The Raw Story | Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US
The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday. “We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area [Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming] that encompasses our country are free to join us,” long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.
The Lakota are claiming that their treaties with the US government are essentially null, due to not being kept up by, ah, one of the parties involved.
The treaties signed with the United States are merely “worthless words on worthless paper,” the Lakota freedom activists say on their website. The treaties have been “repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life,” the reborn freedom movement says. Withdrawing from the treaties was entirely legal, Means said. “This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution,” which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land, he said. “It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent,” said Means.
That’s pretty awesome. And having lived in that part of America, let me be the first to say to my Lakota cousins: you’re welcome to it. Seriously. If you can reclaim your cultural heritage and get past the problems that reservation life has created for you…and also freak out all those toothless fucking inbred redneck bastards who dot that beautiful land with their trailer parks and copper mining pits…I will support you 100%. Hell, put the rednecks in reservations.
This is awesome. I’d actually like to see this happen, for real.
It’s not just the ‘toothless fucking inbred redneck bastards’ they have to get past, it’s those Gucci-loafered, Brooks Brothers-suited K Street lobbyists with cell phones growing out of their ears, ie., the true power establishment in this country.
Their new site was a bit difficult to find (hardly anyone is linking to it): http://www.lakotafreedom.com/
I want the Lakotas to succeed, but I sense this will end the same way the Branch-Davidians’ existence ended 🙁
Gomez, I wouldn’t be so sure. We’re not talking about a compound here. The territory is rather large: http://www.dickshovel.com/1868.html
And they don’t actually have to fort up and make this an armed resistance.
In fact, if they take a passive resistance approach (including things like human roadblocks to harass trucking and so on), then they can win even (or especially) if the National Guard (or better yet, Blackwater) gets sent in to garrison the reservations.
At the very least they ought to be able to wrangle a deal for their own state over the long term.
They can’t win because the US government will never let them win. The only benchmark for their success is global public opinion and the PR wars. If they can score points on that front, they can keep their cause alive symbolically, embarrass the hell out of the US government, keep themselves out of jail and sustain at least a semblance of self-government. And that’s about the best they can do.
Joe, I think you’re underestimating the potential for asymmetric media warfare, and their ability to drum up (pun intended) domestic support.
Heck, I bet they can get plenty of support (including financial) from urban anglos (and possibly Hispanics too, but I don’t have a good feel for that) just to piss off the rednecks Josh mentioned.
Mike, media warfare, definitely. If they went ahead and opened a tribal casino, they might have enough cash to mount a serious media effort, but it would have to be targeted globally. A website with streaming TV, a shortwave radio station, etc. might help.
Also, speaking of casinos, interestingly the World Trade Association just ruled that the US was unfairly discriminating against Antigua and Barbuda, for banning online gaming (while still allowing online wagering for horse races). The WTO fined US $21 million (granted, Antigua sued for $3.4 billion) — and, in lieu of assessing a fine directly from the US government, the WTO said that Antigua (and Antigua-based companies) can violate all US-owned copyrights for music, digital video, etc. up to that amount. I wonder if the Lakota could (1) open an online casino, using this decision as legal precedent, and dare the US authorities to shut it down — if not, they could appeal directly to the WTO and make a show of it; (2) bring a similar action against the US government, to the WTO, and see where it goes. I am not suggesting they do any of these things, these are just possible scenarios….