A Progress 2025 Vision of Self-Determination

Oct 2, 2024

Project 2025, created by the extremist right-wing Heritage Foundation, takes a colonialist position on U.S. influence at home and abroad. Its authors argue that too much public land is not being used to its full potential and should be sold to private interests for development and fossil fuel extraction.聽

They also want to strengthen the U.S. military and call for increasing the army鈥檚 budget in order to 鈥渄efend our nation鈥檚 sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.鈥� They also want to increase investment in weapons development and expand nuclear arsenals.

What would a progressive vision of anti-colonialism and sovereignty look like? As climate catastrophes such as the U.S.鈥檚 Hurricane Helene and Europe鈥檚 historic flooding damage communities, and as Israel carries out a genocide in Gaza and expands its war into Lebanon and Yemen (with the help of the U.S. military), how are Indigenous communities expressing what鈥檚 most needed to ensure sovereignty and justice?聽Nick Tilsen, citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation and president and CEO of the , spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali to help answer that question.

Sonali Kolhatkar joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of聽YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute鈥檚 Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of聽Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice聽(2023) and聽Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence聽(2005). Her forthcoming book is called聽Talking About Abolition聽(Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women鈥檚 Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master鈥檚 in Astronomy from the University of Hawai鈥檌, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on 鈥淢y Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host鈥� in her 2014聽聽of the same name.