A friend of mine passed along an article to me that again highlighted for me just how bad the plight of Native Americans in the United States is these days. Its funny, because the day before Thanksgiving, the West Wing had a great storyline about this subject entitled "Indians in the Lobby". I haven't been able to catch The West Wing since then (grmbl, grmbl, screwing up my VCR), so I don't know if the storyline has been followed-up on, but it was nice to see the issue get some national attention. Native Americans are the most impoverished and most destitute people in this country, and really, there is no acceptable reason for it.
Personally, I would argue that maltreatment of the Native Americans is the biggest blot on American History after slavery. Unfortunately, a number of circumstances, like freaks of biology (the Natives got pummeled by smallpox, instead of the Natives having the immunity to the disease and the newcomers getting pummelled) has left not nearly as many Native Americans with us in the present day. Thus, without a powerful lobby - and electoral constituency - this issue has just sort of languished on the sidelines for decades upon decades while other problems are given much higher priority. If it were up to me - and it usually isn't - here's what I would propose, based on my own admittedly far-too-limited understanding of the situation: 1) Dismantle the Bureau of Indian Affairs - give the Indians ownership of all the reservations and all the resources and everything else. No more Uncle Fed holding things "in trust" for the 'savages.' 2) Dig up every old Treaty that we ever broke with the Native Americans and find some appropriate agreement with whatever surviving entity there is of the Treaty Parties to make a small token of compensation. 3) In addition, since full compensation is pretty much impossible at this point, the surviving Native American tribes will be offerred a one-time referrendum on independence. There will be no Statehood option, mind you (as that would be unconstitutional), but if they would like to part ways with the United States they shall have that option. It will then be up to the US to negotiate whatever settlement with them that might seem appropriate, perhaps as some sort of associated principality like Monaco - but if they want to go and take a seat at the UN General Assembly, then that is their right too. Moreover, not only would it be the right thing to do, but it would give us a hell of a lot of moral high ground in trying to get others to solve their problems, be they Albanians, Kurds, Papuans, Tibetans or Uighurs. So anyways here's the article, prepare to be depressed: http://www.indiantrust.org/clips.cfm?news_id=158 JDG P.S. I had a thought for a great alternative history story the other day. Let's say that the Native Americans had smallpox, but the Europeans did not. Fast-forward to the present day (a bizarrely different present-day to be sure - but you try to keep it roughly similar just for effect) and much of North America is the way Asia is now. There is an India-like former colony in the East (and a few others), some other Developing Former Colonies along the Pacific Cost, and the Rocky Mountains a mesh of basically tribal States. The story would follow a British special operations force that must navigate the area in an operation against terrorism...... :-) __________________________________________________________ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685 "Freedom itself was attacked today, and Freedom will be Defended." -U.S. President George W. Bush, 09/11/01
