Russell Means speaks on the formation of the Republic of Lakota:
http://awr.dissentradio.com/08_12_10_means.mp3
Advocating for a rejection of the existing imperial power structures of the federal government of the United States, Means, whose heritage is the Lakota Indian nation, likens the needs of people interested in individual and collective freedom and liberty today to the revolutionary strategies and interests of the anti-colonialist revolutionaries who declared independence from England and sought to build a free and democratic society from the former colonies. There is a noticeable difference with the Republic of Lakota, however; with the treaties made between the United States and the “Sioux” (the colonizers’ name for the people of Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota heritage) as well as to the Constitution of the United States, particularly Article VI, the Republic of Lakota needs not declare its independence but only assert its sovereignty.
In his interview with anti-war radio, Means lays bare the ongoing imperial ambitions of a federal government that he claims has perfected its strategies for dispossession, alienation, and colonization of sovereign nations through policies originally implemented against Indian nations. He alludes to the important distinction between representative, or electoral, government and true democracy by emphasizing the importance of consensus-building. He also asserts that economic independence must be composed of self-sufficient individuals forming true market economies localized and rooted in interdependent neighborhoods and regions.
