Reflections
from the Ahnishinahbæótjibway (We, the People)
|
The
State of Minnesota, Department of Education is, once
again, putting Chippewa Indians in the position of alienating Red Lake
Anishinabe Ojibway land rights. This is
yet another re-run of an old story.
At
the Old Crossing in 1863, a verbal promise was made to
provide a good education in the “3 R’s” for those who wanted it. However, no provisions for schools were made
when the “Treaty” was revised in accordance with the insidious treaty
boilerplate of the time in Washington, D.C.
This could be because Governor Alexander Ramsey had issued an
executive
order abolishing the teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic to
“Indians”
eleven years earlier. Governor Ramsey
advocated “manual training,” by which he meant learning how to use a
pick-axe
and a shovel—also known as “tools of ignorance.” Times
haven’t changed.
In
the grand land theft known as the 1889 Nelson Act, the
excuse that the United States used for stealing nearly three million
acres of
Anishinabe Ojibway land at Red Lake—and not paying anything for this
land—was
“civilization” and “education.” They
promised the Chippewas of Minnesota an education. After
the Anishinabe Ojibway land was stolen, they said to the
Chippewa Indians, “now, you’re educated.”
By
1890, again on the pretext of “education,” both the Roman
Catholics and the Protestant Episcopals each had 160 acres fee patent
“title”
granted them by the United States Government at Red Lake.
By this time, and over the next fifty years
with increasing intensity, the United States Government was using
“education”
as a cover for outright genocide of the Anishinabe Ojibway people at
Red Lake
and other places.
I
spent nine years as a political prisoner at the Boarding
School at Red Lake. What I experienced
was social engineering, brainwashing, torture, and genocide. As an Anishinabe Ojibway with a Clan and a
Dodem, another thing that I learned (although it certainly wasn’t part
of the
curriculum) was that it is my land and resources which still back up
the United
States dollar. The only thing that the
Europeans had was a printing press to print their money with. Their paper dollars continue to be used as a
tool of social engineering, to break up Traditional Peoples’ family
values and
as a lever to steal the rest of our resources and destroy our
communities.
The
State of Minnesota “Independent School Districts” which
have been established on Sovereign Anishinabe Ojibway land are illegal. Morrison vs. the State of Minnesota is a
court decision, made under alien Euro-American law which has no
jurisdiction at
Red Lake, establishing an “Independent School District” at Red Lake. At that time, one of the pretexts for this
illegal incursion onto Sovereign land was that those living on the
Redby
“Townsite” would have lower taxes. None
of the land which was taken illegally from the Anishinabe Ojibway has
been paid
for. With compound interest, the amount
owed to the Anishinabe Ojibway Nation alone, is more than the present
United
States Deficit.
The
Good Citizens of Beltrami County are encouraged to
complain about the “tax burden” of Red Lake Reservation.
Particularly around election time, their
abusive diversionary tactics include bashing “welfare mothers.” Not only does the land on which you complain
about paying taxes have clouded title, but the economy of this entire
area is
based on Anishinabe Ojibway land and resources. Who
did you say was on “welfare”? It always
amuses me when some racist immigrant European says,
“when we got here, there was nothing here.”
If there was “nothing” here, why didn’t you turn around and go
back
home? The Anishinabe Ojibway People
didn’t ask you to come here. Ever since
the European immigrants got here, they have been doing nothing but
taking. It’s time that you started putting
something
back. We can’t change history, and we
all have to live here in harmony. The
immigrant people need to learn how to take responsibility for their
actions, as
well as for their generations yet to come.
Instead of blindly following the politician who makes the
biggest
promises, and pretending you don’t notice when that fat cat starts
stuffing his
pockets and his pocketbook, it’s time you took responsibility for your
actions. The resources have been
plundered to the bedrock. There is no
more, and you are going to have to change your lifestyle.
POLITICAL NEWS: I just returned from the
Twin
Cities, where I was an involuntary participant in the consequences of
the Clean
Air Act. Have you ever been in a Skid
Row tavern and smelled the rancid smell of stale alcohol?
That’s what the Twin Cities smell like. Not
enough people were buying Gasohol until
Clean Air Act legislation improved sales (Fascist style, in this World
Leader of
“Free Market Economies”). I still have
a hangover from breathing second-hand Gasohol—it’s like the morning
after a big
bender. Carrie Nation, where are
you! And, then, did you know they had
the nerve to close the Detox Center?
Nobody likes second-hand smoke, but I wonder how many people are
going
to get “Wet Brains” and Cirrhoses as a result of breathing under the
Clean Air
Act? They’ll have to set up aid
stations, where people can stop and buy a breath of pure air bottled in
the
countryside.
ROYAL NEWS:
The
Queen of England has been
having a tough year. The Irish have
finally been getting revenge: Murphy’s Law is hitting the Queen on all
sides
(in four dimensions). When Windsor
Castle burned, she called it an “annus horribilus.”
But, what she is asking the Taxpayers to replace has been
plundered over the centuries from all over the world.
The Third Reich, half-brothers to the English and another
Western
European Democratic Nation State, also financed its patronage of the
Arts with
other peoples’ blood and property.
George
Herbert Walker Bush wants more than a footnote in the
history books. After the “World
Leaders” of Western European Civilization engineered the conditions
under which
the Somalis (and many other people) are starved into submission, the
Lame Duck
is once again building the only kind of consensus he knows: for
violence—this
time, “shoot to feed.” He’s going to
leave President Elect Bill Clinton some terrible quagmires and
quandaries. Before this Lame Duck makes
his final exit,
he will have launched some vicious “Sour Grapes Policies” and “Sore
Losers
Legislation.” Peace on Earth to
Everybody.
My
telephone number is (218) 679-2382 and my mailing address
is P.O. Box 484, Bemidji, MN 56601.
Wub-e-ke-niew
|
|
|