking of the laws, because now their constitutional laws are being broken, being violated. See, so there they’re the new Indians, they’re coming into this. The poverty, the alcoholism, the suicide rates, all the unemployment, all these things that are going on, they’re all results of the United States government not obeying the law.
Bella also wants to know if you don’t trust politics and you’re disenchanted with activism, how do you believe we as individuals and society can make change?
Take responsibility. Show respect to ourselves and our intelligence, and take responsibility. Take responsibility for our actions, alright and that’s pretty much what it is. It’s about us taking responsibility, because you know, I don’t trust the politics, but who does? I mean really, I mean, if you really, really, think about it, who does? Who truly truly trusts politics. Alright, we may join some political group and we trust that while we’re in it right, but I mean overall, everybody knows, like used car salesmen. Everybody knows, right? There’s someting fishy going on here. I don’t think that I’m disillusioned with these things. These are my observations. I don’t feel like I’m disillusioned, but I feel like this is what I’m seeing going on around me. Because we all want to pat ourselves on the back because we’re righteous in our cause and in our movement, and we put our stuff out there, so we had to pat ourselves on the back for the stuff right, but we’re not really open to hearing what I would say, neutral observations about the results of our activities. We only want to hear–we want only the pat on the backs, but practical reality is, and we owe it to this next generation. We owe it to our individual selves to be realistic and tell ourselves the truth about what’s going on and face the mistakes and understand the mistakes were mistakes, and learn from them. Because right now it’s like, whether it’s in our individual lives or whether it’s our collective, generational, societal lives we’ve been looking for the political solutions or economic solutions. But really we haven’t really approached it from the point of energy. How do we work with our energy? The solutions are in how we work with our energy individually and then collectively, but how we individually work with our energy. How we apply our energy. Do we apply our energy because we’re emotionally blowing off something, or do we apply our energy with a very specific tactical direction?
“I think all growable crops, because bamboo is a good energy. You know, and, switch grass, I mean, we could literally make a great deal of our fuel, or we could grow our fuel to a large degree, alright, and our shelters and all of these things. So I think bamboo. I think anything, it all should be on the table and it all should be explored, and looked at.” – Trudell on bamboo as fibre/fabric