Just to add more to my already stressed agenda….I started a new blog which is still under construction…I won’t have any real time to devote until the new year. The blog is called Stellar Healing….which is a poem by Monica Charles. I have been looking for a way to deal with Native American issues that keep popping up in my life…a very emotional subject. I want it to be a place where I write more thought instead of reactions. A place where I can write about things that bother me with grace and humor. Discoveries of Native American writers, artists that bring me joy….a place all of its own.
This morning I spent quite a bit of time on a new series that I thought of called JUXTAPOSE comparing Native American issues with those of whites. The first in the series is called:
UPDATE: I found the picture of the teepee hanging from the ceiling hard to imagine it with the closeups I took…but would not have the effect without the closeups either…of course it would be better if you could see it in person!!)
She would be celebrated in museums and galleries…white people would flock to witness and then purchase her emotions…they would eat canapes and little petit fours while sipping wine and making witty comments….
This is Rez Art in the art museum in Helena, Montana….not a single bit of it was happy and joyous….
Ouch!!! this one was particularly moving to me….all about the land that once belonged to the American Indians…I will never view a real estate guide through the same eyes again.
Manny tribal lands were represented on these maps….I wish I had taken more photos! The creativeness is amazing!
I must have forgotten to take an overview of this work of art it was a plastic teepee hanging from the ceiling. The artist had done charcoal sketches put them between clear plastic and sewn it into a teepee.
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..
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.
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???)
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.
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.
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 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?
This is something that I posted on alt.native. It will probably be my one and only post. I don’t want to argue with people and hope that this is not inflammatory.
After many months of reading alt.native I am submitting a comment. I do it with caution and with the utmost respect towards Runningwolf.
It is ludicrous to suggest that Monica or Guardian( I am no fan of Guardian) had anything to do with the death of Runningwolf’s husband. What and how Runningwolf chooses to vent is her own prerogative…she is in pain,grieving and in mourning. There are many people praying for her and they have only best wishes and healing thoughts for her. I think she has the support of most who have encountered her.
I have never seen any comment from Monica where she encouraged Guardian to go after Runningwolf. What I did see was Monica encouraging her to go after other people at alt.native…I will not get involved in this because there is a history much longer than I have been reading alt.native.(I have learned that lesson) Monica is not responsible for Guardian’s behavior…Guardian is. My personal feelings about Guardian is that she shows her true self by “outing” a harmless old (sorry runningwolf) woman while ignoring an abuser. Guardian for all of her proclamations about Runningwolf attacking a tribal member…who gives a shit? So do I… she doesn’t come after me though… Sal Serbin’s tribal status in no way interferes with my belief that he is wrong in disparaging and lying about Martha Alvarez….nor does Bernard Redcherries! In addition Guardian herself attacked tribal member Martha Alvarez and tribal members Shusli and Eugene Johnson. ..and offered no apologies.(It is best not to feed her and I no longer will.)
What I did see was someone pestering Monica to answer a question that Monica clearly answered by her silence. What Monica believes is not uncommon for many Indians. My own opinions differ but I am not an Indian and do not know what it feels like to be anything but a mutt. (Forgive me Monica) In private e-mails Monica has never had anything negative or derogatory to say about Runningwolf she has only expressed admiration. In fact when I e-mailed Monica to tell her that Runningwolf had come on my blog and apologized to me. Monica quickly wrote back a congratulations. Runningwolf and I have had a good many conversations and I have a developed a deep admiration and respect for her. She is a new friend and I hope that our friendship continues to grow. I speak neither for Monica or Runningwolf.
If people were inclined to kill them selves over posts there would be a lot of dead people from the hatred spread on discussion groups and chat rooms that such hate spreads across the world in a few seconds fascinates and horrifies me. (I have spread it myself and for that I am greatly apologetic. I have written extensive apologies for my own behavior on my blog and luckily put a stop to it rather quickly…although I still get carried away with the FBI)
The problems of depression, alcohol and suicide are very complex issues and some people simply cannot overcome them. Any addiction is a daily struggle..some people refuse 12 step programs, counseling and medication unable to release their pain they hold on to their pain so tightly as if the very act of loosening its grip would end their self identity. It is a hard thing to do… releasing your pain and asking for help. It fucking hurts to release pain..it kills us to hold on to it but for some reason it hurts unbearably to let it go. I release things all of the time and it hurts and hurts as it leaves…it feels good when it has finally passed away but it hurts unbearably on its way out that sometimes I keep it inside where I think I can control it. Of course this control is just an illusion. I consider myself lucky that I am able to imagine an end result and brave enough to make that journey. For many the damage is too much and for whatever reason they are unable to move through it.
Because of the controversy and arguing on alt.native I made the decision not to post…and have at times found it so toxic and myself becoming toxic that I had to ban myself from even reading it for weeks at a time. But there is also so many good people with such good advice. Monica and Runningwolf are forces to be reckoned with…they have their issues but that is between them. Their opinions run strong and deep but not so deep that they can’t change course they certainly haven’t given up on life! For those of you who think that Monica is all about racial hate you should see her facebook page and the multitudes of multiracial friends she has on it…and none of them argue! She does not mind people who disagree with her…we disagree but do it respectfully.. Well maybe if you were gungho and pro FBI she would have a problem…
Contrary to popular belief Runningwolf has been a greater influence on the ANNA MAE posts than Monica has ever been. Monica got the ball rolling but it was James Simon coming on my blog that started the posts. When Runningwolf commented that I was disrespecting a dead woman…I went back and read the posts through her eyes…and saw what she saw and changed the nature of them. Monica never says anything about the posts. Ever. Our relationship is one where like a good stereotypical colonist I ask a ton of questions invade her space and she either ignores me or replies with one sentence!! Then out of the blue will come an eloquent thought provoking e-mail. I emplore her to write more….
Jumpybird has been quite an influence just by being…his grace, respect and humble nature are what I strive for in myself and when I would get caught up on what was happening on alt.native he was the silent reminder of how I really want to be. His absence is a great loss to alt.native. That young man Basenji has the best nutrition advice…Having weight problems the last five years…he has information that makes more sense than most of the crap I have read
Richard, thank you for supporting Martha Alvarez. I have a tremendous amount of respect for my elders but the younger generation fill me with inspiration.
It has occured to me that the majority of people tearing each other apart have been the victims of abuse. I’m not sure if there is anything to that.
I am only now awakening to the History of this country. I think that one of the traits that colonizers naturally have is that we think we are right. We never automatically assume that someone else might be right. Rarely is that the first thing that pops in our heads and we want to win. At all costs. We don’t even want to try to see a problem through our enemies eyes. I see that on alt.native that the people who argue the most do not consider that there might be another way. For a few centuries colonizers have imposed our version of truth and ways on Native Americans (believe me it comes very easy) and I think that it is time to do more listening….When I listen to Monica Charles I hear some one in a lot of pain…but at the same time I hear a song from her heart loud and clear she has definite goals and works tirelessly for her tribe. There have been several references towards Monica about her being an Elder and what Elders do…it seems like another instance of projecting the white image of what an Indian Elder should be…it seems that everyone holds Monica to a higher set of standards than they do themselves. Monica doesn’t fake her emotions….there should be no surprises. As long as I have been reading Monica she has never pretended to be forgiving and loving towards whites. I can deal with that. Also there seems to be a misconception that writing paragraph after paragraph and post after post of hate and then putting a smiley emoticon at the end somehow is more honorable than Monica who comes right out and says what is on her mind in a short sentence or two…. That three pages of hate that does not use the word fuck or bitch or white butt is somehow above a few four letter words??? not in my book. And for white people to turn the screws in an Indian is probably a lot easier than the reverse….whites have had enormous power over Indians for quite sometime. I see a lot of similarities in the way the Vatican treats victims of sexual abuse by their own priests. Do we expect those victims to embrace priests that had nothing to do with the abuse??? No we are all wary of priests or should be.
On a final note why do white people allow themselves to be so disrespected? And on a native group??? Why not start a group somewhere else? Why abuse yourself? Monica does not seem interested in posting on other issues. It seems to be a colonizer issue…for all I know I will incur her wrath for posting this. But then again Monica has never shown me anything but patience…she was not the reason I stayed away from alt.native. I am not native and there was much controversy about whites.
I truly hope that no one thinks that I am being disrespectful or insulting or am out of line. And my apologies in advance for those who believe I am. I just think that I have something to say from the white point of view that isn’t being said. I don’t want to argue with anyone….I don’t like how I feel when I do.
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
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.
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.
I saw this a few weeks ago and bookmarked it because it made me cry. Reminds me of Monica Charles.
I wonder why for the most part we empathize more with animals than with humans. Cry over the distress of elephants but for the most part are not even able to recognize the distress of our own species. Of course Monica may not want to include whites as the same species as Indians!!….but we disagree on a lot of things…we just do it respectfully. Personally I wonder that same race sexual encounters should be allowed to take place…skin color hurts too many people and in a few generations we could all be one color! But then we would just find something else to argue about, criticize each other, tear our souls apart. At the end of the day has anyone “won”? And if you do does it end there? Most victories are short lived and we become consumed with finding another enemy.
I get glimpses of a different way of thinking from knowing Monica. Her silences speak louder than her words. I am familiar with many stereotypes about white people as a courtesy of diverse friends I have had through out my life. But the stereotype of whites desecrating the ancestors of Indians is new to me. I do respect the Indian point of view…it is what they were raised with just as I was raised with my point of view. But I don’t necessarily think that I am right.
Monica believes that her ancestors are disturbed when their bones are unearthed, as if their spirits still reside within their graves. I believe in reincarnation…who cares about the bones? Study them …how did they live? who were they? How did they die? What did they eat? What was the fashion of the day?
Normally I don’t share my e-mails with people and forgive me Monica for doing so now…Monica posted a story about her a hostage situation on facebook and the article had quotes from her tribal chairwoman and police chief…they both had the last name of Charles so I e-mailed her and asked her if they were relatives. She wrote back two sentences…they are cousins with different political beliefs and that tribes are big extended families. I know nothing of tribes I like the little boxes that genealogy creates…sort of like the little boxes government creates. Not because I believe in them but because I am used to them. I feel disoriented at times without them. I do think that white people need to change the way they think we want absolute answers but maybe that is just me. Maybe I do not represent the typical white person. I do have the ability to override my grasping instincts and the perfect example is my bunny that I adopted a few years ago.
