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#kleebenally

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"The game of colonial activism is rigged. It plays a politics that no matter the side you're on, colonialism always wins. And so, why do we continue to play this game? Those that rule and profit from and through colonialism and capitalism will never be morally persuaded to make decisions to benefit anyone but themselves. those that stand for the Earth and existence will always be in their way. This is an 'absolute' that continues to be written in the blood of Indigenous Peoples throughout the world.

How do we contend with the violences of settler colonial power? Certainly not through strategies informed by logics and frameworks that reinforce it." #KleeBenally, No Spiritual Surrender, page 166.

Now Showing Online! #BigMountain Film Featured at Tokyo Global Film Festival

By NaBahii Keediniihii, via @bsnorrell.blogspot.com, May 28, 2:33 PM

"Greetings All.

I hope your late Spring is going well.

The ONLY film festival so far that
selected the Big Mountain Film is Tokyo Liff Off Global Film Festival.

Big Mountain feature documentary will end streaming on June 1st which is night time Saturday in the U.S., 5/31.

liftoff.network/tokyo-lift-off

Sorry that you have to purchase a Ticket, in order to Vote. GO DOWN TO THE 'FEATURES' Category. Find the title: "BIG MOUNTAIN LEGACY, LAST STORIES OF DÍNEH." More Votes = More Exposure about Big Mountain Legacy!!

Let's hope that other Film Fests judge to select this Big Mountain Legacy film.

What more can I say, this documentary is not about myself. Understand that I am only the MessenJah.

Thank you, again.

Sincerely,

Kat Bahe"

Watch the film trailer
vimeo.com/848932137

Big Mountain Legacy Film: SYNOPSIS / Re-enactments / A Dream of a Man
Director: Bahe (Naabaahii) Katenay (Keediniihii), October 2023 (75 minute featured documentary)

Background:

"In the 1970s, Dineh (Navajo) families around Big Mountain were notified that their communities would be uprooted and that they may never see their ancestral homelands ever again. Now 50 years later, less than 20 home sites remain and the once strong #resistance leaders like #PaulineWhitesinger, #HaastinNiizBegay, #JohnKatenay, and #RobertaBlackgoat (#KleeBenally's grandmother) have all passed on.

How should the future remember the legacies of such wise teachers? What gave their community the will to defy U.S.

Congressional Legislations that were nothing but anti-Indian which was forcing them to give up hundreds of years of cultural existence?

The Congress of the United States passed Public Law 93-531 in 1974 and it was signed by the President. It is an Executive Order, a declaration to exterminate, a declaration of war. The justification for this law was to “resolve” a supposed “land-dispute” among the Hopis and Dineh, and the lands were divided.

The 2023 Video Documentary:
The original impetus for resisting the federal mandate was the sacredness of the lands, ancestral ties and natural features which were dwelling places of Deities. The elder interviewees knew the future will not be the same way as they had lived and the same childhood experience. The video put asidemuch of the effective resistance against the most powerful, #capitalistic country in the world, instead the video presents stories about their ancestors’ teachings. A Dineh ritual existence which was basically daily living, ceremonies and nutrition. An indigenous atmosphere long before the Europeans’
arrival with its brutal conquest. The video narrowly touches on a 400-year history of cultural survival and maintaining identity. And how that history overlaps with so-called modern America.

One grandmother’s story become an intense chapter, and it is about her direct clan ancestry facing near annihilation as one little girl survives which resulted in re-establishing a Clan at Big Mountain.

"This story comes from a massacre site with two mass graves. Then stories about decades of intense state of fear and which lead into the US’s late 1800s war policy of random killing, starvation and captivity. The modern times the 1920s and 30s when these story tellers were born, a different state of fear had re-emerged, and then again at their elderhood in the late 1900s. All the stories in this documentary program are messages for the future because, as these elders have predicted, the lands maybe empty of indigenous culture which once thrived for centuries."

Continue reading at: Sheep Dog Nation Media
sheepdognationmediarockswisdom

Source:
bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/05

#BigMountainResistance #Activism
#Dineh #Dineteh #Hopi #JohnMcCain #PeabodyCoal #BigCoal #PeabodyEnergy #Resistance #WaterIsLife #CorporateColonialism #HumanRights #LandDefenders #CulturalGenocide #EnvironmentalRacism #DirectAction #DefendTheSacred #IndigenousAction

Lift-Off Global NetworkTokyo Lift-Off Film Festival 2025 - Lift-Off Global NetworkDiscover the best in independent film as the Tokyo Lift-Off Film Festival makes a triumphant return, offering a treasure trove of emerging artists.

