"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.
A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old.
...
Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free -- provided residents renounce their US citizenship, Means said.
The treaties have been "repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life," the reborn freedom movement says.
Withdrawing from the treaties was entirely legal, Means said. "This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution," which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land, he said. "It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent," said Means.
More here.
Good for them. Congress has arbitrarily violated our treaties with them again and again.
Is what they are doing legal? Good question. Native American tribes are considered domestic dependent nations by the Federal government. The Lakota argument is that they are not dependent. I suppose we'll have to wait and see what the courts decide.
The Lakota original statement of intent and their declaration of basic principles.
The Spielberg television miniseries Into the West, which aired on TNT in 2005, focused on the Lakota. Actors were carefully trained to speak the Lakota language.
Brief History of the Lakota People. Information on the Oglala Lakota Nation. Wikipedia. The Dakota Culture and Language wiki and online language lessons. The Lakhota.com site even offers a Word of the Day. Also, see NativeAmericans.com for background information and the Avalon Project at Yale for infformation on treaties and relations between the US and Native Americans.
Additional Lakota links. Also, the NYTimes Frugal Traveler visited the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home of the Oglala Sioux, earlier this year. The Times says that the reservation (located in Allen, SD) is ranked as one of the 10 poorest places in America. That's according to the 2000 census, which lists the county as the #1 poorest.
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Comments
I suspect by nightfall, this story will be everywhere. The majors will need to take statements from representatives of the involved groups before they report on it.
*nod* I spotted the Fox link before I posted, by searching for "Lakota" on their website. When I saw they had only picked up on the AFP story, I figured it was better to link to that. A search for Lakota picks up a handful of additional local/regional newspapers that have picked up on the story. But the majors have nothing so far.
Unbelievable. :(
I'm genuinely surprised here. I'd kind of assumed that you as a publicist would have a good understanding of how the political media works. But then, I don't know your actual client base, so I guess you don't deal with the political side. In the shortest form: they are critically, and I mean critically, dysfunctional. Anything that can be wedged into the pre-existing set of accepted memes without significant additional explanation is so tailored. This is done so independent of truth or accuracy; the facts are tailored to fit the pre-existing storylines. Anything that can't be wedged into those pre-existing memes - which includes anything that contradicts those memes or which requires significant explanation - isn't reported.
This is why spin works so well for the GOP; spin is entirely based around the idea of throwing out fact and tailoring an event into the shape of a pre-existing story to your advantage. It's also why all power scandal stories are turned into Watergate, why "the coverup is worse than the crime," and why the AP refuses to call torture torture - or, for that matter, illegal - despite over a century of it having been legally described in Federal law as torture, and illegal, and actively prosecuted by American administration against American armed forces when found. Reality isn't relevant.
This is also why the successful delaying of blanket retroactive amnesty for at least half a decade of blatant, clear, and obvious illegal spying activities by American telecommunications companies on behalf of the government, actions which specifically, clearly, and separately broke the law, received almost no coverage. I saw none beforehand, except for a snippy opinion piece at Time saying that Dodd's campaign was in enough trouble and they couldn't figure out why he'd abandon it for a week or more to go fight this, and very little after. And what I saw after played up the Senate Majority Leader's mind-boggling assertion that the delay had nothing whatsoever to do with Senator Dodd's filibuster, much less those annoying citizen activists who clearly just don't understand what's really important.
That all said, here's when this will become a story:
1. When it can be pre-fit into an existing meme. Unfortunately, the existing meme here that's most likely is Waco/Ruby Ridge/Crazies With Guns Who Are Scary At You vs. Fine Upstanding Law Enforcement. Preferably with "hostages." That's got some drama.
2. If they start issuing passports and there starts being a money angle, you'll start to see a series of stories about fraud. The Lakota will be presented as criminals.
3. They somehow start to get some recognition by foreign governments currently actively disliked, at which point they'll be painted as terrorists-in-training.
These are all the easiest stories to tell because they fit already-established stories; therefore, they are the ones that will get told. If they're needing and expecting other than that (or something similar), it'll take a goddamn miracle. If they want accurate coverage that explores the issues at all, then they need to do all of the work and hand reporters the story already intact and ready to transcribe, with all the references, with all the data, and it has to be bulletproof. You also have to anticipate the "anti" arguments the otherside will put out and disprove them insofar as is possible. All this is because you will be arguing against the existing meme, and facts aren't relevant - either those of the existing meme, or the specific case. You have to do the actual investigative work yourself - you know, the reporter's job - and then hand it over in easy-to-read, very clear, very basic format.
Then, they may get a new story. And may well not - c.f. Joe Klein at Time Magazine and the institutional lie, for example.
