The native American and government services

"Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him had better take a much closer look at the American Indian." ~ Henry Ford

That quote is really inaccurate, and I don’t know if Ford said it,  but it has the right conclusion.

First.  The native Americans did not “let” the government take care of them. They lost the war, their land and their right to govern themselves except in very local, tribal issues. Some weren’t even allowed to keep their language, culture or schools.

Second.  What replaced their former culture and rights, many of which didn’t benefit everyone in their groups, like women, slaves, minorities, etc.,  was substandard and below what other Americans would have accepted if they were free.

Third.  Many accept the substandard land, housing, healthcare and schools they have today just to be left alone and live their own lives, but also they have a power structure that suits primarily their own leaders even if others don’t benefit. In their own areas, called “reservations,” they have their own criminal justice system—laws, police, courts, jails--with the highest rate of violence against women, domestic abuse and children in need of government assistance. 

Fourth.  American Indians who leave the reservation (my deceased brother-in-law is my example) have everything any other American has—good jobs, health care, families, nice middle class lifestyle, pension, church—yet love to “go home” for family events and gossip and special commemorative holidays.

Fifth.  Those who accept what the government offers do have cradle to grave health care and are among the lowest in health care standards of any group in the nation. When statistics are compiled, those who left the reservation, or never lived there at all (like my brother in law’s daughter who is 50%) are not separated out in to a different class, so they probably actually improve the data results because they are healthier with fewer lifestyle problems like alcoholism, abuse, smoking, STDs, poverty, etc.

Sixth. The 800+ recognized tribes didn’t choose to be wards of the government, they lost the battles and the war.  So why are so many Americans willingly trading their freedoms for a promise of security and health that will never materialize? Why are they flocking to Biden/Harris who promise them more government, more taxes, more deaths for their unborn generations, more foreign wars, less local control and more separating them into little groups based on differences in color and sex to weaken their resistance? 

Got me.  I just ask the questions.  I don’t have the answers.

Elizabeth Warren’s family lore

Even the MSM are commenting (gently) on Warren's claim to native ancestry, and her suggestion that she was given no advantage. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt--that she was just sharing family lore and in the mid-80s was completely unaware that minorities were in demand by colleges, HR, companies and honoraries. But the departments in those companies and colleges certainly knew it because they made those rules. And seeing those magic words on a registration or application certainly would have at least moved her up on the list assuming all else was equal.

I worked at Ohio State in the 80s and 90s and chatted with departmental faculty who were beating the bushes to find minorities (that's 1/32 to qualify and it's self-described) so they could be in good standing with university administration. And of course, the bigger and wealthier schools could offer the better financial package, and high school graduates were lured to an environment that guaranteed struggle and failure, whereas they might have succeeded in a different school. Minority women were a 2-fer and at interview time nearing graduation their dance cards would be full, while men languished hoping for even one interview. Of course, now 25-years later we pile category on category--first woman, first openly gay woman, first transwoman, first black transwoman, etc. A blonde, blue eyed, wealthy, privileged white woman is going to be disposable.

Removing the murals of Columbus at Notre Dame

It w as a bad week for Catholic education—teen boys at a Catholic high school have had their lives threatened after being accosted by both blacks and Indians,  and the most prestigious Catholic university was accused of racism, insensitivity, and worse because of murals.  We all know from the removal of the post Civil War statues of Confederate heroes, and removing the name of a modern day hero (Ben Carson) from a school because of his association with the President, that it won’t end here. Robert Royal comments:

“And there’s another side to this story [murals], because slavery and human sacrifice were common in the areas the Spaniards first explored. As Carlos Fuentes, a Mexican novelist and no great friend to Christianity, put it: “One can only imagine the astonishment of the hundreds and thousands of Indians who asked for baptism as they came to realize that they were being asked to adore a god who sacrificed himself for men instead of asking men to sacrifice themselves to gods.”

