Klee Benally talks with Kevin and Natasha Tucker of Primal Anarchy podcast (also black and green press) back in April 2021. Thinking about this part (starting 40:25) and my own positionality, how it impacts my thinking, fears, path forward, etc.:

"I think like, there's a lot of people, where they like sort of concretize concepts, ideas, they want to celebrate that, and sort of make something just of that moment. And that's why I don't like a lot of academics. I think these ideas become proprietary on some levels. They become a position where you stick a flag, and that idea, that, you know, dynamic, is something has always been colonial.

I'm not interested in decolonizing anarchism. I think... anybody who usually says 'let's decolonize anarchism, let's decolonize this.' usually like... you know what you're proposing, right? You know that like, these ideas and understandings are a sort of like an overall contradiction that, you know, is just gonna... is like a hamster wheel or something. I'm not interested in those conversations or proposals.

But I will say, you know, and I think this might be important for your listeners, just to continue a bit of like orientation in relation to my politics and maybe this is useful for this part of the conversation. Um, is that the matriarchs in Dziłíjiin, Black Mesa who are part of the ongoing resistance to forced relocation really have deeply shaped my approach and understanding the dominant social order and its politics. You know, I have a strong affinity with anarchism, but not anarchist identity.

As I mentioned, um, and it's not a position that, you know for me, it's not what white anarchism wasn't doing for me, you know. It's more about the propositions of mutual aid, direct action, voluntary association, um, are familiar with and translatable through it's geneaology-- though, I guess I should be clear, it's just like though anarchism's geneology is nothing I really desire to be tethered to, I further offer that this position of Indigenous anarchism, I guess, is just that there can be no law above nature. Um, and it's the most I think sort of simple way of communicating what Indigenous anarchism is and should be. Um, and I don't know how much there needs to be built around that, um, aside from, just understanding what our orientations from our original teachings are in relation to that. And what the existing, you know, problems that we're facing, how that could be then reconciled as potential solutions to address those problems."

https://primalanarchy.net/podcast/2021/4/18/episode-27-interview-with-klee-benally

#KleeBenally #AnarchoPrimitivism #IndigenousAnarchy #Unknowable #Autonomy #AntiColonial

**Edited to add correct spelling of Diné word, Dziłíjiin, for so-called Black Mesa

Episode 27: Interview with Klee Benally — PRIMAL ANARCHY

Primal Anarchy Podcast, Episode 27: Interview with Klee Benally April 18, 2021 In this episode, Natasha and Kevin have a lengthy discussion with Klee Benally of Indigenous Action (indigenousaction.org). Klee needs little introduction, but he’s been involved for decades in a number of campaigns and

PRIMAL ANARCHY

#NavajoNation Dishonors Legacy of #KleeBenally: Agrees to #Uranium Transport Through #Navajo Communities

By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, February 3, 2025

"The Navajo Nation dishonored the memory and legacy of Klee Benally by agreeing to allow radioactive uranium trucks to travel through the Navajo Nation. It was what Klee spent the last years of his life fighting against.

"The deadly trucks from the #EnergyFuels #PinyonPlain uranium mine in the #GrandCanyon will pass through the #Havasupai's homeland, and then past the homes of #Paiute, #Dine' and #Hopi in Arizona before reaching the dumping ground: The Energy Fuels #UraniumMill in the #WhiteMesaUte Community in Southern #Utah.

"Klee is being honored with a #NuclearFreeFutures Award in New York in March.

"Nuclear Free Futures said, in announcing the award, 'Klee Benally was a Navajo activist and musician and member of the Navajo #Tódichiinii Clan and the #Nakai #Diné Clan. In addition to a
musical career with his siblings in the band #Blackfire,

"'Klee was a passionate campaigner and filmmaker exposing the #colonialist legacy of uranium mines and working for the cleanup of the more than 500 abandoned uranium mines that continue to contaminate the Navajo Nation. A month before his death on December 30, 2023, Klee published his book, '#NoSpiritualSurrender: #IndigenousAnarchy in Defense of the Sacred.'

"The award will be accepted by his mother Berta Benally.

"Klee, co-founder of #HaulNo!, warned of the danger to the water and rivers from the uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, and the planned deadly transport of radioactive ore, before he passed in
December 2023: 'There is possible radioactive contamination to land, water, and air from the #CanyonMine, White
Mesa Mill, and transport of uranium would impact northern Arizona, southeast Utah, the #ColoradoRiver, #MoenkopiWash, the #SanJuanRiver, and the lands and cultural resources of the #Havasupai, Hopi, Navajo, Ute, and Paiute peoples.'"

