Like Grass Before the Sickle

[JEB]

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2015/12/29/grass-sickle

by
Abby Zimet

December 29 marks the 125th anniversary of the Wounded Knee massacre, when soldiers from the U.S. 7th Cavalry gunned down almost 300 cold, hungry, unarmed Lakota Sioux men, women and children who had come together for a Ghost Dance. For days, the bodies of Chief Big Foot (Spotted Elk) and his band lay frozen in the snow; they were eventually buried in a rough mass grave. After decades of Native-American demands for an apology - during which time the massacre was consistently, insidiously dubbed a "battle" in U.S. history books - Congress expressed “deep regret to the Sioux people and in particular to the descendants of the victims and survivors of this terrible tragedy…” They declared the event a massacre, but declined to use the word "apology."

"I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from the high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream." - Black Elk.

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Please spend a few thoughtful moments at the link.
http://www.commondreams.org/further/2015/12/29/grass-sickle

[rwork]

1. Beautiful

words from Black Elk. Unbelievable suffering..

[JEB]

2. The book, BLACK ELK SPEAKS, by John G. Neihardt

is highly recommended. I read it as a teenager and it changed my view of the world for good.

[Octafish]

3. The Lakota Nation: Another Breakaway Republic

From Lies Of Our Times (November 1991, pp. 18-19):

The Lakota Nation: Another Breakaway Republic

by David Seals

from Lies of Our Times (c) 11/91

The Sioux Indians declared independence from the United States
this summer. They claimed as their ancient territory an area larger
than the Ukraine, based on 19th century strategic reduction Treaties
that were easily ratified by the Senate, signed by a lame-duck
President, and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1980.

National Noncoverage

Hardly a word of this historic disintegration of what NBC's
Tom Brokaw called "the only remaining superpower" escaped from the
media centers on the Coasts. The Black Hills bioregion deep in the
heartland of the U.S.A. received less attention from the media than
coal miners in Siberia. True, tanks were not shooting it out with
picturesque warriors on horseback, as they had back in 1973 at Wounded
Knee - which got extensive, if inaccurate, coverage in all the media.
This was a peaceful, spiritual Revolution, but no less broad-reaching
in its political and social implications than the AIM-FBI wars here in
the 1970s.

The local and regional media knew it was important. The Denver
Post ran a front-page headline on July 18: "Indians Reject U.S.,
Claim Half Of S.D." The Rapid City network affiliates billed it
as their top story for weeks, with hysterical headlines like
"Indians Taking Over!"

"Another Wounded Knee?" was a common parallel drawn by many in
the newsrooms and saloons of Deadwood and Mount Rushmore. Even
the staid Rapid City Journal, the only daily for 250 miles,
deigned to run a few front-pagers like "Indians Ask For Return Of
Bear Butte And The Black Hills."

Stories piled up on stories, only to be duly ignored by the
networks and wire services. At first, a group of Lakotas took a
few acres on their sacred mountain, Bear Butte, on the northern
edge of the Black Hills. There were only a few tipis and a couple
of families fed up with the starvation and alcoholic genocide on
the federally mandated reservations. Then a few more Indians
joined them, and set up a few more tipis, and took a few more
acres of private land. Tensions flared with the local non-Indian
"landowners."

For the Lakotas, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes of this upper plains
bioregion Bear Butte is a solemn place. It is where fasts and
vision quests are performed. The South Dakota State Parks agency
has taken it over. It is trying to make it a tourist attraction,
and is now charging admission. Even the illegal Bureau of Indian
Affairs Tribal Councils came out against the fees, and at least
one Tribal chairman asked South Dakota's Governor, George
Mickelson, to turn the management of these 1,800 acres over to
the Indians. The Governor said no.

An Indian-White "Reconciliation Council" erupted in anger over
the Governor's intransigence. More Indians moved onto Bear Butte,
explaining to startled TV reporters that "we might as well take
the mountain since the Governor won't even talk about it." The
Governor started calling the Chairmen "total failures" in their
economic and political management of hundreds of thousands of
acres of reservations in the state. They called him names back.
More Indians and others moved onto Bear Butte, still insisting
that no weapons were allowed and that they were there only to
pray and conduct ceremonies.

Escalating Conflict

The controversy escalated into a full-fledged
confrontation of grievances about those old dishonored treaties,
and ultimately a number of treaty council groups of elders worked
out a remarkable coalition - after decades of petty feuding and
family quarrels - and formed a National Provisional Government
headquartered at Bear Butte. On July 14, after weeks of meetings
and gatherings, coalition members all came together and held a
press conference announcing "total separation from the United
States." Then, in true guerrilla fashion, reminiscent of a
classic Crazy Horse tactic, everyone scattered out across the
prairie in four directions. By the next day, when the FBI and a
few reporters came around, the camp was deserted.

Worldwide Discussions

Indians everywhere on the 70 million acres of
their land are discussing this sovereign action and formulating
detailed plans for the renewal of their nation. Two elders flew
to the Hague in August to attend a General Assembly conference of
the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO). The
Guardian and the Independent in London covered the conference
with headlines like: "Shadow U.N. Attacks Use Of State Force."

Other alienated and "disenfranchised" nations like South
Molluccas and Tataristan and the Australian Aborigines are also
members of UNPO. The Mohawk Nation has joined UNPO and recognized
the Lakota Nation, as have native Hawaiians, Cherokees, the All
Pueblo Indian Council, and the First Nations of Canada.

The Lakotas are setting up their seven Council Fires and
Elder's Council as the National Provisional Government. They are
re-establishing their twelve warrior societies, seven advisory
committees to reform the educational and medical and environmental
crises wreaked by the totalitarian one-party capitalist State, forming
a Lakota Film Commission to make sure such travesties as Dances With
Wolves are never allowed here again, setting up a liquor embargo, and
issuing ID cards for all citizens of Lakota as their driver's licenses
and passports.

In true traditional fashion they are talking to all the
tiyospayes (extended families), clans, and headmen and women about the
details of this renewal. By next spring they will be back at Bear
Butte and in the Black Hills with much greater force and unity. They
have an emergency five-year economic redevelopment plan as part of an
ambitious 25-year plan. This is just the beginning. They know there
are years of struggle ahead. But they are deadly serious. They see
this as no more preposterous than what Lech Walesa dreamed about ten
years ago, or the Baltic leaders have said this past year.

Stay tuned for further developments, if you can find anybody
reporting it.

David Seals is a novelist, author of The Powwow Highway.

*****************

Lies of Our Times is a magazine of media criticism. "Our Times" are the
times we live in but also the words of the New York Times, the most
cited newsmedium in the U.S.
10 issues/yr, $24 : Institute for Media Analysis, 145 West 4th St,
New York, NY 10012

LOOT went bust, thanks to getting panned by TIME magazine back around then.