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July 26, 2010-- Printer Version (3)
Everything Old is New Again

I hear that at Fort Totten Days, the Turdclan, much as possible, took center stage, as if to remind people that not only do they murder and get away with it, and not only do they walk freely among you-- they own the Tribe.

Poopsie was out there, shaking hands with everyone, greeting them as if he was the Mayor of Ft. Totten. Turdmother was in the stands, beaming, like the Queen.  And y'all just pretend it is normal.

The reason things are not getting much better out there is you have yet, collectively, to show enough guts to stand up to them and at the very least, make them know they are not welcome and they are not dignitaries and they do not own you.  As long as you let them own you, you have nowhere to go but down and worse.

And, now that Brian "Zit Puppet" Pearson is out of jail, he is taking his place next to mommy NLO ON STAGE, at the General Assembly meetings. He speaks with the authority of a Tribal Council Member.

Your Tribal Council not only allows this, but they are again paying him--- or allowing him to pay himself. Why did no one stand up and say: "What is a drunken felon doing on stage at this meeting?" Was there no outrage? No? Well, by that silence, you accept him back and he will continue right from where he left off, working with Mommy and Walkingugly, to steal the millions from the Tribe.

Now you know where your Wind Farm funds have gone, and will go.

I guess the FBI that was combing through all the records and offices at the Blue Building were doing their usual, culling of the evidence. It would appear to me, and to anyone looking at this, that they essentially were there, clearing the path, removing any chance of evidence being left behind... and essentially, laying out the red carpet for Zit Puppet's return.

Your Tribal Council needs to answer for this. Find out who on the Council is really doing the work, and who is being paid off or blackmailed into allowing this corruption to again, infest their nest.

I suspect that Darwin Brown is being used on several levels. You can see he won't lift a finger except to support Wanda White-Trottier, famous pill head, blatantly biased, to keep her job. We all suspect that his friendship with her gay husband is more Brokeback Mountain than not.  Also, he is allowing his cousin to deal drugs out of a house he rents to him. Openly.

Everyone knows it. Everyone sees it. Nobody speaks up. Everyone still afraid to use their voice. Everyone still afraid of their own power. Look what you are letting back in.

This is why the kids have no hope out there. This is why the bullies run the place. You let them.

Small Fry

From the Rez:

I was watching the 10:00pm news there came along the screen was Melissa (Desjarlais) Hunt's name. She got two years probation for making loans in people's names and cashing the checks and money orders and keeping them for herself.

Now how does someone do that and only get two years probation and NOT JAIL TIME? Things like this go on and that's all she got was a slap on the wrist?

You cant tell me the people in the loans and collections department are not doing the same thing she was doing. So there was research done turns out she has been doing it for years she has 5 kids and was able to drink all the time buy half the bar drinks and still have money to get her man pills.

Other people were talking and everyone knew they were having it hard but some how Melissa had money coming out of her ass and wasn't scared to show it off.

The only people that have that kind of money out there are the TC and the ones that know how to budget and save. She comes from a family of drunks and her uncles like to "touch". Wouldn't put it past if she was touched. Who did she sleep with to keep her job and not have no one look into it (hint hint) Jutters! 

Before the FBI came in and got her she was able to go to work the next day now why would someone that got arrested be able to go to work?

Was the TC in on the loans? You know they are able to make how much ever they want nowadays. Something like this needs more media!

Who see's the checks go through and who signs off on them? Turns out Melissa's brother's girlfriend told on her,  but it's happened many more times than what she was charged with. She should have gotten jail time (not like her kids would miss her!) No one has seen her around before all this has happened. There she was, buying her man's love with pills, taking him to Grand Forks.

Now who's man is better dressed then their own kids? I will pray nothing happens to them 5 kids.

As bad as this is, you know she is the small fry. That those much higher up, with signing authority, have been doing this for years.  NLO is a big offender. They are robbing Elders, the ones who cannot understand that loans have been taken out in their name, and for which they owe to pay back.  They rob those who are in the Seniors Homes. Ones who have no access to their own mail.

Then loan companies justify jacking up the rates to all Indians because they say Indians don't pay back the money they are loaned. Credit cards are outrageous. Well, Indians don't pay back their credit cards. At least, that is the way it looks because Loan Companies and especially credit card companies never check to see if the person applying is actually who they say they are.  They don't care. They get the loans out there, play those 'credit default swaps' games that brought down the economy and then blame the President.

Verification is easy. But it takes a few minutes. There are no laws making it incumbent upon loan  companies to actually verify the identity of anyone they are doing business with. And, when the loans fail, and people who never took them out are harassed or their credit ruined, banks are paid anyway, from a government fund that backs their losses.

A lot of things need to change in Indian Country. A lot of things need to change around Indian Country. A lot of things need to change all over this country.

Meanwhile, you have a Tribal Council promoting corruption, a Personnel Director whacked out on pills, loans being taken out in your name without your knowledge, and the Turdclan parading themselves around to the public at Ft. Totten Days, like they own you.

Well, do they? Own you? It's up to you. The keys are in your hands. It's time you start making noise with them. It's time you start using them.

Remember: Whatever you do to stand up, will help the children. Whatever you do to hide, will hurt the children. 

Everything you do is a choice. Choose wisely. The Future is watching.

You know where to find me.

~Cat

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July 25, 2010  ---Printer Version (7)
Plenty

I don't know why, but I do know how we came to this.  This world was created with plenty for everyone. People in these lands knew how to share and to care for one another. In good times, there were celebrations and rejoicing. In hard times, there was coming together, sacrificing of plenty to make sure that all had some, enough for all.

The ways of the land were taught to all the Peoples of all the lands. Each knew how to provide for themselves, their tribes and their families. There was plenty.

Then came Greed. Greed was impatient. Greed wanted power. Greed could never have enough. Greed could never be happy. Greed caused pain and suffering. Greed wanted power.

Gatekeepers

I'm watching things evolve over my lifetime and reading the histories of different countries. I'm seeing how things repeat themselves throughout the world, on both larger and smaller scales. The intention is always the same. The outcome is always the same.

Conquest used to be, in ancient times, about uniting lands and tribes to make the Many stronger as the One. But that was quickly replaced by conquest for the sake of glory, greed and power.

Resources became coveted rather than shared. People's access to various resources became controlled by 'Gatekeepers'. Gatekeepers have, throughout history, been the most powerful because they could either provide that which sustains us, giving us just barely enough; or could deny to us that which we need to survive and we perish. Gatekeepers control the wealth by controlling who has access to both the necessities of life and the elements of prosperity.

Today, with all our resources being privatized, Corporations are the Gatekeepers. Our government is supposed to be the Gatekeepers of our resources, in order to assure that we, as a nation, can all prosper and all survive. To allow us all to have good times and to be able to survive the hard times by making sure we all have enough.

