ANNA MAE AQUASH 33/WOMEN RULE/ PEDRO BISSONETTE
All excerpts are in italics and are from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
I was driving down the road yesterday when I spotted Willy Whitefeather walking so I slammed on my breaks and rolled down my window. I was glad for it. I haven’t seen Willy in well over a year. I needed the boost of positive energy. He is the most positive person I have ever met without being clueless. I need to do another post on him this weekend. I was glad to be reminded about his Hopi? Cherokee?? story about the return of the black widow when the balance of the power is restored to women.
I was avoiding doing this post because I was distracted and had nothing to say so I sat down just to type the story of Pedro Bissonette. But Steve Hendricks wrote these paragraphs about women that made me think of the black widows in Willy’s story.
On Pine Ridge, men who disagreed with Dick Wilson tended to do so quietly, his goons being a convincing deterrent to clamor. It was therefore mostly to women who picketed the tribal buildings and filed complaints and prodded their their fellow Oglalas to plot at Calico Hall. Whether women were less harassed by the goons or simply less cowed was an open question, even among themselves.
..politics among the Oglalas had long been a male domain, at least on the surface, and feminism had pierced the domain only so far by the 1970′s The women who nourished the rebellion thought, probably rightly, that men would not join the struggle if only women led. At one of the meetings before Wounded Knee was seized, Ellen Moves Camp,one of the fiery female leaders,demanded of the crowd at Calico Hall, “Where are all our men?!”
Photo: Anne Pearse HockerOne hollered back, “I’m right here”; this was Pedro Aloysius Bissonette, and it was not an empty boast.
This came from a website called FIND A GRAVE which has a page dedicated to him.
Bissonette…was a co-founder of the Oglala Sioux Civil rights Organization and a frequent, voluble, and seemingly fearless detractor of Wilson. When Wounded Knee was seized, he was the only resident of Pine ridge to join the rebel’s ruling junta. On the night of October 17, 1973, five months after wounded Knee fell, he was driving toward the town of Pine Ridge from the when a pair of BIA policemen who had a warrant for his arrest saw his car and followed him. Bissonette turned of the highway, drove forty or fifty feet down a dirt road, and stopped.
There are different versions of this story that Steve Hendricks writes about but I am just going to relay the story that Hendricks believes is accurate. Apparently Bissonette had done quite a few good deeds and also had accumulated quite a few arrests for brawling and other indiscretions…
...after Wounded Knee, the indictments assumed unusual importance. The greatest of the charges was assault on a federal officer; its origins were tangled. some months before the assault, Theresa Perkins put a bullet into Bissonette’s breast, narrowly missing his heart. Perkins was apparently angry over his attentions to other women. Bissonette recovered, refused to press charges, and tried to reconcile with her. but the reconciliation went poorly. In his version of events, when it seemed she was reaching for a gun to shoot him again, he backhanded her and broke her jaw. She was not as shy as he about prosecuting.
Why is it so hard for people to stay out of bad relationships?? That could be a whole different blog. Love and abuse: one has nothing to do with the other.
So they issue a warrant he went to the station and threatened the officers into dropping the complaint then he punched a welfare worker who had denied benefits to one of his friends. BIA police stop him the next night and he asks the police if he can turn himself in the next day because he has some whites to take care of….The police say no and he calls them Uncle Tomahawks (that’s funny!) They arrested his friend Poker who was with him. Bissonette jumps in a car and pins one of the officers against the car cracking a vertebrae. The next day Bissonette turns himself in and makes bond…and where does he go??? to his Mother’s??? no he goes to his girlfriend’s house. But some people like drama. Me? I don’t tolerate it in my life for any length of time. It is an addiction…just a chemical that the brain produces and when you don’t have a drama you go into withdrawal and you create another.
He made bond quickly, but again he fought with Theresa Perkins, again was arrested, and again was released. All the while he was leading the resistance to Dick Wilson.
The government charges Bissonnette with a bunch of crimes he is defended by a lawyer by the name of Robert Warder. Warder wanted him to get a psychiatric evaluation but Bissonette refused. Then his lawyer brokered a deal if he would testify against Banks and Means. Bissonette refused. He asked for a new lawyer but the judge refused so when the trial started Bissonette turned his back to Warder and the rest of the defense and remained in that posture for the rest of the trial. (That was clever and funny!) WKLDOC appealed the judge’s decision to let them represent Bissonette and the judge eventually let all the charges drop. Can you imagine these judges back then just going hog wild with power over minorities? People they just don’t like?
On a late September day in 1973, four months after his trial, Bissonette allegedly fired a shot over the heads of goons in Whiteclay, Nebraska, a village just south of Pine Ridge consisting of little more than bars for liquoring the residents of the dry reservation.
After the warrant was issued, Bissonette fled Pine Ridge….But the police discovered his whereabouts when he made a phone call to Dennis Banks, whose line was tapped, and a friendly tribal judge tipped Bissonette that the police were coming for him. He fled again, this time for Colorado. But as he drove south from Montana, he decided he didn’t want to live on the lam, and so, on the night of October 16, he drove back to Pine Ridge.
Later that day Bissonette had a run-in with the police, a prelude to his final encounter that night. Three decades later the FBI still refuses to release key documents about the encounter or the names of the witnesses to it, so much remains unknown.
What is known is that at half past three in the afternoon, Bissonette picked up a hitchhiker near the town of Pine ridge and drove her to a homestead north of town. shortly before they entered the homestead, Bissonette noticed that a BIA police car following him. He turned into the long driveway of the homestead, and the police car followed a respectful distance behind. He stopped the car at the house, told his hitchhiker to take cover, and stepped out with a rifle. The two BIA officers inside the police car later said that Bissionette pointed dhis rifle at them, but as there were children and other innocents outside the house, they decided to U-turn and wait for Bissonette back at the highway. When they did so, Bissonette fired a shot at them, which encouraged them in their retreat. a few minutes later Bissonette came racing by them onto the highway and, after passing a bus…..got away.
A search for Bissonette was called and not successful. At dark it was called off.
By one account, the officers were instructed to shoot to kill. The entire episode, if true, made the fatal shooting that night much more understandable.
THE ENDURANCE AND WHALES
I watched the documentary on the ENDURANCE last night it was inspiring! That all of those men survived working together because they had a strong positive leader. I hate being cold so it was particularly fascinating to me. It is such an amazing story.
The video of the icebergs is so beautiful hard to imagine it can be so destructive. You can watch the whole movie on Youtube.
It reminded me of reading AHAB’S WIFE by Sena Jeter Nauslund a few years ago and that is such an excellent book it inspired me to read MOBY DICK by Herman Melville which was also a good book! However I didn’t like the story being interrupted by the encyclopedia of whales…..I did learn a lot about whales from it though. After that I picked up THE HEART OF THE SEA by Nathaniel Philbrick, about the whaling ship the ESSEX. At that time I was fascinated with Whales and started painting them. A lot of them but I only have one photograph of the paintings. I either sold them or gave them away. Even more primitive than my paintings now. Damn I just got to thinking it was over six years ago…..time is flying!!!
WHALE FROM ABOUT SIX OR SEVEN YEARS AGO
I also did an art quilt with a whale.
MOBY DICK
I painted chenille and what a bitch to quilt!!! with metallic silver embroidery thread no less. Went through several needles and had to use one of those rubber grippers to pull the needle through. I thought I had finished it but the whale is put on with a sort of applique and trapunto mix….and it wasn’t bulging in the wrong place. So I had to undo half of it and repostion it which meant many of the beads had to come off and I haven’t gotten around to finishing the beading. Maybe that will be my next project when I finish the quilt I am currently working on. I need to take better pictures too!
NEW VETERANS MEMORIAL IN CENTRAL POINT
Listen to John Prine’s Sam Stone
There is a new VETERANS MEMORIAL in Central Point.
OVERVIEW OF THE MEMORIAL
The only thing I don’t like is how close those houses are.
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EAGLE SCULPTURE
THE EAGLE WITH THE FLAGS
I like this photo except for the scratch on the negative…talked to Costco about I need to get my camera checked out but I just got back another roll of film yesterday and there were no lines.
ONE SIDE OF THE ENTRANCE WELCOMES YOU
ON THE OTHER SIDE IS THE PURPLE HEART DEDICATION
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There is a dedication for each branch of service but the sun left them in the shadows so you will have to go there to see them for yourself!!! This is a very nice memorial.
AS AN ASIDE THEY HAD JUST LAID THE GRASS DOWN AND IT WAS FULL OF LADY BUGS!!!
