A UN investigator has called on the US to give back land to native Americans.
Yes, some awful crappy things were done to indians in the formative years of the US. It was a raw deal.
When all the countries of the UN give back land that they obtained from people that had it before them, I will then consider the notion. And I’ll still probably laugh myself silly.
Anaya said Rosebud is an example where returning land taken by the US government could improve a tribe’s fortunes as well as contribute to a “process of reconciliation”.
Process of reconciliation?
Yeah, sort of like how affirmative action was going to fix everything?
Last month, the US justice and interior departments announced a $1 billion settlement over nearly 56 million acres of Indian land held in trust by Washington but exploited by commercial interests for timber, farming, mining and other uses with little benefit to the tribes.
The attorney general, Eric Holder, said the settlement “fairly and honourably resolves historical grievances over the accounting and management of tribal trust funds, trust lands and other non-monetary trust resources that, for far too long, have been a source of conflict between Indian tribes and the United States.”
But Anaya said that was only a step in the right direction.
It’s always only a step in the right direction.
“These are important steps but we’re talking about mismanagement by the government of assets that were left to indigenous peoples,” he said. “This money for the insults on top of the injury. It’s not money for the initial problem itself, which is the taking of vast territories. This is very important and I think the administration should be commended for moving forward to settle these claims but there are these deeper issues that need to be addressed.”
READ: Until someone gives us a sh*tload of land with lots and lots and lots of mineral resources and then pays us for all the wealth that was already taken out of the ground, we can’t move forward and begin to come together and heal.
Here’s a deeper issue to address… how about the rampant drug and alcohol problem? I’ve found that once those get cleaned up life gets immeasurably easier.
Yeah, they’ve caught a lot of sh*tty deals. It’s true. At what point though, do you sober up, pick up your testicles that the cocker spaniel is gnawing on, cauterize them back on, and go out there and get a real job with real degees and take over your life. Be a man.
Klamath region in Oregon gave lots of money to the Klamath Tribe and there were accounts of guys buying a new rig, getting liquored up, crashing the new rig, buying a new truck that same night and crashing it, too, for a second DUI.
Repeat after me – giving a society free money when they have not fixed the problems that really drug their society down in the first place is a waste of money.
I’m not one to take this stuff lightly. Having studied this in college at some length, it strikes a chord.
But the US government gave them the land and nation status they themselves wanted. They have the responsibility to make it work. Not the US. They also enjoy the benefits of being in this country, on top of the ones they have for their nation status.
We give them their land back, then what? What will they do with it?? They haven’t done anything with the land they DO have.
I have plenty of personal observations to add to that but cannot do so until tonight. There has been a startling lack of good judgment on the part of the tribes.
There is so much that is so wrong on all sides of this thing. Where does one even begin? The UN guy can go bugger himself.
Yes, this is wrong in so many dimensions it’s hyper-wrong.
I’m mostly against this except for a piece of land in NYC. I’d love to give that land back to the Indians.
I know this makes me a jerk, but the major thing we did wrong was make treaties we didn’t keep. We shouldn’t have made the treaties.
The American Indians here when we got here took the land by killing the people who were here before them.
Someone was going to get that land, stone age people weren’t going to keep it no matter what.
At least we didn’t eat them the way the Indians did.
Don’t stress it, veesh. It’s not your opinion that makes you a jerk.
Land, like any other commodity will be taken by someone else if they want it bad enough.