The old photo to your left is an important one:Chief's Red Cloud and Sitting Bull.
(Update: a fellow blogger notified me and corrected the Warrior next to Red Cloud is American Horse. Also see picture of American Horse in full headress at bottom of this blog)
I'm a Lakota-Sioux ,born and raised in Central Wyoming on the Arapho/ Shoshone Rez. My wisdom comes from the school of hard knocks,and the paths I choose to take. Along with the advice and stories from my elders, my road has lead me here.
June 17, 2009 Only Native American U.S. Attorney to be Replaced
The Arizona Republic is reporting that President Obama is poised to replace the first and only Native American to serve as a U.S. attorney.
Dianne Humetewa, an enrolled member of the Hopi tribe, worked her way up through the ranks of the U.S. attoney's office, starting as a tribal liaison and victim rights advocate. She was appointed to the post 18 months ago by former President George W. Bush.
Humetewa will likely be replaced by Phoenix lawyer Dennis Burke, who was formerly the chief of staff for former Ariz. Gov. Janet Napolitano. Some are charging that his appointment to the post is political patronage.
Obama, as if holding a knife, slashing one by one from positions our Native women and men worked hard for most their lives and replacing them with sleazy, people who are using politics to move to a higher position within our government! It's all about power folks! Power! They don't care who they destroy along the way! My Rant!
Native Americans Against Obama came about for two good reasons. The first reason covers Obama's total lack of knowledge concerning world issues as to how an American president should respond to a global issue. The second reason covers Obama not standing behind his word to meet with Native American leaders. Obama it seems also made it a point not to attend a meeting with the National Congress Of American Indians held in Reno Nevada during the primary.
Obama, during the democratic primary campaign, stated he supported Native American issues. Obama even stated he supported bringing about a national holiday that recognizes Native Americans, but to date Obama has not seen fit as a U.S. senator to add his name to the national Native American Holiday Bill, currently before the U.S. Senate.
Not only has Obama failed to support Native American Indian issues, Obama has not supported the Native Hawaiian Government Recognition Bill before the U.S. Senate during his first term in office as a U.S. Senator. Obama should be front-and-center of this issue as he proudly claims Hawaii as his home state.
S.310: U.S. Senate Native Hawaiian Government Recognition Bill:
Title: A bill to express the policy of the United States regarding the United States relationship with Native Hawaiians and to provide a process for the recognition by the United States of the Native Hawaiian governing entity.
Obama failed to address "Real" Native American issues during the Democratic Primaries.
Obama over all, did not win the Native American Vote in the primaries across the country.
NATIVE AMERICAN HEALTH CARE: A NATIONAL SICK JOKE!
Obama says he will bring about universal health care for all Americans. Obama made no commitment to Native Americans that he would increase federal funding of their health care facilities and programs to upgrade them to all other national health care standards. The political realism that Obama could bring about universal health care in a four year term is unrealistic. Obama's national health plan would leave Native Americans where they are now; at the bottom of the list for federal health care funding. NATIVE AMERICAN EDUCTION SYSTEM: A NATIONAL SICK JOKE!
Obama made no commitment for federal funds to repair or build new American Indian schools. Across the country, many American Indian schools are in shambles for lack of federal funding to maintain them. A multitude of American Indian schools are being forced to close because they cannot run a full school term on the small amount of allocated federal funding available.
NATIVE AMERICAN POVERTY RATE: A NATIONAL SICK JOKE!
Obama made no economic commitment to Native Americans that he would bring about a national Indian business empowerment program dedicated to ending the high rate of unemployment, poverty, and total lack of financial institutions willing to support Native American Communities on reservations to develop a self-sustaining business infrastructure. Obama is aware of Native Americans today that are being economically starved from their reservation lands while the federal government supports numerous foreign countries with billions of our tax dollars each year to support their economic well-being, Obama will not change that status-quo.
OBAMA HAS NO PLAN FOR "CHANGE" FOR NATIVE AMERICANS
Obama has not shown Native Americans that he has the leadership capabilities, nor personal willingness to fully address and implement a policy of change that would help Native Americans should he be elected president. The more Obama talks about "Change", Native Americans see "No Change Nor Commitment" for them with Obama as president.
A VOTE FOR OBAMA IS A VOTE FOR NO REAL CHANGE!
www.UnitedNativeAmerica.com
Mike Graham is a citizen of the Oklahoma Cherokee Nation, a retired service connected disabled Army veteran. Founded United Native America in 1993 to form a national group to take action on American Indian issues. The groups main issue is to bring (more...)
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors
Why can't the govt. just distribute the excess buffalo in Yellowstone to the various Native American tribes. To let them be able to use them to feed their people? Oh that would be too easy! I found this video on utube, enjoy and think about it.
Got to apologize for being gone so long. After I get home from the dr, I'll get caught up and it may be a better blog as I'm about to go straight Native American blog if I can, see you then!
Expressing the Sense of the Congress that the Federal Government should not create a national database tracking firearm owners or firearm purchases. (Introduced in House)
HCON 71 IH
111th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 71 Expressing the Sense of the Congress that the Federal Government should not create a national database tracking firearm owners or firearm purchases.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 12, 2009 Mr. REHBERG submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION Expressing the Sense of the Congress that the Federal Government should not create a national database tracking firearm owners or firearm purchases.
Whereas the constitutional right to keep and bear arms conferred by the Second Amendment is essential to the defense of our Nation, the maintenance of liberty, and the suppression of tyranny;
Whereas the Supreme Court ruled, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense and the defense of others;
Whereas infringement of the right to keep and bear arms would place individual citizens and the Nation as a whole at the mercy of threats both foreign and domestic;
Whereas George Washington, America's original commander-in-chief and President of the United States, stated `Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence . . . the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference--they deserve a place of honor with all that's good.'; and
Whereas law-abiding citizens have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms free from harassment and intimidation: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that the Federal Government should not create a national database for the purpose of tracking firearm owners or firearm purchases, as affirmed by section 926(a) of title 18, United States Code, as enacted by the Congress in Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986.
US acts like banana republic. After spending nearly all of his first 100 days in office apologizing for being American and the perceived ills America has done to the world, President B. Hussein Obama gets a lesson in tin pot dictatorship from Ortega and Chavez.
Upon returning from the world apology tour, wherein he groveled and whined and generally behaved like an emasculated child raised by a single mother, with empty hands, empty pockets (as the worlds bullies took his lunch money on the worlds playground) and a brand new plan, President Obama set out to show what he had learned. Winning an election is not good enough. You must then embarrass, humiliate and possibly imprison your competition. Welcome to Barack’s Banana Republic, aka America.
