FREE LEONARD PELTIER - or at least give him a new trial

books:

	• In the Spirit of Crazy Horse Peter Matthiessen Viking, 1991 - 688 pages average customer review:based on 27 reviews
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highly recommended

Remarkable read.

This is an distubing yet fascinating book. Matthiessen has such a gifted way of putting the reader into the reality of the situation. Not a book for a reader who believes that the government is all good and correct, or maybe it is. Justice for 'face saving' and 'revenge'.
Terrible events and wonderful writing!

An infuriating portrait of injustice

I'm often deeply suspicious of writing as political as one finds in this book - I greatly admire Matthiessen's writings on travel, nature and Buddhism, but found his novel "At Play In The Fields Of The Lord" a bit ham-fisted in its' approach, even when I agreed with it's sentiments.

But after a few reads, several years apart, IN THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSE stands as a great, damning document - it's a piece of work that is impressive and massive, and will leave you infuriated.

The entire work is built around the trial and conviction of Leonard Peltier, and rather than simply recount the events or press an agenda, Matthiessen goes to meticulous lengths to contextualize and cover every side of the background. The history of the Sioux Lakota is covered extensively, as are the social conditions (health, income, education, and the infamous violence) on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The AIM (American Indian Movement) emerges on Pine Ridge, and it should be noted that the reservation is officially two counties - Shannon and Jackson, which were administered from elsewhere in the state, and run by Bureau of Indian Affairs appointees, instead of by an elected government (the case in most US counties). These appointees' extreme and unorthodox tactics in administering the reservation dovetailed nicely with FBI surveillance and subversion of suspected subversive groups, including AIM, and the paranoia generated set the stage for the firefight and subsequent trial.

Matthiessen expends considerable effort in the attempt at giving both sides a space to speak, not extremely successfully from an objectivity standpoint, but well enough for the purposes of this book: Matthiessen also unearths and publishes a vast array of court transcripts and legal documents; a certain point of view does begin to emerge, and Matthiessen admits where his sympathies lie, but generally, this is a book in which the FBI and various individuals within the government of South Dakota hang themselves with their own words. And they do this consistently, over hundreds of pages, and when afforded many opportunities by Matthiessen to justify or clarify themselves, they fail to do so repeatedly.

Such Machiavellian governmental machinations were an unfortunate part of the political landscape during the Nixon era (this has not necessarily changed with the passage of time); this is one of the most devastating documents of that ruthlessness (see William Shawcross' SIDESHOW for a second, scary glimpse at this political tendency), and Matthiessen - through meticulous investigation and research - goes out of his way to be fair. Give this dense and - at times - difficult book some patience; the history lessons and legalese do have both a point and a payoff - this is a far more infuriating document of injustice than any simple agenda-based hatchet job could ever be.

-David Alston

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Shock & Awe In America

This book picks up where "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" left off, and unfortunately for Indian people the story does't get any happier. This book should be required reading for every high school student, journalist, politician or law enforcement professional. It shows us that despite the fine and uplifting words of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence that support our democracy, human dignity and civil rights always need to be fought for and protected by people. Unfortunately for all of us, sometimes innocent people lose the battle, and this is a story about some of them. Please read this book, you will not be sorry you did.

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What a great book!

Having assumed that I had read countless volumes of Native American history, here I find another compelling book that brings anger and frustration. All I can say is that I am on a mission to learn more and more about Mr. Peltier. Many books that I have read before this one did not shed the kind of light on him that was deserved. I have to admit that other AIM followers had different views of him and it only makes me courious, and again I'll find another story. But that is the greatest thing about our American History, it has never been written with the truth at the heart of the writers pen. I can only hope that one day Mr. Peltier will be free, and whatever occurred during that day of confusion will be the truth, but by then it will only be another 100 years of history gone wrong. We will probably never know the truth.

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FREE LEONARD PELTIER - or at least give him a new trial

Why?

Well, you have to read this book, but here's a synopsis that nobody but the most diehard 1970s FBI defender can try to deny.

Matthiessen documents years of FBI spying on the American Indian Movement, including "turning" insiders, coupled with intimidation tactics and more. Often the FBI in South Dakota was working, if not hand in hand, at least on parallel tracks in this thuggery with folks such as a corrupt Pine Ridge Indian Reservation leadership, then-Attorney General and now disgraced former Congressman Bill Janklow, BIA cops and more.

While Matthiesen looks at bits and pieces of AIM's history elsewhere, he focuses on Pine Ridge and its Sioux, as this area, through things such as a temporary takeover of Mount Rushmore, was a center of AIM activity.

In trials related to the events in and around Pine Ridge, FBI agents repeatedly intimidated witnesses into changing testimony, coached witnesses, sprung last-minute surprise witnesses at trials (which is against the law, if you didn't know), suborned perjury and otherwise made a mockery of justice.

Things reached a climax June 26, 1975 when two FBI agents approached the Jumping Bull property on the Pine Ridge Reservation, ostensibly looking for Jimmy Eagle on a weapons charge. According to all Indian accounts, the two agents began opening fire on the property.

Both were eventually shot in a return of fire. They were later killed at close range.

After three other AIM leaders at the site were all acquitted of murder charges in the FBI agents' deaths, the FBI appeared determined to hang the case on Peltier by any legal or illegal means possible.

Aided by a viciously biased judge giving one-sided bench rulings, the government did exactly that.

Read how things reached this point, what AIM's grievances were, how the FBI infiltrated them, and more.

But, above all, read the story of Leonard Peltier both before and after his conviction.

Is Leonard Peltier a political prisoner? Read this book and decide for yourself.

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reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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