COBELL SETTLEMENT IS A FAIR AND JUST SETTLEMENT...IN LA LA LAND.

The Cobell Settlement is a fair settlement a just settlement, in LA LA Land. (la la land: A state of mind characterized by unrealistic expectations or a lack of seriousness.)

Recently Barack Obama, Black Eagle, made the statement that the Cobell settlement was fair and just. Some have said that he was mistaken. It couldn't be; he wouldn't say that to the Indian faces throughout all the land. "Someone" should tell him the truth. "Someone" should have told him that he might have been confusing a fair and just settlement to the African American Farmers with the pile o'crap being served to the people who collectively adopted him. There are as many reasons Indians adopt someone into their Nations as there are Indian Nations. One of those reasons is so that when Indians have a problem, the Indians and adoptees alike share in those problems now. "Someone" should have let him know that since he's been adopted, the Indians' problems are now "our" problems together, he and us.

In a recent Indian Country Today article Richard Monette offered an explanation for why Black Eagle would utter such an insult to Indian people in public: “He’s either being duped, or he doesn’t know, and someone is intentionally not letting him know.” "Someone" sure gets a lot of blame to chew on enit?

In the same article Kimberly Craven posits that maybe Black Eagle is "totally unaware" that thousands of Indians are opposed to the settlement, "or if he is, he obviously doesn't care." Let's hope that Barack Obama, our Black Eagle, is just unaware because otherwise the possibilties get more and more depressing.

There are obvious differences between Land-less Indians and large land-based-Indians, between D.C. Indians and reservation Indians, between assimilated Indians and traditional Indians. If you are from an Indian Nation with 16 whole acres to call your reservation, you will have different perspectives from large-land-based-Indians. If your Indian Nation's boundaries are encompassed within 16 acres or in some cases, even less, you won't have the same needs. Land-less Indians won't have 19 file cabinets full of land titles. Land-less Indians aren't wondering why surveys and maps designating treaty agreements were lost. Land-less Indians aren't wondering when cadastral survey corner markers will be replaced. Back in the day like around the early 1900s surveyors used posts to mark legal corners. By posts we don't mean they buried a fencepost. They buried a 16 inch piece of fir pine with a marker on top which was either plowed under, removed, lost in flooding, or rotted away. Now to establish cadastral surveys those corners have to be re-established. They aren't necessarily done by measurement; they are "legally interpreted" by people who may be STATE-elected officials who may or may not be collecting land information for their government's use. Land-less Indians aren't wondering why every single proof of land transactions were either destroyed, lost, or hidden away in a cave in Lenexa, KS. Not hidden? Try identifying which box the document is in, which book it's in, and the title of the document which has changed drastically over the years. Then try to identify how many tribes are in the same book or ledger and which tribe the entire ledger is filed under. Landless Indians don't have a plethora of cultural sites they work ceaselessly to protect. Land-less Indians won't have a fisheries department with 25 employees. They won't have a forestry department. Land-less Indians won't have hundreds of land leases to negotiate each year. Land-less Indians won't have to wonder why nobody seeks justice for the thousands of trespasses that occur daily on our reservations. They won't have the responsibility for supporting an entire government's infrastructure. And that is primary reason number one why the mis-informed and the land-less indians will gladly accept a pittance of $1000 dollars. Something out of nothing for them and a continued "status quo" of the lack of treatment our Native land issues.

But if you're an Oklahoma Indian with a law degree, by god, you must know what you're doing. If you're that big toe to President Obama on Indian Issues, surely you must have thought that throwing a mere pittance of $1000 dollars to every IIM account holder will not fix anything. Surely an Indian Advisor by now would have advised to provide true justice by providing for free Cadastral Surveys by objective surveyors with no conflict of interest, free appraisals by the same token, free N.E.P.A. evaluations, and funding to support a true lease compliance staff to recover millions in reparations every year from every single trespass onto our lands. Only then would you begin to discuss individual payments.

Black Eagle really is an advocate; it's just that he's advocating for a group of African American Farmers to receive a just and fair settlement of $48,500 dollars per farmer, while the Indian people he's been adopted by will receive $1000 per account holder and a bonus of $500 dollars depending on how much money you can prove the government had their hands on; all while Elouise Cobell and her lawyer buddies will walk away with 116 million dollars.

For those of you keeping track that means Native Americans will each receive 3% of what each of the African American Farmers will receive, except for Elouise and Company. Indians will receive 3% of what African American farmers will receive for not getting loans on land that used to be Indian land. Indians will receive 3% of what African American Farmers will receive for decades and generations of mismanagement of trust responsibilities and lost revenues.

It's hard to find anybody in the White Puzzle Palace, Non-Indian and Indian alike, who will understand the real fallacy with using the words just and fair when discussing the Cobell settlement. One would have thought that a large land-based-Indian tribal member would have understood but after the comments by Jodi Gillette at ATNI, one wonders if the leadership has stars in their eyes from a position in life or if they're the ones confused about what a rip off the Cobell settlement will be. Elouise cobell has a national spotlight and uses it with vigor to proudly proclaim the thousands of Indians in support of her settlement. The thousands of Indians who in reality don't support her cannot access the press with any effect to show their disapproval. When the Nez Perce Members who signed their letter of support of the settlement tried to have their names removed from the list, they were told there was no way to remove their names by one of the Cobell staff members. If the thousands of Indians who truly understand what trust responsibilities have been mismanaged cannot gain the support of President Obama, then perhaps Black Eagle will find he doesn't have the support of those same thousands of Indians. The realization may come as a surprise and too late for Black Eagle to recover from. Maybe that's what it will take for those in leadership to realize how many are opposed to the settlement.

Who's really in La La land? Those who argue for the settlement or those Indians who are waiting for a truly fair and just settlement to appear?