Alameda Native History Project

Tag: land defender

  • Foreword to A Land Defender’s Guide, Vol. 1

    The following is the Foreword to A Land Defender’s Guide to: Making the Exploitation of Land Expensive & Unappealing To Would-Be Colonizers, Volume I: Work-Site Blues.

    Foreword

    You told them this was Native Land, Indigenous Territory, A Sacred Site, or even the place where your great-grandparents are buried. But they laughed in your face, and hid behind a wall of lawyers. And a wall of militarized police.

    And, then, they shook hands with the very politicians who promised to protect your tribal homeland, and your great-grandmother’s grave, as they broke ground right on top of her.

    This is not figurative, or metaphorical, in any sense at all. You literally watched the shovel break the ground above her resting body. Desecrating forever the sanctity of this place, and guaranteeing an afterlife without rest, or peace.

    It made you feel ridiculous; a welling of impotent anger, aggrieved frustration, and justified indignation at this betrayal; at the destruction of the most precious and pristine place you were proud to call your home.

    Now, it’s become the site of a lithium mine; host to a four foot wide petroleum pipeline; or worse, a dumping site for nuclear waste that won’t be safe for hundreds of thousands of years (if ever.)

    Meanwhile, your ancestors are pulled out of the ground like empty corn husks. The prairies and forests you used to visit, pray and play in have been flattened and become a parking lot for heavy equipment, modular offices.

    The water flowing from the springs smell bad now, and none of the animals will drink it, anymore because they will get sick, and die—just like the trees and plants that used to grow around this place.

    You tried to tell them they were destroying the place you held close to your heart. Tried to tell them that the well-being of this land wasn’t just important to your people, but that it was integral to the survival of all life on earth.

    Other people agreed. They said deforestation, not only led to loss of habitat for the animals you depend on, and who depend on you; but that the earth would never be able to recover from critical damage to its carbon reducing, oxygen producing, infrastructure.

    Your new friends got lawyers, and held protests, made t-shirt slogans, eye-catching signs, and raised awareness on social media. But it didn’t mean anything to the people who only saw profit in loss and exploitation. And your new friends left as soon as their GoFundMe’s reached their goals—never giving you the help they promised, or the money they raised in your name.

    Now your ancestor’s resting place has a metal fence around it with big signs saying “KEEP OUT”, “PRIVATE PROPERTY”. But you know the signs should be for them, instead of you, and your people.

    Now what?

    The guide is available by request through email, or via direct link to the PDF on Proton Drive.

  • ‘A Land Defender’s Guide To Making the Exploitation of Land Expensive & Unappealing To Would-Be Colonizers

    “A Land Defender’s Guide to: Making the Exploitation of Land Expensive & Unappealing To Would-Be Corporate Colonizers” has just dropped–published by guerilla printer Lonely Ocean Press.

    The 36 page booklet “Volume I: Work-Site Blues” offers a plethora of information about the heavy equipment used to desecrate sacred land, as well as a selection of basic tools which can be used to access, operate, and “service” most heavy equipment.

    The Land Defender’s Guide has been referred to as, “revolution on a budget of $200 or less”–because the tools required are fairly common, cheap, and can sometimes be found on the work-site itself.

    Included in the Appendix are 31 extremely detailed illustrations of the mechanical, hydraulic, and electrical workings of:

    • Skid-Loaders
    • Dozers
    • Mining Trucks
    • Backhoe Loaders
    • Mini Loaders
    • Excavators
    • And more…
    Excerpt from the Guide:

    Introduction:

    This is written in the spirit of such other publications as Steal This Book, Steal This Computer Book, The Anarchist Cookbook, and other such banned and questionable literature provided to, by, and for, The Resistance.

    While this booklet may present the principles of hydraulics, electrical engineering, thermodynamics, and other physical considerations for the efficiency of the methods of colonization, and the development of stolen land….

    One should take note that violence against individuals, or even groups of individuals is absolutely unacceptable.

    While this text can be seen as a collection of techniques to respond to the violence of colonization, and the brutalization of those who stand against the exploitation of stolen land. Injury or death to another person or living creature is neither encouraged, condoned, nor inferred, as an acceptable means to decolonization.

    This volume is a thought experiment to imagine the costs associated with work stoppages, and prolonged periods of repair to the expensive, and sometimes complex, equipment associated with all aspects of construction, pipe-laying, excavation, and mining.

    Disclaimers: These images are for illustration, only. Each year, make, and model of the type of equipment illustrated can vary widely over each model, and even within variations of the same model. No one’s saying you should actually do any of the things mentioned in this work.

    Emphasis Added; from: A Land Defender’s Guide to: Making the Exploitation of Land Expensive & Unappealing To Would-Be Corporate Colonizers, Volume I: Work-Site Blues

    The Guide is offered for free; and has also been made available as a PDF.

    For information about ordering copies of the booklet by mail, send an email to defendersguide [at] proton (dot) me.

    Otherwise, the PDF file can be downloaded from a Proton Drive here.

    Please note: The Land Defender’s Guide is only offered through Proton Mail and Drive, to preserve the privacy of everyone involved with the Defender’s Guides [a series]. To learn more about the privacy and security offered by Proton, check out their About Us page.