44 yrs ago Marlon Brando Oscar Rejection showed to Russell Means Peaceful Resistance as Change path

The Peace of God to all that belong to the Light
Dear Readers,

About 44 years ago, in the Oscar awards ceremony of March 27th 1973, a legend of Hollywood movie industry, Mr Marlon Brando was awarded with the so wished statue for his characterization of the Mob leader Dom Vito Corleoni in film "The God Father".

This was going to be the second Oscar of his successful acting career, and he decided that it was a great opportunity to express what he wanted to be remembered about, his legacy to the nation.

What few expected was that he decided to don't attend the event and also to reject the prize, but moreover sending a speech that became Historic in the fight for the civil rights in this country.

His was a gesture of respect to the Native Americans and condemning the terrible massacre of wounded Knee, in the long tradition of Annihilation of them, as well as their systematic exploitation by the entertainment industry along many decades in which Indians were used in westerns without never been awarded.

Moreover, Brando taught to Americans that when oppression comes over the nation civil peaceful resistance can make what perhaps nothing else to create the momentum for change that is required.

That was the time in which a President (Nixon) had arrived to power with one of the smallest voting supports in History, promising a secret plan to achieve peace with Honor that in the long run became the most dishonorable nightmare ever for America , the time of Vietnam war that he inherited just to transform it in the Laos an Cambodia wars too, before to assure his reelection through the most corrupt fraudulent political operation ever carried out.

It was a time of No Hope after years of internal oppression, and violence running without control in the streets, with no security for anybody, after the unpunished assassination of all the great figures of the Civil rights movement of the 1960s: John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcom X and Robert F. Kennedy.

Please check:
www.youtube.com...

Brando was not that Night in Hollywood but soon after the incident that his decision trigger he was interviewed by the media and expressed his absolute support to the Native Americans fight for civil rights, and the exploitation they had suffered along generations.

Please check:

www.youtube.com...

Just few weeks before the award ceremony of Oscars the nation experienced an epic incident of brave resistance of Native Dakota, Lakota and Sioux men that protested in wounded Knee for the horrible conditions their people lived in the reservations, that they described as inhuman racist actual concentration fields.

Please check:
www.history.com...

This incident that captured the attention of millions of Americans, not only of Marlon Brando, was leaded by an Iconic Native American figure of the fight for defense of the civil rights, his thinking represents the maximum expression of the philosophy of his people: Mr Russell Means.

Russsell, who was Not present in Hollywood when the incident of Brando Oscar, but arrested with serious charges of civil disobedience has been since them not only the voice of his people but also of the resistance of the average individual to the power of the large capitalist corporations that from his perspective have suffocated the social and economic independence of millions of peoples of all races in this country.

Please check:

www.youtube.com...

Russell learnt from Brando gesture of solidarity to his cause that what his arms didn't get in Wounded Knee, his ideals freely expressed through the media could achieve, that he had a powerful message to share with Americans of all races also prisoners of a system that didn't believe in them.

In 2010 Russell became a sort of moral conscience of the nation when he affirmed during the great Recession that America entirely had been transformed into a giant reservation field by the great economic interests, one in which millions of peoples had lost completely their freedom.

Please check:

www.youtube.com...

He became a great advocate of the organization of the ordinary citizens to defend their right to organize themselves in cooperative projects to generate their own economic means of survival and progress, he believes low and middle classes can own collectively industries and farms where the workers that labor on them really share a fair part of the profit and assure that a domestic market represents genuinely the interests of the majority of the Americans.

Russell Means preached until his death in 2012 a very original social Philosophy that could create a new future of prosperity for America, Not through wild capitalism, Not through socialism, Not through communism, it is not a change coming from the world of Politics, but of organization of civilians through cooperativism among the majoritarian force of the market: the great mass of average consumers.

Thanks for your attention,

The Angel of Lightness

Yet the Oscars have gone on pretty much the same, with self-important actors waxing eloquent on political issues they don't fully understand, making a mockery of their narcissism, and not changing anything.

a reply to: The angel of light

Thanks for this well-researched thread.

Russell was one of my heroes. A man who stood up for what he believed, paid the consequences for his actions and learned, then turned to another path. He did his best to warn us what was coming our way.

Brando made a lot of people aware of the problems of corruption the Indians were attempting to expose. The media wanted to focus on the gunfire---not the issues at hand. It was a time of great upheaval.

a reply to: diggindirt

Yes, I think Russell remains in History like the last Mohican of the tribe of great leaders of the civil rights movement that was exterminated by the dark reactionary forces of the fascist supremacists that only believe in oppression, explotation, discrimination, segregation and their project of a country economically looted and bankrupted to finance the industrial military establishment.

Thanks

Angel of Lightness

originally posted by: schuyler
Yet the Oscars have gone on pretty much the same, with self-important actors waxing eloquent on political issues they don't fully understand, making a mockery of their narcissism, and not changing anything.

In fairness, you could say the same about most self important politicians.............

a reply to: uncommitted

In between 1961 and 1981 America experienced it's most politically unstable period along its national History. In those twenty years the nation had five Presidents, so in average a new one every four years.

Gerald Ford , the only President never elected, called in his inaugural speech those two decades as the Long American Nightmare, while Jimmy Carter defined them as the worst national crisis of confidence, in his Malaise speech.

Please check

The long American Nightmare

The Malaise Speech

That trend ended in January of 1985 when Ronald Reagan became the first American that began a second term that he actually ended successfully since General Dwight Eisenhower did so.

It happens that he was among that generation of politicians, that counts with a Peace Nobel award, the longest career in Congress ever, the longest career in the white house after FDR, and a Pulitzer award recipient, the only President that was not in a politics profesion along his entire public life, he was an Actor that changed Hollywood for the Governor office of California.

Thanks

The Angel of Lightness