Still, I would not much defend those murals. They’re mediocre portrayals of a fantasy version of Columbus bringing the Faith to the New World. In purely historical terms, the cringing and humiliated Native Americans correspond to nothing.

My worry is that something larger is afoot.  Because if Notre Dame is going down this path, it might just as well also cover up all the crucifixes and depictions of Christ on campus. Because some might feel excluded and marginalized by them, in our current dispensation.

Jesus, after all, was a “homophobe” who warned, “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law.” (Matthew 5:17) The Mosaic Law calls homosexual acts an “abomination.” It also says “male and female he created them,” clearly the source of that widespread mental illness “transphobia.””

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2019/01/23/our-tribal-warfare/?

Native Americans and belief in lost tribes of Israel by American Jews

I’m not sure when I first heard of the Lost Tribes of Israel, it was years ago and never part of my faith tradition,  but I think it was in connection with the Mormons.  https://claudemariottini.com/2006/02/17/the-mormon-church-and-the-lost-tribes-of-israel/

This article at Jewish Learning traces the belief that Native Americans were descended from the Jews dispersed in the 8th century BC by the Assyrians to a 17th century Dutch Rabbi, Manasseh ben Israel who wrote The Hope of Israel (1650). https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/native-americans-jews-the-lost-tribes-episode/  The article doesn’t mention Mormons, but speculates what this belief did for both Christians and Jews.

“The Lost Tribe theory had significant symbolic stakes — for Jews, Christians and Native Americans. Linking America and its earliest inhabitants with the Bible and its theology, meant staking a claim on America–and championing God’s plan for the New World.”
Here’s a copy of the 1650 text in English. http://olivercowdery.com/texts/1650hope.htm

Elizabeth Warren’s heritage

 

I noticed one cable news channel was calling the President's tweets about her phony claim, "racist." What about her depiction of her own paternal grandparents as racists, giving them as the reason her parents eloped (supposedly because her mother was part Cherokee). Another "throw granny under the bus" Democrat story. Everyone has family stories and histories, passed down. We just don't get to check the box for special treatment intended for someone else.

The recipes Elizabeth Warren contributed to “Pow Wow Chow” were for Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing and Cold Omelets with Crab Meat and appear to be word for word copies of a French chef's design.  Didn’t another Democrat fake a recipe story?

Warren didn't claim native American heritage until about age 30 when she got a diversity appointment at Harvard. I don't even call it cultural appropriation--just gaming the system since universities and the federal government were playing that game to look good. ". . .for at least six straight years during Warren’s tenure, Harvard University reported in federally mandated diversity statistics that it had a Native American woman in its senior ranks at the law school. According to both Harvard officials and federal guidelines, those statistics are almost always based on the way employees describe themselves." (Boston Globe, 2012)

Conestoga trip, October 10

We had a great trip to Fort Ancient Earthworks and Nature Preserve to see the 2,000 year old, human-built earthen walls in the Little Miami River Valley with our Conestoga group (Ohio history). It is believed to be a sacred and ceremonial site, and was never a Fort, but got that name before people knew what it was. http://fortancient.org/

Then we went to Lebanon, OH to the famous Golden Lamb restaurant, had a wonderful meal, and visited the Harmon Museum and Art Gallery. https://www.harmonmuseumohio.org/

I haven’t downloaded photos yet, but I have a bunch!

What socialized medicine looks like

What you have to look forward to if the socialists like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders win in 2018: "Native Americans have received federally funded health care for decades. A series of treaties, court cases and acts passed by Congress requires that the government provide low-cost and, in many cases, free care to American Indians. The Indian Health Service (IHS) is charged with delivering that care." [IHS web site quote].

