Previous Blogs

Write to me if you have any thoughts you'd like to share, information you want me to have or a correction to any information you see here.  I respond to all emails.  CAT  NOTE: I reserve the right to NOT respond to whack jobs that waste my time.

The ongoing events and behaviors of those who murdered Eddie (and others)  on the Fort Totten Reservation, North Dakota.  How the ongoing criminal enterprise continues to flourish unabated and without a single response from the Justice Department.  Well, not surprising on that!  They would have to investigate themselves and how some of their elite were directly involved and have prospered from the corruption that exists, protected and funded by US Tax Dollars.

Even if you don't live on the Rez, it's your money, YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK.  You owe it to yourself to peek in once in awhile and see what you are paying for

All the pages are not yet hooked up, but as they fill out, I will post a note here and you can go and see for yourself. 

New (2nd) Contact page is hooked up.  You can find information on contacting the Parole Board to Free Richard, HERE

Texas Monthly Magazine has done a feature on this case.  Read the October Issue, available at newsstands now.  OR, go to the online version.  Michael Hall went to the rez and saw for himself.

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June 18, 2007--Printer Version

Inventory

Yes, it's that time of year when a lot of businesses, small and large, must take inventory to answer to the Tax Man.  How much you have on hand that is of value weighed against what is missing or lost or stolen.

Perhaps it would be a good time, just before spring leaps into Summer Solstice and everyone starts dancing, that we should all take inventory on what we have done with our lives. 

What have we gained?  Materially, it is easy to measure: House, Car, big screen, boats, ATVs, nice clothes, etc... against those who have lost everything, we can say we stack up pretty good.

Then there is the second part of inventory: What have we gained in the Eye of the Creator?  Have we gained that rush of a high that comes from helping another person in need?  The Creator pays well in that respect.  Do something for someone else, a good thing, the right thing, and you get a rush no drug can match, ever.

You also gain a certain amount of Karmic Credits, as I like to call them.  You can look back on your inventory, see how many people you have helped and how many people they in turn have helped, and your Karmic Wheel turns ever more into the light and Paradise to where all souls long to be when they waken from the dream of this life.

On the other hand, we must look at what was taken from us, be it money, innocence or illusions of security abruptly revealed as not there.  How do we cope? Do we become angry and bitter?  Or do we rebuild ourselves in a better way by standing up for what is right and good in this world and in our lives?

What we have at the end of the day, when full inventory is taken and our accounts brought to reconcile, is either we have a lot of material things that we bought while ignoring the suffering of people, and little or no counter balance of Karmic Credits where we have taken the risks, stood up for what is right, and helped another person or many people.  Or we have achieved a certain amount of comfort but have in balance, given more comfort and strength by standing with and for the right things, that our Wheel rolls more smoothly along.

Those who have so little in the way of decency and courage, but gained tons in material things, mostly at the expense of the people and who have added to their suffering by ignoring it, creating more of it, will find their wheel is so out of balance, weighing them down so much, that as other wheels glide by, theirs sinks into the muck and mire of their own cowardice and greed.

You Can't Take It With You

We've all heard it said.  Cynics say "Yes, but you can have it while you are here and you can leave it to your greedy relatives when you are gone," and that is true.  However, attached to all gains gotten by greed is fear.  Always a taste of fear in the back of the mouth.  Fear that someone will expose you, tell your crimes and hold you accountable. 

With no real spiritual healing, not a drop of human compassion having been shared, you have nothing to comfort you on the final Journey.  Your greedy relatives will fight over every trinket and morsel, your memory covered in jealousy, anger and deceit.

Not having built the necessary things for the longest life, that in eternity, the greater part of your life, by far, dwells in the worst kind of poverty, and there are no handouts on the other side to change that for you.  What you can and will take with you, is the fear, the loathing and the resentment.  Those will be your food and your companions in that long life after the dream of life has left you.

What we do take with us is the love, the peace of spirit in balance and good standing, upright with courage and compassion. 

The other things we take with us are the fear, the resentments, the knowledge that the evil we did to others, and the suffering we have caused, hangs on us like rags that itch and burn, but which we cannot remove lest we freeze and shudder.

I am looking at the many who have passed on to the next world from the rez.  How many of them are in the Paradise, carried by the love and truth that they lived in their time among us?  How many are in eternal discomfort, pain of their own making?