The Constitution is slipping through Americans fingers like the mercurial republic it creates. We cannot let this President drag a former president through the mud, for actions taken to protect America after attacks on our soil. Particularly when the former President and his legal team based his decisions and actions upon a definition of torture created by the Democrat controlled congress of 1994.
Logic dictates that if you use a definition of torture, that comes from the legislative body of the United States of America, then they are the ones you seek to punish, not the person who used that definition to protect America. Of course, logic does not seem to apply to the Obama presidency.
President Obama cannot stand up to the bullies of the world due to his embarrassment at being American, his guilt of being privileged and his weakness of character and heart as demonstrated by his voting present so many times as a Senator and the giving up of America’s lunch money to anyone who asks for it. But, he can stand up to a former President who no longer has authority, after stating he won’t. Why, because the radical left of his party demand it due to Bush Derangement Syndrome. B. Hussein Obama cannot stand up to anyone. It is a sad day for him, although I am sure he is used to it by now, and a sad day for America
Lyrics: Wani wachiyelo Ate omakiyayo (Father help me I want to live) Atay nimichikun (Father you have done this) Oshiya chichiyelo (Humbly have pity on me) Wani wachiyelo Atay omakiyayo (Father help me I want to live) [ Wani wachiyelo Atay (Father I want to live)
Interview with He Dog, Oglala, S.D. July 7, 1930 Thomas White Cow Killer, Interpreter . . I will be glad to tell you about Crazy Horse or any others of our old time chiefs about whom you may wish to know because I am an old man now and shall not live many years longer and it is time for me to tell these things. Whatever I tell you will be the exact truth, because I was in a position to know what I talk about. There are a lot of old Indians hanging about the reservation who like to talk to the white people and would just as soon tell you anything, whether it is true or not. They are men whom we would not have had as servants, those of us who were Chiefs in the old days. I and Crazy Horse were both born in the same year and at the same season of the year. We grew up together in the same band, played together, courted the girls together and fought together. I am now ninety-two years old, so you can figure out in what year he was born by your calendar. When we were 17 or 18 years old we separated. Crazy Horse went to the Rosebud Band (that is to the Brules, of whom Spotted Tail was Chief a little later) of Indians and stayed with them for about a year. Then he came home. After he had been back for a while, I made inquiries about why he had left the Rosebud band. I was told he had to come back because he had killed a Winnebago woman. (According to ancient Lakota custom, coup could be counted on an enemy woman if she was killed in the sight of the fighting men of her tribe. The theory was that the enemy would fight even harder to protect or avenge one of their women than one of their men. But the Brules were already agency Indians and the authorities took a different attitude about it. Apparently Crazy Horse himself changed his mind about the ethics of this custom if the speech of his reported by Captain Hans in "The Great Sioux Nation" is correct). Less than a year after Crazy Horse left camp, I joined in a trip against the Crow Indians. WHen I got home, the crier was announcing that Crazy Horse was back in camp. Only his name was not Crazy Horse at that time. He has three names at different times of his life. His name until he was about ten years old was Curly Hair. Later, from the time he was ten until the time he was about eighteen years of age, he was called His-Horse-On-Sight, but this name did not stick to him. When he was about eighteen years old there was a fight with the Arapahos who were up on a high hill covered with big rocks and near a river. Although he was just a boy, he charged them several times alone and came back wounded but with two Arapaho scalps. His father, whose name was Crazy Horse, made a feast and gave his son his own name. After that, the father was no longer called by the name he had given away, but was called by a nickname, Worm. Crazy Horse, the son, was one of three children. The oldest was a Sister, the next was Crazy Horse, and the third was a Brother. All are dead now. When we were young men, the Oglala band divided into two parts, one led by Red Cloud and one by Man-Afraid-of-His-Horse, the elder. I and Crazy Horse stayed with the part led by Man-Afraid-Of-His-Horse. Later this half subdivided again into two parts. I stayed with the more Northern half of which I and Big Road, and later Holy Bald Eagle and Red Cloud, were appointed joint Chiefs ("shirt wearers", so called from a particular kind of ceremonial shirt worn by this class of chieftain as insignia of office). Crazy Horse remained with the Southern quarter of the tribe. The council of this division awarded the chieftainship to Crazy Horse, American Horse, Young-Man-Afraid-Of-His-Horse, and Sword. It was many years after our first battles before we were made Chiefs. A man had to distinguish himself in many fights and in peace as well before he could be chosen as a Chief. (After consultation together, He Dog and the interpreter dated these appointments as having been made about 1865 by the white man's calendar) The name of Crazy Horse's band was the Hunkpatila (End of Circle) band because when the tribe was encamped together it occupied one end of the tribal crescent. At about the time these appointments were made Crazy Horse moved towards the White Mountains (Indian name of the Big Horn Mountains). Crazy Horse and I went together on a war trip to the other side of the mountains. When we came back, the people came out of the camp to meet us and escorted us back and at a big ceremony presented us with two spears, the gift of the whole tribe, which was met together. These spears were each three or four hundreds years old and were given by the older generation to those in the younger generation who had best lived the life of a warrior. Crazy Horse was still single when he was made a "shirt wearer". A few years after this he began to pay attention to the wife of a man named No Water. No Water did not want to let the woman go. In the Battle "When They Chased The Crows Back To Camp", (1870) He Dog and Crazy Horse were the lance bearers of the Kangi Yuhn (Crow Owner's Society). About ten days after that battle Crazy Horse started off on a smaller war expedition and No Water's wife went along with him. No Water followed them and came to the tipi of Bad Heart Bull and asked to borrow a certain good revolver (Bad Heart Bull was a brother of He Dog and is now dead) which Bad Heart Bull owned. He said he wanted to go hunting. Crazy Horse and the woman were sitting by the fire in a tipi belonging to some of their friends. No Water entered the tipi, walked up to Crazy Horse as near as I am to that stove (about four feet) and shot him through the face. The bullet entered just below the left nostril. That is how Crazy Horse got his scar. No Water took his wife back. Because of all this, Crazy Horse could not be a "shirt wearer" any longer. When we were made Chiefs, we were bound by very strict rules as to what we should do and what not do, which were very hard for us to follow. I have never spoken to nay but a very few persons of what they made us promise them. I have always kept the oaths I made then, but Crazy Horse did not. Later on the older, more responsible men of the tribe conferred another kind of Chieftainship on Crazy Horse. He was made War Chief of the whole Oglala tribe. A similar office was conferred on Sitting Bull by the Hunkpapa tribe. This was still early, a long, long time before the Custer fight. At this time the government did not know who we were. Crazy Horse always led his men himself, when they went into battle, and he kept well in front of them. He headed many charges and was many times wounded in battle, but never seriously. He never wore a war bonnet. A medicine man named Chips had given him power if he would wear in battle an eagle bone whistle and one feather and a certain round stone with a hole in it. He wore the stone under his left arm, suspended by a leather thong that went over his shoulder. The one central feather that is in the middle of the war eagle's tail, that was the feather he wore in his hair. (He Dog denied with a chuckle, various stories told about how Crazy Horse on certain occasions threw away his rifle and charged in with a war club or a riding quirt, a characteristic Indian mode of seeking death in battle) Crazy Horse always stuck close to his rifle. He always tried to kill as many as possible of the enemy without losing his own men. He never spoke in council and attended very few. There was no special reason for this, it was just his nature. He was a very quiet man except when there was fighting. Crazy Horse was married three times. The first time was to No Water's wife, but she only stayed with him a few days. Shortly after that he married Red Feather's sister. By her he had one child, a little girl who died when about two years old. A long while after, when he had surrendered at Ft. Robinson, he married a young half-breed girl. He did not have any children by her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Susan Boyle - Cry Me A River - 1999 Recording (From The Scottish Daily Record Newspaper)
Twas the night before the Big Tea Party and everyone is in the position within the states they are to attend; A preview on the tellie showed they were parading the route in advance. A few Thomas Paine's to relax and partake at the end of this blog.
