Sep 12, 2018 - Listening to Indigenous Peoples by Ken Cosentino

As humanity struggles to catch its breath, we as a civilized community must look to our indigenous brothers and sisters for wisdom and guidance. It seems that every week there is a hot-button issue in the world news which reflects the bitterness of society and the ignorance of the general masses. Mainstream media steers the herd into arguments about race, politics, government, sexual preference, fashion, celebrity gossip, sports and a variety of violent topics. People tend to believe what they see and hear on their television sets and what’s worse is that they trust the source. Two different news stations owned by two different lobbyists will report the same story from both ends of the spectrum. The truth is no longer valued and many folks will shun it because it’s too bright and hurts their eyes.

Those few who choose to think for themselves typically focus on our current energy shift on Earth. It’s blatantly clear that one paradigm is coming to an end and so another must begin. While most people seem to despise Donald Trump, there is a silver lining to his presidency. For the first time since the founding of the United States corporation, we have a president who is not hiding his actions from the public. Everything is right there for people to see and fight over, and all of their bickering does no good. Trump is a shining example of the end of this paradigm in which the so-called White Man has had a chance to rule. This, the fourth age of mankind, has outlived its expiration date. Many people believe that Donald Trump is an imbecile but he outsmarted career politicians. I am not praising Trump, but I am able to read the writing on the walls. The first thing that he did when he got into office, other than reversing Obama’s late decision on DAPL, was to cut funding to the EPA and pull us from the Paris Agreement. This got me thinking: Doesn’t Donald Trump breathe air? Doesn’t he need fresh water? Surely he would value these things just as much as the rest of us. Let’s say for discussion’s sake that Trump and his billionaire buddies have a mountain somewhere with a thousand years worth of food, water, air and whatever else they want and need. Do you think they want to live in a mountain? So what is really going on?

It’s ignorant for us to believe that we can reverse climate change. We are of the Earth. As Wallace “Mad Bear” Anderson so eloquently put it, “Earth Mother is crying.” Many religions have focused on the divine Father but they neglect the divine Mother in the process. How convenient this negligence has been for the wallets and bank accounts of the ultra-rich elite whom are the sole beneficiaries of the destruction of this beautiful planet.

So be it that climate change cannot be stopped. It has certainly been accelerated, but now is the time for every human being on Earth to adapt and learn to live with nature. This means taking guidance from our indigenous families. The First Nations people of the world, not just Turtle Island, have ancient wisdom to bestow upon anyone who will listen. The current social narrative will have you believe that, prior to European colonization, indigenous tribes were savages. However this false narrative has been greatly rejected in recent years even by the average every day American. This provides us with enough data to come to the ultimate conclusion that all races can work together in harmony. After all, a “race” is a competition; “color” means to conceal; and a “person” is a mask, by definition. So we must understand our true spiritual nature as beings, human beings who are spiritual in nature and physical only while functioning on this Earthly plane of existence. This requires reprogramming for adults, but for the next seven generations it only requires our own conscious effort and willingness to change ourselves, so that we do not pass along our own unhealthy character traits to our children.

Insurmountable historical evidence has shown us that ancient indigenous cultures were highly civilized. So then why does the United States government and their lobbying benefactors choose to ignore the wisdom of our indigenous families and instead proceed with systematic genocide? It has often been discussed that oil pipelines are ran through Native land, not so much out of convenience for the oil companies but as a “legal” way of perpetrating genocide in this age old war. Many people feel that this war ended, that the indigenous people of Turtle Island lost. However, this is simply not true. This narrative only serves the current paradigm and it must be corrected: The First Nations tribes are still here. Had they “lost” the invasion, there would be no indigenous presence on this continent. Instead there are stories, regalia, dances, ceremonies, recipes, and many other aspects of a culture which has outlasted genocide and will certainly outlast the coming cataclysmic Earthly events. This sheer fact, that oral traditions and languages have not gone gently into that good night, is a constant source of nightmares for the one percent. Keep in mind that, during war time, murder has been deemed legal. The United States has been at war with the First Nations since 1776, and the colonizers have tried to extinguish the indigenous presence since 1492.

Yet in all of this, there is a ray of hope; a beacon of warmth to keep us grounded on our more difficult days. You see, as long as there are sovereign nations on this continent, there will forever be the possibility that we as American citizens may choose to secede from the United States altogether and join our sovereign neighbors. This is why those oil pipelines are rerouted through sovereign reservations; this is why the waters are poisoned and the people are murdered. Fear is at the helm of these actions – it is the fear that “they” will lose control. This method, known as the “Ship of Theseus” or “Grandfather’s Axe”, is a philosophical device which questions whether an object is the same once all parts are replaced with identical parts. Theoretically, if all states were to secede from the United States and instead join our sovereign hosts, the world that we see around us would be the same but we would all become free and liberated from our societal bonds. Of course we would need to replace money with a system of bartering, and this would do away with the forty hour work week. Have you stopped to consider that mankind created the forty hour work week, and yet we seem to be trapped in our own creation? Nowadays you can’t even live off of a normal full-time job. This keeps people tired, stressed and unable to revolt. Most will not bite the hand that feeds them and so they comply and retreat to the comfort of their home, which is owned by a bank.

So you see, it can be done. I see Trump’s presidency as a catalyst for the dissolution of an archaic way of thinking. Indigenous nations have been at the forefront of this war for centuries. The indigenous conflict is a human rights issue. We have the right to clean air, clean water, warmth, freedom to express ourselves unhindered and unmolested. The government does not give us these rights, the government is supposed to protect these rights. When this is no longer the case, we must seek more formidable solutions. We are not enslaved, not by any means. If everyone made a unified effort to pull their money from their bank accounts and quit their jobs all at once, the whole system would collapse. The reason that most people fear this type of anarchistic approach to the future is that they do not see a way to replace the current system. Well, look no further. Most educated folks know that the “treaties” that the United States has with our First Nations are violated on a daily basis by the American government. Most of these “treaties” were either signed by hostages, drunken sachems, Uncle Tomahawks with no authority or simply by chiefs who could not read or write in English. This is why they are not looked at as legally binding in the eyes of the United States government. So we, as a people, must decide whether we wish to govern ourselves or allow an unjust minority, a parasitic entity who benefit from the destruction of the Earth and families; to maintain power over that which we hold Sacred. Keep in mind that the United States constitution was modeled after the Haudenosaunee confederacy. In fact, Sir William Johnson used the Axe method to perpetrate the “Magna Carta” of Indian treaties in 1764 and change the course of American history. What has been done can be undone…

Ken Cosentino is a non-Native professional filmmaker, artivist and author from Niagara Falls, NY. He can be reached by email at whitelioninc@gmail.com or through his website www.theniagarian.com