The one thing the people living onthe reservation have been denied is “Basic Property Ownership Rights” Stossle covered this on one of his shows. There is a tribe in Washington State that was denied federal tribal status a long time ago and they have Flourished! Because they stuck togetehr as a people and worked their butts off. Just down the road there is a federal reservation with some of the poorest native around. If you live on a reservation you cannot legally own any land or house, so why bother improving and taking pride in it?
I think the reservations should be dissolved and the land handed back to the tribes as private property to do with whatever they please. It is downright disturbing how much control the feds have over the reservations.
I live in the pacific northwest where tribes control a lot of the politics. They dictate environmental issues and build casinos and resorts at will, yet most of their tribal members live in squalor such as pictured about while white liberals seem to be at the top of their economic ladder as lawyers, managers, commissioners, etc..
I have been to Pine Ridge several times. Seeing the 3rd World here in America was quite a shock..
/johnny
That picture does not display poverty. It displays laziness. Just because one is poor, does not mean they have to be dirty...
My daughter and I just took a huge trip through the west. For days we passed clean friendly little prairie towns, endless farms, etc. Then we pulled into Pine Ridge. It looked like we had arrived 5 minutes after a shootout. As we pulled in from the south there were no less than 25 bodies, laying motionless on sidewalks, and even in the street.
Not dead, but drunk. We went out to Wounded Knee and were treated to nothing but more drunks who appeared like zombies, trying to sell trinkets and give grossly incorrect versions of history. It was as though you drove into a bad neighborhood of Atlanta and had people trying to beg money for telling you incorrect stories of the civil war.
We passed back through pine ridge to head to the Black Hills. Stopped for fuel. Walking into the gas station, avoided vomit on the ground. Saw more cops in Pine ridge than in the past 5 days combined. Trash everywhere, abandoned cars and buildings, etc. US Government buildings and propaganda signs were everywhere. The place was a hell hole.
My college age daughter and i discussed how the only difference from the rest of the midwest was that we had crossed into a city that has forsaken the concept of private ownership of property, and was now a socialist enclave. The US government plans and funds this “community”. James Watt was right, “If you want to see the failure of socialism, dont go to the USSR. Go to an indian reservation.”
Come on, lady - put down the ipod and clean your house and child. I do like the “Dump Daschle” sticker on the door, though.
Last year I was driving up I-90 in New York got off at Fredonia to go to Gowanda...
As I drove north along I think it was 62 I passed through miles of lovely vineyards and farms...
It was all Indian reseervation land...
Nice houses nice cars clean sober neatly dressed people...
The unPine Ridge...
As kids they and their dad lived on the reservation for years.
The things she remembers and shares about living conditions and situations are truly saddening. Her high school class of 1976 had 50 kids in the class. 40 of them are already dead or in a hospital. She says they would hold pow-wows with a fire and everything in the middle of their living room houses. Given to them BTW by the "benevolent government". In fact, they were given EVERYTHING except what they really needed-self worth.
In general, they appear to be a broken, beaten and hopeless people.
And we (USA) created it by our indifference and our guilt.