#NavajoNation Dishonors Legacy of #KleeBenally: Agrees to #Uranium Transport Through #Navajo Communities

By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, February 3, 2025

"The Navajo Nation dishonored the memory and legacy of Klee Benally by agreeing to allow radioactive uranium trucks to travel through the Navajo Nation. It was what Klee spent the last years of his life fighting against.

"The deadly trucks from the #EnergyFuels #PinyonPlain uranium mine in the #GrandCanyon will pass through the #Havasupai's homeland, and then past the homes of #Paiute, #Dine' and #Hopi in Arizona before reaching the dumping ground: The Energy Fuels #UraniumMill in the #WhiteMesaUte Community in Southern #Utah.

"Klee is being honored with a #NuclearFreeFutures Award in New York in March.

"Nuclear Free Futures said, in announcing the award, 'Klee Benally was a Navajo activist and musician and member of the Navajo #Tódichiinii Clan and the #Nakai #Diné Clan. In addition to a
musical career with his siblings in the band #Blackfire,

"'Klee was a passionate campaigner and filmmaker exposing the #colonialist legacy of uranium mines and working for the cleanup of the more than 500 abandoned uranium mines that continue to contaminate the Navajo Nation. A month before his death on December 30, 2023, Klee published his book, '#NoSpiritualSurrender: #IndigenousAnarchy in Defense of the Sacred.'

"The award will be accepted by his mother Berta Benally.

"Klee, co-founder of #HaulNo!, warned of the danger to the water and rivers from the uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, and the planned deadly transport of radioactive ore, before he passed in
December 2023: 'There is possible radioactive contamination to land, water, and air from the #CanyonMine, White
Mesa Mill, and transport of uranium would impact northern Arizona, southeast Utah, the #ColoradoRiver, #MoenkopiWash, the #SanJuanRiver, and the lands and cultural resources of the #Havasupai, Hopi, Navajo, Ute, and Paiute peoples.'"

Read more:
bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/02
#WhiteMesaUte #EnergyFuels #HaulNo #BuuNygren #IndigenousAction #IndigenousResistance #NuclearColonialism #ReaderSupportedNews #Dine #RestInPowerKleeBenally #NoUraniumTransport #DefendTheSacred #ProtectTheSacred #UraniumMine #NoNukes #NuclearFreeWorld #NoNuclear #NoWar #NuclearWaste #NoMoreTransportationOfUranium
#NoNuclearWeapons #NoNuclearPowerPlants #NoUraniumMining #UteNation #NoUraniumMining #Navajo #Havasupai #GrandCanyon #NuclearWeapons #InformedConsent
#EnvironmentalRacism #WaterIsLife

bsnorrell.blogspot.comNavajo Nation Dishonors Legacy of Klee Benally: Agrees to Uranium Transport Through Navajo NationCensored News is a service to grassroots Indigenous Peoples engaged in resistance and upholding human rights.

And last, but not least, not a music video, but a plug for #KleeBenally's book, #NoSpiritualSurrender

"No Spiritual Surrender: #IndigenousAnarchy in Defense of the Sacred is a searing #AntiColonial analysis rooted in frontline experience. Klee Benally (#Diné) unrelentingly agitates against #colonial politics towards #IndigenousAutonomy and total liberation of #Nahasdzáán (#MotherEarth)."

youtube.com/watch?v=m6wWXP7_Km

Available now from Detritus Books
detritusbooks.com

406 pages | $20
Nonfiction | Paperback
Available in select bookshops.

#RestInPowerKleeBenally #HaulNo # #IndigenousAnarchy
#NoUraniumMining #DefendTheSacred #NoMiningWithoutConsent #DefendMotherEarth #SaveOakFlat

#KleeBenally's powerful cover of #NIN's "The Great Below"

"Staring at the sea
Will she come?
Is there hope for me
After all is said and done
Anything at any price
All of this for you
All the spoils of a wasted life
All of this for you
All the world has closed her eyes
Tired faith all worn and thin
For all we could have done
And all that could have been

Ocean pulls me close
And whispers in my ear
The destiny I've chose
All becoming clear
The currents have their say
The time is drawing near
Washes me away
Makes me disappear

And I descend from grace
In arms of undertow
I will take my place
In the great below..."

youtube.com/watch?v=e50I5IhwTY
#FridayNightMusicVideos #FridayNightMusic #RestInPowerKleeBenally #NineInchNails #Covers

#KleeBenally #SongToTheSun

"Our mother aches
Iron claws dig until she breaks
And she bleeds for this
How much is enough?