Watch out for the Acorn (leftist wing 'nuts'), they are gonna try to get the party out of control and use violence if they have to!They don't even understand what the protest is all about. Besides, they are Welfare folks that have been paid to protest! Hey Democrat's and extreme leftists, you got to pay taxes too, Join in, "But be cool"!
After the Tea Party tomorrow, We all must focus on making our State's Sovereign!
We have to join together and start the drive; to enjoin our Governor's, Senator's and Representative's to the fact that 'We The People' are ready to take our government back into our own hands and stop letting the Federal Government force us to take on some of the financial fascist laws, and controls on our freedoms! Here's a few video's to watch, they are all true! Listen closely as they speak and inform.....
"According to the Department of Homeland Security, Texas fits the Department's profile of potential domestic terrorism described in their newly released report titled, " Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment".
The update on states is now totaled 30!
Penn. State Rep Sam Rohrer Pennsylvania probably is on the terrorists watch list also! Along with the other 29 states....Shouldn't the Fed's realize the American People are mad as hell and we are standing up for what we believe in?
Here's a few of Thomas Paine's video's to enjoy.....
The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S. While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico. By William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott
FOXNews.com
Thursday, April 02, 2009
FILE: In this Nov. 7, 2008, photo a soldier stands guard during the presentation in Mexico City of arms, captured in the largest seizure of Gulf drug-cartel weapons to date, about 288 assault rifles, 500,000 rounds of ammunition, numerous grenades and several .50-caliber rifles (AP).
-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.
-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.
-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."
-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."
There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:
It's just not true.
In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.
What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."
But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.
"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.
A Look at the Numbers
In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.
But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.
In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.
So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:
-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.
-- Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.
- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.
-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.
-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.
-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America's cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.
'These Don't Come From El Paso'
Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, recently displayed an array of weapons considered "assault rifles" that are similar to those recovered in Mexico, but are unavailable for sale in the U.S.
"These kinds of guns -- the auto versions of these guns -- they are not coming from El Paso," he said. "They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don't get these guns from the U.S."
Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."
Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.
The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years -- but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.
"Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
Boatloads of Weapons
So why would the Mexican drug cartels, which last year grossed between $17 billion and $38 billion, bother buying single-shot rifles, and force thousands of unknown "straw" buyers in the U.S. through a government background check, when they can buy boatloads of fully automatic M-16s and assault rifles from China, Israel or South Africa?
Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government, says the drug cartels are using the Guatemalan border to move black market weapons. Some are left over from the Central American wars the United States helped fight; others, like the grenades and launchers, are South Korean, Israeli and Spanish. Some were legally supplied to the Mexican government; others were sold by corrupt military officers or officials.
The exaggeration of United States "responsibility" for the lawlessness in Mexico extends even beyond the "90-percent" falsehood -- and some Second Amendment activists believe it's designed to promote more restrictive gun-control laws in the U.S.
In a remarkable claim, Auturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., said Mexico seizes 2,000 guns a day from the United States -- 730,000 a year. That's a far cry from the official statistic from the Mexican attorney general's office, which says Mexico seized 29,000 weapons in all of 2007 and 2008.
Chris Cox, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, blames the media and anti-gun politicians in the U.S. for misrepresenting where Mexican weapons come from.
"Reporter after politician after news anchor just disregards the truth on this," Cox said. "The numbers are intentionally used to weaken the Second Amendment."
"The predominant source of guns in Mexico is Central and South America. You also have Russian, Chinese and Israeli guns. It's estimated that over 100,000 soldiers deserted the army to work for the drug cartels, and that ignores all the police. How many of them took their weapons with them?"
But Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, called the "90 percent" issue a red herring and said that it should not detract from the effort to stop gun trafficking into Mexico.
"Let's do what we can with what we know," he said. "We know that one hell of a lot of firearms come from the United States because our gun market is wide open
Does President Obama truly believe that he can castigate and condemn Wall Street on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and then secure its cooperation on the other days of the week?
Does he not understand that when he ignites a public furor over AIG bonuses and then incites Congress to pass a punitive tax, he sends shivers down the spines of every other corporate executive who makes a lot of money?
Does he seriously believe that Wall Street investors will not worry that their winnings, should they join the Treasury as partners in risky investments, would be subject to public abuse, publicity and confiscatory taxation?
Of course he realizes that his rhetoric makes it unlikely that his program will succeed. He obviously gets it that the entire concept of a public-private partnership is impossible amid a climate of waging class warfare, taxing the rich and heaping contempt on anyone who makes money. The president is quite bright and certainly understands that you cannot shake hands with your right while you launch a roundhouse with your left.
So why does Obama persist in his aggressive rhetoric? Why does he continue to treat Wall Street as something out of Dante's Inferno?
Because he's just not that into you! He doesn't really care if the public-private partnerships work out.
He sends Geithner out to announce the program because he doesn't want to make it his own. When he announces a stimulus plan or a new spending bill, it's Obama's moment before the teleprompter. But the public-private partnerships he leaves to his Treasury secretary to announce.
The most rational explanation for Obama's puzzling conduct -- sabotaging his own program by way of his own rhetoric -- is that he truly wants to be forced to nationalize the banks in pursuit of his ultimate goal of a socialist economy.
Obama has to oppose nationalization today in order to achieve it tomorrow. He has to show the country and the world that he is doing all he can to help the private sector to sort things out with government help. He must ostentatiously invite the hated demons of Wall Street to join him in rescuing the banks in order, later, to say that he did his best to avoid having to take over the banks. Only then will nationalization be an acceptable alternative -- when he has run out of other options.