The Department of Interior is supposed to be the Guardian of our Nation's Resources, from which we derive our wealth, and without access thereto, we become weakened and we perish.

But our Gatekeepers, from the beginning, were never there to protect the resources from overuse or from Greed. The Gatekeepers have been, from the beginning of Government, the handmaiden of Corporations.

Indians did not lose their lands because they were weak. Indians did not lose their lands because they were stupid. Indians did not sell Manhattan for $24 in trinkets. Indians were demonized by the European Trading Companies because those Trading Companies wanted it all.

Dangerous Minds

They created false stories and lies about Indian People and events in order to create fear and mistrust of Indians in the hearts and minds of settlers. Indians looked very different and looking different made it easy for those, most of whom used their Church Pulpits and their standing in their Churches, to demonize the Red Man.

Many settlers did not buy into it. In fact, the early settlers knew better. They knew that Indian people saved their lives and were teaching them how to survive on the land without destroying the resources. 

European Settlers were learning a new way to look at Mother Earth and at Creator.  They were leaving behind the old fears taught to them by oppressive Churches in Europe, which had, in concert with the Kings and Queens, oppressed the people by suppressing access to resources, and even torturing and burning those alive who questioned either the Church or the Royals.

Indians and the Ways of Plenty, of Harmony with the Land, and the Constant Connection to Creator, were becoming, collectively a threat to those who wanted to control it all. In order to control it all, they had to control the people. To control the people, they had to control their minds.

Penny Novels and Drunken Soldiers, along with Preachers and Padres told stories of 'Savages' and 'Heathens'.  The idea was to both prevent Newcomers from learning a new way and abandoning the European model of Greed and Power. The lies about massacres and false heroics of inept Soldiers inspired young men to take up weapons and vow to be "Indian Killers".

Publishers of the Penny Novels were wealthy men, mostly because people craved news and information, and they controlled the Gates of Access to Information, and used it-- not to inform, but to misinform, mislead, confuse, deceive people into fighting against one another, and against the very people who knew all the ways of this land and how to have plenty for seven generations to come.

They became wealthy by controlling access to information and denying access to the Truth. They became powerful in that other corporations and the Government they controlled, could use them to create enmity between White Brothers and Red. They created fear, mistrust, and the slaughters began.

Racism has always been a tool of those who want to control the minds and hearts of people in order that those people will not see that they are being robbed of the very resources they need to survive, and when they do, they will blame one another.

The buffalo were slaughtered and the lands and all their resources were taken. Treaties were made that relied on the Integrity of the Red man, but which were broken by the greedy Government, which was, for all intents and purposes, just the lap dog of greedy corporations.

Ideas were suppressed. The Government and the Churches conspired to erase the culture and the languages of all the Indian Peoples. This went on up until the 1970's.  It was accomplished through abuse, neglect, starvation, assault, trauma and murder.

Governments that are the lapdogs of Corporations fear the thoughts of people who would question their Greed, corruption and abuses. Indians are still here.

Indians have survived. Most tribes are dealing with both the damage of 10 generations of abuse and PTSD inflicted by the government and the Churches. Families are broken up. Culture is lost. Alcohol, addiction, jealousy and corruption still diminish what is left of Indian People.

But they are still here. That tells me that Indians are stronger than all the powers of greed and corruption that have been played against them for hundreds of years. Even that drunken, toothless, passed out Indian you step over downtown--the one that never looks you in the eye, is proof that Indians are still here.

Despite the starvation, disease, injustices, broken treaties, corruption, and addictions heaped upon them for generations, they are still here.

There is still the chance that even they will begin to remember the Old Ways, and find what it is that has made them so strong that even with all of this down upon them, they are still here. Worse, there is a chance that if other people in this country begin to look at the True History of this Nation, and the role of Big Powerful Businesses in creating the ongoing genocide, privations and addictions; we might put down our mistrust, come together, and stop doing the bidding of the Gatekeepers.

I watch how the resources of this land have been raided and the indigenous people have been discarded like twigs as the giant earth eating machines come in and take everything, leaving behind nothing but pits of despair, open wounds and failed systems that leave us to feed on and breathe in the pollution that weaken us.

Bigger Circles

I watch as these same corporations repeat this process all over the world. I watch as people die because of bombs, and mindless wars that are nothing but the means for corporations to take over the resources and wealth of nations, and leave them in poverty and privation.

I watch as the World Bank helps to create monetary earthquakes that drop Nations to their knees, and then 'loan' them money under terms that can never be paid back, while demanding 'Austerity' measures, which only means taking more away from the people who need it, giving it to the Earth Eating Corporations, and not allowing the people to control anything that happens on their own lands.

Haiti overthrew their Slave Masters and were punished in the World Court, told they had to pay these monsters billions of dollars, at high interest, and could not provide for their people until this debt was paid. And they had to import from other nations the rice they could grow for themselves, but at a higher rate while not being allowed to increase or control the prices of their own goods for export. Until they complied completely, no other nation would trade with them.

The world conspired to strangle Haiti. It created grinding poverty and the corruption of an underground economy. Corporations moved in and set the wage at pennies an hour. Haiti was forbidden by the terms of their 'Austerity Measures' to raise the minimum wage of their own people.

Nor could the country make laws that 'interfered with the free market' such as pollution laws, or harvesting laws or environmental laws.

The earthquake revealed to us all, visually, that which had been done to Haiti economically,  by every nation including the USA.  But still we don't see it as our doing. Haiti was just another Rez in a global system that is run by the wealthiest corporations, that can, simply by denying us access to real information, be allowed to create wars, terrorize innocent people, destroy environments, and sell us the end product at a rate we can no longer afford.

The Gatekeepers that are the most dangerous to us are those that control our access to information. The media has become just another tentacle of Corporations who do not want us to see what they are doing or how they are doing it and who is getting hurt by them.

They feed us Right Wing propaganda non-stop. They give us false equivalencies to make us think that 'both sides are just as bad', when in fact, one side is desperately working to fix, prop up and to heal that which was broken over the past 30 years of 'trickle down'.

CNN follows breathlessly, in a corporate news bus, every stop on the Teaparty route to bring us 'news' of how much of an impact they are having. Sometimes only a few people show up, but they don't show you that. They ignore the racist signs, epithets and other ugliness. They ignore the counter rallies, many of which were thousands of people strong. Not a peep. They call this "News".

CNN even has a slogan: "Keeping them Honest". I have learned that Corporate Slogans are the joke on everyone. BP's Slogan: "Safety First" and "Beyond Petroleum". Their business is Petroleum and they cut safety measures beyond the breaking point to save a dime to get at it.  CNN's Slogan is no different. Nothing honest about CNN. I watched as they plagiarized, outright, other people's work and denied it. It was, word-for-word plagiarism.

