I GOT MY NEW TRACKING BOOK!!!
When I first got into hiking and photography in Oregon I was hanging out at this book store and I did a double take when I saw the name Rezendes because that is Portuguese and it is my mother’s maiden name. It was called THE WILD WITHIN it was a book not so much about tracking as it was about how to look at the forest…how to be present in the forest. His sort of autobiography and how he came to love the outdoors. I purchased it because I thought he was a distant relative. But he’s not.
I can’t scan the book because I loaned it out. But Paul Rezendes used to be the head of a biker gang called the Devils Deciples and they were based in Fall River, Massachusetts. Fall River is where most of my Portuguese relatives live. Anyway, he got a clue after getting arrested, studied Krishnamurti and started an Ashram. He turned to the woods and started a tracking school and became a photographer here is his website PAUL REZENDES PHOTOGRAPHY
Here is the book I got
He has updated the cover but being the destitute person I am I opted for the used copy on Amazon. And I think he has one of those $20,000 camera’s while I just bought a Canon Rebel film camera for $100. That’s Catholicism talking I feel guilty about everything….buying used books!!!!! I wish he would write a book about how to get rid of guilt!!!
I told the story about the bear shit on Whisky Creek trail….
but I was in the Redwoods hiking by myself of the Boy Scout trail when I ran into this couple and the man was shocked to see me hiking alone and said as much. I replied I’m not scared to be in the woods alone. He said did you see the cougar tracks back there it wouldn’t matter if you were a man…you are food! So on the way back I finally noticed the cougar tracks but didn’t see a cougar.
THIS IS THE BOY SCOUT TREE WITH MY BACK PACK FOR SIZE REFERENCE.
THE SIGN NAILED TO THE BOYSCOUT TREE
I still wasn’t convinced but then I would read about cougar and bear attacks in the woods. Each story instilled a bit more fear. One day I was on Mill Creek in the Redwoods and stopped on Mill Creek to eat my lunch. It is so beautiful….then I saw this
CLAW MARKS BY MILL CREEK
They were big! But according to Paul Rezendes I need to start carrying a tape measure. To the right of the big claw marks it looks like smaller tracks. But I couldn’t find any more tracks leading to the claw marks but they were right next to the water.
The shadow in the picture is the log I sat on to eat lunch.
MY FEET WHILE EATING LUNCH ON THE LOG
and a view of the creek
MILL CREEK
MILL CREEK
I can’t wait to start tracking bears and cougars….they won’t have to exert them selves tracking ME down. I’ll track them so they will have an easy meal!!!
Later I gotta go write my will.
MY FAVORITE POEM BY SHERMAN ALEXIE
THE SUMMER OF BLACK WIDOWS
The spiders appeared suddenly
after that summer rainstorm.
Some people still insist the spiders fell with the rain
while others believe the spiders grew from the damp soil like weeds
with eight thin roots.
The elders knew the spiders
carried stories in their stomachs.
We tucked our pants into our boots when we walked through fields
of fallow stories.
An Indian girl opened the closet door and a story fell into her hair.
We lived in the shadow of a story trapped in the ceiling lamp.
The husk of a story museumed on the windowsill.
Before sleep, we shook our blankets and stories fell to the floor.
A story floated in a glass of water left on the kitchen table.
We opened doors slowly and listened for stories.
The stories rose on hind legs and offered their red bellies to the most
beautiful Indians.
Stories in our cereal boxes.
Stories in our firewood.
Stories in the pocket of our coats.
We captured stories and offered them to the ants, who carried the
stories back to their queen.
A dozen stories per acre.
We poisoned the stories and gathered their remains with broom and
pan.
The spiders disappeared suddenly
after that summer lightning storm…..
I can hear the sound of Mr. Alexi’s lawyer typing up a cease and desist order….. You can read the rest on Amazon. It’s the second poem in his book.
And what a poem! Seriously I don’t know what it is about that poem the spiders coming down with the rain and bringing stories in their stomachs… You could read that poem to me on my death bed and everything would be alright!!! It is so imaginative and I almost fell out of my chair the first time I read it there was such joy and delight in my heart!
I took a poetry class about 25 years ago and while I got an A, I can’t write worth a damn and it pretty much ruined me for poetry until I read THE SUMMER OF BLACK WIDOWS on Amazon. The poetry class was filled with people that would slice, dice, twist and other wise disembowel a poem until it was dead and stripped of any magic…..and don’t get me started on FUCKING IAMBIC PENTAMETER!!! Once I spot it a poem is dead to me.
I love black widows! My mom used to own the black widow motel that is where I fell in love with them. She lives in the Nevada desert and she had this old Jeep Cherokee sitting in her driveway for years, at night they would all come out. There must have been 20 nests and those were just the ones you could see! My brother hated them and would deliberately walk 20 feet around it imagining that they would grab him and drag him under. Me?? I was naming them. My poor mother made the mistake of killing one of them in front of me…I yelled and accused her of black widow murder. I wish I had taken a picture of them!
I didn’t buy it used either so no guilt there!!!
The cover art is great too!
Also here is Sherman Alexie’s website he has a link to some of his newer poems and he also posts stuff that he is currently reading. That is how I got into all of these great Indian writers. He has good taste in books.
A CROSS ON ROGUE RIVER
CHARCOAL SKETCH OF CROSS ON THE ROGUE RIVER
Once upon a time I drove past Merlin, Oregon to the Rogue River in an attempt to escape my brother’s rabid girlfriend. Frustrated with a bad year in Pahrump Hell and a disastrous move back to Oregon (all is well now!) I needed to be by myself, do some thinking and meditating. I sat by the rivers edge for several hours. At one point I looked up and across from me on the other side of the river was a cross up on a rock formation. I had not remembered seeing it earlier. When I saw the cross I knew that everything would be alright. I drew a picture of it and was so angry, frustrated, and scared I tore a hole in the paper on the bottom right corner. I spent that day alternately cursing and praying.
CHARCOAL SKETCH I DID THE SAME DAY OF A BRIDGE OVER THE ROGUE RIVER.
The next day I went back and there was no cross. I thought I had lost my mind because I had sat and drawn a picture of it. I climbed back up the bank of the river and turned to look one last time, there it was only further down and closer to the tree in the sketch. You couldn’t see it while sitting by the river because of the rock formations.
The thing about God is that he/she/energy is always there. No reverence required the only thing in life you can trust no matter how much you scream, lament, curse, shake your fist at….God is greater than that and as I read recently in THE SHACK it doesn’t really matter what path you choose in life he will be be there.
INDIAN PIPE/MONOTROPA UNIFLORA
I have a book called RIVER-WALKING SONGBIRDS & SINGING COYOTES by Patricia K. Lichen. It tells about things in the Pacific Northwest in a way that makes it interesting…I have field guides but a bad memory but Patricia talks about nature in a story manner which is more conducive to my learning style!
Anyway she had a chapter on Indian Pipe
Description: To ten inches high; a cluster of stems, each ending with a bell -shaped flower; close, scale like leaves; white overall occasionally pink tinged, turning black as it ages. Shaped like a shepherd’s hook until seed development, when the plant stands erect.
There’s something vaguely creepy about Indian Pipe. Maybe that is due to the plant’s waxy, nearly translucent whiteness. Or because it is clammy and cold to the touch, within a few hours of being picked, it turns black
I grew up near forest and stream and didn’t remember anything of that description. And looked whenever I was hiking for the last two years .Then one day not long ago I was hiking and happened to look down.
I am guessing that these are the Indian Pipes just hatching! Of course I haven’t gone back there but will try to next week they might be black no though as the area I found them is getting cold at night.
The author of the book is not overly fond of these flowers but I was quite excited to see them…I don’t know if they are cold to the touch because I didn’t touch them. The plants have lost all of their ability to feed themselves and live off mostly Douglas fir but through a third party fungus! This is what the author does not like!
To one who can read the faces of the flowers, as it were, it stands a branded sinner. Doubtless its ancestors were industrious, honest creatures seeking their food in the soil, and digesting it with the help of leaves filled with good green matter (chlorophyll) on which virtuous vegetable life depends; but some ancestral knave elected to live by piracy, to drain the already digested food of its neighbors, so the Indians Pipe gradually lost the use of parts for which it had need no longer, until we find it today without color and its leaves degenerated into mere scaly bracts….No wonder this degenerate hangs its head: no wonder it grows black with shame on being picked, as if its wickedness were only just then discovered!
See what I mean? She makes things interesting and like me I am sure you will never forget this flower! I don’t judge it quite as harshly but I do think she has a sense of humor
Here is a photo of them all grown up from WILDFLOWERS FOUND IN OREGON on PAUL AND BERNICE NOLL’S WINDOW ON THE WORLD (an interesting site I just discovered).
BOOKS I AM READING NOW
I almost always read two books at one time, one is the book I keep by my bedside almost always fiction and the other is non-fiction that I keep in my car and read at lunch or when I am stuck in construction…waiting for whatever reason.
THE DEATH OF JIM LONEY by James Welch
Jim Loney didn’t know how long he had been asleep, but when he awoke it was close to 4 A.M. Outside, the wind swirled and blew snow like grains of sand against the kitchen window. He looked down at this dog and his dog was looking up at him.
“How you doing, old man?”
Swipesy twisted his head.
“You don’t even hear me, but I think you understand everything about life. And you know that you’re a good old boy, don’t you? Yes, you’re good old dog. You live clean and you never abuse yourself. You’re an example to me, Swipesy. I just wish I was as smart as you. I used to be. I was as smart as anybody.”
Swipesy sat up and pushed his nose against Loney’s knee.