Meanwhile, he makes sure the private sector won't play ball by going after their bonuses, sending an implicit message to the other executives on Wall Street that reads: Stay away.
Even when he takes over the banks, as he almost inevitably will, he is going to have to dress up the nationalization as a temporary measure forced on him by the economy and the previously unrealized depth of the problem. He will cite the example of Sweden, where the government nationalized the banks only temporarily and returned them to private hands quickly.
You can't be for nationalization. But Obama hopes to accomplish it nonetheless.
Already, in the TARP and TALF programs, we can see how eager he is to use government power to manipulate the once-private sector. Consider the mandates piling up on any financial institution that takes government funds: limits on executive pay, corporate travel and conferences; a strong Buy American recommendation; and aggressive action to get them to make consumer loans. Can affirmative action, low-income lending and diversity outreach be far behind?
If Obama can bring banks and the healthcare industry under government control, we will have de facto socialism. Is this Obama's goal? It is obviously where he is headed.
Is Obama a socialist? Rather than throw around labels, let's do the math. The best measure of whether an economy is government- or private sector-oriented is the percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) that flows through government expenditure. Before the current fiscal crisis, the major nations stacked up as shown in the chart on page 27.
Obama's stimulus package, alone, comes to about 6 percent of GDP, vaulting the United States past Japan to 40 percent on the list above. If we add in the extra spending in the supplemental appropriations bill and the likely increases for healthcare, the total government percentage will rise well past 40 percent and probably close in on the United Kingdom's 43.
That's pretty socialistic, but Obama has three more years to get us up around Germany and really ruin our economy! ***COPYRIGHT EILEEN MCGANN AND DICK MORRIS 2009.
Man I just couldn't have said it any better than Dick Morris [Fox news] and Alex Castellano [CNN]. My eyes are tired,I've cried till my eyes are dry. I cannot cry anymore. My heart has broken for the children of the future.
And I see that John McCain is moving the bennett freeze bill through quietly, My Navajo brothers and sisters will loose their land sooner than I predicted. As soon as it gets signed by Obama, the Peabody mining company and McCain will be there mapping out the sections of the rez.to steal the coal from them. I hang my head in sorrow.....
Editor's Note: Republican strategist Alex Castellanos was a campaign consultant for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential campaign and has worked on more than half a dozen presidential campaigns. Castellanos is a partner in National Media Inc., a political and public affairs consulting firm that specializes in advertising. For a rival view, click here
Alex Castellanos says President Obama's spending will create a mountain of debt and problems for Democrats.
(CNN) -- Things I learned Tuesday night from President Obama's press conference:
Obama and congressional Democrats are angry that greedy Wall Street executives took $165 million in bonuses that the president and congressional Democrats gave them.
We have made them give it back, but they have to keep the trillion-dollar bailout.
Apparently, our education system is worse than we thought. Neither the president nor Democrats in Congress actually read the bailout-bonus bill.
Per-family household debt more than doubled from 1989 to 2007, going from $42,000 per family to $97,000 per family, in inflation-adjusted dollars. Most of it, 85 cents of every dollar, is home equity or mortgage debt. This is not the consumer's fault for borrowing it, nor Congress' fault for legislating it, nor the Fed's fault for enabling it, nor Fannie Mae's or Freddie Mac's fault for packaging it. This is all Wall Street's fault.
It is also all George W. Bush's fault.
Don't Miss Obama defends budget as essential to recovery Castellanos: Democrats are playing Monopoly In Depth: Commentaries If there were an inheritance tax on problems, Obama could pay off any deficit.
Taxpayers living next to a toxic waste dump is a bad idea. Taxpayers buying a trillion dollars worth of toxic assets is good idea.
Taxpayers borrowing a trillion dollars to buy those toxic assets is an even better idea. Though it is still Bush's fault.
Obama isn't on the ballot next year, but Democrats in Congress are. You can make money betting they will lose more than 25 seats, but not as much money as by purchasing toxic assets with taxpayer dollars.
The problem with America's economy is that the last bubble, the "home-mortgage, derivative, credit default swap bubble" popped, as all economic bubbles eventually do. We must never let that happen again.
It is imperative that we re-inflate this bubble immediately.
If we all loan a lot of money we don't have to each other, we will all be more prosperous.
An Obama press conference offers hope to everyone. Both those who want to drive the deficit up and drive it down receive encouragement.
A dollar when given to failed auto companies or hollow banks has great stimulative value for the economy, but there's almost no dampening cost to the economy when the dollar is taken from taxpayers, who will have to pay our debt back.
If he does not drive the deficit down, within this decade, interest on the Obama debt will total more than a trillion dollars a year.
Bush was laughed at for saying, "Yes, we are getting the job done. It's hard work," though it's OK for Obama to say only hard decisions reach his desk.
Enhanced border security was a bad idea when Sen. John McCain and Republicans proposed it but a good idea now that Obama is for it.
Trickle-down economics from Republicans got us into this mess. Trickle-down government from Democrats will get us out of it.
Washington was doing such a great job making things work before the meltdown that we should give it more to do, like running health care, the energy industry, banks, Wall Street and the car business.
Our economy is so complex that millions of Americans can't plan for it, but Timothy Geithner and a couple of other smart guys in Washington can.
Political greed is more noble than corporate greed.
We have to short-change charities that help people, so government can help people.
Wall Street and the U.S. government are too big to fail though the American taxpayer isn't.
The Barack Obama experiment, conducted by this 47-year old man, is the riskiest economic wager the world has ever seen.
Next year, when this experiment in European-style socialism isn't working, the Democrats up for re-election will panic and make the spending this year look like an appetizer. To appear responsible, they then will raise taxes on "upper-income taxpayers" to the stratosphere, paralyzing investment and the economy.
Obama's communications gifts are powerful and poetic -- but round-the-clock campaigning on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," "60 Minutes" and this press conference won't save bad policy. Nothing kills a bad product quicker than good advertising. iReport.com: What did you think of Obama's press conference?
Obama has never built a business, created real wealth or produced tangible prosperity. His understanding of our economy is theoretical and academic.
Obama is a privileged young man who has not yet made many mistakes in his life. Having a president who belongs to the Harvard elite and the community-organizer streets is not the same as having a president who has lived a long life among middle-class Americans and understands them.
Impatience lies not deep beneath the surface of Obama. There is no shortage of self-confidence in this young man. It is a short step from such confidence to arrogance.
Arrogance in a politician is not healthy. Hubris, combined with inexperience, can be fatal. Obama could be a one-term president.
Obama is looking a little older. There would be nothing wrong with acting like it.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Alex Castellanos.