But they are a corporation. Corporations have all the power. They are a 'Gatekeeper' because people think they are getting news, when in fact, they are getting gibberish, and being fed lies that create a mistrust of those who know the way to fix things and start to heal all that is wounded and broken. News Media are the new Penny Novels, spewing the same lies, only on a 20 minute loop.

CNN and FOX are becoming ONE with the Dark Side.

Education is the other Gatekeeper. Keeping kids dumbed down, allowing bullies and politics to oppress and shut down young minds instead of finding the keys to awaken and inspire them, is key to keeping the Corporate agenda on Track.

Texas is actively working through its School Board of Education, to alter history, create heroes out of failures, erase heroic acts of people who fought for the rights of all, and to diminish the roles of people of color. They want to make false claims about how the USA was founded. They want it to be by religious men and for one religion only--Christianity.

Know this one thing and remember it well: The USA was founded by Traders, run over by corporations, and controlled by Gatekeepers. Those who wrote our Constitution intended for it to grow and change with us and for us.  Not to oppress us or limit us, but to allow us all a fair chance to prosper and to progress into a Peaceful Nation. Corporations did not like our Constitution, so they co-opted politicians with greed and fear.

It's time we wake up. It's time we change that. Turn off the hate speak, the crazy talkers and the liars. Turn off the message of hate and fear propagated by Corporate Spokes models like Palin, Bachman and other flaming hypocrites. They vomit lies, wink their eyes, and come unglued if someone asks an unscripted question. They are hollow inside. They are nothing.

A passed out drunk on the sidewalk has more to offer and less to hurt you than these Bimbos of the Right Wing Lie Machine. They are there to make ignorance and racism look pretty. Nothing more.

KEYS

Learn to think again. Learn to question, seek answers. Learn to educate yourself and become a Critical thinker rather than a fearful reactionary, who will jump to do the bidding of corporate masters who control the access to information.

Indians are STILL HERE. Take your children to school and make those schools teach your children the skills they need to survive in this world: Reading, Writing, Math, Critical Thinking, and Understanding of the Arts, Music and great minds.  Open the world for your children. Open the world for yourselves.

Do not tolerate corruption or bullying in your schools. Hold those elected or appointed, accountable. Hold those who appoint them, accountable. Start using the power you have to effect that which you can, and you will grow stronger.

Your mind will grow stronger, and you will resist the addictions and the racism, the greed and the jealousy. Fix the schools and protect your children and this will be OUR Land again.  Secrets kept from us will be revealed.

The Earth Eating Machines will become silent. Their treasure no longer of any value.

What was done to Indians was done to the land. What was done to Indians was done to us all. We are all Indians now. And the Gatekeepers ride their giant machines and think we cannot bring them down. We can... if we educate our children. Let them learn. Keep them safe.

For those who do not have anyone to protect them, you must be strong, determined and protect yourself. You are Indian. You are still Here. Gatekeepers have not been able to destroy you. They fear you.

Education is our KEY. If there is one thing the Gatekeepers fear the most, it is the sound of keys in our hands.

The Middle School has a new principal. The High School has a new super. Yes, he is related to one of the New School Board Members, but she had to leave the room while he was being discussed by the others. There is no conflict of interest. If I see one, I will tell you.

Now, make them work for your children. Protect them from the bullies of politics and murderers. I guarantee scores will go up, addictions will go down, the graveyard will stop crying.

We will begin to understand "Plenty" again. We will begin to understand "Plenty" again. We will remember “why” and we will never again forget “how”.

You know where to find me.

 

~Cat

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July 18, 2010
Sum Total of a Life  Printer Version (7)

One of the things that wears most heavily on me during this journey, is when people who have not had a fair chance at life, are killed, murdered, or die of addictions, neglect and abuse.

From the very young children, to the teens and early twenties… dying young. Lost to us. Suddenly. It is like watching the road to the future fracture, break off and diminish.

When the Elders pass on, a wealth of their knowledge of the ways, the stories, and the Oral History, goes with them. The Road to the Past is closing behind us. And, without the young surviving to carry on, we lose both the True History and the Possible Future at the same time.

Then, there are others. Wanda Littleghost. Just in her 50’s, gone. I read her obituary. I get obituaries sent to me sometimes six a week from different tribes and bands all over North America. People want to share a loss.

Only one person sent me Wanda Littleghost’s. I read it. It talked about her ‘wandering ways,’ euphemism for a woman who was chased by inner demons and addictions, here entire life.

We want to gloss over these issues, as if we are doing a kindness to the person who is gone, by pretending it was a choice. Or that we can all just shrug our shoulders and pretend there was nothing anyone could have done to make it any different. We absolve ourselves collectively, as we euphemize as we eulogize. As if that person carried a stain and we are, politely overlooking it.

We do the deceased and ourselves, a greater injustice in this way.

Let me tell you what I see in Wanda Littleghost’s life and how it came to be.

Don’t look at the woman who could not escape her demons, as if she failed. She did not. She was failed. Failed by all of us. Those who knew her personally, and those who never met her, but who keep the system in place that allows sickness and for spirits to be broken.

Let’s go back to a time when Wanda was a very young girl. She wanted all the things any girl would want. Mostly, she wanted to feel safe and to have a chance in life. But she was forced to witness horrors committed upon those she loved, and had horrors committed upon her as well.

Her screams went unanswered. The brutality that was inflicted on her young body, mind and spirit, is still present. It still happens to young children on every reservation, every day, every night. There are still screams that go ignored, as their minds reel trying to survive, make sense and to find help. There is no help.

As they continue to grow, the wounds inflicted on their spirit grow deeper. They act out. Worst of all, they become self-destructive. The angers grow, inside and out. They lose their way. They find addictions, bad company, and a path of self-destruction becomes the only path left open for them.
I see a lot of this, especially in the women whom so many like to kick to the curb as ‘trash’. Women who are addicted, under educated, abused, beaten, and neglected, but who are still walking.

Example:

Stopped at a red light for a one-lane bridge, a prostitute approached the truck in front of us and hopped in to do her work. The friend that was driving me that day made a comment, snickered with contempt.

“You see a fallen woman?” I asked him.

He laughed. “Yeah! Hell yeah! What do you see?” It was as if, he had already, in his mind, discarded her as trash based on her behavior. It was as if he thought he was “better than.”

“I see a woman who is scared, struggling and is demeaned every day,” I said. “I see a woman who has had no rescue, and who is driven by powerful addictions to do things she does not want to have to do.”

Now, he was squirming. He leaned onto his left hand and stared out the window. I continued.

“I see a woman who, despite whatever horrors drove her into this way of life, is not giving up. She is still standing. I see a woman who has been knocked down so many times, by so many, there is not a place on her body that is not bruised, cut, broken… but she keeps getting back up.

