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Dennis Banks, American Indian Movement Co-Founder, Dies

By Joe Stern

Revolutionaries around the world mourned the death of Dennis Banks, legendary Anishinaabe Leader and co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM). Like many indigenous people of his generation, Banks was forced into boarding school at four years old. There he suffered beatings and other abuses in the US genocidal experiment to “kill an Indian, save the man”. These abuses included cutting the boys’ hair, refusing to let students speak their tribal languages or practice their tribal religions, and extreme physical deprivation.

In 1968, Banks co-founded AIM with Clyde Bettecourt to fight Native oppression and endemic poverty. A year later, he took part in the occupation of Alcatraz Island in California. In 1972, he helped lead AIM’s “Trail of Broken Treaties”, a caravan of numerous tribes protesting treaty violations and reservation conditions which came from across the US to Washington DC, and occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs building. In early 1973, 200 armed Lakota and members of other indigenous nations occupied Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation for 71 violence filled days.

In later years, Banks became a substance and alcohol abuse counselor. However, he remained active in the fight for socialism and women’s liberation running for Vice President on the Peace and Freedom Party. He was also active in last year’s struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The indigenous peoples and all revolutionaries will long hold the memory of revolutionary activist Dennis Banks.

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U.S. Withdraws from Paris Accord

By Joe Stern

To the scorn and anger of the world, Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris accord, an already weak, non-binding “climate treaty” limiting greenhouse gas emissions. On the occasion of this action, Trump, citing the case of embattled coal miners, spoke as if the Paris accord threatened the livelihood of American workers. Trump claimed that compliance with the accord would result in “a massive redistribution of US wealth to other countries.”

However, despite his supposed defense for US workers, Trump’s policies will only intensify the war on the working class here and around the world. In the US, there are between 65 and 78,000 coal miners. On the other hand, more than 275,000 people are employed in the solar industry and 102,000 in wind. Trump would rather bemoan the plight of the coal miner than invest in alternative energy and spur real job growth. His actions only further reveal fossil fuel capital’s stranglehold on the US state.

Among the many giveaways to the fossil fuel capitalists, Trump proposes to drill for more oil in the Atlantic Ocean and Arctic Circle. He has approved continued construction of the Keystone Pipeline. He has instructed Interior Secretary Zinke to rescind, repeal or suspend rules that regulate oil and gas drilling in National Parks and Monuments. All the while, the White House budget proposes severe cuts in the funding of any protections meant to mitigate oil and gas companies’ impact on the environment, especially in the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Ponchartrain, and estuaries throughout Southern wetlands.

There is, however, resistance to these destructive policies. A group representing at least 30 mayors, 3 governors, 80 universities, and 100 businesses will meet with the UN pledging to meet US greenhouse gas emissions targeted under the Paris Accord. Citing their governments’ violation of the Paris accord, groups worldwide have won legal victories in defense of their citizens’ rights to a hospitable environment.

Mass resistance must be initiated. Technology will not save us from catastrophic climate change nor will faith in divine intervention. The fossil fuel, military-industrial, and financial capitalists’ lust for profit will not cease. Only sustained, revolutionary struggle to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism worldwide can save us from the destructive effects of climate change. If we refuse this challenge we will join the 99.9% of the world’s species that have vanished from the earth. But if we find the courage and will to organize, resist and revolt, we have the world to win.