Now that it looks like I'm out of the business, I'd like to take this moment to reflect upon three and a half years of George W. Bush as the Great White Father.
First and foremost, let's get something straight. No President has ever done much more than pay lip service to the state of American Indians, and President Clinton was in my opinion no exception. Nevertheless, he probably was the most pro-Indian President, with Richard Nixon of all people coming in a close second place.
The sad fact of the matter is that every President has to be patiently informed that Indian tribes are sovereign entities, that the continental United States was purchased almost in its entirety from American Indians, that the purchase agreements were explicitly made without statutes of limitations or other forms of abrogation because the Indians didn't trust the Americans, and true to their instinct we broke those agreements and are now entirely liable for those agreements which we have broken and not yet redressed. American Indians exist in poverty not because they are indigent or alcoholic or broken in spirit; they are in the state they are in because
you, I and all other American citizens are willing to flaunt the rule of our own law because it is inconvenient and the Indians cannot fight back. It's easy to ignore them, and someone dies every single damned day because we do.
Don't believe me? Go consult Felix Cohen's
Handbook of American Indian Law, the definitive resource on the subject. Anyone who tells you Felix is wrong is one more heartless wannabe lawyer who thinks that eroding the rule of law is tantamount to changing it.
However, more than anyone, it was Richard Nixon who took the first truly positive steps toward Indian self-determination and restitution. I seriously doubt it was intentional or well meant, but in those days the courts were making their rulings without the concept of "fairness," which in Indian law usually means fair for non-Indians at the expense of Indian rights. Nixon had to do something, and he did.
Ford and Carter didn't change things much. Reagan and Gale Norton's mentor James Watt were a fucking disaster, Bush the Smarter didn't care at all, and Clinton slowly but surely improved things for American Indians to a slightly less disgraceful state.
However, most of Clinton's truly positive steps, such as streamlining land-into-trust regulations, improving Indian health care and law enforcement, and making tribal land eligible for federally subsidized luxuries such as running water, electricity, and telephone lines were made in the twilight of his second term.
Then along came George W. Bush. Bush's very first statement on Indian affairs was made during his campaign, sometime in early 2000. When a reporter asked the Yale scholar what he thought of Indian sovereignty, he brightly eschewed two centuries of Constitutional law and said, "I think tribes should be subservient to state governments."
It was all downhill from there (except of course when his damage control people came forward, lied, and said that Bush really did know and care about Indians).
One of the very first things that Bush did for American Indians was to suspend all regulations published in the Federal Register between November, 2000 and January 20, 2001. The regs remained suspended for six months, until Bush permanently rescinded many of the regulations which would have helped Indians the most.
Also about that same time, six months into his term, Bush got around to actually nominating an Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, a highway planner named Neal McCaleb who met the two most stringent requirements: McCaleb was an Indian, and he was a Republican. It's impossible to know how good he actually was as an Assistant Secretary since his boss, Gale Norton, didn't permit him to actually do much of anything for or against Indians.
The United States is in a lot of trouble right now because when we bought America with allthose ironclad treaties, we paid the money to the Indians but kept it in trust for them. Then, we stole it and spent it on things like bailing out Chrysler. When it went to court, Judge Royce Lamberth--the same guy who sits on that double secret terra-ist court--was so appalled at the state of Indian records that he started placing federal officials (under both Clinton and Bush) in contempt of court. In December of 2001, Lamberth discovered that BIA records were wide open on the Internet. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton responding by shutting down the BIA website.
Two and a half years later,
it's still shut down. Indian tribes looking to contact the BIA now have to use expensive telephone and fax communications with their bureaucratic overlords.
Oh yeah, and the Bush Administration is working hard to pass legislation which prevents most of that $100 billion or so of Indian money from actually being paid back to the Indians. It would be inconvenient to return the stolen money to its rightful owners, even if the United States did guarantee it would be there.
Another great thing Bush did goes back to rescinding the Clinton regulations. Indian trust land is land held by the federal government for Indians, both individuals and tribes. Again (and stop me if this sounds familiar), when we set Indians up with reservations, we promised them we wouldn't steal their land anymore. Then, we stole their land. Even though it's still their land, we've now graciously offered Indians the opportunity to buy their own land back and place it back into trust in the hope that America won't steal it again. What the heck? Those Indians all have gymnasium-sized casinos in the most inhospitable and untrafficked territory this nation can provide, so they can afford it, right?
