Tribal Nations Conference wraps up in Washington, D.C.

[struggle4progress]

Source: KTUU

by Channel 2 News staff
Saturday, November 7, 2009

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- President Barack Obama held the first White House Tribal Nations Conference this week in Washington, D.C. The president heard from tribal leaders about some of the issues they face ...

The discussion was moderated by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Obama took questions from the floor ...

"I would say it was very productive," said Jo Royal of the Telida Native Village Council. "President Obama ... really cares about the sovereign nations and really wants to address the problems in Indian country."

Royal says she believes the president's Cabinet understood the issues after taking tours of reservations, tribal educational and medical facilities ...

Read more: http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=11464527

[mikekohr]

1. Quite A Change From the Last Administration!!!

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
While campaigning for president, Bush stated that he believed states had higher legal authority than tribal governments, a view that is in direct conflict with established constitutional law. Bush later retreated from this indefensible position.


"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
-President-elect George W. Bush- 12/18/2000 50).


In November, 2001, at the height of the conflict in Afghanistan, Bush quietly rescinded a Clinton-era executive order that streamlined the cumbersome process tribal governments were required to complete while using their own money to buy back their own lands and returning the land to trust status. Approximately 66% of tribal land holdings were removed from tribal control after the passage of the "infamous" Dawes act in 1884. First Nations have attempted to buy back as much of this "lost reservation land" as possible but have been thwarted and impeded by the legal barriers placed in their way. The Clinton-era executive order would have greatly aided First Nation's attempts to recover their own land. The Bush administration bent to the will of State-attorney Generals, municipalities and governors that were concerned of a loss of tax revenues and feared, among other things, the possibility of "low income housing" being placed on such land. Ron Allen, vice president of the National Congress of American Indians said, " ....quite frankly they are afraid of Indians. They are afraid of Indian power, they don't trust tribes and they don't trust tribal government, and it really has racist overtones." The Bush administration, claiming the wording of the Clinton-era order was unclear, promised to issue a similar order with less ambiguous language. Months later, no action has yet been taken on this promise. 47).

In December of 2001, an organization of tribal governments from across the nation met with Bush's Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, to protest the Bush administration's proposed re-organization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The tribal leaders protested that tribes were not consulted in the process and had serious questions about the plan. After the gathering unanimously rejected the proposal, Norton told the gathering that the plan would proceed without their support or consent. 48).

In 2003, the Bush administration, effectively stopped completion of a decade long project, named Mni Wiconi.. The ambitious project was designed to pipe treated water from the Missouri River to the arid Pine Ridge Reservation. Mni Wiconi, which means "water of life," would have brought water to what has been historically America's most economically depressed county.
Many of the 35,000 people on Pine Ridge do not have running water and many of the wells on the reservation are polluted by septic system percolation or contaminated by nitrates. It is not uncommon for many of the Lakota People on Pine Ridge to get their water delivered by truck or transported in jugs.
As the pipeline was laid across the arid landscape of South Dakota, it brought water to Indian as well as non-Indian residents. The project was nearing completion in 2002, an election year.
George W. Bush hand-picked John Thune in 2002 to unseat incumbent Democratic Senator Tim Johnson. An effort to register voters in the Indian communities of South Dakota resulted in large numbers of new voters, that voted overwhelmingly in favor of Johnson. Pine Ridge voters voted in particularly high numbers.. The "Indian vote" propelled Johnson to the slimmest of victories. Thune's loss did not go unnoticed by the Bush White House.
Within months, the Bush administration, slashed funding to Mni Wiconi, that stopped the work on the project just as the pipeline was reaching the borders of Pine Ridge. Without access to a dependable supply of fresh water, Pine Ridge has little hope of economic development. Stopping the project just as it nears its destination is a cut of the cruelest sort, that perpetuates conditions normally associated with third world nations long suffered by the people of Pine Ridge.

George Bush describes himself as a, "compassionate conservative," and wears his Christian faith on his sleeve. Call the President, and remind him that exacting political retribution and revenge on America's most destitute ethnic group is neither compassionate nor Christian. 63). http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2003/03/17/new...


http://www.brotherhooddays.com/HEROES.html#PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:

[mikekohr]

2. Rapmaster Ronnie could have learned a lot from President Obama

RONALD REAGAN: The Great Communicator:

While campaigning in South Dakota during the 1980 presidential campaign, candidate Reagan promised to uphold treaty law and to fulfill America's obligation to Native People. Reagan quickly broke these promises upon becoming President. As president, Reagan cut funding to Indian programs in unprecedented proportions.
Indian Appropriations accounted for .04% of the federal budget when Reagan took office In 1982 2.5% of all federal budget cuts came entirely from that meager .04% of the Federal budget. 77).

Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, called Indians "social misfits" whose homelands were "examples of the failure of socialism." 31).

While visiting Russia, Reagan was questioned about the status of Native Americans. Reagan responded with the following paternalistic, insulting, and indefensible, display of ignorance and confusion:
"Let me tell you just a little something about the American Indian in our land. We have provided millions of acres for what are called preservations, or the reservations I should say. They from the beginning, announced that they wanted to maintain their way of life as they had always lived, there in the desert and the plains and so forth, and we set up these reservations so they could and had a Bureau of Indian Affairs to help take care of them, at the same time we provide education for them, schools on the reservations, and they are free, also, to leave the reservations and be American citizens among the rest of us, and many do. Some still prefer, however, that early way of life and we've done everything we can to meet their demands on how they want to live. Maybe we made a mistake. Maybe we should not have humored them in that wanting to stay in that kind of primitive lifestyle. Maybe we should have said, 'No, come join us, be citizens. "31).

In all fairness, Reagan was probably unaware of the level of understanding and concern for Native Americans by people outside our country's borders. He was obviously caught off-guard and un-prepared, which explains in part, the nearly incoherent syntax and bewildering logic of his answer. However, his lack of understanding of history, his insensitivity, his Euro-centric sense of superiority, his disdain for Native culture and Native People, was to our collective shame, a fair representation of the nation and the people he served as president
.
Of course there is another more ominous and damning explanation of his disjointed, rambling response. Reagan may have well understood the indefensible record of our nation in its treatment of Native People. Perhaps he clearly understood the ramifications of admitting the truth but could not bring himself to tarnish the image of America that he saw as, "A great shining city on a hill." It is ironic, that in Russia, in the land Reagan once called the "Evil Empire," he was confronted with the opportunity to understand how the term "Evil Empire" could justifiably be applied by others to describe the country and nation that he served as Commander in Chief.

http://www.brotherhooddays.com/HEROES.html#RONALD REAGAN:

[tilsammans]

4. Thank you for posting the info and link

I could just when reading it.

Now -- finally -- there's understanding and hope.

[L. Coyote]

3. What actions follow will matter most. Seeing is believing.