VERY SPOILED BUNNY
This poor bunny was terrified when I first brought her home but I just left her alone and she hid under the bed for a day and only came out to use the litterbox. Eventually she got used to me and would come up to me and let me pet her. Eventually she became spoiled and demanding…would jump right up and demand I pet her. That 425 dollar Laura Ashley comforter set she is lying on ended up full of holes…that is what bunnies do chew chew chew. I bought her a giant cage but never had the heart to put her in it. I ended up using it if workmen came in the house to do repairs. I wouldn’t want to be in a cage all day.
I had a friend that wanted a bunny and so her husband bought her one. The minute she got it she wanted to hug it the way you can a puppy but of course the bunny hated it and scratched her…so she gave the bunny away. Bunnies are worse than cats that way…you have to earn their trust. In order to make friends with a bunny you need to let it be a bunny. You can’t have a bunny and wish it was a dog or a cat.
My bunny got a lump on the side of her face and had surgery…it helped for awhile but she had some incurable bunny disease and only lived another six months. She died sleeping in my arms and I still cry about it!
BUNNY'S GRAVE
I cried and cried and cried when my bunny died…every time I clean her grave I cry and cry and cry.
Last year when I was cleaning her grave I wrote this:
My bunny’s grave is more elaborate than
My Father’s
My Father
does not have a grave.
He rests in a box in
my Mother’s closet.
I’m not upset by this…it just struck me that I sort of mourn the loss of my bunny more than I do my own Father. That may not be accurate I think of my Dad a lot more but the feelings are complex…does anyone receive unconditional love from their parents?…More like unconditional criticism!!!
MY DAD BUILDING OUR CABIN IN OREGON AND ME AT THE BOTTOM OF THE LADDER(not sure what the hell I was wearing there...Long underwear?)
My mother also has one of her dogs in the closet….maybe I should start worrying that she is becoming a collector. Another thought I have is that if I want something specific done with my body the only person I will trust to follow through is Monica Charles….although I imagine that upon reading this she has already started packing her bags and is considering colonizing another country herself! (I wouldn’t really do that to you Monica) Seriously though I have been thinking about this issue for awhile now. It’s not easy changing ones thinking and habits. And some times I am so stuck in my ways that I cannot imagine that I am wrong.
By the way here is the most recent photo of my mother.
MY MOM AT VALLEY OF FIRE
Monica has me thinking about the colonizer stuff too. I have never encountered or contemplated the whole colonizer aspect of America. I heard it first from Sherman Alexie I had picked up his book FLIGHT at Costco for one of my young relatives in a youth correctional facility. I read it and then bought his other stuff. I have had many friends from all countries but in reality they too are colonizers. I’m not sure what to call African Americans. I knew we had an alternative history when it came to slavery but I didn’t get the alternative history concerning Native Americans and Colonizers. I have many mixed feeling and thoughts as I explore my head…I try to be cautious and considerate of Native Americans beliefs. I think it is hard to know where the lines are and I know I have crossed them several times. For that I apologize for any offense.
I understand why white people avoid and dismiss Native American issues, they are of a slippery sort; a world that is not composed of neat little boxes all in rows by size and color. We want all Indians to fit into the pretty little Indian box we have created for them! On top of that Indians believe in a world unseen. I have encountered the world of spirits that Monica believes in with such ease. Like a world with ghosts, alien abductions and spirits are a part of everyday life. In my world such experiences are to be ridiculed…one must never speak of such things and such things. I am the crazy sister, aunt, daughter and niece that believes in God, angels, ufo’s, ghosts and orbs!
I’m sure there will be a part 2 and 3 to this sometime in the near future
Monica Charles has written a post on her blog Daughter of Tse Whit Zen about child abuse and how the European colonizers introduced violence and abuse to the Native Americans.
There are many things to consider and child abuse has been at the forefront of many blogs recently, but one of the things that Monica wrote particularly caught my attention.
Our world began going out of balance on October 12, 1492. Gold doesn’t make us crazy. It makes the white man crazy. He committed genocide for it.
It seems to be one of the fundamental problems that face us today. Gold makes our politicians, economists, CEO’s just plain crazy and then much of the population throw their children under the bus to play catch up. And the rest do not want to give up what little they have to protect the future generation.
It startled me a bit to hear it in such a matter-of-fact way.
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!
I don’t think anyone has made a direct accusation of Red Cherries. It
bothers me that he used Portland AIM and Oklahoma AIM and the Oklahoma
Red Brotherhood to try to silence Eugene. I used this situation to
talk about a very real problem in our communities. DV and rape and
child abuse is too prevalent and accepted in our communities. It is
at the heart of what is wrong. It’s introduced behavior. It’s not
Traditional. It is the teaching of our People that women and children
are Sacred! Women represent Mother Earth. Children are our future.
When a man beats and rapes a woman he is actually beating and raping
Mother Earth. When a man beats and rapes a child he is actually
beating and raping our future. That is spiritual law! Why isn’t Red
Cherries talking about this? It would do much for People’s perceptions
of his innocence if he spoke out against child abuse and domestic
violence and rape. Did you know that men are sacred too? The Creator
gave them physical strength to protect and feed the people. During
those first dark days of reservations our men could no longer do
either. They couldn’t protect us. Weapons were taken away. Our men
couldn’t even hunt. The white man wanted us dependent on him for our
food. Our men watched us starve and could do nothing. They dove into
the bottle to hide and stayed there for generations. The white man
made sure we were down. He stole power and dignity from our men.
During those dark despicable days when we were first put on
reservations our men turned and stole power from our women and
children. They began beating and raping those in their care. It was
what the white man wanted. The moral fiber of our communities were
destroyed.What was the strongest thread in our communities today can
be our weakest. It’s our families. Children can no longer depend on
their fathers to protect them. Sometimes the father is the biggest
abuser. We need to change that. We need to stand up as a community and
say this atrocity stops here and now. It is the biggest atrocity in
our communities. Men seem to think they are above everyone in our
communities because they have a penis. They use that penis as a war
club to keep everyone down. When I was a student we went to a Sun
Dance at DQU in California. It was an AIM Sun Dance. It was announced
that the men would eat first, then the elders, then the children,
women would eat last. Indian women are low man on every totem pole.
When it came time to eat men crowded to the front. My friend Sally
McCloud and I started making fun of the men. We said if the pigs
attack we will put the men at the center of the camp because they are
our most precious resource. We would put the children around them.
Then we would put the Elders around them. Us women would be the first
line of defense. The elders didn’t correct or stop us. They laughed at
everything we were saying. Most of the men were local boys from the
reservations. They knew enough to be ashamed. They quickly got out of
line. We then fed the children and elders, then the men. We did eat
last. Not because we are lesser than anyone but because it is our duty
to see that everyone is fed. There is a difference. AIM, the Red Bros,
and Red Cherries are still trying to bully everyone into silence and
steal our power. That’s wrong and will no longer happen. Do we have to
go to war with our own men to bring balance back to our communities?
Red Cherries could bring great healing to our communities if he would
use this as an opportunity to talk about this issue. Let’s takj about
where things went wrong and how we can stop DV, rape, and child abuse.
I am either going to have to start a new blog or rewrite the description. Since I got a computer and started the blog…since my new friend Monica Charles contacted me about a Buffy St. Marie song I commented on….I have been writing about Indian issues.
One of the bloggers whom I admire but have never met has been threatened recently and I don’t know why. Posts on this subject have been deleted from his and his girlfriends blog. I am going to assume it is because the threats against them have been too much. I have been called a lot of names and hints at threats if I ever came into the persons town….but I don’t take it seriously. This threat is more serious with people showing up at his work claiming to represent Portland AIM (there is nothing on their website about this) and a man named Bernard Red Cherries. As a white person this is not the world I experience and live in. I do not know the whole story and will reserve my judgment about the subject of abuse. But what I do know about is that a fellow blogger whom I have never met was threatened. I am horrified and saddened at threats of violence and I will pray daily for all parties involved. I don’t want to inflame the issue but I don’t understand it. These are new worlds to me blogging and Indians…this is about both…and like the Anna Mae posts I will not stop until I decide to stop…some of my friends and family are less than enthusiastic about all of the posts about Native Americans. There are a lot of people who have criticized me and even told me I was stupid but I figure I must have hit a nerve as they protest too loud….white guilt perhaps or just outright racism.
A few years ago I was working for a company that I was trying to unionize and there was this older man who was from Peru who I was trying to help….the INHUMANE resource officer named DEBBIE WOLFSLAYER was on a regular basis cheating him out of his paid vacations and holidays. He said to me one day “THE ONLY THING I HAVE TO DO IN THIS WORLD IS DIE”. That has been my motto ever since.
I am not giving up on the Anna Mae posts but because I am so disturbed and don’t quite understand why the threats were made I will be learning more about that.
The following was written by Monica Charles. I love and admire her she is one of the most mentally strong women I have never met! Not a fake ass bone in her body and she mourns over her history and her cries ring through the Internet.
Here’s Monica Charles
This isn’t what we are about. We protect our children, we don’t abuse
them. We don’t attack those who protect our children. If our children
are our future then why aren’t they the most important focus in our
lives? If our children are our future why are they hungry? Why are
they drinking and doing drugs? Why are they committing vandalism? Why
are they growing up without fathers? Why are they running away from
home? Why are our babies having babies? There was a time when men
really were the protectors in our communities. There was a time when
men knew their children and raised them to adulthood then became
Grandfather. There was a time when we could count on our men. The
Creator gave men physical strength to protect and feed The People.
Today many of our own men are the dangerous ones in our communities.
Today many of our own men beat and rape those that they are supposed
to protect. Our children are sacred because they have come to us
directly from Spirit. They are still speaking the language from where
they came until they learn ours. If we abuse them they can simply
decide to die and they will. We have to be careful how we treat our
children. We must raise them as the sacred beings they are. Our old
people are sacred because they are getting ready to return to Spirit.
They carry all of our history and our knowledge. Women are sacred
because they represent Mother Earth. All power and knowledge travels
through Woman. When you beat and rape a woman you are actually beating
and raping Mother Earth. When you beat and rape a woman you are
beating and raping all of our Traditional Teachings and Spiritual
Knowledge. When you beat and rape a child you are beating and raping
our future. It is time to call forth that sacredness in our men. We
must require them to be what our Creator intended, what our Ancestors
AGREED to be, to protect and feed The People. If you don’t do that
then we are doomed.
