Lakota Indians Declare Independance from US

[Channing]

Seems like we're not the only ones who want our freedom back:

"Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US
7 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.

"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.

They also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and will continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months, they told the news conference.

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 signed with the United States are merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists say on their website.

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.

The Lakota relaunched their journey to freedom in 1974, when they drafted a declaration of continuing independence -- an overt play on the title of the United States' Declaration of Independence from England.

Thirty-three years have elapsed since then because "it takes critical mass to combat colonialism and we wanted to make sure that all our ducks were in a row," Means said.

One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples -- despite opposition from the United States, which said it clashed with its own laws.

"We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children," Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977, told the news conference.

The US "annexation" of native American land has resulted in once proud tribes such as the Lakota becoming mere "facsimiles of white people," said Means.

Oppression at the hands of the US government has taken its toll on the Lakota, whose men have one of the shortest life expectancies -- less than 44 years -- in the world.

Lakota teen suicides are 150 percent above the norm for the United States; infant mortality is five times higher than the US average; and unemployment is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website.

"Our people want to live, not just survive or crawl and be mascots," said Young.

"We are not trying to embarrass the United States. We are here to continue the struggle for our children and grandchildren," she said, predicting that the battle would not be won in her lifetime.
"
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVC1KMTOgwiSoMQyT2LwZc9HyAgA

http://www.lakotafreedom.com/

[Channing]

see also:
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071220/NEWS/712200347/1001

[shadow26]

Seems like we're not the only ones who want our freedom back:

"Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US
7 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.

"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.

They also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and will continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months, they told the news conference.

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 signed with the United States are merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists say on their website.

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.

The Lakota relaunched their journey to freedom in 1974, when they drafted a declaration of continuing independence -- an overt play on the title of the United States' Declaration of Independence from England.

Thirty-three years have elapsed since then because "it takes critical mass to combat colonialism and we wanted to make sure that all our ducks were in a row," Means said.

One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples -- despite opposition from the United States, which said it clashed with its own laws.

"We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children," Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977, told the news conference.

The US "annexation" of native American land has resulted in once proud tribes such as the Lakota becoming mere "facsimiles of white people," said Means.

Oppression at the hands of the US government has taken its toll on the Lakota, whose men have one of the shortest life expectancies -- less than 44 years -- in the world.

Lakota teen suicides are 150 percent above the norm for the United States; infant mortality is five times higher than the US average; and unemployment is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website.

"Our people want to live, not just survive or crawl and be mascots," said Young.

"We are not trying to embarrass the United States. We are here to continue the struggle for our children and grandchildren," she said, predicting that the battle would not be won in her lifetime.
"
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVC1KMTOgwiSoMQyT2LwZc9HyAgA

http://www.lakotafreedom.com/


Understandable if you have ever been on an Indian reservation...makes New Orleans or the south side of Chicago look like Dubai.:(

[Pride]

They have as much claim to the land as we do. Race shouldn't be a factor, but they are making one out of it. Why should these Indians get special treatment?

[Wyurm]

They have as much claim to the land as we do. Race shouldn't be a factor, but they are making one out of it. Why should these Indians get special treatment?

I used to live there, and look, its not special treatment at all. All they are doing is withdrawing from treaties they signed with the US. They don't want the handouts, infact, this group actually refuses the handouts. This isn't a bad thing, though I expect there to be quite a few complications. The only thing I'm worried about is that my parents live right in the middle of that area and I am worried about how the US will respond.

[apc3161]

If this is true, either the US will take covert or militaristic actions. Not that I'm in favor of the government doing this, but I can't imagine our government letting these people "get away" with this. But yes, we stole their land, I have no problem myself giving them a piece back.

[enjerth]

Who put your head on a nickel and then took the nickel away? - Groucho Marx

Slot machine. - Chico Marx

Sorry. I just can't resist quoting these guys at opportune times.

[Bradley in DC]

For those who don't remember, Russell Means was Dr. Paul's primary opponent for the LP presidential nomination in 1988! I was rooting for a Paul-Means ticket back in the day.

[Bradley in DC]

http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=2396

The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - December 1987
Vol. 37 No. 12

Native Americans: Victims of Bureaucracy
By Michael Adamson

Michael Adamson received an M.B.A, from Arizona State University in 1986. and is a management information systems consultant in Phoenix.

Despite the individual rights to life, liberty, and property upon which the United States was founded, significant violations of these rights have not been uncommon throughout our history. The U.S. Constitution originally condoned slavery and counted the black slave as a mere three- fifths of a person for purposes of determining representation. Japanese-Americans were interned by the thousands in concentration camps during World War II because many citizens and politi cians of European descent considered them something less than American and therefore potential subversives. For decades, state laws limited the property rights and freedom to contract of women in marriage as well as their right to vote. Until the Civil Rights movement, areas in the South practiced a limited form of apartheid, segregating whites and blacks in schools and other public places.

Yet no group of people has suffered, and continues to suffer, from an illiberal and dis criminatory government policy as have the 1.4 million people collectively referred to as Native Americans. As the nation commemorates the 200th anniversary of the United States Constitution, it behooves us to examine the Indian policy of our government.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is the principal ‘agent in carrying out the government-to- government relationship between the United States and Federally-recognized Indian tribes, and is therefore the focus of this paper. This agency isunique in that it is the only Federal agency whose expressed function is to manage the affairs of a particular ethnic group.

