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WASHINGTON — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States.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 ...
Which is precisely why I also included the analogy about Las Vegas in the post.
I also see why they are trying to hold on to some semblance of culture or at least try and have some sort of identity
I certainly understand the aspect of trying to preserve a culture. Many Freepers are old enough to have had the chance to meet old indian warriors, cowboys, cavalrymen and settlers. Some Freepers are old enough to have met Civil War veterans and former slaves and to have heard them tell their stories.
Several generations are required to change from one way of life to another. In the case of the American South, it was a little over a century... and many are still "fighting" the Civil War.
For the present day indians, many of whom grew up listening to their elders tell first-hand stories about the "Old ways", they have a certain romantic view of what life was really like living the "Old ways". They speak romantically of the former life they are told their people lived yet, are unwilling to put on a loin cloth, give up their pickup trucks, electricity, air conditioners, running water and return to the "happier existence" everyone speaks of but no one seems to actually try living.
if they become 100% assimilated in American society as some here would like, then a people have basically vanished - game over, that's it.
The problem is, they can't/won't return to the "Old ways" and life on the reservation is a relatively modern construct. The former pre-reservation culture is gone, all that's left of it are stories and re-enactments.
It's not like say somebody from Mexico who comes here and assimilates - their society still exists in Mexico. If these people assimilate, the Sioux as a recognizable group of people are gone forever.
Again, the Sioux, as a nomadic collection of hunter gatherers wandering about the Plains have been extinct for a little over a century. Some, (including members of most indian tribes) periodically try to return to the Old life but none manage to do so for any length of time. There's just something about being out in the elements, being rained on, swatting at swarming insects, and not able to find anything to eat for a couple of days that makes it awfully tempting to return to the trailer where there's food in the fridge and a clean bed.
Where’s Union Carbide when you need them? Oops, wrong Indians.
Well Drexxell, I would suggest you check that 2x4 in your own eye out before you worry yourself about anything in mine.
You bring up a couple of things that make you look like an ignoramus.
1) “All men are created equal” is a phrase from a document which declares YOU to be a free man. Wake up yourself.
2) The reason we have to deal with things that happened 150 years ago is because the RAMIFICATIONS of what happened 150 years ago are still happening today. If you don’t believe me, how about you going back say 1500 years ago, or even just 1000 years ago and look at the wars between Christianity and Islam. Or are you of the ignorant opinion that the Christians and Moslems of today are NOT living the ramifications of several thousand years of war??? Be serious. Living with the false assumption that we are NOT affected by our history is not only ignorant it can be flat out deadly. Don’t believe me? Go check out Manhattan, where the WTC used to stand. We weren’t there 2000 years ago, the United States wasn’t even a glimmer of an idea.... but WE are the proxy for a Christian enemy to Islam of 2000 years ago, and 3000 innocent people paid for it with their lives. Wake up.
3)I am not angry, am disappointed, in posters like you for one. You are a hypocrite if you support the status quo which as you so aptly point out has made a whole region “lifeless” to use the words of one who has “Been there”. That in and of itself is a hypocritical statement!
Why are you a Hypocrite you ask? Because you sit there in front of your computer basically calling names because you just can’t face an issue that might just make you question what it is to be an American, and just what this Nation DID to the Indians who lived here before your ancestors arrived here, or that actively participated in. Why a Hypocrite, because you sit there and arrogantly tell me you don’t even want to revisit a place that these people have no choice but to live in, and tell me its THEIR FAULT, when its the institutions set up by OUR government that has perpetrated it? That has perpetuated it for 150 years? They weren’t given that land to necessarily LIVE on, they were given that land to DIE on. Ignoring the truth does NOT make it any less the truth, and it is ignoramuses like you who refuse to see the plain and simple truth, who to try and wash it away or make it “someone’ else’s fault, or make the victims also into the victimizers!
There IS a lot more to this country, but if you do not have the means by which to attain it, you don’t have the means. The first is education, the second is proximity to resources, both of which have been denied many of the Indian Nations. Look at where they ARE! Look at who PUT them there. Looking at those things should be making us look at ourselves and recognize that a wrong has been committed, regardless of WHEN it happened, that does NOT lesson the fact that it should be addressed and dealt with. Call me angry if you like, in that case you are part of the problem and I will dismiss you as such.
The best thing we could do for the Indians is to abolish this notion of Indian nations.