I look at Turdmother, fading from this dream of life, having a legacy of vile deeds, evil and corruption as her baggage for the hereafter.  I look at how she bore monsters and created murderers, rapists, and molesters out of their initial innocence, and what she leaves behind.

No wonder she is fearful, her lip bit through from terrors in her restless sleep.  The drugs no longer bringing her rest, but profound nightmares from which she cannot rouse herself; glimpses of the world she is about to enter.

All in good time, Turdymomma, all in good time.  You still must be among us, and you still must suffer at the hands of those whose murders you concealed, rapes you ignored, and molestations you scoffed at. 

All that and more is being packed in your bags, and those bags will be strapped to your back for that hard heavy road ahead. 

Coincidence?

Q-Ball made a lot of trips to SD to visit Eileen Eagleman over the past few years since his release from prison for the brutal rape of that young girl who was destroyed in the act.

Eileen, as you recall, was common-law to Q-Ball at the time of Eddie's murder.  She testified in court that the pants that Eddie was wearing when they picked his body up off the highway that morning, were in fact, Q-Ball's and not Eddie's. 

Testimony the court chose to ignore and the jurors too stupid to figure out how they were being led by their racist noses into convicting the innocent, all the while the murderers were sitting in the gallery, watching them. 

Eileen fled the rez when Q-Ball went to jail.  She still maintained the same lies which conflicted with one another, and people still figured she was too stupid to be involved, but she was. 

She was part of the cover-up, and then she told the truth, partly, and then she told the lies. 

I hear that her brother died (mysteriously) on one of Q-Ball's trips to visit her.  Some say he was beaten and strangled, but since autopsies are seldom performed on Indians, especially if the corrupt badgers on the rez say "natural causes" no matter how many bullets, knife wounds; no matter how deep the bruising on the neck.  Why bother doing an autopsy? 

So, we may never know for sure how he died, but we do know that within 24 hours of him dying, Eileen magically appeared back on SLN rez, living with Q-Ball and his other wife, in the home of Turdmother.

But it does look as if, by all accounts, her return has come at a time of inventory.  It could be a coincidence, but she sure picked an interesting time to be a part  of the accounting to come. 

Rumors, Gossip, and The Truth

Because so many people are so mistreated, and because there is absolutely no means for anyone to seek and gain recourse when they have been wronged or abused by the thugs that run the rez, people stay quiet.

Because the government turns its back on the people and their cries for help, claiming that the rez is "sovereign" and ignoring the rules in place that governs Federal Funds distributed within our own borders, including the rez, people have nowhere to turn.

Because the laws can be made up as they go along, ignored, and there is no guarantee of any qualifications for anyone in any position from cop to judge, people have nowhere to turn and they stay quiet. 

Because the US Military will be sent in to intervene if the people try to protest, regardless of how peacefully, the abuses in their own 'sovereign' leadership, including the voting which would do a Third World Dictator proud, the people do nothing.

What is left is guesswork.  Rumors, theories, gossip are the stock and trade of people who hunger for information on which to make decisions regarding their own lives on the rez. 

Easy to take advantage of, those in power start the ugliest rumors of their own and they have willing minions who love to go out and defile anyone that would stand up and speak out.

The only ones you can count on, in this upside-down-backwards-inside-out system to tell the truth are the ones who do not speak.

Everything said can be dismissed as “rumor, gossip” and that leaves no one with any certainty of what is the truth or where to begin to look for it.

So, if you find that you are dismissing everything you don’t like to hear as “rumor and gossip” ask yourself why that is all that is out there? When Rumor and Gossip are all that is out there, it is a sign that the people are in fear of speaking the truth.

Zero Tolerance Joke

The Federal Government likes that kind of 'silence', because they use it to support their position that all is well in Indian Country.

They claim that the rez has a 'Zero Tolerance towards drugs and alcohol' on the rez and that joke never seems to make them laugh as hard as it does the rest of us.

Define "Zero Tolerance" for me, anyone?  The biggest meth dealers and cooks on the rez are easy to find.  Their houses are full of it, their children being sickened and killed by it and you can smell it! 

Anyone that complains are warned by the Badgers, the Senators, the Representatives and the local police, to just keep their mouth shut or they will find they are in hot water. 

"Zero Tolerance" in this case, means, they will not tolerate any drug enforcement; nor will they allow anyone to register a complaint.  Business as usual.