From Conquest to Control

By any criterion, the economic and social standards of living are lower among Native Americans than among the balance of the U.S. population. Unemployment on or adjacent to reservations fluctuates around 40 per cent. Of some 750,000 Native Americans on reservations, 75 per cent earn less than the national average.[1] Leading causes of death among Native Americans are accidents, heart disease, malignant neoplasms, and cirrhosis of the liver, all far above national averages and a significant proportion of these related to alcohol abuse. Drug abuse, mental illness, and obesity are major health problems. Tuberculosis cases are 4.5 times the national average and deaths from the illness are 9.5 times as frequent. Suicide is more than twice as likely among Native Americans. Their life expectancy is about five years below the average American’s and infant mortality rates are 25 per cent higher.[2]

While such facts may illustrate the plight of the Native American, they do not explain why such conditions exist. I will argue here that they exist primarily because bureaucratic management is no more appropriate (and yields equally disturbing results) for a group of people defined by race than for a group of people defined by occupation, sex, region, or any other demographic characteristic. U.S. Indian policy is all the more offensive as it is perpetrated by one race of people upon another. Indeed, a Native American is defined by blood percentages, leading Russell Means, head of the American Indian Movement, to comment that only Nazi Germany “defined purity of blood as a measure of who you are as an individual.”[3]

Bureaucratic Management

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is a bureaucracy. As a public sector organization, it is disciplined by laws, regulations, and government budgets. This form of management is in contrast with profit management, which is disciplined by the rules of the marketplace and the buying decisions of sovereign consumers.[4]

Because bureaucracies are not disciplined by profits and losses, the only way to restrict bureaucratic spending is with detailed rules and regulations. In a bureaucracy, the premium is not on flexibility, but control of appropriated public funds.[5] Thus, the bureaucratic features of government are inherent in bureaucracy itself—they cannot be “reformed” away. The only choice is between profit management and bureaucratic management.[6]

In the case of Native Americans, the government has chosen the latter path, and only rarely has this path been benign. The history of U.S. Indian policy is one of conquest of an indigenous people by foreigners who viewed themselves as superior. Until the 1960s, the official goal of this policy was assimilation, which ignored cultural reality and left a legacy of poverty, disease, and broken traditions.[7]

Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution declares that “Congress shall have power . . . to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.” The latter were thought of as separate nations to be dealt with through treaties in accordance with international law. Their affairs were not to be intruded upon and relations were to be conducted by the central government.

In reality, Congress established criminal jurisdiction and economic surveillance over the Native Americans so that their freedom to make decisions was gradually reduced. As S. Lyman Tyler notes, as “Indian leaders were no longer free, they could no longer be truly responsible.”[8] Policy ultimately was to have white settlers expand territorially and have the Native Americans withdraw; conquest would be restrained and governed, not prevented.

With the Indian Removal Act of 1830, a formal removal policy was enacted. The so-called Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast were marched on the “Trail of Tears” to land which is now Oklahoma.

As a practical measure, removal and conquest gave way to a reservation policy. On the reservation, the Native American was to be taught “the arts and habits of civilization.”[9] The role of traditional leaders was bypassed and made ineffective. This policy of relocation and cultural restructuring destroyed initiative, self-reliance, integrity, and spirit. The need and responsibility for providing one’s food and shelter was taken away. Native Americans were made wards of the government.

From 1887 to 1934, Native American land holdings shrank from 135 million acres to 40 million acres under an allotment policy which gave individuals 40- to 160-acre plots as their own property. Scandals resulting from the acquisition of oil leases and forest lands were rife. Rather than become farmers through land ownership, many individuals sold off their allotments and consumed their wealth.

The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 initiated efforts to revive functional tribal govern ments. However, when tribes tried to exercise their rights of self-determination under this Act, bureaucrats obstructed them by restricting tribal use of resources.[10]

The passage of House Concurrent Resolution 108 established a policy of termination in 1953. Congress intended to make Native Americans subject to the same laws and privileges as other Americans (though the question of their dual citizenship under a 1924 act remained unresolved). Termination Acts passed from 1954 to 1962 affected 60 California and Oregon tribes and hundreds of smaller bands. This policy failed, as the Indians, who had been subjected to the almost wholesale destruction of their culture, were unable to function in the modern, Anglo- dominated environment.

By 1970, President Nixon announced a policy of self-determination, which recognized the rights of Native Americans to be different and to determine their own future President Reagan reaffirmed this policy in 1983, but criticized its implementation as having been no more than rhetoric. Excessive regulation and a self-perpetuating bureaucracy had stifled local decision- making and fostered tribal dependency.[11]

The conclusion one may draw from this assessment is that the excessive regulation and the stifling bureaucracy should be eliminated. President Reagan stopped short of this, however, and today the Federal bureaucracy still dominates the conduct of Indian affairs through subsidy, if not outright control.

The Consequences of Management

The mission of the Bureau of Indian Affairs is to act as the principal agent in carrying out (1) the government-to-government relationship between the United States and Federally-recognized Indian tribes and (2) the responsibilities of the United States as trustee for the property it holds for tribal units.

The second point is curious, as it has more or less developed as a self-proclaimed and self- sustained doctrine shrouded in the legal and moral obligations the U.S. government established for itself toward the Native American. The legality of this is based on the 1831 Supreme Court decision in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, where the Court held that Indian tribes have all the rights of sovereignty except those taken away or limited by Congress. This decision was “a direct outgrowth of English law and practice which held that title to newly-discovered lands was in the Crown . . . but subject to a compensable right of occupancy by an aboriginal people.”[12]

It is true that Native Americans have done nominally better under self-determination. From 1972 to 1977, Indian-owned businesses increased 300 per cent, principally in oil and gas, forestry, and bingo. Control over local community issues is more in the hands of tribal governments. Yet, the Bureau of Indian Affairs holds its position that it should be a provider of resources and protector of tribal interests. And as any self-respecting bureaucratic agency would be expected to do, the Bureau seeks to expand the dollar volumes of the programs for which tribes contract for services, including education and health.

While official policy states that the Native American ought to be free to determine his or her future, to what extent can the various tribes be independent of Federal aid and the controls which accompany such aid (for that matter, how independent can any group of people be in such a relationship)? Federal commitments to provide tribes with health, education, and welfare benefits, in exchange for reservation lands, are remnants of a trust responsibility founded in mercantilist colonialism.

Historically, government has been assumed to be the best protector of property, both on and off the reservation. The state maintains the right to protect resources, rather than protect the individual’s right to their use. This is evident in the trust agreement which has evolved out of the restrictions on Native Americans to develop the resources at their disposal.

Under this system, disputes over the use of property are political in nature, and the public manager chooses among special interests. Where Native American tribes dispute over land, for example, as have the Navajos and Hopis in northern Arizona, political solutions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs are unable to resolve the conflict, which is a fundamental question about property rights. Where the mechanisms of the market and freedom are bypassed, social and economic chaos is the result, affecting millions of lives.

