Survey finds indication of overt, subtle racism
By S.E. RUCKMAN
World Staff Writer
10/2/2007
American Indians are more likely to be regarded with prejudice than are other minorities by white TU students, a study shows.
"The findings support the idea that although overtly racist ideas toward African-Americans appear to be less prevalent in contemporary America, overt racism towards Native Americans is present," TU researchers said in the study.
Results were from a written survey of 55 white, middle-class college students in their 20s at TU who had been in college for more than a year.
The study found that American Indians were consistently regarded less favorably on social factor indicator scales than black people.
Researchers said the mix of the state's many tribes increased the likelihood of students coming into contact with an Indian person.
According to 2006 U.S. Census estimates, 43,364 self-identified American Indians live in Tulsa County. Statewide, the number is 397,041.
Findings from the study indicate that although the respondents knew that Indians are different in culture, they were viewed less positively than black people, a factor they attributed to "subtle racism."
One aspect was perceived privileges, such as free health care, researchers said.
Researcher Dennis Combs, a former TU associate psychology professor who now works at the University of Texas-Tyler, said the findings are surprising because college students are perceived as liberal regarding race issues.
"Also, Native Americans may also be subject to a newer form of racism called subtle racism, which is centered on them as being different, having poor work ethic, and unfavorable," said Combs, who conducted the study along with student Melissa Tibbits.
Indians also are more likely to be regarded with "blatant prejudice" than black people, the survey showed.
The study also found that particular attributes, such as associating Indians with a heightened sense of nature and spiritual awareness -- while not negative -- paint a picture based on assumptions rather than reality.
Officials with the Tulsa Indian Coalition on Racism, who viewed the study's results, said that when generalities about Indians abound, negative viewpoints are nurtured and sustained.
"People think we have privilege and all get gaming checks. . . . That's not true," TICAR President Louis Gray said.
"People don't think of us as human; we're just symbols, but we have hopes and dreams like everyone else," he said.
Gray said education is key in getting a more realistic image of Indians across to the general public.
Nancy Day, executive director of the Oklahoma Conference for Community and Justice, said, "The roots of contemporary discrimination and racism directed against native peoples can be traced to the early periods of our country's history, and the manifestations of this discrimination are myriad."
Combs said, "In my opinion, the question that needs to be answered is where do these overtly racist attitudes come from, and one possible source is the negative stereotyping that Native Americans experience on a daily basis."
Preliminary findings from the same report were presented two years ago to TICAR.
Gray said he was surprised that the viewpoints had changed little among college students.
"Frankly," he said, "I was hoping that people would be more informed of what we face every day."
--
Contact S.E. Ruckman at se.ruckman@tulsaworld.com
Copyright © 2007 , World Publishing Co.
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.]
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Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Specific suggestion: General Strike
Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust.
—Isaiah 26:19
1.
Of all the various depredations of the Bush regime, none has been so thorough as its plundering of hope. Iraq will recover sooner. What was supposed to have been the crux of our foreign policy—a shock-and-awe tutorial on the utter futility of any opposition to the whims of American power—has achieved its greatest and perhaps its only lasting success in the American soul. You will want to cite the exceptions, the lunch-hour protests against the war, the dinner-party ejaculations of dissent, though you might also want to ask what substantive difference they bear to grousing about the weather or even to raging against the dying of the light—that is, to any ritualized complaint against forces universally acknowledged as unalterable. Bush is no longer the name of a president so much as the abbreviation of a proverb, something between Murphy’s Law and tomorrow’s fatal inducement to drink and be merry today.
If someone were to suggest, for example, that we begin a general strike on Election Day, November 6, 2007, for the sole purpose of removing this regime from power, how readily and with what well-practiced assurance would you find yourself producing the words “It won’t do any good”? Plausible and even courageous in the mouth of a patient who knows he’s going to die, the sentiment fits equally well in the heart of a citizen-ry that believes it is already dead.
2.
Any strike, whether it happens in a factory, a nation, or a marriage, amounts to a reaffirmation of consent. The strikers remind their overlords—and, equally important, themselves—that the seemingly perpetual machinery of daily life has an off switch as well as an on. Camus said that the one serious question of philosophy is whether or not to commit suicide; the one serious question of political philosophy is whether or not to get out of bed. Silly as it may have seemed at the time, John and Yoko’s famous stunt was based on a profound observation. Instant karma is not so instant—we ratify it day by day.
The stream of commuters heading into the city, the caravan of tractor-trailers pulling out of the rest stop into the dawn’s early light, speak a deep-throated Yes to the sum total of what’s going on in our collective life. The poet Richard Wilbur writes of the “ripped mouse” that “cries Concordance” in the talons of the owl; we too cry our daily assent in the grip of the prevailing order— except in those notable instances when, like a donkey or a Buddha, we refuse to budge.
The question we need to ask ourselves at this moment is what further provocations we require to justify digging in our heels. To put the question more pointedly: Are we willing to wait until the next presidential election, or for some interim congressional conversion experience, knowing that if we do wait, hundreds of our sons and daughters will be needlessly destroyed? Another poet, César Vallejo, framed the question like this:
A man shivers with cold, coughs, spits up blood.
Will it ever be fitting to allude to my inner soul? . . .
A cripple sleeps with one foot on his shoulder.
Shall I later on talk about Picasso, of all people?
A young man goes to Walter Reed without a face. Shall I make an appointment with my barber? A female prisoner is sodomized at Abu Ghraib. Shall I send a check to the Clinton campaign?
3.
You will recall that a major theme of the Bush Administration’s response to September 11 was that life should go on as usual. We should keep saying that broad consensual Yes as loudly as we dared. We could best express our patriotism by hitting the malls, by booking a flight to Disney World. At the time, the advice seemed prudent enough: avoid hysteria; defy the intimidations of murderers and fanatics.
In hindsight it’s hard not to see the roots of our predicament in the readiness with which we took that advice to heart. We did exactly as we were told, with a net result that is less an implicit defiance of terrorism than a tacit amen to the “war on terror,” including the war in Iraq. Granted, many of us have come to find both those wars unacceptable. But do we find them intolerable? Can you sleep? Yes, doctor, I can sleep. Can you work? Yes, doctor, I can work. Do you get out to the movies, enjoy a good restaurant? Actually, I have a reservation for tonight. Then I’d say you were doing okay, wouldn’t you? I’d say you were tolerating the treatment fairly well.
It is one thing to endure abuses and to carry on in spite of them. It is quite another thing to carry on to the point of abetting the abuse. We need to move the discussion of our nation’s health to the emergency room. We need to tell the doctors of the body politic that the treatment isn’t working—and that until it changes radically for the better, neither are we.
4.
No one person, least of all a freelance writer, has the prerogative to call or set the date for a general strike. What do you guys do for a strike, sit on your overdue library books? Still, what day more fitting for a strike than the first Tuesday of November, the Feast of the Hanging Chads? What other day on the national calendar cries so loudly for rededication?
The only date that comes close is September 11. You have to do a bit of soul-searching to see it, but one result of the Bush presidency has been a loss of connection to those who perished that day. Unless they were members of our families, unless we were involved in their rescue, do we think of them? It’s too easy to say that time eases the grief—there’s more to it than that, more even than the natural tendency to shy away from brooding on disasters that might happen again. We avoid thinking of the September 11 victims because to think of them we have to think also of what we have allowed to happen in their names. Or, if we object openly to what has happened, we have to parry the insinuation that we’re unmoved by their loss.
It is time for us to make a public profession of faith that the people who went to work that morning, who caught the cabs and rode the elevators and later jumped to their deaths, were not on the whole people who would sanction extraordinary rendition, preemptive war, and the suspension of habeas corpus; that in their heels and suits they were at least as decent as any sneaker-shod person standing vigil outside a post office with a stop the war sign. That the government workers who died in the Pentagon were not by some strange congenital fluke more obtuse than the high-ranking officers who thought the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea from the get-go. That the passengers who rushed the hijackers on Flight 93 were not repeating the mantra “It won’t do any good” while scratching their heads and their asses in a happy-hour funk.
An Election Day general strike would set our remembrance of those people free from the sarcophagi of rhetoric and rationalization. It would be the political equivalent of raising them from the dead. It would be a clear if sadly delayed message of solidarity to those voters in Ohio and Florida who were pretty much told they could drop dead.
5.
But how would it work? A curious question to ask given that not working is most of what it would entail. Not working until the president and the shadow president resigned or were impeached. Never mind what happens next. Rather, let our mandarins ask how this came to happen in the first place. Let them ask in shock and awe.
People who could not, for whatever reason, cease work could at least curtail consumption. In fact, that might prove the more effective action of the two. They could vacate the shopping malls. They could cancel their flights. With the aid of their Higher Power, they could turn off their cell phones. They could unplug their TVs.
The most successful general strike imaginable would require extraordinary measures simply to announce its success. It would require sound trucks going up and down the streets, Rupert Murdoch reduced to croaking through a bullhorn. Bonfires blazing on the hills. Bells tolling till they cracked. (Don’t we have one of those on display somewhere?)
Ironically, the segment of the population most unable to participate would be the troops stationed in the Middle East. Striking in their circumstances would amount to suicide. That distinction alone ought to suffice as a reason to strike, as a reminder of the unconscionable underside of our “normal” existence. We get on with our lives, they get on with their deaths.
As for how the strike would be publicized and organized, these would depend on the willingness to strike itself. The greater the willingness, the fewer the logistical requirements. How many Americans does it take to change a lightbulb? How many Web postings, how many emblazoned bedsheets hung from the upper-story windows? Think of it this way: How many hours does it take to learn the results of last night’s American Idol, even when you don’t want to know?
In 1943 the Danes managed to save 7,200 of their 7,800 Jewish neighbors from the Gestapo. They had no blogs, no television, no text messaging—and very little time to prepare. They passed their apartment keys to the hunted on the streets. They formed convoys to the coast. An ambulance driver set out with a phone book, stopping at any address with a Jewish-sounding name. No GPS for directions. No excuse not to try.
But what if it failed? What if the general strike proved to be anything but general? I thought Bush was supposed to be the one afraid of science. Hypothesis, experiment, analysis, conclusion—are they his hobgoblins or ours? What do we have to fear, except additional evidence that George W. Bush is exactly what he appears to be: the president few of us like and most of us deserve. But science dares to test the obvious. So let us dare.
6.
We could hardly be accused of innovation. General strikes have a long and venerable history. They’re as retro as the Bill of Rights. There was one in Great Britain in 1926, in France in 1968, in Ukraine in 2004, in Guinea just this year. Finns do it, Nepalis do it, even people without email do it . . .
But we don’t have to do it, you will say, because “we have a process.” Have or had, the verb remains tentative. In regard to verbs, Dick Cheney showed his superlative talent for le mot juste when in the halls of the U.S. Congress he told Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy to go fuck himself. He has since told congressional investigators to do the same thing. There’s your process. Dick Cheney could lie every day of his life for all the years of Methuselah, and for the sake of that one remark history would still need to remember him as an honest man. In the next world, Diogenes will kneel down before him. In this world, though, and in spite of the invitation tendered to me through my senator, I choose to remain on my feet.
“United we stand,” isn’t that how it goes? But we are not united, not by a long shot. At this juncture we may be able to unite only in what we will not stand for. The justification of torture, the violation of our privacy, the betrayal of our intelligence operatives, the bankrupting of our commonwealth, the besmirching of our country’s name, the feckless response to natural disaster, the dictatorial inflation of executive power, the senseless butchery of our youth—if these do not constitute a common ground for intolerance, what does?
People were indignant at the findings of the 9/11 Commission—it seems there were compelling reasons to believe an attack was imminent!—yet for the attack on our Constitution we have evidence even more compelling. How can we criticize an administration for failing to act in the face of a probable threat given our own refusal to act in the face of a threat already fulfilled? As long as we’re willing to go on with our business, Bush and Cheney will feel free to go on with their coup. As long as we’re willing to continue fucking ourselves, why should they have any scruples about telling us to smile during the act?
7.
Between undertaking the strike and achieving its objective, the latter requires the greater courage. It requires courage simply to admit that this is so. For too many of us, Bush has become a secret craving, an addiction. We loathe Bush the way that Peter Pan loathed Captain Hook; he’s a villain, to be sure, but he’s half the fun of living in Never-Never Land. He has provided us with an inexhaustible supply of editorial copy, partisan rectitude, and every sort of lame excuse for not engaging the system he represents. In that sense, asking “What if the strike were to fail?” is not even honest. On some level we would want it to fail.
Certainly this would be true of those who’ve declared themselves as presidential candidates and for whom the Bush legacy represents an unprecedented windfall of political capital. One need only speak a coherent sentence—one need only breathe from a differently shaped smirk—to seem like a savior. Ding-dong, the Witch is dead. Already I can see the winged monkeys who signed off on the Patriot Act and the Iraq invasion jumping up and down for joy. Already I can hear the nauseating gush: “Such a welcome relief after Bush!” Relief, yes. But relief is not hope.
How much better if we could say to our next administration: Don’t talk about Bush. We dealt with Bush. We dealt with Bush and in so doing we demonstrated our ability to deal with you. You have a mandate more rigorous than looking good beside Bush. You need a program more ambitious than “uniting the country.” We are united—at least we were, if only for a while, if only in our disgust. If only I believed all this would happen.
I wrote this appeal during the days leading up to the Fourth of July. I wrote it because for the past six and a half years I have heard the people I love best—family members, friends, former students and parishioners—saying, “I’m sick over what’s happening to our country, but I just don’t know what to do.” Might I be pardoned if, fearing civil disorder less than I fear civil despair, I said, “Well, we could do this.” It has been done before and we could do this. And I do believe we could. If anyone has a better idea, I’m keen to hear it. Only don’t tell me what some presidential hopeful ought to do someday. Tell me what the people who have nearly lost their hope can do right now.
—Isaiah 26:19
1.
Of all the various depredations of the Bush regime, none has been so thorough as its plundering of hope. Iraq will recover sooner. What was supposed to have been the crux of our foreign policy—a shock-and-awe tutorial on the utter futility of any opposition to the whims of American power—has achieved its greatest and perhaps its only lasting success in the American soul. You will want to cite the exceptions, the lunch-hour protests against the war, the dinner-party ejaculations of dissent, though you might also want to ask what substantive difference they bear to grousing about the weather or even to raging against the dying of the light—that is, to any ritualized complaint against forces universally acknowledged as unalterable. Bush is no longer the name of a president so much as the abbreviation of a proverb, something between Murphy’s Law and tomorrow’s fatal inducement to drink and be merry today.
If someone were to suggest, for example, that we begin a general strike on Election Day, November 6, 2007, for the sole purpose of removing this regime from power, how readily and with what well-practiced assurance would you find yourself producing the words “It won’t do any good”? Plausible and even courageous in the mouth of a patient who knows he’s going to die, the sentiment fits equally well in the heart of a citizen-ry that believes it is already dead.
2.
Any strike, whether it happens in a factory, a nation, or a marriage, amounts to a reaffirmation of consent. The strikers remind their overlords—and, equally important, themselves—that the seemingly perpetual machinery of daily life has an off switch as well as an on. Camus said that the one serious question of philosophy is whether or not to commit suicide; the one serious question of political philosophy is whether or not to get out of bed. Silly as it may have seemed at the time, John and Yoko’s famous stunt was based on a profound observation. Instant karma is not so instant—we ratify it day by day.
The stream of commuters heading into the city, the caravan of tractor-trailers pulling out of the rest stop into the dawn’s early light, speak a deep-throated Yes to the sum total of what’s going on in our collective life. The poet Richard Wilbur writes of the “ripped mouse” that “cries Concordance” in the talons of the owl; we too cry our daily assent in the grip of the prevailing order— except in those notable instances when, like a donkey or a Buddha, we refuse to budge.
The question we need to ask ourselves at this moment is what further provocations we require to justify digging in our heels. To put the question more pointedly: Are we willing to wait until the next presidential election, or for some interim congressional conversion experience, knowing that if we do wait, hundreds of our sons and daughters will be needlessly destroyed? Another poet, César Vallejo, framed the question like this:
A man shivers with cold, coughs, spits up blood.
Will it ever be fitting to allude to my inner soul? . . .
A cripple sleeps with one foot on his shoulder.
Shall I later on talk about Picasso, of all people?
A young man goes to Walter Reed without a face. Shall I make an appointment with my barber? A female prisoner is sodomized at Abu Ghraib. Shall I send a check to the Clinton campaign?
3.
You will recall that a major theme of the Bush Administration’s response to September 11 was that life should go on as usual. We should keep saying that broad consensual Yes as loudly as we dared. We could best express our patriotism by hitting the malls, by booking a flight to Disney World. At the time, the advice seemed prudent enough: avoid hysteria; defy the intimidations of murderers and fanatics.
In hindsight it’s hard not to see the roots of our predicament in the readiness with which we took that advice to heart. We did exactly as we were told, with a net result that is less an implicit defiance of terrorism than a tacit amen to the “war on terror,” including the war in Iraq. Granted, many of us have come to find both those wars unacceptable. But do we find them intolerable? Can you sleep? Yes, doctor, I can sleep. Can you work? Yes, doctor, I can work. Do you get out to the movies, enjoy a good restaurant? Actually, I have a reservation for tonight. Then I’d say you were doing okay, wouldn’t you? I’d say you were tolerating the treatment fairly well.
It is one thing to endure abuses and to carry on in spite of them. It is quite another thing to carry on to the point of abetting the abuse. We need to move the discussion of our nation’s health to the emergency room. We need to tell the doctors of the body politic that the treatment isn’t working—and that until it changes radically for the better, neither are we.
4.
No one person, least of all a freelance writer, has the prerogative to call or set the date for a general strike. What do you guys do for a strike, sit on your overdue library books? Still, what day more fitting for a strike than the first Tuesday of November, the Feast of the Hanging Chads? What other day on the national calendar cries so loudly for rededication?
The only date that comes close is September 11. You have to do a bit of soul-searching to see it, but one result of the Bush presidency has been a loss of connection to those who perished that day. Unless they were members of our families, unless we were involved in their rescue, do we think of them? It’s too easy to say that time eases the grief—there’s more to it than that, more even than the natural tendency to shy away from brooding on disasters that might happen again. We avoid thinking of the September 11 victims because to think of them we have to think also of what we have allowed to happen in their names. Or, if we object openly to what has happened, we have to parry the insinuation that we’re unmoved by their loss.
