November 5
GUEST: Tiokasin Ghosthorse: a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota, international speaker on Peace, Indigenous and Mother Earth perspectives, and host of "First Voices Radio," talks about the lessons of Standing Rock and the way forward for indigenous peoples.
Living With Relativity
It was an honor having Tiokasin Ghosthorse on Activist Radio. His program, "First Voices Radio," is syndicated to at least seventy stations in the US and Canada.
His is also a master musician who has performed worldwide and has been featured at the the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the United Nations. I will be playing some of his music in the coming weeks.
Tiokasin is unassuming in person. He talks easily and openly about indigenous wisdom, something so missing in our neoliberal world. Everything in our society must have a price tag, and we grow up being able to estimate the "value" of objects without reading their little white tags. Even our environmental efforts must be turned into "pollution credits" to be bought and sold in the public market.
Tiokasin tells us about the laws passed by the US in years past that demanded that all tribal land be individually owned, so it could be bought up by whites. Indigenous people have a history of being forced off their lands again and again.
First Voices Indigenous Radio comes at a time when many of us look at the growing climate catastrophe and think about a better way. Can we connect to the land fast enough to save our species? Or must we go over the edge, buying and selling every inch of the track?
Runaway Train by Eliza GilkysonNobody cared when they piled on board
And the doors snapped shut and the engines roared
They pushed to the front
Some fell to the back
Buyin and sellin every inch of the track
Deep in the engines fire in the hole
Dark skinned workers shovelin coal
All singin their sad refrain
We'll never get off this runaway train