"She can’t help herself, but she keeps getting back up. I see a very strong spirit doing all it can, to stay here, in this world, and I see a system that only reaches out to slap her down every time she gets even close to telling her story.”

By now, the light was turning green and the woman had jumped out of the truck, and stood under the overpass, waiting for another Red Light, another chance at a few bucks, doing whatever she had to do, to make it one more day in this world.

We have to stop and remember when we see someone who has fallen down, either from addiction, abuse or neglect, that that person did not choose to be this way.

There had to be so many roads closing off on them, very quickly when they were very young, for this to be how they got here. This is never a road of choice. The only ones who walk it have more strength than any of us can ever imagine even needing.

Wanda was traumatized and received no help. Those who abused her, and her sister, get to walk away, smirking. Young girls grow up to be ‘fallen women’, and everyone feels superior to them while they are battling demons on their own, and losing the battle, daily. Wanda ‘wandered’ as they say.

I say she had nowhere to go. That is on us-- All of us. Indians, more than anyone else in this land, should have somewhere to go. This is theirs as much as it is anyone else’s. More so, because they come from this land. It’s thousands of years deep in their existence.

And now she returns. She must be at peace now. Her battles are over. Creator embraces her with all the love she should have had here, from her own people, in her own tribe. In her own land.

What is left is for the rest of us to look around. What help is there? Where do people go to deal with traumas? The Tribal Police are useless. Even the very few who try to make a difference are isolated and unsupported.

The government has supported the corruption for so long, that any changes require the digging in and rooting out the worst offenders – “Pillars of the Community” with political ties that keep them safe from scrutiny, allows them to steal the funds that should be going to programs that would have helped Wanda Littleghost back then.

Wandering Wanda’s story is not the exception out there; it is the way it is. That has to change.
Crimes, abuse, neglect need to be taken seriously. Reports need to be filed and investigated and the guilty must be brought to Justice.

Healing Centers need to be run and staffed by the competent and the qualified. Allowing it to remain the provenance of those who misuse their position, the funds, even the vehicles for personal gain, is saying to the women and the children out there: “You have no value as a Human Being. Go away. Wander.”

The drugs are out in the open there. Dealers and those who cook the meth, do so with no fear that anyone will do anything except pretend to look the other way. Anyone that reports it could find themselves retaliated against, even floated off the rez with less than an hour’s notice, forced to leave what little they have, behind, where the ‘entitled’ –like vultures--- route through it, taking what they want for themselves.

The alcohol parties must be stopped. Especially where there are underage present. I don’t care if it is just in the home, there should be no alcohol on the rez. Those who have those parties should suffer consequences and not be treated like the ‘cool ones’ on the rez.

Children are dying. Those who survive have nowhere to go. They begin to wander.

Wanda Littleghost did not wander. She was chased by abuse and neglect into deeper and deeper troubles. She is at peace now. She earned it.

For those who close off the roads, ignore the cries, I doubt there will be peace for any of you, ever. I hope you are as strong as Wandering Wanda. You’re going to need it when you have to face the truth of your corruption, apathy and neglect.

The Other Wanda

Looks like the Wanda White-Trottier saga continues. She still rants on her Facebook, but then deletes it right away. She rails behind her wall, in what her ‘friends’ call ‘regular meltdowns’ – and she still declares “I’m not afraid of anything!” well, except for her own words and how they can bring her down.

Darwin Brown has assured her that she will not lose her job, ever. (* Brokeback Mountain theme plays in the background.) She has control over all the hiring for the tribe. She got the job, not because she is qualified and not because she does a good job, but because of a personal connection to the Tribal Council.

She shows up late, leaves early. So, what kind of message does that send to the whole tribe, Darwin? That you are too big to answer for your own corruption? That you don’t care about fair play for the members of the tribe?

I have a small piece of news for you: Because of her rants, the tribe is now vulnerable to a major lawsuit if anyone applies for a job and doesn’t get it. How so?

Simple: They don’t have to prove they were qualified for the job, they only have to prove that she is openly biased and is willing to act on that bias. The Tribe gets Federal Funds for these jobs. A lawsuit can cost millions. Equal Opportunity still counts.

So, if anyone, say, from Patty’s family applies for a job and feels that in any way they were not treated fairly, that alone, will cost the tribe. Why? Because she openly and publicly ranted against that person, and her family can all be considered as victims of prejudice.

Worse: If someone was not qualified for a job from her family, and they got it because the tribe was afraid of being sued for not giving them the job… the next applicant who was denied, can say it was unfair treatment and sue the tribe.

Wait, it gets better: Anyone who does not get a job can have it investigated for prejudice because Wanda has shown a pattern of extreme personal bias against people with no regard for truth or fair play.

What makes it really complicated is that there have been multiple offenses by her, and she has not lost her job. That means that the Tribe supports her behaviors… and that, my friends is where the tribe can be sued for years. It becomes not only a ‘pattern of abuse’ but clearly, a ‘Tribal Council Supported Pattern of Abuse”.

Now, as far as I know, no one has sued. But it can come at any time. And it will not be in Tribal Court. These are Federal Funds—it will be in Federal Court.

Speaking of Court

The Tribal Court has been stacked with the unqualified and the incompetent. But, when they put Pete Belgarde in there, a lot of antennae went up. He was part of the plan to murder Eddie Peltier. For some reason, suddenly, a few months ago, someone thought it was really important to put all the people in the Tribal Court that could protect the Turdclan in the event of a trial. It is kind of obvious.
Investigation.

I am hearing from a lot of people about there being ‘FBIs all over the Blue Building’. That there is some sort of major investigation going on. One person postulated that because they were combing over the time cards, they were after people who were clocking in (or having someone else clock in for them) but not working.

That seems like a bit of overkill even for an agency that likes to do the “Investigation Show” where they make a lot of movement and accomplish nothing, but collect overtime.

I have no idea what is going on but it could be any of several things:

• A real investigation where they are going over the books with a fine tooth comb--- but I doubt it. Wailing Wanda would have been gone, long gone by now. So it’s not the time cards scandals.

• Or it could be a deeper investigation into how funds have been spent and what programs are being cheated. They will find millions of dollars a year, go missing. If they want to find more, they should go over to the casino.

• It could be just the latest Poodle and his pals from Grand Forks (most corrupt FBI Agency on the map) are putting on a show, destroying, hiding and culling out any information that can lead to their part in the crimes committed on the rez.

I suspect the latter. FBI is housecleaning to make sure that they aren’t connected when a larger investigation that MAY happen (yeah, right) comes along. The Federal Government can both save more than a billion dollars a year on the tribes, if they actively pursue the rampant complaints of corruption. We all know that the corruption on the rez, on all of them, would not exist without the FBI’s direct involvement in making it all possible.