ANNA MAE AQUASH 32/MARY ANN LITTLE BEAR DOES NOT GET ANY JUSTICE
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
I’m not listening to rap music tonight!
WKLDOC’s investigators had investigate instead and found a second bullet in the car that the FBI had missed. They took statements sixteen people. Only one differed the wife of the alleged shooter.
…they offered to give the FBI, BIA and U.S. attorney’s office the witness statements they had collected as well as the shells from the Randalls’ land and the bullet from the Little Bears’ car. The government declined them all. (They were probably getting their nails done!)
WKLDOC tried to get the mainstream media interested but alas the excitement of Wounded Knee had left them satiated for Indian affairs.
The Shooting of Mary Ann Little Bear fell into a class of crimes that the accord that had ended Wounded Knee was supposed to address-namely, human rights abuses condoned or ignored by the local law. The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department had started its inquiry into such abuses before Wounded Knee fell and in a few weeks fielded fifty-five complaints. The Civil Rights Division sent the FBI to investigate. A short time later the young lawyer overseeing Civil Rights’ work, Dennis Ickes, reported his findings to the leaders of ION. Ickes said that in eleven of the fifty-five cases, when FBI agents went to the victims’ houses and asked about the complaints, the victims said no such crime had occurred.
Similar to abused wives who do not trust law enforcement to protect them. Or abused children for that matter. The psychology behind that was not generally known at the time….based on the past history with law enforcement why would anyone on Pine Ridge trust the law? They had a nine year old girl whose eye was lost by a bullet and they couldn’t take the time to investigate that. What the fuck were these law enforcement officers doing?? Rehearsing for an audition with LORD OF THE FLIES???
ION’s leaders replied that sending FBI agents to investigate crimes the FBI had ignored int he first place might not be the best way to get the truth from terrified victims. They asked Ickes whether the Civil Rights Division had ever investigated its investigators-ever, say, prosecuted an FBI agent or a U.S. Marshal. Ickes had to admit that no, that had never happened in the history of the Civil Rights Division.
Surprise Surprise the FBI representative took offense at the question. However I wonder if any of his children had their eye shot out and his coworkers refused to investigate if he might feel differently.
A very few people may still have clung to the hope that the government might yet be shocked, or forced, to revoke the carte blanche it had given Wilson. But these hopes were dashed after Pedro Bissonette was killed.
Hmmm. I saw no mention of Mary Ann Little Bear in AMERICAN INDIAN MAFIA. Could there be shame on their part? Just wanted to get the “real” story from an FBI agent. But maybe I didn’t look hard enough…..
BLOSSOM
PRETTY
I took a bunch of pictures but the wind was blowing and this is the only one that turned out.
ANNA MAE AQUASH 31/THE STORY OF NINE YEAR OLD MARY ANN LITTLE BEAR
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks
Chapter4!!!!!! Page 81!!!!! I’ll still be doing these posts in 2012…..probably as a meteor is crashing onto my head.
Monica Charles graced me with her presence and let me know that the trial is starting in 16 days and that David Seals will be testifying. God Bless him! I am reading his book POW WOW HIWAY now and he is funny I have been meaning to do a post on it. No matter the outcome some people will not be happy unless by some miracle there is a plague of honesty and remorse. John Graham has children as does Anna Mae. Not sure about Richard Marshall. I know that based on the evidence presented at Arlo Looking Clouds trial I would not find comfort in his conviction had he murdered my parent. But I don’t walk in their shoes it just seems strange that they have no anger at the FBI. But may be they were also angry at their mother for not being around while they were growing up. My own father died so suddenly and there are things I still wish I could talk to him about. If fact one of our last arguments was about Indians. I must have just finished Russell Means book and he told me that there was only one tribe whose children were sent to boarding school…I don’t remember that much about it except that we were yelling. I barely remember the book….the only memory about Anna Mae was triggered by the post about her hands being cut off. Maybe I shut it all out. Maybe I have some form of white guilt, but I really don’t feel that I have that type of guilt. I have Catholic guilt. Not as much as I used to have. But I am more proactive now. I spent my early years partying and going to concerts…it wasn’t until the last year of Clinton’s presidency that I started paying attention to the state of the country. I have been wrong about a lot of things in life but have always had the gift of changing my mind when presented with a new idea or bit of information. I do not cling to my beliefs in the face of factual information. I don’t pretend that I am right because I have too much pride to be wrong.
Here is an interesting site that has interviews with mediators on Wounded Knee. FBI perjuring themselves….etc
And here is a photo of the U.S. Marshal who has a set of balls
U.S Marshal Colburn
Here is more information about him on the US Marshal website. The site also give an account of Wounded Knee that doesn’t disparage the Indians and even expresses regret that a few were killed. If only the keystone cops at AMERICAN INDIAN MAFIA would take some lessons from this man.(I hope he doesn’t break my heart in the next chapter) I hope Monica Charles isn’t having heart failure….
Chapter 4 starts with a little girl getting shot in the eye. What the fuck???? Did that Giago guy write any posts of outrage about that???? Seriously I really don’t know. And those Indians at Wounded Knee are they still homeless??? I remember some woman calling for Monica Charles to sew blanket for them….as if the Governor couldn’t have declared a state of emergency and gotten them housing. Not to belittle their plight or hardship but are they sleeping outside??? This little girl was shot in the eye!!! Take my house and everything in it…I would rather have my eye!!!! I can find another place to live have a ton of friends and family who would love to have me as a guest. Nine years old and someone shoots you in the eye??? Her name was Mary Ann Little Bear…Maybe I am getting ahead of myself and the FBI, Wilson the BIA did an investigation and the bad person who shot her is in jail next to Arlo Looking Cloud. Could it be true?????
Nope.
Well fuck it all I just Googled Giago and Mary Ann Little Bear nope not a mention but I only looked at the first page which should have brought up any diatribes he wrote about her.
I am listening to rap music which may not be a good idea when writing about Anna Mae…I usually listen to Eva Cassidy or play good new age music….emphasis on good new age music not to be confused with that Yanni crap..ok I am changing the music here we go Yo Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin an awesome recording!!! I wonder if I can find it on youtube:
Ok on with Mary Ann Little Bear’s dilema…I truly hope that she did not let this get in the way of having a wonderful life.
The Police were called (this happened at midnight). Well after daylight, …BIA officers and FBI agents arrived at Paul Thunder Horse’s house. At least half a dozen adults had witnessed the shooting, either from one of the cars or from the nearby houses, but the lawmen spoke to only a few of them, and to those only briefly. They took no official statements nor even, so far as the interviewees could see, notes. Nor did they photograph the bullet holes in the cars or the houses, nor collect the lodged bullets.
The witness were unaminous about where the shots had come from: the property of the Francis Randalls, 250 yards up the way. The Randalls were goons; the Little Bears and Thunder Horses were AIM sympathizers. The lawmen made a brief visit to the Randall house and may have confiscated a couple of pistols, but these would not have been the crime weapons since bullets from pistols would not have carried 250 yards. No arrests were made.
The parents swear a complaint and the police do….nothing.
Now I am totally against the death penalty but under certain circumstances if the family of the victim really feels it will help them to recover by killing the perpetrater themselves. By all means…. I read a story awhile ago and bookmarked it because if I was the woman in the story I would have probably done the same thing:
MOTHER SETS FIRE TO HER DAUGHTERS GLOATING RAPIST
And then those motherfucking BIA police officers …
announced to the press that Mary Ann Little Bear had been maimed in an “exchange of gunfire,” the implication being that both sides were to blame. There was no evidence then-or now -that the victims “exchanged” a single shot, or even had a gun with which to do so.
Seriously I want to know how do these people sleep at night??? Someone please explain it to me.
When the BIA and FBI refused to arrest the shooter, AIM sent armed men to guard the Thunder horse house and WKLCOC sent a team of investigators. The government that barely stirred itself on behalf of Mary Ann Little Bear now mustered fourteen (FOURTEEN) BIA police, FBI agents, and U.S. marshals to threaten the AIMers with arrest.
Dear God let not Colburn be one of the U.S. Marshals. Thats it I have to take a shower and go to bed.
ALBINO REDWOOD
Just in case you haven’t noticed….I LOVE THE REDWOODS!
I haven’t seen one of these albino redwood trees but next time I go down there I will find them. This is just a post card I bought.
POSTCARD
And here is a video:
Every redwood is special.
ANNA MAE AQUASH(what have I gotten myself into?)30!!!