“That was before I realized I didn’t know anything. Not one damn thing that was worth knowing. Dy you understand that? Do I understand that? Loney allowed himself a rueful smile that had nothing to do with the dog.
It’s not a book to read if you are looking for sunshine happiness! But James Welch is a good writer and this book covers the pain or rather the numbing of pain of an alcoholic mixed blood white/Indian.
Now RENEGADE TRIBE is about the Palouse Indians.
Like most history between whites and Indians the Palouse were welcoming and helpful when first encountering white people. White people move in; greed, savagery,narcissism and paranoia are inflicted on the Indians. Indians begin to chafe under white attempts to dominate…conflict ensues. I’m only on starting Chapter 4
It really bothers me that real history is not taught in school…well I’m not sure about now. When I was in school it was all from the colonizer point of view.
YOUR FBI $$$’s HARD AT WORK???
WOW! Is this an example of our Federal dollars at work? Not sure who SNAPPLE is but since he came to my house uninvited supporting Special Agent Joseph Trimbach. As a courtesy I put up a video that he thinks is relevant to the John Graham/Richard Marshall debacle trial. I think the trial is tearing apart Indian country but mostly the mainstream media does not report on it…another example of how the United States continues their ongoing history of racist beliefs and actions against the indigenous people population of this beautiful land.
Although I posted the video late last night with his name in caps he cannot seem to find it even though I also linked the post to his own blog LEGEND OF PINE RIDGE. Snapple is upset not only because he thinks I did not put up Two Elks video but because he mistakenly wrote on a previous post “the FBI is against Indians” He corrected himself but apparently he has no sense of humor. SNAPPLE claims I was making fun at his expense and that he is “older”…not sure what that means…at any rate he is an “older” person who quickly resorts to insults and tantrums when he thinks he has not gotten his way. On top of that I specifically told him that I would post it sometime…I was going to wait until the weekend but stayed up last night..
Mr. Snapple you need to read RULES FOR COMMENTING ON MY BLOG.
Here is one of several comments he left on my blog…I am responding in parenthesis
You are obviously a stupid little idiot who is not able to argue honestly if you choose to make something of an older person’s typing error. And lazy and dishonest not to post TWo Elk’s recent video.
I have given you the youtube link a few times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbkm1lMI0DU
Monica and Anna Mae both were both reportedly in a relationship to Dennis Banks, although he was married to Ka-Mook.(Noo….Monica Charles says she was not in a relationship with Dennis Banks and what is your source to such a claim? Do you just throw that stuff out there hoping a sex scandal will spice things up? You sound like the NATIONAL ENQUIRER!)
Monica’s brother (where do you get your information??? Do you think everybody with the last name of Charles is Monicas brother???) Norman was allegedly with Peltier when the FBI agents were shot.
Monica is pretty much at ground zero and spends a lot of time discrediting Indians such as Richard Two Elk and Ka-Mook, who have told the authorities what they witnessed so that there would be evidence to take to court.(Didn’t Ka-Mook get paid 49,000 for her testimony? She basically testified heresay and seven months later married one of the governments lead investigators in the Anna Mae Aquash case. From what I understand Richard Two Elk’s testimony is so bad and he has put out so many conflicting stories that he is not taken too seriously on the stand….or by PBS.)
Here is something Two Elk said about what Dennis Banks ordered boys to do during the occupation:
“I was there, at Wounded Knee. At the age of 19, I backpacked weapons and supplies into the village with my AIM brothers. I remember it was near Easter, because that’s when our leader, Dennis Banks, ordered us to ‘take care’ of a young white guy, suspected of being an informant. We knew what that meant. We strung him up on a cross in a mock crucifixion, and beat him. After we took him down, they led him away and I don’t think he was ever heard from again.”(Richard Two Elk has apparently written several different versions of this incident…If this is true why have the FBI not prosecuted him for murder???)
http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/ReleaseDetails.aspx?ID=26541
Agnes Gildersleeve testified that Indian people were held in a church and threatened with guns. AIM took over a disabled man’s trailer and other people’s homes.
Agnes recounts:
“[AIM] took complete control of the telephone service and local residents were not permitted to answer any of the phones. When my phone would ring, an armed guard would immediately answer the phone and direct the call over to [disabled Wilber Reigert's stolen] trailer house where Banks, Means, and Bellecourt were located…” (Trimbach p. 88) (The Gildersleeves were well known for taking advantage of Native Americans at their trading post…selling objects offensive to Native Americans. Here is Steve Hendricks talking about the Gildersleeves:
Tim Giago writes that I unfairly impugned the honor of the late Clive and Agnes Gildersleeve. The Gildersleeves owned the trading post at Wounded Knee, which was looted by militants who had seized the village to protest oppression on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and beyond. Sloppily lumping my book The Unquiet Grave with Peter Matthiessen’s In The Spirit of Crazy Horse, Giago writes, “In [the two books], you will read about a ‘white man’ and a woman often referred to as a ‘white woman,’ although Agnes Gildersleeve was an Ojibwa woman, who ‘ripped off’ the local Lakota people. This apparently justifies the attacks upon them and the destruction of their business.”
I did not write that Ms. Gildersleeve was white, did not use the words “ripped off” (though they are not far from the truth), and did not excuse the attack on them or their business. I did explain why many Indians hated the business:
“Its owners, the Gildersleeve and Czywczynski 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. The traders enlivened their commerce with beadwork, quilts, and other curios bought low from Oglalas and sold high. A Catholic priest once watched Mrs. Czywczynski 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 creditors, lending their Indian patrons $10 at humble interest of $2.25 a week. As village postmasters, they also offered a rudimentary auto-payment–opening the mail of customers 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. The post was the only store for a dozen miles, and 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.”
Giago goes on to paint me as an apologist for the American Indian Movement, which led the Indian rights struggle of the 1970s. This is rank distortion. Mine was the first book to describe AIM’s secret killing inside Wounded Knee of an activist named Ray Robinson, and the book’s centerpiece was AIM’s infamous execution of Anna Mae Aquash two years later. As Giago well knows, I condemned AIM sharply for these and lesser brutalities, and more than one AIM leader has threatened me for my pains. What riles Giago is that I also praised AIM (the overwhelming majority of whose members were peaceful) for fighting oppression, and I denuded the oppressors, from small-timers like the Gildersleeves to big-timers like the FBI, the latter of which persistently goaded AIM to just the sort of violence it committed. In Indian Country, the haves like Giago have long fought to keep the have-nots in their place. It is one reason the have-nots are still so multitudinous.
SNAPPLE LEAVES A COMMENT
This is a comment SNAPPLE just left on my blog for those of you who would like to hear from an FBI supporter’s take on the whole Anna Mae Aquash story. My response is below his.
On August 12, 2009 at 5:24 am Snapple Said:
Elizabeth,
Richard Two Elk has made a video that describes some things that happened when the AIM attacked the people at Wounded Knee.
I think you should hear his side instead of just listening to a woman who may be closely associated with the people who conspired in some crimes.
I have a number of posts about Two Elk, but you might want to see his new video.
The introduction of the Trimbach’s book is written by Mr. Two Elk. He writes about child abuse and alcoholism in the introduction. This book is based on Indian sources because it is Indians who witnessed the crimes or who were the victims.
I linked it on this post.
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2009/08/richard-two-elk-stolen-legacy-of.html
I think you are believing the lies that the criminals who killed Indians, FBI agents, and some young women and men at Wounded Knee told.
You write about abuse of women and children, but young women and girls were sexually assaulted and murdered during the take-over.
The lawyer for the AIM, Mark Lane, got money from the KGB. He was also the lawyer for the 900 people at Jonestown who were murdered. Mark Lane says he managed to escape that day. Only a few people weren’t poisoned or shot. Then Mark Lane–the AIMster lawyer who got money from the KGB–wrote a book that claimed the CIA killed those people.
Mark Lane got money from the Soviet KGB to make trouble and to discredit American security agencies like the FBI and CIA. We know this because a KGB archivist defected to the British with many years of notes he took on the documents in the KGB foreign intelligence archives.
Snapple,
You must not have read my posts or comments to James Simon very well. I do not just listen to Monica Charles…she merely suggested a book to read….I have been reading THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks. I got hung up on the Jancita Eagle Deer story and wrote several posts about her. What do you think about Jancita Eagle Deer? Do you see her as just another lying drunk Indian woman who “got” what she asked for?
I in no way, shape or form support ANYONE who has raped or abused women or children…David Seals has spoken out against AIM leaders who treated women poorly…as has Monica Charles. (look up my posts on Bernard Red Cherries. I have a victims statement from his step daughter on my blog. A fellow blogger was threatened by Autonomous AIM Where is the FBI??) The point is Snapple, you and James Simon unconditionaly support those who who have either ignored or partaken in the abuse of women. As Monica Charles once wrote I see the law enforcement as public servants sworn to uphold the laws of the United States(she just plain mistrusts them). The FBI should have been protecting the rights of Native Americans and not just those of the colonizers.
I am not mired in opinion of one side over the other. I do not blindly support the AIM or the FBI. The only people I blindly support are the victims…and not the ones crying over the loss of their material possesions at Wounded KneeII
My sympathies and prayers go to the children like MaryAnn Little Bear and Jancita Eagle Deer…and the countless others who did not seem to warrant the FBI’s attention in the terms of a thorough investigation. That bothers me more than the Anna Mae Aquash murder…Anna Mae Aquash was a woman who made it to adulthood and made her decision to be involved in activities that may or may not get her killed…she felt that what she was doing was right and good. I do not agree with nor do I condemn her actions…She was caught up in something that became beyond her control. However I do not hold AIM to higher standards than I hold the FBI.The only law enforcement agent that looks to be a hero in all of this is U.S.Marshal Colburn…he’s good looking too!