What "Dry Rez" means is a mystery to us all now that the Oh Oh Bar has been permanently onto rez lands, thanks to the boundary changes enacted by the Oberon Town Council (Never been an election in that town.  Never will be one. Zero tolerance for elections).

So, I leave you all now, until the next episode, with a little more crayola to color in the blanks as to why things are so dysfunctional in Indian Country. 

Indians are not stupid, not dumb and not cowardly.  They simply have no options, no recourse, and their choices are that if they are to become anyone in this life, they must either do it with the help of the corrupt, or as far away from the rez as possible.

It is the goofiest, but most efficient plan for extinction, genocide by decree, laws that disinherit and dispossess them all. 

And we, all of us, Indian or otherwise, find our own extinction at hand by our ignoring the plight of our brothers and sisters, the First People, the ones that showed us how to survive in the wilderness, are themselves lost in our naivety.

We can choose to stand up and demand they are included in the most common of Civil Rights that we all depend on to give us our democracy and a chance at life; or we can ignore them, let our prejudices be our guide, and see how our wheel turns at the end of the Dream of Life.  Whatever it is, we will be taking it with us.

You know where to find me.

~Cat

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June 20, 2007 --Printer Version

What Master Do They Serve?

One has to look very much closer at the elected and the appointed who hold the reigns of power in our "Democracy".

One has to ask, from time to time "What Master Do They Serve?"  They call themselves Civil Servants or Public Servants, but the one that is served most often is nothing like we would like to think. 

For the Governors, the Congressmen, the Senators, the Judges and the FBI, the truth is far less than what we deem a standard for Democracy.  They are all aware, all of them, despite the many times they turn their backs and close their eyes and shut their ears to the cries for help and decency, they are aware that the corruption in Indian Country is not only one of the worst forms of oppression in the world, but that it is hurting the entire country on all levels: Moral, Spiritual, Economically, and it spreads this hurt across the land. 

It spreads it so thin, you cannot relate it back to the root causes, but not so thin that we cannot feel the impact in our own lives.  The financial corruption, which grows by the month, and from which so many of them benefit directly (campaign funds that are unaudited, off the record, untraceable) and indirectly (they get to keep their jobs, their power, their prestige as long as they do not make any moves to right the wrongs or speak out.) 

It is common knowledge that the rez, most rezes, have the highest unemployment ratios of any community in the country.  50% would be a dream!  Most run 65% on the low side to 85% on the more common side, with the powerful keeping the high paying jobs, which they are not qualified to hold, for themselves and their families.

The hopelessness this generates among the people helps to fuel the alcoholism and the addictions.  Those behaviors leave the children and the young people at greater risk for being abused, molested, raped and murdered. 

There is no law enforcement per se.  The Badgers are only there to serve as enforcers for the illegal acts committed by the powerful and the FBI is there to see to it that the powerful never fall. 

Given that any community, anywhere in North America that had a chronic unemployment rate of better than 50% (I am being gentle here), would have higher reported incidents of crime, abuse, etc., why is it that the rez seems to under report these offenses to the point where Congressmen and Senators can boldly and proudly say that there is a "strict policy of Zero Tolerance towards drugs" ? 

Drugs are rampant on the rez!  You can see it, smell it but for some reason, you cannot bust these people?  A year long "investigation" last year netted a couple of pill sales?  Amounts so small they would be dismissed as misdemeanors in Anytown, USA?  How did they manage to miss the bigger fish?  What kind of blindness and deafness do they practice in order to eliminate only the smallest possible competition, the lowest level dealers?

Why do they ignore the pleadings from Indians who say they are sorely mistreated by their government?  Why do they ignore the fact that no election is ever straight? That Bernadette got in was a fluke in that she managed (who knows how) to get the badgers to arrest the thugs Mark Lufkins had hired to harass people at the polling place in her district. 

Other districts had glaring fraud, but the people know that if they report it, nothing will happen to the criminals, but they themselves will have their lives turned upside down even worse than it is now. 

Women and men don't report rapes because the Badgers laugh at them.  Child molestation is ignored and the children are told to keep quiet. People are illegally evicted off their own lands, without due process under any laws, and are brushed off by the people who call themselves "Public Servants". 

With nowhere to go, and no one, except possibly me, that will possibly listen to the egregious abuses that are ongoing, the community continues to languish in the backwaters of corruption, while the Public Servants continue to prosper, and grow stronger. 