I remember listening to songs of the sun
For all those, who’s breath was stolen
Who’s future was taken away
Who learned too late

CHORUS:
And so we sing again
To the house of dawn
There are no words, no words that can right these wrongs.

This land breathes pain
And nothing grows
that doesn’t carry the trauma
that we’ve wept, that you sow…

CHORUS

this empire of blood and bones
of stolen, poisoned, homes…
genocide… mutilated ghosts…

fierce hearts lay buried… their struggle speaks…
fierce hearts lay buried… saying…
“leave it in the ground…”

While the mines lay abandoned – What has been done?
Wells poisoned… nothing has been done?
Cancers spread… tell me, what has been done?
To right these wrongs! To right these wrongs!

CHORUS

deafening the screams
grinding down the gears
you can’t hear them cause your window is closed
and you’ve surrendered your power to your fears

There’s a market for everything…
social media exists
so you keep on consuming…
it’s revolutionary chic and at least you “liked” and shared…
for liberation…oh what a loaded word…
and you’ve marched quietly along
and you’ve marched so complacently along

one brutal violent machine pressing against another (3x)
crushing all our dreams, and all we desire
the price is paid in blood and we know what its worth…
the price is paid in blood…
capitalism is the enemy…of mother earth. (2x)

deafening the screams
grinding down the gears
you can’t hear them cause your window closed
and you’ve surrendered your power to your fears

one brutal violent machine pressing against another
you’ve surrendered your power to your fears
one brutal violent machine pressing against another
you’ve surrendered your power to your fears

I will hold your hand
At the edge of this world
As we watch it burn to the ground

I will hold your hand
At the edge of the dawn
And laugh and wonder at the new days we’ve found

they will not suffocate this fire
it burns from our hearts
so long as we hold this inside
they can never take this from us

how much can you take?
how much can you give?
there is no post-apocalyptic
oh this is it

how much can we bleed?
till were up off our knees?
there’s no post-colonial, we live it

they will not suffocate this fire
it burns from our hearts
so long as we hold this inside
they can never take this from us

if this is our grave
such a wondrous bed we’ve been made
only so much we can bleed
so much more than we’d ever need

I will hold your hand
At the edge of this world
As we watch it burn to the ground.

Peabody‘s drag lines across the landscape
like militarized borders that carve this police state
1974 government pens wrote, “relocate”
divide and conquer, 14,000 and today?

We know this nightmare because it repeats
’till something breaks
An act of liberation

Yes we all know it’s the rich against the poor
class, race, gender, and mother earth just a resource
globalization is colonization and colonization is always war…

We know this nightmare because it repeats
’till something breaks
An act of liberation!

Industrial capitalist hetero-patriarchy
We know the story of so many manifested destinies
From the broken bones of broken homes and violated boarding school dreams

We know this nightmare because it repeats
’till something breaks
An act of liberation!

From Big Mountain to Palestine, relocation is genocide.
We stand against all wars and occupation
Against nationalism, against state sponsored terrorism

the free market non-profit industry
accountable to foundations no not community
paychecks for activism, for justice or just them?
But this ain’t no revolutionary commodity…
It’s an act of liberation

An act of liberation!

it’s only a matter of time
it’s only a question, an affirmation
of who we are and who we’ve have been

reconnect the dots
trace back the memories
its only a matter of time
until our words match our actions

CHORUS:
these laws, these borders, these walls, will fall
it’s only a matter of time, it’s only a matter of action

How much can we pretend,
that we’re not complicit in our silence?
how much longer, until these times get so desperate?

the beating in our hearts
a rhythm we can’t shut out
calling us to action, call us to action…

CHORUS

its a matter of action.

these are desperate times calling for desperate measures
these are desperate times calling for desperate action

its a matter of action.