Feel like I should have baked a cake or something….
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
This post had to wait until morning as my brother came over and then my mother called last night. My mother and I argue a lot but but she is finally starting to recognize the state the world is in. She actually told me that if more people were like me, mostly concerned for and constantly helping others the world would be a better place. I’ll take a compliment where ever I can get one! She does not have a computer so she has never read my blog which is a good thing….the town she is living in is putting up a prison within the town limits. I wrote a post on it and it is the third most read post on my blog that post does not die off everyday people look at it. Some of them threaten me! Some of them thank me. I was telling my mother about it and she is worried because I use my name and the next time I come to town I will be murdered. My belief is this and I will continue to write about it every time I post on Anna Mae. EVERYTHING THAT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD IS HAPPENING BECAUSE WE COLLECTIVELY ALLOW IT TO HAPPEN. Every single outrageous thing being done is happening because not enough of us are willing to sacrifice even a few minutes of the day to speak out, learn about the issues, make a phone call, e-mail, I buy Thank You cards to send to my congresspersons. They are inexpensive and with a book of stamps you can thank them and let them know what is important to you. You don’t have to be nasty you just have to make the effort. There may be a time when you have to step away from the computer and actually go to a protest. I used to do it all the time when I lived in Virginia. There are so many issues to be concerned about and unfortunately since we mostly concern ourselves with issues that effect us the most Indians being about 1% of the population get the shaft for the most part. I continue to do these posts because they make me the most uncomfortable and I suspect it is because it is the wrongs of our history. I truly believe that the future of this country rests on the past history. It seems that Indians too are divided and some have embraced the ways of the whites and others hate us. But the fact is we were wrong. This is most noticeable in the economy, the environment and the destruction of the family. Oh and I can’t forget the health care system. I don’t remember who said it but I read it some where…we have not eradicated diseases only perfected them. Now we have the swine flu…which may or may not be a serious problem but eventually between the swine and bird flu one or the other will eventually be a problem. We treat these animals deplorably. I have a video on my sidebar and have been meaning to do posts on our food and diet situation.Only one person has watched the one about the conditions that our animals who feed us live in. I grew up on a farm and was raised to treat animals with respect about 15 years ago I noticed that chicken meat was getting spongy and it grossed me out. I started reading up on what was going on with meat and was horrified. Now I mostly eat game. I buy buffalo from a local supplier I have friends that give me elk and now have a freezer full. I will buy beef if I know who raised it and my worst offense is that I love jerky. But I don’t eat that commercial crap. All of the jerky I eat is local and they buy their beef local. It may not be certified organic but it is raised close-by and not in a feed lot.
It may seem unrelated but I see this Anna Mae story as a symptom of all that is wrong. As individuals we must decide how we want to live and then accept the consequences. I try not to concern myself with others….I get criticized insulted just look at my post on Pahrump and I have had to delete many comments made there. People do this as a distraction. Whether they are aware of it or not they are just slaves to negative forces. Take care of yourself first, spend part of each day helping others, do not over extend yourself as it is easy to burn out, do not become a slave to negative emotions and recognize the negative emotions in others. They will argue for the sake of arguing with the purpose of distracting and dragging you into their petty dramas. You will end up back on the treadmill if you pay them any mind. You are only responsible for your actions.
I cannot reiterate enough how hard it is to read this book so slowly…and then spend a few hours reading other issues surrounding the case on the computer. It is time consuming and it isn’t a positive story. But I wonder what it was like to live it….still waiting for someone to write a down and dirty gut wrenching straight to the pit of the stomach account of this infused with all of the beauty of life. As emotional as this is for me what is it like to live with this. The ugliness of racism,inequality, double standards….every single day?
Finally we continue with Anna Mae’s story:
The first two or three hundered thousand bullets fired at Wounded Knee came to rest in dirt, wood, and body parts that , mercifully, were not vital. Then in late March, U.S. Marshal Lloyd Grimm took a bullet to the spine and became a paraplegic, A few weeks later AIMer Frank Clearwater, who had just hiked into Wounded Knee and was sleeping off the trek, was shot through the skull by a bullet that pierced the thin wall of the house in which he lay. He never woke. At April’s end another AIMer, Buddy Lamont, was flushed from hi bunker during a firefight and shot through the heart. He died in an instant.
…ION’s leaders…began to sue more determinedly for peace. In early May an accord was reached” the Justice department, which had lately begun to investigate civil rights abuses on Pine Ridge, would see the investigation to its conclusion; Wilson’s tribal accounts would be audited; and the White House would send a delegation to Pine Ridge to talk about broken treaties. In return, the citizens of ION would surrender their guns and submit to arrest. The stand-down took place on May 8, seventy-one days after Wounded Knee was siezed. Most of ION’s citizenry snuck out ot the village before the surrender.
Before leaving, they dug a hole besidee the mass grave of Big Foot’s people and there laid Buddy Lamont. The headstone they erected read, “Two thousand came to Wounded Knee in 1973. One stayed.”
OH MY GOD NOT ONLY AM I DONE WITH MY 30th POST ON THIS BUT I AM DONE WITH CHAPTER 3!!!!!
CLEANING/DINNER/HEALTHY DRINK
Normally I wouldn’t be posting about such things but I finally cleaned my bookcase out and got the stuff off the floor I have all of my books and magazines in the case and five bags of books to go to the used book store. I cleaned off my other book case too but that wasn’t too hard. Unbelievable how much stuff I have thrown out and I am only part way done. Years ago I woke up to the fact that possessions do not make me happy. Anyway I needed a break and decided to make myself a drink. I actually haven’t had anything to drink in ages-the shot of whiskey in my coffee was the first in awhile to busy to take the time to enjoy it.
I was at a friends house and they just got back from their winter house in Yuma, Arizona where they have citrus trees that have never been sprayed. So I have a refridgerator full of oranges, grapefruit, and lemons. They also gave me some blueberries. So I stuck one of each in the blender with some of the blueberries and an organic apple that was getting a bit old….added some ice cubes the last of my melon honey from the farmers market a bit of Damiana and a bit of Lemoncello lemon liqueur that I purchased this week so I would have something refreshing to drink. It is very good on its own as I had a taste before I added it to my concoction!!
MY DRINK CONCOCTION
Gotta love a liquer in a fat goddess bottle…only reason I bought it. Damiana is supposed to be an aphrodisiac!! Those fruits may not look perfect but they are sooooo juicy and good but I have bag fulls so I needed to get creative. I gained too much weight and my goal this year is to lose it and hike a lot more so I am on a diet. No not the kind where you don’t eat just eliminating corn syrup msg and other crappy ingredients.
DINNER AND BLOGGING
I love mustard and found some new ones recently this particular one is BARBKOA RANCH Honey Creole Mustard I paired it with Le Che’vre Noir goat cheese, crackers, and a variety of olives, pickles, garlic and peppers.
Notice my Van Gogh drinking glass got em for 50 cents a piece at the Goodwill set of six!
This is a great happiness to me and could only be better if my house had cleaned itself when I was done!!!
BUFFALO, WHISKEY AND SPRING CLEANING!!!
Too much travel and not enough cleaning and the dust bunnies turn into a herd of wolly mammoths which were supposed to be extinct for a million years or so….but are alive and well in my apartment!!!!
I wish I was one of those Zen types but I tend towards clutter. I started this yesterday and may finish by Sunday….I only do it once a year moving the furniture and stuff.
I am starting out with an awesome breakfast potatoes, buffalo, eggs and coffee with a shot of Woodford Reserve! Nothing better than buffalo and whiskey to start the day!!!
I have to clean my book case out as I tend to shove things on top of the books piles of books and papers and magazines on top of already full shelves.
Yesterday I cleaned my blinds and changed my curtains
MY WINTER CURTAINS
MY SPRING CURTAINS
Not everybody likes these but color brings me joy and happiness. Even if I wake up in a not so good mood when the sun hits these curtains I smile….every single day!
Life is beautiful!!!
ANNA MAE AQUASH 29/FINALLY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER WITH A SET OF BALLS!!!
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
I don’t put a lot into race….never really think of myself as “white” of course I see color but I don’t base my friendships on it. I was raised a white American and am terribly proud of who I am. Not because of my color….I am one of the few people I know who isn’t afraid to look at myself honestly good or bad. I know me. I love being American this is the greatest land with the greatest people.