It is time for us to make a public profession of faith that the people who went to work that morning, who caught the cabs and rode the elevators and later jumped to their deaths, were not on the whole people who would sanction extraordinary rendition, preemptive war, and the suspension of habeas corpus; that in their heels and suits they were at least as decent as any sneaker-shod person standing vigil outside a post office with a stop the war sign. That the government workers who died in the Pentagon were not by some strange congenital fluke more obtuse than the high-ranking officers who thought the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea from the get-go. That the passengers who rushed the hijackers on Flight 93 were not repeating the mantra “It won’t do any good” while scratching their heads and their asses in a happy-hour funk.
An Election Day general strike would set our remembrance of those people free from the sarcophagi of rhetoric and rationalization. It would be the political equivalent of raising them from the dead. It would be a clear if sadly delayed message of solidarity to those voters in Ohio and Florida who were pretty much told they could drop dead.
5.
But how would it work? A curious question to ask given that not working is most of what it would entail. Not working until the president and the shadow president resigned or were impeached. Never mind what happens next. Rather, let our mandarins ask how this came to happen in the first place. Let them ask in shock and awe.
People who could not, for whatever reason, cease work could at least curtail consumption. In fact, that might prove the more effective action of the two. They could vacate the shopping malls. They could cancel their flights. With the aid of their Higher Power, they could turn off their cell phones. They could unplug their TVs.
The most successful general strike imaginable would require extraordinary measures simply to announce its success. It would require sound trucks going up and down the streets, Rupert Murdoch reduced to croaking through a bullhorn. Bonfires blazing on the hills. Bells tolling till they cracked. (Don’t we have one of those on display somewhere?)
Ironically, the segment of the population most unable to participate would be the troops stationed in the Middle East. Striking in their circumstances would amount to suicide. That distinction alone ought to suffice as a reason to strike, as a reminder of the unconscionable underside of our “normal” existence. We get on with our lives, they get on with their deaths.
As for how the strike would be publicized and organized, these would depend on the willingness to strike itself. The greater the willingness, the fewer the logistical requirements. How many Americans does it take to change a lightbulb? How many Web postings, how many emblazoned bedsheets hung from the upper-story windows? Think of it this way: How many hours does it take to learn the results of last night’s American Idol, even when you don’t want to know?
In 1943 the Danes managed to save 7,200 of their 7,800 Jewish neighbors from the Gestapo. They had no blogs, no television, no text messaging—and very little time to prepare. They passed their apartment keys to the hunted on the streets. They formed convoys to the coast. An ambulance driver set out with a phone book, stopping at any address with a Jewish-sounding name. No GPS for directions. No excuse not to try.
But what if it failed? What if the general strike proved to be anything but general? I thought Bush was supposed to be the one afraid of science. Hypothesis, experiment, analysis, conclusion—are they his hobgoblins or ours? What do we have to fear, except additional evidence that George W. Bush is exactly what he appears to be: the president few of us like and most of us deserve. But science dares to test the obvious. So let us dare.
6.
We could hardly be accused of innovation. General strikes have a long and venerable history. They’re as retro as the Bill of Rights. There was one in Great Britain in 1926, in France in 1968, in Ukraine in 2004, in Guinea just this year. Finns do it, Nepalis do it, even people without email do it . . .
But we don’t have to do it, you will say, because “we have a process.” Have or had, the verb remains tentative. In regard to verbs, Dick Cheney showed his superlative talent for le mot juste when in the halls of the U.S. Congress he told Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy to go fuck himself. He has since told congressional investigators to do the same thing. There’s your process. Dick Cheney could lie every day of his life for all the years of Methuselah, and for the sake of that one remark history would still need to remember him as an honest man. In the next world, Diogenes will kneel down before him. In this world, though, and in spite of the invitation tendered to me through my senator, I choose to remain on my feet.
“United we stand,” isn’t that how it goes? But we are not united, not by a long shot. At this juncture we may be able to unite only in what we will not stand for. The justification of torture, the violation of our privacy, the betrayal of our intelligence operatives, the bankrupting of our commonwealth, the besmirching of our country’s name, the feckless response to natural disaster, the dictatorial inflation of executive power, the senseless butchery of our youth—if these do not constitute a common ground for intolerance, what does?
People were indignant at the findings of the 9/11 Commission—it seems there were compelling reasons to believe an attack was imminent!—yet for the attack on our Constitution we have evidence even more compelling. How can we criticize an administration for failing to act in the face of a probable threat given our own refusal to act in the face of a threat already fulfilled? As long as we’re willing to go on with our business, Bush and Cheney will feel free to go on with their coup. As long as we’re willing to continue fucking ourselves, why should they have any scruples about telling us to smile during the act?
7.
Between undertaking the strike and achieving its objective, the latter requires the greater courage. It requires courage simply to admit that this is so. For too many of us, Bush has become a secret craving, an addiction. We loathe Bush the way that Peter Pan loathed Captain Hook; he’s a villain, to be sure, but he’s half the fun of living in Never-Never Land. He has provided us with an inexhaustible supply of editorial copy, partisan rectitude, and every sort of lame excuse for not engaging the system he represents. In that sense, asking “What if the strike were to fail?” is not even honest. On some level we would want it to fail.
Certainly this would be true of those who’ve declared themselves as presidential candidates and for whom the Bush legacy represents an unprecedented windfall of political capital. One need only speak a coherent sentence—one need only breathe from a differently shaped smirk—to seem like a savior. Ding-dong, the Witch is dead. Already I can see the winged monkeys who signed off on the Patriot Act and the Iraq invasion jumping up and down for joy. Already I can hear the nauseating gush: “Such a welcome relief after Bush!” Relief, yes. But relief is not hope.
How much better if we could say to our next administration: Don’t talk about Bush. We dealt with Bush. We dealt with Bush and in so doing we demonstrated our ability to deal with you. You have a mandate more rigorous than looking good beside Bush. You need a program more ambitious than “uniting the country.” We are united—at least we were, if only for a while, if only in our disgust. If only I believed all this would happen.
I wrote this appeal during the days leading up to the Fourth of July. I wrote it because for the past six and a half years I have heard the people I love best—family members, friends, former students and parishioners—saying, “I’m sick over what’s happening to our country, but I just don’t know what to do.” Might I be pardoned if, fearing civil disorder less than I fear civil despair, I said, “Well, we could do this.” It has been done before and we could do this. And I do believe we could. If anyone has a better idea, I’m keen to hear it. Only don’t tell me what some presidential hopeful ought to do someday. Tell me what the people who have nearly lost their hope can do right now.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
United Nations: Native declaration
At the United Nations, the world has solemnly committed itself to better treatment of native populations. Well, most of the world, except for some of those that have the most responsibility for relating to indigenous populations.
Yup. The Bush administration and three other diehard governments -- Canada, New Zealand and Australia -- couldn't bring themselves to support the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Far be it from us to ponder thoughts of any special ethnocentrism in largely English-speaking lands; Britain, Ireland, Jamaica and other countries didn't oppose the statement. Appropriately, the four no voters squirmed, straining to explain concerns about technicalities, language and possible conflicts with their own laws, even though the declaration generally wouldn't be binding.
It took more than 20 years for the declaration to receive Thursday's approval from the U.N. General Assembly. You would think that, even under the Bush administration, this country, with one of the largest native populations, would have found a way to be a part of the progress and celebration.
U.S. delegate Robert Hagen did put the administration on record as committed to respect for tribal governments and their rights. "My government will continue its vigorous efforts to promote indigenous rights domestically," he said. But with a new world standard, even federal, state and local authorities will have to do better as they deal with tribal rights. The U.N. declaration is a step toward greater mutual respect and progress on behalf of all.
©1996-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Yup. The Bush administration and three other diehard governments -- Canada, New Zealand and Australia -- couldn't bring themselves to support the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Far be it from us to ponder thoughts of any special ethnocentrism in largely English-speaking lands; Britain, Ireland, Jamaica and other countries didn't oppose the statement. Appropriately, the four no voters squirmed, straining to explain concerns about technicalities, language and possible conflicts with their own laws, even though the declaration generally wouldn't be binding.
It took more than 20 years for the declaration to receive Thursday's approval from the U.N. General Assembly. You would think that, even under the Bush administration, this country, with one of the largest native populations, would have found a way to be a part of the progress and celebration.
U.S. delegate Robert Hagen did put the administration on record as committed to respect for tribal governments and their rights. "My government will continue its vigorous efforts to promote indigenous rights domestically," he said. But with a new world standard, even federal, state and local authorities will have to do better as they deal with tribal rights. The U.N. declaration is a step toward greater mutual respect and progress on behalf of all.
©1996-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Friday, September 07, 2007
Judge Strikes Down Part of Patriot Act
Friday September 7, 2007 7:16 AM
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - A federal judge struck down a key part of the USA Patriot Act on Thursday in a ruling that defended the need for judicial oversight of laws and bashed Congress for passing a law that makes possible "far-reaching invasions of liberty."
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero immediately stayed the effect of his ruling, allowing the government time to appeal. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said: ``We are reviewing the decision and considering our options at this time.''
The ruling handed the American Civil Liberties Union a major victory in its challenge of the post-Sept. 11 law that gave broader investigative powers to law enforcement.
The ACLU had challenged the law on behalf of an Internet service provider, complaining that the law allowed the FBI to demand records without the kind of court supervision required for other government searches. Under the law, investigators can issue so-called national security letters to entities like Internet service providers and phone companies and demand customers' phone and Internet records.
In his ruling, Marrero said much more was at stake than questions about the national security letters.
He said Congress, in the original USA Patriot Act and less so in a 2005 revision, had essentially tried to legislate how the judiciary must review challenges to the law. If done to other bills, they ultimately could all ``be styled to make the validation of the law foolproof.''
Noting that the courthouse where he resides is several blocks from the fallen World Trade Center, the judge said the Constitution was designed so that the dangers of any given moment could never justify discarding fundamental individual liberties.
He said when ``the judiciary lowers its guard on the Constitution, it opens the door to far-reaching invasions of liberty.''
Regarding the national security letters, he said, Congress crossed its boundaries so dramatically that to let the law stand might turn an innocent legislative step into ``the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values.''
He said the ruling does not mean the FBI must obtain the approval of a court prior to ordering records be turned over, but rather must justify to a court the need for secrecy if the orders will last longer than a reasonable and brief period of time.
A March government report showed that the FBI issued about 8,500 national security letter, or NSL, requests in 2000, the year prior to passage of the USA Patriot Act. By 2003, the number of requests had risen to 39,000 and to 56,000 in 2004 before falling to 47,000 in 2005. The overwhelming majority of the requests sought telephone billing records information, telephone or e-mail subscriber information or electronic communication transactional records.
The judge said that through the NSLs, the government can unmask the identity of Internet users engaged in anonymous speech in online discussions, can obtain an itemized list of all e-mails sent and received by someone and can then seek information on those communicating with the individual.
``It may even be able to discover the web sites an individual has visited and queries submitted to search engines,'' the judge said.
Marrero's lengthy judicial opinion, akin to an eighth-grade civics lesson, described why the framers of the Constitution created three separate but equal branches of government and delegated to the judiciary to say what the law is and to protect the Constitution and the rights it gives citizens.
Marrero said the constitutional barriers against governmental abuse ``may eventually collapse, with consequential diminution of the judiciary's function, and hence potential dire effects to individual freedoms.''
In that event, he said, the judiciary could become ``a mere mouthpiece of the legislature.''
Marrero had ruled in 2004, on the initial version of the Patriot Act, that the letters violate the Constitution because they amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. He found free-speech violations in the nondisclosure requirement, which for example, disallowed an Internet service provider from telling customers their records were being turned over to the government.
After he ruled, Congress revised the Patriot Act in 2005, and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directed that Marrero review the law's constitutionality a second time.
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - A federal judge struck down a key part of the USA Patriot Act on Thursday in a ruling that defended the need for judicial oversight of laws and bashed Congress for passing a law that makes possible "far-reaching invasions of liberty."
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero immediately stayed the effect of his ruling, allowing the government time to appeal. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said: ``We are reviewing the decision and considering our options at this time.''
The ruling handed the American Civil Liberties Union a major victory in its challenge of the post-Sept. 11 law that gave broader investigative powers to law enforcement.
The ACLU had challenged the law on behalf of an Internet service provider, complaining that the law allowed the FBI to demand records without the kind of court supervision required for other government searches. Under the law, investigators can issue so-called national security letters to entities like Internet service providers and phone companies and demand customers' phone and Internet records.
In his ruling, Marrero said much more was at stake than questions about the national security letters.
He said Congress, in the original USA Patriot Act and less so in a 2005 revision, had essentially tried to legislate how the judiciary must review challenges to the law. If done to other bills, they ultimately could all ``be styled to make the validation of the law foolproof.''
Noting that the courthouse where he resides is several blocks from the fallen World Trade Center, the judge said the Constitution was designed so that the dangers of any given moment could never justify discarding fundamental individual liberties.
He said when ``the judiciary lowers its guard on the Constitution, it opens the door to far-reaching invasions of liberty.''
Regarding the national security letters, he said, Congress crossed its boundaries so dramatically that to let the law stand might turn an innocent legislative step into ``the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values.''
He said the ruling does not mean the FBI must obtain the approval of a court prior to ordering records be turned over, but rather must justify to a court the need for secrecy if the orders will last longer than a reasonable and brief period of time.
A March government report showed that the FBI issued about 8,500 national security letter, or NSL, requests in 2000, the year prior to passage of the USA Patriot Act. By 2003, the number of requests had risen to 39,000 and to 56,000 in 2004 before falling to 47,000 in 2005. The overwhelming majority of the requests sought telephone billing records information, telephone or e-mail subscriber information or electronic communication transactional records.
The judge said that through the NSLs, the government can unmask the identity of Internet users engaged in anonymous speech in online discussions, can obtain an itemized list of all e-mails sent and received by someone and can then seek information on those communicating with the individual.
``It may even be able to discover the web sites an individual has visited and queries submitted to search engines,'' the judge said.
Marrero's lengthy judicial opinion, akin to an eighth-grade civics lesson, described why the framers of the Constitution created three separate but equal branches of government and delegated to the judiciary to say what the law is and to protect the Constitution and the rights it gives citizens.
Marrero said the constitutional barriers against governmental abuse ``may eventually collapse, with consequential diminution of the judiciary's function, and hence potential dire effects to individual freedoms.''
In that event, he said, the judiciary could become ``a mere mouthpiece of the legislature.''
Marrero had ruled in 2004, on the initial version of the Patriot Act, that the letters violate the Constitution because they amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. He found free-speech violations in the nondisclosure requirement, which for example, disallowed an Internet service provider from telling customers their records were being turned over to the government.
After he ruled, Congress revised the Patriot Act in 2005, and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directed that Marrero review the law's constitutionality a second time.
Indigenous on offense: Treaty gathering, U.N. vote coincide
Briggs: Indigenous on offense: Treaty gathering, U.N. vote coincide
by: Kara Briggs / Today correspondent
On Sept. 13, the United Nations General Assembly is expected to vote on the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Sources privy to an intervention by Mexico, Guatemala and Peru with African states that have opposed the declaration say they have reached a set of small revisions that leave key tenants of the declaration in tact.
Speaking as recently as one month ago at a treaty gathering of indigenous nations at the Lummi Nation in Washington state, Oren Lyons, Onondaga Nation Faithkeeper, was concerned. He told those assembled, ''We have worked since 1977 on the draft declaration, and it's about to be shot down by four African nations under the direction of the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
''They're going to try to change the language on self determination, on collective rights and about all the rights concerning the natural world.''
The declaration drafted by American Indians 30 years ago was intended to recognize indigenous peoples in an international setting - a setting that had effectively brought the principles of human rights to world consciousness of the cold light of 1948 shown on the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews and others.
While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized the ''unalienable rights'' of the individual, the nine-part draft declaration states that indigenous peoples have a right to self-determination, to hold onto their land bases, to be respected for their differences.
It's this concept of self determination - the everyday language of U.S. government relations with Native nations - that has been most controversial on a world stage.
Some opponents to the declaration said in 2006, according to a statement of a spokesman for the General Assembly, the concept ''could be misrepresented as conferring unilateral right of self-determination and possible secession, thus threatening ... the stability of member states.''
Opponents of the declaration have submitted watered down drafts before. Now with days before a vote of General Assembly, member states of the African Union have told sources that their latest revision won't be available until sometime next week, probably two or three days before the vote.
Sources close to the proceedings said on Sept. 4 that the African states had agreed to let the current text, including acknowledgement of the right to self determination, stand. There was only one area of weakening, which had to do with military use of indigenous lands.
''One can never be sure that's actually what will occur,'' said attorney Tim Coulter, the author of the original draft of the declaration and executive director of the Indian Law Resource Center. ''But it could occur, even if there are other changes offered, that they might well be voted down. The votes in the General Assembly are notoriously difficult to predict, members are sovereign.''
Coulter said that the bureaucratic processes of the United Nations allow for the declaration to come back even from a no vote in the General Assembly. But he isn't expecting the declaration to be voted down.
Still through the summer months many indigenous leaders remained worried about the effectiveness of the U.N. process.
''The United Nations has not delivered enough constructive outcomes for indigenous peoples,'' Aroha Te Pareaka Mead, representative of the Ngati Awa Iwi and the Aotearoa in New Zealand, said in late July. ''It has delivered some things, but not enough and it's taking too long.''
Especially worrisome to indigenous leaders gathered in late July in the gymnasium of the Lummi Nation School were proposed compromises that would further empower states to think that they could define who is and isn't indigenous.
A treaty of their making, a United League of Indigenous Nations Treaty of North America and the Pacific Rim, could be different, could shift the paradigm of international relations.
For three days, representatives of 40 indigenous nations from around the Pacific Rim conversed about a treaty of mutual support that they would write and sign. If historic treaty making by U.S. officials in the then foreign language English were fraught with deceit, this treaty would be done with transparency.
Using an overhead projector, organizers displayed the draft treaty on a movie screen. A young man typed proposed changes into the text while the leaders of indigenous nations weighed their options. A quick trip to Kinko's provided copies.
More than one leader had expressed sentiments of intergenerational, post-traumatic stress over treaty processes that their nation had been included in or excluded from.
''Generally speaking, our people haven't been much for treaties,'' said Mike Marchand, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, which is located on the U.S. side of the border with Canada. ''We never sold our land to Canada. We have a lawsuit against the Queen. They say we have to make a choice: be a Canadian and get kicked around in Canada, or be an American and get kicked around in the U.S.''
Marchand said if the treaty under discussion talked of collaboration in getting land returned, then he would sign for his nation.
He and 10 other leaders of indigenous nations signed the treaty on Aug. 1 with plans for a larger signing involving more nations later this year.
While there are historic precedents for Native nations making treaty with each other, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy or the relations of the Coast Salish from the central British Columbia coast to south of Washington's Puget Sound, this treaty is a modern exercise of a long-standing right of nations.