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/02/navajo-nation-dishonors-legacy-of-klee.html
#WhiteMesaUte #EnergyFuels #HaulNo #BuuNygren #IndigenousAction #IndigenousResistance #NuclearColonialism #ReaderSupportedNews #Dine #RestInPowerKleeBenally #NoUraniumTransport #DefendTheSacred #ProtectTheSacred #UraniumMine #NoNukes #NuclearFreeWorld #NoNuclear #NoWar #NuclearWaste #NoMoreTransportationOfUranium
#NoNuclearWeapons #NoNuclearPowerPlants #NoUraniumMining #UteNation #NoUraniumMining #Navajo #Havasupai #GrandCanyon #NuclearWeapons #InformedConsent
#EnvironmentalRacism #WaterIsLife

Navajo Nation Dishonors Legacy of Klee Benally: Agrees to Uranium Transport Through Navajo Nation

Censored News is a service to grassroots Indigenous Peoples engaged in resistance and upholding human rights.

And last, but not least, not a music video, but a plug for #KleeBenally's book, #NoSpiritualSurrender

"No Spiritual Surrender: #IndigenousAnarchy in Defense of the Sacred is a searing #AntiColonial analysis rooted in frontline experience. Klee Benally (#Diné) unrelentingly agitates against #colonial politics towards #IndigenousAutonomy and total liberation of #Nahasdzáán (#MotherEarth)."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6wWXP7_KmY&pp=ygUSa2xlZSBiZW5hbGx5IGNvdmVy

Available now from Detritus Books
detritusbooks.com

406 pages | $20
Nonfiction | Paperback
Available in select bookshops.

#RestInPowerKleeBenally #HaulNo # #IndigenousAnarchy
#NoUraniumMining #DefendTheSacred #NoMiningWithoutConsent #DefendMotherEarth #SaveOakFlat

Book Trailer: No Spiritual Surrender, Klee Benally

YouTube

From Chapter 14 of #KleeBenally's book, #NoSpiritualSurrender - #IndigenousAnarchy, #InDefenseOfTheSacred:

"Although the #NavajoTribalCouncil established a mass scale farming initiative called '#NavajoAgriculturalProductsIndustry (#NAPI),' the farm has stated on its website that it plants genetic #HybridCorn seed purchased from '#PioneerSeedCompany, #Syngenta Inc., and #Monsanto companies.' In 2014, in an attempt to 'curb' the diabetes epidemic, the #NavajoNationCouncil created a law that raised the sales tax for cheap junk foods sold on Navajo Nation and another removing sales tax from fresh fruits and vegetables. Economic pressure on those already struggling while not addressing the root causes and environmental degradation is par for the course for the #colonial government and Navajo politicians.

"Instead of directly feeding ourselves and communities, we have become dependent on businesses and corporations that are more concerned with profits than our health and well-being. The #BoardingSchools were replete with capitalist indoctrination to forcibly assimilate #Diné children into colonial society. The curriculum was designed with a clear lesson: To feed our families we needed jobs. To have jobs we needed to be trained. To be trained we needed to obey. To not have a job means you’re poor. To employ other workers is to build wealth. To build wealth means success."

Page 302, KleeBenally, NoSpiritualSurrender.

#CorporateColonialism #FoodSecurity #FoodInsecurity #GMOs #BigAg #EndCapitalism #Colonialism #Decolonize #TraditionalFoods #Capitalism #CapitalismMustDie #CulturalGenocide

So, the next section takes to task the glorification of #AIM leaders like #DennisBanks and #RussellMeans, and some of the #ToxicMasculinity within the group's ranks. I experienced this first hand with a coven-mate (who was a member of AIM) -- he and I would butt heads about a lot of things, and he truly had the attitude that he was always right and that he should be running the show. It got old after a while and I eventually left the groups (both my coven and our political group, the #ThomasMortonAlliance). Ego and emotional / physical abuse used to be a part of a lot of groups -- even Winona LaDuke was caught up in an incident that happened under her watch involving an abuse of power and sexual coercion. So yeah, I agree 100% with Klee's assessment of some of AIM's leadership and the "cult of personality" around certain figures.

"As Billie Pierre stated in her defense of Graham and Looking Cloud, 'A basic principle of any resistance movement is
non-collaboration with our enemy.'