Having said that this Indian history is hard to swallow there are very few redeeming white people in THE UNQUIET GRAVE so far!! Monica Charles said awhile ago that the difference between her and I is that she fucking hates the police, and the whole “just us” system and I see them as public servants. My anger and horror of this isn’t that I have decided one way or the other who killed Anna Mae…but over the systematic corruption of our public servants who should be representing everyone!
Mark Thompson was bringing up the capitalist slave system a ways back and I have half dropped out of society for the most part. Everything going on with the government, economy, Anna Mae for that matter happens because we are a divided. We allow ourselves to be divided. I say this to everyone complaining about the state of the world. Collectively we have asked for it. The races can no longer afford to be separate in ideology. We will either choose capitalism or we will choose the good of the people and the earth. One will lead us to survival the other to destruction.
Indians of course are discriminated against but the only way out is for people to unite. Not meaning we lose our individuality or culture but uniting. It might not be fair but the fact is unless whites are swayed into a different way of thinking about Indians their situation will not change rapidly. Unless collectively there are more people uniting for causes that are for all people much will stay the same.
Consider the Anna Mae case no matter your opinion there really is no evidence to convict anybody. There is a bunch of hearsay. Take a roomful of people divided and pointing fingers. You walk in and make 4 friends and decide that they are right and convict someone based on opinions. The general public fails to realize that the FBI could have easily picked another 4 people who have a whole different side. They could then pick another 4 people and yet a third opinion and would convict a whole different set of individuals. So far there is no evidence in this case.
Imagine being Arlo Looking Cloud behind bars and maybe he did it or didn’t….but the evidence is not there. He supposedly confessed. But under the influence of narcotics…If his last name was Kennedy he would be a Senator!!!!
There wasn’t one white person who liked me writing about this on alt.native. The Indians were divided. The FBI groupies don’tt like it. Most of my friends don’t like it. All in all I don’t give a shit even when I was in my teens I walked to my own drum. One Indian reading my stuff said that white people getting involved in Indian affairs makes things worse for them. I don’t believe that….I think if you are an Indian and you invest all of your hopes in some white people “fixing” everything you will be disappointed. The Civil Rights movement was successful because African Americans united and were able to also sway the majority of white people. It was successful because they were basically in charge of their own destiny. When the majority of people take action then things will change. Of course the majority of people can also do harm depending on what it is we want. Everything in the world is basically because that is what we collectively wanted. That is why I am beginning to admire reservation Indians they have the courage to not participate in the capitalist slavery system. I am sure that there are some who stay for other reasons….alcohol or mental problem. Just like in other poor areas where access to health care and education is lacking. I know a lot of white people who also choose not to participate in corporate slavery they live off the grid…grow their own food. I have a foot in each world. Woke up a bit late and can’t quite make the leap….either way!!!
I don’t have a tv in my house but when I am staying at the Red Lion I watch tv nonstop…lately everytime I am going past Nancy Grace the woman who does the crime stuff there has been no mention of the Anna Mae case. Its all about the white victims. Here is the CNN page for Nancy Grace e-mail her. No matter the side you are on the story deserves attention. See if they give a shit about an Indian woman who was murdered 30 years ago.
When someone complains to me now about the government I ask what have you done who have you written? ….nobody. My Mother does this and then uses the excuse that she doesn’t write good letters and her spelling is bad. Well guess what? America is made up of more than ivy league grads. And they aren’t too fucking smart either look at how much Harvard lost…8 BILLION DOLLARS
Everybody deserves to be heard and represented.
Anyway it still boggles my mind that the trial is being held in South Dakota. I just looked up what the percentage of people who voted for Barack Obama was in South Dakota – 45%. So the state is progressing in their issues of race. The worst states were Utah, Oklahoma and Wyoming all in the low 30′s. Can you imagine what those places are like?? I live in Oregon and we voted 57% in favor of Obama and we still have many many issues concerning race. If John McCain had picked a different running mate then there might be speculation whether people were voting based on race….
Anyway to get on with the story AIM has taken over Wounded Knee and the FBI has set up roadblocks and President Wilson and his goons have set up a roadblock to the roadblock. President Wilson will not allow the WKLDOC lawyers through to see their clients. They have sent a message to the FBI who has talked to Wilson who has denied the request and the FBI…
…agents offered WKLDOC their regrets. what could they do? The WKLDOCkers suggested that on occasion the FBI had been known to arrest lawbreakers, but their suggestion went unheeded.
Judge Andrew Bogue, one of the two federal judges in Sough Dakota and the judge of first resort for cases in the western half of the state, said he saw no reason why the goons should have to remove their illegal roadblock. Unfortunately, Supreme Court precedent left him no choice but to order the goons to let the lawyers through. The goons grudgingly let them pass.
The BIA and the FBI continued to support the goons anyway giving them shotgun shells, C-rations, two way radios,
Eventually the government parked an APC with the goons. the goons showed their gratitude by continuing to level their rifles at all travelers, federal and WKLDOC alike.
…one day the goons turned away mediators from the Justice Department on grounds that they were overly sympathetic to AIM. Wayne Colburn, the director of the Marshals Service, had by then grown tired of having shotguns pointed at him whenever he approached the roadblock. when he heard of the mediators being turned away, he grabbed tow of his marshals, puth the rest on alert, and sped to the roadblock to set the goons straight. FBI agents up the road had heard over the radio that Colburn was coming and tipped the goons who had rifles at hand..
Hoping not to inflame the Wilsonites any more than necessary, the marshalls left their guns in the van-a decision they soon regretted. Colburn gave the goons a choice: let the mediators through, or join him on a ride to jail. The goons said they intended to do neither….
“If there is going to be bloodshed,” one of the goons eventually said, “let it start here.”
Colburn later said he believed at this point that he and his men might well be murdered…..one of the marshals sidled back to the van on pretense of using the radio, grabbed a gun instead, and spun on the advancing goons. Colburn told them to get their asses up against the van.
As they did, an FBI agent appeared and told Colburn that tehre was really no need to arrest such good friends as these.
“If you’re3 not going to help,” Colburn answered, “you might as well get back up against that van yourself.”
The agent said he was under no obligation to follow the orders of a U.S. marshal.
“your ideas on jurisdiction,” Colburn said, “mean about as much to me as piss falling from the sky.” He told the agent to clear the hell out of the way, and the agent did.
Colburn took 11 goons to Pine Ridge for processing…
That night other goons reestablished the roadblock. Before Colburn could dismantle it again, FBI agents prevailed on the goons to temporarily disband it. They promised that higher-ups in Washington wre at that moment working on a deal to let the oradblock stand….
Colburn demanded the roadblock come down…an arbiter agreed with him. That afternoon Colburn took the negotiators on Pine Ridge through the roadblock but were stopped by a teenager with a rifle. There was a standoff between Colburn and the teenager but an FBI agent stepped between them. The teenager blew a hold in a car radiator a few days later. He was never charged.
In fact the government had just decided to train the goons and put them on the federal payroll.
Of course I wish Colburn had made a stand for WKCLDOC being denied access to their clients…but like I said I’ll take what I can get!! Most of us are not concerned with others problems until they begin to effect us.
I was looking for something on the goons at Wounded Knee and found this by a band called REDBONE who I hear on Sirius all the time they wrote COME AND GET YOUR LOVE. Who knew there was an Indian band that got airplay??? Maybe everybody except me!
Anyway here is their song WOUNDED KNEE
and then COME AND GET YOUR LOVE
WAS GONE AGAIN!!!
I will resume my Anna Mae posts tomorrow. I was in Crescent City last night….hiking in the Redwoods today. Actually sick of traveling for a week or so!!! But anyway I came home about 6:00 it took over an hour to get the computer up and running then my security was all messed up…..Now it is after 10:00 and I am too tired to do a proper post! I did upload a bunch of pictures.
Oh dear God you should see my house!!!! I was away for 5 days came home late threw my stuff in the house. Had to do a lot of catch up work….then had to take off again. My job had me travel to the coast and I thought I would be finished early enough that I could drive back. But circumstances had me working late and I was exhausted. I never waste a hiking opportunity though!!!!
IN THE BEAR’S HOUSE
I didn’t think I would have time to post but I have a conference call this morning so I am sticking around…
Last month when I went to Cedarville, CA they had a great new and used book store. The man who owns it also has a publishing company and the bookstore itself is friendly with a wood burning stove and some chairs you can bring in a cup of coffee and read or have a good discussion. Where I live the bookstore owners are way too stuffy and serious so I shop mostly on Amazon. I did buy a bunch of books in Corvallis at the Book Bin.