The quality of property management is determined by the structure of the property rights in force. Public managers produce outcomes which please no one “because they are faced with ill- defined multiple use mandates and have no personal stake in decisions.”[13] The trust agreement which is so hallowed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs leads to the attrition of reservation lands and the abridgment of rights to remaining properties.

American Indian policy has promoted government-guaranteed security over freedom. Laws have governed the rights to spend money and own land. The reservation system was enforced through dependency: The Native American knew that he could drink and gamble his money away and be sure to keep his home and land.[14]

Government subsidies and controls mask the consequences of irresponsibility. If conditions are not established which permit failure, failure is collectivized and compounded throughout the culture.[15] As governmental efforts to provide “security” are increased, and the market is further hindered, the more elusive this security becomes.[16]

It is remarkable how similar this policy is to the institution of slavery in the pre-Civil War South, Both policies were established and justified on racial grounds, where the master cares for an individual after denying him fundamental rights as a human being. Like many slaves, a distressingly large number of Native Americans have lost the ability to provide for themselves. The main difference between our Indian policy and outright slavery is that in the case of Indians, the conqueror stopped one step short of total subjugation and could not fathom what to do next.

Instead of trying to administer socialism in a more efficient manner (through staffing the Bureau of Indian Affairs with Native Americans and giving them more say in how they want to be administered, for example), the U.S. must examine whether a policy for a particular racial group is warranted at all. Then, perhaps, the policy-makers might discover the inherent racism of such a policy.

Government management of Indian Affairs is incompatible with a free society. The Bureau of Indian Affairs administers a racist policy—not unlike the apartheid system of South Africa—which has decimated the initiative of a once-proud people. Yet the pre-reservation Native American was capable of administering his own affairs. He will be able to once again pursue his cultural, social, and economic potential only when the Bureau of Indian Affairs has been abolished. The property this agency commands should revert to the Native Americans, who must be free to exercise their property rights over it as they choose. As with any social group, only freedom can produce desirable social and economic results. The Native Americans must be given the opportunity to reaffirm this.


1. “Luring Jobs to the Rrservations,” Business Week, July 16, 1982, pp. 80-81.

2. U.S. Department of the Interior, Information Profiles of lndian Reservations in Arizona, Nevada and Utah (Phoenix: Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1981).

3. Larry Dodge, “Reason Interview: Russell Means,” Reason, August-September. 1986. p. 23.

4. Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944).

5. Gary North, “Statist Bureaucracy in the Modern Economy,” The Freeman, January, 1970, pp. 16-28.

6. Mises, op. cit.

7. S. Lyman Tyler, A History of Indian Policy (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973).

8. Ibid., p. 31.

9. Ibid., p. 72.

10. Allen C. Quetone, “Indian Self-Determination: The Human Factor,” Public Administration Review, 44 (1984), pp. 533-538.

11. Office of the Federal Register, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983), pp. 98-102.

12. Vince Lovett and Larry Rummel, American Indians (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1984). p. 7.

13. E. Barry Asmus and Donald B. Billings, “Environmental Problems and Private Property,” The Freeman, December, 1985, p. 752.

14. R. J. Rushdoony, “Life on the Reservation” (Foundation for Economic Education, Clipping of Note, Number 27).

15. North, op. cit.

16. Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944).

[Matt Collins]

The Conch Republic (Florida Keys) tried this several years ago after the Fed started their draconian and unconstitutional drug policy.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_republic

[apropos]

The fruits of multiculturalism. Without the melting pot/assimilation concept, we can expect more of this on a larger scale.

[JMO]

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,317548,00.html

[MS0453]

The fruits of multiculturalism. Without the melting pot/assimilation concept, we can expect more of this on a larger scale.

More like the fruits of liberty.

[Akus]

I'm sure US government will be good and faithfull in keeping its promises regarding Indian lands. Um, yeah.

[HOLLYWOOD]

$200 BILLION DOLLARS - comnservative estimate


So right now as we chat about this... there's a major CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT against the FEDS & BLM.

since like, 1887 the FEDS have been ripping the tribal reservations off, on mineral rights and royalities.

The FEDS wanted to settle with all the US Indian tribes at $7 BILLION.

Talk about TYRANNY... government greed and incompetancy, etc etc.


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/fedagencies/july-dec02/indiantrusts_12-18.html

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/03/07/news/state/50-lawsuit.txt (http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/03/07/news/state/50-lawsuit.txt)

[Mortikhi]

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=61144

[ThomasJ]

After reading that I really want to move to Lakota Country.

I am not Lakota I am a small amount Cherokee 1/16 but I see this as a great step forward for the indian tribes.

This would also be great for the Lakota tribe in general as self reliance has waned for a long time on the reservation because of the federal government intervention in everything. The worst part is the federal government does not do the one thing they are supposed to do for the tribes.

Do you know that an American can go onto several reservations rape women there then leave the reservation and the state dept doesn't even look into it? This happens all the time out here in Navajo country.

Back to the subject this could be a great new spot for freedom loving people to go where we can be truly free to exist in peace.

[KMA-NWO]

After reading that I really want to move to Lakota Country.

I am not Lakota I am a small amount Cherokee 1/16 but I see this as a great step forward for the indian tribes.

This would also be great for the Lakota tribe in general as self reliance has waned for a long time on the reservation because of the federal government intervention in everything. The worst part is the federal government does not do the one thing they are supposed to do for the tribes.

Do you know that an American can go onto several reservations rape women there then leave the reservation and the state dept doesn't even look into it? This happens all the time out here in Navajo country.

Back to the subject this could be a great new spot for freedom loving people to go where we can be truly free to exist in peace.

I'm in the same boat as you. When my schooling is finished, if there's a demand for IT professionals there that's where i plan on going.

I am 1/16 cherokee as well.

[moonbat]

Another 1/16 cherokee here... :D

[ronpaulfollower999]

Another 1/16 cherokee here.

Whats the countries name? Lakota?

[european]

*ugh*

:D

[amy31416]

After reading that I really want to move to Lakota Country.

I am not Lakota I am a small amount Cherokee 1/16 but I see this as a great step forward for the indian tribes.