Bush pulled the regulations which allow that land to go back to its rightful owners. Then, the BIA announced that they were reexamining the regulations, which was good because Indians weren't all that happy with them anyway. But the BIA isn't reexamining the issues that make Indians unhappy. Instead, they are trying to make the process more fair for state and local governments. That's only fair, because the land that state and local governments stole from the Indians long ago now generates tax revenue for state and local governments, and it wouldn't be fair for Indians to get their fucking stolen land back without paying for it AND compensating the thieves for the lost revenue, once the thieves have been given ample opportunity to oppose and delay the process. And as far as I know, three years later, the regulations have yet to be finalized. Virtually no land has been taken back into trust for Indians since Bush took office.
Bush heroically froze funding to the Indian Health service instead of cutting it. That's good, because the IHS is already underfunded by about three billion dollars a year. The fact that this policy actually kills American citizens by denying them access to even the most basic health care is rarely mentioned by the White House.
Neal McCaleb didn't last very long as Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. In December of 2002 he retired. Six months after that the White House finally managed to find the other Indian Republican, barbecue restaraunt mogul "Famous" Dave Anderson. Six months after that the Senate approved his nomination. Two months after that, Dave actually went to work. Two months after that, Aurene Martin, the twenty- (or maybe now thirty-) something lawyer who has actually been running the BIA since 2001 casually mentioned to Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell that Dave had recused himself from the three most contentious issues in Indian affairs: land into trust, federal recognition, and gambling. Dave spends a lot of his time traveling to Indian schools and giving uplifting speeches to the students. The fact that it costs Dave more money to travel to one of those places than the federal government is willing to pay for an Indian student over the course of an entire year is rarely mentioned.
Probably Dave's most important contrubution to Indian affairs was the hiring of some $500 an hour motivational speakers to teach BIA officials how to send a positive message to American Indians. Isn't $500 an hour close to what it costs to give people ambulance rides? As I recall, one Indian reservation in Montana is a four and a half hour ambulance ride to the nearest hospital.
Oh, and then there's homeland security. There are twenty some tribes which have land which either adjoins a foreign border or the open sea. In keeping with the President's stated (and untruthfully retracted) policy of trying to keep tribes subservient to states, border tribes are free to ask state governments for some of those insufficient federal homeland security funds. I believe one tribe in America has actually got funds from a state government, and that's rather a miracle since tribes don't pay state taxes and are expected to patrol their borders themselves. They can't, and for the most part, they don't.
Fortunately, the United States isn't in danger of being attacked by long haired people of pigment who would like to cross our borders and pass into the unguarded interior of the country. As I said there are only twenty or so of those totally unguarded places, anyway.
And of course, there's nothing like cutting funds to law enforcement to keep people docile and happy. Bush tried to do that--in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. Congress saw otherwise and held the funding below that of inflation instead. And, since Bush doesn't give a fuck about Indians, he didn't notice.
Bush is serious about leaving no child behind--except Indian children. The federal government runs exactly two school systems. One is for our children whose parents, civilian or military, are based overseas. The other one is for American Indian children. Overseas schools compared to BIA schools were funded per student at ratio of about 9:4 under Bill Clinton. That gap has widened every year since Bush has been in office.
But technically, we're not really leaving Indian children behind since they had the shittiest schools to begin with. They're still in the back of the bus, right?
You want to know what I really think? Clinton sucked when it came to righting the wrongs to which we subject American Indians to every day, and he was the best thing that ever happened to American Indians. At least he tried. Bush has taken his theories of "compassionate conservatism"--or leaving people to fend for their fucking selves no matter what we owe them by law--to scintillating heights with American Indians.
Chances are John Kerry isn't going to do jack shit, either, because you people out there don't care at all whether he does or not. He doesn't have to do
anything except say he'll do
something, and since there are plenty of Indian-hating assholes out there who are willing to speak up when you aren't, I can almost guarantee you he won't help them unless he is a man of truly admirable character. I hope we get a chance to find out if he is.
I loved my job, but to have to walk into that place
every single day and ask myself, "okay, what's Bush gonna do to fuck over the Indians today?" was enough to drive me to the depths of suicidal depression. In its own stupid way, I nearly became one more of the myriad unnamed victims of this country's--and especially this President's--studied neglect of some of its finest people. So if you want citations, well, forget it. Once upon a time I got paid for that, until I soaked up so much pain and injustice I nearly burst.
In fact, you can all go to hell, as far as I'm concerned. You didn't really give a damn when Clinton was President and though I tried my hardest, nothing changed, then or now. But this President, when he meets his maker, is gonna find himself in a special corner of Hell called Pine Ridge, South Dakota. And I hope his spirit gets to remain there until it gets better.
There, I feel better now, even if not one of you reads this. Thanks for your patience.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
