WOUNDED KNEE

today marks the 35th anniversary of the surrender of militant american indians who had held the south dakota hamlet of wounded knee for 10 weeks. wounded knee lies within the pine ridge indian reservation, and the militants were mostly oglala sioux, led by members of AIM, the american indian movement. their occupation was in protest against decades of abuse and neglect by the feds and by the puppet tribal government led by dick wilson and his good squad. armed with a few rifles and a reverence for traditional tribal values, the small group of occupiers were surrounded by an army of FBI, u.s. marshalls, white ranchers, and wilson's goons, equipped with armored personnel carriers, helicopters, assault rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, and other tools of the vietnam war. for more on this incident, which closely resembles similar attacks by whites on indians in the 1800s, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Incident .

wounded knee was the site of the massacre of the same name in 1890: http://en.wikipedia.org:80/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre

in 1973 i was living in tucson, arizona. i vividly remember seeing a poster in the window of a head shop on south 4th avenue, proclaiming the situation at wounded knee and calling for assistance nationwide. i came so close to going, and now wish i had.