I received some very powerful comments on some of my blogs from Barbara Rose Calzado that I wanted to share.

to Russell Means on Riz Khan’s show talking about Thanksgiving

Barbara Rose Calzado
December 8th, 2009 at 6:49 pm · Edit
I am a Un-enrolled member of The Oglala Sioux Tribe, My biological parents were killed in separate homocides,but my mother was with Russel at the Alcatraz occupation. My adopted family thought it best to allow me the opportunity to bond with my “Natural” family,I lived there 3 monthes before they threw me away and allowed the Tribe and BIA to “educate” me in the schools. I learned Violence, Crime, Abuse and Abandonment. For 6 years I was locked away in Juvenile Facilities and dropped of at strangers doors, until school started then I was shipped to a small campus in the middle of nowhere with no adult supervision or guidance. We lived for 9 monthes in a volatile battle field, the respective tribes generally stuck together, we had to form gangs for protection. Much like in prison. Gangs are an Urban problem that shouldnt exist on tribal lands but because of the systematic eradication of OUR Language, values and culture they are have to exist, to protect the throw aways like me from the degradation and abuse that is epidemic due to the high rate of Drug and Alcohol addiction. I recind my citizenship, I am a Lakota! I am not a Sioux! If anything Obama and his predecessors are the Siouxians! We need our True Identity restored, I have an application to be enrolled but I think I’ll wait until the Lakota Republic is established. Then I won’t need to be enrolled I can just be! Oh and want to here something hilarious, I receive .73 cents a day that my land is leased for power lines , Telephone lines, Water Lines and grazing land for a grand total of 23.65 annually. I don’t even know where this land is!Thank you very much for posting this interview, My family were Supporters and Participators of the American Indian Movement. I havent seen your Film yet but your site Gets a 7star rating from this lady! Pilaymiya K’ola(Thank You Friend)

& this is her response to my asking for suggestions or renaming thanksgiving.

Barbara Rose Calzado
December 8th, 2009 at 4:43 pm · Edit
I call it Gratitude day, as that was it’s original intent, but instead of saying HAPPY Turkey day to my relatives I say Happy Thursday! They laugh at me but thats all it is to me. A designated thursday where I get to show my appreciation and gratitude that Creator chose to make me Oglala Lakota and Pomo. Genocide is the horrific reality commemorated by a false pretense, the Government is just a big False advertisement. Land of the free home of the brave, indeed we are, I served in the US military because because I wanted to be able to march with the Tokalas at powwows/and in order to defeat the enemy you must understand them. If we could fast forward that first massacre to today I guarantee we would be celebrating a different holiday, and the death marches and massacres would have been initiated by us. But you cannot kill mother nature, that is the one thing that stays beyond mans power. The earth beneath the concrete and skyscrapers is soaked in blood, we cannot ever forget that, one day the entire earth will swallow everything that is not “natural” and we will have our reckoning.

Here’s an interesting interview recently with Russell on Riz Khan’s great show on Al Jazeera