One has to ask "What Master Do They Serve?" and when you get your answer, know that that is the Master they empower and it is the same as runs us all.  No one is untouched by injustice.  The ripples grow stronger and stronger.  By the time the Tidal Wave washes over all of us, we are too weak to do anything about it.

That we do not stand up now and speak out against the injustices that are rampant and obvious, blatant and horrific in Indian Country, within our own borders... That we are willing to ignore it one more day, and think it is not our problem, one has to ask:"What Master Do We Serve?"

The time to address it is before it is too late.  Pieces of it have already crept into our lives, our homes and affected our future, and we continue to ignore it.  Corruption thrives in ignorance.

If we want to begin to take back a sense of control over our lives, we must seriously look at what we can do to make it right in Indian Country.

Don't fall for the racist knee-jerk threats that if we let them have power they will take over the whole country from Alaska to Mexico.  That doesn't even begin to play in the relevant, the possible or the reality of what can happen. 

Making it right in Indian Country, allowing the people to have recourse and redress for the wrongs committed upon them by government, and especially by their own people who have stepped in to hammer them down for the past 4 generations, will allow them to heal and to be self-sufficient. 

It will allow them to thrive in their culture and heal their culture from the molestation, addictions, and all that ails the Good People of Indian Country.  Allowing Indians to have Civil Rights and access to the same courts and laws as the rest of the nation is a step towards equality.

They don't want to run the world.  They just want to have a chance at a life with a future.  The rez should be a place where they can practice their culture and where others can come to learn more about their ways. 

It should not be intended as an open air asylum run by thugs. 

The people that would intimidate you and make you afraid to help for fear that "They'll take over ..from Alaska to.." are the people who need your racism, your groundless fears and your ignorance to keep themselves in power, and out of sight, so that you never know what they are doing until they give you a photo op shot in the media.

Time for us to think about it.  Would we rather deal with it now, and take the generations necessary to heal before it hits our homes and families any harder than it already has?  Or shall we continue to slumber and trust that those we have elected and the ones they have appointed, would never do anything that would lead to the obvious harm we know exists?

Living In Fear

We are all controlled by fear.  Government instills fear to control the people.  We suffer from ever rising crime rates and no neighborhood is safe.  Children from all strata of wealth are sickened and crippled by addictions.

We all lock our doors and fear the homeless will come and steal from us.  Worse, we fear that if we rock the boat, we too, will be homeless.  We fear home invasion, mugging, robbery, ID Theft, and high gas prices.  We fear losing our jobs, our homes our families.  We fear terrorists, which is ironic in that the definition of a terrorist is someone that instills or controls by fear.

And now we can fear that without cause, we can be taken from our homes and held in a prison and no one will know where we are.  Our government does that to us.

It suspends all our rights, at will, and we shuffle along, pretending we are okay.  We can be labeled "Terrorist", "Enemy Combatant" and put on a "No Fly List" without our knowledge and with no rights to know why.

We go to sleep every night and wake up every morning in fear of both the criminals and the government.  We eat, drink and sleep in 'fear'. 

The media does their part by not holding accountable those who abuse us and by not questioning the wrongs so obvious to us all. They fed us the “terror alert is Orange, Elevated” crawl at the bottom of every news channel for 3 years! Our minds supply the neon flashing “Be Afraid! Be Afraid!” and we are grateful to give up our rights to protect our “democracy”. Not sure if the irony of that contradiction hit us all in the same way, but I found THAT to be alarming!

When we believe the nonsensical because we are ‘afraid to question’ those who keep power and gain power by taking away our rights, we are already, my friends, becoming “Indians”.

We have become so accustomed to fear that we react without thinking.  In fact, we think less and react more. Like a herd in stampede, we 'go with the flow', not realizing that the drop off ahead will be the end of us all.

Churches control by fear of the Devil and the Hell to come if you ask too many questions.  The Catholic Church, including the Pope, installed a doctrine that protected pedophile priests, but which punished the victims if they spoke out by ex-communication, which means they would burn in hell for embarrassing the Church.

Racists control us by making us think that people that don't look like us are not like us and we should fear their intentions.  Look where that policy of the last 60 years has gotten us all!  We created the exact climate and ingredients to get what we feared the most!

Fear touches, spoils and rots every aspect of our lives; physical, spiritual, mental, emotional and financial.  Our environment is toxic on all of those levels as well.  You know it is, you just don't want to know it.

