Reflections
from the Ahnishinahbæótjibway (We, the People)
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“Activist heads home from
China,”
according to the front-page headline in Friday’s Minneapolis Star
Tribune. American citizen and human
rights activist
Harry Wu was expelled from China after having been convicted of spying. Mr. Wu had been videotaping documentaries
about human rights violations and prison labor in China, but his arrest
was
used by the Good Ol’ Boys in the United States as a pretext for
boycotting the
United Nations World Conference on Women to be held in Beijing
September 4-15.
Women
around the world have not had an effective voice in
international—or national—politics. The
International Conference on Women is finally providing a forum for
women to
have dialogue, debate and discussions about the systematic oppression
of women,
worldwide, under the Romanized Western parody of international law. The Good Ol’ Boys have used all kinds of
strategies to keep women from gaining the voice which is rightfully
theirs:
from witch-burning to polarizing discussion into volatile and
inflammatory
divisive issues like the “abortion debate.”
The world is changing; the entrenched male hierarchy has had
their
chance and has created nothing but wars and other violence, poverty,
pain and
suffering, and ecological devastation.
Hey guys, wake up and smell the coffee!
LABOR DAY: Labor Day
will be celebrated September 4.
Union-busting intensified under the Kennedy administration and
has
further escalated since the Reagan administration, and we need
acknowledge the
changes by re-naming this national holiday.
A more accurate name would be “Slave-labor Day,” or, better yet,
“International Human Rights Day,” recognizing the people who will be
working
the whole three-day weekend in the highly touted “service sector” at
$4.25 an
hour or less, and the migrant laborers who will be sweating in the
fields for
far less than the minimum wage, harvesting the food for your Labor Day
picnic. And, what about the guys in the
newly-formed chain gangs, bringing back the good ol’ days of
prison-labor, do
they get a 3-day holiday? Harry Wu,
where are you?
CRIME WATCH: In the
cities, local police departments sponsor “Neighborhood Watch” programs
under
which neighborhood residents report criminal activity.
We also need “Neighborhood Watch” groups in
the Northbrush: the tree-huggers need to organize to stop fly-by-night
wood-butchers from terrorizing the local environment and destroying the
habitat
of the bears, birds, deer, and other local residents.
If you see any suspicious bulldozers, tree-skidders (especially
the kind that takes 40 acres to turn around, and wrecks everything in
front of
it)... if you see people in hard-hats or orange vests, building roads
that go
nowhere; if you see any questionable-looking politicians with that
greedy look
in their eyes, especially ones with bulging back pockets—that’s when
the people
who care about this land should be able to call a hotline and report
crimes
against the environment. The only
problem: what’s the phone number?
BROKEN PROMISES: When I was
growing up at Red Lake, when we met someone, instead of saying “Hello,”
we
usually said, “When’s Payment?” That
was standard etiquette on the Rez a generation ago.
But, things change, although people still don’t greet you with a
“Hello.” Now, especially at White
Earth, the usual greeting is “When are the indictments coming down?”
John
Collier, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs who was the
Founding Father of the Indian Reorganization Act (I.R.A.) Tribal
Governments,
was quoted as saying the Indian politicians he wanted had a “white-plus
psychology,” meaning that they were greedier and more corrupt than the
white
politicians that Collier knew in Washington—if that’s possible. But, there is always “the good and the bad”
in every politician, including the Federally-Recognized I.R.A. Indian
leaders. I try to see the good in
everybody, and these Indian politicians are good at stealing, they’re
good at
lying, and, in a Democratic way, they’re very good at putting their own
interests ahead of their constituents’.
(The “mismanagement” of the recent Indigenous Games is one of
many
examples.)
FEDERALLY RECOGNIZED
INDIGENOUS
GAMES: The
White man has been playing games with his Indians since
he invented them. On one hand, he says
“Indians are sovereign,” but on the other, he says that “Indians are
wards of
the government, under trusteeship,” which means “incompetent.” Under the English common law used in the
U.S., in order to be guilty of a crime, a person must be competent to
stand
trial—maybe this is why certain Indian Leaders can rip off tax dollars. The White immigrants used
“Indians”—specifically adult Indian males—to sign treaties and land
cession
“agreements.” How can documents signed
by incompetent people be legally valid?
FOURTH PARTY: Rumor has
it that Senator Bill Bradley is throwing his grey hat into the
political
melee. He publicly announced that he is
leaving the Senate, but he hopes to make some changes in Washington,
D.C. I don’t know what his platform is,
but he
sounds inspirational and patriotic; as though he sees some fresh air
and a light
at the end of the tunnel. His Party
needs to start with cleaning out the bull-pen: some of those old bulls
and
over-fed steers have been fouling the barn for 200 years (and rats have
infested the foundation), and the stench and pollution from Washington,
and the
brown cloud that hangs over it, are sometimes remarkably vile.
Have
a safe holiday—drive safely and wear your seat belt.
My
telephone number is (218) 679-2382 and my mailing address
is P.O. Box 484, Bemidji, MN 56601.
Wub-e-ke-niew
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