Thursday, June 08, 2006

 

Wise Use Cookbook

I have wondered about the effect of tribal gaming (inter-tribal competition) in fracturing/splintering indigenous people's solidarity to work against anti-Indian elements. When racists like Chuck Cushman and his anti-Indian history fly the banner of "morality" with regard to tribal gaming I am saddened. Not all is noble, but it is unfortunate that Cushman and his anti-Indian efforts aren't seen as a bigger threat to native peoples than inter-tribal conflict over gaming prospects.

In many ways I am naive. Sigh. Thanks for all you do Spartacus.
Nancy 06.08.06 - 11:12 am #

While we await the Cobell v Norton case to be resolved, we would do well to recognize its implications. Had the oil, gas, and mineral leases from Indian tribes been paid rather than stolen by the US Department of Interior for the last century, these tribes would not need to resort to gaming to meet their basic needs.

The fishing economy tribes up in your neck of the woods--had their treaties been honored--would still have fish rather than casinos as a mainstay. But whether a tribe depended on salmon, buffalo, or corn to sustain them, the destruction of the environment that these life-givers need was the most devastating betrayal of trust between the US and the indigenous nations.

You might be interested to know that two thirds of tribes don't have gambling, most who do don't make a profit, and the highly successful ones support such things as Native American college scholarships, health care clinics on reservations, and Indian K-12 curricula.

As for hatemongers like Cushman, the definitive report is The Anti-Indian Movement on the Tribal Frontier by Rudolph Ryser available from Daykeeper Press located at the Center for World Indigenous Studies.
Spartacus Homepage 06.08.06 - 12:23 pm #

I will have to look up the case you mentioned. I totally agree with the BLM rape of tribal royalties. To this day. Unpaid. Thanks for the reference.
Nancy 06.08.06 - 1:47 pm #

Indian Country Today online, as well as the blogger Wampum--both found in the sidebar--have tracked this fraud and collusion by the energy industry with the feds in ripping off the Indians. Another discovery during the Cobell investigation is that the resource extractors have been consistently cooking the books by underreporting the volumes they've been stealing just in case they should have to make restitution some day. Nice, huh?
Spartacus Homepage 06.08.06 - 3:38 pm #

Read the article online.

Order the report online.

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