Ahhh yes! Spencer Helleckson. Drunken SAIC, who is so paranoid that his involvement in several murders, not just Eddie’s will come to light before he can die of cirrhosis of the liver. How’s that transplant lookin’ for ya Spencer? I know you have the money to go buy one, maybe from China? They kill political prisoners to take their organs. That wouldn’t bother a creep like you.

No, whatever the FBI is doing there, you can pretty much bet that it is just them covering their own behinds.

Then again… there were all those 1099’s for Ronin that I sent in… do you think they are finally????
There’s always hope. Just not enough of it.

Look around. Look at the children. Look at the older kids acting out. Look at the guy passed out with a bottle in his hand and a bad attitude. Look at the freshly dug grave for Wandering Wanda.

There is a pattern here that can only be broken by the collective effort of a community that has had enough.

Then again, there’s a lot of room to wander in this world.

Have you had enough?

You know where to find me.
~Cat

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July 9, 2010 ---Printer Version (11)
How Did We Get Here?

I've been asking myself that a lot, lately. So have many others. We live in a time when politicians lie boldly to our faces, in an attempt to scare us away from uniting to help ourselves, and people keep buying into it. When I heard Senator Barton (R-TX) Apologize to BP as if BP was the victim, I was stunned. Not because he felt that way, but because he felt safe enough to say it publicly.

The Oil Companies, in fact, all resource extraction companies: Timber, Coal, Oil, Minerals, Uranium, etc, have been bleeding this nation dry since Day One. Not only this country, but every country in the world. They destroy the environment, poisoning the waters, clear cutting, creating roads through riparian areas and desecrating the sacred, all to get at the resources, harvest, drill or mine them and remove them.

They leave greater and greater destruction and poverty in their wake. Look at the areas where these resources are extracted. You don't see wealthy miners, or oil workers or loggers. You see people more and more desperately scraping by, fearing the next round of lay offs, living in deeper and deeper debt. All the while risking their health, limbs and life in an ever more dangerously unsafe work environment where Safety is just a word, and is shoved aside for the sake a greater profits.

You get morons out there like Sarah Palin, who know nothing about how the nation works, and who thought that a half-hour photo op at the United Nations where she sat with world leaders for less than 60 seconds, was "Foreign Relations Experience" and would qualify her to be a heartbeat away from the most powerful job in the world.

She lied about everything. But people loved those lies and bought them up like Harry Potter books.

The truth is, she quit every job she ever had. As Mayor of Wasilla, she gave no-bid contract to her friend's company to build a sports center that has left that tiny town in debt for millions that will never be paid off.

She made it policy that Rape Victims had to pay for their own rape kits. The State of Alaska had to pass a law to make that stop.

She doesn't care about people. She is a Spokes model. Nothing more. She sells lies and crap, fear and whatever else the Puppeteers who pay her, send her out to spew. This is why she won't leave Facebook and only interviews on Fox News (her employer). This is why she doesn't allow any 'follow up' questions.

And the media follows her, breathless, like they used to follow Paris Hilton, who offered just as much.

It's mindless. She was never qualified. But she is the figurehead of the GOP. Ranting mindlessly, and the minute she is caught in a lie, curls up in fetal position and claims she is the victim of the 'lamestream media'.

"Drill Baby Drill!" was her slogan. We all remember that. But to follow the stupid, one has to be stupid: "I never said 'Drill baby drill,' she says. "I said, Drill here, drill now."  It's just as mindless.

The oil, coal and gas companies love her. She is their spokesmodel. And because the oil companies have, by reckless greed, cut corners so many times the gulf is now bleeding to death, taking with it every southern state that supported her and Gramps, they double down on the stupidity. She is not held accountable for her mantra of Drill Baby Drill. No. She does not hold the Oil Companies accountable or think they should pay, even though they lied about what they could do, what they had on hand in case of an emergency, and even though it was their flying in the face of all the signs that something was wrong to push to make it blow up.. no. She wants us to now allow them to drill in Anwar. If only we had let them destroy Anwar, the gulf would be safe?

And Joe Barton apologizes to BP.

Tell me, whom do you think these people represent? You? The people who have been hurt, killed or lost their livelihoods because of this disaster? Or the Oil and Coal industries that take our resources, pay nothing for them, kill our people and our environment to get at it, and then sell it on the global market raising the prices beyond our reach, and giving themselves billions of dollars in bonuses?

Massey Coal cut corners, pushed away the safety concerns, fired anyone that tried to prevent the disaster, and now argues in court to keep on mining, changing nothing.

Reporters, that whole Freedom of the Press thing, not even allowed to show us the damage as it is happening. Not even allowed to talk to those who are cleaning up the disaster. They only want us to hear what their PR spin tells us. Palin, the GOP, Barton, all of them, are part of that PR team.

And now, more boldly than ever, they lie to us, and try to blame the very people who are trying to fix it, clean it up and make it safer, for the suffering. 

Frankly, it has been 2 years. What accomplishments has anyone in the GOP got to point to?

They tried to block health care so that Insurance Companies, one who just cancelled a woman's policy because they did not send her a bill, she did the math, figured it out, sent them a payment...she is undergoing chemo, btw. They cancelled her policy because they said she was 1 penny off. It was a .45 of a penny, less than half, in her calculations, (and theirs) so she rounded down... they rounded up.

They phoned her, while she was undergoing a chemo treatment and told her to get them a money order for ONE PENNY by five-O'clock that day.  She couldn't do it, so they cancelled her.

The new Health Care Reform puts a stop to this. It has not taken effect yet, so people still have to suffer under the greedy and mean-spirited practices of Titans who give themselves millions of dollars in bonus money for NOT paying legit claims.  None-the-less, the lie about 'Death Panels' panicked the uneducated and those whose racism is barely concealed, jumped on it.

One party is desperately trying to fix all that is broken, while the other spits and claws to protect the way things were, and apologizes to those whose practices cared nothing for the safety of their workers nor the protection of the environment, killed and destroyed.

Even as the spill is ongoing, these fear mongers choose not to cooperate and come together to make things better, but to deny that anything is wrong, and blame the accumulated mess on the guy who showed up to try and turn it around.

They are voting to NOT allow unemployment benefits for those who are out of jobs. Jobs not taken by "Illegal Immigrants" (the new straw man), but rather by corporations outsourcing everything from manufacture to tech, to third world countries where the salaries are less than $1/hour or in some cases, less than that per day.

Those companies not only outsource to slave labor, but also to where there is no limit to how they can pollute, or how many employees die from their recklessness. AND they get tax breaks from the Federal Government for doing that . THAT, my friends, is where the jobs have gone.

But, now we must chase out people of color as they are the latest 'easy' target for a political agenda that has clearly lost its mind.