FLOATING ISLAND BOOKSTORE
SYMBOL HANGING OUTSIDE THE BOOKSTORE
I asked the owner about this symbol hanging outside and he told me it came to him while he was hiking in Mt. Shasta. He later showed it to someone who told him it was a Hopi symbol…for what I don’t know or remember.
The owner of this fine establishment
So anyway I saw this book and had to buy it
IS THAT NOT THE GREATEST COVER????EVER????
The book says that Momaday painted the cover but it says nothing about the paintings inside soI am assuming that he did them all. It is quite a beautiful book and Momaday is a wonderful writer. The book starts out with URSET the aging bear conversing with YAHWEH about berries and matters of life.
Here is an excerpt from a poem he wrote in Russia called
NOTES ON A HUNTING SCENE
….the bear had crept on the edge of the taiga, rearing now and then to
sniff the wind. When the end came, it slumped slowly down and made
its bed. It died at a moment between the final rattle of its breath and the
awful silence that followed. The moment cannot be fixed exactly in the
range of time.
The woman drank from a bottle and laughed again.
In the village pain was preserved in the way that embers are kept alive.
Life did not persist without pain. Somewhere it is written.
The bear lay lifeless on the sledge. Sooner or later the singer would
come, and everything would have its place in the relief of ritual.
He is such a good writer!!!
ANNA MAE AQUASH 27/BIA HIGHERS AND LOWERS ELIGIBLE VOTERS IN ORDER TO KEEP WILSON IN POWER
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Stephen Hendricks.
I listen to Talk Left on Sirius radio a lot. And there are so many subjects I would like to cover on the blog but I just don’t have the time. Anna Mae is the most important as it does not get the attention it deserves. All day I can hear about Somalia, Iraqis, Afganistan, AFRICOM, torture, economy but the most discriminated against group in the United States I rarely hear or read anything about in mainstream media. Fucking Aljazeera covers more Native American Issues than we do!
Racism is tearing not only this country apart but the world. There are people in the United States that believe this is no longer true…that there is no more racism but it is only because they themselves are racist in addition to the fact that our media does not report on issues of race with the same zeal that they report on young celebrities or Octomom. I was listening to Lynn Samuels today and she had come up with a new phrase chocolate coated fascism. Under the guise of peace loving spiritual liberals they justify their fascism with a Save Tibet sticker on their car. Funny how much compassion we can muster…funny how much outrage we can muster for oppressed people in other countries and yet we are blind to the oppressed people next door in our own country. A caller to Lynn Samuels’ show gave an example of a candy coated fascist- the people in chat rooms and discussion groups who spout all sorts of fascist insults and then put a happy emoticon at the end so they could tell themselves that what they were doing was OK! That had me laughing because it is so true!! I thought I was alone in noticing it.
The other thing I heard was from Thom Hartmann (whom I adore) who said, We don’t have an illegal immigration problem we have an illegal employer problem. I love that man…he is so intelligent and yet so easy to understand.
I still haven’t had time to see what is happening with the Anna Mae trial maybe on Saturday and Sunday I will be able to sit down and read. I am thinking of turning my page on racist thoughts into an Anna Mae page with links and addresses of people to write or e-mail. Most of my friends work and don’t read my blog everyday more like once a week some are angry about all of the attention I give to Native American issues and some call and want to know more but time is such a hindrance when you work and have a family. I’m single and mostly work part-time and I still don’t have the time to investigate everything I would like to. And I am still trying to find my comfort zone when it comes to writing about these issues….so I do a lot of thinking and self reflection. As I have said to keep informed on all of the issues concerning America you need 10 clones reading constantly!! I had a very good thoughtful conversation with one of my friends that I visited last week. I was surprised that she brought up correcting past mistakes in history in order for us to move towards being a better country- towards survival. I brought up the broken treaties and she agreed that while we would probably never be able to honor them 100% a serious effort was needed. Dianne doesn’t have a computer though so she can’t grace us with her wisdom!
I should probably turn this into two seperate posts but I think it is all interconnected. Now for the next installment:
I stopped yesterday because I was very tired and there was a section about voting out President Wilson that confused me. I will explain it as best as I can now.
The Independent Oglala Nation wanted Wilson to be recalled. The Feds said the Oglalas had to vote him out. One third of registered voters were needed for a referendum. The Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization collected the signatures and sent them to the BIA.
The BIA said that there were not enough signatures-the BIA redifined the term eligible voters and therefore tripled the voters.
“It looks to me,” Senator Jim Abourezk observed, “like the BIA is making the voter-eligibility figures higher and lower when it wants. In this case, the BIA is a law unto itself.”
…Wilson or one of his goons…posted a notice urging Oglalas to "march into Wounded Knee and Kill tokas(non-Oglala Indians)… (and every other non-Indian)…they want to be martyrs? We will make it another Little big Horn!! and anyone of theri beatnik friends can be a stand-in for Yellow Hair"
…they were more in the traditions of Indians who found it profitable to scout for Custer than of the Indians who killed him.
…the next day Wildon and fifty mixed-bloods answered the call-sort of….they set up a road block a few hundred yards in front ot the FBI roadblock. To reach the FBI barricade and Wounded Knee beyond, travelers first had to pass through the goons, who stuck their guns in the faces of all comers as the FBI watched.
When WKLDOC’s lawyers arrived to visit their clients, the goons refused to let them pass. The lawyers sent a message to the FBI agents up the road, reminding them of the court order permitting them to see their clients.
The agents talked to Wilson but Wilson refused to let them pass.
People think this stuff doesn’t have anything to do with today but history if not remembered or ignored repeats itself gaining in destructive momentum.
I must end here because the next part finally has a member of law enforcement with a set of balls and redeeming character. I look forward to finally writing about someone no matter his reasons for waking up to the terrorist actions of Wilson and his goons actually does something!
ANNA MAE AQUASH 26/TRIBAL JUDGES
All excerpts are in italics and are from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
Meant to do a post on Anna Mae last night but after being gone a week my computer had lots of updates and then I had a problem installing my new Norton. Had to figure out where I left off and since this week is very very very busy I might miss a few more.
I haven’t had time to look at any news so I don’t know if there are any new developments about the trial.
Noam Chomsky says if you want to stop Terrorism stop participating in it. THE UNQUIET GRAVE is very disturbing and there are times when I want to beat down some people….the book brings about very intense emotions. Since I have banned myself from reading alt.native my energy hasn’t been going off in the wrong direction. There are forces that tend to distract in a negative way. I was happy to learn from them a lesson in self control and interconnectedness. When you read people who have no purpose in life but to spread hate all day long it gets to you.
Enough of me Anna Mae calls….
Hobart Keith, a tribal councilman and Wilson critic, also told of having been beaten by a goon. The goon was Glen Thee Stars…Keith had reliable witnesses, but tribal prosecutors refused to indict.
Keith said he would go to federal court, and his case was so strong, it seemed that even the federal prosecutors might hav to act. to head them off, tribal prosecutors belatedly charged Three stars with assault. He was brought to the courtroom of Judge Dorothy Richards, a Wilson appointee who in her last job, as clerk of court, had been accused of embezzling court fees,
After Wilson elevated Richards to the bench, she allegedly had fees and fines paid directly to her, notwithstanding a ban on the handling of cash by judges. (Doesn’t it always boil down to money. People replace God with money the ultimate false God….or is it the ego?)She also alleged to have falsified the arrest records of defendants in order to bring harsher sentences on them and to have taken the furniture and appliances from a home of troubled youth and had them installed in her own house. (Unfuckingbelieveable)
When Three stars appeared before her, she convicted him without ado and sentenced him to ten minutes in jail and a nickel in fine.
Jeopardy was thus attached to his offense, and Keith could not pursue it in federal court. BIA superintendent Stan Lyman wrote approvingly in his diary, “The judge said she had just made the punishment fit the crime.”
You would think that sometime people in general would get a clue. When you commit crimes no matter the side of the law you are on…you will pay the consequences. Maybe not a judgement day but just the natural consequences whether you believe in reincarnation or that death is finality or that you are a ghost that wanders what it all boils down to is that there are no do overs in this life. And the only laws that matter are Gods laws no matter how you interpret him/her. These man made laws mean nothing. Whether you “won” the fight is of no importance. IT DOES NOT MATTER. Rich, poor, titled, it does not matter.
Other critics of Wilson told of being denied trials by jury on the excuse that funds to pay jurors had suddenly dried up….Others reported that judges simply refused to call their courts to order to hear complaints. Still others were turned away well before reaching a courtroom, by tribal prosecutors whose offices just happened to close whenever complainants appeared, or by policemen who just happened to run out of complaint forms.