Time for action

Following paths
so many ways to wander
so many ways I’ve wondered
always the question biting at my heel
sometimes its too much to feel

open hearts bleed
strong hearts deceived
where were you in this time of need?

following paths so many ways to take it on
so many ways we’ve lost
always the question expressing the real
sometimes its too much to feel

open hearts bleed strong hearts deceive
where were you in this time of need?
where were you?

your shadow still cast
all that we lived past
your words still linger
if we could peel back the time
uncover the wounds so they can really heal

sometimes its too much to feel

open hearts bleed strong hearts deceive
where were you in this time of need?
where were you?"

youtube.com/watch?v=LEBhDVnzG_
#AnActOfLiberation #Degrowth #TimeForAction #ATimeForLiberation #ATimeForAction #AMatterForAction #AnActOfLiberation #PostColonialism #ResistTheMachine #ResistHeteroPatriarchy

#KleeBenally Honored as #NuclearFree Futures Awardee 2025

via #CensoredNews: "Klee was a passionate campaigner and filmmaker exposing the #colonialist legacy of #UraniumMines and working for the cleanup of the more than 500 abandoned uranium mines that continue to contaminate the #NavajoNation. A month before his death on December 30, 2023, Klee published his book, 'No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred.'" [Order Klee's book at the link at the end of the post.]

In addition to Klee, those honored by #BeyondNuclear include the @uraniumfestival founders #MárciaGomesDeOliveira and #NorbertSuchanek, #SPUdayakumar, #EdwickMadzimure, and #JoannaMacy. Klee's award will be accepted by his mother Berta Benally.

Source:
bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/01

Order Klee's book here:
detritusbooks.com/products/no-
#NuclearFreeFuture #UraniumFilmFestival #NoNukes #NoUraniumMining #NoSpiritualSurrender

"While Indigenous scholars and activists like Vine Deloria Jr. and members of the American Indian Movement have focused on the goal of Indigenous sovereignty "without political and social assimilation," this objective has been limited and ultimately reinforced the Euro-colonial, or more precisely the Westphalian, system, of nation-state sovereignty. "Tribal sovereignty" is not possible while colonial authority exists, and perhaps a more pressing concern is that it is fundamentally a colonial political concept.

While calls to "honor the treaties" on one hand could be viewed as assertions of Indigenous political authority, on the other, they are a myopic urge to revisit forced negotiations made under duress to benefit the colonial order. The strategy of colonial expansion was not designed to sustain treaties with Peoples that invaders planned to assimilate into their order. The US government had absolutely no problem breaking every treaty it marked its name on. From the colonizer's perspective treaties were always temporary; they were a concession to captivity, an agreement to civilization. They were merely a symbolic and political formality of capitulation. Treaties are dead words o dead pieces of paper that were negotiations of the surrender of our ancestors."

1/2

I'm not feeling very celebratory tonight. Losing #KarlWallinger in 2024 (and #KleeBenally right before 2024 started) kinda made it a year of reflection -- and determination to keep both of their dreams alive, and fight for #MotherEarth. As for 2025 -- well, #Project2025 is making that feel dystopian before the clock strikes midnight. Be safe, be ready, be connected to like-minded others. It's the only way we'll get through these coming #WickedDays...

Continued thread

What Do You See - Blackfire, One Nation Under
Klee, Jeneda, Clayson Benally (& Jones Benally)

A favorite song, seen them live many times. Live performance below at the Festival In The Desert, Mali.

"it's your choice to carry on
it's a part of who you are
sometimes we need to live a little more than we dream
leave this world a better place of unity
in unity
what do you see?"

#KleeBenally #BenallyFamily #Blackfire #Diné #Navajo #Indigenous #FestivalInTheDesert #music

youtube.com/watch?v=oxQPOHASB3

In memory of Klee Benally.

One Nation Under - Blackfire
Diné siblings: Klee, Jeneda, Clayson Benally. Jones Benally, father, traditional vocals.

pushing the 4th world
cant begin to count the loss
free trade the new gun is raised
and how many lives will it cost?
One nation under assimilation, extermination, annihilation
one nation under

shi keyah hozhon, what have they done?

#KleeBenally #BenallyFamily #Blackfire #Diné #Navajo #Indigenous #RockMusic #PunkMusic

youtube.com/watch?v=-BxjU_VVm2

From #Wikipedia: #KleeBenally was an Indigenous activist, author, musician, and environmentalist from #NavajoNation.