I've done this. It ain't easy.
Anyway. Sorry for the rant. I'm just ... so surprised!
Edited at 2007-12-21 07:37 pm (UTC)
As far as I can tell, though, they're right. But that won't matter.
Yet, even if it does go nowhere, the declaration could spur action in quite a few quarters. All of the presidential candidates will definitely be forced to comment on the declaration. Native American tribal nations may or may not rally behind the activists and there's a possibility we might see an upswell of popular support from non-Native Americans.
It's a natural flag for civil rights leaders to take up although I won't hold my breath. In the past, they've shown themselves to be particularly blind to the plights of other minority groups.
Edited at 2007-12-20 06:04 pm (UTC)
I looked for one this morning, but came up empty. The reason I didn't link to this Sioux site in the main body of the post is they didn't have anything about the declaration.
Of course, if he's acting unilaterally he doesn't need to justify his actions. *sigh*
I suppose that will depend on whether the Lakota are fans of the chickpea. :D
Yeah, I went there....
Actually, now that I think of it.... you're absolutely right. :)
I mean "frivolous" in the legalistic sense of a lawsuit with no standing and a certainty of immediate-dismissal. Considering how unwelcoming American courts are to frivolous lawsuits, the threat to file liens on real-estate transactions is hollow.
The chances are slim that the Lakota group's declaration will rise even to the level of an interesting sideshow. I'd bet quite a substantial sum that this story and the issue will go precisely nowhere.
Best,
Noel
BUT...
Nothing says that they MUST stay there, right? They are as free to live anywhere in this country as the rest of us... right???
Also, what are they expecting exactly? Are they expecting that the US government will simply GIVE them North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana? Though honestly, yes, we should, as we simply took their land from them with out their consent. Though we then should be compensated for improvements like the interstate systems, or we should remove all technology from those states and let them go back to the way things were BEFORE we took their land. Let them start over from the ground up.
But than again, conquring nations have always simply stolen land. And lets face it, The USA conqured the Native Americans, plain and simple. No different than Ceaser or Gengis Khan did back in the day.
And, like the places that they conqured, if the Native Americans want their land back, they are likely gonna have to resort to open war to get it.
OOOOHHHH, and by the way, and not to be mean but... to the comment earlier... The war between the states was NOT started by the North... Can anyone say, Fort Sumter? Where the SOUTH opened fire on a US fort FIRST, and with OUT provocation.
Nothing says that they MUST stay there, right? They are as free to live anywhere in this country as the rest of us... right???
It should be pointed out that when you're living in abject poverty on one of the poorest plots of land in America, just picking up shop and leaving is difficult if not impossible. These people are going to need a lot more help than that.
Edited at 2007-12-21 12:46 am (UTC)
I myself have always lived at poverty level. Mostly because I dont have much in the line of job skills, and the fact that I move a lot. But, also, I DO move a lot. I have lived in 7 states, spanning quite a bit of different territory and topography. I have moved more than 35 individual times. I have never lived in the same place for more than 4 years.
Yet, I can pick up at any time and move again. I will actually be doing so in the near future because of an inability to get a GOOD stable job where I am at. I will likely be getting back into a truck and driving. Using the truck itself as the roof over my head. And hopefully, some day, I myself will get to settle down somewhere.
My apologies though if I offended you.
I think we're missing each other a bit regarding poverty and the ability to move. Other factors that have typically screwed over people on reservations is that they've faced persecution for the last 2+ centuries. Consequently, rates of alcoholism, suicide, unemployment, disease and violence are astronomical. Then factor in racism. When you've lived so long on the edge of a society that has tried to rub you out, it's very difficult to just switch gears. I imagine if possible, the various Indian nations would have tried it already (as a whole, I mean, not like individuals haven't). So, poverty alone may not have stopped you from moving around, but you're not in the same category as Indians as far as socioeconomic status is concerned.
Sad story: for several years now, my family's had the acquaintance of a Lakota shaman. He's been fortunate to have sponsors who've helped him travel and perform healings for a living, though of course he's still poor. His neighbors back on the rez stole the fuel that was supposed to get him through the winter and robbed him blind, and winters where he lives are so bad that you'll freeze to death without fuel, but people are that desperate. He spent the winter months crashing people's couches.
The whole thing sucks :/
I thought this was interesting:
"Furthermore, many Lakota people interpret welfare payments as U.S. government obligations under the treaty negotiated at Fort Laramie in 1868 in exchange for massive land cessions. The USDA Surplus Commodities program on reservations is explicitly described as the continuation of rations promised under treaty rights."
...includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming...
Doubly good for them! It'd be no loss to us.