The per person cost is about 1/3 of what the other Americans spend, but is in line with Europe. Also, native Americans have a life expectancy 5.5 years less than all other Americans.

https://www.ihs.gov/newsroom/factsheets/disparities/

Woman of color is whiter than I am

"To the casual observer, [Elizabeth] Warren, now the Democrats' Senate candidate, might seem a 100 percent woman of non-color. She walks like a white, quacks like a white, looks whiter than white. She's the whitest white since Frosty the Snowman fell in a vat of Wite-Out. But she "self-identified" as Cherokee, so that makes her a "woman of color." "
Mark Steyn, Washington's Redskins, https://www.steynonline.com/8279/washington-redskin

Republicans need to work together--act like a Democrat

 Lots of rumbles out there.  Not only the RINOs, Tea Party and spineless in Congress, but all the talk show hosts and groups on the internet. We already have a lot of government "health care" which is insurance not care. Medicaid, Medicare. S-Chip, VA and BIA. 5 different systems for special needs, the poor, the elderly, children, veterans and American Indians. If you want to see how well total government take over of health works, look at BIA--cradle to grave care and the least healthy group in the U.S. There was no reason that in 2009 the Democrats couldn't have come up with a plan to assist or insist for that 15% that didn't have or didn't want or hadn't signed up for health insurance. Now that they've terrified the nation with lies that they will lose a (really bad) benefit, it's difficult to repeal and replace. The average voter/citizen isn't like Ayesha, informed and active. An ex-felon helped design it while in prison. It's tenacles are in every imaginable regulation and law. This will take time. Let the plan unfold. But we do need to get the sick and most vulnerable out of the ER and into the doctor's office. The Democrats in Congress will block anything--we shouldn't help them create chaos.

 Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) made incorrect assumptions according to Dr. Elaina George: "first, that having health insurance equals access to quality affordable healthcare; second, that central planning via government regulations and mandates could be used to control costs; and third, that the behavior of doctors and patients could be controlled by implementing rigid practice guidelines (i.e., value based medicine, care driven by algorithms instead of physician judgement) and increasingly shifting the cost of healthcare to patients leading them to self-ration by pricing them out respectively." If the Republicans can't change the philosophy behind the idea that government knows best, this will be hard to fix.

Blacks and police—the myths, memes, and mistakes

Police community relations? Black victims are more likely than white to report crime, and 91% report the police came within an hour. Such careful attention to the needs of the black community since the outcries of the 1980s has resulted in saving many lives--mostly young black men. It also resulted in many bad guys being taken off the street--which makes Eric Holder angry.

The group most likely to be victimized by crime are not blacks (32.9 per 1,000), but American Indians (56.8 per 1,000) who have cradle to grave government supervision, health care, social workers, special police, many transfer programs, and reparations who mainly reside on land away from other groups. Victims of crime, regardless of race, are usually poor and urban. The myths and memes spreading with the riots encouraged by the administration will only hurt the very people Democrats claim to care about most.

 http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/bvvc.pdf

When we finally have that “conversation” about race. . . let’s tell the whole story

I was probably in my 30s or 40s before I found out that before the Civil War freed blacks in the U.S. owned slaves. I don't recall that was covered in American history in high school or college. But it wasn't until Prof. Henry Gates (Obama's friend in Boston and PBS host) wrote about it, that I learned that free blacks owned slaves at a much higher rate than whites, something like 25% compared to about 1.5%. Some of course, bought their wives and children after they bought their own freedom, although those were still counted as slaves in the census.  But many owned large numbers and nice plantations that needed slave labor. Also, Gates reported that only a very small number of African slaves ever came to colonies that became the U.S.--most of the 10+ million went to South America or the Caribbean where they died in huge numbers and had to be replaced. Free American blacks were voting before the Revolution and most likely helped ratify the amendments and send the men to Congress. There were very wealthy free blacks who owned a lot of property as well as small businessmen and craftsmen of all manner of the arts in the South.

