Watering Hole: Friday, October 28, 2011 – Occupied and Stolen

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When will the US Government’s abuse of Native Americans end?  When they are all dead?  Or is it when they all forget their great heritage?

This week, NPR did a mini series on “Indian Child Welfare”.  Even though the law states that Native American children are to live with a family member within the tribe, South Dakota places Native American children in foster care outside of the reservation.  Fifty percent of the children living in foster care in South Dakota are Native Americans.  In case you missed this story, you can learn more about it here, from Native American Netroots.

From PR-USA:

According to NPR Laura Sullivan is known for her investigative reporting on the plight of the country’s most disadvantaged people. NPR also lists Ms. Sullivan’s 2007 revelation of the widespread rape of Native American women on their reservations, committed largely by non-Native men. This tragic story took place, and continues to take place, on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in the Dakotas.

The Lakota Peoples Law Project (LPLP) has documented the theft and destruction of Indian children. Native children are being taken at an alarming rate. LPLP investigators and attorneys have found that the South Dakota Department of Social Services in a misguided attempt to help the children removes them from their families and places them in non-Indian households, foster-care settings, and state institutions for years. These children often experience sexual and emotional abuse, medical over-drugging, and inadequate education. According to LPLP lead attorneyDaniel P. Sheehan, the current system is a failure. Mr. Sheehan’s research shows that South Dakota, is one of the worst offenders nationwide. Nearly two-thirds of children in state foster care in South Dakota are Native American. By age twenty, over 60% of these children are dead, homeless, or in prison.

The greedy are not content with all the land that they stole over the past 150 + years. They are now going after more land.  So the Dakota Oyate have occupied the Crow Creek Reservation.

The Lakota have struggled for 158 years.  Here is their story which will not be found in any school board approved history book.

The genocide continues and the MSM is quiet.

I remember reading “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” and crying for hours.  It was an awakening.

This is our Open Thread.  Speak Up!

“May you have faith in your worth and act with wisdom”… Yogi tea tag.

153 thoughts on “Watering Hole: Friday, October 28, 2011 – Occupied and Stolen”

  3. When 60% of a child welfare agency’s wards fail to become healthy adults, shouldn’t that be a sign that what they are doing is not working? When 40% of all African-American children live in poverty, shouldn’t that be a sign that what we as a country are doing is not working?
    Could y’all send good thoughts my way? It seems that the government customer found out that my husband’s firm has wasted and mischarged $2M, so there will be many lay-offs announced today. Such things almost never fall on the actual folks who did the wasting and I really need our health insurance.

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  4. A continuation of the American Exceptionally adept subjugation of the indigenous population of this continent.
    My condolences to you Outstanding. I worked for a small firm in 1981 that discovered the secretary who paid all the bills for 26 years had siphoned off over 2 million and lost it gambling. It required all the remaining employees to take a 20% cut in pay or be laid off.
    Just so sad. If we had seen the wisdom of single payer HCR you’d have much better options. Best of everything from the RUC family…

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    • It seems that more and more stories like this appear every year, and quite often it happens with non-profits or government agencies. Or the Democratic Party in California. Most seem to start with “borrowing” to cover gambling debts and then escalate into massive spending on material goods.

      The cause?: A culture of greed and selfishness and, I believe, the observation that big-money criminals never suffer any real punishment.

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  5. I fear this culture, overall, has found little or no time or reason to be concerned about the fate of North American aboriginals, and in my experience that’s remained an obvious fact across my entire life’s experience. Conditions on various reservations in Minnesota were horrible when I was a little fellow — I didn’t know the word ‘squalor’ when I was five or six years old, but my recollections of passing through reservation towns way back then answer to that word as ably as do similar experiences and passages today. What I’ve seen over my lifetime has made me feel genuinely ashamed of my European heritage, in fact. Nothing seems to ever change.

    Back in 2003, one of the very first deaths in Bush’s crazed Iraq bullshit was a young Hopi woman from Arizona, Lori Piestewa; she was, in fact and i.i.r.c., the first Native American woman to ever give her life for her country as an American soldier. After her death, AZ Governor Janet Napolitano quickly sought to honor Ms Piestewa in visible and permanent fashion by proposing to rename the landmark Phoenix desert mountain; she proposed that the derogatory name of Squaw Peak be forever changed to Piestewa Peak. Doing so would also change the names of the Squaw Peak freeway and Squaw Peak Park to the new Piestewa equivalent. It took scarcely any time at all before the rumblings of discontent surfaced and evolved into what amounted to a visible and audible expression of what can best be called a “them fucking Indians” attitude. The deep-seated hatreds bubbled up all over the place, and the vicious language aimed at Napolitano herself was a real eye-opener.