My concept of my history has been pulled out from under me with this Indian stuff…totally blows me away at 43? My attitudes toward law enforcement and the government has changed considerably not because they made mistakes or did stupid things or even because they plotted to exterminate Indians but because they continue to support the wrong minded thinking in 2009. 2009 ! ! ! (kind of like the racism we are seeing with the election of Obama) They refuse to recognize, take responsibility and hold accountable those who did not enforce the laws that they were sworn to uphold. AIM was a group of protestors that got out of hand…the FBI is a government agency who only investigated crimes on Pine Ridge and other reservations when it suited their racist, paranoid beliefs.
As for Richard ‘Two Elks….have you ever read alt.native??? This is what the FBI supports??? Seriously???? All any jury would have to read is a copy of him making fun of a woman who was sexually abused by her father that pretty much negates what he claims to be consern and support for Native women. I own a copy of AMERICAN INDIAN MAFIA and I will get around to reading it. But being endorsed by Richard Two Elks and Bill Janklow….you guys are starting off on the wrong foot with me.
I am trying to finish THE UNQUIET GRAVE and it is difficult…they are in Oregon traveling with dynamite….It’s hard to read but this is not something that I can even discuss with you because you are 100 percent in support of genocide. I can’t even get James Simon to acknowledge that the government was stearilizing Indian women in the sixties. His avoidance of the topic makes me believe that he thinks that these were the right actions…that Indian women are less than human. What about you SNAPPLE….do you unconditionally support all actions by the United States???
A few more things why do you hide behind the name SNAPPLE?
Why are the FBI supporters so concerned about Monica Charles sex life? That really bothers me..why is that thrown around? Do you hold women to differnet standards? Is there any proof of her having sex with Dennis Banks? She says she didn’t….and if she did why bring it up like she is a whore? How many women or men have you been with??? Why aren’t the sex lives of the FBI agents under attack or investigated or commented about?
Get that video of Richard Two Elks on youtube and I will put it on my blog and make it a whole post!
Oh and I haven’t heard of any young women being murdered at Wounded Knee….but with all I have been stuffing in my head…did I gloss over it?
I look forward to hearing your response.
ANNA MAE AQUASH 60/JANCITA EAGLE DEER MEETS ex GOVERNOR BILL JANKLOW part III
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
Previously a young Jancita Eagle Deer alleges that Bill Janklow raped her. The investigation, like many rape investigations on reservations at the time (I hope things have gotten better),is poorly conducted with adults hesitating, unwilling to do their jobs. Years later she attends a press conference publicly stating that she was victimized. The press conference does not end well for her and she is accused of making up the story by Bill Janklow”s lawyer Jeremiah Murphy.
The story continues…
The reporters never asked how Jeremiah Murphy had seen the papers he said he had seen, papers like Eagle Deer’s school and medical records. these were personal documents, protected by law from prying eyes like Murphy’s, as any lawyer would have known. ….
Nor, above all, did reporters investigate the truth or falsity of the competing stories told by Murphy and Eagle Deer. They simply decreed Eagle Deer wrong.
A few days later, the Court of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Judge Mario Gonzales presiding, convened to hear evidence In re disbarment of William Janklow. The only reporter in attendance was Minnesota freelancer Kevin McKiernan. Janklow did not attend either, though Gonzalez had ordered him to appear and show cause why he should not be disbarred. Gonzalez had also ordered a BIA police officer to bring the BIA’s file on the alleged rape, but the officer’s superiors ordered him not to give Gonzalez the “confidential” file.This was a large insult. Virtually every court in the nation was entitled to review police records when relevant to a case at hand. For the BIA to say that Judge Gonzalez could not see the records was tantamount to saying that his court was no court.
There was irony in this turn of events because tribal courts had been created a century before by the Indian Bureau to strip traditional chiefs of power and give it to Indian Judges who could be kept servile.
Gonzalez answered the BIA’s insult by jailing the officer who refused to hand over the file and promising the same for his superiors if they set foot on the reservation. Judge Bogue immediately reversed Gonzalez and, more insult to injury, misspelled his name.
Dennis Banks proceeded with his case, calling twenty witnesses against Janklow.
Eagle Deer testified, in Gonzalez’s words, “in obvious discomfort at reliving old horrors.” He found her testimony entirely credible. Kaye Lord and others recounted the rape as Eagle Deer had told them, and eagle Deer’s medical records, unlike her police file, were produced by the hospital. Contrary to the press-conference claim of Jeremiah Murphy, the records contained evidence of some kind, not made explicit by Judge Gonzalez, that was consistent with a claim of sexual assault.
“Furthermore,” Gonzalez wrote, “the evidence indicates that an obstruction of justice followed the rape. When a complaint was being made to the Bureau of Indian Affairs Special Officer, Janklow was there. No relief or representation was possible through the Legal Services Program since Mr. Janklow ran it…..testimony indicates that as recently as two months ago, Mr. Janklow offered Miss Eagledeer’s grandfather money after inquiring about her. The depth of the suffering which Miss Eagledeer conveyed in her testimony cannot be reproduced through words on paper. Feeling shame, she left the Rosebud Reservation and returned only once until today. Her foster parents testified that her grades and interest in school fell after she was raped. She still feels frightened and inhibited by the beastly act committed against her by Mr. Janklow. It can only be hoped that she will come to realize that she should hold her head up proud for she has not guilt. She is a victim.”
Gonzalez disbarred Janklow from tribal court, then went one better and issued a warrant for his arrest.
The newspapers of the state might have been expected o give at least a few paragraph to the warrant, to the disbarment , or to the finding that Janklow had raped Eagle Deer.
They did not.
ANNA MAE AQUASH 58/JANCITA EAGLE DEER MEETS ex-GOVERNOR BILL JANKLOW (PART I)
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
I had to make another attempt to tell the story of Jancita Eagle Deer only all together instead of spread out over several chapters and without interruptions. Also without anger in my heart.
Once upon a time there was a little girl named Jancita who lived on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Indian reservations were created by very greedy white men and the greedy women who choose to sleep with them. As Americans we know the story of the Brady Bunch isn’t true…childhood is full of pain and hurt, wounds and scars, sprinkled between moments of carefree and wonderful moments. I think that Indians on Pine Ridge lived the Brady Bunch Negative Extreme…instead of families coming together the bad greedy white men rip them apart. Stole their children and sent them to houses of horror called boarding schools. If you can imagine Satan running a boarding school….well it is probably worse than your imagination. Mothers and Father’s are helpless as greedy men and women kidnap their children re-name them in the name of Christianity (although Christ himself would have nothing to do with the insanity of such loveless actions) subjected to all manner of abuse, readily scorned and attempts made to scour their memory of who they really were.
Young Jancita attended one of these little houses of horror and on
“Saturday night in January 1967, Jancita Eagle Deer was checked out of her dormitory at the Rosebud Boarding School in Mission, South Dakota, by Bill Janklow. Eagle Deer was a full-blooded Lakota with bobbed hair of pitch, eyelashes of a length other girls would sell fingers for, a full cheeked smile, and a frame of pleasing proportions. She was fifteen. Her parents had been unable to care for her, owing to the same alcoholism and despair that had cleaved Anna Mae Aquash from her parents she had been placed with foster parents, John and Yvonne Arcoren, With the help of attorneyJanklow, the Arcorens were in the process of adopting Eagle Deer. Janklow had also helped Eagle Deer gain admittance to the BIA boarding school in Mission where he lived, and since the Arcorens lived twenty miles away in St. Francis, Janklow assumed an avuncular posture toward the girl. On that Saturday night, her brought her home for dinner with his family, after which she was to go to a dance. At five minutes before eight-the time would assume some importance- Janklow drove her the half-mile downtown, but the dance hall was unlit: they were too early.
“We might as well drive around until the dance starts,” Janklow said.
“Can I go to a movie?” Eagle Deer said.
He replied, in her version of the story, “Wouldn’t you rather drink with me?”
“I’d rather go to the dance.”
They may have briefly driven around the town, a sprinkling of bruised buildings and rutted streets that would not have sustained much driving, but soon they headed west into the countryside on U.S. Highway 18. A few miles from town, he turned the car north on a dirt section-line track and in the story Eagle Deer told-allof which Janklow has repeatedly and vehemently denied- drove until he reached a small rise where a gate blocked their progress…..
He reached across her seat, pushed a lever, and as the seat fell back pushed her back with it. She tried to get up but he held her down.
“The first time I saw you in my office, I was crazy about you,” he said. “And I have been ever since.” He asked her to come away with him.
She said he had a wife and children.
“To hell with them. I’ll get a divorce.”
Not knowing what else to say, she said his wife was nice and he shouldn’t divorce her, but he was unbuttoning her blouse and seemed not to hear. She hit him and said she wanted to go back to town, but he kept unbuttoning, so she kept hitting.
“Goddamn, what are you so frightened about?” he said. “I won’t hurt you.”
Funny how men think that rape will not hurt a girl….this is common among child molesters and rapists.
he got her blouse unbuttoned, unbuckled his belt, and unzipped his pants. He raised her skirt and tried to pull down her underwear. She was flailing, and it took some doing to get the underwear off, but at last he mounted her. The rape, according to Jancita Eagle Deer of the eighth grade, lasted about ten minutes. What she felt or thought, whether she continued to struggle or went limp, what precisely her assailant was alleged to have done-the sounds and smells and touch of her particular hell-is nowhere recorded.
When Janklow was sated, he got off her and told her to put her underwear on. She did and pulled her skirt back down and buttoned her blouse. He reassembled himself, put the car in gear, and started back to town. The dashboard clock read 8:50
They were silent until Janklow took three dollar bills from his wallet and geve them to her. She wouldn’t tell anyone, would she?
