kbs2244 wrote:http://www.examiner.com/article/are-sec ... ts_article
Tribal warfare in the 21st century.
And the beat goes on.
This article explains very well my compliant about the whole “First Peoples” concept.
It is all about money. Lots of money. Tax free money. Non-audited money.
I have no racial complaint about “red men.”
(“Some of my best friends.” Etc, etc, etc.)
I know they were here before the European invasion.
But I also have no problem with the idea that they came from somewhere and inhabited N A.
And in doing so they wiped out their predecessors.
It was ands is the way of the world.
History is full of such things.
But that is not the story line.
If you do any kind of probing into the history of the Indian Casino industry it becomes apparent that the idea laying a huge “white guilt trip” on the American population was a way to get around the various anti-gamboling laws. Both Federal and State.
In brief:
It wasn’t even an Indian idea.
It was the brainstorm of two New York City Jews!
(My apologies to any who are of Hebrew decent.)
They were trying to figure out how to build a casino close to New York City, and came up with 2 ideas to say those laws didn’t apply to any Indian tribe owned land.
The first idea was that since the Government had so often violated the terms of the various treaties, the Indians were legally owed “payback.” It was a law based argument. They were owed compensation for the property the white man stole while breaking their own treaties and laws.
But, in a twist of fate, this was right at the time Jesse Jackson was trying to push the idea that all black Americans were owed “compensation” just for being here since they were not here of their own free will.
That idea was a colossal failure.
So our two fell back to Plan B.
When they went to the Rhode Island reservation to talk to the elders they pushed the “We were here first and you stole everything you have from us” theme.
They promised almost unlimited amounts of tribal income to be used for reservation schools, roads, etc. They would be “managing partners” of course.
With nothing to lose, the elders bought into the plan. They had to put up nothing but read some prepared statements and pose for some photo ops.
And the publicity campaign began.
It wasn’t long before some of the do good, social groups fell in line. And soon we all began to say “You know, they have a point. We do owe them something. And what is a casino going to cost us? Let them build one. If you don’t like gamboling just don’t go to it.”
And now we have the Indian Casino Industry. It is a billion (with a B) dollar a year industry.
It is outside all federal, state and local gamboling and auditing laws.
It is a corruption cancer in every local it is in.
(Have you checked the condition of any reservation schools lately?)
And it is all built on the “We were here first" fantasy.
Which brings us back to archeology.
The whole house of cards falls down if it can be shown that the current, favored, tribes were not actually the “first.”
The money tree is chopped down.
Archeology needs funding. Making a profit from it is frowned upon.
If you control the purse strings by threatening to withhold contributions to schools, foundations, politicians, whatever, that do not hold to that “we were here first” concept you then control the whole consensus.
Maintaining that money tree has set back North American archeology in the US and Canada at least 100 years.