    But Napolitano stuck to her guns and got the job done anyway, and today Piestewa Peak stands taller and more proudly than ever before. The Indian haters slipped (temporarily) back under their respective rocks, then re-emerged later to become Mexican haters. Brown skin is brown skin, after all, and irrational hatred is always available, always waiting.

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    • When I first went to college I was assigned a roommate from near Philly. Her first words to me were “You’re from Virginia so you hate the n___s, I’m from Pennsylvania and we hate the Puerto Ricans.” You’re correct frugal, it’s always waiting. As I recall Ms. Piestewa was part of the group that included Jessica Lynch, as was another woman who was also captured, a black lady named iirc Shoshanna. The DoD chose the white girl to try make a hero out of.

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    • Did any of you happen to catch this story on All Things Considered the other night? I was stunned to learn that states like South Dakota are still sending native orphans to white-run homes or white families, in violation of Federal law. Not to mention the blatant corruption at the top of state government. No-bid contracts? Are you kidding me?

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    • It was a sad day for Arizona when Janet N. left the state to be in the President’s administration. Napolitano was the only thing standing between our crazy RW state Congress and sanity for our state. Now that we have the inimitable Governor Brewer, it’s “Katy, bar the door!” for any lunatic fringe group in the state.

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  6. Thanks to all for the good wishes. I’m heading out to plant lilies, as we’re supposed to get snow tomorrow.

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  7. My baby, she wrote me another letter 🙂

    Terry,
    There’s something happening here in Massachusetts.
    I see it as I travel across our state, meeting hard-working men and women who know that the deck has been stacked against them for far too long, people who just want a fair shake again — and want leaders in Washington who will fight for them.
    Just take a look at this photo I took from the stage in Framingham Tuesday night — a packed house and tons of enthusiasm for our campaign’s first volunteer organizing meeting:

    This is what a real grassroots campaign looks like: A campaign not accountable to Wall Street and its armies of corporate lobbyists, but to working families in Framingham, in Springfield, across the Commonwealth, and around the country who know that we can — and must — do better.
    The early days of this campaign have been so inspiring, and I’m glad that you’re a part of it. But we have so much work to do, so many powerful interests lining up against us, and we have to keep the momentum going.
    Click here to share this inspiring photo with your friends on Facebook, or post it on Twitter. Show everyone you know the energy of our grassroots movement for the middle class — and invite them to join us.
    Together, we can make sure that working families in Massachusetts and across America have a chance to get ahead again. But to do it, we need to keep our grassroots campaign growing strong over the weeks and months ahead.
    Thank you for being a part of this and whatever happens to us, we’ll always have Seatac (I know Paris sounds much more romantic 😉
    Elizabeth

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  9. Australians did similar things to the Aborigine children between 1910 to 1970 to similar results. I hope South Dakota can realize the error of these removal of children sooner than it took the Australians.

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    • I guess it doesn’t dawn on the white folks of SD that if the conditions that these children live in are so bad, why isn’t that friggin problem being addressed?!?!?!

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      • Because some white folk don’t believe that throwing money at a problem solves anything: More money for education won’t help, money to feed the poor won’t help, money for jobs won’t help.

        The thing is, business always says, “you have to spend money to make money”
        I don’t see how the same thing doesn’t apply for government.

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  11. This sort of goes along with the ideas about praying away teh gay. If you raise these children in good White Christian homes they won’t be red anymore.

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    • That was the thought process when the Spanish and then the Missionaries (Padre Serra) invaded the Indian land to ‘convert’ them.

      One on the first things (after duping the Indigenous) was to introduce western clothing – couldn’t have that much flesh showing.

      The Indigenous children were separated from the family – sent to ‘school’ – never allowed to speak their native language. Always fully dressed – never allowed to participate in their native dance/religion.

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      • I often wonder if the religious fixation with clothing isn’t somehow related to helping men resolve the age old question with minimal interference.