She took the money without comment.
He said he was going to Denver on Wednesday and asked if she would come along.
“If I could take one of my girlfriends,” she said.
“Forget it.”
They drove on in silence.
“What if I wanted to check you out of the dorm. What would you do?”
“I don’t know.”
When they arrived downtown, he let her out at the dance hall and told her to come back home after the dance. She did not. Next morning, he saw her on the street with friends, ordered her into his car, and drove her home. He sent his wife to the store (?? can you imagine??? that’s why I’m not married!!!) and yelled at Eagle Deer for staying out all night. She asked him to take her back to school. At one o’clock on Sunday afternoon he did, and she went directly to a dormitory matron, Catherine Bordeaux, who could see she had been crying. Eagle Deer said she had been raped and told the foregoing story.
“Are you sure what you’re saying is true?” Bordeaux said when Eagle Deer had finished. “A false statement could get you in a lot of trouble.”
“He took advantage of me,” Eagle Deer said. “And I have proof.”
She unbuttoned her shirt, revealing what Bordeaux described as a nickel-sized “discoloration of the skin” on her upper left breast. Another hickey was visible on the right side of her neck. Eagle Deer credited both to Janklow.
While they were talking, the phone rang. It was Janklow, and he asked to talk to Eagle Deer, but Bordeaux said the girl was distraught and didn’t want to speak with him. She hung up and went to tell her supervisor, (Today she should have immediately called the police. And then notified her supervisor.) Kaye Lord, about Eagle Deer’s claim. while Lord and Bordeaux were talking, an aide rushed up to them and said that Janklow had stormed into the office where Eagle Deer was waiting and that it sounded “like big trouble in there”- the girl crying, the man hollering. Lord went in to the office and sent Eagle Deer out. (Should have sent him out) When the tearful girl emerged, she told Bordeaux in the hallway, “Mr. Janklow told me not to get him into trouble. He said he would buy me everything I wanted.”
Inside the office, Kay Lord found janklow pacing. She said, “I think you had better tell me your side of the story.”
He agreed. He said the night before, Eagle Deer had had supper with his family, after which she had asked to have a couple of drinks. He had said no. A little before eight, she asked if she could go to the dance, and a few minutes later he drove her downtown. Because the dance hall was darkened, he wouldn’t let her out of the car. She asked if he would buy her peppermint schnapps, and he said, “Of course not.” They drove for maybe thirty-five minutes.At about ten minutes to nine, he let her off at the dance hall and told her to come home by a quarter of two. She didn’t, and he picked her up in Mission the next morning. In the afternoon he dropped her at her dormitory. That was it. He asked to see Eagle Deer.
Lord said it would be too upsetting and suggested he leave. After he did, she called Eagle Deer back into the office and asked to hear her side. Eagle Deer told the same story she had told Bordeaux and showed Lord the hickey on her breast. Lord called Eagle Deer’s stepparents and the school’s principal, but not for several hours did she call the BIA police, and not until Monday morning, thirty-six hours after the alleged rape, did a doctor at the Rosebud Hospital examine Eagle Deer.(That is so heartbreaking that adults running the boarding school could choose hour after hour to take the wrong action.)
On that Monday an investigator of the BIA, Peter Pitchlynn began an inquiry, and on Wednesday he made a report to the FBI. The FBI made its own investigation and made a report to the U.S. attorney. A month later, an assistant U.S. attorney wrote the FBI that “there is insufficient evidence to support the allegations. of the victims, and said allegations. are unfounded.” Janklow was not prosecuted.
to be continued…..
ANNA MAE AQUASH 57/ JANCITA EAGLE DEER/ANATOMY OF A THREAT
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
I have been avoiding these posts because of this chapter on Bill Janklow and Jancita Eagle Deer. It’s like I want to crawl out of my skin….turn myself inside out rip my heart out. It drives me crazy.. I wish I could copy and paste this part of the story because I want it to be over…but I have to read and type because I can’t find a good version of what happened.
I wrote the above early yesterday morning and had to quit…the story of Jancita Eagle Deer is so sad and filled with despair…one of the many reasons that Joseph Trimbach and his FBI colleagues should be in jail along with some goons, Bill Janklow, probably half of the United States government…Monica probably thinks it should be more! (finally I made myself laugh this morning)
There seems to be little support or concern for Indian women…the men of AIM beat their chests and congratulate themselves….they seem to be more concerned with a power struggle and prestige…titles. Things the white government has taught. It is the same for all women…we have lost much of the ground during the eight years of the Bush administration…but in America today it seems that Indian women are so strong and the most abused and looked down upon.
I think the two stories have been merging on me as of late…injustice for women continues. You can read more about Anatomy of a Threat on THE ABUSE PAPERS
Strong women
Here is a picture of Jancita Eagle Deer and a link to her story here and here and here.
Other strong and beautiful women I have encountered surrounding this and the issue of abuse are
Monica Charles who got me involved in this
Martha Alvarez a young woman who speaks with such conviction against her abuser…she has inspired bloggers to confront the issue.
Anna Mae Aquash who through her spirit is working tirelessly as ever.(There are no sites that I know of that are non-biased about Anna Mae Aquash…they all seem to have an agenda. Everyone has an opinion and everyone thinks that they are right. While I am reading The Unquiet Grave, I have formed no opinion on who did it. I do have a strong opinion that the FBI was grossly negligent and incompetent in their duties to American citizens.
Shusli of Spring Thunder blog who was one of the original supporters of Martha Alvarez’s right to speak against her abuser.
Mary Ann Little Bear a little girl who had her eye shot out and the FBI and BIA police couldn’t be bothered to investigate. I truly hope she is doing well now.
Ellen Moves Camp...who had the courage to ask “Where are all our men?”
I have encountered some good men, the most graceful and humble Jumpybird on alt.native he probably does not know that his example does have a profound effect on some.Then there is brave Eugene Johnson from Pudgy Indian 2….Having a hard time coming up with more will add them later if I can think of any.
Peace to all..
and my prayers to Runningwolf in this difficult time she is experiencing.
Much love to Ordinary Sparrow who is a constant reminder that there is another way.
AMEN!
ANATOMY OF A THREAT/INDIAN CHIEFS
I must confess that with all of the sorid business surrounding Bernard Red Cherries; I don’t have a high opinion of Indian chiefs. I do not mean to offend anyone especially since I have all of the colonizer guilt weighing upon me. But in my opinion victims rights in any country by any color for any type of abuse by far outweighs the need to “protect” the image of an Indian chief. In fact it seem mighty white to me…sort of like how police officers always cover for one another. Not a damn Indian chief has stood up for what is right and honorable.
This fucking thing goes from Oregon to Montana to Oklahoma and as far as Florida…it involves the groups THE RED BROTHERHOOD, PORTLAND AIM, AND OKLAHOMA AIM….And the only man who has stood for victims rights is Eugene Johnson of PUDGY INDIAN2. And of course cjames who has put up THE ABUSE PAPERS who may or may not be Indian. Seriously what exactly is the point of being an Indian chief or in a group like AIM if you don’t have the courage or don’t know better than to support a young woman courageous enough to tell her story? What is the fucking point of your existence?
There is a Portuguese word for people WHO DON’T EVEN KNOW TO HAVE SHAME ON THEIR FACE!…if only I could remember it!!
Getting back to Indian chiefs…Martha Alvarez wrote a new comment on alt.native
My grandfather is a Chief and claimed by his people, which is more
than I can say about you. He is to be respected; he is a great man,
unlike you! He is the son of Mary Jim, where he gets his title. My
grandmother is Carrie Jim Schuster, his sister, both well know for
their work in bringing down a dam on the Columbia River, which is
still an ongoing project to bring the remaining dams on the Columbia/
Snake River down. My great-grandmother also was one of the main
person’s interviewed for the book “Renegade Tribe: The Palouse Indians
and the Invasion of the Inland Pacific Northwest” By Clifford E.
Trazfer, look it up it’s a good book.
As an Indian I think Eugene is a credit to us all for bringing this
forward, it takes a lot of courage to stand against any person in
power. He and his wife Shusli are still taking the heat for this and I
appreciate and respect them greatly, it really is unfair.You talk about sacredness when you yourself drink and use drugs. I
think a person in a leadership position should set an example and put
their standards higher than anyone else’s. A Chief is a leader of his
people and a person who represents them, so if he is a drunk/addict
what does that say to world about his people. He is misrepreseneting
them. It is only because of people like you we have negative views of
our way of life. The misuse and abuse of your position. Practice what
you preach is the expression that comes to mind.So how many children do you have? How many of them are still in
contact with you? From my understanding your daughter Lori is in
Mexico, and your son Bernard Redcherries the III is in prison, and
your niece Lori Redcherries doesn’t talk to you, you know why, well
that side of the family for that fact. I know you were not even wanted
at Monica’s funeral. So why would such a great father and leader be so
distant from his own blood? Or not wanted by them?You once called me obsessive, I think it was, so my thought was you’re
on here a great deal more than I am attacking anyone who lets their
opinion be known. What does that make you, Psychotic? And if you are
this Lisa person, as you have stated, why would you use so many names?
You posted as Lori Redcherries, Eaglewingwomen, Fox, Judy, Wilbur
Hawk, Beverly H., friend of the Redcherries family, all from the same
IP address’ supporting the great Chief Redcherries.
If anyone is laughing it’s us at your expense. This is a war you’re
going to lose eventually.