Anyone that feeds you fear of standing up, of questioning their authority, serves the evil that presides.

Waiting To Stand Up

Until we are more willing to say "Stop!" and think about what is really being said to us, done to us and to others in our name, we are surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, heading for our own demise, by our own hands, over our eyes, not willing to see, not willing to stand up to the corruption that rules the land.

We can change it. We can change all of it.  But we have to be willing to demand that everyone be given the same rights.  We cannot constructively disempower an entire group of people and expect a good end result. 

We cannot allow our fear of the racist stereo-type keep us silent to the point we allow this slo-mo genocide to turn the last corner from which there is no return.

If we allow the collapse and extinction of the First Peoples of the Land to go on in our name, then we must surely realize that we are next, and already half-way there.

The people in power like being in power.  Once the Indian is gone, they will find another group to exploit.  It will be easy to do as we are becoming more xenophobic and racially divided both at home and abroad, by the week. If we cannot dominate and consume another country because they rise up and are supported by other countries, then the people in power will turn on those at home, to maintain the level of backwater corruption that has fed them for so long and so well.

Our beloved democracy will fail from the inside.  The group that is excluded from having rights, will grow, and is growing now, until only the few, the elite and their cronies, will have any rights. 

Don't think it can't or won't happen.  It is happening now. It is happening to Indians and it is spreading to other groups, now.  Fail to see this coming tide and we will all be swept away and have no one to blame but ourselves.

The more we 'wait to stand up' until 'the right moment' or when we can no longer deny that the ills that cripple our nation are caused by apathy and ignorance and can be cured by awareness and courage, the more we wait to come to that conclusion, the less likely we are to succeed. 

If you wait too long to stand up, your legs give out, too weak to support you. The time to stand up, is now, so that maybe you can turn things around before they get worse and take away all that you have.  The time to stand up is NOW so that if it does come to your door, all this misfortune, you stand a chance of saving yourself, your children and our country.

The time to stand up is NOW, when it is the other guy you stand up for.  Always easier to stand up for someone else than it is to stand up for yourself and hope someone will stand with you.  Think about it.

Fail to do it now, and there might not be enough left to stand up later.  We make these choices every day of our life. We choose to do the right thing or to ignore it. Who do you think will pay at the end of this waiting game? What do you think will be the cost?

When that time comes, it will be too obvious too late, what Master we have been serving all this time.  Hold them accountable now, or earn the regret we so richly deserve.

You know where to find me.

~Cat

June 21, 2007==Printer Version

Happy Solstice!

Yes, boys and girls, it is Summer Solstice time, once again.  Not the same without Melvin Grey Bear around to conduct the Sundance in Chelsea.  He is truly missed by all who knew him. 

His life, especially from the point that he picked up the altar, as they say, was a really good example of how much healing and teaching could be accomplished in Indian Way, for ALL people.

Melvin was, to my thinking, ahead of his time in his practice of the Old Ways.  He welcomed people of all races to the teachings and to the Sundance.  He knew that The Creator wanted all people to come together.  And they did. 

At his Sundances, people from all 4 corners of the world, and occasionally, some from the Spirit World, came to dance at Chelsea.  He and Floyd Youngman, his right hand man, would tell of how they would count off how many people were dancing in the circle.  Occasionally, there would be one or two more than would exit. 

Melvin knew that racism, jealousy were destructive to Indian People. He never discriminated against anyone by race or creed.

He talked about how these ways were Sioux Ways, but that they were intended for everyone, especially those who had lost their ways, to practice until their ways came to them again.

It was the healing of the spirit as much as healing of the body and mind, at those times.

That was the intention of the Sundance at Chelsea.  I believe that has been the Intention of the Ceremonies from the time of the Bringing of the C'anupa by the White Buffalo Woman, to the people.  She was the messenger from The Creator.

But not everyone wanted to share.  That is common where people find power or riches.  They think that if they can keep it for themselves, they will have more.  Oddly enough, the more they keep it to themselves, the more they rob themselves.

But not everyone that came came for the good of the people or the healing.  Some came for show, or even to defy God figuring that if they survived the Sundance, they had fooled The Creator/God or that they were more powerful and could do anything.  Very foolish those.  Lost then and lost to this day.

But they were allowed.  Melvin did not judge the motives of the Dancers.  He merely ran the dance and did his work, without the distraction of ego or jealousy, politics or any other petty mortal trap doors.  They could keep their poison or they could let it go.  The Sundance was an opportunity for healing.