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  12. Quotes of the Day:

    “I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that. I don’t know how much our contribution is to that, because I know that there have been periods of greater heat and warmth in the past but I believe we contribute to that. And so I think it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and the global warming that you’re seeing,” – Mitt Romney, June 3, 2011.

    “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us,” – Mitt Romney, October 27. 2011

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    • Mitt really needs to change his nickname. I can understand him not liking Willard. But it seems that Flounder is much more appropriate.

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      • Speaking of Michael Moore – he’s due at Occupy Oakland in a few hours.

        Last night Mayor Quan attempted to address the crowd – they would have none of it – chanting ‘go home’; ‘go home’.

        [one of her big problems: putting all the faith in her police commander to tell her exactly/truthfully what was happening. And making the call for the all out assault from Washington D.C. where she was on city business] I imagine the commander wasn’t exactly truthful – probably embellishing.

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        • I can almost believe that but not quite. If I believe it, her credibility as a leader takes a major hit. If I don’t, her credibility as a leader is totally flushed. If it is true, it will truly suck to be the police chief for as long as it would take to fire him/her.

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  13. Here’s my Xianinsanity quote of the day
    Josh Hamilton, about his late inning home run last night:::
    “I would tell y’all something,” he said with a grin, “but y’all wouldn’t believe me.”
    No, we pressed. Please tell.
    So he did.
    “The Lord told me it was going to happen before it happened,” Hamilton continued. “‘You hadn’t hit a home run in a while. You’re about to right now.’”

    Is he related to Michele Bachmann>?

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    • This would be sooooo much more convincing if Josh had told someone about it before he hit the ball. The umpire and the catcher, now they would have been interesting. “Oh, by the way, God told me I was going to hit the next pitch out of the park.” Even more dramatic than pointing to the stands.

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    • The Tim Taebo insanity!
      Why isn’t god blamed when a team/player loses?

      Most folk who have conversation with the ‘people’ in their head are, generally, given an appointment with a Psychotherapist. Why are sports figures given a pass?

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    • Did they interview the outfielder at all?

      “Yeah I saw that ball all the way and I was just reaching for it to pluck it into my glove when this bearded dude wearing a dress appeared out of nowhere and barged into me – when I got up the ball had cleared the fence and that hippy f***er had vanished!”

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    • Josh Hamilton:
      “I would tell y’all something,” he said with a grin, “but y’all wouldn’t believe me.”

      You’re right Josh. We don’t believe you.

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      • Have to go easy on Josh a little, he came back from a serious drug problem to be playing back in the bigs. But I have always felt that people who trade belief in God for their drug problem, are just trading one addiction for another.

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    • The Godbots in sports would annoy me a whole lot less if one of them came out after a loss and said: “I guess I didn’t pray hard enough”, “God just didn’t want us to win this one”, or “I guess that the other team just loves Jesus more than we do”.

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      • I saw a lot of fans praying in the stands. Both Cardinals fans and Ranger fans had hands clasped as if in prayer (or maybe it was the cold?).

        How does God choose who is more worthy of winning a particular game?

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        • Same way he decided to make the river flood and drown our cows and kill our carrotts in the ground and make my Uncle get the consumption….. who the fuck knows, pass me another virgin, I’ve finished sharpening my penknife.

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  14. TPMMuckraker

    NJ GOPer In ‘Rentboy’ Scandal: ‘I Don’t Know’ If Pics Of Me In My Underwear Are Real‘

    umm, that’s an incriminating statement there buddy-boy! Should have consulted a liar PR for the correct phrasing.

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  17. A moment of silence please. Marie Osmond has been rushed to the hospital in Lost Wages. I tried to tell her not to marry that other guy.

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  18. ah, a father’s love:

    “If he were running for president of China, he would have already won the election,” he said. “But he’s had to come here and start from scratch. Most of the other candidates had a year or two or three or four. Mitt’s had six.”

    (Jon Huntsman, Sr.)

