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The difference between a white man and an Indian is this- A white man wants to leave money to his children. An Indian wants to leave forests.

Winona LaDuke

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Winona LaDuke
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: August 18
Activist
Economist
Environmentalist
Novelist
Politician
Writer
LA
California
Differences
White
Money
Children
Forests
Men
Indian
Difference
Leave
Wants

More quotes by Winona LaDuke

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Power is not brute force and money power is in your spirit. Power is in your soul. It is what your ancestors, your old people gave you. Power is in the earth it is in your relationship to the earth.
Winona LaDuke
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The essence of the problem is about consumption, recognizing that a society that consumes one-third of the world's resources is unsustainable. This level of consumption requires constant intervention into other people's lands. That's what's going on.
Winona LaDuke
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You've got to get people to believe that change is possible... You have to show that you can fight things successfully even if you don't win.
Winona LaDuke
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Native people - about two-thirds of the uranium in the United States is on indigenous lands. On a worldwide scale, about 70 percent of the uranium is either in Aboriginal lands in Australia or up in the Subarctic of Canada, where native people are still fighting uranium mining.
Winona LaDuke
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What gives these corporations like CONOCO, SHELL, EXXON, DIASHAWA, ITT, RIO TINTO ZINC, and the WORLD BANK a right which supercedes or is superior to my human right to live on my land, or that of my family, my community, my nation, our nations, and to us as women?
Winona LaDuke
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To native peoples, there is no such thing as the first, second, and third worlds there is only an exploiting world ... whether its technological system is capitalist or communist ... and a host world. Native peoples, who occupy more land, make up the host world.
Winona LaDuke
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There is no social-change fairy. There is only change made by the hands of individuals.
Winona LaDuke
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It's time to respect the treaties our ancestors signed and care for our land, water, and cultures so that they remain healthy for our future generations.
Winona LaDuke
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It is essential to collectively struggle to recover our status as Daughters of the Earth. In that is our strength, and the security, not in the predator, but in the security of our Mother, for our future generations. In that we can insure our security as the Mothers of our Nations.
Winona LaDuke
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Native communities are focal points for the excrement of industrial society.
Winona LaDuke
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Post office closures in the Dakotas and Minnesota will impact many communities‚ but the White Earth reservation villages‚ and other tribal towns of Squaw Lake‚ Ponemah‚ Brookston in Minnesota‚ and Manderson‚ Wounded Knee and Wakpala (South Dakota) as well as Mandaree in North Dakota will mean hardships for a largely Native community.
Winona LaDuke
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What our Seventh Generation will have is a consequence of our actions today.
Winona LaDuke
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We must keep these waters for wild rice, these trees for maple syrup, our lakes for fish, and our land and aquifers for all of our relatives - whether they have fins, roots, wings, or paws.
Winona LaDuke
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Someone needs to explain to me why wanting clean drinking water makes you an activist, and why proposing to destroy water with chemical warfare doesnt make a corporation a terrorist.
Winona LaDuke
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What we all need to do is find the wellspring that keeps us going, that gives us the strength and patience to keep up this struggle for a long time.
Winona LaDuke
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Mother Earth needs us to keep our covenant. We will do this in courts, we will do this on our radio station, and we will commit to our descendants to work hard to protect this land and water for them. Whether you have feet, wings, fins, or roots, we are all in it together.
Winona LaDuke
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Water is life. We are the people who live by the water. Pray by these waters. Travel by the waters. Eat and drink from these waters. We are related to those who live in the water. To poison the waters is to show disrespect for creation. To honor and protect the waters is our responsibility as people of the land.
Winona LaDuke
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Our forests are not for toilet paper. They are worth more standing than cut. That deserves to be defended, not only by native peoples but also by environmentalists.
Winona LaDuke
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In the time of the sacred sites and the crashing of ecosystems and worlds, it may be worth not making a commodity out of all that is revered.
Winona LaDuke
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In the end, there is no absence of irony: the integrity of what is sacred to Native Americans will be determined by the government that has been responsible for doing everything in its power to destroy Native American cultures.
Winona LaDuke