This would also be great for the Lakota tribe in general as self reliance has waned for a long time on the reservation because of the federal government intervention in everything. The worst part is the federal government does not do the one thing they are supposed to do for the tribes.

Do you know that an American can go onto several reservations rape women there then leave the reservation and the state dept doesn't even look into it? This happens all the time out here in Navajo country.

Back to the subject this could be a great new spot for freedom loving people to go where we can be truly free to exist in peace.

I'm not at all indian as far as I know. Can I still come? I'll bring my shotgun to help with defense :cool:

[Malum Prohibitum]

too bad you have to be amer-asian genetically to be considered a native.

[MS0453]

too bad you have to be amer-asian genetically to be considered a native.

For what it's worth, I'm willing to be adopted.

[Fig]

I hope this works. We really need events like this going on in my opinion: Small localized governments can manage themselves MUCH better than HUGE overbloated FEDERAL ones.

Give the rights back to the states, and in this case, give them back to those who were cheated out of them. Im amazed they are this coordinated after 150 years of oppression. Go Lakota!

[bbachtung]

I fully support Lakota independence. They have every right to secede from their current relationship with the United States government, and, unlike when the South seceded, there are no overriding moral issues that could be used to justify an invasion by the United States.

[Naraku]

Expect exactly nothing to happen. Hopefully this will draw attention to the problems going on with Native Americans, though.

[jebba]

Some friends of mine made a documentary up there a couple years ago. This will give you some info about how terrible the conditions are there:

http://www.ametrika.com/ftp/pine_ridge/session_one_silver.avi (330M)

They also made a documentary (Rezonomics) about the economic system up there, but I can't find a good online copy.

-Jeff

[Solas]

Wow, they have heart, and they have my support, but I expect they'll be silently pacified.



EDIT: Oh, and I'm also American Indian and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. :)

[ronpaulfollower999]

So does this mean that parts of Wyoming, etc... are no long part of the US?

[torchbearer]

So does this mean that parts of Wyoming, etc... are no long part of the US?

yup. we have somewhere to go to be free if the steal this election from us...

[torchbearer]

Wow, they have heart, and they have my support, but I expect they'll be silently pacified.



EDIT: Oh, and I'm also American Indian and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. :)

I'm 1/16 cherokee. my great grandfather on the my dad's side was moved to an area near Fort Smith Arkansas. He didn't even speak english...neither did my grandfather until he was older...

[Solas]

I'm 1/16 cherokee. my great grandfather on the my dad's side was moved to an area near Fort Smith Arkansas. He didn't even speak english...neither did my grandfather until he was older...

I'm actually from the NW Arkansas area.

All I have left of my family's heritage is a bow that was passed down. :(

[torchbearer]

I'm actually from the NW Arkansas area.

All I have left of my family's heritage is a bow that was passed down. :(

:( I don't have anything but a book describing the horrible things they had to go through....

[apropos]

More like the fruits of liberty.

If and when this country tears itself into independent factions, there will be a lot less liberty to go around for everyone. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution only apply if there is an America.

[nate895]

Seems like we're not the only ones who want our freedom back:

"Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US
7 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.

"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.

They also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and will continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months, they told the news conference.

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 signed with the United States are merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists say on their website.

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.

The Lakota relaunched their journey to freedom in 1974, when they drafted a declaration of continuing independence -- an overt play on the title of the United States' Declaration of Independence from England.

Thirty-three years have elapsed since then because "it takes critical mass to combat colonialism and we wanted to make sure that all our ducks were in a row," Means said.

One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples -- despite opposition from the United States, which said it clashed with its own laws.

"We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children," Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977, told the news conference.

The US "annexation" of native American land has resulted in once proud tribes such as the Lakota becoming mere "facsimiles of white people," said Means.

Oppression at the hands of the US government has taken its toll on the Lakota, whose men have one of the shortest life expectancies -- less than 44 years -- in the world.

Lakota teen suicides are 150 percent above the norm for the United States; infant mortality is five times higher than the US average; and unemployment is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website.

"Our people want to live, not just survive or crawl and be mascots," said Young.

"We are not trying to embarrass the United States. We are here to continue the struggle for our children and grandchildren," she said, predicting that the battle would not be won in her lifetime.
"
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVC1KMTOgwiSoMQyT2LwZc9HyAgA

http://www.lakotafreedom.com/

I say we follow them if RP ain't elected.

[jstmike]

Maybe China should tell the USA that it won't loan it anymore money if it doesn't participate in a peace treaty with the Native Americans and make the USA give back their land including the land where Washington DC is now.

[MS0453]

If and when this country tears itself into independent factions, there will be a lot less liberty to go around for everyone. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution only apply if there is an America.

The Bill of Rights is basically natural law codified. It's a symbol more than anything else.

[fedup100]

I say we follow them if RP ain't elected.

WOOOOO !!!HHHHOOOO !! I second that.......I hope they have the big council meeting and ALL the effin tribes do this all at once. Then maybe some of the counties that are touching them in each state will come on board and then eventually whole states.

In the mean time, they will become the ultimate tax shelter with non fed reserve banks.....I mean the possibilities are endless. Liberty Dollar now has a home. Their money will be gold backed......get in their gold people make it happen.

Those who have been hoping for the free state project need to jump on board, cause the white men in those states will never do it.

[LibertiORDeth]

Can you move there if your not indian?

[fedup100]

:( I don't have anything but a book describing the horrible things they had to go through....

Yes, I have a trunk with clothes and stuff from my grandmother. she would have been 130 years old now and told the stories of why she was adopted and how many were starved to death and murdered in the trail of tears. Yet she never pissed and moaned like the jews.

[jstmike]

WOOOOO !!!HHHHOOOO !! I second that.......I hope they have the big council meeting and ALL the effin tribes do this all at once. Then maybe some of the counties that are touching them in each state will come on board and then eventually whole states.

In the mean time, they will become the ultimate tax shelter with non fed reserve banks.....I mean the possibilities are endless. Liberty Dollar now has a home. Their money will be gold backed......get in their gold people make it happen.

Those who have been hoping for the free state project need to jump on board, cause the white men in those states will never do it.

The big question is what type of government are they going to create?

