The establishment and consolidation of America capitalism required the expropriation of the Indians and the destruction of their way of life. This led to a long and one-sided war. In the end the Indians were driven from their land, stripped of their rights and human dignity, and imprisoned on reservations.

It was necessary to justify this systematic destruction of whole peoples. The rulers from Europe developed racist theories, aptly summarized in Gen. Philip Sheridan's phrase, "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead."

Today Indian people are continuing to stand up for their human dignity and their rights. The response of the government has been fierce repression. The main target has been the American Indian Movement, the best-known Native American organization.

AIM came to national prominence with protests such as the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs [BIA] building in Washington D.C., shortly before the 1972 elections.

This was followed by the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee. AIM participated at the invitation of residents of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where Wounded Knee is located.

The demands of the "Trail of Broken Treaties," the series of demonstrations that culminated in the BIA building take-over, and the occupation of Wounded Knee were eminently just.  
 
July 9, 1951
The brass hats are worried by the hopes of the American troops and their families at home that the cease-fire negotiations will be the first step toward a genuine and lasting peace and the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Korea. The bureaucrats in Washington are afraid that things may get out of hand and interfere with their plans to regiment and soak the people for preparations for World War III.

The day after [Russian ambassador to the UN Jacob] Malik made his speech proposing cease-fire negotiations, "One major general commanding a United States division put out a good-natured plea to keep the news from any more of his troops, and remarked that already the men in his force were trying to avoid patrol duty." (Dispatch from Korea, N.Y. Times, June 25.)

Since then, grave concern has been voiced in Washington by top officials about the reactions of the American people as a whole. Secretary of Defense [George] Marshall told a House Committee on July 2 that he was speaking "on the basis of World War II experience" when he warned that there will soon arise a "concerted demand" to bring the troops home without waiting for a settlement of the Korean conflict.

The "World War II experience" really confirms Marshall's fears. The capitalist government in Washington will never forget the shock it got from the tumultuous GI "we want to go home" demonstrations that broke out all over the world after V-J Day. It was those demonstrations, together with the help of the pressure exerted by the troops' relatives on the politicians at home, which thwarted the brass hat plans to maintain abroad a huge military force to police the rest of the world.  
 
 
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