Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD:
Written by an Indigenous activist or scholar who is not in The Red Nation will contextualize it for readers who may not be familiar with The Red Nation’s work. It will situate the Red Deal within the current moment of Indigenous resistance to resource extraction, violence against Native people, as well as the pandemic and its disproportionate impact on tribal communities.
INTRODUCTION:
The Red Deal, while sharing roots in Indigenous struggle at Standing Rock and against the Keystone XL pipeline, is not a counterprogram to the Green New Deal. It calls for action beyond the scope of the U.S. colonial state and invites allied organizations, movements, and relatives to implement a plan for our planet to live. It is a program for Indigenous liberation, life, and land—and an affirmation that colonialism and capitalism must be overturned for this planet to be habitable enough for human and non-human relatives to live dignified lives. This expanded introduction will include a discussion on how it was written as a collective document and how we hope readers can use it to guide action in their local communities.
Part One: End the Occupation
A huge proportion of the U.S. colonial state’s resources, time, and labor are currently invested in maintaining its occupation—of stolen Indigenous land, of overseas military bases, and of extractive industries around the world. Police, prisons, migrant detention, and the military make up the largest portion of government spending and the US alone spends more on its military force than all other top-spending countries combined. The presence of US military forces, police, border patrol, BIA agents, and prisons all maintain domination of colonized peoples domestically and abroad, negatively impacting life and dignity as well as preventing radical social change. This first part calls for a strategy popularized by the movement against fossil fuels and pipelines, the anti-apartheid struggle, Palestinian liberation, and the Movement for Black Lives: divestment. It calls for massive redistribution of resources and labor away from occupation and instead investing them in the programs described in the following sections.
Part Two: Heal Our Bodies
Neoliberal capitalism has wreaked havoc on everyday people around the world while enriching the ruling classes of the wealthy nations. It has left millions starving, unhoused, and without adequate healthcare, education, or employment. The extractive industries that rely on natural resource and labor exploitation have left communities with polluted water and air and the colonial nature of those industries have brought violence, sexual assault, and abuse to Indigenous peoples. This chapter lays out demands for food, housing, healthcare, education, clean water and air, and an end to violence against Indigenous people, primarily women, girls, and LGBTQ2+ relatives.
Part Three: Heal Our Planet
The same extractive industries and labor practices that have impacted people’s health and lives have similarly destroyed the planet’s ecosystems. But, going beyond a singular climate or environmental lens, Heal Our Planet recognizes the need for decolonization and Indigenous liberation in order to restore the natural world. Colonialism and capitalism have brought the world to the brink of ecological collapse and it has forced upon the world a decision: decolonization or extinction. This chapter lays out programs for the return of land, massive Indigenous-led restoration projects, investment in sustainable energy, changes to the agricultural system, protection of sacred sites, and the enforcement of treaty rights.
Conclusion/Reflections On the Path Forward
In its original format, The Red Deal has been read by activists, discussed in community workshops, endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, and written about in articles and books about climate justice and Indigenous struggle. The conclusion section will discuss how The Red Deal has and can be taken up by movements and organizations as well as some of The Red Nation’s lessons on how to implement it. This section will also include a toolkit developed by Red Nation members as they work to envision what enacting the Red Deal looks like, distilling those ideas into a guide for communities to take the Red Deal and incorporate it into their local campaigns and struggles.
