Indians & Other Things

[Bizzaro, Resa Crane]

Hi, everyone.  I've only skimmed the message below, but it makes me sad to
see such misinformation about us being published in newspapers ....
McLaughlin shows a total lack of knowledge about our (and his own) history.

Do we need to respond as a group to this kind of message, or should we
simply view Tom McLaughlin as an extremely misinformed person and ignore
him?

Resa

-----Original Message-----
From: Hishinlai' [mailto:fnkrs at UAF.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 7:37 PM
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Indians & Other Things


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