Latest Leonard Peltier Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Our people still need support. Support us through writing your government officials. We are still on the verge of extinction, with continued injustices brought against us.

  Leonard Peltier

  Writing, Government, People

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• United States Government needs to acknowledge and respect our sovereignty, treaties, traditional Native American values, and our human rights as a people, which under the law as written we deserve, and which should be protected.

  Leonard Peltier

  Native American, Law, Rights

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• The Government honoring our treaties and sovereignty is first and foremost. These issues are still the top priority which [Barak] Obama, if elected, has promised us. For us, we should implement the most impor-tant programs right now: they are programs to teach the children a positive sense of dignity, self-worth, and the importance of sustaining their culture, history, language and honor as a people.

  Leonard Peltier

  Children, Self Worth, Issues

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• There are so many things that we could do but education would be our primary need in this regard. And in obtaining this education we need to also educate ourselves and others to the truths that we have possessed from the beginning that allow men to live in harmony with one another.

  Leonard Peltier

  Men, Would Be, Needs

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• There is probably a high percentage of Native Americans as well as non-Indians who feel that participating in this greater American economy that you mentioned is and has become a recipe for disaster in the long term, because the response to social and environmental problems has been responded to with a drug mentality, which is to say, anything for the quick fix. And it has trained the public to always believe they are one purchase away from happiness.

  Leonard Peltier

  Believe, Native American, Long

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• It is a written fact that our people had warned of all these consequences of wrongful environmental behavior since our very first contact with the non-Indians. There was a time when our elders used to say to us, "You can't function with one foot in the white man's canoe and one foot in the Indian's canoe." With these extreme environmental concerns taking place on the earth, mankind is all in the same boat. Or better be.

  Leonard Peltier

  Men, White, Feet

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• I would like to say, historically, from the very beginning, our people have time and again expressed the need for people to live in harmony with the creator, the mother earth, fellow man, and respect our brother's vision. In the past and the present, we have been respon-sible for the greatest gains; cultivated foods and medicines; democratic government, and many other areas of concern.

  Leonard Peltier

  Mother, Brother, Men

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• I see, or at least it appears to me, that there is some concerted effort to discredit them, and categorize the American Indian Movement as some adverse entity, as opposed to it being a manifestation of the desperations of a whole race of people.

  Leonard Peltier

  Race, People, Effort

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• Ultimately, I would like to say yes, conditions have improved, but there is still vast room for more improvement; we are still the poorest of the poor. And we are still statistically considered to be extremely disrupted culturally, and have extreme health needs in many areas, as well as high suicide rates and infant mortality rates.

  Leonard Peltier

  Suicide, Rooms, Needs

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• In the past, when we were initially organizing to bring about changes, our elders had little or no political experience. However, today, most of those American Indian Movement organ-izers are the elders. They are quite adept at bringing attention to the public about any attacks upon our people.

  Leonard Peltier

  Past, People, Political

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• With what sovereignty we have retained, we choose to decide for ourselves our needs in accordance with our values, exerting our rights of empowerment under those articles of the treaties.

  Leonard Peltier

  Rights, Empowerment, Needs

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• I, however, fear that at some future point there will possibly be concerted backlash against us because of our successes in business and other ventures. I fear this because I see a concerted effort by writers across the countries to sway public opinions by past AIM organizers

  Leonard Peltier

  Country, Past, Effort

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• If you look at the statistics regarding Native Americans, you will see that most of the tribes since the 70s have improved their economic situation in some form. And this has been brought about by their aggressive assertion of their sovereign treaty rights.

  Leonard Peltier

  Native American, Rights, Statistics

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• There are tribes, I should say nations, which prior to the AIM movement had only ten or fifteen employees, and now have upwards of 2000. There are educational programs that didn't exist before, there are housing programs, health programs, senior citizen programs, cultural programs and the list goes on. It's all because some people stood up and said sovereignty is our right by treaty and the constitution says treaty law is the supreme law of the land.

  Leonard Peltier

  Senior, Educational, Law

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• My supporters and family have limited resources, very limited resources; but the FBI has the unlimited resources of the most powerful government in the world today. It's amazing that they haven't successfully had me assassinated since I have been in here. There have been plots uncovered in the past that I know of to have me killed.

  Leonard Peltier

  Powerful, Past, Government

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• I think only a massive public outcry would result in my receiving any measure of justice.

  Leonard Peltier

  Thinking, Justice, Receiving

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• We have over the years proven again and again that every piece of evidence used to convict me has been false. The FBI with its unlimited resources has done everything it possibly can to keep me in prison.

  Leonard Peltier

  Years, Done, Pieces

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• As to whether I will ever get out, it will obviously take some large measures of public opinion because the judiciary system of America is totally interlaced with bureaucratic influences that perpetuate FBI control over judges, prosecutors and court proceedings.

  Leonard Peltier

  America, Judging, Public Opinion

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• I am tired, I want to go home. I want to continue my art work, I want to plant a garden, I want to walk in the forest, I want to walk in the fields, I just want to lie down on the grass and feel the sun against my skin. I want to be able to hold my family close to me and not have someone tell me time's up.

  Leonard Peltier

  Art, Lying, Home

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• At this writing I can't even shut my lower jaw because of inadequate health care. I can't chew my food, I have trouble walking...the list goes on. But more than anything I want to go home. If you follow the laws at the time of my conviction I should have been released already.

  Leonard Peltier

  Home, Writing, Law

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• My continued incarceration has served some good purposes. My defense committee has served as a training ground for other organizers in their defense of freedom and justice.

  Leonard Peltier

  Justice, Training, Defense

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• The government and its prosecutors are continually trying to block my efforts to win my freedom and expose their judicial wrong doings; they systematically try to block me from obtaining FBI files which I know would exonerate me. I don't know the exact conditions of everybody else, but I do know that I have been denied adequate and proper health care and I suffer greatly from that.

  Leonard Peltier

  Block, Winning, Government

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• What I am is a father, a grandfather, a great grandfather, and an artist. I am a man who loves his people and wants to go home.

  Leonard Peltier

  Father, Home, Artist

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• I would like to say prison life at its very best and worst infinitely sucks.

  Leonard Peltier

  Prison Life, Prison, Worst

  Source: montanapioneer.com

• They [Federal Goverment] don't care if I am guilty or innocent. I serve their purpose in here. Other than what I have mentioned, what fear could they possibly have from a old man with dimming eyesight, arthritis, diabetes, and other health issues that render me hardly a threat to anyone.

  Leonard Peltier

  Men, Issues, Purpose

  Source: montanapioneer.com