How many Indian nations have foreign affairs departments, asked Frank Ettawageshik, chairman of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa, of those assembled. He explained, ''The intergovernmental relations between us are on the same international level as the United Nations.''
The treaty has a more immediate potential for effecting cultural protections, land recovery and business relations among its signatories than the U.N. declaration. The declaration has the potential once entered into international law to influence national laws and court cases. The U.S. Supreme Court routinely explains that international law is one of bodies of law it consults.
What we need is both the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to effect laws outside indigenous nations, and the United League of Indigenous Nations Treaty to strengthen and protect from within an alliance that spans North America and the Pacific Rim.
As indigenous leaders prepare for 11th-hour negotiations at the United Nations in New York, it's worth remembering that the General Assembly's Universal Declaration of Human Rights didn't pass with the ease that we 60 years later would think.
But when it passed, the General Assembly called on members to ''cause the declaration to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.''
So be it with the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
To read a draft of the declaration, visit www.indianlaw.org/main/resources and select U.N., then select Human Rights Council 2006. For more information on the United League of Indigenous Nations Treaty, visit www.indig enousnationstreaty.org.
Kara Briggs, Yakama and Snohomish, is associate director of the American Indian Policy & Media Initiative at Buffalo State College. She lives at the Tulalip Reservation in Washington.
by: Kara Briggs / Today correspondent
On Sept. 13, the United Nations General Assembly is expected to vote on the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Sources privy to an intervention by Mexico, Guatemala and Peru with African states that have opposed the declaration say they have reached a set of small revisions that leave key tenants of the declaration in tact.
Speaking as recently as one month ago at a treaty gathering of indigenous nations at the Lummi Nation in Washington state, Oren Lyons, Onondaga Nation Faithkeeper, was concerned. He told those assembled, ''We have worked since 1977 on the draft declaration, and it's about to be shot down by four African nations under the direction of the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
''They're going to try to change the language on self determination, on collective rights and about all the rights concerning the natural world.''
The declaration drafted by American Indians 30 years ago was intended to recognize indigenous peoples in an international setting - a setting that had effectively brought the principles of human rights to world consciousness of the cold light of 1948 shown on the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews and others.
While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized the ''unalienable rights'' of the individual, the nine-part draft declaration states that indigenous peoples have a right to self-determination, to hold onto their land bases, to be respected for their differences.
It's this concept of self determination - the everyday language of U.S. government relations with Native nations - that has been most controversial on a world stage.
Some opponents to the declaration said in 2006, according to a statement of a spokesman for the General Assembly, the concept ''could be misrepresented as conferring unilateral right of self-determination and possible secession, thus threatening ... the stability of member states.''
Opponents of the declaration have submitted watered down drafts before. Now with days before a vote of General Assembly, member states of the African Union have told sources that their latest revision won't be available until sometime next week, probably two or three days before the vote.
Sources close to the proceedings said on Sept. 4 that the African states had agreed to let the current text, including acknowledgement of the right to self determination, stand. There was only one area of weakening, which had to do with military use of indigenous lands.
''One can never be sure that's actually what will occur,'' said attorney Tim Coulter, the author of the original draft of the declaration and executive director of the Indian Law Resource Center. ''But it could occur, even if there are other changes offered, that they might well be voted down. The votes in the General Assembly are notoriously difficult to predict, members are sovereign.''
Coulter said that the bureaucratic processes of the United Nations allow for the declaration to come back even from a no vote in the General Assembly. But he isn't expecting the declaration to be voted down.
Still through the summer months many indigenous leaders remained worried about the effectiveness of the U.N. process.
''The United Nations has not delivered enough constructive outcomes for indigenous peoples,'' Aroha Te Pareaka Mead, representative of the Ngati Awa Iwi and the Aotearoa in New Zealand, said in late July. ''It has delivered some things, but not enough and it's taking too long.''
Especially worrisome to indigenous leaders gathered in late July in the gymnasium of the Lummi Nation School were proposed compromises that would further empower states to think that they could define who is and isn't indigenous.
A treaty of their making, a United League of Indigenous Nations Treaty of North America and the Pacific Rim, could be different, could shift the paradigm of international relations.
For three days, representatives of 40 indigenous nations from around the Pacific Rim conversed about a treaty of mutual support that they would write and sign. If historic treaty making by U.S. officials in the then foreign language English were fraught with deceit, this treaty would be done with transparency.
Using an overhead projector, organizers displayed the draft treaty on a movie screen. A young man typed proposed changes into the text while the leaders of indigenous nations weighed their options. A quick trip to Kinko's provided copies.
More than one leader had expressed sentiments of intergenerational, post-traumatic stress over treaty processes that their nation had been included in or excluded from.
''Generally speaking, our people haven't been much for treaties,'' said Mike Marchand, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, which is located on the U.S. side of the border with Canada. ''We never sold our land to Canada. We have a lawsuit against the Queen. They say we have to make a choice: be a Canadian and get kicked around in Canada, or be an American and get kicked around in the U.S.''
Marchand said if the treaty under discussion talked of collaboration in getting land returned, then he would sign for his nation.
He and 10 other leaders of indigenous nations signed the treaty on Aug. 1 with plans for a larger signing involving more nations later this year.
While there are historic precedents for Native nations making treaty with each other, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy or the relations of the Coast Salish from the central British Columbia coast to south of Washington's Puget Sound, this treaty is a modern exercise of a long-standing right of nations.
How many Indian nations have foreign affairs departments, asked Frank Ettawageshik, chairman of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa, of those assembled. He explained, ''The intergovernmental relations between us are on the same international level as the United Nations.''
The treaty has a more immediate potential for effecting cultural protections, land recovery and business relations among its signatories than the U.N. declaration. The declaration has the potential once entered into international law to influence national laws and court cases. The U.S. Supreme Court routinely explains that international law is one of bodies of law it consults.
What we need is both the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to effect laws outside indigenous nations, and the United League of Indigenous Nations Treaty to strengthen and protect from within an alliance that spans North America and the Pacific Rim.
As indigenous leaders prepare for 11th-hour negotiations at the United Nations in New York, it's worth remembering that the General Assembly's Universal Declaration of Human Rights didn't pass with the ease that we 60 years later would think.
But when it passed, the General Assembly called on members to ''cause the declaration to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.''
So be it with the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
To read a draft of the declaration, visit www.indianlaw.org/main/resources and select U.N., then select Human Rights Council 2006. For more information on the United League of Indigenous Nations Treaty, visit www.indig enousnationstreaty.org.
Kara Briggs, Yakama and Snohomish, is associate director of the American Indian Policy & Media Initiative at Buffalo State College. She lives at the Tulalip Reservation in Washington.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Anti-Indian Groups Will Not Go Away If We Ignore Them
Opposition to Indian self-preservation or betterment for our Nations and our people is growing by leaps and bounds in this country. If an Indian Nation mentions the words “property into trust”, the alarms go off. Mention the possibility of opening an Indian owned casino, smoke shop, convenience store or other business and you know that some group of local citizens are going to form an “organization” to oppose it. If that isn’t the way it unfolds in your locality then you can count on an established local, regional, or national organization to start lobbying against your efforts. You are all familiar with the scenario and most of you here have had some first hand experience in dealing with these issues.
The published and spoken directive of these groups is usually "sugar coated" in an effort to make it appear that they exist only for the best interests of the people they represent. They espouse that they are not racist or anti-Indian while they continue their efforts to stifle our business growth, sovereignty and our people themselves. In reality, most of these groups are biased toward Indians in some way or another. Their press releases, actions and their web sites clearly prove this fact.
They state their concern about the loss of tax revenue if property is taken off of the tax roll in their locality. We all know the reality of those figures. There is minimal loss for the state, county or municipality and a great gain in revenue in most instances.
One such group is One Nation United, a Redmond, Washington and Thousand Oaks, California based organization formerly known as United Property Owners, who merged with the Oklahoma based One Nation, on January 1, 2005. This merger combined a grassroots organization with big business and big money backing interests from the One Nation group, which at one time claimed in excess of 150,000 members alone.
The One Nation line up includes the Petroleum Marketer's Association of America, the National Association of Convenience Stores, and the Farm Bureau Insurance Company, among other business interests. If you think for one minute that the people behind these organizations are pro-Indian, think again. They are fully supportive of their business plan, their stockholders and the dollar. Millions of those dollars are at their disposal and they are using them to lobby against us at local, state and Federal levels.
Barb Lindsay, National Spokesperson for ONU and David Jaques, President of ONU were on hand for a public meeting of the Douglas County, Oregon commissioners on August 2nd, 2006. What ensued, in my opinion, was a fiasco of "us against the Indians" brought on by Lindsay in an attempt to justify her organization's stand on the issues against the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians, a Federally recognized tribe and good neighbor to the county. While Ms. Lindsay stated that the organization was not racist or anti-Indian, her rhetoric said volumes more.
These groups are everywhere in Indian Country. They continue to grow, they continue to multiply and they continue to gain support. I was told by the Public Relations head of a large Oklahoma Indian Nation a couple of years ago that their position was, “They will go away if we just ignore them.” It appears that that Nation was wrong in their assessment and we should all know it now.
They will not go away if we ignore them.
Many of these group’s supporters are non-Indian property owners and concerned citizens who buy into their inflamed and false rhetoric. But, many are businesses or business organizations that have deep lobbying pockets and the desire to stop us in our tracks. This fact alone should give us cause for deep thought about the solutions we must search for to sway public opinion. A mutually tribally funded positive advertising campaign across the country would be one way to sway opinion. The Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma has done an excellent job recently with the campaign they are currently running on television.
I know there are many battles we must fight in the course of our history. We, as Nations and as individuals, each have our own battles, our own hardships to endure. But, only with determination and unity, as Indigenous People, shall we prevail. We must all come together in support of a common goal. The preservation and continuation of our inherent sovereignty and our rights as the first people of this great country is of the utmost importance to us all.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Push for a Native American Day in Oklahoma
Push for a Native American Day in Oklahoma
State would become third to do so
OKLAHOMA CITY OK
Sam Lewin
1/19/2005
An Oklahoma lawmaker has introduced a bill to declare Native American Day to be observed annually on the 2nd Monday in October.
Rep. Glen Bud Smithson, a Democrat from Sallisaw, has received praise for his authorship of the bill. Mike Graham, a member of the Cherokee Nation and the founder of United Native America, said the move is long overdue.
“From our standpoint-Oklahoma has the largest Native American population in the country. Even on the license plates it says Oklahoma is Native America,” Graham told the Native American Times.
Smithson has already filed the legislation, House Bill 1216. If the law were enacted, Oklahoma would become just the second state to have a Native American Day as a state holiday. South Dakota established the holiday in 1989 to replace Columbus Day. Wyoming celebrates a similar holiday on the second Friday in May.
While Graham thinks there are multiple benefits to the holiday, he says two really stand out: tourism and education. Both are areas where the Sooner State lags behind the rest of the country.
“It would be a good deal for the school system. Kids could learn more about the tribal nations in their area of the state. It would be a major boost to the tourist industry,” he said.
Thousands attended South Dakota’s Native American Day celebrations last year.
Graham doesn’t want to stop at a state holiday. United Native America was originally founded in 1993 to push for a federal holiday, something Graham thinks will eventually happen.
“Some day people will wake up and see that Native Americans deserve their own holiday,” he said.
from: Native Times
State would become third to do so
OKLAHOMA CITY OK
Sam Lewin
1/19/2005
An Oklahoma lawmaker has introduced a bill to declare Native American Day to be observed annually on the 2nd Monday in October.
Rep. Glen Bud Smithson, a Democrat from Sallisaw, has received praise for his authorship of the bill. Mike Graham, a member of the Cherokee Nation and the founder of United Native America, said the move is long overdue.
“From our standpoint-Oklahoma has the largest Native American population in the country. Even on the license plates it says Oklahoma is Native America,” Graham told the Native American Times.
Smithson has already filed the legislation, House Bill 1216. If the law were enacted, Oklahoma would become just the second state to have a Native American Day as a state holiday. South Dakota established the holiday in 1989 to replace Columbus Day. Wyoming celebrates a similar holiday on the second Friday in May.
While Graham thinks there are multiple benefits to the holiday, he says two really stand out: tourism and education. Both are areas where the Sooner State lags behind the rest of the country.
“It would be a good deal for the school system. Kids could learn more about the tribal nations in their area of the state. It would be a major boost to the tourist industry,” he said.
Thousands attended South Dakota’s Native American Day celebrations last year.
Graham doesn’t want to stop at a state holiday. United Native America was originally founded in 1993 to push for a federal holiday, something Graham thinks will eventually happen.
“Some day people will wake up and see that Native Americans deserve their own holiday,” he said.
from: Native Times
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Study: Self-governance IS the answer
Study: Self-governance IS the answer
Harvard report confirms what tribal officials have been saying for years
WASHINGTON DC
National Congress of American Indians 1/7/2005
Self-governance is the key to crucial economic strides made by tribal governments in the last ten years, according to a report issued by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at the Kennedy School of Government. The report, American Indians on Reservations: A Databook of Socioeconomic Change Between the 1990 and 2000 Censuses, compiled data and marked the positive changes in Indian Country over the last ten years. The report reflects the tremendous changes experienced by individual Indians living on reservations during a time of increasing political self-determination by tribes and the unprecedented expansion in gaming activities under the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
"The data reflects that when tribes are truly empowered to govern, our communities grow," said Jacqueline Johnson, Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians. "There has been a ripple of positive change in tribal communities, as tribes make their own sound decisions on what is best for their citizens. Strong, healthy tribal self-governance is not just good for the health of tribal nations, but for the health of the United States as a whole."
Highlights of the report include:
Having started the 1990s with incomes lagging far behind those for the general U.S. population, American Indians in Indian Country experienced substantial growth in income per capita. Even with this Indian population rising by more than 20% between 1990 and 2000, real (inflation-adjusted) per capita Indian income rose by about one-third. For both gaming and non-gaming tribes, the overall rate of income growth substantially outstripped the 11% increase in real per capita income for the U.S. as a whole. However, the average income in Indian Country is still less than half the national U.S. average.
From 1990 to 2000, Indian family poverty rates dropped by seven percentage points or more in non-gaming areas, and by about ten percentage points in gaming areas. For the U.S. as a whole, family poverty dropped eight-tenths of a percentage point. Indian unemployment rates dropped by about two-and-a-half percentage points in non-gaming areas and by more than five percentage points in gaming areas. U.S. unemployment dropped by half a percentage point.
Housing overcrowding in Indian Country decreased during the decade, particularly in Indian areas without gaming. The percentage of American Indians living in homes with plumbing increased markedly in both gaming and non-gaming areas. The proportion of adult Indians on reservations with less than a 9th grade education declined substantially. In Indian areas with gaming this put adult Indians at about par with U.S. levels. The proportion of Indian adults with college degrees rose substantially, though not enough to keep pace with the very substantial gains in overall U.S. college attainment.
Johnson said the data reflects positive change, but there is still a long way to go to bridge the socioeconomic gap with mainstream America.
"Our economies will continue this upswing in socioeconomic standing as long as tribal governments are recognized as viable governments making good decisions for the health of their communities," Johnson said. "Indian leaders know what is best for protecting Indian communities. This report is a strong statement of the powers of tribal self-determination."
The report's co-author Jonathan Taylor, a research fellow at The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, said "the data shows solid improvement in the lives of Indians living on reservations with and without gaming. What's more, these gains came despite the fact that federal Indian funding levels have been losing ground against non-Indian domestic spending. Considering that reservation incomes fell by eight percent in the 1980s, the strides tribes have made in the 1990s are quite remarkable."
To view the report and supporting documentation please visit
http://www.indiangaming.org
or http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied/
---
Native American Times is Copyright © 2004 Oklahoma Indian Times, Inc.
Harvard report confirms what tribal officials have been saying for years
WASHINGTON DC
National Congress of American Indians 1/7/2005
Self-governance is the key to crucial economic strides made by tribal governments in the last ten years, according to a report issued by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at the Kennedy School of Government. The report, American Indians on Reservations: A Databook of Socioeconomic Change Between the 1990 and 2000 Censuses, compiled data and marked the positive changes in Indian Country over the last ten years. The report reflects the tremendous changes experienced by individual Indians living on reservations during a time of increasing political self-determination by tribes and the unprecedented expansion in gaming activities under the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
"The data reflects that when tribes are truly empowered to govern, our communities grow," said Jacqueline Johnson, Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians. "There has been a ripple of positive change in tribal communities, as tribes make their own sound decisions on what is best for their citizens. Strong, healthy tribal self-governance is not just good for the health of tribal nations, but for the health of the United States as a whole."
Highlights of the report include:
Having started the 1990s with incomes lagging far behind those for the general U.S. population, American Indians in Indian Country experienced substantial growth in income per capita. Even with this Indian population rising by more than 20% between 1990 and 2000, real (inflation-adjusted) per capita Indian income rose by about one-third. For both gaming and non-gaming tribes, the overall rate of income growth substantially outstripped the 11% increase in real per capita income for the U.S. as a whole. However, the average income in Indian Country is still less than half the national U.S. average.
From 1990 to 2000, Indian family poverty rates dropped by seven percentage points or more in non-gaming areas, and by about ten percentage points in gaming areas. For the U.S. as a whole, family poverty dropped eight-tenths of a percentage point. Indian unemployment rates dropped by about two-and-a-half percentage points in non-gaming areas and by more than five percentage points in gaming areas. U.S. unemployment dropped by half a percentage point.
Housing overcrowding in Indian Country decreased during the decade, particularly in Indian areas without gaming. The percentage of American Indians living in homes with plumbing increased markedly in both gaming and non-gaming areas. The proportion of adult Indians on reservations with less than a 9th grade education declined substantially. In Indian areas with gaming this put adult Indians at about par with U.S. levels. The proportion of Indian adults with college degrees rose substantially, though not enough to keep pace with the very substantial gains in overall U.S. college attainment.
Johnson said the data reflects positive change, but there is still a long way to go to bridge the socioeconomic gap with mainstream America.
"Our economies will continue this upswing in socioeconomic standing as long as tribal governments are recognized as viable governments making good decisions for the health of their communities," Johnson said. "Indian leaders know what is best for protecting Indian communities. This report is a strong statement of the powers of tribal self-determination."
The report's co-author Jonathan Taylor, a research fellow at The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, said "the data shows solid improvement in the lives of Indians living on reservations with and without gaming. What's more, these gains came despite the fact that federal Indian funding levels have been losing ground against non-Indian domestic spending. Considering that reservation incomes fell by eight percent in the 1980s, the strides tribes have made in the 1990s are quite remarkable."