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  19. Hi, gang. I’m a bit pressed for time today and haven’t had a chance to read through the thread so please ignore me if this subject has been covered. It looks like pRick Prayerry’s pastor problems are getting worse. His dear friend who caused the flap with his assertion that Mittens is a cultist has doubled down on his claim. But? The really disgusting one, considering that one can make a case that Mormonism is a cult, is this other guy who thinks that Hitler’s biggest failing is that he didn’t kill all the Jews. The funny part is that the Reichwhiners have been flocking to Prayerry’s defense but have the gall to call the OWS protestors “antisemitic” because there’s a picture of a guy, who apparently was there to heckle the protestors, with a sign about Jews running the banks.

    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/10/28/128594/commentary-perrys-preacher-jeffress.html

    http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/pastor-who-helped-organize-rick-perry

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    • The only thing that stopped Hitler and his Aryan dreams and Hirohito and his Imperial dreams was the American public as rallied behind FDR and his ‘socialistic dreams’. And it is becoming more obvious every day that the nightmares of Hitler and Hirohito are not dead. What is in serious trouble is the number of Americans who will still rally.

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      • Um. I get your point but the Soviets and Chinese had a bit to do with it too. We provided the air power in Europe and the air and sea power in the Pacific but the Soviets and Chinese are the ones who bled the Axis dry in a war of attrition that made the Normandy invasion and “Island hopping” possible.

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          • I’ve always been fascinated by the history of WW2 and it’s really odd how much the history differs based on who is writing it. Since retiring to write one’s memoirs is most prevalent in the British military tradition, a whole lot is anglo-centric. Much of it reads like the only ones fighting the Germans were the Brits. Many of them are dismissive of the American effort and barely even mention the Soviets. While it’s not clear that Germany ever would have been able to successfully invade Britain, the Battle of Britain and the fighting in North Africa would have been an entirely different proposition if Hitler didn’t have his eyes on Russia.

            The memoirs of Americans, almost all generals, treat Britain as little more than a base for the air war and invasion. The Soviets and Chinese are almost ignored although a few give the impression that we could have ended the war sooner if we weren’t giving them equipment. I would like to ask them what would have happened in the Pacific if the Japanese didn’t have almost 5 million troops in China or if Germany had an extra 8 million, not to mention the tanks and artillery, to defend the Channel Coast.

            The really odd part is that the few Russian and Chinese accounts that have been translated all seem to credit the contributions of the Western Allies. It’s unclear whether that’s because they have a less selfish approach or whether those are just the ones that Western publishers have picked up. Still, it only seems fair that Western authors should acknowledge the sacrifice of the Eastern Allies.

            Of course, the simple conclusion is that WW2, not to mention the “peace” that followed, if any of the four primary powers allied against the axis had been defeated or neutral, would have been very different

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            • Japan was clearly more concerned about pounding the snot out of China because it was right next door. Why they bombed Pearl Harbor when the did is something of a mystery. Same with Hitler. If he had focused his efforts to the east first and ignored Western Europe, the outcome of WWII would have been completely different. Considering Chamberlain’s response to the invasion of Poland, if Adolph had headed for Moscow the West would have wrung their hands until it was too late. Same with Japan. If they had concentrated on China first, things would have been entirely different.

              I don’t know about Japan but I suspect the issues in Europe were influenced by the economic powers in the US.

            • I’ve been a WWII history freak for fifty years. Started with William Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and moved on from there through at least a hundred volumes written from every POV that I could find. Conclusion: WWII still defines the max depth human depravity has yet attained, and, too, was the only war in the twentieth century in which American participation was truly justified. We didn’t ‘do it’ all by ourselves, obviously, but because of our efforts in the Pacific we may have wound up being the functional tipping point.

              Unfortunately, it went to our heads and convinced far to many of us that we truly were god’s chosen people. All bunkum, of course, but still the world was better off without Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini.

              Today, however, we’ve squandered everything we earned and gained in the forties and currently seem to be on the verge of making waves only in the sewage plant.

              If only the human species could work its way up and come to amount to a tenth of what it sees itself to be, we’d have a chance. Maybe.

              I am, obviously, the eternal optimist.

  20. Life is funny. For some reason, my sister has decided that the spreading of the ashes of our parents over the property where my mother grew up is important. Problem is the people who actually own that land today have issues with that. Can’t say as I blame them but now they are talking about spreading the ashes (from my brother-in-law’s ultralight) in an area close to the property.

    What is this weird fixation over human remains?