Martha F. Alvarez
So I did as Martha suggested and I ordered the book off of Amazon but being the poverty stricken person I am I bought the used copy for 1.45. Once again the book is called RENEGADE TRIBE they have more used copies still available!!! I have been wanting to read more about the real history of the state I grew up in….although it sounds like it took place more in Washington. And anyone who has a hand in getting rid of those damn dams is a hero in my book!!! But as a typical colonizer I forget there didn’t used to be states….doh!!!
It better be a good book because I broke my vow that I wouldn’t buy any more books from Amazon until I finished reading 10 more!!!
And here is a National Geographic page that says the Appaloosa horse is named after the Palouse Indians. How cool is that?
And to end this post here is the quote from Martha’s profile:
|
“I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them.”
love that!
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ANNA MAE 56/Grrrrrr!!!
As some of you know I have been on vacation of the road trip sort….It was good to get away from the Anna Mae story, the posts were getting short because I would get pissed off…outraged. When I was young grown-ups would tell me that I was too ideal and that the world was not ideal….they said I would change. I didn’t. In fact as an adult and encountering opportunities to further my career, money or social status in exchange for a bit of corruption….found I could not live with myself. Having faced the choice….I am even more adamant in my beliefs…there is a whole process when it comes to choosing between the right thing and the wrong thing.
I used to worry the trial would be over long before I was halfway through the book after being in the desert for a week I had the thought that it was all waiting for me. How is that for ego??
What I need to say is how terribly wrong all of this is.
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
CHAPTER 9
Grrrrr. Chapter 9 is about Bill Janklow….not sure that man’s name should even be uttered on my blog ever again. One time I was listening to G.Gordon Liddy and he was on a tangent because Ted Turner had made some statement that the TEN COMMANDMENTS didn’t mean anything anymore…G. Gordon Liddy in that correct, precise, enunciation of the English language of his said something to the effect of…”Well, I guess if you have broken all ten commandments they would not mean anything to you”. Kind of reminds me of BJ (interesting initials).
Soooo President Ford nominates this accused rapist and future murderer to the board of directors of Legal Services Corporation. By the way my Dad drank and drove every single day of my life growing up…never ran over anyone. Didn’t drive like a fucking idiot like this BJ. My Dad was courteous and would pull over if a car wanted to pass him….I still do that (pull over not drink and drive!).
This position requires Senate confirmation and when he was called for questioning he had disappeared. Apparently he flew home..
He told them he had left the hearing room when a network television crew arrived because he did not care for his past to be debated before the entire nation.” (Waaaahhhh! Is this a Republican or South Dakota trait?? Send that man a crying towel.)
Jimmie Durham , who ran a group called the International Indian Treaty Council (an offshoot of AIM that worked for indigenous rights worldwide)…..told the Senate that Janklow had raped Eagle Deer (Jancita) and had committed other crimes as enumerated in Judge Gonzalez’s Rosebud courtroom. Durham also said that since becoming attorney general, Janklow had sent eighty state troopers to assault a pork plant that was seized by Indians on the Yankton Reservation. The assault was illegal because only the federal and tribal governments had jurisdiction over reservation crimes. Janklow’s troopers had no more authority to quell a disturbance on Yankton than in Omaha.
Grrrrrr. You might think that his cowardly actions would raise some suspicions but the FBI had already investigated him and found the rape charges baseless….now the White House turned to the FBI again (too fucking tired to rant about that!
GUESS WHAT??? Those corrupt fucks at the FBI said
…”these allegations are simply unfounded”
Senator Jacob Javits of New York….declared the exoneration of Republican Janklow by a Democrat-controlled Senate (Yet another reason to be a Socialist!) “a vindication of your system….We all can be very proud (Apparently Jacob Javits has very low standards) that this was the result, and you should take satisfaction from it rather than laboring under any feeling that you have been harassed. (Jacob Javis did it ever occur to you that bj felt harassed because he was….guilty???) You have really proved something very, very useful and important to our country.” (INDEED YOU HAVE PROVEN THE SENATE TO BE FULL OF IDIOTS AND THAT THE FBI IS CORRUPT…THAT OUR SYSTEM IS NOT WORKING!!!)
So much for Peace and harmony!!
HERE IS YET ANOTHER ACCOUNT OF JANCITA EAGLE DEER this pisses me off more than Anna Mae’s story…Anna Mae was older and stronger with more of a sense of who she was…Janklow probably robbed Jancita of that right.
FROM SAND CREEK BY SIMON J. ORITZ PART II
COVER
Simon J. Oritz arranged this book so that on the left page was an observation, thought or fact and on the right hand side was a poem.
Excerpts from the left pages:
The people were at peace. This was expressed two months before by Black Kettle, one of the principal elders of the Cheyennes, in Denver to Governor John Evans and Colonel John W. Chivington, head of the Colorado Volunteers. “I want you to give all these chiefs of the soldiers here to understand that we are for peace, and that we have made peace, that we may not be mistaken for enemies.” The reverend Colonel Chivington and his Volunteers and Fort Lyon troops, numbering more than 700 heavily armed men, slaughtered 105 women and children and 28 men.
A U.S. flag resented by President Lincoln in 1863 to Black Kettle in Washington, D.C. flew from a pole above the elder’s lodge on that gray dawn. The people had been assure they would be protected by the flag…
Repression works like shadow, clouding memory and sometimes even to blind, and when it is on a national scale, it is just not good.
Buffalo were dark rich clouds moving upon the rolling hills and plains of America. And then the flashing steel came upon bone and flesh.
Conquest reached Nevada: a warrior chief was assassinated by the cavalry, cut into stewing pieces, fed to other chiefs, and a Treaty was signed.
That’ll show ‘em. Ask the Paiutes.
Is that true??
Who stole the hearts and minds of the humble hard-working folk until
they too became moralistic and self-righteous: senators, bishops,
presidents, missionaries, corporation presidents?
Here are excerpts from the poems on the right side pages. I am only a little over the halfway point…its too much to digest in a short period of time.
from page 13
…He is impossible
to talk with then.
His frozen tongue
is frantic
with prayer;
he wants to trust.
VA doctors tell him
not to worry.
That’s his problem.
From page 27
You
ought to have
heard them cry
singing
summoning eternity,
the fools.
Singing
longing,
reluctance.
Flowers are delicate,
they are,
these generations
still sing forth,
crying…..
From page 33
Don’t fret now.
Songs are useless
to exculpate sorrow.
That’s not their intent anyway…
From page 45
They try to frighten us
with their madness
but we know better.
Billy wasn’t always alien.
Finally, he listens.
Look Billy, stories
are reliable as those river stones.
They were fierce, Billy,
atrocious, shiny blades glistening
in the cold sun,
you could smell their sour sweat.
FROM SAND CREEK BY SIMON J.ORITZ
SCAN OF BOOK
Here is an excerpt from the Preface
As far as our Native cultural philosophy was concerned, we were a part of human culture and society no matter what anyone said or thought. But there was a problem with that when the human culture and society the human culture we were part of was the United States. Because ti was the same United States that was guilty of mass destruction and oppression as a result of the the “civilizing” and “winning” of the West. And it was the same United States that was guilty of countless instances of thievery and genocidal killing, including the massacre of Cheyennes and Arapahoes at Sand Creek in 1864.
We were a major and vital part of U.S. history, but were we a part of the history of something atrocious like that? Obviously, it’s tough to be faced with something like that. Most people prefer not to face it and deal with it. In fact, U.S. society really doesn’t face it or deal with it. Instead, the United States insulates itself within an amnesia that doesn’t acknowledge that kind of history. The victors (discoverers, settlers, real estate developers, government leaders, etc.) can afford that, it seems, as long as they maintain control and feel that they don’t have to face the truth…
At this point in history, Indians are still not accepted as full participants in and members of world human cultural society. If they choose to, they can accept that severly restricted role, but then they will have to tolerate that role’s social, political, and cultural limitations. Or they can be who they are, absolutely and completely
Leaves a person with much to think of
ANNA MAE 55/HOW MANY INDIANS HAD HEART FAILURE ON PINE RIDGE WHEN WILSON WAS PRESIDENT??
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
This stuff is like a surface….with all of those evil scary clowns…
After Attorney General Levi announced the misdemeanor indictments, Wilson and his men had themselves charged in tribal court….
They pleaded no contest, were fined $10 a head.
Unbelievable! Dennis Ickes was prosecuting the case and had no witnesses because he thought he had Fred and Everett Brewer turning state’s evidence.
Hours before they were to testify, they reneged on their plea agreements. Judge Bogue could have jailed them for contempt until they testified, but instead approved the reneging.
Dick Wilson was tried first, separately from his men, with the counsel of John Fitzgerald, a onetime lawyer for the Boston Mafia who had moved west in 1973 after starting his car one morning and setting off a massive bomb. One leg lighter but miraculously alive, Fitzgerald had offered his services to WKLDOC, most of whose members blanched at the offer. But the iconoclastic Mark Lane brought him into the fold, and Fitzgerald was soon sitting in on strategy sessions for the Custer trials. a few weeks later, special prosecutor Bill Janklow announced that he was hiring a new assistant to help with the Custer cases-one John Fitzgerald.
After some protest by WKLDOC Fitzgerald was withdrawn.
WKLDOC could not convince either Judge Joseph Bottom on the state bench or Judge Bogue on the Federal bench that Janklow, as WKLDOC alleged, had illegally invaded the defense camp.
Are there any statistics of how many Indians on Pine Ridge died of high blood pressure…this shit is enough to give a person heart failure…every day I say I am going to write a whole bunch but I cannot because I get too angry and upset.
At the trial of Dick Wilson, Fitzgerald told the jury with a straight face that Wilson was not at the airport on February 26.
The trial lasted four days, and the jury deliberated four hours before acquitting Wilson of all counts. Of the twelve jurors, twelve were white.
So much for a trial by your peers.