To view the report and supporting documentation please visit
http://www.indiangaming.org
or http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied/
---
Native American Times is Copyright © 2004 Oklahoma Indian Times, Inc.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Supreme Court takes action on Indian law cases
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected two Indian law cases on Monday as it began another round of arguments without the presence of Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
Without comment, the justices refused to hear Peabody Coal's lawsuit seeking to force the Navajo Nation into accepting a lower royalty rate for a valuable coal deposit. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last June dismissed the case, a victory for the tribe.
In a separate action, the justices declined a challenge to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act brought by three Wisconsin tribes who want to open an off-reservation casino. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last April that a provision in the law allowing the state governor to veto the proposal was constitutional and did not violate the trust responsibility.
The actions came as the high court returned to work after its annual month-long winter break. Five days of oral arguments are scheduled for this month, including City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York, a case involving the the city's attempt to tax ancestral land repurchased by the tribe.
Rehnquist is not expected to participate in the argument for that case this morning due to his ongoing treatment for thyroid cancer. He hasn't been seen in the court since October, when word of his health condition was first made public.
On Friday, a court spokesperson announced that the absence would continue "[b]ecause of continuing secretions caused by his tracheotomy and radiation therapy." The statement added that Rehnquist "will continue to read briefs and transcripts of oral arguments, participate in conferences, and vote on cases."
Previously, the court said Rehnquist would not vote in a string of cases he missed in November unless there was a tie. The list included a self-determination contract dispute being closely watched throughout Indian Country. Oral arguments were held on November 10, with a ruling expected in the coming months.
It is not clear whether Rehnquist's scaled-back participation will affect the Oneida Nation case or the self-determination case. They are the only Indian law cases that have been accepted so far during the court's current term.
But Rehnquist's absence has fueled speculation about his possible retirement. If that happens, President Bush would be able to nominate a new member of the court as well as a new Chief Justice.
For Indian Country, the Rehnquist court has not been a kind one. His two-decade career on the bench has been marked by the erosion of tribal sovereignty, most notably in civil and criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians.
"The Rehnquist court's decisions, meandering from the settled principles and approaches embraced by all its predecessors, have created a judicial atmosphere that threatens economic development efforts as well as the political and cultural survival of Indian tribes," David H. Getches, a University of Colorado law school professor and noted Indian law expert, said in February 2002 testimony in the Senate.
Tribes have taken a more active role before the court ever since the 2000-2001 term, when tribal interests lost four out of five cases. The National Congress of American Indians and the Native American Rights Fund formed the Tribal Supreme Court Project to monitor developments, submit briefs and help coordinate cases nationwide.
The project submitted briefs in the Oneida Nation and self-determination cases, as well as a crucial criminal jurisdiction case during the 2003-2004 term. NCAI President Tex Hall has said the tribes' participation is "working" because the jurisdiction case was decided in favor of tribal interests.
Today's hearing will last one hour, during which lawyers for the Oneida Nation and the city of Sherrill will present their case. Four questions [ PDF] are being presented for review, including whether the tribe ceased to exist.
The Department of Justice, whose brief supported the tribe, has been granted permission to participate in the argument.
Relevant Links:
Supreme Court - www.supremecourtus.gov
NARF-NCAI Tribal Supreme Court Project - doc.narf.org/sc/index.html
Supreme Court blog - www.goldsteinhowe.com/blog
Copyright © 2000-2004 Indianz.Com
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.]
Without comment, the justices refused to hear Peabody Coal's lawsuit seeking to force the Navajo Nation into accepting a lower royalty rate for a valuable coal deposit. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last June dismissed the case, a victory for the tribe.
In a separate action, the justices declined a challenge to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act brought by three Wisconsin tribes who want to open an off-reservation casino. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last April that a provision in the law allowing the state governor to veto the proposal was constitutional and did not violate the trust responsibility.
The actions came as the high court returned to work after its annual month-long winter break. Five days of oral arguments are scheduled for this month, including City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York, a case involving the the city's attempt to tax ancestral land repurchased by the tribe.
Rehnquist is not expected to participate in the argument for that case this morning due to his ongoing treatment for thyroid cancer. He hasn't been seen in the court since October, when word of his health condition was first made public.
On Friday, a court spokesperson announced that the absence would continue "[b]ecause of continuing secretions caused by his tracheotomy and radiation therapy." The statement added that Rehnquist "will continue to read briefs and transcripts of oral arguments, participate in conferences, and vote on cases."
Previously, the court said Rehnquist would not vote in a string of cases he missed in November unless there was a tie. The list included a self-determination contract dispute being closely watched throughout Indian Country. Oral arguments were held on November 10, with a ruling expected in the coming months.
It is not clear whether Rehnquist's scaled-back participation will affect the Oneida Nation case or the self-determination case. They are the only Indian law cases that have been accepted so far during the court's current term.
But Rehnquist's absence has fueled speculation about his possible retirement. If that happens, President Bush would be able to nominate a new member of the court as well as a new Chief Justice.
For Indian Country, the Rehnquist court has not been a kind one. His two-decade career on the bench has been marked by the erosion of tribal sovereignty, most notably in civil and criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians.
"The Rehnquist court's decisions, meandering from the settled principles and approaches embraced by all its predecessors, have created a judicial atmosphere that threatens economic development efforts as well as the political and cultural survival of Indian tribes," David H. Getches, a University of Colorado law school professor and noted Indian law expert, said in February 2002 testimony in the Senate.
Tribes have taken a more active role before the court ever since the 2000-2001 term, when tribal interests lost four out of five cases. The National Congress of American Indians and the Native American Rights Fund formed the Tribal Supreme Court Project to monitor developments, submit briefs and help coordinate cases nationwide.
The project submitted briefs in the Oneida Nation and self-determination cases, as well as a crucial criminal jurisdiction case during the 2003-2004 term. NCAI President Tex Hall has said the tribes' participation is "working" because the jurisdiction case was decided in favor of tribal interests.
Today's hearing will last one hour, during which lawyers for the Oneida Nation and the city of Sherrill will present their case. Four questions [ PDF] are being presented for review, including whether the tribe ceased to exist.
The Department of Justice, whose brief supported the tribe, has been granted permission to participate in the argument.
Relevant Links:
Supreme Court - www.supremecourtus.gov
NARF-NCAI Tribal Supreme Court Project - doc.narf.org/sc/index.html
Supreme Court blog - www.goldsteinhowe.com/blog
Copyright © 2000-2004 Indianz.Com
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.]
Reading the Supreme Court
Beginning with Chief Justice John Marshall, the Supreme Court has changed the lives of Indian people for better and for worse. For the last 25 years, however, a conservative court has pried away tribal powers until, many observers say, justice has turned its back on a long and distinguished tradition of Indian law.
John LaVelle believes the trail of bad decisions began in 1978. LaVelle, associate professor of law at the University of New Mexico, cited Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe as the beginning of an ominous trend. In Oliphant, he explained, the Supreme Court held that tribes lack criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians arrested by tribal police, a decision subverting sovereign tribal powers. The muddled decision, he added, failed to clarify whether the court was relying on existing statute or rendering a federal common law decision.
It didn't take long for Oliphant to be extended to the civil sphere. Montana v. United States (1981) ruled that the Crow tribe lacked sovereignty to regulate hunting and fishing by non-members on non-Indian fee land. ''Again, the court was making up a new rule that never existed,'' said LaVelle. It used the Oliphant rationale to argue the tribe couldn't challenge U.S. sovereignty, save for limited exceptions. A graduate of Harvard and the University of California/Berkeley School of Law, LaVelle said the court has relied on Montana ever since, ''taking the proposition farther and depriving tribes of more and more power.''
The next skirmish flared after an auto accident on a reservation highway. Could a tribal court at Fort Berthold decide a case in which a non-Indian was injured by another non-Indian? In Strate v. A1 Contractors (1997), the Rehnquist Court unanimously said no, ruling that tribal courts lacked jurisdiction, not only on fee lands but on a state-maintained road under a federally granted right of way. Strate v. A1 ''was shocking to all Indian law observers,'' said LaVelle, a member of the executive committee of the board of editors for the latest edition of Cohen's ''Handbook of Federal Indian Law.''
The trail didn't end in Montana. In 2001, Atkinson Trading Company v. Shirley ruled that the Navajo Nation had no power to tax overnight non-member hotel guests on non-Indian fee land within the reservation, shunning earlier decisions about tribal taxation. The same year, Nevada v. Hicks found tribal courts lacked authority to settle a trespassing claim by a tribal member against state game wardens. ''[Hicks] is full of distortions of prior Indian law doctrine and principles,'' said LaVelle, speaking by telephone from Sioux City, Iowa, while on sabbatical. ''It's caused a great deal of consternation among Indian law scholars and among tribes.''
Such decisions challenge the doctrine, conceptualized by Justice Marshall, of the trust relationship between tribes and the federal government. ''States are beginning to be empowered to act as if they have the freedom to essentially waltz into Indian country and impose their jurisdiction,'' said David Wilkins, professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. Federalism is being redefined by states' rights activists, said Wilkins, a political scientist, noting a trend that flies against not only historical precedent, but the U.S., tribal and state constitutions as well. Several western states have ''disclaimer clauses,'' he explained, in which they pledged before entering the union not to exercise jurisdiction over Indians.
Wilkins, Lumbee from North Carolina, also decried recent cases involving Native religious expression. In 1988, Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association ruled that a road obliterating sites sacred to three California tribes didn't impede the practice of religion. Two years later, in Employment Division v. Smith, the court denied that peyote usage, sanctioned in federal law for decades, could be interpreted as a First Amendment expression of religious belief. Both cases, he said, ''ratcheted up the level and fundamental animosity of the conservatives on the Supreme Court against Indian rights.''
In this bundle of bad news, a little hope still glimmers. In 2004, U.S. v. Lara turned back Duro v. Reina (1990), an earlier ruling which held that tribes lack criminal jurisdiction over members of other tribes, an extension of Oliphant. In 1991, Congress enacted a permanent override of Duro, declaring that tribes have inherent sovereign power of criminal jurisdiction over non-member Indians and passed it as an amendment to the 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act.
Thus, in Lara, said LaVelle, an enrolled member of the Santee Sioux tribe, ''the court yielded to Congress authority to determine the extent of inherent sovereign power of Indian tribes under federal law. That's a sign of hope for tribes. They can continue to work in the political arena to protect their sovereignty, even when Supreme Court preferences are to the contrary.''
Tribes are exercising many sovereign powers that have lain dormant, LaVelle explained. This new exercise has provoked a reaction by the Court inconsistent with fundamental principles of Indian law. ''We're going through a period of trauma here, of dealing with a reaction by the court that is not thoroughly grounded in these longstanding principles and traditions of the field.''
Wilkins, who cited the diminution of the trust doctrine and loss of tribal jurisdiction over non-Indians as disturbing trends, added to them a third: The court's investiture in states of something starting to resemble a plenary, or virtually absolute, power in Indian country. While agreeing that Lara was a surprisingly favorable ruling, including a concurring decision by conservative justice Clarence Thomas, Wilkins lamented its approbation of plenary power at the federal level.
With Chief Justice William Rehnquist in poor health and other justices considering retirement, the future is uncertain. ''The court has now pivoted,'' said LaVelle, hopefully. Even if it doesn't start issuing progressive decisions in the model of Lara, he added, ''what is incumbent on tribes is to continue working within the political arena of American politics to garner further support for tribal sovereignty. That political support is crucial.''
---
© 1998 - 2005 Indian Country Today.
John LaVelle believes the trail of bad decisions began in 1978. LaVelle, associate professor of law at the University of New Mexico, cited Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe as the beginning of an ominous trend. In Oliphant, he explained, the Supreme Court held that tribes lack criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians arrested by tribal police, a decision subverting sovereign tribal powers. The muddled decision, he added, failed to clarify whether the court was relying on existing statute or rendering a federal common law decision.
It didn't take long for Oliphant to be extended to the civil sphere. Montana v. United States (1981) ruled that the Crow tribe lacked sovereignty to regulate hunting and fishing by non-members on non-Indian fee land. ''Again, the court was making up a new rule that never existed,'' said LaVelle. It used the Oliphant rationale to argue the tribe couldn't challenge U.S. sovereignty, save for limited exceptions. A graduate of Harvard and the University of California/Berkeley School of Law, LaVelle said the court has relied on Montana ever since, ''taking the proposition farther and depriving tribes of more and more power.''
The next skirmish flared after an auto accident on a reservation highway. Could a tribal court at Fort Berthold decide a case in which a non-Indian was injured by another non-Indian? In Strate v. A1 Contractors (1997), the Rehnquist Court unanimously said no, ruling that tribal courts lacked jurisdiction, not only on fee lands but on a state-maintained road under a federally granted right of way. Strate v. A1 ''was shocking to all Indian law observers,'' said LaVelle, a member of the executive committee of the board of editors for the latest edition of Cohen's ''Handbook of Federal Indian Law.''
The trail didn't end in Montana. In 2001, Atkinson Trading Company v. Shirley ruled that the Navajo Nation had no power to tax overnight non-member hotel guests on non-Indian fee land within the reservation, shunning earlier decisions about tribal taxation. The same year, Nevada v. Hicks found tribal courts lacked authority to settle a trespassing claim by a tribal member against state game wardens. ''[Hicks] is full of distortions of prior Indian law doctrine and principles,'' said LaVelle, speaking by telephone from Sioux City, Iowa, while on sabbatical. ''It's caused a great deal of consternation among Indian law scholars and among tribes.''
Such decisions challenge the doctrine, conceptualized by Justice Marshall, of the trust relationship between tribes and the federal government. ''States are beginning to be empowered to act as if they have the freedom to essentially waltz into Indian country and impose their jurisdiction,'' said David Wilkins, professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. Federalism is being redefined by states' rights activists, said Wilkins, a political scientist, noting a trend that flies against not only historical precedent, but the U.S., tribal and state constitutions as well. Several western states have ''disclaimer clauses,'' he explained, in which they pledged before entering the union not to exercise jurisdiction over Indians.
Wilkins, Lumbee from North Carolina, also decried recent cases involving Native religious expression. In 1988, Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association ruled that a road obliterating sites sacred to three California tribes didn't impede the practice of religion. Two years later, in Employment Division v. Smith, the court denied that peyote usage, sanctioned in federal law for decades, could be interpreted as a First Amendment expression of religious belief. Both cases, he said, ''ratcheted up the level and fundamental animosity of the conservatives on the Supreme Court against Indian rights.''
In this bundle of bad news, a little hope still glimmers. In 2004, U.S. v. Lara turned back Duro v. Reina (1990), an earlier ruling which held that tribes lack criminal jurisdiction over members of other tribes, an extension of Oliphant. In 1991, Congress enacted a permanent override of Duro, declaring that tribes have inherent sovereign power of criminal jurisdiction over non-member Indians and passed it as an amendment to the 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act.
Thus, in Lara, said LaVelle, an enrolled member of the Santee Sioux tribe, ''the court yielded to Congress authority to determine the extent of inherent sovereign power of Indian tribes under federal law. That's a sign of hope for tribes. They can continue to work in the political arena to protect their sovereignty, even when Supreme Court preferences are to the contrary.''
Tribes are exercising many sovereign powers that have lain dormant, LaVelle explained. This new exercise has provoked a reaction by the Court inconsistent with fundamental principles of Indian law. ''We're going through a period of trauma here, of dealing with a reaction by the court that is not thoroughly grounded in these longstanding principles and traditions of the field.''
Wilkins, who cited the diminution of the trust doctrine and loss of tribal jurisdiction over non-Indians as disturbing trends, added to them a third: The court's investiture in states of something starting to resemble a plenary, or virtually absolute, power in Indian country. While agreeing that Lara was a surprisingly favorable ruling, including a concurring decision by conservative justice Clarence Thomas, Wilkins lamented its approbation of plenary power at the federal level.
With Chief Justice William Rehnquist in poor health and other justices considering retirement, the future is uncertain. ''The court has now pivoted,'' said LaVelle, hopefully. Even if it doesn't start issuing progressive decisions in the model of Lara, he added, ''what is incumbent on tribes is to continue working within the political arena of American politics to garner further support for tribal sovereignty. That political support is crucial.''
---
© 1998 - 2005 Indian Country Today.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Indians Should Know Better
by Michael Gaddy
To be a good soldier/warrior, one must be properly indoctrinated to the support of the State. The State goes about this indoctrination by presenting films and telling stories of great sacrifices by military personnel who have gone before and "given their all, so that others may be free."
Movies and holidays are centered on this great sacrifice. Those who have served the State well are seen as heroes and have many awards and decorations. These decorations and medals have become easier and easier to achieve as the State needs more and more incentive to seduce recruits into slavery and blind obedience.
"Fighting for freedom" is the key Orwellian phrase of the State as it regards its conscripts. It would be extremely difficult to entice them to submit to the slavery of the State and die in some foreign country for corporate bottom lines, or the untold riches it brings to those who "had other priorities than military service in the '60s" orwere AWOL from the National Guard. Seen any Halliburton executives or politicians down at the recruitment office lately?
This subservience to the State by most people is somewhat understandable. Haven't millions of us fallen for this subterfuge throughout our nation's history? Yet, considering their treatment at the hands of the State, I continue to be amazed at the degree of patriotism shown by the indigenous peoples of this country. Having lived among/near the peoples of several tribes over the past 14 years, I can assure you there is a much higher level of patriotism in the American Indian than any other race in this country today.
This amazes me, even more now than in years past, for I see this war in Iraq to be hauntingly similar to the war perpetrated against the Indians in this country throughout the later half of the nineteenth century, and their continued treatment by government, even today.
If we believe the State, the Iraq war is being fought because of acts of violence perpetrated against this country by Muslim extremists, one among many of their other lies. The war against the Indian was fought because those "savages" were perpetrating acts of violence against the white man/settlers – on land that did not belong to the State or the settlers, but to tthe Indian himself.
In the world today, anyone who does not agree with the American State's ideas of global domination is a terrorist. George W. Bush has said as much.
In the last half of the 19th century, anyone who did not agree with the American State's domination of this country was either a rebel or a savage. The State went about eliminating both, the rebel and the savage, with wars of decimation.
To motivate soldiers to fight – and the citizens to support this fight with the blood and lives of their children – the "enemy" must be demonized as some sub-human species.
Consider if you will the words of Henry Clay, the great lover of American centralized government, "The Indians' disappearance from the human family will be no great loss to the world. I do not think them, as a race, worth preserving."
Then there were the words of the State servant, General John Pope "It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux. They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromise can be made."
General William T. Sherman would outline his purpose in the war against the South, "extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least of the trouble, but the people" of the South. Does any of this State-sponsored rhetoric sound familiar to what we are hearing from our "leaders" today as they reference our enemies in Iraq and other "Evil Empires?"