Wow what a lot of stuff to regret later in life. Ask yourself if this is what you would be proud of if having a conversation with your creator. Seriously, if the thing my dad taught me about living your life like it is on the front page of the New York Times doesn’t work for you imagine sitting down with God are you proud of all you have done for others in your life. Of course if the God you worship is J Edgar Hoover, Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld you will be comfortable with the crimes of the FBI and the BIA. Until they have run out of people to persecute and they start on you.
MISS YOU
Out of town for a few days
and here are more pictures to look at…I will have lots more when I return
SUNSET IN PAHRUMP, NEVADA
SUNSET ON THE OREGON COAST
SUNSET ON THE OREGON COAST
MY SISTER AT SUNSET ON A CRESCENT CITY BEACH
SUNSET ON THE BEACH IN CRESCENT CITY
PROBABLY COMING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN FROM LAKE OF THE WOODS TOWARDS MEDFORD
SUNSET CRESCENT CITY
SUNSETTING ON THE LIGHTHOUSE IN CRESCENT CITY
SUNSET
SUNSET
NEAR GEARHEART WILDERNESS AREA
SUNSET IN PAHRUMP
CRESCENT CITY HARBOR
And watch those videos on the sidebar about what corporations are doing to our food supply!!!!
Have a great week!!!!
ANNA MAE AQUASH 25/THE GOONS HARASS, THREATEN AND BEAT UP AIM SUPPORTERS/THE GOVERNMENT TRIES TO STARVE OUT THE OCCUPIERS OF WOUNED KNEE
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
This is such an emotional subject that yesterday I had to stop. I am a very emotional and passionate person sort of like the energizer bunny I wake up every single morning renewed and invigorated about life. But I have a goal in life not to cause too much harm and while there is a certain justification to my anger about this subject….I do not want my blog to become negative. I think that there are negative forces or energy around this subject that work to distract. I am trying not to give them anything to feed on!! Hard sometimes.
A journalist, Paul Collins writes a piece for EBONY magazine Dick Wilson became upset and had his goons take him out for a “ride” they drove to Nebraska left him on the side of the road drove off a ways and then got out and started shooting at him. Luckily he had a friend who was a congressman by the name of Guy Vander Jagr who sent a helicopter to find him.
People like Dick Wilson don’t understand that our government was just using him keeping minorities fighting among themselves a distraction that keeps people in slavery…a distraction so you won’t notice how much they can steal from you….God doesn’t care if you were a president or a billionaire or a CEO. God’s laws are the only laws that matter. The rest is just your ego doing you in.
The government better supplied with ammunition, got off more and heavier rounds-an estimated 500,000 by the end of the siege, 7,000 a day
Colburn, the head of the U.S. Marshals Service cut off the electricity, water and phone to Wounded Knee:
“If this means starving, if it means being cold, not reading the evening papers, not being able to watch television, not making telephone calls, , not being able to get soap to wash their clothes with , that’s what’s got to be done”.
“Nobody had the heart to tell Colburn,” an AIM with wrote, “that doing without food and electricity, that being hungry and cold is not a novel experience for Indians.”
AIM declared Wounded Knee was now the Independent Oglala Nation they issued passports…they rustled cattle from nearby ranches the government charged. AIM said they were illegal aliens crossing international frontier…they were making the best of a bad situation through humor. They started a sweat lodge
For many Indians, it was their first exposure to their traditional culture. One of the occupiers later said, “We had guys coming in there alcoholic, and days after getting there they were straight…..no withdrawal symptoms-no DT’s, nothing. That was the power of the cause we were working for, the heritage we were reclaiming…”
A quick way to be rid of addiction is to replace it with something you believe in. Something that will distract your brain from sending you messages that you need what you are addicted to.
Whenever the names of ION’s citizens could be learned, the U.S. attorney put them before a grand jury and shook out indictments like salt at a pretzel stand.
WKCLDOC would have to prove that the seizure of Wounded Knee was justified, and to do that, it would have to show that armed rebellion was the only recourse left to an aching, oppressed people. To do that WKLDOC had to compile testimony about the crimes of Wilson and his goons, which although common knowledge on the reservation, had never been documented.
The next page is terrible with descriptions of threats and beatings by Wilson’s goons even beating the legal aid lawyer who was also threatened by Wilson with death. The lawyer left the reservation…
For the years the government left left his post unfilled-which in practice meant that the poor of Pine Ridge, which was to say most of Pine Ridge, went lawyerless.
I really don’t have time to investigate everything but I do wonder if Tom Giago rails against these offenses the way he does AIM. Real change will not come until those in charge, those who swore to represent the people all of the people are held accountable….I think if the economy doesn’t get better soon that Indians will be made to suffer the most…even if they are from tribes who have well managed casinos. There is so much animosity when talking to whites and even minorities who are not Indians….There is a misconception that Indians get something that the rest of the country doesn’t get. I have had a few comments that I have had to delete one happened while I was at work so it sat there all day. I apologize if anyone read it. The guy was from Pahrump where I spent a year….it is very racist and Indians are routinely disparaged on the local tv programs. Rich Californians who are trying to get out of paying taxes retire in the desert and I have heard real estate agents tout that there are few Indians in Pahrump as a reason to buy. Now do not e-mail me arguing this point I am not talking about all Californians or people who live in Pahrump…head out the sand people it is a broad generalization.
ANNA MAE 24/WOUNDED KNEE
Excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
This is the best video explaining how out of control and unacceptable the tactics used by the FBI, NSA and other agencies. These agencies were investigated by the Church Committee. That the FBI was using COINTELPRO tactics is a FACT. Here is a link to a very good summary of the FBI’s covert actions COINTELPRO. The thing is that in neither the video or the report are Native Americans mentioned and the FBI says that they were not engaging in COINTELPRO tactics. There is a video and book by Ward Churchill….For some reason when I first started reading a bit on Native Americans ten years ago Ward Churchill made me nervous (strictly my feelings I know nothing about him…. I had two books in my hand one was by Ward Churchill and the other was by Vine Deloria. I chose the Deloria. (Pudgy Indian likes him) Anyway I just googled Ward Churchill and here is a good article that explains the controversy surrounding him. I have mixed feelings about the whole wannabe an Indian thing….it is obvious that Ward Churchill has dedicated his whole life to being an Indian. For whatever reason he won’t acknowledge that maybe he isn’t….I don’t know what it would matter. The people that hate him would be gleeful but there are those that would respect him just for telling the truth and being honest. I do think it is sad that people put so much into identity into what kind of blood they have…..even if he is 1/16 Indian why so much denial and hatred of the 15/16ths white? Maybe all of us disease free people should get mixed blood transfusions!! I don’t know enough about him to comment on his credibility but here is his video on COINTELPRO. I do think he makes some excellent points and he reads Noam Chomsky so he can’t be all bad!!
Since the Trail of Broken Treaties, the FBI had cultivated moles inside both AIM and the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization, and the moles had kept the Bureau informed of the activists’ movements…The FBI monitored Russel Means as he drove from Rushville, Nebraska, to Pine Ridge. The identities and methods of his watchers remain unknown, but Means was on the reservation all of three minutes before two of Wilson’s goons, Poker Joe Merrival and Glen Three Stars, tried to thrash him. Means got a way, but a friend, Gary Thomas, the federal legal aid lawyer on Pine Ridge, was not so lucky and was beaten. Afterward Thomas lodged a complaint with the BIA police and FBI and produced two witnesses, but the authorities ignored him.
That is the sort of stuff that makes the FBI and the United States government lose all of its credibility with me when it comes to Indian affairs. They clearly pick and choose who is protected under the laws of the United States.
Joseph Trimbach (author of AMERICAN INDIAN MAFIA), the FBI agent in charge of the three-state region, was the FBI roadblock when the occupiers’ demands were brought out. Originally there were three:
that the U.S. government unbreak America’s 371 broken treaties with Indian nations, that it root out the rot in the BIA, and that it investigate the tribal governments of every Lakota reservation.
…the demands were augmented: Dick Wilson, Stan Lyman, and Wyman Babby were to be fired; the beatings of Wilson’s goon squad were to be probed; and the White House was to meet with the occupiers.
Trimbach passed the demands upward, asked Washington for help….Come the morning, he was in command of 250 FBI agents, U.S. marshals, and BIA officers, a dozen armored personnel carriers mounted with machine gun turrets, tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition, and even a Phantom jet. His manpower would soon double. Dick Wilson, not wanting to be outdone, outfitted his goons with clubs, football helmets, an those most potent of reservation killers-six packs.(funny!)