On Pine Ridge, the prevailing opinion was that if white lawyers fared this badly when they took Dick Wilson to trial, mere Indians didn’t have a prayer.
ANNA MAE AQUASH 54/MAINSTREAM MEDIA IGNORES THE CONTINUING RACISM AND GENOCIDE OF NATIVE AMERICANS
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
It has been almost a week since I have done an Anna Mae post. For various ways…I have to consider that Monica is right about spirits and that everything is happening for a reason. Some dark things are being exposed to light..that is always a good thing eventually, even if there is pain and turmoil involved. We may not recognize the good because we may not be the recipients.
When I last posted on this book the government had pushed AIM leaders to the brink…our government and justice and political system is not fair…it is outrageous in its overt racism…but to become what the colonizer has taught will not and has never worked. Having said that and watching what has been going on in Iraq I wonder if some revolution is necessary for change. Americans are too weak and afraid of their government to protest on that level. I once attended a Wobblies meeting and there was a man from Denmark visiting he said that Americans will rise up when they have fallen far enough. It gave me great hope but then when you read about North Korea….maybe not so much.
Five days after Anderson (a reporter) started raising questions-two months after the beating-U.S. Attorney General Edward Levi announced that Dick Wilson and six of his goons (including Brewer and Dick Wilson Jr.) would be indicted.
In the year before the beating, twenty-six people had been murdered in South Dakota, twenty-three of them had been on Pine Ridge, and nearly all of the victims had been Indians. The murder rate on the reservation was eight times that of Detroit, then America’s most homicidal city.
Yet the national press almost entirely ignored the story.
WKLDOC tried to interest reporters in the more sensational murders, like the case of the Eagle Hawk family, whose care was rammed by goons, killing the mother, her four month-old daughter,and three-year-old nephew. Goons threatened the survivors in the hospital, and the authorities declared the murder a routine auto accident.
But reporters didn’t bite. A few dead Indians in an out-of-the-way corner of an out-of-the-way state didn’t count for much individually, and collectively they were not seen as the alarming result of systemic racism.
The reporters and editors who hastened Jim Crow to his grave would not do the same for bigotry against Indians.
Here is a link to a site called OUR FREEDOM it is about the John Graham/Richard Marshall farce trial. They have written a Chronology of Oppression at Pine Ridge.
Here is a “book” on a pdf file called FREE JOHN GRAHAM it has his story …Anna Mae’s…pictures and letters of support including one written by Monica Charles!
ANNA MAE AQUASH 53/ELEPHANTS…YEAH IT’S OFF THE PATH
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
The FBI did a lackadaisical job of investigating the beating of the WKLDOCkers. The one thing that they turned up was an incident that was a prologue to the beating.
Earlier that afternoon Dick Marshall, an Oglala and low-level AIM leader, had an appearance in tribal court on a charge of disorderly conduct. (Marshal said he had only been resisting a goon attack, for which he was charged with a trumped-up crime.) Marshall came to court with a vanful of friends including Russell Means, and demanded a trial by jury rather than by one of Wilson’s judges.
The judge closed the court apparently intimidated by the show of support for Dick Marshall. There was a group of police and goons gathered in the parking lot in anticipation of a caravan from AIM two days before the second anniversary of Wounded Knee. Duane Brewer began challenging members of AIM to fight and they all declined until he smashed Russel Means in the face with his fist.
The van that AIM was using drove away the BIA police captain Joseph Jacobs…
…radioed ahead for other goons to stop the van because when the AIMers neared the airport, a few miles to the east, a car emerged from the parking lot of the tribal planning building and blocked the highway.
“Let’s ram that sucker!” Means said, and the driver of the van, Tom Poor Bear, jammed the accelerator. The goons in the car reversed their makeshift roadblock off the highway in a hurry, and as the van passed, the AIMers threw open the sliding door and emptied their shotguns at the car….
Within the hour, the planeload of WKLDOCkers landed at Pine Ridge Airport, completely ignorant of these events.
In the meantime, Brewer returned to tribal headquarters and blackened the eyes of a court officer who had held him back when he was attacking the AIMers.
Now is the point where AIM starts acting like the FBI, the colonizers…I understand the frustrations that would lead to such actions but they will never work against the United States government….It didn’t before there were tanks, and planes, and machine guns…there is a never ending supply of men that are all to0 eager and willing to do the dirty work for the government.
AIM started firing potshots at people who drove by the mass grave of Wounded Knee and they set up a road block in Porcupine and threatened the townspeople.
The FBI continued its half- hearted investigation of the incident…when all was said and done Russel Means, and Dick Marshall, and Tom Poor Bear were indicted for firing on the goons from their van. Wilson and his goons walked.
This all reminds me of a show I watched many years ago on elephants. Colonizers removed the children…demoralized the adults and elders so they could be repressed continued this for a few century out of fear that minorities that they had wronged for so long would rise up and retaliate and now it has also spread to the colonizers…parents get divorced don’t have time to raise their children…too many single mothers…the effect on society is devastating. The show is sliced and diced into 3 minutes but after an hour of searching it was all I could find. If you ever have the opportunity to watch the whole thing it is well worth it!
Well behaved elders are so very important to our future generations.
ANNA MAE AQUASH 52/SO FAR THE FBI HAS TOLD MULTIBLE LIES IN A COURT OF LAW, IGNORED A CHILD SHOT IN THE EYE, A TEENAGE BOY GIVEN LIQUOR, A FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL THAT WAS RAPED, MULTITUDES OF INDIANS BEING BEATEN, AND NOW WHITE LAWYERS FOR AIM(my apologies for anyone I have missed…it is too much for me to remember. I was thinking of turning it into a song to the tune of the Twelve Days of Christmas…only I have a real sick feeling that it will exceed twelve.
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
It has been a while since I have been in a funk for this long….they usually only last a few hours these days.
I finally finished reading POWWOW HIGHWAY. (Way better than the movie!!!) I read a few chapters ahead of THE UNQUIET GRAVE because I wanted to see if Steve Hendricks wrote more about Jancita Eagle Deer. He did….and a lot of other things that did not help me to get out of this mood I have been in.
In Chapter 8 a team from WKLDOC was looking to fly out of Pine Ridge airport when they got to their plane it hsd rounds of shot in it damaging
the fuselage, cabin, engine compartment and wings, making it unfit to fly.
While on of the team snapped hurried photographs of the damage, the other moved legal files from the plane to the car. As they did so, they noticed cars whipping in and out of the parking lot of the nearby tribal planning building..
The six WKLDOCkers squeezed back intoFinzel’s convertible and made for the exit, but before they could reach it they were cut off by a dozen cares that raced off the nearby highway and into the airport parking lot. Dick Wilson’s car was in the lead. He stuck an arm out the window and pointed to the convertible, and the following cars encircled it and came to a halt. Out stepped twenty-five or thirty goons. One sat on a pickup fender with a pump-action shotgun leveled at the convertible’s windshield. The WCKLDOCers rolled up windows and punched door locks, as the goons tried the handles without luck. Because it was winter, the roof of the convertible was on. A tall, muscled specimen walked up to the driver’s side of the car and yelled at the WCKLDOCkers to get out. Finzel knew him as Duane Brewer, an expoliceman and Vietnam veteran who ran the tribe’s highway safety program.
Finzel answered Brewer that the WKLDOCkers were just fine where they were.
“I can’t hear you through the window!” Brewer shouted.
“I can hear you fine!” Finzel shouted back.
This opinion wrought bedlam. Brewer kicked at the window, and the rest of the goons, as if on cue, swarmed over the hood and trunk and stomped out the windshield and rear glass. One of them struck a knife in the convertibles roof and ripped a hole above Ginzel’s head. Hands rushed through, one tugging Finzel’s hair, another punching his face. A second gash was made over the backseat, and Bernard Escamilla, the Wounded Knee defendant whose case the WKLDOCkers had come to investigate, was pounded with fists and boots. the car was rocked wildly, glass began to shatter. Brewer yelled something about Finzel having been involved in an incident at the tribal court house.
“There must be a mistake !” Finzel screamed. “Get Dick Wilson! He knows I wasn’t there!”
Dick Wilson came for ward and the goons asked him what he wanted them to do with the WKLDOCkers
“Stomp ‘em,” he said. “I want you to stomp ‘em.”
The goons then resumed the beating of the WKLDOCkers. Some of the WCKLDOCkers decided it best to leave the vehicle.
William Rossmoore, the lawyer who had piloted the plane left…
He made it twenty or thirty yards before being beaten into the ice and muck of a nearby ditch. Each time he rose, a boot crashed into his ribs or calves and down he went again. Eventually he stopped trying to get up, but the boots kept coming all the same.
I have to interrupt this because I was trying to imagine what it is like to be that ruthless….to just pound and kick someone and then have to live with it, what lies you tell yourself….the excuses for your animal behavior. Then I had a thought that this was brought on by someone who once felt powerless in life. Instead of remembering the pain in his life and choosing not to commit the crimes that were committed against him he chose to worship the worst of his life. A lot of this stuff with AIM was about full bloods vs. half bloods. It goes on today but imagine back then what it must have been like growing up on a reservation with insults being hurled like rocks at the young ones growing up…each side thinking they were better…these adults can’t figure it out and then they bemoan that another generation is lost to gangs, drugs and alcohol…it goes on in every minority. I just ran into a man who married an Indian (from India) and her parents have banned her from their lives…they talk to the white husband but the daughter has to stay in the car. This is 2009 and people still care about that shit. Imagine how bad their children are going to feel and with the mother banned will it have a reverse effect? Will the children grow up ashamed their mother is from India? Since she is the one banned? Kind of like white people adopting babies….never mind all of the black children that need to be adopted..can’t have a dark skinned baby…gotta go to Romania and then China, and Vietnamese, Mexico….Only since Angelina Jolie adopted African children has it become more fashionable with Madonna following the trend.