After all the lies of the State have been sorted through, it becomes plain to any who would use their intellect – as opposed to their emotion – that this war is being fought in Iraq to secure the resources of tthat country for the oil industry, and to extend the American empire, just as the war in Afghanistan is being conducted to insure the construction of a pipeline to handle oil out of that area for Unocal.
A cursory look at our own history will show that the war against the American Indian was fought for similar reasons – to secure their land and rresources for the railroad – the military industrial complex of that era. An in-depth analysis will also show the connections of all the railroad executives with the political element of that day, just as a similar examination today reveals the myriad connections of the oil industry with our present administration, and the huge monetary donations made by members of the oil cartel to members of Congress. Can anyone say Enron?
Author Dee Brown of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee fame, chronicled the political corruption that was so widespread between the railroads and the politicians in his work, Hear that Lonesome Whistle Blow. An editorial there reads as follows,
"Woven into this dramatic narrative are the origins of present-day governmental corruption, the first ties between powerful corporations and politicians who 'enjoyed the frequent showers of money that fell upon them from railroad stock manipulators, and gave away America.' How the people of that time responded to a sense of disillusionment remarkably similar to our own adds a contemporary dimension to this story."
Another glaring similarity is the use of the word "sovereign," by the State in both examples. President Bush and many in his administration have emphasized repeatedly that we are in Iraq to institute a sovereign government. Any American Indian should flee in horror at the mention of this word. Does the State not call all reservations, "sovereign nations"? Just ask any Indian how sovereign his/her nation is.
In the sovereign nation of the American Indian, land cannot be owned - but taxes must be paid, not to the sovereign nation – but to thee American State. These sovereign nations may have their own police - to investigate misdemeanors – but the American State's police – the FBI, must investigate any felony. Obviously, the State ddoes not believe the Indian intelligent enough to investigate "serious" crime! Like Anglos, the Indian has seen the vindictiveness and corruption of this agency.
The State also does not see the Indian as intelligent enough to govern the education system involving his/her own children. As with similar activities on the reservation, the teaching of the children is under the direction of the BIA. One of my close Navajo friends has told me most Indians see this acronym as representing, not the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but "Bossing Indians Around."
The State at one time even declared the Indian incapable of rearing their own children and placed many in boarding schools where their hair was cut short and they could not speak their own language or discuss their own culture. This, my friends, is State-sponsored 'sovereignty'! Perhaps one can see why the people of Iraq and other countries fight to the death to prevent us imposing our government on them.
The Indian nations may have, with the permission of the omnipotent State, casinos on their land, but must pay taxes and most probably bribes to the granting authority. More serious is the travesty that is the willful theft of the resources and money from these noble people. The thefts of the Indian Trust Fund have been estimated by many to be in the billions.
Yes, indeed, if the people of Iraq are familiar with our nations history, they will continue the fight to make sure they are not designated a "sovereign nation" by the government of this country. With sovereignty like this, who needs slavery?
The humbling irony of the entire situation is this: these noble people keep sending their youth off to fight in the military of the State, irregardless of all that has been done to them by the lying, cheating leadership of this country. I wonder aloud: WHY? Do they not see the similarities in this war for oil and empire to the war that took away their land, their resources, and their freedom, and replaced it with a "sovereign" nation?
January 5, 2005
Michael Gaddy, an Army veteran of Vietnam, Grenada, and Beirut, lives in the Four Corners area of the American Southwest.
To be a good soldier/warrior, one must be properly indoctrinated to the support of the State. The State goes about this indoctrination by presenting films and telling stories of great sacrifices by military personnel who have gone before and "given their all, so that others may be free."
Movies and holidays are centered on this great sacrifice. Those who have served the State well are seen as heroes and have many awards and decorations. These decorations and medals have become easier and easier to achieve as the State needs more and more incentive to seduce recruits into slavery and blind obedience.
"Fighting for freedom" is the key Orwellian phrase of the State as it regards its conscripts. It would be extremely difficult to entice them to submit to the slavery of the State and die in some foreign country for corporate bottom lines, or the untold riches it brings to those who "had other priorities than military service in the '60s" orwere AWOL from the National Guard. Seen any Halliburton executives or politicians down at the recruitment office lately?
This subservience to the State by most people is somewhat understandable. Haven't millions of us fallen for this subterfuge throughout our nation's history? Yet, considering their treatment at the hands of the State, I continue to be amazed at the degree of patriotism shown by the indigenous peoples of this country. Having lived among/near the peoples of several tribes over the past 14 years, I can assure you there is a much higher level of patriotism in the American Indian than any other race in this country today.
This amazes me, even more now than in years past, for I see this war in Iraq to be hauntingly similar to the war perpetrated against the Indians in this country throughout the later half of the nineteenth century, and their continued treatment by government, even today.
If we believe the State, the Iraq war is being fought because of acts of violence perpetrated against this country by Muslim extremists, one among many of their other lies. The war against the Indian was fought because those "savages" were perpetrating acts of violence against the white man/settlers – on land that did not belong to the State or the settlers, but to tthe Indian himself.
In the world today, anyone who does not agree with the American State's ideas of global domination is a terrorist. George W. Bush has said as much.
In the last half of the 19th century, anyone who did not agree with the American State's domination of this country was either a rebel or a savage. The State went about eliminating both, the rebel and the savage, with wars of decimation.
To motivate soldiers to fight – and the citizens to support this fight with the blood and lives of their children – the "enemy" must be demonized as some sub-human species.
Consider if you will the words of Henry Clay, the great lover of American centralized government, "The Indians' disappearance from the human family will be no great loss to the world. I do not think them, as a race, worth preserving."
Then there were the words of the State servant, General John Pope "It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux. They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromise can be made."
General William T. Sherman would outline his purpose in the war against the South, "extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least of the trouble, but the people" of the South. Does any of this State-sponsored rhetoric sound familiar to what we are hearing from our "leaders" today as they reference our enemies in Iraq and other "Evil Empires?"
After all the lies of the State have been sorted through, it becomes plain to any who would use their intellect – as opposed to their emotion – that this war is being fought in Iraq to secure the resources of tthat country for the oil industry, and to extend the American empire, just as the war in Afghanistan is being conducted to insure the construction of a pipeline to handle oil out of that area for Unocal.
A cursory look at our own history will show that the war against the American Indian was fought for similar reasons – to secure their land and rresources for the railroad – the military industrial complex of that era. An in-depth analysis will also show the connections of all the railroad executives with the political element of that day, just as a similar examination today reveals the myriad connections of the oil industry with our present administration, and the huge monetary donations made by members of the oil cartel to members of Congress. Can anyone say Enron?
Author Dee Brown of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee fame, chronicled the political corruption that was so widespread between the railroads and the politicians in his work, Hear that Lonesome Whistle Blow. An editorial there reads as follows,
"Woven into this dramatic narrative are the origins of present-day governmental corruption, the first ties between powerful corporations and politicians who 'enjoyed the frequent showers of money that fell upon them from railroad stock manipulators, and gave away America.' How the people of that time responded to a sense of disillusionment remarkably similar to our own adds a contemporary dimension to this story."
Another glaring similarity is the use of the word "sovereign," by the State in both examples. President Bush and many in his administration have emphasized repeatedly that we are in Iraq to institute a sovereign government. Any American Indian should flee in horror at the mention of this word. Does the State not call all reservations, "sovereign nations"? Just ask any Indian how sovereign his/her nation is.
In the sovereign nation of the American Indian, land cannot be owned - but taxes must be paid, not to the sovereign nation – but to thee American State. These sovereign nations may have their own police - to investigate misdemeanors – but the American State's police – the FBI, must investigate any felony. Obviously, the State ddoes not believe the Indian intelligent enough to investigate "serious" crime! Like Anglos, the Indian has seen the vindictiveness and corruption of this agency.
The State also does not see the Indian as intelligent enough to govern the education system involving his/her own children. As with similar activities on the reservation, the teaching of the children is under the direction of the BIA. One of my close Navajo friends has told me most Indians see this acronym as representing, not the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but "Bossing Indians Around."
The State at one time even declared the Indian incapable of rearing their own children and placed many in boarding schools where their hair was cut short and they could not speak their own language or discuss their own culture. This, my friends, is State-sponsored 'sovereignty'! Perhaps one can see why the people of Iraq and other countries fight to the death to prevent us imposing our government on them.
The Indian nations may have, with the permission of the omnipotent State, casinos on their land, but must pay taxes and most probably bribes to the granting authority. More serious is the travesty that is the willful theft of the resources and money from these noble people. The thefts of the Indian Trust Fund have been estimated by many to be in the billions.
Yes, indeed, if the people of Iraq are familiar with our nations history, they will continue the fight to make sure they are not designated a "sovereign nation" by the government of this country. With sovereignty like this, who needs slavery?
The humbling irony of the entire situation is this: these noble people keep sending their youth off to fight in the military of the State, irregardless of all that has been done to them by the lying, cheating leadership of this country. I wonder aloud: WHY? Do they not see the similarities in this war for oil and empire to the war that took away their land, their resources, and their freedom, and replaced it with a "sovereign" nation?
January 5, 2005
Michael Gaddy, an Army veteran of Vietnam, Grenada, and Beirut, lives in the Four Corners area of the American Southwest.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
How Native Americans see Lewis and Clark
A few years ago, while filming a documentary on the Crow reservation in south-central Montana, I saw a New Yorker cartoon thumb-tacked to a door in the tribal offices. It showed two Indians sitting beside a fire, watching a rocket blast off into space. One says to the other: "Somebody told them we still have land on the Moon."
I forgot about that cartoon until a few months ago, when local newspapers began tracking the adventures of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration. The stories reported great excitement over the celebration in our nation's thinly populated midsection, stories that were sometimes coupled with caveats written by native people, who tried to challenge perceptions about the Corps of Discovery. As I read these pieces, I reflected on words spoken several years ago by Gerard Baker, the Mandan-Hidatsa native who was named director of the National Park Service's Lewis and Clark celebration.
"This will be a celebration of native people who made this expedition possible, a national celebration of their ancestors, their stories, their cultures," said Baker. "It's long overdue."
So why is it, I am often asked by non-natives, that many Native Americans still feel such anger about this celebration? Why, while on a visit to Washington, D.C., last week, was there a news commentary written by Mary Annette Pember, former president of the Native American Journalists Association, that began: "The Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration celebrates discovery by conquest, and as an American Indian, it sticks in my craw."
Pember explained that it sticks in her craw because the Corps of Discovery signaled the beginning of a century of trauma and genocide that ended on the frozen banks of a creek called Wounded Knee in December 1890. In effect, Pember asked, "What's to celebrate?"
That's a good question. When I was asked to speak at the Lewis and Clark Commemoration last month, I invited several judges and attorneys to join me in a panel discussion on "Compacts and Covenants: Two Hundred Years Downstream with the Doctrine of Discovery." My idea was to throw a bridge across the cultural gulf that continues to divide America.
Most of us are familiar with the Lewis and Clark adventure: Fifty-two men set out from Missouri in 1804, traveling West into the unknown; only one of them died. The official purpose of the mission was scientific. Few of us know
that this was the 26th expedition of outsiders to reach the Mandan villages on the upper Missouri River. Judging from the full auditorium in Bismarck, N.D., last month, fewer Americans know that the philosophy underlying the trip came from a medieval European pope justifying colonial expansion.
In 1532, a brilliant thinker in Spain, Franciscus de Vitoria, delivered a lecture titled "On the Indians Lately Discovered in the Americas." Basing his arguments on the humanism of the Greeks, Vitoria argued that the native people living across the ocean possessed what he called "natural law rights," much like any free and rational people. As such, he said, they held title to their lands.
Vitoria's lecture drew a stormy response from Pope Alexander, who declared that natives in the new lands were all savages and infidels. Under the pope's Doctrine of Discovery, native people had a choice: They could be conquered, colonized and civilized by the agents of the church, or they could suffer the consequences.
Fast forward to Philadelphia, in 1787. There, our founding fathers enthusiastically embraced the 250-year-old Doctrine of Discovery. Furthermore, notes legal scholar Robert Williams, "... by denying self-determination to tribal peoples, the new republic found the Doctrine of Discovery to be the perfect instrument of empire."
Once ashore, the Doctrine of Discovery had many children. It spawned the odious Dawes Act of 1887, which abrogated dozens of treaties and opened tens of millions of acres of the American West to outright theft by Congress. It gave birth to the Religious Crimes Code, which outlawed religious freedom to native people. In our time it spawned the Termination Era of the 1950s, a scandalous campaign that sought to disband Indian tribes altogether.
Thankfully, this last effort failed. But to America's first citizens - and to journalist Mary Annette Pember - these episodes serve as a reminder that the Doctrine of Discovery is still very much with us. A rocket blasting off to a new frontier carries different symbolic meaning to people still fighting to recover their "inalienable rights."
By Paul VanDevelder
December 30, 2004
I forgot about that cartoon until a few months ago, when local newspapers began tracking the adventures of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration. The stories reported great excitement over the celebration in our nation's thinly populated midsection, stories that were sometimes coupled with caveats written by native people, who tried to challenge perceptions about the Corps of Discovery. As I read these pieces, I reflected on words spoken several years ago by Gerard Baker, the Mandan-Hidatsa native who was named director of the National Park Service's Lewis and Clark celebration.
"This will be a celebration of native people who made this expedition possible, a national celebration of their ancestors, their stories, their cultures," said Baker. "It's long overdue."
So why is it, I am often asked by non-natives, that many Native Americans still feel such anger about this celebration? Why, while on a visit to Washington, D.C., last week, was there a news commentary written by Mary Annette Pember, former president of the Native American Journalists Association, that began: "The Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration celebrates discovery by conquest, and as an American Indian, it sticks in my craw."
Pember explained that it sticks in her craw because the Corps of Discovery signaled the beginning of a century of trauma and genocide that ended on the frozen banks of a creek called Wounded Knee in December 1890. In effect, Pember asked, "What's to celebrate?"
That's a good question. When I was asked to speak at the Lewis and Clark Commemoration last month, I invited several judges and attorneys to join me in a panel discussion on "Compacts and Covenants: Two Hundred Years Downstream with the Doctrine of Discovery." My idea was to throw a bridge across the cultural gulf that continues to divide America.
Most of us are familiar with the Lewis and Clark adventure: Fifty-two men set out from Missouri in 1804, traveling West into the unknown; only one of them died. The official purpose of the mission was scientific. Few of us know
that this was the 26th expedition of outsiders to reach the Mandan villages on the upper Missouri River. Judging from the full auditorium in Bismarck, N.D., last month, fewer Americans know that the philosophy underlying the trip came from a medieval European pope justifying colonial expansion.
In 1532, a brilliant thinker in Spain, Franciscus de Vitoria, delivered a lecture titled "On the Indians Lately Discovered in the Americas." Basing his arguments on the humanism of the Greeks, Vitoria argued that the native people living across the ocean possessed what he called "natural law rights," much like any free and rational people. As such, he said, they held title to their lands.
Vitoria's lecture drew a stormy response from Pope Alexander, who declared that natives in the new lands were all savages and infidels. Under the pope's Doctrine of Discovery, native people had a choice: They could be conquered, colonized and civilized by the agents of the church, or they could suffer the consequences.
Fast forward to Philadelphia, in 1787. There, our founding fathers enthusiastically embraced the 250-year-old Doctrine of Discovery. Furthermore, notes legal scholar Robert Williams, "... by denying self-determination to tribal peoples, the new republic found the Doctrine of Discovery to be the perfect instrument of empire."
Once ashore, the Doctrine of Discovery had many children. It spawned the odious Dawes Act of 1887, which abrogated dozens of treaties and opened tens of millions of acres of the American West to outright theft by Congress. It gave birth to the Religious Crimes Code, which outlawed religious freedom to native people. In our time it spawned the Termination Era of the 1950s, a scandalous campaign that sought to disband Indian tribes altogether.
Thankfully, this last effort failed. But to America's first citizens - and to journalist Mary Annette Pember - these episodes serve as a reminder that the Doctrine of Discovery is still very much with us. A rocket blasting off to a new frontier carries different symbolic meaning to people still fighting to recover their "inalienable rights."
By Paul VanDevelder
December 30, 2004
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Press Release From
United Native America
12-24-04
American Indian Community standing up against
"One Nation Group"
One Nation organization is just another fear monger group focused on American Indian sovereignty, and that is covered by U.S. treaties made with Indian nations. One Nation boast of a large membership, one has to think that they are counting all people doing business with companies associated with One Nation. Most people doing business with these companies have not heard of One Nation and what they stand for.
If they did, you would see a lot of people leaving and doing business with other companies not associated with One Nation. Indian groups around the country are getting the word out to the public as to what One Nation really stands for, and that is to do away with all Indian governments and their land rights.
One Nation is basically made up of oil and gas companies plus convenient stores owned by them, and realty groups. Each of them are covered by state and federal laws, they have no say over Indian business operations. One Nation wants people to think Indian nations are ripping the tax payers off and Indian nations are bringing about the down fall of America in the way they are allowed to conduct business in our country.
What is really at hand with One Nation is they want Indian nations out of the way. Companies aliened with this group would have access to millions of acres of land held in federal trust for Indians, thus they would have a free hand in getting access to more land for their companies to develop for their profit. Eliminating tribal sovereignty competition would bring in hundreds of billions of dollars each year for companies associated with One Nation and their stated goals.
Under federal law Indian nations are allowed to operate casinos within a state, the two parties are to work together bringing about a compact that would allow the state to collect a tax from these tribal operations. Money made by tribal business are used to support their programs within that state, the point made here is that their money stays in the state and helps other businesses and create new business in support of their operations. That brings about a tax dollar gain for the state, not a loss for the state as One Nation would have you believe.
Now, on the other hand oil and gas companies, national realty companies, convenience stores chains, Insurance's companies are franchise, when they come into your state and neighborhood a large part of their profits are sent out of the state to their corporate office. When a Walmart opens in your community small businesses cannot compete, they have to close. You can almost hear the sucking sound of money leaving your community and state.
State governments offer great tax breaks plus a ton of free-bees to national companies to locate within their state, is this fair to Mom and Dad businesses in full support of their community and states well being?
You do not have to read between the lines to see what One Nation is all about. Their almost right when they say they do not hate Indians, their just in the way of big businesses getting bigger. Big businesses compete against each other all the time, no big deal, they have the money to hang in there. But, they also have no problem going after Mom and Dad small businesses in a community by cutting their prices and driving them out. You see no matter what your race is it's just about doing business and running over anyone that gets in their way no matter what it cost a community or state.
