An "amootment" of sorts!

Ok,
I have been following this issue on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation with some excitement. It matters because I side with those who believe that this is a matter for corporate money or dirty per caps. Dirty per caps are those that corporate people offer up to the poorest people to give the smallest amount possible to take the greatest amount from those who need it the most.
I have followed the coal bed methane issue for a while now and I am convinced that it is just as dangerous as the faulty software that predicted that the National Nuclear Waste dump would be a safe facility. The problem in that scenario was that the software only projected 50 years out. That did not endear me to the EPA when I applied for a job there out of college, but you know I really didn't care. And I still don't. If I have an opinion, then you can be assured that it has been forged from my exposure on a daily basis to those who, daily, have unmet needs the most.

So why would I form an opinion on the matter? Well, I can remember very vividly a man speaking to me about the policy for land acquisition. The position was that the government through BLM and BIA, and various other agencies, departments, cabinets, and legislation is in a position to continually keep the reservations in a poor state of affairs. The reasoning behind that was to continually keep offering the lowest deals to the people with the highest needs to gain the most beneficial returns because they are indeed the poorest people in the United States.
Beneficial was to the corporations who made the deals while the government winked an eye toward nefarious deals.

It has some history going way back. You know that the Black Hills were part of the reservation dontcha? Well very few of you will know that the generals in the army at the time were communicating with the president asking if they should wink a knowing eye toward the miners, the mining scouts, the railroad surveyors--all the people who were trespassing in the Black Hills. And we all know the results. Now the Black Hills is purported to have been bought by the Government from the Indian Nations. No money has been accepted, from some of the poorest people on this soil called the United States.

I would hope that the Northern Cheyenne people and all tribes rally behind the "supposedly ousted," legally elected Tribal President, Eugene Little Coyote. There is an interesting article on his site The New Front Line that calls all tribes to unity. There is also an article where one of our dubious leaders in the BIA, Carl Artman, seems to refute his whole argument which fueled the incident even more. He uses "mootment" as a term that seems to be serious although the result is anything but serious.

And we all here on this blog know that "results is what matters!"

I would hope that the Northern Cheyenne reach the most beneficial use of their land, no matter the cost. I won't say what the most beneficial use will be, because that really is best left to them. And the Bureau of Indian Affairs had best not make the MOOTSTAKE of interfering with the sovereignty of the Northern Cheyenne. Lets hope it works out for the best for those people and all of Indian Country.

I would encourage everybody to read up on this issue and decide for yourselves whether joining the amicus brief would be a vote for tribal sovereignty everywhere.