When a president talks about taxing the rich and taxing businesses there is a price to be paid and this is an example of what begins to happen when you go too far. Oil and energy companies are beginning to make plans to move….. to Switzerland, and the reason is they want to avoid President Obama’s assault on their companies. [This is in part a post from 'America's Watchtower']
That hasn’t stopped McCain from going after the coal on the Navajo Reservation. He’s trying to take the “Bennett Freeze” amendant off the books in Congress,so he can force the relocation of the Navajo people, AGAIN! He has already forced 12,000 of them and relocated them in the radioactive contaminated aftermath of his partners in crime, the Peabody mining company, who are operating 24/7. They have bulldozed ancient sites, burial grounds,homes that are decades old. The dust that has been created is filling the Grand Canyon so that it is effecting visablity for the tourist industry. They are violating eco laws with all the mess that they have created. McCain is in a hurry all of the sudden, is it because Obama is gonna stick it to the coal industry? or is it they are running out of coal to mine and they need these poor people relocated to get at the remaining coal the area has to offer? Somethings made them to suddenly get the move on. Or is Obama in on this too? I wonder where the Peabody Mining Company(the largest mining company in the world) is based out of, I’m sure it’s overseas. And I don’t trust McCain and his wife either.I wonder where they moved their many millions also. I'm not against coal mining, as long as it doesn't step on peoples toes, as they did on the Navajo Reservation. If you read Peabody's site, they clean up after they are through. They say they haven't operated the Arizona mine since 2005. I'd think they would have completed the cleanup of the toxic waste that still sits upon the land, the contaminated ground water and the drinking water, the desert plants that they destroyed that grew on the Navajo Rez and nowhere else in the world. Did they rebuild all the sacred sites and ancient burial grounds they bulldozed over? Last looked they had done a poor job on the biggest hazardous/radioactive spill in the world that they have hush-hushed up. Thats my rant on the subject for some time now.They paid these people pennies on the dollar for the coal they took, and left them nothing but disaster of their reservation. Cancer, kidney disease, deformed babies. I seen a chart that the USAF did that showed wll the contamination left by these people. This land is unusable and deemed unfit to live on. Thank you McCain and various other Senator friends that pushed all the necessary requirements to destroy these people's lives!
Friday, February 27, 2009 Obama: Stop the Peabody Mine Expansion on Black Mesa
By Bahe Katenay Image by Black Mesa Indigeous Support Ladies & Gentlemen, the Old, the Young, the Coming Generation, and Relatives:
As we speak, there exist a state of fear and anxiety in a traditional community at Big Mountain in the heart of Black Mesa. And as we speak, the federally deputized officers of the BIA Hopi Agency Police and Rangers are patrolling this region where a few traditional elders continue to live and also resist federal mandates to relocate. I want to bring your attention to one particular situation that is an example of the wide-spread acts of injustice, human rights violation, religious intolerance, and threats of property destruction.
Dineh resister and elder, Pauline Whitesinger, has stood her ground since 1977 when the BIA tried to build a range unit fence within the lands partitioned to the neighboring tribe, the (modern and progressive) Hopis. Pauline still believes in the old ways by upholding aboriginal rights and treaty rights and because of BIA-Hopi restriction on new contruction and her deteriorating ceremonial hogan, she replaced and rebuilt a new hogan. The BIA Indian police are constantly taken photographs of her residence, her neighbors that come to see her, her non-Indian volunteer helpers, and her grandchildren that come to visit. The police do not attempt to talk to her or answer to her concerns and requests.
This area known as the Hopi Partitioned Lands still has Dineh residents and has been made an isolated area, and this is allowing the federal government to do as they please with these last, traditional peoples. Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr. has even made numerous comments that the Dineh resistance at Big Mountain "a lost cause and a closed case" meaning that these Dineh are to never be thought of, again. Meaning that these Dineh, who are my Big Mountain relatives, need to be erased from the state of the Navajo Nation and perhaps, Pauline is right when she says, "we are in way of Peabody, profit, revenues, and industrial jobs."
The last few elder resisters and their few supporters (native or non-natives) will continue to provide the much needed humanitarian aide to our surviving history: traditional Dineh living and maintaining on their ancestral and sacred homelands. However, we all need to act in the best means possible and stop the daily Gestapo tactics and the potential demolishment of a sacred hogan or earth lodge. We all need to prevent any harm that may be committed on our elders or their helpers and most of all, prevent this growing hostility from getting out-of-hand.
All legal recourses are no longer an option since this is a challenge against a U.S. Executive Order, and The Peoples are the only option to bring about attention, focus and restoration.
I have attached a petition with addresses of officials and I am making a plead to you all, my relatives, to sign it and either send it directly to the listed officials or send them to the Black Mesa Indigenous Support. This situation is very urgent. These elders are very old now and they truly deserve much honor. They have lived in a way that, we or our future generations may never see humans live in this country. These traditional elders must live their naturally-given, old life in peace and harmony, Hozhon goh. Yaa'at'eeh goh.
I apologize for the long list of officials, but it has become long because of so many years of ignorance and because certain, minor sectors of society believed that these Elders would have been defeated already.
Thank you for your time. Sincerely & In the Spirit of Chief Barboncito, Bahe Y. Katenay (Naabaahii Keediniihii) Dineh of Big Mountain
"A very great vision is needed and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky." The words of Crazy Horse (As remembered by Ohiyesa, Charles A. Eastman).