One Nation want's us to think they are being done wrong, stop the Indians, they are being given special treatment, we cannot compete, the sky is falling. I have never heard of any "big business" going bust because of an Indian operated business, have you?
Now, lets not get into how Indians and their governments for decades have been treated by federal and state governments and big business in this great land we call America, one nation under God. One Nation states it's name comes from the American pledge of allegiance.
One Nations new leader Barbara Linsay, tell us she wants Indian leaders reigned in, their over reaching. Groups like One Nation are all about one thing, filling unnecessary litigation against tribes in courts and bringing about legislation in governments that will not stand up in courts. Tribal nations have to spend millions of dollars each year in courts countering these groups action against them, that in itself keeps attorneys pockets full of money. Again, the state gets money through the back door through keeping tribes tied up in state court actions.
One issue you will not see groups like One Nation talking about or taking on is big businesses ripping Americans off in the stock market. Groups like One Nation are riding across America like the 1800s U.S. Army in trying to contain Indians, taking away their chance at the American dream they are close to having and that is financial independence.
One Nation wraps itself in patriotism, it's plain to see their just another group in support of corporate financial pigs looking for a bigger feeding trough. One Nation must think American Indians live in other countries and do not pay tax on goods they buy here in the good old USA, as a member of the Oklahoma Cherokee Nation I pay tax's everyday, what's up with this One Nation? Where's my tax break?
This website stands watch over One Nation
One Nation OK Lies.com
http://www.onenationoklies.com
Mike L. Graham, member Oklahoma Cherokee Nation
Founder United Native America
www.UnitedNativeAmerica.com
United Native America
12-24-04
American Indian Community standing up against
"One Nation Group"
One Nation organization is just another fear monger group focused on American Indian sovereignty, and that is covered by U.S. treaties made with Indian nations. One Nation boast of a large membership, one has to think that they are counting all people doing business with companies associated with One Nation. Most people doing business with these companies have not heard of One Nation and what they stand for.
If they did, you would see a lot of people leaving and doing business with other companies not associated with One Nation. Indian groups around the country are getting the word out to the public as to what One Nation really stands for, and that is to do away with all Indian governments and their land rights.
One Nation is basically made up of oil and gas companies plus convenient stores owned by them, and realty groups. Each of them are covered by state and federal laws, they have no say over Indian business operations. One Nation wants people to think Indian nations are ripping the tax payers off and Indian nations are bringing about the down fall of America in the way they are allowed to conduct business in our country.
What is really at hand with One Nation is they want Indian nations out of the way. Companies aliened with this group would have access to millions of acres of land held in federal trust for Indians, thus they would have a free hand in getting access to more land for their companies to develop for their profit. Eliminating tribal sovereignty competition would bring in hundreds of billions of dollars each year for companies associated with One Nation and their stated goals.
Under federal law Indian nations are allowed to operate casinos within a state, the two parties are to work together bringing about a compact that would allow the state to collect a tax from these tribal operations. Money made by tribal business are used to support their programs within that state, the point made here is that their money stays in the state and helps other businesses and create new business in support of their operations. That brings about a tax dollar gain for the state, not a loss for the state as One Nation would have you believe.
Now, on the other hand oil and gas companies, national realty companies, convenience stores chains, Insurance's companies are franchise, when they come into your state and neighborhood a large part of their profits are sent out of the state to their corporate office. When a Walmart opens in your community small businesses cannot compete, they have to close. You can almost hear the sucking sound of money leaving your community and state.
State governments offer great tax breaks plus a ton of free-bees to national companies to locate within their state, is this fair to Mom and Dad businesses in full support of their community and states well being?
You do not have to read between the lines to see what One Nation is all about. Their almost right when they say they do not hate Indians, their just in the way of big businesses getting bigger. Big businesses compete against each other all the time, no big deal, they have the money to hang in there. But, they also have no problem going after Mom and Dad small businesses in a community by cutting their prices and driving them out. You see no matter what your race is it's just about doing business and running over anyone that gets in their way no matter what it cost a community or state.
One Nation want's us to think they are being done wrong, stop the Indians, they are being given special treatment, we cannot compete, the sky is falling. I have never heard of any "big business" going bust because of an Indian operated business, have you?
Now, lets not get into how Indians and their governments for decades have been treated by federal and state governments and big business in this great land we call America, one nation under God. One Nation states it's name comes from the American pledge of allegiance.
One Nations new leader Barbara Linsay, tell us she wants Indian leaders reigned in, their over reaching. Groups like One Nation are all about one thing, filling unnecessary litigation against tribes in courts and bringing about legislation in governments that will not stand up in courts. Tribal nations have to spend millions of dollars each year in courts countering these groups action against them, that in itself keeps attorneys pockets full of money. Again, the state gets money through the back door through keeping tribes tied up in state court actions.
One issue you will not see groups like One Nation talking about or taking on is big businesses ripping Americans off in the stock market. Groups like One Nation are riding across America like the 1800s U.S. Army in trying to contain Indians, taking away their chance at the American dream they are close to having and that is financial independence.
One Nation wraps itself in patriotism, it's plain to see their just another group in support of corporate financial pigs looking for a bigger feeding trough. One Nation must think American Indians live in other countries and do not pay tax on goods they buy here in the good old USA, as a member of the Oklahoma Cherokee Nation I pay tax's everyday, what's up with this One Nation? Where's my tax break?
This website stands watch over One Nation
One Nation OK Lies.com
http://www.onenationoklies.com
Mike L. Graham, member Oklahoma Cherokee Nation
Founder United Native America
www.UnitedNativeAmerica.com
Sunday, December 19, 2004
United Property Owners is merging with One Nation of Oklahoma
United Property Owners is merging with another national group, One Nation of Oklahoma
One Nation, Inc., the Oklahoma-based business and agriculture coalition that has stirred nationwide attention by raising public awareness over what it calls "flawed federal Indian policies" will merge with our twenty-year-old grassroots organization based in Redmond, Washington. The new group will focus its energies on seeking equality of opportunity, an equal voice in government, and equality under the law for ALL U.S. citizens by championing individual rights, the consent of the governed, private property rights, and a level free enterprise playing field.
Effective on January 1, 2005, One Nation United, a new 501(c) 4 nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, will emerge from the combination of One Nation, Inc. and United Property Owners, a group with more than 100,000 members based in Washington State since its inception in the 1980s. The new organization is made up of thousands of individuals, families, and companies in energy, agriculture, retailing, and manufacturing as well as local governments, elected officials, law enforcement, and community groups. The organization will continue to be led by Barb Lindsay of Thousand Oaks, CA., the only Executive Director in UPO's history, who will serve as National Director and Spokesperson.
The merger of these organizations will combine the tremendous business-industry support behind One Nation with the proven effective grassroots reach of United Property Owners. Most of these issues require a federal government focus and a nationwide reach. As a large and growing coalition, we’ll continue to act as your eyes, ears, and voice in Washington, DC, working to defend the civil liberties of all concerned citizens, taxpayers and business owners.
The mission of the new One Nation United organization will continue to be to positively impact local, state, and federal government policies relating to protection of private property rights, tax fairness, and environmental regulatory certainty. We are committed to returning America to the basic principles laid down by our Founding Fathers by championing individual rights over group rights and special privilege. We've begun recruiting a larger national governing board and look forward to continuing this important work in the years ahead.
One Nation, Inc., the Oklahoma-based business and agriculture coalition that has stirred nationwide attention by raising public awareness over what it calls "flawed federal Indian policies" will merge with our twenty-year-old grassroots organization based in Redmond, Washington. The new group will focus its energies on seeking equality of opportunity, an equal voice in government, and equality under the law for ALL U.S. citizens by championing individual rights, the consent of the governed, private property rights, and a level free enterprise playing field.
Effective on January 1, 2005, One Nation United, a new 501(c) 4 nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, will emerge from the combination of One Nation, Inc. and United Property Owners, a group with more than 100,000 members based in Washington State since its inception in the 1980s. The new organization is made up of thousands of individuals, families, and companies in energy, agriculture, retailing, and manufacturing as well as local governments, elected officials, law enforcement, and community groups. The organization will continue to be led by Barb Lindsay of Thousand Oaks, CA., the only Executive Director in UPO's history, who will serve as National Director and Spokesperson.
The merger of these organizations will combine the tremendous business-industry support behind One Nation with the proven effective grassroots reach of United Property Owners. Most of these issues require a federal government focus and a nationwide reach. As a large and growing coalition, we’ll continue to act as your eyes, ears, and voice in Washington, DC, working to defend the civil liberties of all concerned citizens, taxpayers and business owners.
The mission of the new One Nation United organization will continue to be to positively impact local, state, and federal government policies relating to protection of private property rights, tax fairness, and environmental regulatory certainty. We are committed to returning America to the basic principles laid down by our Founding Fathers by championing individual rights over group rights and special privilege. We've begun recruiting a larger national governing board and look forward to continuing this important work in the years ahead.
Indian policy comes under fire
By Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporter
Two national organizations — including a locally based group that emerged 15 years ago in a shellfish dispute with Western Washington tribes — have joined forces to push for reform of what they call the nation's flawed and fractured policy on Native people.
Redmond-based United Property Owners has merged with One Nation of Oklahoma, which includes oil producers and farm interests, and in its two years has aggressively challenged American Indian sovereignty.
The merger, effective Jan. 1, will form a megagroup called One Nation United, with 300,000 members in 50 states.
The combined group has taken aim at federal Indian policies, including tax allowances, which they say erode state and local tax bases and undermine free enterprise. They contend that a century and a half after many Indian treaties were negotiated, they are in need of review.
"We know that we've got truth, justice and the American way on our side and that ultimately reforms will happen," said Barbara Lindsay, executive director of United Property Owners and national director of the combined group.
Tribal leaders across Washington say organizations such as Lindsay's are emerging just as wealth from gaming and other businesses is, for the first time, giving some of the nation's poorest citizens a shot at economic independence.
"These groups are trying to get more organized to counter the fact that tribes have become more organized — and they see themselves losing this battle," said W. Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribal Council in Sequim.
"We are making progress, and people like these want to undermine us. They'll say that is not their intent, but if their agenda is accepted as political policy, we would set back the conditions of Indian Country by decades."
Robert Anderson, a University of Washington assistant law professor and director of the Native American Law Center, sees such groups as a national disruption.
"They are way out there on the lunatic fringe ... either racists or just so tied up with their hatred for the federal government and recognition of Indian rights that they foment unnecessary litigation," Anderson said.
"They ignore the fact that tribes have legitimate roles in governing themselves in their own territory. What they are doing is really harmful to what happens in most of Indian Country — where tribes and non-Indians are trying to work together for the betterment of those communities."
Lindsay, who defends her organization as neither racist nor anti-Indian, said, "We need to find a resolution to some very complex problems, including the impact of federal Indian policy on nontribal property owners and businesses. All we're asking for is balance and fairness and common sense to be injected."
A lobbying force
With trade members that include the Oklahoma Farm Bureau and Oklahoma Petroleum Marketers, One Nation has been a lobbying force in that state, which has one of the nation's highest concentrations of tribally owned casinos.
In Washington, United Property Owners was formed by a group of mostly beachfront landowners in a legal dispute with Puget Sound-area tribes claiming their treaty rights to take shellfish from public and private beaches. U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie imposed some restrictions on access but sided with the tribes.
Among the items on the merged group's agenda:
• Protecting private-property rights — primarily of nontribal residents who live on or adjacent to Indian reservations and are subject to regulation by tribes.
• Lessening sovereign immunity, which protects tribes from lawsuits.
• Ending the tribes' exemption from federal campaign-contribution limits.
• Changing the process that allows the transfer of property from local and state tax rolls into federal trust exclusively for Indian use.
• Equalizing sales- and excise-tax policies for tribal and nontribal businesses.
• Overturning the policy under which tribes are allowed regulatory authority over water, air quality, pesticide and Superfund cleanup on land on or near reservations.
"Tribes already have such a distinct advantage in so many other ways because they are not subject to so many of the other regulatory burdens that other business have to bear," Lindsay said.
"Our peace treaties"
The sovereignty of tribes, which puts them on a par with states and foreign nations, is established in the U.S. Constitution. Sovereignty affords certain benefits and advantages. Tribes don't pay some state taxes that non-Indians living on or off reservations do. However, tribes finance much of their own infrastructure, including building and maintaining roads within reservations, and they pay for tribal police and fire services, housing, health clinics and other public services.
Tribal members aren't required to pay sales taxes on items purchased on the reservation, whether from a car dealership or a Wal-Mart store.
Lindsay thinks many aspects of U.S. policies on Indians hurt all taxpayers. A key concern for her group is a 1934 act that allows land to be transferred from fee status, where it's subject to state and local taxes, to trust status, where it's exempt.
Some tribes, with money from tax-exempt casino profits, are buying property, and "as more and more lands move off local tax rolls, everyone else's taxes have to be raised," Lindsay said. "We're concerned over the loss to state and county governments of more and more property-tax dollars."
Matt Mattson, Snoqualmie Tribe administrator, said Lindsay tries to "paint tribes as special-interest groups who receive certain exemptions that are somehow unfair.
"The fact is, the U.S. government made deals with tribes hundreds of years ago. If the government doesn't like these deals, then give the land back. These were our peace treaties."
Competition vs. obligation
Mike Chandler, a non-Indian who owns two gas stations in Toppenish, Yakima County, within the boundaries of the Yakama Reservation, is torn between what he sees as unfair tribal competition vs. the nation's obligation to the Indian people.
He gets many tribal customers at his two Conoco stations, located within blocks of a tribally owned station. And he said his business, in his family for three generations, is at a pricing disadvantage.
While non-Indian station owners are taxed 28 cents a gallon on their purchases of gasoline and diesel, a federal agreement reduces that rate for stations owned by the Yakama Tribe and its members by 70 percent (to 8.4 cents) per gallon for gasoline and eliminates the tax entirely on diesel, according to the Washington Department of Licensing.
As a result, Chandler said, the tribe can undersell all its competitors — even retailers such as Costco that use low-priced gasoline as a way to lure customers. If he's lucky, he said, he can come within 5 cents, on average, of the tribe's price.
"When I go by the tribally owned station, there'll be 16, 20 cars at the pumps, while here we have three, maybe. Who doesn't want less-expensive gas?
"It kills volumes. And when we try to get close to them, there's no profit."
The gas-tax arrangement with the Yakamas is different from the one Washington state has with 13 other tribes, which are reimbursed monthly the amount of taxes tribally owned stations pay when they buy gasoline from wholesalers. The amount of the refund is based on a formula that considers the number of enrolled tribal members living on or adjacent to reservations.
The arrangement removes any advantage the tribes might have at the pumps, because the reimbursement goes to the tribe, not the individual stations.
Through November, gasoline and diesel reimbursements to the tribes this year totaled $2.2 million.
Allen, the Jamestown S'Klallam leader, points out that for every Indian-owned business that gets a pass on gas and sales taxes, there are nine others off the reservations that do not.
"The fact is when it comes to things like sales taxes, no government has the authority to tax another government," he said.
Allen believes the debate comes down to a question of economic self-reliance for Native people.
"The ability of tribes to become more self-reliant based on business opportunity has emerged in the last 10 years," he said. "If you look at the socioeconomic conditions of Indian people, we've always been at the very bottom of every measurement.
"Now, we are addressing generations of need in our communities, providing housing opportunities, jobs, health care, education for our people. And they want to take those opportunities away."
Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company
Seattle Times staff reporter
Two national organizations — including a locally based group that emerged 15 years ago in a shellfish dispute with Western Washington tribes — have joined forces to push for reform of what they call the nation's flawed and fractured policy on Native people.
Redmond-based United Property Owners has merged with One Nation of Oklahoma, which includes oil producers and farm interests, and in its two years has aggressively challenged American Indian sovereignty.
The merger, effective Jan. 1, will form a megagroup called One Nation United, with 300,000 members in 50 states.
The combined group has taken aim at federal Indian policies, including tax allowances, which they say erode state and local tax bases and undermine free enterprise. They contend that a century and a half after many Indian treaties were negotiated, they are in need of review.
"We know that we've got truth, justice and the American way on our side and that ultimately reforms will happen," said Barbara Lindsay, executive director of United Property Owners and national director of the combined group.
Tribal leaders across Washington say organizations such as Lindsay's are emerging just as wealth from gaming and other businesses is, for the first time, giving some of the nation's poorest citizens a shot at economic independence.
"These groups are trying to get more organized to counter the fact that tribes have become more organized — and they see themselves losing this battle," said W. Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribal Council in Sequim.
"We are making progress, and people like these want to undermine us. They'll say that is not their intent, but if their agenda is accepted as political policy, we would set back the conditions of Indian Country by decades."
Robert Anderson, a University of Washington assistant law professor and director of the Native American Law Center, sees such groups as a national disruption.
"They are way out there on the lunatic fringe ... either racists or just so tied up with their hatred for the federal government and recognition of Indian rights that they foment unnecessary litigation," Anderson said.
"They ignore the fact that tribes have legitimate roles in governing themselves in their own territory. What they are doing is really harmful to what happens in most of Indian Country — where tribes and non-Indians are trying to work together for the betterment of those communities."
Lindsay, who defends her organization as neither racist nor anti-Indian, said, "We need to find a resolution to some very complex problems, including the impact of federal Indian policy on nontribal property owners and businesses. All we're asking for is balance and fairness and common sense to be injected."
A lobbying force
With trade members that include the Oklahoma Farm Bureau and Oklahoma Petroleum Marketers, One Nation has been a lobbying force in that state, which has one of the nation's highest concentrations of tribally owned casinos.
In Washington, United Property Owners was formed by a group of mostly beachfront landowners in a legal dispute with Puget Sound-area tribes claiming their treaty rights to take shellfish from public and private beaches. U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie imposed some restrictions on access but sided with the tribes.
Among the items on the merged group's agenda:
• Protecting private-property rights — primarily of nontribal residents who live on or adjacent to Indian reservations and are subject to regulation by tribes.
• Lessening sovereign immunity, which protects tribes from lawsuits.
• Ending the tribes' exemption from federal campaign-contribution limits.
• Changing the process that allows the transfer of property from local and state tax rolls into federal trust exclusively for Indian use.
• Equalizing sales- and excise-tax policies for tribal and nontribal businesses.
• Overturning the policy under which tribes are allowed regulatory authority over water, air quality, pesticide and Superfund cleanup on land on or near reservations.
"Tribes already have such a distinct advantage in so many other ways because they are not subject to so many of the other regulatory burdens that other business have to bear," Lindsay said.
"Our peace treaties"
The sovereignty of tribes, which puts them on a par with states and foreign nations, is established in the U.S. Constitution. Sovereignty affords certain benefits and advantages. Tribes don't pay some state taxes that non-Indians living on or off reservations do. However, tribes finance much of their own infrastructure, including building and maintaining roads within reservations, and they pay for tribal police and fire services, housing, health clinics and other public services.