To sustain their economic activities, free people of color acquired increasing numbers of slaves. Urban artisans--carpenters, bricklayers, stonemasons, mechanics-purchased black apprentices, hod carriers, and helpers; merchants and business people bought haulers, carters, and stock boys; plantation owners purchased house servants, cooks, mechanics, and field hands. By 1830, approximately 1,556 free black masters in the Deep South owned a total of 7, 188 slaves. Representing about 42 percent of the black owners in the South, they owned 60 percent of the black-owned slaves. In the Charleston District, 407 owners held a total of 2, 195 slaves. In New Orleans, there were 753 free black owners, including 25 who owned at least 10 bondsmen and women and another 1 16 who owned between 5 and 9 slaves. Although some of these slaveholders owned members of their own families, or loved ones, unable to free them by law, in 8 rural Louisiana sugar and cotton parishes, 43 Creoles of color ( 1.2 percent of the black slaveholders in the South) owned a total of 1,327 blacks, or lout of 9 slaves owned by blacks. In St. John the Baptist Parish, 3 plantation owners held 139 blacks in bondage-an average of 46 slaves each; in Pointe Coupee Parish, 8 planters held 297 slaves, an average of 37 slaves each. In 1830, approximately lout of 4 free black families in the region was a slaveholder.  “Prosperous Blacks in the South, 1790-1880”

http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/L_Schweninger_Prosperous_1990.pdf

More recently, the Cherokee nation has expelled descendants of their black slaves which since the Civil War had been considered part of the nation according to a treaty they had with the U.S.  Before being forcibly removed to Oklahoma, over 7% of the Cherokees owned slaves--more than the whites in the same states and they took their slaves with them on the “trail of tears.” I suspect that the action had much more to do with money than racial animosity--there was a huge government settlement to be divided up a few years ago. Imagine thinking your family was Cherokee since 1866, and then you get exiled from the tribe over a few billion dollars.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-cherokees-one-nation-divisible-judge-will-decide-if-black-members-can-be-expelled/2014/05/06/8690e56c-d55e-11e3-aae8-c2d44bd79778_story.html

What this really shows is that slavery, which exists in larger numbers today than in the 18th century, is a human problem, not a white American problem.  Africans enslaved and sold people of other tribes, and the Arab Muslims were the middlemen to get them to the coast for the Europeans to sell.  Cherokees and other Indians had slaves long before the Europeans stepped ashore, and saw no problem in buying and selling black Africans.

http://ballandalus.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/trans-saharan-slave-trade-and-racism-in-the-arab-world/

http://randomthoughtsonhistory.blogspot.com/2014/04/just-finished-reading-black-property.html/

More lies about the Founders—left is working overtime

No, democracy wasn't invented by the Founding Fathers nor the indigenous peoples, who had many cultures and languages. They relied on many sources not only in Europe, but the Bible and all the way back to the Greeks and Romans. No one ever learned the nonsense of this straw man poster misinformation which first tells a lie, then reports to correct the lie. Also, we don't have a Democracy, we have a Republic. The Founders were brilliant men with flaws who knew they stood on the shoulder of giants. We have tiny shriveled gnomes today who don't think, plan or read history, whose ideas are rooted in Marxism and the divine right of kings.

Yes, the archives belong to the victors as we say in the library field, however, we are fortunate to have many original documents, although well hidden and disguised in government schools today. There was a real fascination with everything Indian if you check 19th sources. And if you go back to 16th and 17th c. sources, some Europeans were horrified by the behavior and culture they found--and obviously saw their own culture as superior (although not by our enlightened, humanist standards where we sacrifice the unborn for personal gain but not usually living children).

Indigenous peoples of what is now known as The United States of America

I'm waiting for those opportunists who think the word "Indian" or “tribe” is anachronistic, oppressive and racist to file a law suit against the federal government to change to “Pueblo-dwelling peoples” or “Navajo speaking people” or “indigenous peoples.”  Removing and updating government documents could employ a small army for years.  The word Indian appears in thousands of documents, even agency names like Bureau of Indian Affairs.  Just came across it in a gobble-de-gook summary of a section of the ACA aka Obamacare.