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    • Sorry, that is funny. I’m picturing your b-i-l in his ultralight dumping ashes and the people below thinking, “WTF is that stuff falling from the sky?” Apologies, again. I don’t mean to disrespectful.

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      • No problem because I was wondering about them experiencing allergic reactions and going to the doctor and saying “Well, there were these human ashes…” Or, “Damn, I got someone in my eye.”

        Mostly just, excuse me, “Mom and Dad would not want to be irritating people.”

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    • Deeplly rooted in the unkown of the afterlife. We need or want to feel continuation with either interment or some other return to the soil.

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    • Four years after our father died, my brother and I decided (at 1 AM, after a night of drinking ) to spread his ashes – per his wishes, over the green of his favorite hole at his golf club. We bought a 12-pack of beer and went to my brother’s office to pick up the ashes, which my brother had put in a large pipe tobacco can, the last can of dad’s. After drinking a couple beers and smoking a couple joints we headed off to the golf club. We parked on the side of the road and climbed a fence to get in. We wandered around for a few minutes, toting the ashes and beer, not sure where we were on the course. Since dad’s wish was to spread his ashes on the green closest to the clubhouse bar where he had time to get a drink if he was on the green in 2, we realized it would be easier to find the green from the clubhouse. We located the green, spread the ashes and anointed them with a couple of fresh beers and some used ones too!

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  21. Yikes! 6 to 10 inches of heavy, wet snow is predicted for Saturday in the part of PA where I live. Some of the trees still have leaves and the prediction is power outages. Looks like I better fill up the water jugs tonight because I can’t run my generator while it is snowing outside. We have a well so water doesn’t flow freely without power.

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  22. We had a good snowfall on Wednesday, and all the remaining fall colors have disappeared. And so has most of the snow — it’s pushing seventy outside as I write this. Supposed to be a grand weekend, then another storm with more snow due in by Wednesday. As they say in Colorado, “If you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes and it’ll change.”

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    • Oh my… hope that means that we will be getting some warmer weather. I can remember winters where it was nasty cold and we would be ice skating at Christmas and then January came and the ice melted because the weather was warmer for the rest of the winter.

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    • Ya know, if America, the mighty bastion of freedom and equality, can’t get past bigotry, religious discrimination and class discrimination, just what does that say to the rest of the world?

      America is supposed to know better. We are supposed to be all growed up and have a lock on making the world a better place for all people to live. Heck, our armies are overseas selling democracy.

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    • Ahh, Mr Crockett of shit Keller…Hope your cert is pulled and you are forced to resort to teaching Aryan nation skinheads only. You’ll really like that they can only pay you in old tires and scrap metal stolen from junkyards, or their trailers.

      Shithead.

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  24. Against all odds, Crazy Shelly gets farther away from reality. She has not ever taken any responsibility for anything. I am convinced that she could be in a car accident resulting in all the doors being jammed and, when the rescuers cut her out of said car and she was discovered to be alone, she would claim someone else was driving. The scary part is that she would believe it.

    http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/132822678.html
    http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/132822678.html

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    • At the bottom of the Bachmann page was a link to a page filled with links to recent articles concerning a new Vikings stadium. I didn’t read the whole pile, but did learn enough to get the distinct impression that the NFL is strongly suggesting that if a new stadium doesn’t soon get underway the team just might leave and move to another city. All Minnesota needs to do is spend a billion bucks or so for new digs and all will be well.

      Reminds me of the days in Arizona ten or so years ago when the same crapola was going on in Phoenix. Build a new stadium else the Cardinals might leave. I was listening to a talk radio show one morning when the matter of where the new stadium should be built. A caller came up with the best suggestion ever: “San Antonio,” he said.

      If the Vikings want a new stadium, why don’t they build one themselves? If the NFL wants to help pay for it, that’d be ok. I mean they’re only talking about a billion bucks, after all. But to demand someone else do it? That’s just plain stupid.

      And what’s wrong with the Metrodome? What was wrong with Bloomington?

      I’d contact San Antonio if it were up to me.
      San Antonio might still be available. 😉

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  25. When one seeks answers, it is rude to not accept them. When one inquires, to not listen to the response negates the question. If the question is what is the sound of one hand clapping and one doesn’t have a hand is this beyond Buddha? If your heart has died and still beats does this mean the wisdom of the ages about hearts is a lie?

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