Seriously because of our actions as adults we make the next generation feel bad about them selves…this is no different than standing them before you and throwing mud on them. And then you have white people that are plagued with self hatred like Ward Churchill…a white person who says he is an Indian…what sort of message is that? Why not just say you are a white person that follows Indian ways because they make more sense to you…where did that shame and hatred come from? I certainly hate the actions that whites have taken part in but I’m not about to hate myself for being born white. (I was raised to hate myself for other reasons but not for being white!!!) If you are half white and half something else and you hate the white side…what you are teaching your children or your nephews and nieces is how to hate….themselves. But as I have observed many parents love their hate more than they love their children. White people are masters at this we use the bible, race, income, beliefs, divorce any excuse to hate…..we mostly love our hate more than we love our children. But things have gotten a lot better in many ways but we also see extreme religions that are putting girls back into servitude or treated as property and then we see other parents completely ignoring their children…treating them like adults long before they are ready. Parents who let their young children watch anything on tv. As if they have never heard of age appropriate. They let them make adult decisions when they are still children.
Good Lord I have written a novel!! I will conclude this by saying that children watch how adults behave and treat each other. That is where they learn their future…never mind the past.
O.K….getting back to the story. THE WKLDOCkers are getting the shit kicked out of them by the goons. Finzel is beat until he loses consciousness..
Bernard Escamilla, who had been well-battered even before leaving the car, was thrashed to the asphalt on emerging and kicked mercilessly int he gut, he rolled over to protect himself but succeeded only in transferring the kicks to his back. He managed to stagger up once, but a fist smashed his skull and he wilted.
The two women WKLDOCkers remained in the car held at knife point by a goon. The beatings finally stopped and the goons threatened them to leave and never come back or they would be killed. They called the U.S. Marshals Service in rapid City to ask for help and the Marshals told them to call the BIA. Now that breaks my heart…
They did call the BIA and who of course were no help. So they turned to the FBI….that of course was a joke. Then they tried to call friends on Pine Ridge and were told that the goons had set up road blocks and that they had attacked Severt Young Bear(I have heard of him somewhere….) and Marvin Ghost Bear who were Wilson critics.
Someone finally lent the WKLDOCkers a car and thy went to St. John’s Hospital in Rapid City…
Rossmoore, Gordon, Finzel, and Escamilla were treated for multiple contusions. three doctors and two dozen X rays were required to rule out broken bones in Finzel’s head, neck, chest, back, and legs, all of which were badly contused. Several of his muscles had been ripped from his bones, and cartilage in his ribcage had been ruptured. Escamilla had a broken arm, and his viscera wee bruised and possibly bleeding. He was kept in the hospital for two days to make sure none of his organs gave out. Rossmoore had sprains that took months to heal. Gordon suffered from knifed hands.
ANNA MAE AQUASH 50/JUSTICE SYSTEM FOR THE FEW
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
I am ever so depressed to be reading THE UNQUIET GRAVE this morning. The perfect white world where everybody can “pull them selves up by their boot straps” and there is a chicken in the pot and a car in the driveway….(yes I am aware that countries have it much worse than we do but I do not judge our country by the lowest of human standards) …is crumbling all around. The story of corruption just gets worse and worse.
As Monica mourns the history of her people, I mourn the loss of the facade of mine. Well I don’t mourn it in the sense that I regret it’s being torn apart. I mourn that it wasn’t true….or only true for a very small segment. And for that small segment it is only true as long as you remain ignorant to what is happening in the areas or circles that you don’t normally travel. It is only true if you think that the rights of human beings exclude minorities, activists, or those of lower income.
The trial of Dennis Banks and Russel Means was so outrageous that the judge lectured the prosecution for an hour and threw out the remaining charges against Banks and Means.
It was an enormously important decision, or should have been. But as the trial’s foremost historian, John Sayer, wrote,”To a public saturated with misconduct at the highest levels of government, the escapades of the FBI at a trial somewhere in the Midwest could not have mattered much….”
Days after Nichol dismissed the case, the Justice Department named. R.D. Hurd and David Gienapp two of the nation’s outstanding assistant U.S. attorneys. Banks likened the commendations to the Congressional Medals of Honor given the Seventh Cavalry after the massacre at Wounded Knee.
In the following months, both the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office undertook postmortems to determine what had gone wrong at the trial. Much of the FBI’S analysis focused on Joseph Trimbach, but in the end the Bureau concluded that neither he nor his agents had done anything-not a thing- wrong.
The prosecution came to the same conclusion….it was all the fault of those pesky Indians. Reminds me of some people on a certain discussion group….
But losing the trial did not mean losing the fight against AIM-quite the contrary. As prosecutor David Gienapp said year later, ” To some extent, the prosecutions accomplished as much by getting dismissed or an acquittal as they would have had there been a conviction, because Russell Means and Dennis Bands realized even if you get off, sitting nine months in a courtroom isn’t what they want to do.” Gienapp was speaking not merely with the advantage of hindsight; the strategy was one the government consciously pursued at the time. At the end of the siege, for example, colonel Volney Warner urged the Justice Department to throw the proverbial book at AIM. “AIM’s most militant leaders and followers, over three hundred,” he wrote, “are under indictment, in jail, or warrants are out for their arrest. the government can win even if no one goes to prison.” It was not a new strategy. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had used the same plan in the late 1960′s to kneecap the Black Panthers.
….the strategy was beginning to have the desired effect. AIM was spending something like three of its every four hours and dollars just to keep its members out of jail. which did not leave much time or money for the betterment of its people or the recruitment of new followers or calm thought about is future or past. It was the sort of strain that could lead a group to do desperate things.
ANNA MAE AQUASH 49/THE FBI PROTECTS THE RAPIST OF A TEENAGE GIRL
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
Back to the trial of Banks and Means which had been going on for almost a year. The prosecution had one final witness by the name of Louie Moves Camp. His Mother was in the court…
When her son walked into the courtroom in St. Paul, she jumped to her feet and screamed, “Louie! What are you doing? Judge Nichol had to order her dragged from the court, whereupon she fainted.
…the prosecutors asked Louie Moves Camp a series of questions designed to pin banks and Means to the many charges against them. Over two days, he testified that the preparations to seize Wounded Knee were not spontaneous but a long-planned conspiracy led by Banks and Means, that both defendants had stolen $1,000 from the trading post, and that they had ordered hostages taken, bunkers built, Molotov cocktails made, and federal troops fired upon. By the end of Moves Camp’s direct examination, he had tied Banks and Means to virtually every count against them.
On cross-examination the defense asked Moves Camp why witnesses said he was in California for most of the 71-day occupation while Moves Camp claimed he was in Wounded Knee for nearly all of the siege.
Of course he said the witness were lying and the defense proved him wrong with a photograph of him in a newspaper at the time of the Wounded Knee occupation. The defense and the judge wanted to know how the prosecution failed to uncover this before they put him on the stand.
Moves Camp had just seemed like a reliable guy, so everyone had taken him at his word. Hurd’s claim was undermined, however, when he admitted that he had asked the FBI to give Moves Camp a lie detector test and Joseph Trimbach had refused.
I wonder if Richard Two Elks has taken a lie detector test….
“Since when,” Judge Nichol asked , “does the head of the (regional) FBI start telling the prosecution that they can’t have a lie detector test if they want to?
Sounds like the FBI gets to do pretty much what they want because no one will hold them accountable…
Moves camp’s wife was called to the stand, and she testified that Louie had told her that in return for testifying he would be given lots of money and a new house, and his many criminal charges-which allegedly included armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and assault causing bodily harm-would be dismissed.
Sounds like the Arlo Looking Cloud trial….pay people to testify…Or Richard Two Elks who admits killing someone and has never been charged..thats why this whole thing is so crazy if you kill someone its o.k. as long as you are willing to fabricate something for the ever so corrupt FBI.
Wait, wait, wait, there’s even more to the story…
…Rachel Tilsen, wife of Ken, received a call from a woman who lived in Wisconsin, just across the state line from St. Paul. The woman said Moves Camp had been in Wisconsin a few days earlier and while there had been accused of rape. the charges had been hushed up by the FBI. Rachel Tilsen, asked the woman how she knew this, and the woman said she was the wife of the county attorney. Her husband was furious because the FBI had spirited Moves Camp to Minnesota to protect him from indictment. her husband was keeping mum about the incident, but she was not. She said she felt for the girl who had been raped and thought the whole thing an outrage.
Indeed it is an outrage. Like I said before Trimbach and his cheerleaders have absolutely no concern for women what so ever….Anna Mae is just another Indian woman being used…If Anna Mae was the woman who was raped byMoves Camp….we wouldn’t know her name. And Moves Camp would be living in his house with lots of money given to him by the FBI.
Poor Lizzy is going to have heart failure…Moves Camp was out on the town with FBI agent Price who was supposed to be watching him and who had downed five drinks. And left him with the underage girl….MY GOD THEY SHOULD ALL BE IN PRISON!!
Then the county attorney waffles and said that he has no idea why his wife would have called him and he throws the teenage girl under the bus saying that their were witnesses who saw them having consensual sex…If I was his wife we would be divorced.
No wonder Monica Charles hates law enforcement..you can’t even really be upset with these types because they simply have no conscience to speak of….I simply could not live with myself under those circumstances….the funny thing is they probably cannot understand someone like me…I really couldn’t be them….EVER.
DO YOU GET MY POINT BY DAVID L.SPRUILL
SCAN OF COVER
The Exxon Valdez keeps popping up in my life some 20 years after the incident (DID I JUST SAY 20 YEARS??? FEELS LIKE FIVE!)