Monica Charles
Elwha Klallam Elder
Veteran of Wounded Knee 1973
Occupation of the BIA 1972
I had a friend who was a Vietnam Vet. He died from all kinds of
cancers he said was from Agent Orange. Actually he had all kinds of
cancers and died from a heart attack. He told me not to tell this
story again. It was too embarrassing he thought. One night I went out
to the outhouse. All of a sudden all hell broke loose. The feds were
firing on us. I ran for the church where I slept. I was a hippie
Indian kid and wore hiking boots all the time. Even so I could feel
the force of the bulletts hitting right behind my boots. When I got to
the church a man threw open the door and grabbed me and threw me
inside. He told me I should have stayed there. I told him I didn’t
want to die in an outhouse. He was angry at me. He said I know but you
should have stayed there. I felt real sick and got my sleeping bag
down from where I stored it. I climbed inside and pulled it over my
head. People kept coming over to see if I was okay. That kind of sick
I felt was how I feel now when my blood sugar is way too high. It must
have been too much adrenalin. We were starving by then.
Nothing Demain or Two Elk or Trimbach says will ever make me ashamed
of my participation in that event. The Oglalla Sioux Civil Rights
Organization sent out a call for help. I hope that if ever my People
needed help the Sioux would reciprocate.
Not sure why that would be embarrassing?
AND THIS…
Someone should do a collection of stories that the fbi doesn’t want
told. Sometimes in the beginning they were more like keystone kops.
They had superior weapons and equipment. They would fire their flares
and the wind would blow it back on them and set their bunkers on fire.
They’d be running around like ants trying to put it out. Cussing all
the while. If we were violent murderers like trimbach says our boys
could have picked them off but didn’t. If they weren’t setting
themselves on fire they were setting the grass around them on fire.
They didn’t walk but drove their big city muscle cars to each others
bunkers. They would try to turn their beasts around on those hills.
We’d hear their cars grinding fighting the inevitable. We’d go out and
watch them. The lights of their cars would slide down the hill. Pretty
soon the lights would be pointed up to the sky.We’d be standing
outside watching them and laughing like they were the three stooges,
or keystone kops, or Wily Coyote about to fall off a cliff.
About 2 years ago, a man came to us at our radio show asking for our help in finding his runaway daughter. We assisted him to the best of our abilities, and when we asked if it would be OK to put the information out on our blogs, we did so.
Then, about 4 months ago, we started receiving e-mails from a former stepdaughter accusing this person, a spiritual leader of some sorts, of abuse. Although the letter below mentions sexual abuse, there was no mention of sexual abuse on my post nor done so by the person who alleged abuse in e-mails or in comments on the post that was made on this blog.
About a week and a half ago, I was called by the person, now the mediator in all of this. I asked if taking the post down would satisfy the person, as it was alleged by the mediator lawyers were talked with about possible litigation, and said person was told that he had a case. He said he believed it would be satisfactory to said person.
Upon taking down the post the next morning, I noticed that there had been a lot of action in the comments section, including the original allegations made by the woman who claims to have been his step daughter. Along with her comments were some rather abusive comments from anonymous folks, and so I have saved those items and took them off my blog knowing that a demand would come forth for an apology.
Two organizations have come forth demanding this apology, one being the Red Brotherhood Warrior Society, whom their representative wrote the letter below, and Oklahoma AIM. None of these folks from these organizations have come forth to tell me who they are and how they are involved in this. What set me over the edge, however, was when I was sent an e-mail from the mediator that Dino Butler wanted a copy of the information contained in the post and the comments that have been removed. I did so, also asking why the hell he is involved in all of this.
This afternoon, the mediator showed up at the radio station to talk with me. He told me that such negativity shouldn’t be addressed in public as people from the outside would use this as a weapon against the Indian community. There were also insinuations of all sorts of little threats, possible that something may happen to me, possible something may happen to others, the community who won’t come down and help with the show will definitely work to get me off of the air, that two lawyers (whose names I am not given and who haven’t talked with me) have been talked to about this issue, and so on. The one clear threat, however, is that I will be banned from all Indian events, and Portland AIM is alleged in helping with that issue. In fact, in a meeting I had no idea was taking place, I believe on Wednesday, Portland AIM had a meeting on this issue, so the mediator informed me.
Now, where is the consideration to the women and children who are victim/survivors of abuse. It is only men’s voices I am hearing. All of these people involved I have no idea who they are. I know the mediator hasn’t read what was written on the blog. I don’t think the lawyers have the information. With this allegation of abuse, I find it interesting that no Indians have complained about me bringing up issues of abuse from the various Christian organizations against Indians.
Where are the women’s voices? Where are the voices of the children? What is getting done about abuse prevention, and help for both victim and victimizer in Indian country?
Instead, what is happening here, is I am being bullied in an attempt to shut me up.
Here is the letter, and I removed the names of the folks involved in the original post, but not the name of the person attempting to force me to write a specific apology on my blog.
May 8th – 2009
FR: American Indian Movement/Red Brotherhood
Oklahoma Southern Chapter
RE: Apology requested for ___________ and family, and all of those effected by
The alleged allegations of abuse, sexual assault, etc,,,..etc, etc.
MR Eugene Johnson,
We the Southern Chapter of the Red Bortherhood request that you issue a public apology to __________ and his daughter _________, publically and on your Radio show. You have not held yourself to the high standards set forth by law, that you present and provide proof, when making public statements about a person. We have been authorized and have received the blessings by our people here in Oklahoma to proced on _______ and his daughter ____ behalf. It is a very sad situation when you start making attacks on the inter-net and giving it a platform to attack our Traditional leaders in public. We at the chapter encourage you MR Johnson to do your own investigation on ______ and discover the truth. All people have some amount of pain in their lives and _______ is not exempt. In our yrs of knowing him we have tolerated the attempts to ridicule, and out right lie about him. It has come time now that he needs our “Protection” from lies and untruths such as you have allowed in your forum, all without a (what you call!!) a thread of proof. In closing if you want to ask any questions please forward any of your concerns to our A.I.M. brother ___________, we have already had conversations with him and he knows our concerns int his regard and anticipated apologies from yourself. And we would hope that this could happen as soon as possible. As of yesterday 5-7-09 _______ has been in contact with his daughter ____, his conversations with her and her counsler from __________ in which ____ affirmed her love for her father, and frustrations about the slander and untruths being spread about her father, we would hope that you and your internet audience allow for these two relatives of ours time to heal and pray instead of continuing and encouraging attacks of this family, or present proof, until then we await your apologies, no negotiaions.
Ralph Birdshead JR Red Brotherhood Southern Chapter Spokesman. Oklahoma
How crazy is that? This would cost at a minimum of about 15,000 up front to take to trial. And another 15 to 30 grand to actually see it through…Minimum….and that is after any decent lawyer informing you that they would try the case on the basis that you know that you are going to lose. Aside from that here are the comments from the post:
This is keeping me up at nights. What I find most interesting in this whole issue is so much is being done to shut me up by so many Indian organizations. I believe there are no efforts put forth by these organizations to prevent abuse nor create programs for survivors and victimizers. They will, however, put forth great effort in shutting this whole thing up. With the accusations in this case, you know there are more cases out there. What are these organizations and individuals doing about that?
With the efforts being put forth by Portland AIM (including a secret meeting about me), the Red Brotherhood Warrior Society and Oklahoma AIM (whom I believe have had meetings about me), and Dino Butler, you’d think that they would put forth as much effort into at least abuse prevention programs.
I’m not exactly sure where the “sexual assault” thing came from in the letter because if any of these folks had read the post and the comments, there was only mention of abuse, not “sexual assault.” This peaks my suspicious nature, but there you go. His accuser, only discussed the fact that she, her mother, her brothers, and others, were abused by this man. She did not mention “sexual assault,” however, and had these folks actually read the information on the post and in the comments, they would know that. I did not ask specifically about the form of abuse that took place because I know how hard that can be on victim/survivors. Abuse can come in many forms, basically: physical (beatings), sexual (rape), verbal (yelling, threats, etc.), emotional (manipulation). Eugene | Homepage | 05.15.09 – 4:08 am | #
Monica Charles posted this on alt.native and you need to read the comments because some other women came forward with complaints.
You didn’t make up the story you reported it as told to you….if proven wrong you should report on that too. But if its the same story I think that this guy is bad news.
I will put up both posts on my blog if you give your permission.
I am sure that Monica will post it on alt.native. btw she put up your last post about you taking down the post…
Anyway I don’t usually stay up this late and just know that this woman blogger supports you. I have a feeling that being a woman if this is the man you are talking about I will have a lot more to say and maybe they should read all 40 of my Anna Mae posts see what happened when those FBI groupies made the mistake of commenting on my blog.
No negotiations. lizzy | Homepage | 05.15.09 – 4:21 am | #
Thank you Lizzy. The only reason I am reluctant to put the names back up is the continued threat of litigation. Thank you for taking up this bout, as well. I don’t think these folks know me very well. I think they thought I would just cower at their continued threats to make me apologize. Taking down the post and comments thereon was not enough to these MEN. They, of course, are not coming forth with any proper introductions. They are coming forth with attempts to coerce me into saying things I will not say.
That said, I almost forgot to mention, since I know the names of some of the Portland AIM, and since they are having secret meetings about me, or at least meetings about me that I am not being invited to, I’ll mention the leaders of this organization: James, whose last name I always forget (sorry James), is the Sergeant at Arms; Patrick “Little Buffalo” (whose last name I don’t know), is the Spiritual Leader I’m told appointed by Dennis Banks himself; Robert Van Pelt I believe advises these folks as an elder, I am not clear as to what his role with this organization actually is. I know some of the other members, but I know those are the folks that run it. They are also folks who are concerned about me and want to make sure that things don’t happen to me. Thank you, guys. Eugene | Homepage | 05.15.09 – 5:22 am | #
Eugene I was surprised yesterday to find an anonymous comment in response to a comment you left on a post I wrote in September 2007!
You may remember I was still in PDX when I wrote a post entitled “Just Do Indians”.