Early life

"Benally was born in Black Mesa, Arizona to Jones and Berta Benally. He was from the Tódích’íi’nii and Wandering People clans. His father, Jones, was a traditional Diné and his mother, Berta is of Russian-Polish Jewish descent. Klee grew up with the traditions of his father. During his childhood, Klee's family was forcibly displaced due to a land dispute that resulted in thousands of Navajo people losing their homes. Benally spent most of his life in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Activism

#AntiColonialism

"Klee used his works to advocate for #AntiColonial #IndigenousResistance. In his book, #NoSpiritualSurrender, Benally argues for#IndigenousAnarchy to achieve total liberation of #Nahasdzáán (#MotherEarth). He also created the game #BurnTheFort, where each player takes the role of an Indigenous warrior fighting to stop #colonization of their land.

"In 2014, Benally protested outside the Super Bowl against the use of Washington Football Team's name "Redskin", which some considered offensive to Native Americans. The name was changed in 2022.

Environmentalism

"Benally advocated fiercely against the expansion of the #ArizonaSnowbowlSkiResort and the use of treated wastewater to make snow, arguing that it was destroying the local ecosystem. He also protested against pumice and #UraniumMining and transport in the area, advocating the clean up of mines from the Cold War Era. Klee typically framed the struggle for #environmental rights in the context of religious freedom for Indigenous peoples, stating that:

"'This is a struggle for cultural survival — the struggle to protect sacred spaces.'

Music

"In 1989, when Benally was 14 years old he founded the punk rock band Blackfire with his siblings, Jeneda and Clayson. The band mixed traditional #NavajoChants and music with #ProtestSongs about the oppression of Indigenous people. Benally was the band's guitarist. The band's first EP called# Blackfire was released in 1994 and produced by CJ Ramone. In 2002, the band released its first album, #OneNationUnder.

Personal life

"Klee was married to Princess Benally. Klee died at the age of 48, on December 30th, 2023 in a hospital in Phoenix. He is survived by his siblings, wife, and parents."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klee_Ben

en.wikipedia.orgKlee Benally - Wikipedia

HT @antiaall3s

"#DemocracyNow reports on #PegasusSpyware in cell phones this week. It is a reminder of how our friend #KleeBenally, Dine', was spied on by the Tohono O'odham Nation government as he protested the US Border Patrol, and the Salt River Project, and its role in poisoning Dine' with its coal-fired power plant."

Spying on Activists -- Diné Klee Benally, #VicamYaqui, and #Zapatistas were Targeted

by #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, December 7, 2024

"In Klee Benally's book [#NoSpiritualSurrender], he describes the surveillance, and the stingrays, portable equipment cops used to track cell phones without a warrant, and more.

"Facebook was, and is, the favorite of law enforcement for tracking and surveilling with cell phones.

"The spyware includes Israel's Pegasus which can't be detected..."

Read more:
bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/12

bsnorrell.blogspot.comSpying on Activists -- Dine' Klee Benally, Vicam Yaqui, and Zapatistas were TargetedCensored News is a service to grassroots Indigenous Peoples engaged in resistance and upholding human rights.

"Democracy Now reports on Pegasus spyware in cell phones this week. It is a reminder of how our friend Klee Benally, Dine', was spied on by the Tohono O'odham Nation government as he protested the US Border Patrol, and the Salt River Project, and its role in poisoning Dine' with its coal-fired power plant."

bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/12

bsnorrell.blogspot.comSpying on Activists -- Dine' Klee Benally, Vicam Yaqui, and Zapatistas were TargetedCensored News is a service to grassroots Indigenous Peoples engaged in resistance and upholding human rights.
Replied in thread

The last part of this section (The #AIM Song of Anguish) of chapter 8 of #KleeBenally's book #NoSpiritualSurrender is something that I can relate to. After my negative experience with an AIM member, I formed an alliance with #RobertaBlackgoat and #CorbinHarney -- and told their stories (as well as providing #MutualAid). And yeah, not all resistance groups are created equal!

"AIM has been extraordinarily gloried but they weren’t the only radical #Indigenous organizations operating then; communities with forces such as #JanetMcCloud fighting for fishing rights in so-called Washington, Corbin Harney resisting #NuclearColonialism in so-called Nevada, grandmothers #KatherineSmith, #PaulineWhitesinger, and Roberta Blackgoat fighting coal mining and forced relocation on #BlackMesa, and so many more have fought for decades to protect sacred lands and waters. Occasionally AIM would be there alongside those struggles and sometimes they would not be welcome. In spite of this, the AIM song still echoes and invokes the spirit of resistance in #Tulalip, #WesternShoshone, and #Diné frontlines, and far beyond."

Page 184, Klee Benally, No Spiritual Surrender