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With what sovereignty we have retained, we choose to decide for ourselves our needs in accordance with our values, exerting our rights of empowerment under those articles of the treaties.

Leonard Peltier

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Leonard Peltier
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: September 12
Activist
Political Activist
Grand Forks
North Dakota
Decide
Choose
Exerting
Rights
Retained
Values
Accordance
Needs
Treaties
Empowerment
Sovereignty
Articles

More quotes by Leonard Peltier

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If you look at the statistics regarding Native Americans, you will see that most of the tribes since the 70s have improved their economic situation in some form. And this has been brought about by their aggressive assertion of their sovereign treaty rights.
Leonard Peltier
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A political prisoner is someone who is out fighting for his or her people's rights and freedom and is imprisoned for that alone.
Leonard Peltier
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I don’t know how to save the world. I don’t have the answers or The Answer. I hold no secret knowledge as to how to fix the mistakes of generations past and present. I only know that without compassion and respect for all of Earth’s inhabitants, none of us will survive—nor will we deserve to.
Leonard Peltier
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You can't believe one thing and do another. What you believe and what you do are the same thing.
Leonard Peltier
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They [Federal Goverment] don't care if I am guilty or innocent. I serve their purpose in here. Other than what I have mentioned, what fear could they possibly have from a old man with dimming eyesight, arthritis, diabetes, and other health issues that render me hardly a threat to anyone.
Leonard Peltier
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AIM in essence is a movement rather than just an organization. It is a manifestation of the desperation of our people.
Leonard Peltier
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They still don't want to admit to the world that this isn't the best and the fairest and most equal justice system. And that they are guilty of railroading people into jail. They don't want to, or never will, admit these things.
Leonard Peltier
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We need to do more than just what is right. We need to join together and right what is wrong.
Leonard Peltier
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Innocence has a single voice that can only say over and over again, I didn't do it. Guilt has a thousand voices, all of them lies.
Leonard Peltier
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My supporters and family have limited resources, very limited resources but the FBI has the unlimited resources of the most powerful government in the world today. It's amazing that they haven't successfully had me assassinated since I have been in here. There have been plots uncovered in the past that I know of to have me killed.
Leonard Peltier
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I am tired, I want to go home. I want to continue my art work, I want to plant a garden, I want to walk in the forest, I want to walk in the fields, I just want to lie down on the grass and feel the sun against my skin. I want to be able to hold my family close to me and not have someone tell me time's up.
Leonard Peltier
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I, however, fear that at some future point there will possibly be concerted backlash against us because of our successes in business and other ventures. I fear this because I see a concerted effort by writers across the countries to sway public opinions by past AIM organizers
Leonard Peltier
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I would like to say prison life at its very best and worst infinitely sucks.
Leonard Peltier
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In the past, when we were initially organizing to bring about changes, our elders had little or no political experience. However, today, most of those American Indian Movement organ-izers are the elders. They are quite adept at bringing attention to the public about any attacks upon our people.
Leonard Peltier
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I see, or at least it appears to me, that there is some concerted effort to discredit them, and categorize the American Indian Movement as some adverse entity, as opposed to it being a manifestation of the desperations of a whole race of people.
Leonard Peltier
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I think only a massive public outcry would result in my receiving any measure of justice.
Leonard Peltier
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No human being should ever have to fear for his own life because of political or religious beliefs. We are all in this together, my friends, the rich, the poor, the red, white, black, brown and yellow. We share responsibility for Mother Earth and those who live and breathe upon her ..never forget that.
Leonard Peltier
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There are so many things that we could do but education would be our primary need in this regard. And in obtaining this education we need to also educate ourselves and others to the truths that we have possessed from the beginning that allow men to live in harmony with one another.
Leonard Peltier
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As to whether I will ever get out, it will obviously take some large measures of public opinion because the judiciary system of America is totally interlaced with bureaucratic influences that perpetuate FBI control over judges, prosecutors and court proceedings.
Leonard Peltier
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The America that never cared or felt guilty about portraying us as undignified people on their television screen, or in some old history book that never stated truthfully the facts of our invasion or the cruelty we had to endure for generations.
Leonard Peltier