[torchbearer]

Can you move there if your not indian?

yeh, they are inviting the people of the area.

[fedup100]

So does this mean that parts of Wyoming, etc... are no long part of the US?

YES!! That is what it mean!!!!!!!!

[fedup100]

The big question is what type of government are they going to create?

They are far smarter than you think. They also have educated members including lawyers, fortunately their lawyers are still loyal Lakota.

I think they will also go for the tax haven aspect, this will bring them lots of dough and supporters.

[torchbearer]

They are far smarter than you think. They also have educated members including lawyers, fortunately their lawyers are still loyal Lakota.

I think they will also go for the tax haven aspect, this will bring them lots of dough and supporters.

Imagine the companies that could operate there....

[fedup100]

Imagine the companies that could operate there....

Hmmmmm......I smell a nice gambling site located in beautiful tax free Wyoming territory!

[susano]

For those who don't remember, Russell Means was Dr. Paul's primary opponent for the LP presidential nomination in 1988! I was rooting for a Paul-Means ticket back in the day.

A while back, I saw a link to that year's Libertarian platform, which included returning federal lands to the native tribes. Would you happen to have that?

[susano]

Fron one of the articles, there appears to a split. Another tribal individual said they were not informed of this and still wanted to honor treaties (GOD knows why). I hope they get all tribes on board.

I hope they do not welcome illegal aliens. Russell Means has written on sovereignty, but it's not clear where they are on this issue, right now, with respect to illegals from outside of the US.

[nate895]

WOOOOO !!!HHHHOOOO !! I second that.......I hope they have the big council meeting and ALL the effin tribes do this all at once. Then maybe some of the counties that are touching them in each state will come on board and then eventually whole states.

In the mean time, they will become the ultimate tax shelter with non fed reserve banks.....I mean the possibilities are endless. Liberty Dollar now has a home. Their money will be gold backed......get in their gold people make it happen.

Those who have been hoping for the free state project need to jump on board, cause the white men in those states will never do it.

Before I was an RP supporter I was an ardent secessionist, who wanted to leave because I couldn't see a way to recover our long lost freedoms. RP, obviously, changed my opinion on how recoverable they were.

[torchbearer]

Hmmmmm......I smell a nice gambling site located in beautiful tax free Wyoming territory!

Think bigger....instead of companies going overseas, they could relocate to this nation within a nation, it would force the surrounding states to remove taxation... and put pressure on the fed to cut taxation because the native americans will be as rich as the saudis...

[fedup100]

Fron one of the articles, there appears to a split. Another tribal individual said they were not informed of this and still wanted to honor treaties (GOD knows why). I hope they get all tribes on board.

I hope they do not welcome illegal aliens. Russell Means has written on sovereignty, but it's not clear where they are on this issue, right now, with respect to illegals from outside of the US.

In re reading the article, they are welcoming those in the 5 state area around them.......bummmer. If I were an illegal alien, I don't think I would try to break into their land, they are tough on borders.

[dougkeenan]

This means their hemp crop can't be destroyed by DEA next year.

Well legally can't anyway.

[torchbearer]

^^^

[johngr]

From the Mohawk Nation News site:

http://www.mohawknationnews.com/news/singlenews.php?en=en&layout=mnn&newsnr=445&backurl=%2Fnews%2Fnews3.php%3Flang%3Den%26layout%3 Dmnn%26sortorder%3D0&srcscript=/news/news3.php

08.04.2007 23:36:49 write comment
THE BANKERS’ “MASTER PLAN” FOR TURTLE ISLAND

MNN. April 6, 2007. The bankers want Turtle Island lock, stock and barrel. They’ve been working at it for hundreds of years and failed. The Indigenous people keep fighting back. Is this why they are escalating their attacks on us?

The Rotinonhsoni:onwe/Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy designed a real democracy on Turtle Island. Five nations joined to form the Confederacy – Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca. Later the Tuscaroras joined. Our constitution known as the Kaianereh’ko:wa, the Great Law of Peace, is based on the natural world where all are equal. It is the most democratic form of government ever devised. There is no monarch and unlike the Greek democracy, there is no elite or ruling class . The power and the peace are in the people.

By the time the Europeans invaded Turtle Island, there were already 300 other Indigenous nations who were friends and allies of the Confederacy. Based on the Two Row Wampum, we all agreed to live in peace, respect each other’s culture, ways and territories. When we made treaties and agreements, all our best interests were taken into account.

The chairman of the Confederacy, an Onondaga, is known as the “Tododarho”. He is neutral and must always think about maintaining the peace and integrity of our people, land and possessions. As a spokesman, the people count on him to sanction decisions according to our law and in the best interests of our future generations.

In 1996, the Tododarho was on his deathbed. He called for specific Iroquois to visit him in the hospital, three men and one woman. The Tadodarho wanted to pass on a mantle to the ordinary people who he felt represented the true desires of the people. He wanted to remind us that we can never surrender Turtle Island. The moment we do then all our land and resources would be transferred to the banks and the multinational corporations who’ve coveted our possessions since their arrival.

Treaties create international and domestic law. Our treaties with the U.S. and Canadian colonists are the law of the land. Under the Two Row the colonizers can live under their own laws, if that’s what they want to do. But their laws do not apply to us or to the land.

When the Europeans invaded Turtle Island, we did not become part of their capitalist system. Because Creation made us part of this continent, the banks are trying to find ways to remove the restrictions that stop them from seizing all of Turtle Island. Our democratic principles that are influencing people everywhere else are coming into conflict with their hierarchical systems that is bent on controlling the world.

Our fight has always been with the central banks that were set up by the monarchs, kings and queens of Europe. They want ownership and control. They’re trying to get it by setting up surrogate banking institutions here.

Over the centuries every time there was an attempt to exploit us, our land and resources, we did our best to block it. When the hydro electric power was to be developed in northern Quebec, it was the Crees who stood up for the land. We are the legitimate owners and the land owns us. The bankers want to remove us and our title.

They’ve tried. The monarchs sent their priests here first. The colonial governments of the U.S. and Canada forced us to hand over our children to the churches. Then the pedophiles molested and destroyed them. They hoped to pass the submissive spirit down from generation to generation, submissive to their authority, to the Vatican, to the hierarchies and to the royalty in Europe. We were not supposed to fight back when they took our land and our lives.

