Wampum

I knew it was only a short time before we saw this genocidal sentiment, particularly in light of Democrats shunning us faster than Bush has Abramoff:

The Projects on the Prairie
By JOHN J. MILLER
January 27, 2006; Page W11

The fallout from the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal has all of Washington atwitter about congressional reform -- everything from proposals to restrict travel perks and lunches with lobbyists to a potential shakeup in the Republican House leadership.

A subtheme of the controversy involves not a shakeup but a shakedown -- of Indian tribes by Mr. Abramoff, who used casino cash to throw money around town as well as to line his own pockets richly. The common perception is that once again the white man has cheated the red man.

Perhaps a few expressions of sympathy are in order. Yet Indians would benefit much more from their own sweeping reforms. The Abramoff rip-off should be the least of their worries. The time has come to abolish reservations for the good of the people who live on them.

...

Professional victimologists offer no shortage of explanations for this miserable state of affairs, but most of their analysis boils down to a core grievance: The federal government stole land from the Indians by conquest and treaty. Although Indians once were able to obtain title to specific parcels within reservations, this practice ended in 1934 -- an act that essentially turned the reservations into not-so-little housing projects on the prairie.

...

Maybe we should give land back to the rez-dwellers, so that they may own private property the way other Americans do. Currently, the inability to put up land as collateral for personal mortgages and loans is a major obstacle to economic development. This problem is complicated by the fact that not all reservations have adopted uniform commercial codes or created court systems that are independent branches of tribal government -- the sorts of devices and institutions that give confidence to investors who might have the means to fund the small businesses that are the engines of rural economies.

Tribal ownership of the land is defended as the sine qua non of Indian sovereignty, which many activists regard as sacrosanct. It maintains the semifictional notion that the reservations are separate nations within the U.S. Although tribal members are American citizens, the reservations themselves are exempt from many federal and state laws. This is why so many Indian casinos have sprung up in areas that otherwise curb gambling.

Sovereignty also is understood as a form of cultural protectionism. Without it, goes the thinking, Indians eventually will follow the course of immigrant groups and assimilate into the great American melting pot. Intermarriage between Indians and non-Indians is pervasive, especially off the rez. More than half of all Indians already marry outside their race, according the Census. For racial purists who believe that the men and women of today's tribes should be preserved like frozen displays in natural-history museums, this is a tragedy akin to ethnic cleansing (albeit one based on love rather than hate).

...

Even if casino revenues were able to address these soul-crushing problems -- a doubtful proposition -- most reservations are too isolated geographically to profit from big-dollar gambling. Yet the rise of the casinos may help point the way forward: Their ability to flourish contradicts the tenured Marxists in ethnic-studies departments who claim that communitarian Indian cultures aren't compatible with market capitalism. After all, it takes entrepreneurship to run some of the world's biggest casinos...

Funny how in this entire article, Miller neglects to mention the Indian Trust Lands and the class-action lawsuit brought by Elouise Cobell on behalf of a half-million Indians. Guess the potential 100 billion dollars owed the tribes wouldn't make a dent in that crushing poverty, neh?

This comes out of the Wall Street Journal, the mouthpiece of the GOP and corporate America. If you now think that the Abramoff scandal still doesn't have everything to do with the Indian Trust Fund litigation, I have a bridge to sell you.

More: In case you thought it was a one-time fluke, check out former NM GOP chair John Dendahl's current screed, "Indian Sovereignty Has Outlived Its Usefulness".

[Note: The title of this post refers to Richard Drinnon's seminal work, Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building which I strongly recommend for American non-Indians as background on the history and significance of the tradition of "Indian Hating".]