A New Retake Feature, Sunday at the Movies, with the First Installment Featuring Winona LaDuke on The Next Economy

By paulgibson51 on June 2, 2019 • ( 2 )

Sunday, you want to take it easy. So, grab some coffee and spend a bit of time with Winona LaDuke as she speaks truth to power like no one can. Inspiring and honest, this video captures exactly the kind of shift Retake has described in numerous posts. Except this is from Winona. Pour a cup and listen in to a conversation with Winona LaDuke. Each week, I will scan a dozen or more videos on various topics and share the best of the bunch on Sundays. Today, it is just a podcast, but not just any podcast, Winona LaDuke. Truly worth your next 50 minutes.. Sorry, but the internet went down at 5 am and is just now back on, so this is getting out late, perhaps after your morning coffee. Video follows a brief introduction to Winona LaDuke for those who aren’t familiar with her work. Enjoy.

Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development renewable energy and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is a two time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party.

As Program Director of the Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on the issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with Indigenous communities. And in her own community, she is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation based non profit organizations in the country, and a leader in the issues of culturally based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy and food systems. In this work, she also continues national and international work to protect Indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering.

In 2007, LaDuke was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, recognizing her leadership and community commitment. In 1994, LaDuke was nominated by Time magazine as one of America’s fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age. She has been awarded the Thomas Merton Award in 1996, Ms.Woman of the Year ( with the Indigo Girls in l997) , and the Reebok Human Rights Award, with which in part she began the White Earth Land Recovery Project. The White Earth Land Recovery Project has won many awards- including the prestigious 2003 International Slow Food Award for Biodiversity, recognizing the organization’s work to protect wild rice from patenting and genetic engineering.

A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, she has written extensively on Native American and environmental issues. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA and is presently an advisory board member for the Trust for Public Lands Native Lands Program as well as a boardmember of the Christensen Fund. The Author of five books, including Recovering the Sacred, All our Relations and a novel- Last Standing Woman, she is widely recognized for her work on environmental and human rights issues.