Raise ur hand if u consider urself 1% American, or 4/56% Connecticut.

Yes and no location location location has a great deal to do with it.Take First Nation Casinos the ones that do well are close to large populations. Many of the Nations who are not doing as well are in areas that there are few jobs.The real issue for those nations is how do they get jobs to come there.

MY Brother
If we make it difficult for them the fight will be longer. We must find a way that gives them an honorable way out.Our Nations have survived on little for decades.We can again I will take less to be free. I want my sons to visit the UN to see their Cherokee Nation delegate.I will only see the Cherokee Delegate through the eyes of the EAGLE.

I'm thinking you're not getting what I'm saying. This is nothing new but I will try again. I will preface this by saying that I am not at all talking about First Nations.

States have what is called "parallel sovereignty." They are governed by the larger Federal body and the combination of states makes up the NATION that we call the United States of America. We get to make a large portion of our own laws as long as they are legal under the "umbrella" (my term) of Federal law.

We, non-First Nation's people, are not citizens of our individual states. That amount of Sovereignty does not exist within the US and its 50 states. To compare one of your Nations with a State is erroneous because of this simple fact.

I am not a citizen of Washington. I am a citizen of the United States. You say you are a Citizen of Turtle Island ... is Turtle Island a Nation? The name confuses me as it just sounds like a geographical location.

I understand that you're contrasting what you're saying with what I'm saying. The fact that you are contrasting them means that they are not the same.

And now we've wandered even farther off track from what we were actually talking about.




I know that's how you feel about it. I also know that may be what it is like. That is not what I thought the intention was. I realize that you don't remember from day to day what we've talked about before which is why I tried to restate it. I'm not sure why you refuse to understand each and every time.

I thought the BIA was supposed to protect your Sovereignty. Like the NAACP does for colored people. Like the ACLU does for...whoever.

Wrong. Completely wrong.
You do not have a clue but seem to think you have some dog in the fight here?

I would assume you would be supportive of people taking charge of their lives. Am I wrong?

And why they have problems (those that do) has little to nothing to do with that Nation & most every thing to do with who took away their freedoms & and lied & swindle to this day.

I agree. Hopefully people will see this as a civil rights issue when they cannot see how it eventually is affecting them as well. Too deep to go into- but most people are slaves to big business & government without ever knowing it.

I'm not going to become involved in another conversation where you "prove" that I'm the bad guy and that doesn't have anything to do with straightforward facts I've presented in a genuine attempt to understand something else that you've said.

You've made it clear that if I don't agree with you and want to fight the same fight you're fighting that I'm not welcome here, so you win. I'll just shut my mouth about my beliefs. Congratulations and good luck.

I will continue conversing with those who wish to have dialogue instead of those who ask "if you don't want to agree with me, why are you talking to me?"

Perhaps you want me to apologize to you for trying to understand something you said, but I won't do it. I'll simply stop trying to understand. This is the fruit of your approach to people.

I don't believe you really are trying to understand. I think you have decided your own world set is correct & have really shut down your ability to understand. When it gets to that stage- I ask why someone continues to discuss something they really have no interest in trying to comprehend of another. If I'm wrong in this impression- I apologize.

No..I explained to you why I was still in the thread discussing. It was because you kept asking me things that had nothing to do with what I was talking about and I was answering you. I could just as easily turn this around and say that you "have decided your own world set is correct and have really shut down your ability to understand."

When was the last time you admitted to being wrong about something here? Are you right 100% of the time? This is not human.

What I was trying to clarify was how you legitimately see yourselves as sovereign nations when what you are does not fit that definition. Instead of getting an answer, I was asked a question in a rather accusatory way about helping you fight a fight that I don't believe in that was fashioned so that either I would kowtow and say "yes I will fight" or I'd look like an a** and say "no I won't fight."