Then the monarchs sent over their military and government apparatus. They put up false chiefs and political organizations to run the Indigenous nations. That’s falling by the wayside too.

They are having a hard time with those of us who did not go to residential schools and with the new generation of young Indigenous people. They want to send in the army to destroy those of us who escaped this indoctrination. At Six Nations they found out that our real authority is our traditional Confederacy Chiefs who represent the will of the people.

President Thomas Jefferson once said “There is scarcely a king (or would-be king) in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharoah – get first all the people’s money, then all their lands and then make them and their children servants forever”.

For more than 200 years these international banking families dominated the European scene after they established the Bank of England and other central banks in Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland. The Rothschilds dominated the banking scene as they do today. They created a banking system which controls every other banking system in the world.

All the gold and silver that the U.S. claims that backs the American dollar has disappeared. Today’s dollar is really counterfeit, worth about 4 cents.

The European Bankers always won. They reaped fortunes by financing the various nations in their wars against each other. They engineered conditions of despair so they can turn people into puppets. These nations were plundered, pillaged and bled dry by war debts to the bankers.

Where do the monarchs get their power from? Through their blood line. In Europe they are the “masters” of the people. Their elite are the bankers, business people, governments and academics. We have blood lines too. Our spokespeople become the “servants” of the people.

The kings and queens of Europe are the richest people in the world today. For example, the Royal family in Holland owns Shell Oil Company, the biggest multi national company in the world and has controlling shares in many other multinational corporations.

The monarchs and their multinational corporations would not hesitate to break up the U.S. and Canada, which they consider to be their colonial “band councils”.

How are they doing this? Europe has gained control over the colonial monetary system on Turtle Island.

The Federal Reserve System came into being when the Federal Reserve Act was by passed by Congress in 1913. The bankers were granted the right to create money out of nothing and to lend it to the U.S. government at interest. This usury system is backed by the courts and the police.

The problem for them on Turtle Island is that the Indian lands are immune from seizure. The banks are presently in the process of illegally removing that protection. Actually, all of Turtle Island is not theirs to seize. We never gave anybody jurisdiction over us or our land as required by international law.

Simply put, the creation of money is called the “banking reserve system”. In the past when the bank loaned out money, it had to have money in its vaults to cover the loan in case the cash had to be produced. The central banking system was created so that the individual banks would not need to have any deposits. The banks could write checks and create money with no backup money. If they needed any “liquid cash”, the central banks covered for them or printed more money.

What is “debt financing”? In their system the lender is always the “master” over the borrower. For example, to borrow money for a house or car, you go to the bank and put your house or car up as “collateral”. The bank lends you $100,000 for your house. Over the next 25 years you have to pay back the loan plus interest, which could be more than double what you borrowed. The bank never gave you any money. They just wrote checks for the amount you borrowed. If you can’t pay, the bank seizes your house which they sell for money.

Ordinary U.S. and Canadian citizens own very little. It all belongs to the banks which control the money supply. Everyone is in hawk to them. This is how the banks are gaining control over the whole world.

The governments and corporations have been putting up our land as collateral to borrow money from the financiers for their developments. We never surrendered any of it. This is fraud. They pretend to own it and everybody pretends along with them. Using threats of military violence on us if we protest, it’s theft and extortion.

Should the clan mothers, chiefs and the people lose our authority over Turtle Island, then the European kings and queens and their corporations will grab it through their surrogate banks and puppet governments in Ottawa and Washington.

The European monarchies have been unable to gain control over Turtle Island because we have no monarch sitting at the top of a hierarchy they can buy off. Even the non-natives don’t want a monarch.

Is this what the warfare is all about? Is this why there is such a big interest in the position of the Tadodarho? The bankers want to decide who shall be the Tadodarho and what he shall do for them.


Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News
Kahentinetha2 @yahoo.com & katenies20@yahoo.com
For updates, speakers, workshops, the store, to sign up, go to
www.mohawknationnews.com
Please sign the Women Title Holders petition.
Coming soon online books on Mohawk issues.
poster: katenies

[susano]

Right here, right now, I make a committment to support the soveregnty of our brothers and sisters who make up the tribal nations. I think we should we should request their support for our revolution. Let's get rid of these filthy banksters and globalists, once and for all.

Support sovereignty
Support local control
Support the end of fiat criminality
Work together to change the world

[susano]

From the Mohawk Nation News site:

http://www.mohawknationnews.com/news/singlenews.php?en=en&layout=mnn&newsnr=445&backurl=%2Fnews%2Fnews3.php%3Flang%3Den%26layout%3 Dmnn%26sortorder%3D0&srcscript=/news/news3.php

08.04.2007 23:36:49 write comment
THE BANKERS’ “MASTER PLAN” FOR TURTLE ISLAND

MNN. April 6, 2007. The bankers want Turtle Island lock, stock and barrel. They’ve been working at it for hundreds of years and failed. The Indigenous people keep fighting back. Is this why they are escalating their attacks on us?

The Rotinonhsoni:onwe/Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy designed a real democracy on Turtle Island. Five nations joined to form the Confederacy – Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca. Later the Tuscaroras joined. Our constitution known as the Kaianereh’ko:wa, the Great Law of Peace, is based on the natural world where all are equal. It is the most democratic form of government ever devised. There is no monarch and unlike the Greek democracy, there is no elite or ruling class . The power and the peace are in the people.

By the time the Europeans invaded Turtle Island, there were already 300 other Indigenous nations who were friends and allies of the Confederacy. Based on the Two Row Wampum, we all agreed to live in peace, respect each other’s culture, ways and territories. When we made treaties and agreements, all our best interests were taken into account.

The chairman of the Confederacy, an Onondaga, is known as the “Tododarho”. He is neutral and must always think about maintaining the peace and integrity of our people, land and possessions. As a spokesman, the people count on him to sanction decisions according to our law and in the best interests of our future generations.

