Lakota Indians Announce Secession from United States

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317548,00.html

So after 150 years, finally an administration they simply could not abide

 

Good. It was their land we took after all wasn't it?

 

I was wondering how long it would take for this story to make it here.

It's interesting, but I don't know a lot about the finer details.

 

If they want independence then I think they should have it and I support them.

 

"The U.S. "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 U.S. 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 per cent above the norm for the U.S.; infant mortality is five times higher than the U.S. average; and unemployment is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website."

 

Of course the news won't cover it. I mean, when 5 states leave the Union due to the collapse of a Treaty, it should be front page news, but the skeptic and cynic in me says that this will either turn into another Waco Texas, or completely ignored.

 

Judging by past and present experiences with the US Government and its use and show of force probably and sadly another Waco is most likely.

 

Yes, it was.

Miami - that is, Mayaimi, from the Mayaimi word for "Big Water." You know you are on Mayaimi land, right? So, when are you closing up shop and leaving?

Be sure you shake the hypocrisy from the rug on your way out.

 

If they want Mayaimi they can come and get it. I'll gladly leave and go somewhere else. But they do not want Mayaimi, if you read the full article you will see what they want. Nice try though.

 

Characteristically, you will spout on issues so long as you don't actually have to do anything, guru. You live on land robbed at the end of cold steel. Go somewhere else, where? Where in this land do you have legal entitlement to a particle of dust? You have no legal entitlement, anymore than anyone else. While you vocierously applaud Mr. Means, you sit on land that doesn't belong to you.

I have native blood, and empathize with the Lakota. They are fully, incontrovertibly right. My white forebears raped my Indian forebears, and those who write our history books have woven a lie for 200 years, with respect to this shameful story.

I also don't know what can be accomplished in the way of national independence without any of the instruments of nationhood. A symbolic, but empty, gesture, in my opinion.

My problem with your comment is a personal problem, I guess, Guru. The same crap I saw at Berkeley. Footstomping about apartheid or nuclear proliferation - eminently worthy causes. But the untidy hypocrisy rests on Sproul Plaza, after the fact. Little darling goes back to the classroom on mommy and daddy's dime, while the real working class - the janitors who have been working at slave wages for the last 40 years - clean up the placards and other jetsam of protest. Make sure and make the news!, because to actually go 4 miles east, to the streets of Oakland, and actually do something doesn't bring as much personal attention. Bottom line, I have always had a problem with saying things because it's cool. And I find your comment in that line. As insubstantial as air.

 

Wow. That is some heavy shit you just dropped here north. I was lucky enough to go to a shitty community college where no one even pretended to give a damn about the world.

 

Much of this is because of the Badlands and the Black Hills, which they want back. I spent some time in SD on one of the reservations about 4 years ago...what a wonderful group of people.

 

That is false.

Very true. All I can do at this point is be ashamed of those before me and do what is right today. That is why I said before I support them.

If I am to leave cause the natives want every single sq.ft of this country than I will find another corner of the world where I will be accepted and live with a clear conscience.

I agree with you 100% and I am truly sorry for all the crimes that were committed to your people. (If I were alive during that time trust me I would want no part of it)

I am not sure either. I just feel for their cause.

 

The closest I have actually come to hanging out with Native Americans (like culturally practicing reservation residents, I know a lot of people with Native American blood but that is a somewhat different perspective) is when I hung out with a few of them at this Pow Wow they have around here once a year. I'm a spiritualist kind of a person anyway so the bulk of my conversations with them where about spirituality and politics. Cool folks, they did a warrior dance that really had an impression on me. Kind of made me feel patriotic thinking about all the soldiers who have died in all the wars etc. The cool thing about it was that they invited all the veterans there to dance in it, and my old redneck southern Ohio father got up and hobbled around the circle, I think he cried.
Anyway this had me wondering two things.
First how many Lakota Sioux really want to secede? It seemed to me at that Pow-Wow (many tribes put this thing on, I don't know which or in what percentages) that being a US citizen was not really a problem for them, it seemed more that it was an issue of having strong cultural beliefs that needed preservation?
Second, why is this story not getting much coverage? I haven't seen any sort of response by any US government official and I haven't even found the story on some of the more "mainstream" news sites.

Meh, I am a European mutt-dog trapped in an imperialistic colonial nightmare so what do I know

 

Earthfaze, yep, pow-wows are powerful events.

I have found many separatist movements globally tend to be less about true separation from the national establishment, anymore, anyway, and more about rectification for a host of wrongs committed against a people, and for a larger voice in the national pool. In other words, enfranchisement, not separation. I must admit up front an academic slant, as this was my area of doctoral study - nationalism, national identity, separatism, and it's been a couple of decades since I looked seriously at them, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I think most Lakota today seek a redress of grievances, not the establishment of a true nation-state apart from the United States.

 

How many Lakota are there? In South Dakota there are 60,000 Native Americans

 

They want their own land so they can build more casinos on it.

 

Easy tag to place, but that's an insult, and, sorry, bullshit, Lexiseek. Russell Means is a mixed bag, and it isn't clear at all he speaks for the Lakota, but I believe you are really off with this one. The Lakota move for formal independence has its roots all the way back to 1974, and so precede the establishment of the "Native American Gaming Enterprises" (which buy, by the way, a helluva lot more in the way of education and healthcare for Indian children than can otherwise be obtained - not without a downside, but a considerable upside. Another thread).

 

The Indians tribes are no longer sovereign nations.

In 1871, Congress passed legislation declaring "No Indian nation or tribe…shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty" (25 U.S.C.A. & 71).

Prior to the legislation, Indian nations had been officially recognized as sovereign nations and their relationship with the U.S. government had been officially based on negotiated treaties