Hi Eugene, I am so sorry this is happening to you. I think it is so that we can bring this issue into the open and deal with it. I did post this on alt.native to start a discussion there. Bullying is not strength. It is not the act of a warrior. I am a blogger too and will do an article about this issue. We have to believe and protect our children. I assume that Portland AIm and the Oklahoma Brotherhood are reading your blog. I will say to them that it is time for AIM and all Indian men to “man up” and take responsibility for what is wrong in our communities. It is time for all of our women to “woman up” and take responsibility for what is happening in our commubnities. Physical and sexual abuse must stop. We can pussyfoot around with legal threats. That is bullshit. Our children, our future must be protected. How many lives can one predator ruin? Then how many lives will they effect. It’s a ripple effect. A real warrior protects The People. What is so very unfortunate is that we need protection from our own men. If you men from Portland AIM and the Oklahoma brotherhood aren’t protecting The People then you have no right to call yourselves warriors. I hope you do help this man that you are threatening Eugene about. That may mean getting him some help or sending him to prison. Until you do that Eugene is the only real Indian warrior here. Check my blog in a few days. I too will have an article up about this issue.
I want to thank Eugene and Rhonda for everything they are doing. Thanks to anyone else that has come forward, for standing up to persons not mentioned. I truely appreciate it.
As to those organizations or persons protecting him I’m not hiding, and why would you conceal something so wrong! I’m not afraid. Why don’t you ask me what happened? This issue truely is one sided, you don’t have my side, my mothers, or even truely my little sisters, if in fact she has been contacted. Every thing I have done is out of love even if you don’t see it that way.
It has been many years but I remember and I’m not a liar. We are not the only family.
Eugene is right I never said anything about sexual assault, I don’t know where that is coming from.
I’m here and I’m standing up for what I know is true. You can’t erase what happened to us, or anyone else for that matter. Your big performance isn’t going to hide the truth much longer. It’s all just an act, a show, and you enjoy it. The thrill, power, and attention. This is truely my life, my memories.
I wonder if you protect all corrupt persons in places of leadership or athority to this extent. Does the issue of abuse of children, women, families mean nothing? No matter how long ago it was. Does his position entitle him to hurt people with out any consequences?
Were we not wronged in all of this? Don’t you even consider all the pain this has done to us and then to insult us by calling us liars, to say it never happened would be the lie. I’ve tried to let it go, live my life, but it still affects me to this day. I’ve never even got an apology or a sign of remorse which confirms he has not changed since then, at all.
I’m not going to stay silent any longer. I played that part of obedient daughter. I’m not backing down. I do have a past and I’m not afraid of it.
My motivation in all this is my family and for me. I’m taking back my power that was stolen from me all those years ago. For every thing I heard, saw, experienced, and for the ones that endured it with me. For those who aren’t strong enough yet.
You won’t scare me away, the pain of that life is to strong to let you! Martha Alvarez | Homepage | 05.15.09 – 2:34 pm | #
Martha, you are a brave woman.
That is more than I can say for the “Braves” of AIM and the Red Brotherhood.
What Eugene does not mention here is an encounter with the so-called “mediator” between him and the party in question, the Red Brotherhood (can you imagine how that would sound if it was the “White Brotherhood???”), and the Southern Oklahoma and Portland AIM chapters.
This so-called mediator is a person I have heard, with my own ears, refer to AIM members from the past as “poverty pimps”. This came up at the Siletz powwow two years ago, when I began to hand out flyers for the Longest Walk II. When I approached this man, who is acting as “mediator”, he got angry about AIM! That is when he called AIMsters “poverty pimps”.
So it’s funny that the very next time I saw him, he was speaking and smiling at an AIM event here in Portland.
Huh.
Anyway, this so-called mediator will NOT read any of the comments from Martha or others, who claim they have been abused by the party in question. He has attempted to serve as the bully mouthpiece for AIM and RedBros. He is not impartial — he is demanding an apology, a public apology, from Eugene.
He informed Eugene yesterday, as he handed him the letter: “You are banned from all Native American events.” It was also suggested that Eugene will be sued, have his radio program canceled, and physical harm was hinted at.
Thugs! Vigilante! Gang!
Yes, I’m looking over my shoulder when Eugene and I meet for coffee or a walk. What next, a drive-by?
These thugs have referred to me as a “captured white wife” (FUCK YOU!), and have attempted to otherwise run down women using this blog. I have read their big, brave “anonymous” comments here, again bullying Martha and others.
I’m sickened by this whole thing. Eugene has been on air for 13 years, doing a damned good job of bringing Native American issues out in the open. It was his voice that deepened my pride in my Native roots.
He, David Liberty, and I, when we interviewed the party in question, were trying to do a good thing. It now appears that we, unfortunately, did not have the whole story.
Apparently the party in question and his gang of thugs prefer it that way and are going to do everything they can to intimidate my husband and these women who gave voice to their concerns.
Well, you don’t know Eugene like I do. Stubborn? That doesn’t even begin to cover it! And I will bet my last dime that he WILL continue to be a voice for Native Americans – especially the ones who have been forced into silence for too long.
I happen to love Eugene. Shusli | 05.15.09 – 3:26 pm | #
It has been suggested that I file a police report, which I will do. I mean really, I know that now me, and those around me, can be harmed by this gang of thugs to cover for actions of others. I don’t take these threats lightly.
Like I posted before, Shusli, tongue in cheek, of course, stated that “White people aren’t going to kill you. White people Love you. Indians, Indians are gonna kill you.”
And again, none of these brave organizations are coming forward with any manner of dealing with issues of sexism against women WITHIN their organizations, let alone all the abuse issues. Cover it up, that is what they want to do.
Hey, maybe this would make a good story for Willamette Week.
Also, a lawyer is trying to contact me via e-mail. I should probably attempt to get legal advice before I talk with her. That, or just not talk to her.
Man, we are now all feeling unsafe in the face of these thugs. What have things come to?
Women and children are to continue to remain unsafe in the face of these thugs. That is all they are to me now. Eugene | Homepage | 05.15.09 – 5:16 pm |
This bothers me because it is about threats over of a bloggers post. It drives me insane because it involves abuse. Being a victim of abuse…it drives me absolutely fucking insane. I am a very strong person and am one of the only people I know that will get involved in abuse that I witness…you had better never let me see you abusing your children. In any manner!!! I WILL ALWAYS DO THE RIGHT THING WHEN IT COMES TO CHILDREN. THE INSANITY STOPS HERE. Call social services on a family member??? Done it. Kids were taken away and after five years of not speaking to me they thanked me! Standing up and to abuse is not a popular thing to do but it is the right thing to do!!!
That being said it is a generational crime. Abuse one generation and the next several suffer. Here is response written by Monica Charles she explains it from the Native American viewpoint…
This is the crux of what is wrong in our communities. Our world is way
out of balance. It started wobbling when we allowed that lost sailor
to land. We can trace the introduction of child sexual abuse right
back into the hands of the white man’s christian churches. It is
generational. It has happened to each generation since it’s
introduction. And don’t think THAT wasn’t intentional either. It was
intended to last forever and to destroy our moral fiber. It did and it
is. When a woman, child or man is raped or sexually abused their life
is ruined. Rape is not sex. It is violence. On another thread we
talked about the wars with the white man. We lost for various reasons.
The white man stole power from our men. We were given two healing
ceremonies for domestic violence here at Elwha. We’re so screwed up
after centuries of living under the white man’s thumb we couldn’t even
get together to perform them. We let our own healing go to continue
our in-fighting. Spirit said that men are given physical strength to
protect and feed The People. When we lost the wars with the white man
we were put on reservations. We weren’t allowed weapons. Our men
couldn’t hunt. They couldn’t protect us from the white man now they
couldn’t feed us. They watched our People starve to death. They
watched their Elders and babies die. There was nothing they could do.
That imprinted on their soul. They could no longer perform their
sacred duties to the Tribe. Child sexual abuse was immediately
introduced by the churches and government. Everything we considered
sacred was violated. Our powerless men then turned and stole power
from those in their care, the women, babies and old people. We were
riding an avalanche and at the bottom of the mountain is extinction.
We were doomed. Spirit says we don’t have to die. We survive by
stopping the avalanche. We stop the avalanche by refusing to
participate in our own destruction. We do that by reclaiming the
sacredness within ourselves and each other. Otherwise we ARE doomed.
Men will have to resume their duty of protecting and feeding The
People. That may mean protecting The People from our own men. Our
children, our future is worth protecting.
If Portland AIM and the Oklahoma Brotherhood are real warriors they
will protect our children and take this man in hand. They will get
help for him. In the old days if this had happened he would have been
marked and banished or killed. Our Ancestors protected our future that
is why we are here. We should do no less.
On May 15, 9:05 am, Monica
then she continues with this….
It looks like there may be no end to the damage done to us. But we can
and have to say that it stops here. We have to or it’s extinction for
us. I sent a letter to my Tribal Council about vandalism. Some kids
knocked down mailboxes in my area. Mine was destroyed. This is a cry
for help and attention. I’m not mad at the kids because their parents
are alcohol and drug addicted and aren’t there for them. Their parents
grew up in alcoholic homes and had no one there for them either. I
told our council that we elected them to take care of all our
business. Realistically many of our children have no parents and they
are being physically and sexually abused at home. We are responsible
for all our children. I asked them what they are doing. They have
opened a new casino that may or may not succeed. We have a councilman
who only wants to travel and party. Our kids are stealing gas and
breaking into cars and stealing purses etc. Where are our Tribal
policemen? They’re patrolling the coffeeshops in Port Angeles. It’s
election time so we are being promised our own slice of the pie. Ha!
It never comes. We have a youth committee, youth program. I asked the
council what all these staff and they the council are doing for our
kids. I may be getting another eviction notice. I’m going to be doing
another article on this so I will be in trouble wiht a lot of people,
my council, Portland and Oklahoma AIM. But it’s time for US to “woman
up” and start straightening out our communities. No one else will or
can do it.
I just love Monica Charles she never wavers or backs down.
I have a feeling I will be posting a lot about this.
When I started this blog as you can see by the description I meant it to be more fun and then that post on Buffy Sainte Marie sent it off in another direction…..such is life. While Monica Charles opened the door to exploring our history it was those dumb fucks trolls at AMERICAN INDIAN MAFIA who shoved me through the door.