"The context of extreme State repression and consequential internal paranoia and divisions within movements and how it
impacts ongoing struggles today is necessary to study. AIM and their Indigenous feminist counterpart Women of All Red Nations, have lessons unlearned that should be studied, challenged, and confronted outside of settler colonial state narratives that continue to undermine and attack Indigenous resistance. There are also serious reasons many young Indigenous People are wary of AIM, from the toxic misogynistic legacy that has remained unaccounted for, to the imposition of force in frontlines where they have tended to overbear local organizers. Though they’ve maintained leadership with their 'Grand Council' over scattered semi-autonomous chapters, AIM’s contemporary presence has depended on its legacy. It’s largely an institution that dwells on its past achievements. Though those achievements may be great, this doesn’t provide much opening for reflection and necessary transformation to be relevant to young folks who have grown up in what we might consider a 'post-Red Power, post-AIM' world. As AIM has aspired to be 'a catalyst for Indian Sovereignty,' the terms have only grown muddied with the actions of their celebrities. From Russell Means abusing a Diné elder, then attempting to dodge accountability by attacking Navajo Nation tribal sovereignty, to the trails of women used and abused by him, Dennis Banks, and the other personalities that still comprise AIM’s celebrity forces.

"This anguishing resentment of AIM and their ongoing impositions, is part of what motivated a young Indigenous person
to cut down the AIM flag that was flying over a sacred fire at the Winnemucca Community Resistance Camp in so-called
Nevada in 2021."

Pages 183-184, #KleeBenally, #NoSpiritualSurrender

#AIM #AmericanIndianMovement #IndigenousAnarchy

From Chapter 8 of #KleeBenally's book, #NoSpiritualSurrender - #IndigenousAnarchy, #InDefenseOfTheSacred:

"Darlene 'Kamook' Nichols who had been married to #DennisBanks, received $42,000 from the #FBI to spy on #AIM and help build the case against #ArloLookingCloud and #JohnGraham [in the murder of #AnnaMaeAquash]. Kamook subsequently married the US Marshal who re-opened the case.

"The voluntary state-collaboration of John Trudell against Graham and Looking Cloud also became a flashpoint. John Graham’s extradition from so-called Canada would not have been possible without Trudell’s identification of him to the FBI.

"Though Looking Cloud confessed, he later recanted it stating that he was coerced with drugs given to him by State agents.

"In 2003 #LeonardPeltier issued this statement regarding the John Graham trial,

" 'When we talk of sovereignty, we must be willing to solve our own problems and not go running to the oppressor for relief…We have been and still are at odds with the most dangerous, well-funded, strongest military and political organization in the history of the world [the US government]. Whatever the result of any trials conducted in the courtrooms of our oppressor—the same ones’ ultimately responsible for Anna Mae’s death—we will continue to advance in our movement towards victory, inspired by her memory and her spirit.' "

Pages 182-1823, #KleeBenally, #NoSpiritualSurrender

#FreeLeonardPeltier #AnnaMaePictouAquash
#ACAB #AIM #AmericanIndianMovement
#AmnestyForLeonardPeltier #FBI #COINTELPRO

From Chapter 8 of #KleeBenally's book, #NoSpiritualSurrender - #IndigenousAnarchy, #InDefenseOfTheSacred:

"In the book #LakotaWoman, #MaryCrowDog and #RichardErdoes
shared this prophetic quote by #AnnaMaeAquash in 1975,

'[The FBI] offered me my freedom and money if I’d testify the way they wanted. I have those two choices now. I chose my kind of freedom, not their kind, even if I have to die. They let me go because they are sure I’ll lead them to Peltier. They’re watching me. I don’t hear them or see them, but I know they’re out there somewhere. I can feel it.' "

Page 181, #KleeBenally, #NoSpiritualSurrender

#FreeLeonardPeltier #AnnaMaePictouAquash
#ACAB #AIM #AmericanIndianMovement
#AmnestyForLeonardPeltier #MMIW #FBI #COINTELPRO

From Chapter 8 of #KleeBenally's book, #NoSpiritualSurrender - #IndigenousAnarchy, #InDefenseOfTheSacred:

[More from Billie Pierre's 2006 article] "Pierre also addressed how #COINTELPRO operated at the time:

"'This tactic of the FBI’s Counter-intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) undermined valuable members of a group by casting them in suspicious situations. Wherever Pictou-Aquash went, arrests would follow. She’d be released, while other AIM members were slapped with charges and high bail. In September 1975, FBI Agent David Price attempted to force her to sign an affidavit implicating Peltier for the murder of the two FBI agents. She refused to cooperate, and Price promised her that she wouldn’t live to see the year’s end. They quickly arranged for her to be buried as a Jane Doe. After this cover-up came to light, the FBI released a statement announcing that Pictou-Aquash was not a government informant. As intended, this statement insinuated that AIM might have believed Pictou-Aquash to be an informant and murdered her.'"