In 1996, the Tododarho was on his deathbed. He called for specific Iroquois to visit him in the hospital, three men and one woman. The Tadodarho wanted to pass on a mantle to the ordinary people who he felt represented the true desires of the people. He wanted to remind us that we can never surrender Turtle Island. The moment we do then all our land and resources would be transferred to the banks and the multinational corporations who’ve coveted our possessions since their arrival.

Treaties create international and domestic law. Our treaties with the U.S. and Canadian colonists are the law of the land. Under the Two Row the colonizers can live under their own laws, if that’s what they want to do. But their laws do not apply to us or to the land.

When the Europeans invaded Turtle Island, we did not become part of their capitalist system. Because Creation made us part of this continent, the banks are trying to find ways to remove the restrictions that stop them from seizing all of Turtle Island. Our democratic principles that are influencing people everywhere else are coming into conflict with their hierarchical systems that is bent on controlling the world.

Our fight has always been with the central banks that were set up by the monarchs, kings and queens of Europe. They want ownership and control. They’re trying to get it by setting up surrogate banking institutions here.

Over the centuries every time there was an attempt to exploit us, our land and resources, we did our best to block it. When the hydro electric power was to be developed in northern Quebec, it was the Crees who stood up for the land. We are the legitimate owners and the land owns us. The bankers want to remove us and our title.

They’ve tried. The monarchs sent their priests here first. The colonial governments of the U.S. and Canada forced us to hand over our children to the churches. Then the pedophiles molested and destroyed them. They hoped to pass the submissive spirit down from generation to generation, submissive to their authority, to the Vatican, to the hierarchies and to the royalty in Europe. We were not supposed to fight back when they took our land and our lives.

Then the monarchs sent over their military and government apparatus. They put up false chiefs and political organizations to run the Indigenous nations. That’s falling by the wayside too.

They are having a hard time with those of us who did not go to residential schools and with the new generation of young Indigenous people. They want to send in the army to destroy those of us who escaped this indoctrination. At Six Nations they found out that our real authority is our traditional Confederacy Chiefs who represent the will of the people.

President Thomas Jefferson once said “There is scarcely a king (or would-be king) in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharoah – get first all the people’s money, then all their lands and then make them and their children servants forever”.

For more than 200 years these international banking families dominated the European scene after they established the Bank of England and other central banks in Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland. The Rothschilds dominated the banking scene as they do today. They created a banking system which controls every other banking system in the world.

All the gold and silver that the U.S. claims that backs the American dollar has disappeared. Today’s dollar is really counterfeit, worth about 4 cents.

The European Bankers always won. They reaped fortunes by financing the various nations in their wars against each other. They engineered conditions of despair so they can turn people into puppets. These nations were plundered, pillaged and bled dry by war debts to the bankers.

Where do the monarchs get their power from? Through their blood line. In Europe they are the “masters” of the people. Their elite are the bankers, business people, governments and academics. We have blood lines too. Our spokespeople become the “servants” of the people.

The kings and queens of Europe are the richest people in the world today. For example, the Royal family in Holland owns Shell Oil Company, the biggest multi national company in the world and has controlling shares in many other multinational corporations.

The monarchs and their multinational corporations would not hesitate to break up the U.S. and Canada, which they consider to be their colonial “band councils”.

How are they doing this? Europe has gained control over the colonial monetary system on Turtle Island.

The Federal Reserve System came into being when the Federal Reserve Act was by passed by Congress in 1913. The bankers were granted the right to create money out of nothing and to lend it to the U.S. government at interest. This usury system is backed by the courts and the police.

The problem for them on Turtle Island is that the Indian lands are immune from seizure. The banks are presently in the process of illegally removing that protection. Actually, all of Turtle Island is not theirs to seize. We never gave anybody jurisdiction over us or our land as required by international law.

Simply put, the creation of money is called the “banking reserve system”. In the past when the bank loaned out money, it had to have money in its vaults to cover the loan in case the cash had to be produced. The central banking system was created so that the individual banks would not need to have any deposits. The banks could write checks and create money with no backup money. If they needed any “liquid cash”, the central banks covered for them or printed more money.

What is “debt financing”? In their system the lender is always the “master” over the borrower. For example, to borrow money for a house or car, you go to the bank and put your house or car up as “collateral”. The bank lends you $100,000 for your house. Over the next 25 years you have to pay back the loan plus interest, which could be more than double what you borrowed. The bank never gave you any money. They just wrote checks for the amount you borrowed. If you can’t pay, the bank seizes your house which they sell for money.

Ordinary U.S. and Canadian citizens own very little. It all belongs to the banks which control the money supply. Everyone is in hawk to them. This is how the banks are gaining control over the whole world.

The governments and corporations have been putting up our land as collateral to borrow money from the financiers for their developments. We never surrendered any of it. This is fraud. They pretend to own it and everybody pretends along with them. Using threats of military violence on us if we protest, it’s theft and extortion.

Should the clan mothers, chiefs and the people lose our authority over Turtle Island, then the European kings and queens and their corporations will grab it through their surrogate banks and puppet governments in Ottawa and Washington.

The European monarchies have been unable to gain control over Turtle Island because we have no monarch sitting at the top of a hierarchy they can buy off. Even the non-natives don’t want a monarch.

Is this what the warfare is all about? Is this why there is such a big interest in the position of the Tadodarho? The bankers want to decide who shall be the Tadodarho and what he shall do for them.


Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News
Kahentinetha2 @yahoo.com & katenies20@yahoo.com
For updates, speakers, workshops, the store, to sign up, go to
www.mohawknationnews.com
Please sign the Women Title Holders petition.
Coming soon online books on Mohawk issues.
poster: katenies


This is an amzing article. The author nailed it.

In the American political spectrum, Libertarians and the Ron Paul Revolution are the only ones who know or care about this issue. The enmies of the tribal nations are our enemies. The friends of liberty are our friends. We need to support the native tribes in their efforts. Their continued devotion to freedom and liberty, in the face of the most brutal oppression, is a model to be emulated.

Can you imagine President Ron Paul meeting with tribal leaders! I CAN.

[apropos]

The Bill of Rights is basically natural law codified. It's a symbol more than anything else.


I suppose that's why we have a federally-sponsored Church of the United States in this country. Wait..... :rolleyes:

[axiomata]

A few years ago I went on a mission trip to a Lakota reservation in SD. They are a great people.

