Violence of Savages and Savage Violence || State of the Tribes 2011, Part Two

©2011 Turtle Heart

(part two from the preceding post)

 Looking around the world…one sees a seeming endless succession of dictators murdering everybody in sight and lining their pockets with cash. The middle east “Arabian awakening”, sub-Sahara Africa, South America and near-Asian countries have hatched one murderous dictator after another. Long after the horrific Holocaust of the Jewish people, when world leaders swore it would never happen again, from Serbia to Syria who can count the murdered men, children, families and whole communities?

America has a “reservation” system where it has housed and effectively minimized and isolated nearly 2 million human beings. In the beginning they took away their clothing, footwear, hair, food, religion, language, freedom of movement, government and even the children (sent away to government academies). It is not as brutal as the new wave of dictators, it is more subtle and quiet. It is a population of human beings who do not have freedom, who do not have what you have, a people who see no open doors. American Indians (unlike blacks and women for example) are not even on so-called “affirmative action” lists.

American Indians, nevertheless populate every strata of American society. They have served as soldiers, astronauts, engineers, iron workers, doctors, lawyers, judges, government officials, indeed any profession you could name. People do their best to carry on, even under federal racial restrictions.

While tribes enjoy the unique and amusing status as “Sovereign Nations”, this profound opportunity has been manipulated to a crippling dependance on the federal government and isolation from banks, lines of credit, social services, public education, public health and all the other great services enjoyed by regular American Citizens. Most American Indian men have been arrested at least once by white police, so most of us have some experience with those government services.

Most American Indians know these terrible facts. They are a shadow that accompanies every  American Indian. Most of the rest of you have no idea, no idea at all. These shadows stand between every conversation we could possibly have on the subject of American Indian.

What is most savage is when captured, isolated, denied and minimized human beings begin to turn on themselves, destroy themselves. What is most savage is the silence, absolute ignorances (as in not knowing and not caring they do not know), and arrogance of bureaucracy. The national American character flaws are the root of what is savage…and lives are lost with every beat of every indifferent heart.

AmeriKa spends billions propping up dictators in the Middle East, wars of culture in two countries. AmeriKa is indebted to a brutal Chinese nation and is utterly dependent on the exploited labor and resources that country provides. It is governed by a complex council of corrupt and self-serving so-called politicians. It promotes democracy in countries like Iraq where it has transported cash by the metric ton to disappear inside corrupt Middle eastern administrators. Yet they can do nothing, in fact they do what amounts to nothing to help, assist, preserve or even protect American Indian elders, children and communities.

We can now add to this toxic portfolio of bad news the strange behavior of mostly white new age ghosts who believe they have found a new religion built upon the stolen bones dreams and songs of these same damaged and isolated American Indians….without their permission, consent or participation…..and there are millions who do this, making millions of dollars, filling up thousands of web pages and published toilet paper.

Perhaps my only point is that the reader try to know these things, the reality, the current reality.