Indians & Other Things

[Hishinlai']

Is this for real? or am I over-reacting? If so, as a teacher, could you
imagine what he says to his students? Hishinlai'

By: Tom McLaughlin (printed in The Conway Daily Sun, Thursday, October 30,=
2003)

INDIANS AND CASINOS

Let's see if I understand this. They're legal for everybody in Nevada
and in New Jersey, but only Indians can open casinos in any other state.
What's up with that? Is it some form of Affirmative Action? Maine voters
must decide next week whether to allow Maine's Indians to open one here and=
the airways are full of ads trying to influence Maine voters on Question 3.=

Driving toward Portland, I see sign after sign imploring me "Vote Yes" or
"Vote No." Commercials on one side proclaim why a casino will be good for
Maine and the other side counters that it would not be good. Not one of the=
ads I've seen addresses the question of why only Indians can open a casino,=
or why they would even want to. We can only assume it's just for the money.=

[INDIANS WERE FULLY AS NASTY TO ONE ANOTHER AS EUROPEANS EVER WERE TO
THEM. THEY WEREN'T ALL TH E PEACE- LOVING TREE- HUGGERS DISNEY MOVIES
PORTRAY THEM TO BE.]

Every American has heard the story of how Indians were conquered and
robbed of their land by settlers from Europe. Less often told are stories
of how, before Europeans came to the Americas, Indian tribes had been
conquering and robbing each other constantly in the same ways. European
"tribes", if you will, could not out do Indian tribes for cruelty and
savagery. Indians were fully as nasty to one another as Europeans were to
them. They weren't all the peace-loving tree-huggers Disney movies portray
them to be. The story of who ended up controlling most of North and South
America is one of survival of the fittest. Europeans were simply stronger
than the strongest Indian tribes. Aside from that difference, the only
other distinction is that many descendants of Europeans who conquered
Indians have since been feeling guilty about what their remote ancestors
did. I've never read about any remorse to the Aztecs, the Incas, the
Comanche, the Iroquois, the Pequakets or any of their descendants felt
about massacring or torturing surrounding tribes and robbing them of their
lands. Do these formerly-dominant tribes have any reparations or giveback
programs that I'm unaware of? Please inform me if they do. Meanwhile, I'll
just assume that it's only modern, white, liberal Democrats who are so
wracked by guilt over the sins of their ancestors that they wish to force
the rest of us to make amends whether we want to or not.

Indians have ben exempt from some fish and game laws in several
states, but I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps they might be inclined to go
back to a hunting and gathering way of life if they could take deer and
trout out of season. It doesn't seem very likely though that they'll going
to Shaw's and Hannaford's any time soon. As a minority group, they have
among the highest rates of alcoholism and suicide in the country. That's
true at least for the ones who continue to live apart from mainstream
American society on reservations and nurse their victimhood. This, of
course, plays right into Democrat party politics. Victim groups have become=
the party base during the last few decades and it should come as no
surprise that outgoing President Clinton granted federal recognition to
several obscure Indian tribes that would then be able to apply for casino
licenses. Media coverage of these last-minute deals was thin because
attention was focused on Clinton's selling of presidential pardons and of
him and Hillary stealing furniture from the White House.

When I first moved to Maine back in the 70's, realtors told me that
people purchasing property in many parts of the state might not be able to
get clear title because of the Indian Land Claims case, which was pending
in the federal courts. Because Congress didn't approve a treaty negotiated
back in the 1790's, various tribes claimed they still owned vast tracts of
land in the state. It was eventually settled with the Indians receiving a
combination of millions in cash and several thousand acres of land. Thirty
years later, Indians still get a high rate of public assistance and this
doesn't make sense to me. If tribes claim to be sovereign nations within
the United States, how can they qualify for welfare programs? Should we
consider it foreign aid? Are they simultaneously citizens of the Abenaki
Nation and the United States? Whats going on? Would we let citizens of any
other foreign nation open casinos in the United States that would be
illegal for ordinary Americans to open?

Until I get answers to these questions, I intend to vote no on Question
3. (side note: Question 3 is "should gaming be allowed?")

Tom McLaughlin is a teacher who lives in Lovell, Maine. He can be reached=

at tommclaughlin at pivot.net