I just watched 20/20 on the children of the plains. Heartbreaking. Why can't malls and stores be

[mfcorey1]

built on Indian land? What regulations prevent that? It's insane that the first Americans are relegated to what is shown in special. If you have not watched it, you must.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/children-plains-poverty-14734536

[madokie]

1. The primary plan is to kill off all native Americans

by crook or by hook it matters not to them, them being the rich and the pukes

[KittyWampus]

8. Not "all". Those willing to play along with the casino boom are quite welcome

[Blue_In_AK]

14. As are Alaska's Native corporations

many of which are totally out of touch with the tribes.

[Lucky Luciano]

15. Alaska's Native corps? Are they run by natives in the oil indistry or something? nt

[Blue_In_AK]

19. The Native corporations were set up

through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 which was meant to satisfy all Native land and financial claims in Alaska, mostly so that the Pipeline could be constructed. If you look up ANCSA on Wikipedia, you can get some general background. The problem has come up because the Native corporations are CORPORATIONS and they don't always operate for the benefit of the Native people, who are more effectively represented by the tribes.

Here's an article I found that sets out the viewpoint of many Alaska Natives. http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=280

[mdmc]

2. I don't think MACYS would do well on the reservation

kr

[newfie11]

3. Stores and malls can be built on the rez

Towns like White Horse, Laplante, Timber Lake, Swiftbird, Blackfoot, Dupree, Isabel, Thunder Butte, Iron Lightning, Cherry Creek, Red Scaffold, Takini and Bridger, Eagle Butte, Green Grass, Sans Arc, Bear Creek are on the rez and do have stores. The problem in starting a business is vandalism and getting people to work (showing up on time).

There was a store opened up in Swiftbird but because of break-ins it shut down.

Another company was going to open up a hog processing plant but stopped because they could not find enough help.

I asked many times why the Lakota did not promote their reservation for tourist. I felt many people would love to see a real reservation (especially folks from out of America) and real Indians. The elders did not want that. The Lakota do not produce Jewelry like the Navajos to sell at roadside.

I have many Indian friends and have spend months on the SD reservations. These are a proud people and they know they have a problem. At one time ( on Pine Ridge rez) any drunk pregnant woman was to be jailed until after the baby was born. They are concerned about all the fetal alcohol syndrome going on.

There are kids in the 4th grade huffing. Crack is every where. I once ask an elderly woman why she didn't report someone to the police for crack. She replied the police are also using it.

I don't have a solution for the problems. It is of course the fault of our government for forcing these people to reservations.They own nothing. Property can be leased for 99 years but never owned (on Cheyenne River rez). Now generations have grown up in this environment. It is not just the Lakota. It also applies to many tribes. I am familiar with the Crow and Navajo.

[OneGrassRoot]

4. Thank you for sharing your insight. No words. :( n/t

[izquierdista]

5. Then there are small tribes in California

That don't even have enough tribal members to staff all the positions in their own casinos. They end up hiring lots and lots of non-tribe members to help them rake in millions of dollars. They also lease out some of their land on 99 year leases and get continuing royalties from all the hotels, condos, and housing developments that pop up. The only problems they have is where to invest all their cash.

There can't be anything genetic in why the Cauhilla are rich and the Lakota are destitute; it has to be 100% due to environmental factors. The real question is how can people create stable, prosperous communities without sitting on either oil or highly coveted real estate.

[truedelphi]

7. In recent history, the Lakota People have been offered some

Twenty billions of dollars for their land.

But they know money is not the solution.

The elders refused this money.

I think for one thing, that the entire genetic structure of the Native People is such that none of these people can flourish until they quit eating flour and sugar. These are foods that are ubiquitous in their diet, but before the White Humans arrived, the Native peoples lived on corn.

Over the last fifty years, the WIC programs sees to it that impoverished pregnant women can have free sacks of wheat to eat, along with government cheese.

Wheat is not something that their bodies can handle. They're in a low level state of pain to begin with, just on account of the fact that when a person's body cannot tolerate a substance it is constantly exposed to, pain is one result. So then you have an entire group of people who are prone to self medicating.

Switching to corn would probably no longer be the answer, as most of the American supply of corn is GM and is toxic also.

Then after the remedy is made in terms of a dietary shift, the Native peoples might be healthier and be able to deal with the other factor in their tendencies to addiction - the psychological factors of what has been done to them over the hundreds of years that the Tribal peoples had to deal with the white settlers.