Time Travel

Here:

Step into the Wayback Bus. Pack a lunch. We are going WAAAAY back.

Before Contact, here, in North America, the streams were clean, the people were healthy, strong and the environment was in a harmonious balance with itself and the people who lived upon the land, cared for it because they depended on it.

Indians were not perfect people, but they understood balance. They had a spiritual connection to this land, the Great Mystery, to their families and their allies. People were treated as Human Beings.

The Tribes knew that to survive, especially in hard times, everyone had to be provided for. Hunters did not hunt for their families-- they hunted for the tribe. Food was shared. If someone needed blankets, they got them. Everyone contributed, everyone thrived. If one person was hungry, everyone was hungry. Even the leaders were hungry.

Leaders were leaders because they provided and saw to it that no one went without. Sharing was highly regarded.

There:

Meanwhile, back in Europe: The streams were already so polluted they could not be used for drinking water. Cities were divided between the impoverished lower classes where sewage was thrown directly out into the streets, along with the offal, or into the streams. The upper class lived in the country and were 'gentry'. They had servants. Some had slaves.

They warred amongst themselves for Trade and resources. In order to get people to kill each other, they had to divide people. Them and us. It was the poor fighting the poor back in those days. The wealthy directed the wars. And, when they were losing, they would lock their gates and leave the serfs outside the protection of the walls, to fight the unwinnable fight.

You could always get more serfs. They were like animals to the wealthy. Only useful as workers, not respected as Human Beings. A starving man could be killed for 'poaching' a pheasant on the King's lands. A pheasant the King or other royalty did not need for they were already fat. A pheasant that would feed a starving family that wore only rags.

The King's Dogs ate better than any of his serfs. They had more comforts and more privileges.

The whole philosophy behind their idea of Civilization was in controlling all the resources of the lands.  The Water, the Timbers, the animals, the wealth that was their 'kingdom'. With this wealth they became powerful. They could hire more armies, better equipped armies, and take over the lands and resources of others.

The Church was there to give them absolution on their crimes of greed, lust, rape and pillage. The Church gave them permission-- but for a price. The Church had to have power too. That meant that the Church had to have property. That meant that the Church had to have access to resources and not be dependent on the Landed Gentry for supplies.

The Church, in turn, would prey upon the fears of the masses. Threaten them that if they had even the fleeting thought of something not being the truth as presented by the Church and the Royals they would be punished spiritually and physically.  Later, of course, the Church would forgive itself its transgressions by declaring some of the more famous people that they tortured and killed, as 'Saints'.

The Greeks, Romans and other "Pagan" cultures, used to do a similar thing. When their rulers passed on, they would declare them as gods among the other gods and give them Kingdoms in the stars.  Powerful are the religious beliefs.

The Churches control the Spiritual Beliefs by means of 'religion' that in and of itself is often contrary to actual Spiritual Paths, and often contradicts itself and its own doctrines. But since the people, especially the peasants are not allowed to question, either out loud or in their minds, the veracity of anything they say, they get away with it. That, my friends is power via authority.

So, the Churches and the Rulers needed one another. One controlled the people's spiritual connection to their environment by disconnecting them from it and replacing it with hypocrisy, fear and contradictions; the other controlled the people by force, economically and socially dividing them from one another, and ruled by Authority over the resources.

This fundamental disconnection of peoples from their lands, and from one another and worst of all, from their own inner guidance of spirit, was key in 'controlling' the slaves and the masses. People worked to support the government and Government dealt out the resources to their allies, and slaves did all the labor.

Fear and mistrust kept people from coming together. Oppression was ingrained as education and books were kept from the 'common folk' many of whom could neither read nor write, much less understand contracts or know history.

History used to be by 'Rememberers' on every continent. The stories, the myths and the past events were told by these Rememberers, word for word, exactly as it was told to them. But controlling the people, cutting them off from their connections to anything greater than their current rulers, required that these Historians, these 'Remembers' be punished and removed. History would be what the conquerors, the rulers, and the wealthy wanted it to be.

The people suffered, the land suffered.

Voyage

And then Columbus made the voyage to 'the New World'. In order to get funding for that Voyage, and for the Queen to not be deemed a 'heretic' by the Church, he had to allow for the Church to send its representatives along with his crew.

I suspect it was two-fold:

One: you cannot have a bunch of people heading out into the unknown and possibly discovering amazing things, without supervising them to make sure they attributed what they found or gained, to the Church.

Two: The Church could not risk that these adventurers would find anything that would make them question the power of the Church and the Church's Dominion over all living things.

Columbus landed. He was a man of vision, or he never would have been able to make the journey in those wooden tubs to begin with. A man of 'vision' is always a threat to the Church, and to the Ruling Class. Men of Vision tend to convince others that there is something more and greater and that it can be done. Men of Vision, typically, are the first casualty of any conquest, along with any scholars that don't toe the company line.

Columbus saw Human Beings he never dreamt could have existed. They were tall, strong, healthy, and they lived and walked in harmony with the very land upon which they dwelled. He declared them "En Dios!" Which meant "In God!"

The Church immediately worked to subdue them in order to prevent whatever they knew or could do from influencing the sailors, or the stories they would bring back to Europe with them.

Back To The Present

Get on the bus, keep your hands inside the windows. In fact, keep the windows up, and blacked out. Don't look. You might see something. We are coming up to the present and we don't want you to even begin to understand how we got here.

It is one of those hand-me-down lies that Columbus was so stupid that when he Landed on these shores, he thought he was in India and he called the people "Indians".

Think about it. This is a man who came from a wealthy family of seafaring traders. They had already discovered the Near East and all it had to offer: Spices, fabrics-- especially silks!

They were people of smaller stature, they dressed in fabrics, not hides, and they practiced their ancient Hindu religion. The region was known as Hindustan (Land of the Hindu).  In fact, it was not called "India" until several Centuries later. So, to say that Columbus thought he was in India is to deliberately make up history so that people will discredit him.

History, as it is taught in our schools, gives very little notice to the Church and the Priests that came to the New World, and the crimes they committed upon the people. They want all the Indians to think it was Columbus who did it, and they want all Non-Indians to think that Columbus was ignorant and never even have the curiosity to look at his life or what he had done.

And it works. People still think that Columbus didn't know the difference between one race of people that he was familiar with, and another that looked completely different.

There must be a reason for that lie. All lies have something to hide. It might be worth looking into someday. Then again, the prejudice has been with us for so long, why change now?

Clearly, North America, all the Americas were lands of unrivaled wealth in resources. There was only one thing in the way. Indians.

Indigenous people, to this day, get in the way of Corporations seeking to harvest the resources in a careless fashion that destroys the very lands and devastates the people. A formula that has worked down through the ages, still employed throughout the world, impacting indigenous peoples first, and the rest of the people later.

