Tribute to John Trudell

December 8, 2015, the world lost one of the great activists working for the cause of Native American rights, John Trudell but before we honor John Trudell s life we open the program by revisiting a recording from 2002, long before we started From the Vault. It was a time when public hysteria was being fanned by media following the tragic events of 9/11.

The Pacifica Radio Archives partnered with the NOT IN OUR NAME organization and recorded the former president of the Southern California chapter of the ACLU, Stephen Rohde. Stephen recites an adaptation of a poem by Pastor Martin Niem ller written about the cowardice of German intellectuals following the Nazis’ rise to power and the subsequent purging of their chosen targets, mainly Jews, Immigrants and homosexuals.

This morning in response to Presidential candidate for the Republican Party, Donald Trump announcing his plan to ban the entry of all people of the Muslim faith, including suggesting the Japanese internment camps of the 1940 s was a positive action. Actor and activist George Takei said this about the history of the Japanese internment camps on MSNBC.

(A congressional investigation) found that it was three things that brought (those camps) about, . One was racial hysteria, second was war hysteria and third was failure of political leadership. Donald Trump is the perfect example of that failure. He went on to say It was because political leadership could not educate the hysteria that was sweeping across this country, he said. Get rid of the Japs was the most popular political issue of the time, and they didn t recognize the fact that 2/3 of us were American citizens. George Takei from December 9, 2016 on MSNBC.


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