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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

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Winona LaDuke
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: August 18
Activist
Economist
Environmentalist
Novelist
Politician
Writer
LA
California
Power
Determined
Government
Integrity
Everything
Sacred
Responsible
Cultures
Americans
Irony
American
Native
Culture
Absence
Ends
Destroy

More quotes by 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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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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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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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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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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If we build a society based on honoring the earth, we build a society which is sustainable, and has the capacity to support all life forms.
Winona LaDuke
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We are a part of everything that is beneath us, above us, and around us. Our past is our present, our present is our future, and our future is seven generations past and present.
Winona LaDuke
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Native communities are focal points for the excrement of industrial society.
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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The aboriginal peoples of Australia illustrate the conflict between technology and the natural world succinctly, by asking, 'What will you do when the clever men destroy your water?' That, in truth, is what the world is coming to.
Winona LaDuke
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Let us be the ancestors our descendants will thank.
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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It's time to transition beyond our fossil fuel addiction to a just economy based on green jobs, renewable energy, and local organic food.
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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The only compensation for land is land.
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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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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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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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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I find that I have more allies on the left than on the right, and that is because the left is, by and large, filled with people who are challenging the present paradigm and power structure. I’m interested in totally transforming the structure that exists now, because it is not sustainable.
Winona LaDuke