The wealthy needed to become wealthier. These lands held great troves of potential wealth. So began an endeavor to subdue and oppress Indians. The broken treaties, the massacres of old people, women and small children in villages while the men were out hunting, the glorification of cowardly morons such as Custer, who was the bottom of his class, reckless, cowardly, but out of the pens of penny novels came the twisted tales of a man with Blue Eyes and Flowing Blonde hair, as if he were in fact courageous.

There were no public libraries, and there were no Rememberers. There were only the Churches and the politicians to tell the people what they wanted them to believe.

They built history and their reputations on lies. They assassinated those who among their own would defy the practices and speak out against the brutalities, abuses, and unfairness.

The Church, even up into the 1970's was stealing the children from their families and sending them to Residential Schools and teaching them to hate everything about themselves and fear their own beliefs in self and their own people. The Church, funded by Government, tortured and murdered, raped and molested children throughout the land.

The Indian People saw all that they held sacred in the lands, abused. They saw their forests neglected and then clear cut. They saw their pristine rivers turned into sewers. They saw the plagues of Europe come to this place with the practices that brought them into existence in the first place.

The people were not allowed to think for themselves. Indians were kept in their place by the most corrupt among them, with the support of Federal Government. The more brutal, the more corrupt, the more abusive, the better.

All this so that the very people who were born of this land a thousand generations deep, can do nothing to save it from the resource harvesting, that creates a wealth that is not shared, and devastation that is abandoned to those without the power or resources to repair, heal or save either the land or them selves.

Even to this day, Indian People suffering from generations of Government abuse and neglect, still manage to have a voice rise up from their ruins and demand redress, and to be made whole.

And this government, paid for by the Major Corporations that destroy the economy, the environment and with the Churches that work to keep the spirit broken, denies Justice.

Those brave souls in the Church that stand with the people against the oppressors are soon removed, one way or another. They get beatified later and if they are lucky, become 'Saints' for the Church, as we know, controls the heavens and God does what the Church says to do.

And so it comes to all of us now. Both Red Man and All the others, that we watch helplessly as the lands are ruined, the waters fouled, ways of life dying, the people suffering, getting sick and dying. We all watch the children wither under pollution, drugs, mindless violence.

And the politicians go to war against the people, protecting those non-human corporations that destroy everything in their path. This was foretold, but nobody in power wanted to listen. They still don't.

And just as we think that things are bad enough that the fighting will stop and the people will come together: Joe Barton apologizes to BP. Sarah Palin demands that we have more drilling, and the courts forbid those greater minds in government from stopping the drilling in the gulf... even as she bleeds out, even as they know, there is more bleeding to come.

Indians could find no justice in the courts. Now, no one can. Now we watch.

Our other choice is to let go of the stupid prejudices that were taught to us that have long divided us to the benefit of the Wealthiest and to our own detriment. We can take it upon ourselves to learn true things about our history and one another. We can find the courage to admit the wrongs that have been committed and begin to find ways to come together to heal them.

Or we can all become the Spirit Lake Nation: Ruled by the corrupt, unable to have our votes counted without cheating, our children suiciding, our neighbors dying of cancers from the poisons buried in our midst.

We have a choice. As long as we are alive we have a choice.

FOX NOISE puts out fear and lies hoping to keep us from trusting ourselves, our neighbors or the decent people in government who want to change things. They fund phony groups who shout "Drill Baby Drill!" and then slink into the shadows when the spills come to shore.

No one in their 'TeaParty' is condemning the Oil Companies. Not one. Not one of them is demanding that the Freedom of the Press be allowed to reveal to us the truth about what is going on. Not one. These are not patriots, they are serfs made so fearful that the gates will shut them out when the truth comes after them, that they scream and threaten at the top of their lungs.

Now, they want us to chase people who are not white, off the lands. They offer nothing except hate and fear.

BP is controlling the courts, the police, and the media as much as they can. Workers are not even allowed to wear safety gear because it would 'look dangerous' and BP is all about the optics on this. Human Beings are both expendable and replaceable. People are desperate for work. People are dying in the sand-- here, at home.

BP is controlling our access to the test results, even who is allowed to do the tests. No one, not even government, can make them do anything. They own the courts and they argue there. And they win. They even get to pick which judges hear their cases. They choose those that have been well-paid for in advance.

How does it feel to live in a country where the judges and the government are against you? How does it feel to watch your lands and your waters be destroyed? How does it feel to watch your children go hungry, to lose your homes, and to be sickened? Welcome to Indian Country.

But we have a choice. Question your candidates on what they will do to help. Tax Breaks don't affect us. When they say 'cut taxes' they are talking Trickle Down. Cutting taxes is how the national debt skyrocketed. Especially since it was done as two wars of choice were ongoing, and the wealthy got even wealthier, as our soldiers, mostly the poor, lay dying in the sand.  Those who survive have left the poor of those foreign nations, dead in the sands that were their lands.

We can stop fighting each other if we wake up and look around and see what is really going on.

We can start here, at home. We can see by their apologies to the killers of this land and our people, which side they are on.

We won't get anything better if we just sit back and wait for someone else to do it.

The future, where our children and grandchildren will live, if they survive, will be far worse than it is for us now, if we don't teach ourselves not to hate, but to act in our own best interests.

Democrats are not pure. But they are the ones who are doing the work right now, of struggling to set things right. We need more people who think about what is right, and who have the courage to stand up for the people, even if it means that their own party shouts them down with slogans of "Drill Baby Drill!" and "Death Panels" and other mindless crap.

Sarah Palin is the Paris Hilton of Politics. She's never accomplished anything but serving herself. If you can be convinced by an Overpaid Spokesmodel, nothing I say can change your mind. You don't have one.

I'd like to put you on the Bus and bring you all to a better future, but that doesn't exist right now. We have to repair this one, and build that one. And there are people out there shouting fear slogans and telling us that Immigrants are killing this country.

I think we can look out our own window right now and see who is really killing this country.

When The Rains Come

And, in case anyone thinks that this is as bad as it can get, I remind you: when the rains come, they will rise up from the Gulf, with all the toxins in there, and carry those poisons across the lands as far as a storm can travel. Farms in other states, homes and rivers, will all be wounded by this. Even the cities will be drenched in the poisons.

And while we wait for it to get worse, Tea Party is silent except to distract us by xenophobia, the ignorant led by the evil that cares not for us as a nation, as Human Beings but only as those in the way of the harvesting of resources that make them even wealthier.

Turn off the noise. Walk away from the fear slogans. Wake up. Or get out of the way, there is real work that needs to be done by those who still care enough to look for the truth and who care what happens next. We need to know what happened in the past, how it got this way, to figure out how we got here, and what we can do to get to a better place in the future, where our grandchildren wait to be born.