I found that the Sundance had everything:  Goodness, Darkness, healing, ignorance, ego and humility.  I think everyone took from it what they brought to it.  It was amazing!

It was also a time of heartbreak as well as healing.  News came of the sudden death of a beloved brother or sister, and like everything else at the Sundance, the feel of it was magnified.

There was also sabotage always lurking in the process.  There were those who wanted to make the Sundance their own, and charge people to come, make it profitable.  They wanted to restrict it to only Full-Bloods, or to some other narrow, political criteria. 

The Grandfathers told Melvin and he told those who were campaigning to change things from the way they were supposed to be done, to their own politics, that if there was anymore talk of such things, the Sundance would NOT be held again.

All the spiritual politics was intriguing to me. People trying to use spiritual ceremony to make themselves above the others and bend people to their thinking rather than to allow the healing to take place.

Humility vs. Ego seemed to be the underlying theme throughout.

Melvin is gone now.  All I can say to those people who are lost without him, is that they should have availed themselves of the healing and the teaching when he was there for them, rather than trying to control him and the ceremony for their own ends.

Most of us miss Melvin, and I know that his family misses him more than any of us could ever imagine, but missing him because he is not here now, is one thing.  Missing him while he was here and was ignored, well that is a loss that cannot be made right! 

For those who 'got it' and understood it and appreciated it, there is enough to carry them through to the end of their days.  For those who didn't get it, tried to manipulate it, the void of his absence, knowing he won't be there to fix their crimes of ego, must be very painful.

I, and some of the Dancers I have heard from, from the moment of the news of his passing to the Spirit World, are astonished at how many people, instead of feeling compassion for his family at this time, were instead all wrapped up in their own little issues:  "Where will I dance now?" they would ask. 

Seemed like a strange question to come out of the mouths of people who had been dancing long enough that they should have 'gotten it.'

I choose this time, the time of the Sundance, to remind you all of his good work.  He was just a man, a Human Being, like all of us.  He had the courage, when it was made clear to him, to not only step on and stay on the Red Road, but to be the light that guided so many out of suffering and darkness. 

So much of his work centered around the Yuwipi Ceremony.  He and his trusty band of singers, would travel up to BC and other parts of Canada from time to time, and carry the ceremonies and the teachings to villages and bands, towns and cities, and even into the prisons to light up the darkened places of this world, this life and offer healing.

Much of what opposed him was ignorance, ego and selfishness.  People, entire villages would attend these ceremonies, but offer nothing in compensation for his travel and needs. 

At those times, it was his wife, Lorraine, and her employment that sent him the money to not only continue the journey but to make it home.  I don't know if there was ever a time that he came home from these trips, with any kind of extra cash in his pocket, any real gratitude of the people. 

A lot of that was ignorance because people actually, in one place that I know of, said that it would be 'insulting' to pay him for his work or offer him money!  I also know of times that money would be granted to be given to him for the ceremony, and the villages would pay to the person that was coordinating in their village, a lot of money, but it was kept by them and not given to him.

Still, he came, did the ceremony and brought the healing and the teachings to all who were welcome to attend. 

I know that Lorraine often had to sacrifice financially to get him through it, and I know that people often forget that. Because Melvin was doing the work, they thought he was the only one involved. 

Remember, dancers, and others all, that one person doing the work is not how the work is done.  There is always someone or a family or others supporting them so that they can do the work.

At this time of Sundances Remembered, those who attended the Chelsea Sundance and the Ceremonies carried by Melvin Grey Bear to the far corners of this place, while you are remembering him, remember those who supported him: Remember his family and especially Lorraine.

I am forever grateful for her generosity it making it possible for the Ceremonies to come to where I could find them.

So, put aside any personal differences you have with others on this Solstice Day, and remember the good work of those past and those still among us, and give thanks. Honor those who did good work and brought good teachings.  And honor those whom they loved and depended upon to make it possible.

And in your prayers, remember them always and add one for their healing and well-being. 

As Melvin always knew, adding prayers for healing and well-being in this world is how you begin the healing.

You know where to find me.

~Cat

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June 22, 2007 --Printer Version

Fancy Footwork

Well, let's look at a whole nutha kind of dancing shall we?  Get yourself comfy in a front row seat because you are going to see some of the fanciest footwork in the land!

