Indians & Other Things

[Sarah Supahan]

Perhaps many individual AND group responses to the NEWSPAPER is in
order. It is totally inappropriate, inaccurate and unacceptable.

Sarah


On Wednesday, November 5, 2003, at 06:25  AM, Bizzaro, Resa Crane wrote:

> 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
>