Against this array the 300 occupiers of Wounded Knee had maybe 100 men of combat age and an arsenal of deer rifles. Ammunition was scant.
The press comes, some sympathize others don’t because of the hostages. Politicians come to negotiate their release. Hendricks has a source that says the hostages were let go but decided to stay…Tom Giago has a source that says they were threatened.
The Justice Department, for example, had tried to justify the heavy weaponry on its side by saying that rebels had an M-60 machine gun. But reports inside Wounded Knee found there were no M-60′s and in fact most of the Indian rifles were three shots from falling apart. another time, an armored personnel carrier tried to flush Indians from a bunker, and the Indians returned fire. Back in Pine ridge, a government spokesman said the Indians had fired first and that the APC had been nowhere near the bunker. when a reporter said that was untrue, the spokesman said the reporter didn’t know what he was talking about. The reporter said he had the whole thing on video.
“Don’t you think that destroys your credibility,” the reporter said, “telling us the APCs were two to three miles away, when we have documentation-on film-that those APCs came to within at least five hundred yards of the bunkers?”
…the government relented and let journalists into Wounded Knee for visits of a few hours, but reporters who parked their cars at the FBI’s roadblock had seen nothing. (These cowards disguised as honorable men with badges bring a great shame to our country.) Only after the vandalism was mentioned in Newsweek did it stop. Teh harassment was worse for reporters who were considered “alternative,” “undergoud,” or “leftist”- that is reporters wihout the protection of a large corporate parent. Many were arrested by the FBI, BIA, and the Marshals service, charged with a manufactured crime like interfering with an officer, and escorted to the reservation line.
One reporter arrested by the FBI protested that she had done nothing wrong and said the agents would have to drag her to jail kicking and screaming. The agents gave her a choice: come with them peacefully, or go with Dick Wilson’s pals in the BIA police. The agents counseled against the latter course, as they could not guarantee her safety with the police. She went with the FBI.
Once again what are the requirements for getting hired by the FBI. You have to lie, have a mother that didn’t raise you to respect women, and be willing to only enforce laws for the privledged few, cowardice and no conscious whatsoever. I wonder what they would have done to someone like Anna Mae if no one was watching? (that goes for the AIM leaders too!)
GARDENS IN THE DUNES (finished!)
I actually finished it a few days ago but have been quite busy.
COVER OF GARDENS IN THE DUNES
There are two types of book lovers, those who are all stuffy and would never think of “dog earing” a page and then there is ME! I love my books and have stacks where they will not fit into my bookcase….I have been sleeping with this book for awhile and it ends up on the floor under the bed….I fall asleep reading. Sometimes I write in them you should see my copy of THE UNQUIET GRAVE underlined with tons of notes on the sides of the pages.
All of my books are worn with love!!
This copy of GARDENS IN THE DUNES has a readers discussion group in the back…RIPPED IT OUT!!!! I hate discussion groups and forwards. However I did notice the AUTHORS NOTE on the bottom of the discussion group page telling her inspiration for writing the story.
GARDENS IN THE DUNES started out in the desert with two sisters returning to their home in the desert after fleeing the soldiers and the Indian police….I don’t know how to explain how I feel about Leslie Marmon Silko’s writing but I will try. When she starts out writing about the Indian sisters and the gardens in the dunes her writing is magic. Her words come alive! There is a passage about a dance Indians performed so the savior would appear when he did with his family…
“You are hungry and tired because this dance has been going on for a long time,” the Holy Mother said, then she opened her shawl, and the Messiah’s wife opened her shawl too, and Indigo was amazed to see plump orange squash blossoms tumble to the ground, the Holy Mother motioned for the dancers to step forward to help themselves to the squash flowers.
I was lying in bed when I read that and I swear for an instant I was standing there watching it all happen….I think that I was reading with one eye open while lying on my side almost asleep but it was so real that when I woke up the next morning I grabbed my sketch pad and drew a picture of it because I knew I had to paint it. The interesting part is that I drew from my memory of it and not what she wrote so there is only one woman and instead of snow in the sky there are stars. I envisioned it to be a red shawl when she clearly states that they are white. In the painting she does have a white shawl but I’m not done with it yet.
That is why I do not like reading critics or analyzing what an author is thinking….I think that books have a certain message for that time in your life. I can remember rereading some essays by Joseph Brodsky a few years ago and they had a completely different meaning to me than they did 20 years ago. As my circumstances changed so did my interpretation of the words. For all I know this might bother writers but as a painter people often think that something I paint is totally different than what I painted. I find it interesting.
The book took a turn that upset me when the sisters were separated(my sister and I have always been close) and I had to struggle to get through some of the descriptions of English gardens. I worked for a summer in someones formal gardens and I hated it. I like the flowers I like trees and flowers and visit parks and gardens…I understand planting vegetables but I am not moved by formal gardens the way I am by natural landscape so it was probably my own personal experience that left me struggling. There were some passages about rocks that moved me and also a black garden that I would love to see as I have never seen a garden dedicated to black flowers.
One of the interesting views in the book is about the Sand Lizard peoples view of sex with strangers…I was raised a Catholic and it symbolizes a difference between cultures. When I was about twenty five living across the country from my parents I mentioned to my mother that I had bought a full size bed to which she replied “WHAT DO YOU NEED A FULL SIZE BED FOR??” being the smart ass I can be I replied “A GIRLS GOTTA MAKE A LIVING SOMEHOW!”… CLICK she hung up on me and we didn’t talk for a few months. Even at 43 she thinks I shouldn’t have sex until I am married!! A month ago we were talking about abortion and I made a comment that for some reason I always(well almost always) got that using condoms was a must!!! My Mother said “I didn’t know you slept around!” She was instrumental in brainwashing us to all believe that sex is bad….and don’t get me started on the menstrual cycle…Oh my god…my poor sister well into her twenties was embarrassed to buy tampons until one day we were in a Wal-Mart and she was looking for a female cashier when I grabbed the box of tampons out of her hand and waved it in the air yelling “Hey everyone my sister is buying tampons!” Seriously every single woman in every country of every color menstruates. When I was growing up it was cause for great shame and embarassment I got over it quickly!!
I don’t think that Silko accurately described the white men in the mining camp I think that there would have been brutality between whites and Indians having sex not to mention disease. I don’t know about Indians but whites had syphilis and gonorrhea..who knows what else.
The book includes the pain and hurt of soldiers herding Indians like cattle, ripping their families apart and a brutality that to me was more disturbing than Cormac McCarthy’s BLOOD MERIDIAN. That could be the difference between women and men writing about violence.
I was happy with the way the book ended although I did a bit of crying!
Leslie Marmon Silko has written two other books that I have read ALMANAC OF THE DEAD, which I though could have been edited in the first two-thirds and the last third was genius….informative… almost a propecy for what is going on between Mexico and America today, or America and indigenous people, rich against poor….a book that still has me thinking about it.
Her other book CEREMONY is unbeliveable and deserves a post of its own…I know other people that have read it and didn’t like it but not every book is for everybody. I picked it up to reread it a month ago and the minute I opened it I started crying…. put it back….I cried almost through the whole thing the first time I read it!! The actual story has nothing to do with me Indian, half-breed, war, reservation….it sounds hokey but from page one I cried….I was in a restaurant and had to put it down and flee to the Redwoods to read it….sat under one of those great big trees and read a few chapters while sobbing uncontrollably…then I hiked for about five miles crying until about the last mile.
There is something about that book…
ANNA MAE AQUASH 23/WHY DIDN’T THE FBI PROSECUTE THE OWNERS OF THE TRADING POST AT WOUNDED KNEE?