I almost put this poem up on the last Anna Mae installment….I started laughing when I read it…..sort of reminds me of me…..asking Monica too many questions!
You asked me what I did at Wounded Knee
“What is the woman’s role in history?”
“Did you hold a rifle on the rooftop?”
“Did you know my friend, he said he was there?”
“He wore a denim coat, and cowboy boots.”
“He likes to tell stories and laughs a lot.”
“He’s vain about his braided hair with an
Eagle feather fluttering in the wind?”
“Did you meet anybody famous there?”
Breathing icicles, hunger thundering
Death guessing our names chasing away sleep
Frozen fingers stitched quilts from old clothes
We made the men trigger finger mittens
A teacher from Brooklyn started a school
Cooks made magic with plain macaroni
For seventy one days of sweet freedom
We laughed and danced and prayed on a frozen world
Made from our fate dreamemd by the Ghost Dancers
I have been feeling out of balance and out of sorts at times and then along comes Ordinary Sparrow to bring me back towards the center. I was way over the line and brought myself back far enough to not get burned but it was a struggle and reading her blog has a way of making it easier calming the crashing waves. She put up an incredible post last night which you can read here. As I have said she has the most beautiful blog I have come across….and when you are feeling out of sorts it is good to go there and just look at the pictures…read a few words and soon a smile replaces the frown.
So to balance the anger and frustration that the Anna Mae posts bring about here is a bit of Rumi…
A few months ago I would have rolled my eyes at the idea of making friends with people on the internet!
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
To continue with a subject from the last post here is a good website that provides a good service, NEW AGE FRAUDS & PLASTIC SHAMANS They are the reason I didn’t get a post done last night. I am a reader of what people consider “new age”. My “new age” collection includes my personal favorite A COURSE IN MIRACLES which is a constant in my life except that I am not a true practitioner of any religion. Yogananda, the Dali Lama, Walsch, Tolle…a lot of book stores put the Buddhist and Hindu stuff with the new age cause it ain’t Christianity. I am not a Buddhist or anything else. I love “new age” music but not that Yanni or Celtic (sorry to those of you who like the Celtic stuff) crap. I am very particular about my new age music. But that’s another post.
What I would like to get to is that I had know idea how prevalent and damaging some of these charlatans are. I live in an area with a few people who claim to be Native American shaman or medicine men….some even have certificates from the Lakota tribe or so they say. I have never met a person who claims to be a spiritual leader that I had good feelings about. The same goes for those books by Mary Summer Rain whom I have never read and probably shouldn’t be critiquing her I just have an oogie feeling when ever I see her books and she has been around a long time. The good folks at the New Age Frauds website expose her for what she is. Oops I am getting off track again the point is that it is a wide spread problem with these “religions” not only do they disrespect the Native American ceremonies but apparently some of the herbs and plants that Native Americans use are becoming hard to find because of these “”. Some people even die because of these whack jobs. Luckily I have always been wary of guru type people. That is not to say that there isn’t the real thing out there….I’m just not a follower. So for those of you who are inclined to this sort of thing read some of the warnings. Just their fraud section has over 5,000 posts for inquiries. I’m still reeling at all the fraud..
And now from the poetess Monica Charles a glorious poem of rage…. cause and effect.
The AIM war cry thunders across our lands Igniting pride trampled by history Gathering The People lost in cities Survivors of Relocation Pogroms Reservation politics got the rest The BIA guards the sacred door to education opening just a crack Selecting a chosen few to squeeze through To swim the holy waters reserved for The rich and the privileged and the white Nixon’s administration’s sponsoring Blonde prostitutes for the NTCA White kids, now fully awake, demonstrate To stop the war,, and killing of all life DB Cooper’s still missing, he got away Dennis says he’s coming to Wounded Knee Humor overcomes the cold and hunger At dark time we watch the tracers come in As if they were shooting stars to carry our prayers higher, lighting the way home It is the right time for youth, truth and dreams Circled by US Marshalls I AM FREE In Amerika Freedom of the press is one of the myths of democracy News blackouts hang over South Dakota It covers deeds and deals of complicity No one wants to hear angry Indians Who refuse to live the lie anymore Sober, articulate, young and angry Long haired and armed, educated by you Does the face of fear wear a red headband We are Crazy Horse’s people come back Joseph and Geronimo live in us The Tribal Chairmen’s Association Backed by the feds, playing GOOD INDIANS Denounce the militants: troublemakers Agitators, cover up the story Heat up left over lies, serve it again No matter. The vanished tell no stories Survivors do, painted in poetry
On with the story…
…the Aquash’s settled full-time in St. Paul. Indians by the score were doing likewise to support Banks and Means for the length of their eight-month trial. But the courtroom was so small that many could not get in, so anna Mae put the idle feminine fingers to work sewing ribbon shirts.
Aquash found other outlets for her energy at the overlapping AIM and WKLDOC offices, doing everything from clerical work to writing press releases to planning fundraisers. she also tutored students at the Red Schoolhouse, AIM’s school for Indian children who had either dropped out or been kicked out of public school. she was especially keen on teaching students how to use libraries to research their heritage.
The marriage started falling apart due to alcohol and fighting apparently Nogeeshik used to beat her too…I have never been hit by a man….I don’t get that nonsense…
After their separation, Anna Mae reverted to the name Pictou, or tried to , but the surname she had taken at the iconic wedding at wounded Knee would not be discarded so easily. To the small public who followed Indian affairs she remained Anna Mae Aquash, and would continue so even in death.
Apparently Dennis was a lothario back in the day and his attentions turned towards Anna Mae.
In 1974 Banks was married to a much younger Lakota woman, Kamook Nichols, a friend of Aquash. But friendship did not stop Aquash from falling in live with Banks, and they began an affair that summer.
After their rendezvous (Annie Mae and Banks) in Ontario, Aquash continued east to Nova Scotia to see her daughters and , on arriving, was enraged to learn that Jake Maloney had taken custody of them without telling her. There was no denying, however, that she had been an absentee mother for more than a year. If she wanted to regain custody, she would have to settle into a paying job and keep a stable household, which in practice meant giving up her activism. She agonized about what to do, but in the end she chose her cause over her family and prayed that someday her girls would grow to understand.
Yeah I kind of wondered that her daughters had a good reason to be pissed off at AIM…Mothers are so important and theirs chose AIM over them. I’m thinking they want nothing to do with what took their mother away. Aside from that I hope their father was good to them.
She returned to St Paul for a few illicit weeks with Banks, but he soon sent her to Los Angeles….Her brief was to revitalize AIM’s California office, a potentially lucrative satellite since many of Hollywood’s stars sympathized with the Indian cause from the bottom of their capacious pockets. Aquash came to Los Angeles a new woman: Joanna Jason. She meant the alias to fool the FBI, which she assumed, correctly, had penetrated AIM with informers and would be watching her, but the ruse did not work.
“Our biggest problem,” a spy quoted Aquash, “is that we don’t have the funding to call halfway across the country to find out who is representing who in the wounded Knee trials. There’s no money to pay for lon-distance calls. The phone bill last month was one hundered and ninety-two dollrs. The salary I make feeds us. We’re waiting for somebody to call us aobut eh government’s presentation in the trial at Lincoln because we can’t afford to call them. If we have any money, we’ll be able to put out a newsletter. but we have postage costs, printing costs, money for mats, and so on.”
The group’s hand-to-mouth existence did not stop the FBI from seeing in Aquash a threat to the republic.
We had to empty our pockets of knives
Lighters, flashlights, all things unnatural
To enter the world of our grandfathers
An ethereal place where dreams and songs
are the language spoken by Spirit
They wrapped and bound Crow Dog in a star quilt
and laid him face down on the cold hard floor
All light was blacked out forcing us inward
The Spirits prophesied, preached like grampa
Our starving souls, baby birds, open mouths
for food foraged by our eagle mother
Drums, rattles, birds, deer, little points of light
whirred past like the rings of a hoop dancer
We spent the night in the realm of Spirit
Lost children finding our way home at last
Sounds like some good things came out of Wounded Knee II!
..not everyone at wounded Knee liked Pictou. Her friend Mary Moore (later Mary Crow Dog, wife of Leonard) wrote that Pictou fought with a group of women called the…..
Won’t even print that until I hear the same kind of reference towards the leaders of AIM these great warriors who were supposed to be protecting their people did they forget about those looking up to them? I’ll be damned if the colonizers didn’t teach Indian men the art of double standards! (I might be having a bout of pms)
Moore wrote of the Patrol, “They were loud-mouth city women, very media conscious, hugging the limelight. they were bossy, too, trying to order us around (and) getting all the credit and glory while we did the shit work, scrubbing dishes or making sleeping bags out of old jackets. Annie Mae gave these women a piece of her mind and I took her side.” Moore was too hard on the…..Many of the patrollers, like Madonna Gilbert, cousin to Russell Means, and Lorelei DeCora Means, wife of Russell’s brother Ted, did great amounts of work in the shadow of their more famous male relatives. But Moore was right that the patrollers did not like Pictou. Probably they resented that she was less retiring in front of the men, that she was toting a weapon and"manning" a bunker, and so on.
A few weeks after Anna Mae and Nogeeshik arrived at Wounded Knee, Mary Moore delivered herself a son, whom she named Pedro for her friend Pedro Bissonette. Pictou was one of the midwives. The next day, Anna Mae and Nogeeshik were wed before the citizens of the Independent Oglala Nation.
On April 25, a few days after Frank Clearwater was killed and a few days before Buddy Lamont would be, they walked out of the new nation and into the welcoming embrace of the BIA police. The police took them to the town of Kyle, north of Wounded Knee, where they were charged with breaking Dick Wilson’s law that banned three or more people from gathering inn one place. the next morning ” Annie Mae Aquash” and her husband were interviewed briefly-whether by the FBI or BIA is unclear-and released. Her interview lasted sixteen minutes, an indication of how unimportant she was to authorities. this would soon change.
I was looking for something more positive but came across this instead
No wonder Monica ain’t too fond of white women…. after watching a minute of this I’m a bit ashamed myself!!!
It seems to me that there should be some sort of registry to investigate whites claiming to be an Indian medicine man/woman.
God help me end this on a good note!