Only a moron would assert that it has proven to be a good thing for Indians. It has proven to be a good thing for the Indian Mafia that controls those fiefdoms, but the average Indian doesn’t even live to be 50.
So yes, tear up those treaties. We’ll send in a jeep or two to conquer any resistance, and then Indians can begin to become average Americans like the rest of us.
ward churchill and russell means went to libya to
seek gaddafi’s assistance during the carter administration.
And those notions were created by whom? The Indians (who were roaming free) or the Foreign Government that took over this land? Are you one of the idiots that thinks that the Indians got themselves into this situation?
You absolutely MUST read a book called The Grey Prince by Jack Vance. The novel is several decades old but he eloquently explores the concept of the rights of the defeated, and what it means to own land. The lesson of the story is that only those who can successfully defend their land can claim ownership rights to it. This book is a must read by all conservatives!
“On the other hand, we control their access to airspace and everything else, their members are no longer US citizens, and should have to turn in their voter ID cards.”
There goes Tom Dascheles 2010 run.
Oh, I'm sorry. We should never have come over here. The Indian civilization, oops there wasn't one, would have been so better off without that development.
And I am sick of people like you who blame people from 200 years ago for the plight of people today. Where is personal responsibility? Crap, if I were 1/16th indian blood, I wouldn't have had to pay for my own education.
LOL...you just made my point. Look at the length of your message. Not angry?
I guess the bottom line is I need to pay reparations and let my land be given to someone I did absolutely no wrong to. So unfairness in the past leads to unfairness in the present. Somehow it just doesn’t seem right.
It’s spelled, Muslims by the way...not Moslims. Nice job on the caps...
Nice thing about this Great country is we can have an open forum like this and we can all learn what sort of thinking is out there...no matter how silly or serious.
Have a Safe and Happy Holiday Season anyway!
You are missing out on some free goodies. I’m not sure how that happened.
I have no prejudice toward Indians at all, and I resent the insinuation. While it’s not a big deal, I did volunteer to work at clinic and aid station in Monument Valley during one summer in high school.
I do think the Indian reservations perpetuate a problem for Indians, relegating them to second class citizens and dooming many of them to a life with no reward. It’s my feeling that they deserve better than that, but which you call “prejudice and ignorance.”
If you’re happy with the status quo, then screw it. Poverty camps that sell cheap cigarettes and have a casino that benefits a few tribal members is good enough for your people?
Obviously my opinion isn’t welcome.
Looks like there are left wing secessionists as well as left wing "centralizers." Like I keep saying, folks . . . "globalism" is out, a "planet of peoples" is in.
As far as the res system goes I could not agree with you more. I have asked many times why more NA's do not leave; mostly it is the "free" stuff.
Did you ever get the Forrestal and Saratoga pics I pinged you about in August or so?
Portugal has a border with Spain, it is not “surrounded” by Spain. Is Canada surrounded by the USA? How old are you?
you nit pickers just want to argue, you knew exactly what I meant. Maybe for your infantile mind I should have used Poland or some other interior county. I should have used child psychology like I usually do with people like you.
We may be in closer agreement than you think. There is no doubt that mistakes were made by my ancestors, but there were mistakes made by yours’ as well,
As a result, we have the Indian Reservation system in place, and few observers could say that it turned out to be a good idea for the Indians.
It definitely has relegated Indians to second class citizenship, and I don’t disagree with you at all that it’s hard for them to break out of there.
It’s created a cycle of dependency and despair. I would HATE to have been born an Indian on a reservation. The chances of me getting to where I am today are fairly small.
What I have a problem with is the Indians who defend the very situation that keeps most of their people in a hopeless situation. I’m glad we didn’t set up up black territories for our former slaves. They at least have more opportunity than today’s Indians.
The Social Security analogy doesn’t work for me. First of all, I’ve paid hundreds of thousands of dollars into the system, and am not claiming any of it based on what race I am or who mistreated my forefathers.
That’s a separate issue in my mind.
Ameria has always been a great melting pot of various cultures, and I don’t think the policy of keeping Indians apart from that has served them well. It may have been born of honest intentions and mishandled ever since. I won’t deny that.
But it hasn’t worked and only the Indian elite will deny that.
I’m all in favor of giving the Indians special assistance to leave the reservations. But I think the time for the reservations has passed and it’s time to bring the Indians into modern American society.
Fixed.
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