STOP THE PEABODY COAL MINE EXPANSION ON BLACK MESA IN THE TERRITORIES OF THE DINEH (NAVAJO) & HOPIS IN ARIZONA, U.S.A. The Sovereign Nation of the Big Mountain Dineh VIA Black Mesa, Navajo Indian Reservation, Arizona, U.S.A. March 2009
Dear Mr. President Barrack Obama, and Madame Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, Copies to: Mrs. Katherine Smith & Mrs. Pauline Whitesinger, Big Mountain Sovereign Dineh, Selected Kimongwis of the Independent Pueblo of Hotevilla, Mr. William Means & Ms. Andrea Carmen, International Indian Treaty Council, President Joe Shirley, Jr., The Navajo Nation, Mr. Roman Bitsuie, The Navajo-Hopi Land Commission, Office of the Hopi Tribe’s Office of Hopi Lands, Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Phoenix Area Agency Department of the Interior, Office of Surface Mining
REPEAL “THE NAVAJO-HOPI LAND SETTLEMENT ACT OF 1974” (P.L. 93-531): IT ENFORCES THE METHODS OF GENOCIDE BY POPULATION REMOVAL AND COAL MINING EXPANSIONS The Sovereign Nation of the Big Mountain Dineh is located in northeastern Arizona on Black Mesa and is part of ancient indigenous shared-territories. Members of this nation were affected by the 1974 legislation to relocate from certain partitioned areas, but have rather chose to resist this policy and try to: maintain their ancestral and treaty lands, keep cultural practices, value universal-granted freedom, conduct their ancient rights to ritual ceremonies, and preserve their sacred sites. The proclamation of these Dineh in 1979 states that through divine creation they were, “provided with the Ni’tliz’ (sacred stones) as offerings and the Dzil leezh (sacred mountain soil Bundle) representing the universe. With prayers and songs we offer the Ni’tliz to the trees, to the hills, to the wind, and the thunder beings in the sacred rain. The Dzil Leezh is our power to live close to our mother the Earth and father Sky. These are our sacred ways to survive in this universe and to communicate with the unseen forces in the Natural life.” As you may be aware that, the relocation of thousands of Dineh (Navajos) and Hopis has been in process since 1977 after 1.8 million acres was partitioned and that, the Dineh elder leaders at Big Mountain began their resistance to U.S. government court orders to vacant areas partitioned to the official and federally-recognized, Hopi tribe. These traditional Dineh communities still continue to resist the harsh relocation policies and coal mining encroachment to this day. Despite a few elders are now left, they continue to reaffirm their ancestral land rights which are contrary to all court decisions related to the fore mentioned communities from 1974 to 1998. U.S. Judicial System has had a vital role in this land rights issue ever since energy companies of the southwestern United States became interested in exploring the coal reserves of Black Mesa in northeastern Arizona. In 1962, there was a well-orchestrated rush to establish an Indian Land Claims on the behalf of the Hopi tribe and which was guided by a Peabody Coal Company attorney, and this allowed Peabody to acquire mining leases. The U.S. courts and corporate attorneys eventually, thereafter, help created the relocation and land-partitioning policies which only made way for coal exploration. None of these court rulings were based on proving that an actual “land dispute” did exist between the Dineh and Hopis. Big Mountain on Black Mesa is the only place in the United States where two Indian nations can still define cultural coexistence and shared territories, and now have become endangered aboriginal peoples. The U.S. courts have ordered continued pressure on the remaining traditional Dineh and keep the areas sealed and isolated. The United States is allowing this tragedy and genocide to be sustained under the guise that relocation are on voluntary basis and that Indian police are being used rather than state authorities to carry out enforcements. These traditional resisters hold great knowledge and wisdom of ancient information and natural existence that are irreplaceable, and it is the world society’s responsibility to stop the United States and its largest coal-producer, Peabody Energy, from executing this human and mega-environmental destruction. Additional documentations (www.blackmesais.org) of human rights violation and religious intolerance are as follows: Limitation or complete denial of: crop cultivation and livestock husbandry, community and religious activities, access to or maintenance of water wells, and elder residents’ safety needs to attain wood fuels for heating and cooking, Forced relocation to foreign settings that does not support or replace loss culture and religions, Deliberate breaking up of family and clan structures, Controlled national media that portray the Big Mountain story as a result of legitimate and humane court decisions, Peabody mines create: daily detonation that causes micro-quakes, depletion of pristine aquifers that causes subsidence and fissure zones, and massive emissions of coal dust and engine exhaust. We the undersigned hereof state our demand that the United States cease all forcible relocation enforcements on the Dineh, and reverse the decisions made for Peabody Coal Company’s Life of the Mine Permit on Black Mesa. It will be furthered recommended that: Indigenous peoples’ inherent rights to their homelands be recognized and respected, Traditional tribal communities be allowed to reinstate and restore the inexorable ties to fundamental existence and spiritual practices, There must be serious reviews about the conclusion that Black Mesa coal is the primary source for energy, and that being reviewed in the context of global concerns for greenhouse gas emissions, Acknowledge that indigenous being has sustained all human cultures’ moral obligations throughout the ages, and it is much more crucial in this technological era that the demands and rights of indigenous peoples be received with greater human understanding. Thank you for your time and consideration. SIGNATURE PRINT NAME DATE OCCUPATION COUNTRY
Yes, our children need help. Then, they also need jobs. They need work. They need to have hope that they can survive. They need to be treated like real citizens, free to be who they are.
The current programs are not working. Our Reservations are dry but 60-70% of our people are still affected by alcoholism and drug addictions. There are a few non-profit organizations that do good work on our reservations. They really do try to help. But there are also many, many groups who only make money in our name. We’re a commodity to them, a way to get more and more money for themselves, while our children are suffering. It’s the same with some of the Tribal Council and Government programs. The money never reaches the people, it never really helps anyone.
Our children are living in a world of confusion and chaos. We need all the help we can get from our own people within our own culture. Gangs and cults and programs that are ignorant of the Lakota culture are not the answer. The Lakota child knows they are Lakota but these other things only work to destroy that identity. They brainwash our children into trying to assimilate rather than respecting and understanding themselves. They contaminate our children with false mainstream ideas and values which then only creates more desperation. We could cure our own. We need to cure our own.
In my grandfather’s time, suicide was unknown. But today, it is everywhere. Our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews are crying for our help. They are dying without our help.
Traditional spirituality could make the difference. But the civilized world and Christianity have tied our hands. Our medicine men, our medicine women, and our spiritual leaders have no standing. We are not even consulted.
Yet, Traditional spirituality could make the real difference.
Traditional sweatlodge ceremonies could help purify the mind of these children who have been so wounded by society. It can wake up the spirit that is inside the person. It can bring healing of the mind, body, and spirit and it could help heal the entire family. But it needs to be the real thing, led by a legitimate traditional spiritual leader, and not just some sauna with a few nice words.
Learning to prepare foods in the traditional way could help them, too. It is important they understand that food prepared in a good way nourishes the family in a good way. They need to know that food prepared with anger and hatred only brings sickness with it.
There are many of the Traditional Ways which would work to bring about healing and hope for these children. It can restore their identity and become a way of life. It can teach them how to live a good life, in a good way. It can give them direction and understanding.
But we need to stop fighting among ourselves. We need to stop looking to the mainstream society for solutions. We need to stop looking to outsiders for cures. We need to look to the Ways of our ancestors to guide us. We, the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota People need to help our own grandchildren.
I am not asking for money. I am not asking for anything from the Government or the BIA except that we be set free. Set us free. Don’t try to force us to live in the mainstream ways. Don’t try to force us to assimilate. Let us live in our own Ways and heal ourselves and our children and grandchildren.
Ho he’cetu yelo. I have spoken these words.