I looked up Indian women Oregon and found this…
Oregon is so awesome and Indians are sooooo….. not really visible here. In fact now that I think of it on my tour of Oregon a few weeks ago I ran into Indians from India but no American Indians….How does that song go…There’s something happening here…
From Grandmother and mother to young girl We answered our Lakota sisters call From the bright lights of New York City streets To the briny beaches of the Elwha To draw a mortal line in the same snow And frozen earth that took the Ghost Dancers Home on songs that fly between blazing worlds
That split and left us lost on the false road
to barren reserves that couldn’t feed us
Our souls starved for outlawed ceremonies
That waited in the glowing dreamtime mists
To revive our numbed spirit eyes and ears
with new visions of a luminous world
of eagles, buffalo, salmon and corn
lit from within by our love and prayers
We dance in ancient memory to drums
thundering from our wild unbroken hearts
And sing of our escape from the nightmare
of the backward world of broken treaties
Shattered families scattered on the winds
Gathered whole into the sacred circle
Prophesied by the ancient Ghost Dancers
Anna Mae and Nogeeshik were at Crow Dogs Paradise…
...then they were driven to a drop-off point on Pine ridge laden with great gear. Under cover of night, they and others were guided through gulleys and over ridges to Wounded Knee. Michael Denny, a Potawatomi who packed in with Pictou and Aquash, remembered of her, “She was carrying a pack filled with medical supplies. When we got close to Wounded Knee, we had to hit the ground several times and get back up and run for cover form the U.S. government gunfire. Anna Mae had to do this too, and it amazed me that she had the physical strength with the heavy backpack-and she was small-to do this and I realized she had strength in her heart too.”
Perhaps Ms. Charles will grace us with her presence and tell us how she got to Wounded Knee…Sneak in or with the original caravan???
Dennis Banks asked Aquash and Pictou What they wanted to do, and they said they wanted to be assigned to a bunker. When Banks suggested Pictou might prefer the kitchen, she replied that she would not mind doing her share of cooking and cleaning but she had not come to Wounded Knee to get stuck behind pots and pans. the were given weapons and sent to a bunker.
“Most of the people at Wounded Knee were kids, people in their late teens or early twenties,” said Kevin McKiernan, who was the only reporter to stay inside Wounded Knee throughout the siege and who shared the floor of a trailer with Anna Mae and Nogeeshik for a month. “Anna Mae stood out in part because she was older”-twenty-eight-”and had more of the self-confidence that comes with age. She was also a seeker and a learner, and she was more urbane than most of the people there. She would study people, quietly. She wasn’t loud. She was not overly deferential to Nogeeshik, but she was traditional in the sense that if one of them would talk first, it would be him.
Wondering if this guy is related to Myrtle Poor Bear?
And finally this is for Monica Charles…
And this is some very well done but really fucked up shit about the town of Whiteclay and the 4 million cans of beer a day that are sold in a town with the population of 14!!!!???? The tax revenue of the sales is 300,000 a year….and white people say that Indians don’t pay taxes….
Part 2 tells of unreal statistics on Pine Ridge…. 800% overturn of teachers??? an average of 17 people are living in a house???? WTF???? I can’t even live with 1 other person!!! I cannot believe how bad these statistics are. God forbid those fucking executives on Wall Street don’t get their 20 million dollar bonuses!!!
but life interfered and I am home this weekend although I am going hiking along the Rogue Gorge on Saturday!
THE UPPER ROGUE GORGE
Work(I need the money!) and conference calls took precedence plus it was raining and its not like I only go the Redwoods once a year I go all the time it was a good decision because I had time to clean my house…well as clean as it can be with me living in it!!
I didn’t think I would have time to post anything of substance so I e-mailed Monica Charles and asked her if I could use some of her work and of course she gave me her permission but I had left already….But now that I am here I am taking the liberty of posting one of her poems that I read awhile ago. It starts off “She had some wild cats” which I believe is a response to a poem by Joy Harjo called SHE HAD SOME HORSES. I don’t own any of Joy Harjo’s work but I need to she is one of those poets that every other Native American poet has outstanding things to say about. It makes me wonder… I certainly am no scholar but it seems that there is a lot of support among Indian writers and not the backstabbing jealousies among other literary groups.
She had some wild cats, Bits of black fluff abandoned as the white preacher fled poverty’s flood that engulfed his flock in alcohol and drugs
She had some wild cats who shared her cold spaghetti cheeks blushed with sauce They licked each others face and rolled full-bellied in the sweet cut grass
She had some wild cats Who ran away when Dad died They lived hard in the woods Fasting and walking for a year They came home lean silent and healed
She had some wild cats Who went away to boarding school And slept through the night They loved to read books And feel the weight of words rolling from her fingers As she mixed them on a page
She had some wild cats Who loved with the passion Of the wild west wind who brings rains that flood And flings down trees that refuse to bend
She had some wild cats That bathed in icy rivers They painted their faces and sang the sun into the sky Defying white laws of gravity
She had some wild cats Cats that lived in cartoons And chased technicolor mice tiptoeing past the dog Day after silly day
She had some wild cats who learned to hate themselves For their beautiful brown skin And flew their car into a tree Into the fabled tunnel of white light
She had some wildcats who survived the crash And took their first sober steps Since their cousin gave them beer At their ninth birthday party
She had some wildcats Who learned to love themselves Bought a second hand computer And wrote poetry plays and stories To begin the healing
Posted by Monica
Now I am one of those curious white people and refrain from asking a million questions but seriously after reading that poem I would love to play TWENTY QUESTIONS with Monica. Of course I have a feeling the stories behind this poem could be turned into a set of encyclopedias on Monica Charles at the least an autobiography.
Like I said I am curious and to Monica’s horror I am the type of person that would probably think it was cool if someone dug up my Grandmother and stuck her in a museum!! I can’t say for sure because as far as I know I have no relatives in a museum. My saving grace is that I believe in respecting others beliefs…..with the exception of the mutilation of female genitalia!
But getting back to the poetry I proceeded to look up Joy Harjo’s poem.
SHE HAD SOME HORSES
byJoy Harjo
She had some horses.She had horses who were bodies of sand.
She had horses who were maps drawn of blood.
She had horses who were skins of ocean water.
She had horses who were the blue air of sky.
She had horses who were fur and teeth.
She had horses who were clay and would break.
She had horses who were splintered red cliff.
She had some horses.
She had horses with long, pointed breasts.
She had horses with full, brown thighs.
She had horses who laughed too much.
She had horses who threw rocks at glass houses.
She had horses who licked razor blades.
She had some horses.
She had horses who danced in their mothers’ arms.
She had horses who thought they were the sun and their bodies shone and burned like stars.
She had horses who waltzed nightly on the moon.
She had horses who were much too shy, and kept quiet in stalls of their own making.
She had some horses.
She had horses who liked Creek Stomp Dance songs.
She had horses who cried in their beer.
She had horses who spit at male queens who made them afraid of themselves.
She had horses who said they weren’t afraid.
She had horses who lied.
She had horses who told the truth, who were stripped bare of their tongues.
She had some horses.
She had horses who called themselves, “horse.”
She had horses who called themselves, “spirit.” and kept their voices secret and to themselves.
She had horses who had no names.
She had horses who had books of names.
She had some horses.
She had horses who whispered in the dark, who were afraid to speak.
She had horses who screamed out of fear of the silence, who carried knives to protect themselves from ghosts.
She had horses who waited for destruction.
She had horses who waited for resurrection.
She had some horses.
This is not the end you can read the rest of her wonderful poem here.
Joy Harjo has a wonderful website that you can link to here.
I could be wrong because I can’t find it now but I swear that I ran across a blog on her site called ORDINARY SPARROW which I immediately bookmarked because it is so beautifully done….the pictures the posts. I even put it on my blogroll I don’t look at it often enough but did the other morning and it made me cry. Here is a link to the post that brought me to tears river reflection…third eye. Now usually when I meet people who say that they are spiritual beings I am respectful but am thinking that they are full of shit. Seeing with Satan’s third eye maybe!!! But not quite trusting my own judgment of people…not that I should be judging people….except that I do it all the time everyday…and if God gives you a gift….(just joking!!!) That is exactly how my mind works and no wonder I am exhausted after being awake for a few hours!!!!
For some reason I believe every word of this person and what the fuck Amma is sending them messages??? For those of you who don’t know who AMMA is she is the incarnation of love and people call her the hugging saint. This woman heals lepers by licking their sores!! I won’t have sex with someone who has herpes and this woman is licking leprosy sores!!!!
I think my path to enlightenment is different than most it consists of long periods of saint like behavior with even longer interludes of anger and rage but overall I get it. I may not choose to live it everyday and it is a choice. In many ways even at my worst there are moral crimes I would never commit because I really do get how destructive they are. There are things that once you get them they are not an issue anymore. I got the possession of material objects and vanity thing down. I constantly recognize my own ego and while I may lapse I have the ability to see most of the time where I am wrong. My ego is not so strong that I am unable to see my bad behavior….even though it may take a few days!!! I don’t let it slide or make bad excuses. I was watching the Soul Series Oprah did with Eckart Tolle and someone told him about a miracle they had received, and Tolle said something to the effect that sometimes receiving outright miracles is not a good thing. I think because it comes with little effort and you will expect the same results….I could have all of this wrong as I am relying on my memory.
As a recipient of “easy” miracles….I agree and disagree. I see is point because in the back of my mind I know how easy it is to receive a miracle but at the same time I KNOW how hard it is to have the constant belief. All that is required to receive a miracle is to believe. I mean for even an instant you have to believe without a doubt….and doubt is like the plague once it infects you once it spreads like wildfire. If for a moment you feel unworthy, unloved, or just plain fucked up your connection with God dissolves….not because God has left or doesn’t love you but because you have shut the door. This isn’t something to beat yourself up over….sometimes shutting the door results in miracles down the road that you may not recognize yet. Living in the world has a way of teaching you lessons whether you ask for them or not!!
I envy the way some people live in Peace and who practice everyday and who knows that may be me one day but my quest for enlightenment sort of resembles my quest for a clean house….too much clutter!!! One of my biggest challenges in life right now is my weight. I have had times in my life when I have been skinny (not by Victoria Beckham standards) and it doesn’t matter how skinny you are….someone will always make you feel fat. I don’t really care about my weight in the sense that it is where I get my self esteem from….I care about my weight because my feet hurt after being on hard surfaces for any length of time. I just don’t feel good!!!
