Believe What You Like But Know What You Must

People are free to be consumed with contemplating their existence, their origins, the origins of the universe, supreme beings, controllers of destiny or anything else. But solving "the Great Mystery" is neither a requirement of being Ohnkwe Ohnwe nor does it provide a path to righteousness. I maintain that spirituality does not require faith or the leaps that faith requires but rather awareness. If it helps to believe that "God has a plan" and we just must have faith that "He" knows what "He" is doing, then walk that path. My interest is in taking the mystery out of life by pointing to the obvious that is ignored everyday in the midst of fanatical ideology and the sometimes not too subtle influences of promoting beliefs over knowledge. I have said it before: “beliefs are what you are told, knowledge is what you experience”. I support a culture that prepares us to receive knowledge and to live a life with purpose. I am certainly not suggesting there is only one way to do that.

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Thursday, March 11, 2010

The US Senate Passes the PACT Act

Well the "good ole boy's club" finally got it done. By unanimous consent, without a discussion, debate or even a comment of concern, the Senate managed to come to one voice on an issue they could all agree. Make no mistake about what they agreed upon because it wasn't underage smoking, it wasn't tax avoidance, it certainly wasn't concern about funding terrorism. What was stated clearly by this chamber, just as it was in the House, was that Native jobs, the economy of Native territories and in particular the private sector of Native lands mean shit to them. Anyone who believed for a second that representatives from New York could give a rat's ass about the Native People or Native communities that affect their districts should finally get the message; They don't! Schumer is a pompous ass who thinks he knows what is best for everyone which is really laughable since he doesn't care about anyone or anything but his camera time and air time. Gillibrand proved herself just as untouchable as Schumer and is so busy licking his boot heals that she can't make a decision for herself. Not to mention her ties to Philip Morris who practically wrote and paid for this legislation. On the House side is our old friend Brian Higgins. You remember him; he is the one who tried to apologize for voting against our businesses in the late 90's when he was a State Assemblyman. He told us he was new on the job and didn't read the bill back then. This time he votes for a Federal law to kill our businesses and then says he changed his mind when it is too late. When are we going to learn that these guys don't represent us. They don't even represent the non-natives who live around us; they get thrown aside with us. The Senators from New York might just as well call themselves the Senators from New York City. The rest of the State matters little to them. There are a few wealthy people scattered throughout the State that command a little attention but New York only matters when it is said twice; New York, New York. The House Representatives in our areas pay lip service to us but know their responsibility is to people like them; wealthy and white, not us. They don't mind posing for a picture with us, at least those of us that look like them, but they know we can't get them elected and once they are in only their own self destruction takes them out. You certainly won't hear any of these guys challenge a Peter King or any other down-State bigwig when they are accusing us of supporting terrorism or organized crime. This type of governance is based on posturing for the future not actually governing for the present. What ever current problems we have with the State or the Feds, these politicians know there is no future and certainly no benefit in going out on a limb for us. So when the PACT Act wipes out a couple of thousand jobs from our communities, many of them non-native jobs, they can just blame it on the recession and claim they had no idea their actions would cost jobs. We have plenty of non-native support in and around our communities but we must acknowledge when it comes to the State and Federal representatives; the lines have been clearly drawn. It is us against them!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Everyone should know that THE PACT ACT was on hold since December 2009 and could have been killed but thanks to Rob Porter, who helped get it passed, and the Seneca Nation councillors who were helpless, it went through. Now NY State will be on the TERRITORIES and controlling everything.

Anonymous said...

Yeah Rob sent an email to councilors saying that the only lawyer who was fighting this for the past year was a "snake oil salesman". Well snake oil got the businesses a year of operation.

Anonymous said...

WELL I FOR ONE WILL BE OUT OF A JOB I SAY FUCK THE GOVERNMENT

John Kane said...

Check out the "What Next" post and comments from last November. The bill was ready for passage back then. Only the health care reform battle allowed it to be put off. The reality is one senator held up the PACT Act until he was bought off on another piece of legislation. See http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-next.html

Anonymous said...

Yeah the Pact Act was ready to go through in December 2009 but a hold was put on it by 2 senators. The Seneca Nation lobbyists were supposed to be fighting this so how did it get that far to begin with? And one of the senators who dropped his hold last week was threatened by Big Tobacco. So as usual "dirty politics" and the Indians lose once again.

Jj said...

I am so sorry about this and so incredibly angry - for Native Americans and ALL Americans, quite frankly. This is going to kill so many honest jobs, cost us horrors in our postal service (what's left of it, that is), take away more freedom and just put another major bullet into the economy.

This gov't is totally against ALL American work and freedom and is on one hell of a path to America's financial ruin. I e-mailed my dufus senators (Kohl, Feingold) and got the "it will stop terrorists" line of BS.

The only things those bastards in DC do well is LIE, CHEAT & STEAL.