Manifesto - ‘O ka mea kūpono ‘āina, ‘o ka mea kūpono kanaka

‘O ka mea kūpono ‘āina, ‘o ka mea kūpono kanaka

[The things that are right for the land are right for the People]

Indigenous peoples, Brown, Black, and/or people of color, and those most vulnerable and needing to be centered within our communities --- women, queer, transgender and/or gender non-conforming, Two-Spirit, homeless, working and laboring class, sick and disabled, Muslim and Indigenous religious/spiritual ways of life, and/or refugee, immigrant, migrant and/or undocumented --- along with our allies, from here on forward are collectively known as “the People”.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” ~ (Preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America)

We the People, recognize that the current historical moment we are in, as of January 30, 2017, of the attempted construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock, North Dakota and the Trans-Pecos Pipeline and Comanche Trail Pipeline from Texas to Mexico --- all of which are under Energy Transfer Partner, an oil company whose headquarters are located in Dallas, Texas ---, the Black Lives Matter movement resisting police brutality, militarized police forces, and incarceration, and the Israeli occupation of Palestine as being interlocking with the current Trump administration, the increase in militarization of land and the People of Southwest Asia and North Africa, the Pacific, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and North America through the United States military occupations, expansion of oil interests, reinforcement of human-made borders such as the US-Mexico border through financial investment made by the University of California (“the University”) --- using the People as pawns in a chess game for the purposes of the elites’ expansion of colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism ---, and the decrease of the People’s access to the University, and that all are part of a greater land struggle.

We the People, recognize this current historical moment as a reflection of the era and interconnections of the Cold War and Vietnam War and movements against the United States expansion of global capitalism and war, the Civil Rights movement, the American Indian Movement on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota and the political imprisonment of Leonard Peltier, and the Black Panthers Party and the political exile of Assata Shakur to Cuba.

We the People, recognize that the expansion of United States colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism through the United States government has been the entity responsible for destabilizing the governments and economies of Latin America and then implanting dictatorship governments which have been the reasons for the forced displacement and migration of the People, having to cross the US-Mexico border and/or different points into the United States to seek asylum in the United States.

We the People, recognize the increased militarization of the US-Mexico border as part of a longer history of settler colonialism in the United States --- a history responsible for Indigenous genocide and land dispossession, the enslavement of Africans, and the forced migration of people from the Global South to the Global North, specifically to the United States --- is in direct correlation with the oil interests --- its extraction both domestically and abroad and its transportation through the land of Indigenous communities between the states of the United States as well as between the United States and different nations, for the purpose of expanding United States colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism ---- that approves the crossing of oil and capital, but forces and then polices the crossing of the People.

We the People, recognize this current historical moment as drastically continuing the ongoing privatization of land and higher education through the past and current investments in the expansion strengthening of already hyper-militarized borders, militarized police forces, military occupations of land domestically and abroad, and the expansions of oil interests by the United States government leadership and corporations and the University of California that continues the exploitation, disenfranchisement, oppression of the People domestically and globally.

We the People, recognize that the University of California is in of itself is a military expansion project, both historically and contemporarily; thus, those of us who are students within the University of California system are therefore inherently implicated in military expansion and we have a responsibility to resisting efforts that continue such.

We the People, will remain committed to addressing situations of intracommunity violence and holding folks accountable to their enactments of violence onto others within the collective without the use State intervention.

We the People, recognize ourselves as an anti-war, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist socialist collective that understands we must be committed to the historical, interwoven, domestic and global struggles for Indigenous Sovereignty and Black Liberation that is necessary for the demilitarization of the land and the People for the next seven generations. We the People understand that we are all at different social locations and positions and therefore, our liberation is inherently connected to one another and we must remain committed to one another. As such, we hold true to the following motto: “Divest! Demilitarize! Decolonize! Demand! Demand! Demand! The D will set us free!”

In the words of Queen Lili’uokalani: “The feelings of one who has been imprisoned, politically or otherwise, can only be understood by a person who has passed through the ordeal” ~ Hawai’i Story by Hawai’i’s Queen, January 1898.

In the words of Leonard Peltier: “If my imprisonment does nothing more than educate an unknowing and uncaring public about the terrible conditions of Native Americans and all indigenous people around the world continue to endure, then my suffering has had --- and continues to have --- a purpose. My people’s struggles to survive inspires my own struggle to survive. Each of us must be a survivor” ~ Prison Writing: My Life is My Sun Dance

In the words of Assata Shakur: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and support one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains” ~ Assata: An Autobiography