Like I have said I am not a naturally skinny person but losing weight has never been an issue for me until the last five years as I keep gaining and gaining…it started when I moved in with my Mother for a year…I will say no more on that.
Granted age is a huge factor when I was young I could eat a pound of MnM’S and a pound of Doritos every day and not gain weight the way I do now!
I have very few pictures of me since I didn’t own a camera for many years and when I did get one I am the one taking pictures!
I THINK THAT DRESS IS A 6
I look like Elvira…..those are my sister’s feet and I was rubbing them while she was in the hospital resting after delivering her first child. I think I had been drinking in a bar while she was delivering…that shit scares me..that’s why I don’t have any children….I just borrow them for a few hours and give them back!!! No matter how skinny I am I have a double chin!!! I was fucking miserable when I was this thin…it was a lot of work and my boyfriends would still criticize my weight. Now I’m like….FUCK YOU! On a funnier note I don’t have a picture but I got very skinny by not eating at one point in my life and this guy came up to me and said “I’ll fuck you if you lose 10 pounds.” People are horrified that I think that is funny….but you would have had to know the pig guy. He was someone that I would have not let around my pristine vagina for a billion dollars. Seriously a billion dollars I would walk away from. I do have a sense of humor and it was funny and I still laugh when I think about it!
ME IN UTAH AT PROBABLY A SIZE 10 OR 12
This is the trip that had me awakening to nature. I had come to terms with myself and was very happy with my weight and size. It wasn’t hard to maintain at all. Living back East men still thought I was a big fat cow but I really didn’t care.
Me now at size 16/18
Actually this picture is from a couple years ago but things have not changed. I lose 15 I gain 15…..into infinity. Until yesterday when I bought a scale I didn’t know how much I weighed……
216.3!!!!
Aside from my feet hurting when I am standing on tile or concrete (I did by a pair of Crocs last week and I love them!) when I go to buy shirts…maybe because I hike and am somewhat active….the armpits drop to my waist. Like my arms are as big as my legs!!!
And fuck that nonsense about the fat tax….that is just a bunch of nonsense!!! I say to that lets have a genetic tax. Cause I have superior Portuguese genes and have never been in a hospital. Occasionally I will have an allergy attack but not since I have moved to back to the West coast. My grandmother lived to 92 and she was a fat round Portuguese but walked until her final weeks without any help and could get into my Dad’s big Dodge Ram Diesel. She walked better than skinny old people at 60!!! My grandfather was one of those bad alcoholics who apparently would resort to drinking rubbing alcohol and aftershave out of desperation but he only succumbed to stomach cancer in his 70′s. He smoked a few packs of unfiltered Pall Malls too boot! My mother smokes about two or three packs of cigarettes a day and in her sixties the doctors are still amazed that her lungs are so clear when they x-ray them.
I know this guy who is rail thin and he used to get upset with me because my cholesterol was lower while his was in the 300′s and he was on medication!!! I thought that was funny because on the way to my cholesterol test I was eating peanutbutter balls!!! The Doctor shook his head and said well it its too high we’ll take it again but you’ll have to fast…it was below 150 and the nurse was really pissed. I run into pissed off healthcare workers all the time….I have low blood pressure too!
Its all about the genes and in reality I think it would be ridiculous to tax women because they have the breast cancer gene…
Seriously though this is all about self-hatred. America’s weight issues are not going to be solved by taxing people what’s next a low IQ tax???a big nose tax??? tits too small tax??? Apparently people that engage in anal sex have increased rates of anal cancer…should we start taxing people for their sex lives???
I have been wandering again getting back to my weight…I will be writing a post on it every week good or bad.
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
Much has been going on in the saga of the Graham/Marshall trial. Monica e-mailed me a news item yesterday that the feds dropped a charge against Graham because he and Anna Mae are Canadian Indians not American Indians and feds only have jurisdiction on certain issues over American Indians. Not being an American Indian they would have to be prosecuted like any other person. The more important thing is that it shows that the feds will go to any lengths to prosecute this crime. Why the hell wouldn’t they and their lawyers know something so obvious? Then again maybe the Canadian and American governments have merged and now they have let the cat out of the bag!! You would think Alex Jones would have that on his website!!! But it might be that Americans are so self centered and arrogant that we just presume that other Indian tribes in other countries should be subject to our laws!! Fairly easy and effortless to do as our arrogance knows no boundaries. Kind of funny if you see it for what it is!!
Anyway here is the link Monica Charles sent to me from the RAPID CITY JOURNAL be sure to read the comments at the bottom.
I even went on alt.native this evening and was glad to see that David Seals had put up some good posts…
…while most of the story as the BIA told it was true, the crucial point-that Bissonette had fired on police-was almost certainly not. the hitchhiker, for one, told the FBI later that although Bisonette did step ou of the car at the homestead with a rifle, he neither pointed it at the police nor fired it. The radio log of the BIA police supports the hitcher’s account…
After Bissonette was shot, AIM called on supporters around the country to come to Pine Ridge for his wake and funeral.
…Dick Wilson declared, “the Oglala Sioux have organized and are prepared for the AIM invasion.
He sent his goons to the hilltops around the home of Bissonette’s mother,where the wake of several days was being held. “If you have to shoot them,” goon leader Duane Brewer was heard telling his men “shoot them all, women and children too.”
Bisonette’s cousin Floyd Running Hand was one of the arrestees. when he demanded to make a phone call, his jailers choked him until he blacked out. He awoke in the hospital, where doctors were told he had tried to hang himself. He was told if he wanted to leave the hospital alive, he would agree. He did.
John Iverson, was hauled before Judge Dorothy Richards, to whom he complained that he had asked for a breathalyzer test to prove his sobriety only to be refused by the police. Judge Richards laughed. Pine Ridge didn’t have breathalyzer equipment, she said, then she nicked him $20 and gave him fifteen minutes to get off the reservation.
Things were getting pretty tense with AIMers from various places taking up arms opposite of the goons.
Then….
Dick Wilson’s car came swerving into the wake. AIM’s sentry’s proved cool of head and stopped the car without incident. At the wheel they found a drunken teenager who said Wilson had paid him and given him the car to drive into the compound. Aim resumed, reasonably, that Wilson had been trying to provoke a firefight with the kid as a sacrifice. WKLDOC filed a complaint with the BIA police accusing Wilson of trying to incite violence and corrupting a minor, but when reporters asked the police if they were going to arrest Wilson, they said they hadn’t received WKCLDOC’s complaint. Later they said they had received it but that they could do nothing about it because it had been improperly filed. (This was apparently untrue.)
The FBI had jurisdiction over crimes of violence on the reservation, but it also took no interest in the complaint. Perhaps the FBI was too busy investigating the mourners-a job it had begun several days earlier by slipping spies inside the mourning caravans.
to this day the FBI censors almost every word of its several-hundred-page dossier on the espionage. The censors reject the notion that they are still withholding the documents because the documents would show the FBI was spying illegally on peaceful mourners. The FBI says it is only trying to keep secret the identity of informers who might still be alive…
I wonder if David Hill was one of them?
I had a thought when typing this last part and remembering the Little Bear girl who was shot in the eye on a previous post. Everyone has it bass ackwards. I mean no offense against Anna Mae or any disrespect but she knew what she was getting into she was an adult fighting a very dangerous fight….but these kids. That is where the real outcry should be. The children are the future…and I don’t want to think the worst of my government but haven’t the colonizers previously gone after the children? Like I always say I am the most inexpert person you can possibly find in this area of topic but it seems to me that while an Indian shot Little Bear and an Indian gave a drunk teenager his car… the government chose to ignore the case of the truly innocent. Indian boarding schools, sterilization, and ignoring crimes against the Indian youths…maybe it is not intentional but a collective unconscious mentality of a colonizing government. Just a thought that popped into my head. If that was a little white girl or a white teenage football player holy hell would have been paid by the perpetrators. Of course the poverty may have something to do with it.
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
Here is a link that found its way to my blog NUCLEAR AND INDIGENOUS ITEMS OF INTEREST! If this were not the Anna Mae post I would be tempted to go on a rant about Yucca Mountain and the idiocy of the state of Nevada, Vegas and water. But it has been a lovely day and the blog is not taking up as much of my time.
I will not begin capitalizing white. But here is a poem that Pudgy Indian wrote he capitalizes white!! He even mentions Monica Charles’ Makah whale battle!!!
Fuck You Whitey (Freestyle)
Whitey is always
telling us Indians
what we can and cannot do.
Apartheid is here in the states
we call them reservations
ghettos
the black neighborhoods.
Apartheid has a name
and has whitey dominating
all faces of our world.
And whitey Loves telling
the Makah they can’t whale
and Love to remind us
that they are the killers of our folks
they are our dominators
and they have every right
to tell us what we can an cannot do
because we lost the war
Doesn’t matter if you’re a peckerwood
of the lefty persuasion
vegan non-meat eating
alleged peaceful
but never peaceful
know it all
holier than thou
force of the peckerwood…
it doesn’t matter
if you are a right wing
war mongering
never do your own killing
right wing republican
in DC
taking it all from everyone else
in the world
to fill vast bank accounts…
you all
are telling us Red Niggers
what we can and cannot do.
(Oops! I just noticed that he only capitalizes black and white when it’s in the title or the beginning of a sentence!! Ssorry….)
You can read the rest here!! It is very long but worth reading. I love Pudgy Indian and just discovered his wife’s blog Of Death and Conscience: She Who Watches another interesting blog….I really need to put up links on my blogroll!
But on to way more important things…..
AIM..got it’s start policing the Minneapolis police, especially in the bars that catered to the Midwestern Indians…
..the police tended to arrest every Native in sight, guilt or innocence be damned. Often the Indians were beaten ruthlessly. AIM often arrived before the cops. they told Indians who were being arrested of their rights, and they photographed the police at work. They were thanked with blackjacks to the head, arrests, and indictments for “interfering” with the laws. The AIMers persisted. They held public hearings about the abuse. They published their photographs…AIM was lionized.
AIM started to expand into other services:
Finding decent housing and jobs for urban Indians,
founding “survival schools” for Indian children who had left or been rejected by white (that there Steve Hendricks he don’t capitalize white either!!!) schools.