[lbadragan]

So if 20 other tribes declared Independence, you guys would support that? What if a majority Mexican region in the Southwest declared Independence also or that they are now part of Mexico, would you support that?

This is very disturbing to me. There has to be a way to avoid this. Can't the U.S address their grievances without granting independence? Isn't there an expiration date on getting your land back? There are serious questions that need to be addressed. I don't like this at all. :(

[Suzu]

"One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples..."

It's not a duck. Doesn't even walk like one. The United Nations is inherently destructive of all national sovereignties. The Hopis knew from their own internal instructions that they should not join the UN or depend on them for help, but simply warn them of the state of the world, and alert them to what could save us. On that basis, some minds involved with the UN out of concern for the state of the world might direct their intelligence to the real solution, which is not the UN.

Too many contradictions in Russell Means' effort. I don't know how Ron Paul can help that effort, or be helped by it. I applaud the Lakota will toward sovereignty, but no move by the UN will support them in that. And, of course, once Lakotas stand separate from the US, they cannot vote in US elections. Some really cool stuff could be done as aboriginal sovereigns, but it will take much more savvy and discipline. I would love to see them mint their own currency. But all this seems miles away from the effort of US citizens to take their own government back. Same spirit, but logistically disconnected. I'd be glad to learn otherwise, but so far I have not seen anything like a workable strategy laid out.

[DrNoZone]

This was the good news of my day! I sure hope they start growing hemp again on the North Dakota reservation and this time tell the feds to get off THEIR property when they come to mow it down.

Go Lakota Nation! I'm behind you 110%!

[nate895]

So if 20 other tribes declared Independence, you guys would support that? What if a majority Mexican region in the Southwest declared Independence also or that they are now part of Mexico, would you support that?

This is very disturbing to me. There has to be a way to avoid this. Can't the U.S address their grievances without granting independence? Isn't there an expiration date on getting your land back? There are serious questions that need to be addressed. I don't like this at all. :(

Since they are treaties, no, but there are other legal problems. Because of state sovereignty, the states that compose the former Lakota land have to be proven to either have stolen their lands, or that they couldn't legally come into existence in the first place. Since the US didn't eliminate the Lakota nation through treaty, annexation, and acceptance by the Lakota, the Lakota still have legal claim to the land. They might have a problem with international recognition, however, but that is another story.

[susano]

So if 20 other tribes declared Independence, you guys would support that? What if a majority Mexican region in the Southwest declared Independence also or that they are now part of Mexico, would you support that?

This is very disturbing to me. There has to be a way to avoid this. Can't the U.S address their grievances without granting independence? Isn't there an expiration date on getting your land back? There are serious questions that need to be addressed. I don't like this at all. :(

Mexicans are not tribal people. Some of them are mixed blood, native and Spanish, just as some Americans have Indian blood. The tribes of Mexico are not the tribes here. There are indigenous people all over the world. The US would not be "granting" anything. The Indian nations are supposed to be sovereign, even though the feds have interfered with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Think of the tribes like states. We want our freedom. They want theirs, only more so.

[susano]

"One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples..."

It's not a duck. Doesn't even walk like one. The United Nations is inherently destructive of all national sovereignties. The Hopis knew from their own internal instructions that they should not join the UN or depend on them for help, but simply warn them of the state of the world, and alert them to what could save us. On that basis, some minds involved with the UN out of concern for the state of the world might direct their intelligence to the real solution, which is not the UN.

Too many contradictions in Russell Means' effort. I don't know how Ron Paul can help that effort, or be helped by it. I applaud the Lakota will toward sovereignty, but no move by the UN will support them in that. And, of course, once Lakotas stand separate from the US, they cannot vote in US elections. Some really cool stuff could be done as aboriginal sovereigns, but it will take much more savvy and discipline. I would love to see them mint their own currency. But all this seems miles away from the effort of US citizens to take their own government back. Same spirit, but logistically disconnected. I'd be glad to learn otherwise, but so far I have not seen anything like a workable strategy laid out.


I agree with you. I saw some reference to the UN in some of the writings. The UN wants their resources just as much as Euro elites and banks (same animal, ultimately). Oppressed people often make this mistake. Many times I see Palestinian advocates llok to international law for help. Shit, international law helped to steal their land.

[real_native70]

All most of us Natives really want is freedom to do what ever we want with our land!

[tropicangela]

Flashback 2007.

New video by Russell Means: Welcome To The Reservation

"Means warns that Americans have lost the ability of critical though, and with each successive generation become more irresponsible and as a consequence less free, disregarding a near-perfect document, the Constitution, which was derived from Indian law. Means chronicles the loss of freedom from the 1840's onwards, which marked the birth of the corporation, to Lincoln's declaration of martial law, to the latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th when Congress "started giving banks the right to rule," and private banking interests began printing the money."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LA-S64QY3o

[speciallyblend]

lakota nation needs industry to survive on that land!! Great idea but still lacking jobs and safe housing and many more things. The lakota nation makes haiti look like luxury. very sad indeed!!! I strongly urge folks to visit pine ridge etc. It will hopefuly wake some folks up!!!

[Pauls' Revere]

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.

[Vessol]

Haven't they been declaring independence for years? I support them TBH, but if they say so and nothing really happens, then meh.

[Seraphim]

These are the type of people that I will stand next to and meet my maker, if it provides just one small baby step in the fight for widespread freedom and indepence from the State.

[Danke]

"the Constitution, which was derived from Indian law"
:confused:

I think it goes back to the Magna Carta and English Common Law.

[Michael Landon]

lakota nation needs industry to survive on that land!! Great idea but still lacking jobs and safe housing and many more things. The lakota nation makes haiti look like luxury. very sad indeed!!! I strongly urge folks to visit pine ridge etc. It will hopefuly wake some folks up!!!

I wonder if their plan is to provide tax-free incentives to businesses to move to their "Nation?" I can see some companies moving their plants to Lakota lands and providing jobs.

- ML

[Legend1104]

They will probably just be ignored until some conflict breaks out that leads to the death of Indians by the military or national guard and the forced capitulation of the Lakota.