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 The cover of Newsletter N.3
Why Obama is the world's choice
Creole Cuisine
Why OBAMA!
 Random notes on an election in ...
What Obama means to Kenyans
Revolutionary song
Another train ride
Obama, yes you can!
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RANDOM NOTES ON AN ELECTION IN NOVEMBER 2008
I grew up on the Cheyenne Arapaho reserve in Oklahoma. During that time,1940s and 1950s, my people lived in semi-autonomy mainly because we had no public or political face. We also stayed basically by ourselves as did most of the other 35 tribal nations in the state. Our history as a people after the invasion of the white man and their insistence on Manifest Destiny is a reflection of how most tribal peoples were treated and are treated today.
One of the exceptions being that the first invader soldiers of the U.S. cavalry were not white men. The first troops sent against my people were black. Ultimately they would be called buffalo soldiers, glorified even in song by Bob Marley. We also gave them a name, mohgda veho (black white man). In the small towns around my reserve it was common that in the restaurants and public places there were often signs proclaiming “NO INDIANS ALLOWED”.
In public bathrooms and drinking fountains it was common to see signs reading whites or blacks only. So my early personal experience was one of confusion regarding these issues and today find myself inbued with a sense of cultural isolation from the majority of both blacks and white persons in America. Though I have come to learn that of the many indigenous cultures of the world we constitute many colours of skin. Barack Obama is a fresh voice in the conversation on the American political scene.
McCain is old guard and walks in the hawkish footprints of G.W. Bush and Presidents like him all the way to George Washington. The tribes in America are split as to who to support in the Presidential election since we constitute membership in both parties including the independent parties. This brief overview hopefully will establish the approach to this essay, over the course of a few days, has taken. Though the pre-election information highway is more than filled with daily observations and information.
“An empire in October will still be an empire next January. We will have continuity”.
Alexander Cockburn
Counterpunch magazine
October,08
Joe Biden the Democratic Vice- Presidential candidate has predicted a generated international crisis, to test the mettle of Barack Obama, when and if Obama wins the Presidential election. When JFK was worried that his mettle was being tested, we got the Berlin crisis of 1961, which put us at the gates of World War III. That Obama inherits a grossly failed Bush Presidency is common knowledge. Though Obama has aided or been an agent in many of the past debacles by the present Administration. There is a well mannered journalistic silence about Obama’s call for a 90,000 increase in the Armed Forces his endorsement for, at least he can pronounce it, nuclear power, warrantless wire tapping, real I. D.( computer chipped drivers licenses etc.) ,and a dubious connection to bankers and the Israeli lobby.
John McCain looks increasingly like a testy, cantankerous old man. Dwindling numbers of supporters call him “feisty” while everyone else, including the numerous “swing voters”, merely find him disagreeable and annoying. With rumours flying that McCain’s cancer may not be in remission, and if elected and for reasons of health and or age he has to relinquish his Presidency. Into whose hands would the power fall.
Palin is an anti-science creationist and oil industry sycophant who believes God, Manifest Destiny again, wants all manner of fossil-fuel development to carry forward in her state. She supports oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge and Alaska’s off-shore region where the Unipiat, who are fighting this action, and other tribes have lived for centuries. This region if drilling occurs will be a dead zone and the whales, polar bear and other arctic wildlife will simply disappear forever.
In an interview with CNBC, Palin also enthused how “There’s millions of cubic feet of natural gas that need to be tapped known reserves of natural gas on the north slope. She does not believe climate change is due to man’s intervention with nature. “I’m not going to solely blame all of man’s activities on changes in climate because the worlds weather patterns are cyclical, and over history we have seen changes there. But it kinda doesn’t matter at this point in the debate what caused it”. But as U. S. News & World report blogger Maura Judkis points out: “Well it kinda does matter. Because knowing and caring about the cause of a problem help us determine the solution-whether its climate change or anything else that affects our country”. To be realistic in these last days before the election, given the swing toward Obama, I would place my money on Obama. Yet we must remember that he is a Democrat whose party only a few years ago was described by the author Norman Mailor as reminiscent of “old hotel furniture”. Obama’s decision to support with McCain the 700 billion bailout bill, which rewarded the greedy, scheming, and powerful (and contained no new regulation or punishment provisions) while ignoring the millions of financially suffering tax payers.
This movement enjoyed overwhelming bi-partisan support in Congress. Which leads us to ask if someone hired a hit-man, then claimed to be against homicide, would anyone take them seriously. Not to be overlooked are the other huge issues that reveal the Democratic nominee to be more “two party team player” than “agent of change”. He opted for unlimited private campaign funding over the regulated public funding rule established in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal future Democratic and Republican candidates alike will surely follow Obama’s lead. Senator Obama supported both extending the anti-citizen/ pro authoritarian state-clamp down Patriot Act, and giving immunity to telecommunications corporations like AT&T and Verizon that may prove to have been agents in unconstitutional spying on American citizens.
Today’s average C.E.O. from a Fortune 500 company makes 364 times an average workers pay.
In no city or county in the entire USA can a full-time worker who earns a minimum wage afford even a one bedroom apartment. Over 100,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. Approximately 18 percent of the adult homeless population are veterans.
For Native Americans Obama has promised a seat on his senior advisory board. He has stated that he believes treaty agreements are paramount law. He agrees to honour treaty agreements and that no Native American will fall into homelessness. He promises if elected a Tribal nation to nation agreement with his administration.
These are promises we have heard before. For any of the promises to be fulfilled the U.S. constitution would have to be rewritten and nearly the whole of America’s land returned to the Indigenous Peoples. My Grandparents always told me to dream big. And that ceremony and prayer were the foundations of life. As the world move closer to human oblivion the issue of world war or world peace are the truths I would ask you to consider. World war or world peace is the blunt choice that will face either Obama or McCain on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. For a major eruption of violence to be averted, the new President must deal positively with the reappearance of Russia on the world stage, the emergence of China as an economic force, and the hopes and dreams of all the peoples on earth for a decent and secure way of life.
Lance Henson
Cheyenne Nation of Oklahoma
October 29, 2008
Source Materials:
COUNTERPUNCH MAGAZINE,THE DISSIDENT VOICE,NARCO NEWS
/www.counterpunch.org
Lance Henson
Tsistsistas Dog Soldier
Tsistsistas Nation of Oklahoma
October 27,2008
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Newsletter N.1 English Version