MY Sovereignty is not YOUR American Dream

  

I often hear people say that standing on your birthright is too idealistic, to claim sovereignty sounds good but you can't defend yourselves with sovereignty; it won't hold up in court. I don't even know how to respond to this fully but let me start by saying this:

Sovereignty, our birthright, is not our defense; it is WHAT we defend! I don't fight for money or cigarettes or casinos. I fight for our right to live our lives and provide for our families and communities. I defend the right to speak and teach the truth. I defend our right to trade and work independent of state and federal regulations. I don't want to look for a loophole in state or federal regulations that a profitable Native business can slip through. I don't want to "smuggle" my belongings from territory to territory to trade with my relatives and the people I share 10,000 years of history with just because the recent occupiers of our lands protest it. I can also no longer allow a land we were once willing to share, be destroyed by those who never understood the concept.

My birthright was not stripped by the children who escaped the oppression of their parents. Time did not erase my sovereignty. I was not conquered nor was I bought and paid for. I did not pledge allegiance to your flag or to the republic for which it stood. Your courts did not and cannot make me theirs. Your legislatures cannot declare me one of them. No chief, no council, no president, no king, no state, no province and no nation can simply claim my birthright. My sovereignty comes from Creation. It doesn't come from a treaty, a handshake, a church, a crown or even a wampum belt. No army defends my right to speak or provides for my freedom. My freedom only ends when I stop defending it. And just because my defense may not appear to have held once, doesn't mean I won't defend it again and again. My freedom surely does not give me the right to infringe upon the freedoms of others but likewise nor can a foreign authority assume the just power to regulate the metes and bounds of my freedom. My freedom, my birthright and my sovereignty may be infringed upon but it is not lost until I say so. No "deal" from the past and none in the present or future can sell out the freedoms of others.

Nowhere in, what some call, “our original instructions" do the words "American Dream" appear. This is neither a part of our history nor our future. The pursuit of this fallacy is destructive. It includes greed, fraud, racism, exploitation, treason and the loss of everything that creation provides to us all at birth. It equates wealth with success. Wealth is determined by how many more THINGS can be accumulated or consumed by one man compared to his neighbor. Quality of life is replaced by quantity of things. The almost complete disregard for the toll of consumption on the planet, our neighbors, our friends and our families shows on the climate, in the suicides, the cases of depression and on the consumption of drugs and alcohol. The next shiny object is the pursuit; the gold, the diamonds, the boob jobs and blow jobs. Isn't that right, Columbus? Ain't that the truth Governor Spitzer? President Clinton? The American Dream is not in our vessel; it was placed in yours. It is not on our path; it is what leads us off it.

So the let the 44th Rahnatakaias (the Mohawk word for the US President, which means Town Destroyer) in Washington, and all those that will come after him, keep their "equal opportunity to pursue the American Dream" for the American dreamers. As Native people, we need to look to each other, not to defend our collective sovereignty but to defend our sovereignty collectively. No lawyer in any court; ours, theirs or the world’s, can do it. A birthright cannot be won in court. It was already awarded at birth; by Creation.

There have always been those of us carrying this message. Generation after generation has had true Warriors. The difference today is that in a world of Arab Springs and Red Winters, there is hope in resisting. We are not minorities clamoring for civil rights. We are sovereign Peoples on sovereign lands but we are also in every city, state and province. 

Federal Agents Raid a Seneca Business

Wednesday, shortly before 11am, 20-30 federal agents moved on to the Seneca territory of Cataraugus to arrest Will Parry and to search his home and business. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives came in en masse after a long undercover investigation that spanned from Kansas City, Missouri to the Native lands of the Seneca. Whether it is a coincidence that Parry was singled out in what many would perceive as a pretty brazen assault on a strong community of Senecas remains to be seen. Parry has had an on-going dispute with the Seneca Nation of Indians (SNI) business regulators and challenges the authority of their Import-Export Commission to tax and regulate Seneca businesses. With or without SNI approval or involvement the ATFE asserted federal authority/aggression over a Seneca man on Seneca soil. Will Parry is accused of violating a federal wire fraud and telecommunications statute in the purchase of cigarettes; not drug, guns or bombs: cigarettes. 

This raid constitutes the second armed act of aggression this year by federal authorities within sovereign Native lands of the Western Door of the Haudenosaunee. Early this year almost 100 federal agents raided several businesses on the territory of the Tonawanda Senecas. Most in this area can not remember a time when the federal government has taken such aggressive actions against Native people. Add to this heavy handed attempts by the IRS and the Treasury Department's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) agents to impose and collect income and "floor" taxes against individuals and tribal governments and the atmosphere is clearly unprecedented. 

A US President who spends millions on photo ops with "real Indians" and even has a Crow Indian name has signed several bills into law that killed thousands of jobs and businesses on Native lands and has TTB agents adding insult to that injury by attempting to impose millions of dollars in "floor tax" on those very businesses and others. There are some "BIA Indians" out west that will swear that Mr. Obama is the best president "Indians" have ever seen (of course that includes the Crow). In the lands of the Haudenosaunee the president is called Ranahtakaias. This name started with Washington and has been used for the 43 since. The "Town Destroyer" that now sits in the White House will almost certainly serve a second term before the 45th Rahnatakaias is served up and as such the question is: will he continue to violate the sovereignty of Native people?

This year also saw this Rahnatakaias tepidly endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). It wasn't a full endorsement but rather an endorsement for the "aspirations" of the Declaration (provided, of course, it doesn't conflict with US laws or undermine the current remedy for Native conflicts; US courts). So tepid or not, what does a Declaration signed by every nation of the UN mean? And  how can it be reconciled with the actions of this administration in DC? The question is not for the US courts but for the World. 

Many would offer a complete disconnect between this Rahnatakaias and the US Attorneys and federal agencies directly involved in the aggression. But that simply can't fly around here. This guy even has a Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs in the White House. In fact, he is on his second one; Jodi Gillette was appointed this year after Kimberly Teehee left the post. Surely White House Indians gotta help close that gap.

All said and done, Will Parry sits in chains today not sure what the future holds. These things never go well in court (that's their plan). Can it be pulled out? Perhaps. The two raids this year cannot be erased but the next one does not have to happen and the current charges don't need to be pursued. 

What is to make this stop? Time to get Jodi to put a bug in the ear of the 44th Rahnatakaias.