This story seems to have slipped under the news radar in the frenzy created by Brittany Spears's sister getting knocked up, but I feel that it deserves all the attention it can get.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/12/lakota-withdraw.html
The Lakota Sioux nation has officially declared its independence from the United States, withdrawing from all former treaties. Some I've seen discussing this think it's just a play for more media attention and aid from the government, but I, for one, am taking it at face value. I'm really interested to see where this goes in the next few months. Will the government ignore the situation until it becomes time to collect taxes and they don't comply? To be quite honest, I hope this goes somewhere positive; everything they've done has been according to U.S. law, apparently. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Canada has given the Inuit autonomy and control of their own territories to the far north; I wonder if it's possible at all to have an autonomos native zone within our own borders.
More info at these links:
Lakota Freedom Delegation
Common Dreams.org
Not Goodbye, but See Ya Later
1 year ago
5 comments:
everything about our interactions with Native Americans makes me sad. hundreds of years later and it's still effed up, and it'll never be straight. we took from them something that we can never give back.
I think what's even more discouraging is that there is absolutely no effort on the part of our government to make things even remotely right for those communities. Funding is completely inadequate and there is still land-grabbing going on. I'll be really interested to see where this goes, whether or not it gains any international support of substance, and if it can manage to improve anything.
If left alone to return to their culturally-specific way of organization, I wonder if they might not be able to better combat the social problems that now exist in their communities; as of right now, things just aren't working.
but we gave them casinos!
Yeah, but did you hear about Jamie Lynn Spears (or however the hell you spell it)? She, like, totally...
Sorry, couldn't resist. But there is sick news there. While I agree with your terminology, there's talk that Nick is supposedly thinking about a show about teens and sexuality! Isn't that great? (right)
On a different, more important note, I think part of the problem is that it's so far gone now the question becomes how do you possibly make it right? They did what they thought was cool (yes, Dan, that includes the casinos *wink*) and some bits and pieces of land here and there that was pretty useless and rough, but how do you right a wrong that has been out of control for over 500 years?
I don't think you can ever right historical wrongs, but there needs to be some kind of starting point. Some people see national apologies and the like as pointless, but as far as I know, this government has never apologized for or even admitted to the genocide it committed in the name of progress. Same thing goes for all the evils of slavery; not many nations that built themselves on the back of the slave trade have even attempted to come out and admit the wrongs they're historically committed.
After an admission of wrong doing (well, before is great too), there needs to be some kind of effort to bring res. communities up out of third world conditions where many lack proper plumbing, health care, education, nutrition, and so on. There needs to be some kind of leveling of the field where these communities aren't lost in a bundle of dire statistics about poverty lines, unemployment, addiction, disease, and suicide. If there ever was a demographic that the U.S. 'owed it to' to make things right (not saying there is only one, by the way), I think it would have to be the Native Americans; up until now, there really hasn't been much of an effort beyond some scholarships here and there, some completely insufficient aid, and government meddling in community affairs that has, more often than not, done more harm than good.
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