“With respect to the other seven exemptions, for reasons set forth below, we proposed that under the program provided for in section 1411(a)(4) of the Affordable Care Act, Exchanges would also issue certificates of exemption with respect to three additional categories (with exemptions also available through the tax filing process) based on membership in a health care sharing ministry, membership in an Indian tribe, and incarceration. In the four remaining exemption categories, however, we proposed that under the program established under section 1411(a)(4) of the Affordable Care Act, certificates would not be issued by Exchanges under section 1311(d)(4)(H) of the Affordable Care Act, and instead individuals would claim an exemption in one of those categories exclusively through the tax return filing process with the IRS.”  Federal Register July 1, 2013

“Dr. Michael Yellow Bird, Assistant Professor and Director of the Office for the Study of Indigenous Social and Cultural Justice in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas, considers both terms, American Indian and Native American, to be “oppressive, ‘counterfeit identities.’” He prefers the terms indigenous peoples or First Nations peoples to either American Indian or Native American.” http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nc-american-indians/5526

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/04/departments/native-names-interactive

And God forbid you should ever say “hold down the fort,” or “on the warpath” or “low man on the Totem pole” or “Indian style.”

Landmark $554 million settlement signed with Navajo Nation

The U.S. government has been bankrupting Indian nations for years through a bureaucracy that takes care of them cradle to grave. Native Americans who leave the reservation/tribe do just fine in income, careers and health. Not so those who live on the government teat. And it isn't just Bureau of Indian Affairs, it's also U.S. Department of Interior, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Education, and U.S. Department of Agriculture all of which have special and overlapping programs for native Americans. Their own schools, their own courts, their own police system, their own transportation and road system, their own child welfare agencies, their own medical service, plus all the foundations and charities that employ thousands "helping" the Indian. Truly, they are not treated like other Americans--they are over treated. And it hurts them, keeping them in child-like dependency, but with monetary gain for leaders and government employees.

“The $3.4 billion Cobell settlement, named for Elouise Cobell of Browning, Montana, resolves a class action lawsuit over billions of royalties lost from the accounts of individual Indians.”

http://www.nativetimes.com/index.php/news/federal/9470-payments-from-indian-trust-settlement-on-the-way

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865611873/Landmark-554-million-settlement-signed-between-feds-Navajo-Nation.html

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-holder-and-secretary-salazar-announce-1-billion-settlement-tribal-trust

Cradle to the grave health care

We already know what Obamacare looks like; the other first famiies have had it for years:

Native Americans have received federally funded health care for decades. A series of treaties, court cases and acts passed by Congress requires that the government provide low-cost and, in many cases, free care to American Indians. The Indian Health Service (IHS) is charged with delivering that care.

The IHS attempts to provide health care to American Indians and Alaska Natives in one of two ways. It runs 48 hospitals and 230 clinics for which it hires doctors, nurses, and staff and decides what services will be provided. Or it contracts with tribes under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act passed in 1975. In this case, the IHS provides funding for the tribe, which delivers health care to tribal members and makes its own decisions about what services to provide.

The IHS spends about $2,100 per Native American each year, which is considerably below the $6,000 spent per capita on health care across the U.S. But IHS spending per capita is about on par with Finland, Japan, Spain and other top 20 industrialized countries—countries that the Obama administration has said demonstrate that we can spend far less on health care and get better outcomes. In addition, IHS spending will go up by about $1 billion over the next year to reach a total of $4.5 billion by 2010. That includes a $454 million increase in its budget and another $500 million earmarked for the agency in the stimulus package.

Read more about IHS health care, "At Native Americans and the Public Option"

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New legislation on adoption and foster care

You probably didn't know that certain Americans have special protective laws for adoption applying only to them--Native Americans, aka American Indians. Now there will be more.

"Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) today introduced legislation that will provide Indian Tribes with the same direct access to federal funding for foster care and adoption services that states currently receive. The Tribal Foster Care and Adoption Act of 2007 will provide federal funding that will allow Native American Tribes to establish independent foster care and adoption programs." Native American Times

It seems that separating an Indian child/adult from his tribal heritage is a more painful injury than separating any other American--black, or Irish or German--from hers or his.