.

[izquierdista]

10. Modern European diet is very nutrient dense

It's not just wheat, sugar, and cheese, it's everything. The result of thousands of years of agriculture is to select for low-fiber, nutrient rich plants that really pack on the weight. Add to that domesticated animals that have more body fat than wild game, and you are really in trouble. That is why people that are not too many generations removed from hunter-gatherer ancestors can easily become obese and develop diabetes.

Jared Diamond discusses this in his 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' as to why Europeans ended up conquering and colonizing wherever they went. The native peoples never defeated them, but the local environment might. Like in parts of east Africa, where they wanted to colonize, but their building settlements near sources of water did them in because of the endemic malaria.

[truedelphi]

11. I'll have to check out that book. Maybe the library has it.

I live in an area where the casinos are keeping the Native Americans here in Lake County quite affluent. Yet they still struggle with health issues such as obesity, and addiction.

I remember reading about a man who helped native Hawaiians deal with their addictions, and among the first thing he would do was to get them back on their more native diet, including poi.

His insistence on a return to the native diet worked, as his patients had a much lower rate of recidivism when it came to drug use. Once away from drugs, they stayed off of them.

It's also interesting to note that many of the various "air cleaning chems" advertiosed over the Tv bring about depression. Clear your shelves of Febreeze, Glade, Lysol, et al and then, you and your kids don't need to be on anti-anxiety and anti-drepression meds.

[Lucky Luciano]

13. Definitely get the book! I highly recommend it.

I bought it was once in an airplane terminal because it looked fascinating. I read the first 90 pages and stopped because onec I got home from the trip, I had to check back into reality and focus on work. I just read it last month after having it sit on my shelf for 4 years. A great book on so many levels.

[Lucky Luciano]

12. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant book.

I was disappointed that it was only 440 pages. I wanted more! I just read it last month on my 30 day hiatus aiting for my new job to start. I could have long discussions with people about all the interesting ideas in that book.

[Ezlivin]

16. Then don't miss his "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed."

It is an excellent follow-up.

[Lucky Luciano]

17. Ordering right now from Amazon

[Saving Hawaii]

22. Fuzzy wuzzy broke the square

[glinda]

6. It was also a problem when the Government forced Nat. Am. off their

lands in order to integrate because they then became separated fro their roots and culture. Our Government's record with Tribes is a total disgrace.

[JI7]

18. the tourism thing is a good idea, they can keep it controlled also

if they don't want too many coming in and it becoming like some park.

but i met a guy once from australia who had a daughter living here so he would visit her. but then he would go to south dakota or some other state and stay at reservations. i think he had become friends with the tribes though so it wasn't like a touristy thing where he paid to go there.

[TheWraith]

20. Indeed. Reservations are typically incredibly impoverished...

...and they have all the problems that come with that status, first and foremost with substance abuse. One might as well imagine a segment of inner city ghetto transported out into the countryside, where people are born, raised, and die in massive overwhelming poverty.

It's one of the reasons that there's such a fight between reservations and state governments over collecting things like cigarette taxes. Selling tax-free products, mostly to people coming in from outside, is one of the few businesses that can do well in that environment and provide for people.

[Selatius]

24. Maybe because too many of them feel like they have nothing to live for.

They learn their history early on growing up, and so they know from the beginning that for them they carry the tears of their forefathers. Their population having been decimated, their lands taken, their wealth pillaged, the fact that they have been relocated to a piece of land deemed by the federal government that conquered them--all of this can combine into a very disempowering sense of despair and hopelessness. Drugs and alcohol, therefore, are a form of escapism from the pain and sorrow.

[RebelOne]

9. I have always been enraged and heartbroken

over what the white man has done to the Native Americans. For one, giving them small pox laced blankets to hopefully eradicate entire tribes. And another example, tearing all the young children from their families and sending them to government schools. There is plenty more, so I could go on and on.

[Liberal_in_LA]

21. I saw this Friday. I loved the woman's response to hearing that other

Americans say to native Americans "why don't you just move". She replied that America is in recession, yet no one says "move to another country". awesome.

the documentary was heartbreaking. Especially the parts about alcohol - non indian stores on the edge of the dry reservation selling 4 million beers a year - beers with alcohol content of wine and flavored like "Joose". horrible.

[newfie11]

23. Yes, towns such as White Clay NE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2BwAjKRX3I