The Rains will come. And they will bring sickness and stink to every tribe-- and we are all tribes. We are all Indians now.

You know where to find me.

~Cat

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July 2, 2010  --- Printer Version (4)
How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?

Those who abuse you by corruption, never go away. You must get rid of them and not allow them to return.

From the Rez:

Just heard that Wayne resigned as superintendent for the HS.  He still wants to stay on as superintendent for the Tribal School, K-8.  My guess is the state dept was breathing down his neck too closely and he wouldn't have protection. 

The state can't or won't bother the tribal school.  Or maybe he felt he wouldn't have the protection of his hand-picked School board anymore.  All I have heard is there is a big mess in the HS right now.  It is going to be interesting.

The New School Board, apparently all can read & write, even if one of them just barely, replaced the previous School Board, replete with the unqualified, one with serious brain damage (not joking, he was Special Needs education and cannot comprehend simple things) and his alcoholic-Pill Junkie Mom, and that was enough for Wayne and his clique to up and resign...on the spot, after having just been 'gifted' a huge raise by the outgoing school board for delivering the lowest AYP Scores in the country.

The quitters are headed to Dunseith and surrounding areas, bringing their brand of 'expertise' to those districts. Y'all watch your local papers and tell me how impressed you are with what happens after they get ahold of your funding and your kids. They can do for you what they did to Four Winds.

Now, one of these weasels likes the idea of continuing to be able to feed off the Tribe. Wayne has decided he wants to stay on as Superintendent of the Tribal School; K-8. He can get whatever amount of money he wants, and he is beyond the reach of the State and maybe the Feds. 

And with Darwin "The Clown" Brown handing out favors to friends, and with NLO and WaddlingChicken helping him, he might just get all he wants, do even more damage to the education system and the Children of the Tribe.  They are becoming more like the Children of the Corn, everyday.

The suicides and addictions are not there without cause. They come from a community that has been abused by corruption, run by murderers, for decades.

For things to change out there, people have to make the changes. Make the changes first in yourself and then everything around you changes accordingly. What we do and how we think affects everyone around us. And they affect everyone around them. It starts with us. Good or bad, it starts with each of us.

Looking At Prophecies

The Hopi Prophecies, and the 6 Nations Prophecies are among the most recalled these days: This Website Has an excellent write up, some of which I will excerpt in here. Go to that site for the entirety.

And so he gave each of us a responsibility and we call that the Guardianship. To the Indian people, the red people, he gave the Guardianship of the earth. We were to learn during this cycle of time the teachings of the earth, the plants that grow from the earth, the foods that you can eat, and the herbs that are healing so that when we came back together with the other brothers and sisters we could share this knowledge with them. Something good was to happen on the earth.

To the South, he gave the yellow race of people the Guardianship of the wind. They were to learn about the sky and breathing and how to take that within ourselves for spiritual advancement. They were to share that with is at this time.

To the West He gave the black race of people the Guardianship of the water. They were to learn the teachings of the water which is the chief of the elements, being the most humble and the most powerful. When I went to the University of Washington and I learned that it was a black man who discovered blood plasma, it didn't surprise me because blood is water and the elders already told me the black people would bring the teachings of the water.

To the North He gave the white race of people the Guardianship of the fire. If you look at the center of many of the things they do you will find the fire. They say a light bulb is the white man's fire. If you look at the center of a car you will find a spark. If you look at the center of the airplane and the train you will find the fire. The fire consumes, and also moves. This is why it was the white brothers and sisters who began to move upon the face of the earth and reunite us as a human family.

And so a long time passed, and the Great Spirit gave each of the four races stone tablets. Ours are kept at the Hopi Reservation in Arizona at Four Corners Area on Third Mesa. I talked to people from the black race and their stone tablets are at the foot of Mount Kenya. They are kept by the Kukuyu Tribe. I once had the honor of presenting a sacred pipe at the Kukuyu Tribe carved from the red pipe stone of Mount Kenya. I was at an Indian spiritual gathering about 15 years ago. A medicine man from South Dakota put a beaded medicine wheel in the middle of the gathering. It had the four colors from the four directions; He asked the people, "Where is this from?" They said, "Probably Montana, or South Dakota, maybe Saskatchewan." He said, "This is from Kenya." It was beaded just like ours, with the same colors.

The more we learn about our own culture, the more we can understand and want to learn about other cultures. Our strength is not in being isolated by racism, fear, politics and corruption. Our strength is in or common ground, and understanding of one another as our Brothers and Sisters, Neighbors and Nations, Human Beings.

Still No Charges

Tribal Police have still laid no charges against Slime Smith, the kid who hit-and-run Vince Walker and then tried to wash the blood off his truck at the Marina (or "Gramma's house" as he likes to say).

Vince Walker survived. He was hospitalized for a very long time, and he still suffers from the injuries. But Riley "Slime" Smith continues to party on, drunk all the time, immune by corruption, from any legal consequences.

So, just like the murderers who still walk freely among you, a new crop of killers, rapists, and thieves still maintains both power and privilege while the rest of you struggle to overcome the futility left in their wake.

When you get a Tribal Council that has the courage to do the right thing, you can have a decent police department of dedicated men and women who want what is best for their tribe. You can get decent courts that respect both the laws and the traditions of the community. You can get the guilty charged and tried and you can free the innocent and clear the names of those harmed.

Until then, you have only more darkness coming. Darkness where apathy makes you sleep, expecting that when you wake up, someone else will have done the work for you.

Another excerpt:

They said, and I know many of you are from tribes that also have this prophecy, "You're going to see a time when the eagle will fly its highest in the night and it will land upon the moon." Some tribes say the eagle will circle the moon.

Some tribes say the eagle will fly it's highest in the night. "And at that time," they say, "Many of the Native people will be sleeping," which symbolically means they have lost their teachings. There are some tribes that say it will be as if they are frozen: they've been through the long winter.

But they say, "When the eagle flies it's highest in the night, that will be the first light of a new day. That will be the first thawing of spring." Of course, at the first light of a new day, if you've stayed up all night, you notice it's really dark. And the first light, you want to see it, but you can't.

It sneaks up on you. You want to see it change but it's dark and then pretty soon it's getting light before you know it. We're at that time now. The Eagle has landed on the moon, 1969. When that spaceship landed they sent back the message, "The Eagle has landed." Traditionally, Native people from clear up in the Inuit region, they have shared with us this prophecy, clear down to the Quechuas in South America. They shared with us that they have this prophecy. When they heard those first words, "The Eagle has landed," they knew that was the start of a new time and a new power for Native people. There was absolutely nothing strong before us now. We may do anything we wish.

We are all part of this story. This prophecy is for the world. We must take our place in it by waking up and doing the hard work we know must be done.  We can do anything, but first, we must wake up and start to walk.

You know where to find me.

~Cat

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