Posted on 12/20/2007 5:36:13 AM PST by Sopater
WASHINGTON — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States.
"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,'' long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means said.
A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the U.S., some of them more than 150 years old.
The group also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and would continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months.
Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.
The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free - provided residents renounce their U.S. citizenship, Mr Means said.
The treaties signed with the U.S. were merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I’m kinda fond of the Apaches, myself.
Portugal isn’t surrounded by Spain. Look at a map.
As for the Indian “nations”, if the US govt cut off their welfare, they’d starve in a month.
NO! You don’t get it! They are part of the US. They are subject to taxes if we want to make them subject to taxes. It doesn’t matter if they say (when and if) that they have become a new nation or not. We can tax the hell out of them if we feel like it. They can jump up and down screamin’ all they want. It doesn’t matter. If you reside in the US, we the people have given the US Government the right to tax and if the US Government decides to tax the Lakota nation if it decides to, it can.
You are correct. I wonder if they’ll bring up the NCAA Sioux hockey logo BS ,too.
I’m sure that’s the real reason they’re doing this.(sarc)
I wonder if Ward Churchhill will move back to the native lands to be with his brothers...
Ask Ranald Mackenzie. And try Nelson Miles.
Last I heard, Russell Means was NOT a Chief of any Lakota band, nor the member of any Tribal Council. He’s a big wheel in an Indian MOVEMENT [AIM], which is a totally different entity.
The Choctaws are doing very well. The Comanches, under Quanah Parker, managed to integrate into the capitalist system, and U.S society very well, while keeping their Comanche identity [Parker won a lawsuit in the USSC, allowing the use of peyote in religious ceremonies].
While it is true that they have their own tribal police, they exist for simple criminal behavior. Federal felons, insurrection, etc. would all be subject to Federal authority if they became obvious.
My point, is that entire system is archaic and outdated, and certainly not in the best interest of either the United States as a whole, or the Indians living there themselves as eveidenced by any number of clear factors.
IMHO, as an individual who lives out in the west and sees these conditions and hears of these radicals fairly regularly...that the entire system needs to be done away with and the people engrafted into the nation.
But that is just my opinion.
I will bet you this, if these radicals made any overt moves to try and establish in fact and reality twhat they talk about (ie. began blocking off interstate highways at their "border"), Not only would you see the US Federal government immediatly squash it...you would see a civil war amongst the Indians themselves.
Just ship a few truckloads of whiskey to the reservation as a bribe. Problem solved.
It’s easy for you to talk like that, but look at it from their angle.
Say you’re an 18 year old young man who just finished what passes for high school there. There are no jobs to be had that pay more than 20k a year within easy driving distance, nor any trade schools, nor any centers of higher education.
You have a choice: stay with your family, which may or may not include elderly folks who need assistance in order to stay of of an old people’s home, and stay in relative poverty, or move out into the rest of the world and seek after worldly success. Mind you, should you choose to leave you will be leaving not just your family, but pretty much your entire language and culture, which consists of a just a few thousand people.
I, being a hillbilly, can get along pretty much anywhere in the goold ol USA, including California and New York. The living is weird in those parts, but I’ve got more in common with Yankees and Californians than not.
Making that leap for a Lakota, though, involves a much wider distance than for your average Joe.
They are dead too.
Those states will lose 1/3 of the indigenous peoples population for representation purposes, are they not mostly red states?
Russel Means is NOT a Tribal Chieftain, but he has others that are with him and his movement. He has a VALID point, there are treaties that the United States is either not living up to, or is ignoring. What does that say to you? What does that mean? Perhaps its time to take a SERIOUS look at what is happening and why and CORRECT it rather than MOCKING it!
All men are created Equal, unless you don’t conform?? Is that what you are saying? That this applies to everyone UNLESS you are an member of an Indian Nation?
The hypocrisy of that statement is astounding, just as the knee jerk responses I see here in this thread are in large part, astounding. Lets look at it as the wake up call it is and maybe just maybe deal with the issue before it becomes a crisis. Ya think?
Alternatively, tell us your solutions for making unfarmable industryless land productive.
Let me point this out as well. We have spent FAR more on Iraq in 5 years than has ever been spent on the Indian Nations, we have built FAR more industry and infrastructure in Iraq than we have on our own poor living on reservations. What does that say of us as a People?
According to treaties SIGNED by the government of the US, no the US Government can not impose taxes within the borders described by the treaties.
I understand but the assumption here is that the treaties would no longer be in effect since the Lakota’s would have withdrawn.
I see your assumption. However the very existence of the assumption implies that the secession is legitimate, which blows the rest of your argument out of the water. Either the People of the Indian Nations deserve to have the treaties signed, fulfilled by the United states, which not all of them are, or they don’t. If they don’t then by definition you are classifying them as either unworthy of having them fulfilled or to the rank of second class citizens, the very point that this movement is trying to make. Both of which I find unacceptable. If not a direct contradiction to the letter and spirit of our own Deceleration of Independence.
Damn good point.
The Indian Nations face choices like to that of a rock and a hard place in too many situations. More power to those who have made a success of the lot they were given!
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