Page 181, #KleeBenally, #NoSpiritualSurrender

#FreeLeonardPeltier #AnnaMaeAquash #AnnaMaePictouAquash #ACAB #AIM #AmericanIndianMovement #AmnestyForLeonardPeltier #MMIW

#Unsustainable by #KleeBenally

"All my rage bleeds out my throat
into rivers that used to flow
into canyons painting these deserts
so that they will grow. (once again)

is it too late
to rethink this?
on the eve of another apocalypse…
how far are will willing to go
to resist?
how far are will willing to go?

we can’t sustain, we can’t sustain
the unsustainable

are you still waiting and hoping this will all go away?
or for a better cage or more comfortable chains?
while these roots wither and they decay
well, its not broken, it’s made this way…
we can’t sustain, we can’t sustain
the unsustainable

and if the structures don’t change?
and the control remains the same?
they bring terror but they have names
so fuck your votes, your politicians, and reforms
we can’t sustain, we can’t sustain
the unsustainable

end this cycle
destroy what destroys us

we can’t sustain."

- 2019, Klee Benally

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_Kr22Yb5j0

#Resistance #DefendTheSacred #Resist #Resistance #RestInPowerKleeBenally #FridayNightMusicVideos
#FridayNightMusic
#NativeAmericanMusic #IndigenousActivists #DefendTheSacred #ActivismThroughMusic #Degrowth #IndigenousAnarchy

The Unsustainable

YouTube

Going to the #ShiprockFair, #KleeBenally Remembered the #UraniumDump on the Banks of the #SanJuanRiver

By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, August 29, 2024

SHIPROCK, #NavajoNation -- "In his book published shortly before his passing, Klee Benally writes of going to the #NorthernNavajoFair and the #UraniumDump in #Shiprock that no one talks about. It is along the San Juan River, the same river that flooded this week, now eight months after Klee's passing.

"'The Northern Navajo Fair at Tsé Bit A'í (#ShiprockNewMexico) has been held for more than one hundred years,' Klee writes in 'No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred.'

"Klee describes how the fair each fall marks the changing of the seasons and the #harvest. He describes the neon glow of the carnival in the cold, dusty nights, and the #uniper fires that burn.

"All of this revelry is held right on #UraniumBoulevard just a couple miles from a massive 105-acre #Radioactive dump containing 2.5 million tons of #RadioactiveWaste on a site that was a former #UraniumMill (which is just 600 feet from the San Juan River.)'

"The Shiprock Uranium Disposal Cell studies showed that more than 1.8 million liters of #groundwater were contaminated with uranium, #selenium, #radium, #cadmium, #sulfate, and #nitrate.

"Now the #NavajoNation again is targeted by the #Nuclear Industry and #DebHaaland's radioactive agenda is being ignored.

"Speaking in Farmington, Interior Sec. Haaland said the transition to green energy in the #FourCorners region will be led by the #AtomicBomb industry, #LosAlamos National Laboratory, which has already poisoned #Pueblo lands in northern #NewMexico.

"There is no mention of the fact that there is no safe way to store #NuclearWaste.
Now, adding to the layers of deception, the U.S. #EPA is deceiving the public. The EPA doesn't actually clean up the uranium dumps and strewn #RadioactiveTailings from #ColdWar #UraniumMining on the Navajo Nation -- it only announces plans and promises to do it.

"#EricJantz, legal director of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, told the Inter-American Commission on #HumanRights in March that the #EPA has not completed any of the cleanups.

"There are 524 uranium mine sites waiting to be cleaned up on the Navajo Nation. Zero -- none of these -- have been fully cleaned up, Jantz told the international commission.
The truth is people seldom talk about the uranium dump at Shiprock because there is so much strewn radioactive waste, and so many unreclaimed uranium mines, with radioactive waste strewn from Cameron to #MonumentValley, and across the Four Corners region.

"During the 1990s, on assignment for USA Today, I talked with #Dine' in #RedValley and Cove, south of Shiprock, down the mountain from where I lived. In every family, there was cancer. In every family, someone was dying of #cancer, or had already died, from cancer because of the uranium mining.

"One Dine' grandmother in her 80s was living in a stone home built of radioactive rock. We had a Geiger counter with us."

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/08/going-to-shiprock-fair-klee-benally.html

#KleeBenallyRIP #KleeBenallyRestInPower #UraniumMining #NoSpiritualSurrender #IndigenousAnarchy #DefendingTheSacred #IndigenousActivism #HaulNo #CorporateColonialism #WaterIsLife #NoLithiumMining #CorporateColonialism #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CopperMining #Greenwashng #NuclearWeapons #NoNukes #NoWar #NoNuclearWeapons

Going to the Shiprock Fair, Klee Benally Remembered the Uranium Dump on the Banks of the San Juan River

Censored News is a service to grassroots Indigenous Peoples engaged in resistance and upholding human rights.