[Eska]

Wife and I have taught in a couple different villages; problems pretty much the same, everything related to alcohol abuse. 80% of native kids FAS, (they can't learn academics in the normal manner). Over half the kids in villages die before 25; shootings, stabbings, suicide, alcohol, freeze drunk in snowbanks, and typically most girls are raped by 10 and quite a few boys too; vicious cycle of learned dysfunctional behavior. It's real sad, natives are pretty decent people once you begin to realize what has happened. You almost have to live in an indian village to understand the problems. I once thought I had it all figured out from my conservative perspective; boy there's 2 sides to every story.

In my village, I have one indian friend that hasn't had a drink in 15 years, yet he has lost 5 of his own kids to booze. Burn up drunk in their cabin, freeze to death, get drunk and kill someone or shoot themselves, just on and on.

I've helped dig graves in the middle of winter, had indian friends lifeflighted out of here, heart stopping on the way, know a few blind natives, and just watched the continuous cycle of pain and death from the booze. If they could get a handle on the booze, they wouldn't need any govt money to straighten everything out; cause they're good sharing people part of their culture and character.

[jeremiah]

It is not racist to say that those peoples that were on this continent before the Europeans, should not drink and cannot handle alcohol. It is in many of the treaties that they negotiated with the federal govt. I am of the opinion, that the tribal leaders pushed that, they knew better than anyone the destructiveness of booze on their people.