This book was written by a local Southern Oregonian. It isn’t a very long book and much of it is dedicated to various rants more appropriate to a blog. FOR FREE!
Having said that David Spruill was actually one of the fishermen in Alaska who helped with the cleanup. Unfortunately he does not elaborate enough on that and assumes us nonfisherpersons know what he is talking about.He needed to spell it out for us and explain more about fishing and the cleanup techniques. …He needed an editor to give him direction. He does give us enough information so that we will want to read more about it from another source.
Here is an example of what he writes that would make you want to learn more about what really happened.
Why would you steer outside of an intersection to miss a dog in the intersection and chance piling it up into a building when all you have to do is slow down? My point being the EXXON Valdez could have meandered through the ice ahead slowly, in and out of gear, rather than to choose to veer outside of the shipping lane and imminently pile her up on Blight Reef which is clearly marked on their GPS Plotter, there is also a lighted navigational marker to warn you of the reef’s presence.
Did you know that upon grounding, eight of the eleven storage tanks were ripped open? Did you know that the number of the gallons spilled was determined and reported to the Coast Guard by EXXON? The EXXON Valdez holds 53 million gallons, but their figure came out to be about 20% of that, or 10.7 million gallons. Volumetrically, if those eleven storage compartments were the same size, then rupturing eight of the eleven storage compartments would yield about two-thirds of the cargo loss in question or more like 38.5 million gallons.
Expedient deployment with oil spill response equipment that they were required to have was the only edge to be had, but at beginning of the year they had cut their required amount of response equipment in half to save money, which left them incapable to respond to a spill of this magnitude….
…it is written that any ship spilling more than one million gallons will be banned from the waters of Prince William Sound. since the spill, the Hell Ship EXXON Valdez was repaired and renamed the SEA RIVER MEDITERRANEAN.
Spruill goes on to tell about the clean up (mind you this is all by page 10! like I said it is more like a blog post and not a book he relates how a fisherman named Kelly found a way to fill his boat with 7,500 gallons of oil and that EXXON became upset because they had already told the press that they had cleaned up most of the oil.
The fishermen were halted from the cleanup and…
sorties flown by a C-130…..(once again he only spends one paragraph explaining this in an erratic fashion that doesn’t make a lot of sense)…we found a rip which consisted of what seemed to be an emulsion of oil, water and foam with little white granules, w(h)ere did all of the oil go? It was at that moment we were sure that they had been using that c-130 to sink as much of the spilled oil to the bottom without any spectators, out of sight and out of mind? Damn you EXXON! You wiped out our beautiful spotted prawns and our crab too.
What is a rip? What was the white granules did anyone take a sample? Apparently the white granules caused chemical burns on the people trying to do clean up..but once again no elaboration and all of this information is contained in 14 pages…that should be the length of a forward to a book!
The book includes pictures of the clean up effort by the fishermen and they are to be commended. The rest of the book is about how EXXON got out of paying for the damage to the environment or to the fishermen for their loss of work. The subject is outrageous and people should be boycotting EXXON and the politicians who support them or who are supported by them. The book includes many letters and rants
Sounds like racketeering to me, but what do I know? I’m just a “Red White and Blue” “Tried and True” “Human Being”. What is your faction? The PLO? “Political Lies and Oil?” Did you know that “tic” is the middle word in politician? You blood suckers!
Now, where I come from, if you continue to do your job incorrectly, you are terminated, fired! Now call me crazy if you want to but I think that I’m not the only person who feels this way. Every single person that I know or talk to seems to feel the exactly the same way. I think they call that unanimous, but I don’t expect you to understand that because of your denial of the facts and the fact that this is really going to affect where you sleep at night. It won’t be the country club or Camp Snoopy! Do You Get My Point?
It goes on and on and and on…He does have two plans one is for everyone to bring their pennies to the VFW so they can break the Guiness Book of World Records, and to show our undying gratitude, to request the government to discontinue use of the penny and to melt them all down for money? I’m not sure what that has to do with the EXXON spill. He also has a second project HANDS ACROSS AMERICA from the East Coast to the West Coast.
David Spruill is certainly passionate about his causes and I wish him all of the success with them. He is more than welcome to my penny jar! He says he has a website under construction but I couldn’t find it. He can get a free blog up on WordPress.com and this book has a Copyright of 7/23/08 today is 6/5/09 more than enough time to get a website up. He should have not announced it in a book until it was up. Why should people have to keep looking for his website? He wants people to send money for his Hands Across America project….he can’t even get a site up!!!
RAGE TENDS TO DISORIENT ONES THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS. I’m not giving up on David Spruill yet I think he has something going.
My sane Uncle Vic was one of the GAO investigators concerning the EXXON Valdez spill. Here is VICTOR REZENDES GAO TESTIMONY. I was hoping to find him on Youtube I think he was on 60 MINUTES too. People need to get with the program Youtube is one of the greatest things invented for us bloggers!!!
I would love to read a book that was a cross between David Spruill and a GAO document filled with emotion and lots of information that I can follow and pictures. I wish the government would dumb things down a little for me!!!
Here are some videos I found on the EXXON VALDEZ
Here is Governor Palin’s response to the Supreme Court letting Exxon off the hook for most of the punitive damages
Here is a very good piece by Journeyman Pictures
Americans need to start reading our History. Native Americans could have told you about our corrupt government 200 years ago… there is no difference between the theft of the lands we promised to Native American. Yellow gold, black gold its all the same when it comes to greed and American policy….now that it is affecting white people they are waking up and saying this is not fair! It’s funny in an awful, horrible sort of way but the white people affected by the Valdez still get off a lot better than the Indians did.
ANNA MAE AQUASH 48/THE GOVERNMENT VIOLATES THE POSSE COMITATUS ACT AT WOUNDED KNEE….TOO BAD
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
The testimony about the senate report led to the release of more documents. The documents related examinations on the stand showed that Army Vice Chief of Staff Alexander Haig had ordered two colonels to Wouned Knee to oversee the siege and to do so in civilian garb-the latter an order they had never been given in their long military careers.
Colonels testified about how much ammunition and supplies were sent
16 ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIERS
400,000 ROUNDS OF AMMUNITON
120 SNIPER RIFLES
20 GRENADE LAUNCHERS
1 PHANTOM JET
3 HELICOPTERS
AND A CHEMICAL WARFARE TEAM WTF??? Did they think the Viet Cong had invaded??
Confronted with this evidence, the prosecution shifted its argument: “The Pentagon had no role at Wounded Knee” became “The Pentagon had no real role at Wounded Knee”.
It turned out the FBI’s Joseph Trimbach had lobbied the army to invade the village with 2,000 GI’s. He was apparently undeterred by the certain knowledge that scores-maybe hundreds-of the combatants would die. His scheme was vetoed by Colonel Warner.
…the government shifted its arguement again: the Pentagon was really involved, but it was only by an oversight that neither the president nor Congress had publicly authorized the Pentagon’s involvement. And since it was plain that the president wanted the military there it hardly mattered that he had not issued a public order.
Judge Nichol was of the same mind. he concluded that the armed forces had been used illegally at Wounded Knee, but he also concluded that the case of U.S. v. Banks and Means afforded no remedy against the government for this crime-save for dismissing the charges against Banks and Means, which he still was not prepared to do. if AIM wanted to hold the Pentagon accountable, Nichol said, it would have to file a separate suit.
WKLDOC did, naming as defendants General Haig, Attorney General Kleindienst, Colonel Warner, and other men of war.
WKLDOC filed its claim in Washington, D.C., but a federal judge there ruled that the case should have been filed in South Dakota.
It took seven years after the first suite was filed….
(Judge) Porter held that even if government officials had violated the Posse Comitatus Act at Wounded Knee, they could not be sued because the act did not specifically authorize suits in cases where the law was broken.
There’s lots of twists and turns and legal wrangling…basically as United States Citizens….
WERE ALL FUCKED….as is evidenced by the erosion of our CIVIL LIBERTIES. I think the white people running everything back then were saying to themselves who cares its just a bunch of commie Indians…see where the sins of the previous generations have led us to
I found this video of Jesse Ventura at the RNC he actually says American citizens have the right to have weapons so if they don’t like the government they can bear arms and change the government….maybe I should send him a video of the governments firepower at Wounded Knee II!
SECRETS FROM THE CENTER OF THE WORLD
I bought two Joy Harjo books off of the internet. The other one is SHE HAD SOME HORSES but my brother picked it up when he was here and stole it from me. STOP!!! THIEF!! Actually he will read it much faster than I will and since Joy Harjo is a girl….her writing will be less significant to him than a man’s…easier to dismiss. That should properly get his attention!
SCAN OF COVER
The book is filled with beautiful monotonous at first glance landscapes but if you have ever been to the desert you know that there is magic in them thar hills. A magic in the desolation so poweful you either become enlightened or numb….you either worship the expanse as it rips you open or you shut the door in an attempt to hide. It’s not for sissies! I personally prefer the forests but a visit to the desert has a magical effect on the soul.
This land is a poem of ochre and burnt sand I could never write,
unless paper were the sacrament of sky, and ink the broken line
of wild horses staggering the horizon several miles away. Even
then, does anything written ever matter to the earth, wind, and
sky?
And then there is this:
This earth has dreamed me to stand on the rise of this highway,
to admire who she has become.
and this:
I can hear the sizzle of newborn stars, and know anything of
meaning, of the fierce magic emerging here. I am witness to flexible eternity,
the evolving past, and I know we will live forever,
as dust or breath in the face of stars, in the shifting pattern of
winds.
AMEN!
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