Tribal members aren't required to pay sales taxes on items purchased on the reservation, whether from a car dealership or a Wal-Mart store.
Lindsay thinks many aspects of U.S. policies on Indians hurt all taxpayers. A key concern for her group is a 1934 act that allows land to be transferred from fee status, where it's subject to state and local taxes, to trust status, where it's exempt.
Some tribes, with money from tax-exempt casino profits, are buying property, and "as more and more lands move off local tax rolls, everyone else's taxes have to be raised," Lindsay said. "We're concerned over the loss to state and county governments of more and more property-tax dollars."
Matt Mattson, Snoqualmie Tribe administrator, said Lindsay tries to "paint tribes as special-interest groups who receive certain exemptions that are somehow unfair.
"The fact is, the U.S. government made deals with tribes hundreds of years ago. If the government doesn't like these deals, then give the land back. These were our peace treaties."
Competition vs. obligation
Mike Chandler, a non-Indian who owns two gas stations in Toppenish, Yakima County, within the boundaries of the Yakama Reservation, is torn between what he sees as unfair tribal competition vs. the nation's obligation to the Indian people.
He gets many tribal customers at his two Conoco stations, located within blocks of a tribally owned station. And he said his business, in his family for three generations, is at a pricing disadvantage.
While non-Indian station owners are taxed 28 cents a gallon on their purchases of gasoline and diesel, a federal agreement reduces that rate for stations owned by the Yakama Tribe and its members by 70 percent (to 8.4 cents) per gallon for gasoline and eliminates the tax entirely on diesel, according to the Washington Department of Licensing.
As a result, Chandler said, the tribe can undersell all its competitors — even retailers such as Costco that use low-priced gasoline as a way to lure customers. If he's lucky, he said, he can come within 5 cents, on average, of the tribe's price.
"When I go by the tribally owned station, there'll be 16, 20 cars at the pumps, while here we have three, maybe. Who doesn't want less-expensive gas?
"It kills volumes. And when we try to get close to them, there's no profit."
The gas-tax arrangement with the Yakamas is different from the one Washington state has with 13 other tribes, which are reimbursed monthly the amount of taxes tribally owned stations pay when they buy gasoline from wholesalers. The amount of the refund is based on a formula that considers the number of enrolled tribal members living on or adjacent to reservations.
The arrangement removes any advantage the tribes might have at the pumps, because the reimbursement goes to the tribe, not the individual stations.
Through November, gasoline and diesel reimbursements to the tribes this year totaled $2.2 million.
Allen, the Jamestown S'Klallam leader, points out that for every Indian-owned business that gets a pass on gas and sales taxes, there are nine others off the reservations that do not.
"The fact is when it comes to things like sales taxes, no government has the authority to tax another government," he said.
Allen believes the debate comes down to a question of economic self-reliance for Native people.
"The ability of tribes to become more self-reliant based on business opportunity has emerged in the last 10 years," he said. "If you look at the socioeconomic conditions of Indian people, we've always been at the very bottom of every measurement.
"Now, we are addressing generations of need in our communities, providing housing opportunities, jobs, health care, education for our people. And they want to take those opportunities away."
Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company
Thursday, December 16, 2004
One Nation: silent in the media, not in public
It has come to my attention that representatives of the anti-Indian group, One Nation, have had more than one speaker in our local Sunrise Rotary Club.
There were a few business owners and politicians who reportedly walked out in disgust. Others listened with rapt attention as they spread their lies and half truths.
Are they speaking in other communities?
I would think so!
They are attempting to spread their political agenda and anti-Indian sentiments to local business / civic leaders and politicians in an effort to advocate their beliefs that Indian Nations and Tribes have an "unfair" advantage over non-Indian business ventures.
One Nation has been virtually silent in media coverage but is apparently using a "stealth" attack in Rotary Clubs and other available local venues to promote their agenda.
It makes me wonder if they are using their political and monetary clout to keep the media silent. Remember the old adage, "Out of sight, out of mind."
Do not put these people out of mind for they are working tirelessly to eliminate Indian rights and sovereignty.
Please make me aware of any instances that you are aware of where One Nation reps are spreading their litany of continued genocide.
There were a few business owners and politicians who reportedly walked out in disgust. Others listened with rapt attention as they spread their lies and half truths.
Are they speaking in other communities?
I would think so!
They are attempting to spread their political agenda and anti-Indian sentiments to local business / civic leaders and politicians in an effort to advocate their beliefs that Indian Nations and Tribes have an "unfair" advantage over non-Indian business ventures.
One Nation has been virtually silent in media coverage but is apparently using a "stealth" attack in Rotary Clubs and other available local venues to promote their agenda.
It makes me wonder if they are using their political and monetary clout to keep the media silent. Remember the old adage, "Out of sight, out of mind."
Do not put these people out of mind for they are working tirelessly to eliminate Indian rights and sovereignty.
Please make me aware of any instances that you are aware of where One Nation reps are spreading their litany of continued genocide.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
'Black Cloud' scores a knockout
CHINLE, Ariz. - ''Black Cloud'', the film based on the personal triumph of Navajo boxer Cal Bahe who created a boxing club in Chinle, has become an inspiration to American Indian moviegoers.
With movie funding provided by Indian tribes and local Navajos cast for scenes filmed in Canyon de Chelly, Tsaile and Monument Valley on the Navajo Nation, ''Black Cloud'' triumphs.
Phillip Calvin, 16-year-old Navajo, voiced a common reaction from Indian youths and praised Lakota actor Eddie Spears in action as a boxer.
Calvin pointed out that Navajos aren't as concerned with mixed heritage as the film portrays. Still, he said it is a good film.
''It showed me that kids could do well even though their parents might not be around or their parents are alcoholic. It was nice that they cast locally instead of casting a lot of foreign people acting Navajo.''
Spears trained three months with the legendary boxing trainer Jimmy Gambia to prefect his boxing skills. He portrays Black Cloud, a Navajo boxer training for the Olympics, while struggling with the secrets of his family's heritage. It is also a love story.
Director and writer Rick Schroder said Spears was a natural for the lead role. ''As soon as he walked in the door, I knew he was Black Cloud. Eddie is a Lakota Sioux from South Dakota. He's tough and handsome and he rides a horse like he is part of it,'' Schroder said. ''I don't know if there's ever been a character written or developed for an actor as perfect as this role is for Eddie Spears, and it was written without knowing him.''
The ''Black Cloud'' cast includes Russell Means, Julia Jones, Tim McGraw, Peter Greene, Wayne Knight, Tim Sampson and ''Pooch'' Marion Hall.
Schroder said, ''I think of where America's at right now, they need a film with heart. They need a film about youngsters who know how to behave and how to discipline themselves to accomplish their dreams.''
The making of ''Black Cloud'' also reveals an unflattering look at Hollywood. Major motion picture financial backers had no interest in the real life Indian success story. Instead, Hollywood continues to place non-Indians in lead roles in films about Indian people and avoids real-life heroes.
When Schroder went looking for funding, American Indian tribes responded with the needed $1 million, but Hollywood did not.
Pearl Means, Navajo and wife of Russell Means, said the film succeeds in showing that ''we are human beings in the 21st century. We are portrayed with all the feelings, emotions, desires, failures and success as any other race.
''The fact that Rick couldn't get Hollywood to back this shows their innate racism. If we are not shown as drunks, or in period pieces, or with the hero or savior being a white man, like in 'Dances with Wolves' and 'Windtalkers',they are not interested in showing us as real human beings that can succeed.''
Russell Means, who added some of his own dialogue to his portrayal of the hero's boxing coach said, ''This movie offers some very positive firsts for American Indians. It is the first on-screen portrayal of us as contemporary American Indians with feelings, failures, aspirations and successes.''
Means said Schroder was inspired by an article he read in The Los Angeles Times about Navajo boxing coach Cal Bahe, who overcame alcoholism through boxing and established a successful boxing club for Navajo youths. Bahe's son competed in the Olympic trials.
''It is the first time we have been portrayed as our own hero, not some white man coming to save us as Kevin Costner in what I refer to as 'Lawrence of the Plains' or Nicholas Cage in 'Windtalkers.'
''The Navajo and other American Indian Code Talkers were the real life heroes, but Hollywood had to make Cage the hero.''
Means said this is the first movie financed and distributed by a group of American Indian nations. He said tribal funders, including the Tonto Apache and Tohono O'odham in Arizona, enjoyed private screenings and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
Now being honored with awards at film festivals across the nation, ''Black Cloud'' captured best ensemble and audience award at the Phoenix Film Festival. At the Nashville Film Festival it was awarded the President's Award.
However, some non-Indian critics in mainstream media, have failed to reflect the film's ability to empower American Indians, especially young people.
Reacting to a review in Arizona Republic, Means responded to the critic's criticism that the characters are stereotypes.
''Sorry folks, our reservations represent all of the typical ills that poverty and lack of opportunity represents. 'Black Cloud' is a beautiful portrayal a young man who against all odds makes it to the Olympic trials. This movie has already empowered indigenous and non-indigenous youths in all the states it has premiered in.''
---
© 1998-2004 Indian Country Today
With movie funding provided by Indian tribes and local Navajos cast for scenes filmed in Canyon de Chelly, Tsaile and Monument Valley on the Navajo Nation, ''Black Cloud'' triumphs.
Phillip Calvin, 16-year-old Navajo, voiced a common reaction from Indian youths and praised Lakota actor Eddie Spears in action as a boxer.
Calvin pointed out that Navajos aren't as concerned with mixed heritage as the film portrays. Still, he said it is a good film.
''It showed me that kids could do well even though their parents might not be around or their parents are alcoholic. It was nice that they cast locally instead of casting a lot of foreign people acting Navajo.''
Spears trained three months with the legendary boxing trainer Jimmy Gambia to prefect his boxing skills. He portrays Black Cloud, a Navajo boxer training for the Olympics, while struggling with the secrets of his family's heritage. It is also a love story.
Director and writer Rick Schroder said Spears was a natural for the lead role. ''As soon as he walked in the door, I knew he was Black Cloud. Eddie is a Lakota Sioux from South Dakota. He's tough and handsome and he rides a horse like he is part of it,'' Schroder said. ''I don't know if there's ever been a character written or developed for an actor as perfect as this role is for Eddie Spears, and it was written without knowing him.''
The ''Black Cloud'' cast includes Russell Means, Julia Jones, Tim McGraw, Peter Greene, Wayne Knight, Tim Sampson and ''Pooch'' Marion Hall.
Schroder said, ''I think of where America's at right now, they need a film with heart. They need a film about youngsters who know how to behave and how to discipline themselves to accomplish their dreams.''
The making of ''Black Cloud'' also reveals an unflattering look at Hollywood. Major motion picture financial backers had no interest in the real life Indian success story. Instead, Hollywood continues to place non-Indians in lead roles in films about Indian people and avoids real-life heroes.
When Schroder went looking for funding, American Indian tribes responded with the needed $1 million, but Hollywood did not.
Pearl Means, Navajo and wife of Russell Means, said the film succeeds in showing that ''we are human beings in the 21st century. We are portrayed with all the feelings, emotions, desires, failures and success as any other race.
''The fact that Rick couldn't get Hollywood to back this shows their innate racism. If we are not shown as drunks, or in period pieces, or with the hero or savior being a white man, like in 'Dances with Wolves' and 'Windtalkers',they are not interested in showing us as real human beings that can succeed.''
Russell Means, who added some of his own dialogue to his portrayal of the hero's boxing coach said, ''This movie offers some very positive firsts for American Indians. It is the first on-screen portrayal of us as contemporary American Indians with feelings, failures, aspirations and successes.''
Means said Schroder was inspired by an article he read in The Los Angeles Times about Navajo boxing coach Cal Bahe, who overcame alcoholism through boxing and established a successful boxing club for Navajo youths. Bahe's son competed in the Olympic trials.
''It is the first time we have been portrayed as our own hero, not some white man coming to save us as Kevin Costner in what I refer to as 'Lawrence of the Plains' or Nicholas Cage in 'Windtalkers.'
''The Navajo and other American Indian Code Talkers were the real life heroes, but Hollywood had to make Cage the hero.''
Means said this is the first movie financed and distributed by a group of American Indian nations. He said tribal funders, including the Tonto Apache and Tohono O'odham in Arizona, enjoyed private screenings and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
Now being honored with awards at film festivals across the nation, ''Black Cloud'' captured best ensemble and audience award at the Phoenix Film Festival. At the Nashville Film Festival it was awarded the President's Award.
However, some non-Indian critics in mainstream media, have failed to reflect the film's ability to empower American Indians, especially young people.
Reacting to a review in Arizona Republic, Means responded to the critic's criticism that the characters are stereotypes.
''Sorry folks, our reservations represent all of the typical ills that poverty and lack of opportunity represents. 'Black Cloud' is a beautiful portrayal a young man who against all odds makes it to the Olympic trials. This movie has already empowered indigenous and non-indigenous youths in all the states it has premiered in.''
---
© 1998-2004 Indian Country Today
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Boston moves to repeal old law banning Natives
IndianZ.com
Monday, December 6, 2004
The mayor of Boston late last month moved to repeal a 327-year-old law that bars Native Americans from entering the city unless accompanied by "musketeers."
Mayor Thomas M. Menino said the 1675 Indian Imprisonment Act was discriminatory. He filed a petition that has to be approved by the city council and then by the Massachusetts Legislature.
Several tribal and Native leaders joined Menino for the announcement, made the day before Thanksgiving. They called it a step forward in reconciliation.
Massachusetts has one federally-recognized tribe.
Monday, December 6, 2004
The mayor of Boston late last month moved to repeal a 327-year-old law that bars Native Americans from entering the city unless accompanied by "musketeers."
Mayor Thomas M. Menino said the 1675 Indian Imprisonment Act was discriminatory. He filed a petition that has to be approved by the city council and then by the Massachusetts Legislature.
Several tribal and Native leaders joined Menino for the announcement, made the day before Thanksgiving. They called it a step forward in reconciliation.
Massachusetts has one federally-recognized tribe.
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Bush Vs. Natives: Briefs, Not Bullets, Target Native Americans
Briefs, Not Bullets, Target Native Americans
by Cassandra "Sandy" Frost
November 6
I’m still in shock and awe over the election.
The man who was elected is not my president.
Today’s headlines are announcing that W has declared that November is National American Indian Heritage month, praising Indians like Sacajawea and the WW2 Navajo Code-talkers.
It sounds more like he’s announcing that hunting season is open...
W stated “By working together on important economic initiatives, we will strengthen America by building a future of hope and promise for all Native Americans."
He should have just been honest and said “We will strengthen America by building a future of hopelessness and compromise for all Native Americans.”
Today, the question is:
What does the re-election of W mean to people of color, specifically American Indians?
In one remote viewing email group I subscribe to, we had a recent discussion about genocide of American Indians.
The term “Genocide” derives from the Latin (genos=race, tribe; cide=killing) and means literally the killing or murder of an entire tribe or people.
I sat and shook my head in disbelief as I read about how some in the group denied that American Indians were the targets of U.S. government exploitation, eradication, and containment.
One writer wrote “Trying to pass judgment on the people or governments of today based on what was done in the past is ridiculous” and another wrote “There are some folks that need killing.”
These comments, though lifted out of context, illustrate the Anglo-American superiority mentality that seems to justify modern day genocide against my people and other people of color.
The facts are that by 1891 the U.S. native population had been reduced to 2.5% of its original numbers and 97.5% of the aboriginal land base had been expropriated.
Extermination of all of the surviving natives was urged by the Governor of California officially in 1851. More than 100 million Natives fell under European rule and their extermination followed.
As the Natives died, they were replaced by African slaves.
The genocide against American Natives was one of the most massive and longest lasting genocidal campaigns in human history.
And it’s still taking place today.
But now, instead of using bullets and offering bounties for Indian scalps, the military industrial complex is using briefs.
Legal briefs.
No longer are the battles fought at places like the Little Big Horn or Wounded Knee.
Today’s battles are being fought in courthouses against those who are, like my Athabascan Grandmother, Maude Goodelataw, hunter-gatherers and fishing peoples.
The natives are expected to lock horns with not only moose and caribou but also with well-heeled lawyers who are backed by billions from oil and mining companies that are trying to figure out how to either legislate or usurp the rest of the American Indians’ lands.
What triggered the writing of this editorial is today’s headline about how the Vietnamese are suing Dow Chemical and Montsano for our military spraying their countryside with Agent Orange:
http://corpwatch.radicaldesigns.org/article.php?id=11638
The article describes how Dr. Arnold Schecter, a leading expert in dioxin contamination in the U.S., sampled the soil there in 2003,and found it to contained dioxin levels that were 180 million times above the safe level set by the U.S. environmental protection agency.
From http://www.cqs.com/edioxin.htm :
“Dioxin is the name generally given to a class of super-toxic chemicals, the chlorinated dioxins and furans, formed as a by-product of the manufacture, molding, or burning of organic chemicals and plastics that contain chlorine. It is the nastiest, most toxic man-made organic chemical; its toxicity is second only to radioactive waste.”
Third generation Vietnamese babies are being born with two heads and stumps instead of arms and legs.
I knew about this story a few months ago because the nail salon I frequent is owned and operated by a group of hard working Vietnamese.
One day, the pedicurist and I started talking about her homeland and she mentioned the lawsuit.
She appeared to have Anglo blood and I delicately asked her about her family.
“I don’t know who my dad was,” she said. “He was an American soldier.”
I was getting my nails done in L.A. last August and noticed the same features in my manicurist. I began asking her about her family and she also said “I don’t know who my dad was.” And yes, he was also a U.S. soldier.
I took off my rose quartz bracelet and gave it to her.
I apologized for what our country did to hers.
I told her that I am part Alaskan Native (Athabascan) and Cherokee and that the pattern of our military killing those with brown, red, yellow or black skin for their land, servitude or resources started with the genocide of my brothers and sisters.
I explained that rose quartz is a crystal that represents love and healing.
A case in point about the legal battles involving American Indians is the Cobell v Norton lawsuit over the Department of the Interior’s mismanagement of $40 billion in Indian trust revenues and resources. June 10, 1996, Eloise Cobell, a Blackfoot with a background in accounting and banking, filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government to account for the billions of dollars belonging to approximately 500,000 American Indians and their heirs, and held in trust since the late 19th century.
The case is ongoing and so far, the Department of Interior has been found to be in contempt of court for destroying emails and billing information and in the first portion of the eight-year-old lawsuit, the government was found guilty of mismanaging trust accounts. The second part is an attempt to determine how much is owed to the remaining account holders.
