AIM - Help or Harm ?

[IlnuSoldier]

Very simple :

Sound off ... has AIM been more helpful or hurtful over the years?

Was it once helpful, but became hurtful ?
Was it always hurtful ?
Has it always been, to this day, helpful ?
Was it once hurtful, but now helpful ?

What did AIM do right ? What did AIM do wrong ?

[lostsalt]

Talk about a "hornet's nest" issue....


I'll just watch/listen read whatever

[timmy tiger]

Holy Crap!!!!

I'm outta here. Gonna do the same as Lostsalt and watch and read and DUCK.LOL

[wyo_rose]

Where's my 20 ft pole?

[Zeke]

Strategically?

HARM.

What's the danger in saying it? I've said it in multiple posts...

It started with a vision perceived (globally) as nothing beyond anger, then degenerated into an abyss of ineffectualness. Now, of course, they cannot even decide who they were or are. Denver? Minneapolis? Autonomous? Confederated? Sunni? Shiite? Patriots? Murderers? It's all revisionist history, written by each faction to self-glorify and aggrandize themselves. (In sum, it's ALL crap.)

There are those that rationalize AIM's Golden Age activities by imploring that, "any publicity is good publicity." B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T. That's what you say when you have no GOOD publicity. Which, of course, we couldn't get: after AIM's failed -- we never got a SINGLE, meaningful, long-term concession -- radicalization of guerilla marketing (at BEST, terroristic, at worst) tactics.

Grand scheme, removing romanticist emotion, their overall harm is self-evident.

What I find intriguing is our unwillingness to critique the movement.

Why is that?

[SuzzeQ4]

What I find intriguing is our unwillingness to critique the movement.

Why is that?

I'm ONLY answering Zeke's question. I think the unwillingness to critique the movement is that the idea of multiple Nations standing up together with young and old to fight for each other is a good idea and what many would like us to do (way in which to do so and fight for what is debateable). Good or bad, helpful or harmful there were people involved whose intent was pure. This we don't want to critique and it is hard to do so without insulting the pure. It's like loving and supporting your soldiers while disagreeing with the actions of their leaders. Tough to do without hurting the feelings of those you support.
And good or bad I think it lite a fire under our azz's when we needed it, the memory of the idea continues to lite fires under our azz and thats another reason people are reluctant to critique it, although doing so (constructivly) would help build something better.

[IlnuSoldier]

Well... as I have shown with my thread start.. I'm not hesitant to discuss in openly.

I mean.. everybody already knows how I feel about AIM....

(READ: When I say "AIM" I mean "The AIM Leadership"-- I know many AIM foot soldiers thought they were doing something good... the "AIM Leadership" is the "entity" that makes the calls and decides the fate of itself)
And I would say that AIM actually did not do most of the "cultural revival" as they are given credit... I would say the tribes were experiencing some revival AT THE SAME TIME... AIM may or may not have helped such revival... but I am not going to say that AIM is responsible for the revival.. ( READ : AIM was not meant to be a revival of culture--- it was meant to be a native Black Panther organization... militant and violent..... revival was not its goal)

Being a "Native Canadian" as opposed to "Native American"... .. I suppose that it should figure that "AIM" doesn't mean that much to me...

... so maybe if I was an American Indian from the AMerican West.. it might mean more.. but being First Nations from the East Coast..

...I can firmly say AIM doesn't mean much to me and it --from an "outsider looking in" perspective--- it really seems to have caused more problems than it fixed..

.. oh yea...

.. that and I still have a personal mission of revenge on the leaders of AIM for what they did to one of my own...

... so yea, I think AIM is shyt.

However, I made the thread to invite alternate views and to hear some various opinions..

However--- seems odd.. that those who DISLIKE AIM are quick to respond.. but those who claim to support it actually DON'T post anything...

Seems like those who dislike it clearly know why they dislike it.. and those who claim to support it won't, for whatever reason, post in its defense....

Seems like even the supporters are unsure of its value... ?

[Zeke]

However--- seems odd.. that those who DISLIKE AIM are quick to respond.. but those who claim to support it actually DON'T post anything...

Because, often, individuals have been collared into believing that to not support AIM is to not support American Indians. Which is, of course, untrue...

AIM, and Leonard Peltier's self-serving buffoonery, set us back 50 years on a national scale: with repercussion going far beyond the duration of their existence. Luckily, current, regional, whiners -- like the banned, from this site, KiowaKat -- only irritate Natives where they live and merely for the duration of their bemoaned bleating.

That's, actually, a significant victory. It means we're growing up and ignoring the tiny, small, short-sighted and ineffectual rabble.

EXCELLENT.