Interviewer: Last year, President Clinton went out to the Pine Ridge reservation. Now, it's a year later: Has anything really changed, or was it just a photo-op?
Means: Of course it's a photo-op; A lame duck President always talks about Indian issues. The only one who didn't do it was Reagan. In fact, Reagan, when he was involved in talks with Gorbachev, he was telling Gorbachev about how now the Russian people can be now free like Americans. And Gorbachev asked Reagan about the American Indian problem, and Reagan told him "oh, they've been taken care of!"
Interviewer: I know you'd get rid of the BIA, but would you get rid of the reservation system (without moving American Indians off reservation land)?
Means: The Libertarian Party had a party platform that all claims by Indian people would be settled for existing government surplus land, and that would be the end of it; then they'd be on their own. We'd exist as sovereign nations, as protectorates of the United States government, but economically they'd be on their own. And, I pushed for that. And so all claims, all treaty violations would be taken care of, and there'd be no other recourse except in courts of law. Some would fail, some would succeed.
Interviewer: A good first step would be to give back all the National Forest and Parks.
Means: But......nothing's going to change for the Indian people, because the government has us exactly where they want us.
Interviewer: Passive.
Means: No, not passive; They have us impotent. They government has made us impotent. We have no recourse; The Constitution of the United States has never applied to Indians on their reservations -- period. So we have no rights in this country. We have rights as American citizens if we leave the reservation, but while we live on the reservation we have zero rights. So we have no place to go except the government! And Congress has the ultimate authority. Now, how would you like it if a committee of 535 looked after you, looked after your welfare? And, yet, you need a majority to decide on any one issue. The administration holds the power of life and death over you. The Secretary of the Interior is our god. Period. We'll never get rid of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The only way it'll happen is if the American people rise up and say "Hey: having a bureau of any kind of ethnic affairs is repugnant, it's anti-democratic, it is communistic." This is the only place where communism is successfully practiced in the world. Communism is alive and well on Indian reservations run by the United States government.
Interviewer: What needs to be done is the BIA needs to be made totally irrelevant -- I mean, it's already irrelevant -- but it needs to die a death at the hands of self-sufficient Indian nations.
Means: There were two men, and Peter MacDonald, who is Dineh and was leader of the Navajo for twenty years and Richard Real Bird, of the Crow, who were well on their way towards getting their nations economically independent.
Interviewer:
I remember that: The government had them put in prison --
Means: -- Exactly --
Interviewer: -- under trumped-up charges --
Means: -- Exactly. Charges that no government official, except an Indian, would ever go to prison for. How they nailed Peter MacDonald was a rental car his son rented that he signed for. He was a lawyer, a practicing attorney, but he spent thirteen years in prison.
Interviewer: Meanwhile, you have Hillary Clinton flying around, misappropriating Air Force One, campaigning for Senate. I'd like to end this interview with your thoughts on the future: In your book, you write that you agree with William Shirer that we are slowly moving towards a fascist state. Do you think it can be turned around?
Means: No. No, because the history of patriarchy flies in the face of it. I do not believe that power gives up anything without a struggle, like Frederick Douglass said. Never has, never will. The only chance is the Libertarian Party. A party of principle. Not a facsimile of the Demopublicans, which you symbolize when you're releasing the goddamn balloons at the convention hall, you know? That's such pure bullshit; it's sickening, it makes me want to throw up.
Interviewer: It looks like a low-budget dress-rehearsal for the Republican or Democrat conventions!
Means: But, that's why I joined the
Libertarian Party, to become a revolutionary. I believe in returning
back to where you began, which is individual liberty. They're trying
to get back to individual liberty and you can't do it by emulating the
Democrats and Republicans. That's what I see the Libertarian
Party as, as the revolutionary party.
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