| First, let's review three examples of what needs to be changed: Blackwater's questionable involvement with Bear Butte, Alex White Plume having been disallowed to grow Hemp, and Michael Rost's encroachment on Tribal Lands. Many more examples could be offered as well as citing the racist attitudes that empower the land theft, but let's relate how Peltier's freedom would relate to Blackwater's questionable involvement with Bear Butte first.
(Emphasis mine)
Subject: Protection for Mato Paha (Bear Butte)
Despite protests of American Indian People and other supporters, the county has granted alcohol licenses to the bars. Recently, a corporation has purchased majority ownership in the bar closest to Mato Paha and they are going to have helicopter rides over the butte. We are informed this corporation is affiliated with or are former Blackwater high clearance mercenaries and have already strong armed some American Indians who were on public land taking pictures.
Blackwater's questionable involvement with Bear Butte isn't that questionable, there's natural resources in the Black Hills, and the Black Hills was at the heart of the conflict before Peltier's false arrest. Would freeing him stop the land encroachment? No, not since they might not "need" the uranium in the Black Hills in the future, nor might they "need" to acquire it from Tribal Lands in the future. Read on.
Would freeing him have stopped the land encroachment Alex White Plume experienced? I don't think the DEA would have cared either way. They would have attacked Alex White Plume's financial independence regardless. Again, it comes back to the land, but will they need to steal anymore? Read on.
Source
Alex White Plume, a Lakota living on the Pine Ridge Reservation, has grown industrial hemp on his land since 2000. That year, the DEA, with helicopters and machine guns, confiscated the crop (legal in the sovereign nation in which it was grown), costing taxpayers more than $200,000.00.
In 2001, the DEA came only with side arms and weed eaters, this time simply destroying the crop.
In 2002, Alex and his family again planted fields of industrial hemp, but were unable to complete their contract by delivering the crop to the Madison Hemp and Flax Co., because U.S. District Judge Battey (in Rapid City, So. Dak.), issued a civil injunction stating that if Alex so much as touches his hemp, he will be held in contempt of court and jailed for up to six months without a trial or a jury. As a result, the hemp was cut and piled by people unknown; the pile lying in silent testimony between Alex and the Madison Hemp & Flax buyer Craig Lee, both barred from touching it by the government. Delivery was made, but the deliveree could not accept the product.
Source
Following the tragic fire which destroyed their (Debra and Alex White Plume's) home, its contents and all of the irreplaceable documents and art in the Owe Aku office...Debra never hesitated for a moment to organize, mobilize and manage the team she leads in taking on the multinational corporations threatening to expand uranium mining in and around Pine Ridge.
Survival requires in the minds of the intruders that the end justifies the means, yet what if the answer is now before them and they don't know what it is, and that the only thing left to do is to respect Tribal Sovereignty and to accommodate different cultural views? Now we're about to get to why "Change and Hope for American Indians start(s) with Peltier's Freedom." What will be left is hate crime for hate crimes' sake and refusal to change perhaps, but there just might be a choice that's been previously unknown.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
A man by the name of Michael Rost has been encroaching on Tribal Lands by bulldozing roads, tearing down trees, disturbing burial grounds, and stealing sacred objects off Schaghticoke land,
Russell Means participating in Schaghticoke Tribal Nation rally
"...That the state is allowing the destruction of our reservation by someone who is not even a tribal member is a disgrace. To have the remains of our ancestors and our relations disturbed is unheard of. To allow someone to disturb our artifacts and take them off our land and sold along with our timber and our rocks is unprecedented, and there's no stopping this in sight," Velky said.
Freeing Peltier would be a beginning of respecting Tribal Sovereignty and accommodating different cultural views along with signing the U.N. Declaration of Indigenous Rights. Blackwater wouldn't be needed to steal the resources of Bear Butte, Debra and Alex White Plume could be left alone and not have to fight uranium mining, while people like Rost would still exist, even though their financial incentives would be gone? I'm nowhere near qualified to say anything definite. However, I am related to someone who was qualified to have a valid, if not sound opinion regarding the energy crisis. Read this.
The reason Barbara Boxer has a copy of that letter, is because I told my biological grandfather to mail one to her after I saw that he had sent one to John McCain. I met my biological grandfather for the first time two months before he died. That was about the time I learned for sure all my Indian blood comes from my biological mother. Returning to my late biological grandfather and his letter; I'm not saying who he was or where he worked at.
The letter contains the technology to clean up nuclear waste, but that's all I'm going to say about that part for the same reason that I don't think such things should be on the internet. The point is, at least one member of both political parties probably knows. This is what I see.
Combined with everything else such as wind and solar power, the survival need to steal natural resources off Tribal Lands is gone, or it could be. Problem is, our technology far supersedes our humanity, and I don't trust this new administration in conjunction with the Supreme Court with to implement what my own grandfather shows, because I think they'd skip the cleaning up nuclear waste part and just dump it on Tribal Lands. If wastewater, why not nuclear waste (Radiation Warning Signs Placed on Cheyenne River)?
Supreme Court declines to hear sacred site case Monday, June 8, 2009
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Forest Service did not violate the religious rights of tribes by allowing the use of reclaimed wastewater in the sacred San Francisco Peaks of Arizona.
However, free Leonard Peltier, sign the U.N. Declaration of Indigenous Rights, and I would change my mind. Respect. It's all about respect now.
Respect. The best memory I have of him is watching the RNC with him; it was like watching a football game. He was Republican. We agreed on principals, but we disagreed on who would get us there and who wouldn't. It was a long waited for evening of being together. Now, back to the main point: Tribal Sovereignty In The Energy Crisis.
While the financial crisis hadn't become common knowledge when I met him then, the need for green jobs wasn't felt like it is today. I see no reason why both his life's work and the need to have a green economy cannot coexist, and that would do one thing - eliminate the need to encroach on Tribal Lands. If Leonard Peltier is freed and the U.N. Declaration of Indigenous Rights is signed, only then would there be the change necessary for respecting Tribal Sovereignty.
What all did the letter say? Ask Barbara Boxer and not McCain. He loves his off shore drilling, "Drill, baby drill." Shut up McCain, shut up.
The question as I see it is this: would we go to a hydrogen - based economy and utilize the technology that cleans up nuclear waste; or, would we go to a hydrogen - based economy and not utilize the technology that cleans up nuclear waste?
I am not optimistic,
Supreme Court declines to hear sacred site case Monday, June 8, 2009
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Forest Service did not violate the religious rights of tribes by allowing the use of reclaimed wastewater in the sacred San Francisco Peaks of Arizona.
and the real problem isn't with the Obama Administration, who needs to be commended for appointing "Kimberly Teehee for the newly created position of senior policy advisor for Native American Affairs." But it's too late to say this or that, assuming they read it - they know. Moreover, combining green jobs with the information in my grandfather's letter just might save our planet. My opinion isn't based on expertise, but that letter warrants serious examination. Boxer is on Twitter, isn't she? Yes, she is.
It conclude, if the answer to "would we go to a hydrogen - based economy and utilize the technology that cleans up nuclear waste" would be no, this discussion is pointless as far as I'm concerned. And, it's worth debating. |
In honor of my mother, 