David Swallow, Wowitan Yuha Mani
Porcupine, South Dakota - The Pine Ridge Reservation This article may be reprinted, reproduced, and/or re-distributed unedited with proper attribution and sourcing for non-profit, educational, news, or archival purposes. Stephanie M. Schwartz may be reached at SilvrDrach@Gmail.com
View other publications of Stephanie M. Schwartz at
If you are a Native American or if you have the blood of Native people within you, understand you are the survivor of a holocaust. YOUR PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HUNTED AS ANIMALS. YOUR ANCESTORS WERE STALKED BY
A PERVERSE ENEMY WHO LAY IN WAIT EVERYWHERE YOUR FAMILY WALKED.
You have had your family and your dignity stolen from you and in its place is a deeply perverse set of hate messages swim before your eyes. If you can shut out the hate and the lies, you will find a profound emptiness. You family tried to protect you. That is why you know so little of your heritage, so little of the ways of living which are not approved by the self proclaimed "master of the beasts". That is why so much of the religions, histories, and stories of the RED HOLOCAUST remain a secret today.
SURVIVAL HAS FORCED SILENCE ONTO THE HEART OF THE NATIVE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND YOU ARE TOLD TO BE COMPLIMENTED BY THE NAME OF HATE:
I found this on the more HISTORY & contemporary info site. An excellent site on Native American History
"The tree of Peace" by Kanhionhes Fadden A must read! If you want to know what formed our Government, how it is supposed to be, and the strong influence of the Native American's that welcomed the first white men that stepped foot onto the America's soil. How Benjamin Franklin used some of the laws of the Native's to put in our Constitution and other father's of our early goverment. http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/index.html
"Exemplar of Liberty" Native America and the Evolution of Democracy By Donald A. Grinde, Jr.; Rupert Costo Professor of American Indian History University of California at Riverside and Bruce E. Johansen, Associate Professor of Communication University of Nebraska at Omaha http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/EoL/
Two great books on the origin of the the great influence of the Six Native tribes that made up the Tree of Peace.
The forced relocation of Navajo and Hopi people that followed from the passage in 1974 of Public Law 93-531
Sovereign Dineh Nation New York Support Group
Contact: Marsha Monestersky 244 Fifth Avenue, Box 2767 New York, NY 10001 Tel: (1-718) 349-1841; Fax: (1-718) 349-1841 Email:sdnation@earthlink.net I found this on a summary of the findings of the UN that was investigating the crimes against the peoples and the violation's of the Peabody Coal company upon the earth. http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/mgroups/wedo.htm#dineh As of the writing of this post; The Peabody Coal company wants to expand into the sacred lands to go for more coal, seems they are running out in the sites they are strip mining. 3/3/2009
Dineh People in Arizona Undermined by Coal Mining Interests
REGION:
Black Mesa is located in northeastern Arizona and includes the Dineh (Navajo) and Hopi Reservations. The region spans 3,000 sq miles and has a population of 3,000 indigenous people.
CASE STUDY PREPARED BY: The goal of the Sovereign Dineh Nation (SDN) is to ensure that the traditional Dineh are honored, respected and protected, and that they are able to remain on their land and continue their traditional way of life. SDN was founded ten years ago by a Council of Elders, with Roberta Blackgoat, an elder matriarch, the spiritual leader and chairperson of the organization. A SDN New York Support Group was created to interface and advocate for them with various agencies and NGOs. This group identifies institutional frameworks that can be used to combat industrial practices that constitute violations of the Surface Mining Coal Reclamation Act (SMCRA). It helps to facilitate the filing of formal complaints to the UN Commission on Human Rights and other UN forums
The Black Mesa region in Arizona, USA is home to the indigenous communities of the Dineh (Navajo) and Hopi peoples. This region also contains major deposits of coal which are being extracted by North America's largest strip mining operation. The coal mines have had a major impact on families in the region. Local water sources have been poisoned, resulting in the death of livestock. Homes near the mines suffer from blasting damage. The coal dust is pervasive, as well as smoke from frequent fires in the stockpiles. Not coincidentally, the people in the area have an unusually high incidence of kidney and respiratory disease.
The Dineh (otherwise known as Navajo) were stripped of all land title and forced to relocate. Their land was turned over to the coal companies without making any provisions to protect the burial or sacred sites that would be destroyed by the mines. People whose lives were based in their deep spiritual and life-giving relationship with the land were relocated into cities, often without compensation, forbidden to return to the land that their families had occupied for generations. People became homeless with significant increases in alcoholism, suicide, family break up, emotional abuse and death.
Cause of the Environmental Crisis
In the 1930's, the U.S. government tried to replace the traditional governing mechanisms on the reservations with Western-style governments, but these institutions quickly collapsed from lack of support by the inhabitants. In the 1950s, vast coal deposits were discovered in Black Mesa.
Here's where John McCain comes into the picture
Because no government existed with the power to issue leases to the mining companies, white attorneys with strong ties to the mining industry used legal provisions dating back to the 1930's to create new tribal governments. The people on the Hopi reservation did not recognize the validity of the government or of the coal leases, and filed a suit in the U.S. courts to overthrow the leases, on the grounds that coal mining violated the Hopi religion. U.S. courts dismissed the suit, stating that the industry-created tribal council was a sovereign power, and the Hopi people could not use the U.S. courts to appeal its actions.
In 1974, the mining industry played a major role in passage of the Navajo-Hopi Settlement Act of 1974. McCain got paid to legislate for this by the Peabody Coal Company, the largest mining company in the US. He also holds stock in the venture in his wife's name it has been told around Arizona. Cindy also has a solo contract in the beer distribution in the area she aquired from this bill.
McCain's genocide:
This crucial piece of legislation resulted in the largest relocation of Native American people since the 1860's. The relocation effort has been a disaster. More than 12,000 people have been relocated over the past 22 years. Some were sent to cities where, unable to speak English or relate to a non-traditional economy, they quickly lost the small sums of money they were given at the time of the relocation. The rest were sent to the "New Lands", an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site contaminated by the nation's worst nuclear spill. But many families resisted orders to relocate, and 23 years later, several thousand still remain on their traditional homesites. This relocation has cost the U.S. taxpayers over $350 million.
The people affected by the legislation were never directly informed of its adoption, never allowed to testify in any Congressional hearing and never allowed to be represented in any way through the process. All the decisions that led to partition of their land were carried out and enacted by newly created male-dominated tribal councils located 100 miles away from the directly affected people.
With assistance from the U.S. government, the mining industry has supported a new faction on the reservations consisting of businessmen who profit from mining, large-scale cattle ranching, and other non-traditional economic activities. This faction controls the tribal governments and rejects traditional religious views about the sacredness of the land. It views the traditional Dineh living on the land as obstacles to the success of its business ventures. This faction is considered to be the sole legitimate voice of all the people and has been granted sovereign powers which deprive the people of fundamental civil rights.