Political Two-Step

An article in the Grand Forks Herald today speaks to the issues of violence on Indian Land.  Stunning how Byron Dorgan (rhymes with 'organ') appears to be both aware of the increasing violence and issues surrounding it and totally ignorant of the root causes, all in the same breath. 

If you hold the paper sideways, it would appear that he just now is becoming aware that all is not well in Indian Country.  If you hold it up to the light, you can see advertising through the words.  If you put your nose really close to it, you can smell the rot.

Listening to tribal leaders testifying all sounds really noble.  Tribal Leaders, the ones who hold all the power over the rez, the same ones that run the police departments as personal servants and enforcers for the corruption and criminal syndicates that the leaders and their families control and are profiting from, are the ONLY people he listens to. 

If the average Indian writes him or his office a letter and speaks about the crimes being committed against them by the corrupt tribal leaders, they are ignored, disrespected, and treated as a joke.  I have seen some of the most nonsensical replies (those fortunate enough to get a reply) from Mr. Dorgan's office to the very people who are complaining about being abused!

The answer to all of this is simple:  Give Indians the same Civil Rights as any other American Citizen.  Give them the right to file charges against the criminals that are in their neighborhoods, and in their Tribal Councils. Give them the rights to file these charges, make complaints and seek recourse through the same court system as anyone else.

The problem of corruption cannot be ignored when addressing rising criminal activities on rez land, and those criminal activities are carried out by the very family that hold power over the people!  Without the simple Civil Rights to carry these charges to a higher court and to obtain the same level of investigation from the Justice Department and State Agencies as anyone reporting a crime in any city or town would have, the government has effectively disempowered the very people it now acknowledges are being  victimized.

"Do The Hustle!"

I had to laugh when I read the part where Marcus Wells, chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation in New Town, N.D. talks about how six guns, body armor were stolen from the home of one of the Tribe's own police officers.  And then talks about how the BIA (their Badgers, their own, mind you) did interviews but took no further action.

Most likely it was because the people that 'stole' the items are part of the powerful families and tied to the Tribal Leaders themselves.  That is typically the case!  What is Mr. Well's suggestion?  Give the Tribes ALL the power!  They are inept and corrupt so let's give them 'more power'? 

Doesn't matter how you look at it, it is stunning in its stupidity, and dazzling in its footwork. 

The solution is not to give more power to the corrupt.  The solution is to give more power to the people that have been disempowered. Put in strict oversight as to where the funding for programs is being spent and how. 

Put in strict oversight to be sure that Tribal Police are trained and held to a standard of ethics that if violated, the people can have recourse.  As it is now, they have nothing and can do nothing.

If there is a 'good cop' in the bunch, he or she would be powerless to act on behalf of any victim if the perpetrator is related to the Tribal Leaders.

The same Tribal Leaders that testify in front of Congress and never mention "corruption", which is the root of the evil that plagues the people.

They testify, and look for all the world like real Indians, but their sole intention is to again get more money.  Money that will never be audited, never accounted for and will someday show up in some scandalous pocket of some lobbyist and no one will ever ask "Where did that money come from?"

Make the elections that are held for Tribal leadership positions, honest.  Put in observers and set standards that will at least give the people a fighting chance at running their own lives.  As it is now, with the voting being so corrupt, and the corrupt able to do as they please with the ballots and no one able to complain (and if they did, who would listen? Dorgan the Organ? Hah!), all our silk suited Congressmen, Senators and their noble speeches like to be seen shaking the hands of the wealthy, corrupt and criminals they claim are doing a good job.

If you want to hear honest testimony, talk to the people who are being victimized and not the people who are doing it to them.  If you want to help the people, give them Civil Rights like everyone else and let them at least start helping themselves!

By disempowering Indian People and making them subject to the violence and corruption of the bullies and thugs who take the reigns of power, and by funneling millions of dollars into the hands of the corrupt every month and never ever once getting an accounting for where that money is going, what result do these really bright and shining Politicians expect?

Say we were to take any community where people are disadvantaged.  Let's take some gang-infested area of LA or New York or Kansas City.  Let's tell them to have their own elections and pick their own leaders.  Let's not make sure the elections are legal.  Allow thugs to intimidate the people, threaten them, bribe them with drugs and alcohol.  Now, let's let the same thugs put their personal friends in charge of the ballot boxes and of handling the ballots before they go into the boxes and lets keep the vote counting in a separate room where only the powerful have their people in place.