I chose to answer honestly regardless of how it might make me look and the next thing I got after that was "why are you even in this thread if you aren't going to do what I think is right?" I'm paraphrasing of course but that's the gist. How would you have answered if the truth would have produced the same results? Would you have been truthful and waited for the deflection or would you have lied and said you agree when you don't just so the asker didn't think you had "decided your own world set is correct?" I think, knowing what I do of you, you'd have answered with the truth like I did and not worried if someone else thought you were wrong. So why am I getting called out and told I have shut down my ability to understand for doing the same thing? If, as you clearly suggest, you only want people in your thread who already think like you do, who exactly are you teaching? Those who already think like you do? That doesn't make any sense because if they already agree with you what are you trying to change in them?

It is this approach of yours that shuts down people's ability to understand. No one is going to listen to you or understand you if you only throw insult and accusations at them for disagreeing or asking questions. Period.

And you aren't trying to get me to understand anything, your interest only seems to be shaming me into saying I agree with you so that those who do will see how I am wrong in your eyes. That isn't teaching and you can't tell me you'd send your kids to a school that did to them what you do to others here when you're "schooling" them.

Anyway, I'm done. Ask whatever you want after this, I'm not replying.

This is better than what I normally get. Thank you.

If you read the treaty agreements between the usa & the separate First Nation's you will see that the emphasis is on equality. Something our individual First Nation's lived up to on their side (peace, sharing of resources, passage rights for the new usa etc). Once the powers tipped (First Nations no longer dominate & the usa getting hungry for everything not theirs) you will see that all treaties were made under force & while they were still being lived up to by the individual First Nations they were "to the treaty" violated by the usa & or her citizens. The authority & agreement still exist. We demand no more.

The BIA has squandered our resources & failed to provide any support that allows us to live up to our own standards.

Here is a good read about just this subject:

In assessing the results of "tribal sovereignty" at the close of the 20th century, Vine Deloria, Jr., and Clifford Lytle wrote, "Local institutions that served Indians were in a much stronger position even though they now resembled the local units of government that served other Americans and possessed little that was distinctly Indian. Indians themselves had assimilated to a significant degree...." This may be the ultimate irony, that "tribal sovereignty" could prove to be the vehicle for incorporating indigenous nations within the colonizers' civilization. It may also be true that the persistence of "tribal sovereignty" has kept alive the idea of local sovereignty, of "the people" as the ultimate source of legal authority.

The idea of indigenous sovereignty surfaced internationally and with intensity in the Draft United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, E/CN.4/Sub. 2/1994/56, issued in 1994 as a report to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. This document, which may eventually become the basis for an international protocol or convention, stirred up the ancient debates. The United States took an official position that the word "peoples" was inappropriate in a statement of "rights," because it implied group rights, which would threaten the sovereignty of states. The United States and others argued that "rights" adhere only to individuals, and that no group may be recognized as having any legal existence independent of a state. Indigenous nations, on the other hand, asserted that the Draft Declaration was meant to embody just such group rights, that these were essential for the survival of indigenous peoples worldwide. Struggles about indigenous sovereignty continue into the 21st century, on as grand a scale as in any other era.
https://www.umass.edu/legal/derrico/sovereignty.html

Also read this:
"Johnson v. McIntosh and Tee-Hit-Ton are both still considered valid precedents in U.S. law. Courts at all levels cite these decisions frequently. Most of the time nowadays, the courts do not elaborate on the underlying religious basis for these decisions. As Jeffers puts it, the names of the cases are now "a short-hand rationale for declaring that Native title to land was inferior to that of European title."

It would be embarrassing today for the colonial powers and their descendants in the various nation states of the world to talk openly about the religious basis of laws regarding Native Nations. This is not to say there aren't people who embrace religion in government (from Zionists to Evangelical Christians to Islamist political parties); but it is to say that the formal position of member states of the United Nations is now generally cleansed of such rhetoric."

The forthcoming Permanent Forum Study will raise the rhetorical stakes of international discourse about Native peoples to the highest level in 500 years. This is an opportunity and a challenge. The Study's repeated references to "redress" might just mean "new clothes" for an old doctrine; such redecoration can only be prevented if references to "self-government," "control of lands," and other aspects of "effective sovereignty" are grasped and emphasized.


Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/03/20/un-permanent-forum-raises-stakes-christian-discovery-doctrine?page=0%2C1