Other modern day attempts to circumvent American Indian sovereignty are the Yucca Mountain nuclear depository case and the Hopi’s attempts to fight Peabody Coal in order to preserve and protect their water.
With no regard for existing treaties, the U.S. government is moving forward so that 70,000 metric tons of radioactive waste can be buried on Western Shoshone homeland. On Feb. 15, 2002, President Bush designated Yucca Mountain as the site for building the nation’s first high-level nuclear waste dump.
Sacajawea was Shoshone.
The Hopi's waterless springs and dry wells might be blamed on Peabody Energy, which pumps 1.3 billion gallons of water a year, enough to supply a community of 4,000, out of an aquifer that lies beneath the Hopi and Navajo lands. Peabody mines coal out of land leased from the tribes at a site known as Black Mesa. The coal is powderized and then mixed with water that is pumped through a pipeline 273 miles west to the Mohave Generating Station, which then produces electricity for 1.5 million homes in nearby Las Vegas and Southern California.
I learned of a similar disregard for native rights in the pursuit of petro-energy after I read the 2002 Homeland Security Act.
I nearly fell out of my chair as I read that local government definitions specifically include “Alaska Native organizations and villages.”
This means that if there is some sort of emergency, like our government declares an energy crisis say, because foreign oil becomes too expensive or there is some sort of terrorist attack or our oil reserves run low, the federal government has the authority to take over all assets of Alaska Native villages and corporations, including mine, Ahtna, Inc.
BTW, the HAARP is built on Ahtna land, but that is another story.
This also means that Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, can be drilled, against the will of the Gwich’in Athabascans and other Alaska Natives, because our sovereignty was somehow dissolved through provisions of the Homeland Security Act.
Evon Peter, Chief of the Neetsaii Gwich'in from Arctic Village in northeastern Alaska, is on point for the fight against oil drilling in ANWR.
He has a site at: http://www.nativemovement.org
He recently addressed the Alaska Federation of Natives and said “The United States government worked to assimilate our peoples through the eradication of our Native knowledge, philosophy, languages, spiritual practices and beliefs. The Indigenous Peoples were not allowed or were highly discouraged from participating in any of the colonial "freedoms". These prohibitions included land ownership, business development, and even shopping in stores. There were signs that read "No dogs, No natives" allowed on some buildings. The United States was after control of our land and resources. They had to deal with whatthey termed the "Indian problem".
Today our traditional Indigenous governments have national and international recognition. Yet, the Indigenous Peoples of Alaska, like many other Indigenous Peoples throughout the world, continue struggling for the recognized rights to our traditional lands and way of life. We are striving to make things better for our people while attempting to address the historical injustices that are at the foundation of many of these struggles.”
Sadly, this pattern of military industrial complex eco-terrorism and genocide isn’t limited to the Vietnamese or American Indians.
An October 13, 2004 news story details how the nuclear test compensation fund set up by the American government to compensate Marshall Islanders exposed to radiation during 67 nuclear weapons tests conducted in the 1940’s and 1950’s in the South Pacific is running out of money. As of Oct. 21, the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal said it will be able to make only partial payments to more than 1,700 residents suffering from radiation-related illnesses.
Islanders were exposed to fallout from at least two Hiroshima-size atomic tests as well as the detonation of the world's first hydrogen bomb, estimated at 1,000 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb.
A prominent west coast law firm, Davis, Wright and Tremaine, has stepped forward to offer pro-bono help to the people of Likiep Atoll, one of the Marshall Islands. These people were subjected to radiation from 23 bomb blasts over Bikini Atoll because they were never relocated or notified that they or their water and food supplies were about to be contaminated by nuclear fallout.
Finally, let’s look at the Iraq war depleted uranium (DU) situation.
Depleted uranium is the waste byproduct of nuclear reactors. In the 1980s, U.S. researchers recognized that the material's density gave it tremendous armor-piercing potential. Not only can shells coated with depleted uranium punch through layers of hardened steel, they ignite on impact, creating a fiery burst of radioactive particles inside an enemy armored vehicle. It is this "aerosol" that most experts believe causes the variety of long-term health problems associated with gulf war syndrome. More than 230,000 of the 697,000 U.S. soldiers who served in the gulf wars have filed disability claims for various maladies, the majority of which fall under the broad category of gulf war syndrome.
Instead of cleaning up the nuke plants, the waste, or DU, is now passed on to weapon manufacturers.
This is the same stuff the government wants to bury deep inside Yucca mountain.
General Ramsey Clark has called for the international ban on DU weapons stating “Depleted-uranium weapons are an unacceptable threat to life, a violation of international law and an assault on human dignity.”
Once someone breathes in the radiation, it stays in their lymph nodes. They are polluted for more than forever as DU has a half-life of 4.4 billion years.
The U.S. and British military have powdered the Iraqi country side with between 300 and 800 tons of DU dust, not to mention dusting the countries of Kosovo and Kuwait. According to a November 1, 2004 news article “Depleted Uranium Dust Worries Iraqis,” if the United States military assures the U.N. and the Iraqi people that the radioactive, metal dust is safe, then why is the United States spending billions of dollars cleaning up depleted uranium at former munitions factories, military firing ranges and nuclear fuel production sites?
A General Accounting Office report in 2000 put the cost of cleanup at the uranium enrichment plant in Paducah, Ky., where DU is processed for use in weapons and nuclear reactors, at $1.3 billion. By December 2003, the cost of cleaning up and closing the plant, estimated to take until 2070, was up to $13 billion.
So, what does all this tell us?
It tells us that if one has skin color other than white, your land, your safety, your food and your water don’t matter to the U.S. government.
What does all this have to do with W’s re-election?
It means that the Bush administration’s battles against American Indians, i.e. Cobell v Norton, the Yucca mountain nuclear waste depository and the possible drilling of ANWR, are not fought with guns, but rather through the federal legal defense teams paid with unlimited taxpayer dollars who can write countless legal briefs that can keep a court case going until the other side:
a. gets tired and gives up
b. runs out of money
c. settles for a small portion of what is due them
d. dies
e. is forced to do what the government says through martial law imposed by FEMA and the Homeland Security Act
The bottom line is that the U.S. government, and the Bush Administration in particular, needs to stop terrorizing and targeting indigenous people and our lands and, rather, learn some lessons from our cultures before it’s too late.
In 1877, Chief Joseph announced his people's, the Nez Perce, surrender and said the famous words:
“I will fight no more forever.”
I think he meant fighting with bullets, not legal briefs.
The lessons are that we need to live lives based on spirituality, not hypocritical Armageddic religions where our sins are forgiven each Sunday. We need to live in harmony with, take care of, nurture and honor Mother Earth instead of sucking her dry and exploiting her resources to feed the self-destructive petroleum addictions that are fueling legal battles designed to wear the other side down and launching unjust wars in the names of money and power, both corporate and political.
Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, no matter what color they are.
And remember, we’re one world, one people; not one people’s world.
Cassandra ‘Sandy’ Frost is an award winning e-journalist and newspaper editor who has covered the topics of Intuition, Remote Viewing and Consciousness from an Athabascan or Alaska Native point of view the past three years.
More of her articles can be found at:
http://blogs.salon.com/0003531/
http://blogs.salon.com/0004117/
by Cassandra "Sandy" Frost
November 6
I’m still in shock and awe over the election.
The man who was elected is not my president.
Today’s headlines are announcing that W has declared that November is National American Indian Heritage month, praising Indians like Sacajawea and the WW2 Navajo Code-talkers.
It sounds more like he’s announcing that hunting season is open...
W stated “By working together on important economic initiatives, we will strengthen America by building a future of hope and promise for all Native Americans."
He should have just been honest and said “We will strengthen America by building a future of hopelessness and compromise for all Native Americans.”
Today, the question is:
What does the re-election of W mean to people of color, specifically American Indians?
In one remote viewing email group I subscribe to, we had a recent discussion about genocide of American Indians.
The term “Genocide” derives from the Latin (genos=race, tribe; cide=killing) and means literally the killing or murder of an entire tribe or people.
I sat and shook my head in disbelief as I read about how some in the group denied that American Indians were the targets of U.S. government exploitation, eradication, and containment.
One writer wrote “Trying to pass judgment on the people or governments of today based on what was done in the past is ridiculous” and another wrote “There are some folks that need killing.”
These comments, though lifted out of context, illustrate the Anglo-American superiority mentality that seems to justify modern day genocide against my people and other people of color.
The facts are that by 1891 the U.S. native population had been reduced to 2.5% of its original numbers and 97.5% of the aboriginal land base had been expropriated.
Extermination of all of the surviving natives was urged by the Governor of California officially in 1851. More than 100 million Natives fell under European rule and their extermination followed.
As the Natives died, they were replaced by African slaves.
The genocide against American Natives was one of the most massive and longest lasting genocidal campaigns in human history.
And it’s still taking place today.
But now, instead of using bullets and offering bounties for Indian scalps, the military industrial complex is using briefs.
Legal briefs.
No longer are the battles fought at places like the Little Big Horn or Wounded Knee.
Today’s battles are being fought in courthouses against those who are, like my Athabascan Grandmother, Maude Goodelataw, hunter-gatherers and fishing peoples.
The natives are expected to lock horns with not only moose and caribou but also with well-heeled lawyers who are backed by billions from oil and mining companies that are trying to figure out how to either legislate or usurp the rest of the American Indians’ lands.
What triggered the writing of this editorial is today’s headline about how the Vietnamese are suing Dow Chemical and Montsano for our military spraying their countryside with Agent Orange:
http://corpwatch.radicaldesigns.org/article.php?id=11638
The article describes how Dr. Arnold Schecter, a leading expert in dioxin contamination in the U.S., sampled the soil there in 2003,and found it to contained dioxin levels that were 180 million times above the safe level set by the U.S. environmental protection agency.
From http://www.cqs.com/edioxin.htm :
“Dioxin is the name generally given to a class of super-toxic chemicals, the chlorinated dioxins and furans, formed as a by-product of the manufacture, molding, or burning of organic chemicals and plastics that contain chlorine. It is the nastiest, most toxic man-made organic chemical; its toxicity is second only to radioactive waste.”
Third generation Vietnamese babies are being born with two heads and stumps instead of arms and legs.
I knew about this story a few months ago because the nail salon I frequent is owned and operated by a group of hard working Vietnamese.
One day, the pedicurist and I started talking about her homeland and she mentioned the lawsuit.
She appeared to have Anglo blood and I delicately asked her about her family.
“I don’t know who my dad was,” she said. “He was an American soldier.”
I was getting my nails done in L.A. last August and noticed the same features in my manicurist. I began asking her about her family and she also said “I don’t know who my dad was.” And yes, he was also a U.S. soldier.
I took off my rose quartz bracelet and gave it to her.
I apologized for what our country did to hers.
I told her that I am part Alaskan Native (Athabascan) and Cherokee and that the pattern of our military killing those with brown, red, yellow or black skin for their land, servitude or resources started with the genocide of my brothers and sisters.
I explained that rose quartz is a crystal that represents love and healing.
A case in point about the legal battles involving American Indians is the Cobell v Norton lawsuit over the Department of the Interior’s mismanagement of $40 billion in Indian trust revenues and resources. June 10, 1996, Eloise Cobell, a Blackfoot with a background in accounting and banking, filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government to account for the billions of dollars belonging to approximately 500,000 American Indians and their heirs, and held in trust since the late 19th century.
The case is ongoing and so far, the Department of Interior has been found to be in contempt of court for destroying emails and billing information and in the first portion of the eight-year-old lawsuit, the government was found guilty of mismanaging trust accounts. The second part is an attempt to determine how much is owed to the remaining account holders.
Other modern day attempts to circumvent American Indian sovereignty are the Yucca Mountain nuclear depository case and the Hopi’s attempts to fight Peabody Coal in order to preserve and protect their water.
With no regard for existing treaties, the U.S. government is moving forward so that 70,000 metric tons of radioactive waste can be buried on Western Shoshone homeland. On Feb. 15, 2002, President Bush designated Yucca Mountain as the site for building the nation’s first high-level nuclear waste dump.
Sacajawea was Shoshone.
The Hopi's waterless springs and dry wells might be blamed on Peabody Energy, which pumps 1.3 billion gallons of water a year, enough to supply a community of 4,000, out of an aquifer that lies beneath the Hopi and Navajo lands. Peabody mines coal out of land leased from the tribes at a site known as Black Mesa. The coal is powderized and then mixed with water that is pumped through a pipeline 273 miles west to the Mohave Generating Station, which then produces electricity for 1.5 million homes in nearby Las Vegas and Southern California.
I learned of a similar disregard for native rights in the pursuit of petro-energy after I read the 2002 Homeland Security Act.
I nearly fell out of my chair as I read that local government definitions specifically include “Alaska Native organizations and villages.”
This means that if there is some sort of emergency, like our government declares an energy crisis say, because foreign oil becomes too expensive or there is some sort of terrorist attack or our oil reserves run low, the federal government has the authority to take over all assets of Alaska Native villages and corporations, including mine, Ahtna, Inc.
BTW, the HAARP is built on Ahtna land, but that is another story.
This also means that Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, can be drilled, against the will of the Gwich’in Athabascans and other Alaska Natives, because our sovereignty was somehow dissolved through provisions of the Homeland Security Act.
Evon Peter, Chief of the Neetsaii Gwich'in from Arctic Village in northeastern Alaska, is on point for the fight against oil drilling in ANWR.
He has a site at: http://www.nativemovement.org
He recently addressed the Alaska Federation of Natives and said “The United States government worked to assimilate our peoples through the eradication of our Native knowledge, philosophy, languages, spiritual practices and beliefs. The Indigenous Peoples were not allowed or were highly discouraged from participating in any of the colonial "freedoms". These prohibitions included land ownership, business development, and even shopping in stores. There were signs that read "No dogs, No natives" allowed on some buildings. The United States was after control of our land and resources. They had to deal with whatthey termed the "Indian problem".
Today our traditional Indigenous governments have national and international recognition. Yet, the Indigenous Peoples of Alaska, like many other Indigenous Peoples throughout the world, continue struggling for the recognized rights to our traditional lands and way of life. We are striving to make things better for our people while attempting to address the historical injustices that are at the foundation of many of these struggles.”
Sadly, this pattern of military industrial complex eco-terrorism and genocide isn’t limited to the Vietnamese or American Indians.
An October 13, 2004 news story details how the nuclear test compensation fund set up by the American government to compensate Marshall Islanders exposed to radiation during 67 nuclear weapons tests conducted in the 1940’s and 1950’s in the South Pacific is running out of money. As of Oct. 21, the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal said it will be able to make only partial payments to more than 1,700 residents suffering from radiation-related illnesses.
Islanders were exposed to fallout from at least two Hiroshima-size atomic tests as well as the detonation of the world's first hydrogen bomb, estimated at 1,000 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb.
A prominent west coast law firm, Davis, Wright and Tremaine, has stepped forward to offer pro-bono help to the people of Likiep Atoll, one of the Marshall Islands. These people were subjected to radiation from 23 bomb blasts over Bikini Atoll because they were never relocated or notified that they or their water and food supplies were about to be contaminated by nuclear fallout.
Finally, let’s look at the Iraq war depleted uranium (DU) situation.
Depleted uranium is the waste byproduct of nuclear reactors. In the 1980s, U.S. researchers recognized that the material's density gave it tremendous armor-piercing potential. Not only can shells coated with depleted uranium punch through layers of hardened steel, they ignite on impact, creating a fiery burst of radioactive particles inside an enemy armored vehicle. It is this "aerosol" that most experts believe causes the variety of long-term health problems associated with gulf war syndrome. More than 230,000 of the 697,000 U.S. soldiers who served in the gulf wars have filed disability claims for various maladies, the majority of which fall under the broad category of gulf war syndrome.
Instead of cleaning up the nuke plants, the waste, or DU, is now passed on to weapon manufacturers.
This is the same stuff the government wants to bury deep inside Yucca mountain.
General Ramsey Clark has called for the international ban on DU weapons stating “Depleted-uranium weapons are an unacceptable threat to life, a violation of international law and an assault on human dignity.”
Once someone breathes in the radiation, it stays in their lymph nodes. They are polluted for more than forever as DU has a half-life of 4.4 billion years.
The U.S. and British military have powdered the Iraqi country side with between 300 and 800 tons of DU dust, not to mention dusting the countries of Kosovo and Kuwait. According to a November 1, 2004 news article “Depleted Uranium Dust Worries Iraqis,” if the United States military assures the U.N. and the Iraqi people that the radioactive, metal dust is safe, then why is the United States spending billions of dollars cleaning up depleted uranium at former munitions factories, military firing ranges and nuclear fuel production sites?
A General Accounting Office report in 2000 put the cost of cleanup at the uranium enrichment plant in Paducah, Ky., where DU is processed for use in weapons and nuclear reactors, at $1.3 billion. By December 2003, the cost of cleaning up and closing the plant, estimated to take until 2070, was up to $13 billion.
So, what does all this tell us?
It tells us that if one has skin color other than white, your land, your safety, your food and your water don’t matter to the U.S. government.
What does all this have to do with W’s re-election?
It means that the Bush administration’s battles against American Indians, i.e. Cobell v Norton, the Yucca mountain nuclear waste depository and the possible drilling of ANWR, are not fought with guns, but rather through the federal legal defense teams paid with unlimited taxpayer dollars who can write countless legal briefs that can keep a court case going until the other side:
a. gets tired and gives up
b. runs out of money
c. settles for a small portion of what is due them
d. dies
e. is forced to do what the government says through martial law imposed by FEMA and the Homeland Security Act
The bottom line is that the U.S. government, and the Bush Administration in particular, needs to stop terrorizing and targeting indigenous people and our lands and, rather, learn some lessons from our cultures before it’s too late.
In 1877, Chief Joseph announced his people's, the Nez Perce, surrender and said the famous words:
“I will fight no more forever.”
I think he meant fighting with bullets, not legal briefs.
The lessons are that we need to live lives based on spirituality, not hypocritical Armageddic religions where our sins are forgiven each Sunday. We need to live in harmony with, take care of, nurture and honor Mother Earth instead of sucking her dry and exploiting her resources to feed the self-destructive petroleum addictions that are fueling legal battles designed to wear the other side down and launching unjust wars in the names of money and power, both corporate and political.
Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, no matter what color they are.
And remember, we’re one world, one people; not one people’s world.
Cassandra ‘Sandy’ Frost is an award winning e-journalist and newspaper editor who has covered the topics of Intuition, Remote Viewing and Consciousness from an Athabascan or Alaska Native point of view the past three years.
More of her articles can be found at:
http://blogs.salon.com/0003531/
http://blogs.salon.com/0004117/
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