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.

Innocence has a single voice that can only say over and over again, "I didn't do it." Guilt has a thousand voices, all of them lies.

The United States government can indict you on something, and now you've got to prove your innocence. And that's not the Constitution of the United States.

You can see examples of this, such as where [George W.] Bush lied to the public, and as a result 72 percent of America was in favor of the Iraqi invasion. Yet now the truth has presented itself and they are trying to save face by appealing to the public's national-istic persona, talking about winning and honor and everything as a reason to continue that illegal immoral occupation.

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.

In them days, it was just still not illegal to kill an Indian. If you killed an Indian, you'd be very unfortunate if you got probation - most of them were released immediately.

We need to do more than just what is right. We need to join together and right what is wrong.