Impact Of the Environmental Crisis
The mines threaten the sole source of water for the communities in the region. Ancient natural springs, washes and wells in the region are contaminated and have run dry, others have only a few years left. Mine soils, spoil and coal stockpiles are affecting surface water used for human consumption, as well as worsening potential plant and soil toxicity due to fugitive dust and airborne particulate from the stockpiles. The coal from the Black Mesa mine is transported to the Mojave Power plant through a slurry line that requires pumping 3 million gallons of water each day from the Navajo aquifer. The slurry line operates without any permit from the EPA. In a region where water is extremely scarce, the use of such a precious resource just to transport coal is a tragic waste.
Coal strip mining and the burning of fossil fuels is one of the most unsustainable ways of land and resource management. The operations of Peabody Coal have destroyed countless sites that are sacred to the Dineh. Stripping the land years in advance of the planned mining operations has degraded the biota and caused displacement of the Dineh people, causing disruptions to their family life and health. Local residents living in the mining permit area have been told that they and the livestock upon which they are dependent for their survival can no longer drink from traditional water sources. Environmental degradation continues as multi-colored toxics seep onto their land. Some herbs used in traditional medicine were only available at places that have been destroyed by mining, rendering the herbs now unavailable. Since traditional medicine is closely interlinked with religion, this interferes with religious practice. Contaminated surface water discharge and elevated levels of selenium is causing livestock poisoning in the adjacent leaseholds. This has also threatened the livestock used for human consumption.
Unlined coal stockpiles and fugitive dust blown from mining and reclamation activities have increased the incidence of respiratory illnesses. Coal-fired power plants in the region generate over 10% of the nation's electricity, and are the largest point-source of greenhouse gasses in a country that leads the world in their production. The plants (exempt from all environmental laws by grandfather clauses dating back to the 1960s) operate without scrubbers or other emission controls and emit 350 tons of sulfur compounds and 250 tons of nitrogen compounds into the atmosphere each day. The incredible volume of these pollutants reduces visibility in an area of thousands of square miles, including a 50% reduction of visibility in the Grand Canyon in the last 15 years, and causes desertification, and acidification of rain and surface water in the region. The Mohave Generating Station burning Peabody Coal Company's Black Mesa coal stands out as one of the worst offenders because of its large scale, lack of pollution controls, and excessive emissions due to burning of moistured coal. The current laws deny the Dineh families who remain on their land a fundamental constitutional right enjoyed by other citizens of the U.S. They are not allowed to vote or in any way to participate in the government which controls their lives. They are not allowed to participate in the legal system other than as defendants. They have no right to appeal any police or government action. Mining company security personnel, harass and intimidate elders, threatening them with imprisonment if they try to protect their homes, property and burial sites from Peabody Coal's bulldozers. They can be arbitrarily thrown in jail for resisting actions by the mining company. People and their livestock are given trespass notices. Ceremonial hogans, houses, sacred sites and graveyards are bulldozed. Armed rangers visit elders at their homes and threaten and harass them and confiscate their livestock at the government's discretion. They are denied access to water, their water wells are fenced, capped off and dismantled.
The struggle in Black Mesa is between two divergent viewpoints on the relationship between humans and their environment. One group, led by male-dominated mining corporations and tribal councils, views land as property that title-holders should exploit for the maximum profits regardless of the impact on the land or on people who currently inhabit the land. The other group, whose leaders are grandmothers in the matriarchal traditional Dineh culture, believe that the land is sacred and should not be violated by a strip mine. They believe that they must remain upon their lands, where their families have lived for countless generations and protect it from destruction.
The Dineh grandmothers represent a different set of values. The earth is a mother who gives life and must be respected and protected in turn. And while they want to be able to continue their traditional way of life they are also open to exploring other sustainable technologies, such as solar energy or alternative organic agricultural methods.
The grandmothers and other indigenous people in the area need a mechanism to participate in the policies affecting their community that is independent of the completely male-dominated, industry-established tribal governments. The coal strip mines do not represent a permanent solution to the economic problems of the Dineh and Hopi tribes. The coal-fired power plants in the Four Corners region are the largest single point source of greenhouse gases in North America. The enterprise for which the fundamental human rights of the Dineh families are being sacrificed is but a doomed scheme to make quick money.
The UN Conference on Environment and Development recognized in Agenda 21 that "women have an essential role to play in the development of sustainable and ecologically sound consumption and production patterns and approaches to natural resource management." It is essential to recognize the value of the Dineh grandmothers and the sacrifices that they have made to protect their land from destruction.
Women in Dineh society play the pivotal role, culturally and religiously. It is women's primal role as protectors of the land that is traditionally responsible for their religion, government and economy. Women were mainly responsible for income produced through sheep herding and weaving. In contrast, the impact of mining has created a transition to a male-dominated set of institutions in society. Jobs that have arisen from the mining industry all go to men. The traditional self-sufficient economy has been undermined by coal mining jobs that have created a new society run by men. Royalties generated from coal mining go to male-controlled tribal councils, both Hopi and Dineh, and women have never been chiefs of either executive institution. Women who have historically been protectors of the earth now face male-dominated institutions that view the earth as a resource.
My Rant: If someone or some company came onto your land and did the crimes that have been done to these gentle people who were happy to be left alone to live their lives the way they had for generations. You would be pulling out the guns and war would insue! Did you know anywhere downwind from the mines is effected by the pollution, including the ground water, they have polluted the water table with the dirty waste. Go have a good hot cup of coffee tainted with mercury, oh yum! John McCain and his buddies from the Peabody coal company slid a fast one on a race of people who couldn't legally fight back because of the way the courts left the decision, sending 12,000 people; some to their deaths. The place's they sent them filled them with lung disease's, kidney disease's, Cancer, birth defects in large number's, suicide's, hopeless home situation's too hard to bear! This Tribial Council of men who signed the papers lived 100 miles away. And if they had known what this group of criminals were up to, this would never have happened! These people have no representation in the US courts, cannot even vote! And people put them down because they sell cigarettes! I think that John McCain should right his wrong by going before the courts and fight to retract the decision for these people's that his greed took away He's gotten the government and the media to hush hush up the controversy surrounding the Keaton 5. And he also has the Navajo/Peabody issue hidden.
What a bastard! I have really been investigating McCain and he is a terrible excuse for a human being! He is not native to Arizona, he came here because he seen an opportunity to get elected OH! That's right, you won't do it because if the bill pass's for nuclear power, you already have plans to put 3, that's three nuclear plant's out there on the Rez. HUH!? What a greedy Jackass!
That piece of red, white and blue cloth stands for a system and a country that does not honor it's own word...If it stood for honor and truth, it would remember our treaties and give them the appropriate place under international law. But it doesn't. It dishonors its own word and violates its treaties...In Honor of Tony Black Feather (Died August 11 2004)
June 17, 2009
