Letter from the Founder, January 21, 2010

From Kalpulli Community

Dear Relatives Everywhere

Our Chinese Brethren got it right when they observed that crisis leads to opportunity. Our project, Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity has been conceived and birthed in crisis. Before proceeding be fairly warned that this letter will cover several subjects.

For starters, anyone with a normal degree of intelligence should realize that the American empire is disintegrating even more rapidly than an old catastrophist such as myself could have foreseen. During this tragic week we have seen the absolute moral and intellectual bankruptcy of what Gore Vidal calls "the left wing of the property party," the so-called Democratic party. It is an institution so completely without integrity or energy that there are only two nasty choices before us: we can either destroy it outright, or we can take it over and radicalize it so that it might have a worthy place in whatever is left of U.S. History. Others may articulate the drury prognostications, but it is clear that no institution in human history has made snatching defeat from the jaws of victory a fine art like the Democratic party. Like the Republicans, the Democrats are bought and paid for by the corporatocracy, and it is time to get rid of both of them. There will be more on our political tragedy in subsequent letters.

Let me now turn to a far more positive area of pursuit: if you have not had a chance to see the movie "Avatar," made possible by brother James Cameron, Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity and myself in particular, would very strongly urge you to see it, because it goes to the heart of why this project exists. My dear friend Russel Means, one of the founders of the American Indian Movement, once observed late in the so-called Cold War, that the issue was not communism versus capitalism, but industrialism versus indigenous perspectives. We had better make sure the latter comes out on top. And that is precisely the point of the movie Avatar. It is my hope that James Cameron and members of the governing council of Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity can meet soon. We are endorsing his film and we are hoping that the gentleman might be interested in helping to fund this enterprise.

Let me now turn to the subject of funding. Thanks to my fellow directors, Eric and Rebecca, Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity now has a Post Office Box address:

Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity
P.O. Box 28152
St. Paul, MN 55128
U.S.A.

Once again, let me remind all of you that if everybody on this planet who desires peace, democracy, ecological health and social justice would send a dollar or more to the address given above, Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity will be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Doctors Without Borders, the Rain Forest Action Network, Greenpeace, the Center for Science Environment and Technology, the International Peace Research Institute in Stockholm, and all other organizations dedicated to good. And we will be in a position to help take this world back.

This isn't about mindless polemic, one of our goals involves the planting, for example, of one hundred billion trees on this planet over the next 5 to 10 years. As the nation-states and the corporate world disintegrate, we need to build a lattice-work upon which human and other communities can reconstruct themselves. Therefore, we will be reaching out to Al-Jazeera News, Pacifica Radio, and other "hip" outlets to articulate our vision and share it with our nearly seven billion sisters and brothers.

This revolution must be bottom-up; it must be radical without being fanatical; it must be uncompromising without being fundamentalist; it must be for something rather than against. We are of course against imperialism and all the other negative -isms, but we must be for women's rights, indigenous rights, ecosystems that actually work, and equity for all.

Finally my relatives let me turn to a catastrophe in progress: when Haiti became the first independent black republic in the western hemisphere, in 1804, the world's predators were, needless to say, incensed. That old statutory rapist and racist Thomas Jefferson was busy waging war on indigenous people in 1804, so he turned his back on black human beings who had the courage to act out supposed American ideals on their own terms. Thus the United Stated ignored Haiti until the 1860s, this Empire has viciously persecuted the place since, including the occupation of the country from 1915 to 1934. From 1934 to the present, we have done everything in our power and then some to frustrate that battered little nation. With the onset of the January 12th tragedy, that representative of fascism known as the Heritage Foundation has bluntly declared that the earthquake affords certain interests the opportunity to reshape Haiti in our own image.

Speaking on behalf of Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity, let me say this: we demand the unconditional return of brother and president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the man who was overthrown by the United States, France and Canada in February 2004. We demand the reinstatement of Lavalas, the organization started by Mr Aristide. We demand an end to any imposition of Neo-Liberal prescriptions which absolutely guarantee the eventual destruction of the Haitian nation. The 7.6 magnitude earthquake which occurred on January 12th has brought everything to a head. As the U.S. Empire becomes a real nation again, we will give up the racist inspired grudge that we've held against the Haitian people since 1804. We will support their right to revolution on their terms. The corporate and religious fundamentalists be damned.

And by the way my relatives, don't you find it more than sad that Barrack Hussein Obama, this exercise in moral burnout, calls upon two of the very people who contributed to Haiti's misery for help in the so-called recovery effort. I am of course referring to Bill Clinton and the guy who literally can't talk, George Walker Bush. A plague on of them. If the Haitian people will grant us their permission, let us walk with them and talk with them in a substantive way as their junior partners as they become part of a revolutionary process that cannot be stopped. Our thoughts and energies are inspired by a statement that came out of what was then Czechoslovakia in 1968. In August of that sad year, both the U.S. and Soviet empires flexed their muscles against the possibility of revolution, and a Czech writer made the following statement, please note this well because it has implications for our own time. Here is what he said: "We are a nation of hippies and until the revolution happens within the Soviet Union, we haven't a hope of being truly liberated."

My relatives, Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity is here to announce that the real American revolution is underway, and getting the United States the hell off the World's back is our goal. The military industrial academic media complex is an inoperable cancer and yet we have to operate. As a friend of mine in Michigan is fond of saying, it's not about choice anymore. We are not stopping short and we are not compromising. As of today, January 21st, 2010, we see that the Supreme Court is telling the country that corporations can do whatever they damn well please. They will now be able to spend even more obscene sums of money in order to hold the political process. We must not be a nation of hippies. It's time to build a force capable of taking on and breaking the back of the corporatocracy, and putting an end to what brother's John Trudell and Ward Churchill called "the Predator."

Let us join hearts and hands; let us interrupt the policy junkies, the bankers, the fundamentalists of every sort and let's lay the foundation for a sustainable and balanced world, starting right now. Please send what you can send to the post office box mentioned above, so that we can show the world what we're for, and not just what we're against. Expect another letter next week. Feel free to respond to this website at kalpulli@kalpulli.net, or via phone at 651-714-0288.

Thank you in advance for joining this world revolution. We remain and I remain respectfully yours.

In the name of an evolving world,

Ray Tricomo