What outcome do you expect? Now, let's see what happens when people complain about the tactics and the threats and the corruption and you tell them they have to get the approval of the people they are accusing before you will even look at their complaint.  After all, they 'elected' them.

You hear no complaints and you assume that the 'leaders' are doing a good job.  You give the 'leaders' millions of dollars and tell them to keep up the good work.  The leaders don't allow investigations into crimes that involve their families doings. People who complain to the Justice Department are told that they are free to hire an attorney, at their own expense to pursue the matter if they feel they are being abused. Also note that whatever attorney they hire has to be approved of and allowed by the very people that are abusing them.

What outcome do you expect?

By turning a blind eye to the corruption and by continuing to make the corruption possible and by funding the corruption without audit or accounting; what result are you hoping to achieve?

By making it financially prohibitive for anyone being abused to press charges against their rapist, attacker, or the people who take their homes and land without due process, the whole notion of “Civil Rights” a joke. A sick joke. And then the offices of these ‘high and mighty’ politicians dismiss the pleas for help and make absurd accusations and assumptions against anyone that would dare bother them with the complaint, shows that the politicians themselves are enjoying the joke.

Now, after we have crippled the people, denied them their rights, empowered, armed and offering government reinforcements to the leadership should any situation arise where there is active complaint or protest, are we now really so shocked and surprised that so much criminal activity is rampant on the rez? Are we so shocked that we do not even look at the corruption that makes it all possible?

Are we all so stupid that we believe Dorgan and Wells and people of that caliber that do this fancy two-step before our eyes and never question the root causes?

Would we, with any common sense, if this sort of issue was being generated in a community in LA or New York or anywhere else not be able to identify it as a criminal syndicate and demand that the government take responsibility and go in and clean it up?  Would we even entertain the notion of giving those thugs that run them, MORE power and authority? 

Side Step Shuffle

To claim that it is a 'patchwork' of jurisdictions created by State and Federal and County is the fanciest dance of them all.  Give that Politician a trophy!  It is simply the willful ignoring of the abuses and corruption ongoing and enabled (if not outright created) by the Millions of dollars that go into each rez each month without any accountability.

Shuffle and Shrug

Dorgan and the rest of them now shrug and say that it is too complex to be remedied without a whole lot more money being sent in, and given to the very people that are corrupt.

I would think that by this time, the sound of this stupidity would be offensive to anyone that voted for him.  He has proven that he is unwilling to deal with the problems in Indian Country, has actively ignored the pleas for help from people victimized by the corrupt leadership, and he continues to channel millions of tax dollars into the hands of the perpetrators. 

If he were funding the local Mafia Don, would we be so impressed with his 'good works'?  It is a criminal syndicate that he is promoting and funding.  He just calls them friends, Indian Leadership, instead of "Godfather."

He has never advocated for Indians to have the same Civil Rights as the rest of the country. Why is it okay to have an entire group of people legislated out of Rights and disempowered?

The rest of the nation, in their ignorance of who and what Indians were back then and are today, either see only the end results of chronic futility and never question how it came to be that way, and demonize all Indians as drunks, lazy, welfare suckers; or they see only the shining examples of those who escaped the rez and managed to carve success for themselves. 

Sometimes people mistake the wealthy high rollers at the resorts and casinos, not realizing that those Indians are the corrupt who stole the millions they are playing away and keeping for themselves, as 'success' stories.

Look more closely at who these politicians are shaking hands with: Chances are you will see money going into one another's pockets.  You know there has to be a payoff for Dorgan and the rest of them.  Either they are criminally involved or they are criminally stupid.  Take your pick.

How easy is it, when there is no auditing and no accounting for where the money goes, for it to find itself back in the pockets of the very same politicians who earmarked or granted the funding in the first place. Very easy.  Jack Abramoff was merely the bagman. 

Millions came to Indians, went to him and back to politicians.  Still, no one is looking at that part of the cycle.

Now, write to me and tell me what a good job Dorgan and Conrad are doing.  Tell me what a good man Marcus Wells is. I could use a good laugh.

Meanwhile, Dorgan and the rest of them are shrugging and pretending that they are totally unaware of the root causes for the disgraceful way people in Indian Country are being abused and mistreated.

Coyote loves that dance! Ahhh-Wooo-Ooo-Yaaaa-Hahahah!

You know where to find me.

~Cat