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
This is such an emotional chapter so far. One part of me thinks that the Indians could have done so much more if they had done the Gandhi thing. I am a bit of a pacifist but then I have never been in a situation where I have been discriminated against to the extreme 24/7 that Indians experience day in and day out. They tried to win at a game we excel at-violence and oppression. You cannot win playing the game of violence and oppression against whites we are the masters of the game. However now there is another war being played. It is one of class and white people are just beginning to feel this way and more often they pick up a gun to get revenge on their oppressors at work, or the bank or society in general eating in a restaurant…. even our children bring guns to school in order to exact revenge on teachers and other students who they feel have been treating them unfairly. It is all relative. James Simon, Tom Giago and people of their ilk commit the greatest and most damaging crimes: DENIAL. They write letters about the victims of Wounded Knee but neglect to mention the crimes some of those people were committing against Indians. The FBI only prosecuted or investigated their point of view which was that of hatred and racism against Indians. We judge Indians with a double standard while the people who have sworn to uphold the laws and to protect and serve the people of this country are the worst criminals. “As for the Gildersleeves they are just sad people making a sad living off of oppression, stealing, slavery, of those less fortunate around them. Kind of like the CEO’S on Wall Street. What they have done is to tell them selves “everyone else does it”. The only moment of consciousness they displayed was pleading the fifth to save them selves. Unfortunately like most people they cannot even begin to think of the good of the people and only what is good for them. Some people claim that they were nice…of course they were….If I was opening up peoples mail and cashing their checks stealing their money and their art work I would be nice to them too!! Even serial killers can be nice to some people. Most people are a mixture of good and bad. But a nice person does not make a living off of those less fortunate. However these are the people who never see them selves for who they are. That should not be an excuse for the rest of us to begin committing crimes against humanity we must all be aware of how we are conducting ours individual selves. The time is coming on Earth when we are going to have to start paying for our past sins-no I’m not one of those armageddon freaks our sociedy is on the verge of collapse because of our wrong decisions collectively.
General William Tecumseh Sherman had observed int he neneteenth century, ” a reservation is a parcel of land inhabited by Indians and surrounded by thieves,” but the trading post franchises brought the thieves onto the reservations.
The Wounded Knee Trading Post was a superior specimen. Its owners, the Gildersleeve and Czyweczynski families, had strewn billboards for seventy-five miles that announced, SEE THE WOUNDED KNEE MASSACRE SITE, VISIT THE MASS GRAVE. POSTCARDS, CURIOS, DON’T MISS IT! The postcards showed slaughtered Indians, including Chief Big Foot, frozen in the 1890 snow.
A Catholic priest once watched Mrs. Czwczynski barter a beader to a stingy $3.50 for an exquisite work, then turn around and sell it for $12.00.
The traders doubled as creditor, lending their Indian patrons $10 at humble interest of $2.25 a week.
That is an interest rate of 22.5% a week (not sure how to figure that over a month or year). Quite sure that in the 1970′s that would have more than exceeded the usury rates and should have been prosecuted as a felony under the Federal RICO laws. Today corporations have purchased the politicians, government, FBI…..so usury rates prey on the military, elderly, Indians and poor people and are no longer enforced…but back then this should have been prosecuted.
As village postmasters, they also offered a rudimentary auto-payment-opening the mail of xustomers who had run tabs, cashing their checks without asking, paying their bills at the post, and calling other shopkeepers across the reservation to see if debts were owed them too. There had been calls to boycott the post, but none had worked. But none had worked, the post was the only store for a dozen miles,a dn the many carless Oglalas of Wounded Knee had no choice but to buy groceries and other wares at its inflated prices. Years later clive Gildersleeve was called to testify about his business practices, and he invoked his Fifth amendment right not to incriminate himself ninety-nine times.
Yes that was 99 times refusing to tell the truth to keep from incriminating himself for the crimes he had committed against Indians. That is not the actions of someone who knows that they have done right who is proud of their behavior.
On arriving in downtown Wounded Knee, some protesters went first to the mass grave, wehre they prayed and begged their ancestors’ guidance in what they were about to do. Others, more secular, set about pillaging the trading post and museum. ( One side had been pillaging their community for years under the guise of “business” the other side weren’t so hypocritical!)Russell Means recalled later that among the museum’s displays was a ninetheenth-century ledger of cattle receipts on Pine Ridge: “The Cavalry captainin charge had made up names for the Indians who received that beef- “Shits In His Food,” She Comes Nine Times,” …..”
The occupiers burned the ledger.
The occupiers also took hostages this book says that they stayed willingly other sources namely Mrs. Gildersleeve(I have to make a point that Tom Giago in a response to a letter Steve Hendricks wrote says the hostages were not free to leave. Read the exchanges here. His main source is Mrs. Gildersleeve. I personally have to wonder about that. Giago doesn’t talk about what the other hostages experiences. Tom Giago is one of those people who only prints what will support his emotional stake in this whole mess. If someone has an opinion different than his he discounts them. James Simon is the same way will not answer any questions he just spouts mindless talking points.
Then they sent a list of demands toward Pine Ridge….
GALLERIES NOW ON THE SIDE BAR
Finally put up some galleries I’ll work on putting up the good photographs this weekend. One day I’ll work on a separate site for the art! I wish I had the money to have a professional take the art photos….of course they look better in person!!
ANNA MAE AQUASH 22/WOVOKA/SLAUGHTER OOPS I MEAN BATTLE OF WOUNDED KNEE
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
WOW!!!! Finally on CHAPTER 3…
In 1890, after the last of the nomadic Indians had been confined to reservations, there arose among the Paiutes of Nevada a new religion.
Its Prophet, Wovoka, said God knew his children were suffering and He was prepared to return them to Eden. All He required was that they live peacefully, work hard, and perform a dance, the ghost dance, which God had taught Wovoka.
The Indian Bureau, predecessor of the BIA, permitted the faith to spread (by golly that sure is nice for man to allow the WORD OF GOD to be spread) peaceful living and hard work were precisely what were wanted of the Indian. But as the religion crept eastward, it mutated. the ghost dance soon promised not merely an earthly Eden for Indians but also the annihilation of whites. (A perfect example of how corrupted the bible is today. Mankind no matter the race feels compelled to “help” God clarify His meaning!)
In its turn to militancy, the religion acquired an amulet: the ghost dance shirt, which , when worn by a person of faith, was said to make him impervious to gunfire.
On Pine Ridge the Oglalas called the superintendent Young Man Afraid of Indians. Addled by the dancers’ chants, Young Man Afraid wrote the army, “Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy….we need protection and we need it now.”
So General Nelson Miles seizes the dancer’s headmen Sitting Bull. There is gunfire and Sitting Bull is killed along with thirteen others. General Miles then rounds up all of the ghost dancing bands except one.
...led by a chief named Big Foot, whose group had been swollen with the survivors of Sitting Bull’s dancers In late December the Seventh Cavalry intercepted Big Foot in the Badlands. The Cavalrymen marched the few hundred Lakotas to Wounded Knee Creek where the next day, December 29, 1890, Colonel James Forsyth had them encircled. Forsyth mounted Hotchkiss machine guns on the surrounding hilltops and demanded the Indians weapons. the tense surrender of guns was barely underway when a shot was fired.
Neither the shooter nor his motive will ever be known, but his shot was followed by a bloodletting the likes of which the Plains had never seen.
The cavaliers loosed their Hotchkisses on the Indians…Abdomens and skulls were exploded like so many watermelons. The bullets severed limbs like leaves from trees, Great pools of blood seeped over the snow as men and women, infants and the infirm fell in heaps. what the big guns missed, scores of carbines picked off. Long after the Indians stopped firing, the soldiers continued. Fleeing children were pursued for miles through frozen creekbeds before being shot in the back. The ghostdance shirts offered a thin defense against Manifest Destiny
The Army said the mass grave it dug the next day held 146 Lakotas, of whom 44 were women and 18 children. One of the muirdered was Big Foot. the army reported another 51 Indians wounded, 7 of whom eventually died, the Lakotas said their dead numbered more like 3590.
On the cavalry’s side, the army claimed 25, killed and 39 wounded. Most (perhaps all) were killed by their comrades’ crossfire.
The army said then-and says now- that what happened at Wounded Knee was a pitched battle among equals, and it awarded twenty Congressional Medals of Honor to the Seventh for bravery at the “Slaughter Battle of Wounded Knee.”
In 1975, Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota proposed that the government compensate the heirs of the massacre’s victimes with a niggardly $3,000 apiece-a total burdenon the treasury of about %600,000. the army fought the bill, and Congress sided with the army. The press gave the matter the smallest blip of attention,and the nation left the Indians to their open wound.
What can you expect Indians are not white….. CEO’s who have stolen trillions from the people are rewarded with a few more trillion!! Not because of racism no siree!! (just ask dem white folks over at alt.native.)
On a more serious note. The mass grave at Wounded Knee should belong to the Indians whose ancestors reside there. To me a dead body is a dead body and the soul no longer lingers in it. But I think that the Indians believe something different and it hurts them to have their ancestors are disturbed. Can you imagine how many white people visit the grave site with a mean spirit and to gloat? White people should only be allowed to visit if they are a guest.
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