After Raymond Yellow Thunder was killed, his relatives asked AIM to come……Over three days, 1,400 Indians from fourscore tribes descended noisily on the town. The protesters were led by Dennis Banks and Russel Means.
In Gordon, Banks and Means convened a people’s grand jury to hear grievances. Foremost of these were alleged rapes of Indian girls by white policemen and alleged swindlings by white storekeepers. AIM threatened to boycott the town,, and the Oglala Sioux Tribe, till then not prone to activism, announced tthat it would drain its accounts from Gordon’s banks.
AIM did…secure a second autopsy of Yellow Thunder, which confirmed the findings of the first autopsy.
During the protests in Gordon, AIM asked federal prosecutors to bolster the tepid state indictments with federal civil rights charges, as was sometimes done in the South when local official treated lynchers lightly. But the Department of Justice demurred (what a surprise) and three months after AIM left Gordon, Yellow Thunder’s killers were tried in state court.
Charges against the lone female defendant, Jeanette Thompson (glad she is not my mother!),had been dropped.
Bernard Ludder, had pleaded to kidnapping (for which he was fined $250) and turned on his friends.
Melvin and Leslie Hare and Robert Bayliss were convicted and given sentences of two, six, and four years respectively.(Once again glad none of the above are my parents!)
They served an unknown fraction of the sentences. I wonder why it is unknown isn’t that public information??
Every time I say I will be back tomorrow something comes up!
I was in the middle of writing my next post but keep getting interrupted my others and myself!!
This is a post written by Monica Charles and gives her view on what happened to Anna Mae Aquash. Monica Charles was actually at the occupation of Wounded Knee and has been living with the aftermath ever since. She is dedicated to getting the truth out. She wakes up every morning and makes the conscious decision to help her people in a variety of ways instead of what the majority of us living in the United States do which is little to nothing.
Here is her post:
Classic Cointelpro
(The story of Anna Mae Aquash
and
Arlo Looking Cloud)
I don’t have words to name the anguish I have carried for Anna Mae, Arlo and John. Thirty years ago hope was a luminous butterfly breaking out of her cocoon in my heart. The days of the old movement, the 1970’s brought out the best in us, and the worst.
We flew to the sun and stole light at the occupation of Wounded Knee 1973 as our rag tag band of Indians yanked our history and destiny from the hands of the United States government. Wounded Knee had been synonymous with the death of our way of life. Close your eyes and you can see Big Foot and his people, frozen where they fell, shot by American soldiers.
Open your eyes and there we are, long haired, armed, drawing a line in the snow with our lives. Armed Indian men from across the United States and Canada returned the US Government’s fire. Indian women cooked cleaned and did all the work to keep the camp going. The heart and backbone has always been Woman.
Most of us walked in and out of Wounded Knee through the government forces that surrounded us. We swore an oath to stand for our People. We staked ourselves out for those who were felled by alcohol and drugs. We raised our voices for those who were silenced by corrupt Tribal Councils supported by the federal government.
Pine Ridge chairman Dick Wilson was every corrupt Tribal politician that dragged us into the sludge and left us trapped. The Lakota at Pine Ridge have born the burden of the history of all Indian People. In this the most affluent country that the world has seen, Pine Ridge is the poorest county in the country.
It is impossible for outsiders to understand why we choose to live on our reservations. We could make a better living in the big cities. We would be free from oppression of corrupt Tribal chairmen. It is the land herself that holds us.
It doesn’t matter who has legal title to our land. It is ours. We are responsible for it. We carry it in our hearts. Maybe that’s why Indian hearts are so big.
We feel guilt when we leave it. The borders press against our ribs until we return home. Our land is us and we are our land in a way that the white man will never understand. Reservations were created by Treaties to be our prisons. We were supposed to die there, out of sight, out of mind.
For many years our reservations suffocated us. We grew stagnant. Alcohol and drugs numbed our bodies and minds and spirits. We forgot. We forgot what happened to us and who we are.
Those who should have belonged to the warrior societies turned on each other and forgot to protect The People. The oppressors stole power from our men. In those unspeakable times the men turned and stole power from those in their care, the babies, the old ones, the women. Violence and sexual abuse became authority in our sick defeated state.
Those who should have been our Clan Mothers and Lady Chiefs had their sacredness destroyed. Many forgot it is they that choose the future of our people. They were unable to hold their heads or the men’s above water. Our hearts and backbones collapsed under the burden of poverty and little hope.
It was into this darkness that the Movement reached its hand. It wasn’t Dennis and Russell or Vernon and Clyde. It was the idea of freedom. It was the worm turning into a butterfly. It was the Sasquatch cry in the midnight woods. It was the part of us that never died or surrendered.
The call from the Lakota to come back to Wounded Knee also came from deep within our hearts, the collective soul of our people. It’s time to wake up. The long sleep is over. Your People need you. Hit the ground running.
We came from the four directions. We brought our broken Treaties and our broken hearts to be healed. The gun fire at Wounded Knee in the 1800’s signaled the end of our freedom. The gun fire at Wounded Knee 1973 signaled our awakening.
We made special clothes and Ghost Danced in the open. This time the guns didn’t cut us down. The Creator hadn’t forgotten us. He was just waiting for us to find our way back home.
We also packed in with us the dysfunctional learned behaviors that were destroying us. The cream and the dregs floated to the top.
Men believed the Hollywood version of the Indian warrior. Women were treated badly. They thought we were there to serve them not The People.
There were stars that shown. I don’t mean the media stars. There were those born of earth whose goodness burned from their hearts. Pedro Bissonette and Anna Mae Aquash were such lights. They symbolized the best in us.
Pedro would walk out of Wounded Knee at first light and spend the day negotiating with the government. He fasted in solidarity with us. We were starving at that point. We ate one meal a day. The old lady cooks saved a plate for him when he walked back in at night. He was quiet and humble, a Traditional leader. He was assassinated after the occupation was over.
Anna Mae was a warrior woman. She helped make quilts, packed a gun on patrol and could talk Treaties and strategy. She was assassinated amid jealousy and rumors. She died alone and abandoned. She represented the best of Woman and the worst that could happen to us.
The facts of her murder are cloaked in intrigue and stink of an FBI conspiracy. The description of the body found at Wanblee didn’t fit Anna Mae. She was ten years younger and four inches taller than Anna Mae. The coroner said she had been dead about ten days.
ARLO’S TRIAL
The testimony at Arlo’s trial is filled with confusion. The odyssey that took Anna Mae from Denver to Rapid City began with a call to Angie Begay Janis. She testified that Thelma Rios called her with instructions to bring Anna Mae to Rapid City. Angie then went to Troy Lynn Yellow Wood’s house to deliver the message.
According to Janis’ own testimony she was at the meeting at Yellow Woods house to decide if Anna Mae was an informer. If that meeting actually did happen, was her fate decided there? Incidents appear in this story like magic to support the government’s contentions. Sometimes these incidents make absolutely no sense.
This was a most unfortunate time for Arlo to show up at this house. He was looking for a friend to go have a beer with him. He says Theda Clark asked him to drive them to Rapid City. A request from an older woman would have equated a command.
Angie stated that Arlo was at the meeting. That is doubtful. A meeting of that magnitude would not have included the rank and file. It would have consisted of those considered to be leaders.
Janis stated that Anna Mae was brought from the basement tied to a board. Arlo’s attorney Tim Rensch reminded Janis that she had not mentioned Anna Mae’s hands being tied or being tied to a board in her grand jury testimony. He asked if she had spoken with BIA cop Robert Eccoffey about this.
Simply driving Anna Mae to Rapid City would not be a federal offense. Troy Lynn Yellow Wood testified that Anna Mae did not want to go, but went of her own volition. A charge of kidnapping was needed so the myth of Anna Mae being carried out of the house tied to a board was fashioned.
Yellow Wood stated that she tried to stop them from taking Anna Mae from her house but was ordered by her aunt Theda Clark to mind her own business. Theda was apparently a domineering mean older woman. Few would dare cross her.
When Arlo, John and Theda left with Anna Mae, Yellow Wood called the police. Angie Janis took the phone from her and hung it up. Janis told Yellow Wood to stay out of this.
Although Janis testified under oath that Anna Mae’s hands had been tied and then she was tied to a board that did not alarm Angie enough to call the police herself. She still stated that she didn’t think Anna Mae was in any danger.
If Angie Janis did not tell this story when she testified before the grand jury, then when and why did she invent it? It would seem that this was created to be the lynch pin for the charge of kidnapping.
Janis could not remember the color of the rope or the board. Rensch also asked Amiotte, the rancher that found the Wanblee body, if there was a rope near the body. Amiotte didn’t see a rope. We have another mystery in this story. Where did the rope and board go?
Next we move to the famous alleged interrogation at the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee office. Candy Hamilton testified that she was waiting at WKLDOC for a ride to Sioux Falls to testify at Russell Means trial. Anna Mae was in a room with a group of people.
Anna Mae came out of the room to get a cup of coffee. She talked a while with Candy. There were phones and doors in the office. Anna Mae didn’t try to call for help. Neither did she try to run.
Hamilton states that she told Anna Mae that Oglalla could be a really safe place for her to stay. Candy was offering asylum. She had heard rumors of Aquash being an informer. Candy wanted to let Anna Mae know that she would be protected in Oglalla if she wanted it. She didn’t. The two women spoke for another minute then Anna Mae returned to the room. Aquash had many opportunities to escape if she was being held prisoner.
Hamilton couldn’t remember if it was before or after they heard that Anna Mae had been killed when she spoke to Madonna Gilbert about the incident. She asked Gilbert what became of Anna Mae after they talked with her. Gilbert said, “Oh, we just told her to get out of there.”
The myths that have grown up around this story are volatile. They are fueled by Jordan Dill on his websites and Paul Demain in his newspaper.
Dill and Demain sound like bellowing wrestlers in their proclamations. They have ranted about a ten tooth beating during the alleged interrogation of Aquash. Actually, according to “The life and Death of Anna Mae Aquash by Johanna Brand,” Anna Mae wore partials, which she had lost.
Dill and Demain quote Minnie Two Shoes quoting Iris Thunder Cloud as saying that Anna Mae told her that Leonard Peltier put a gun in her mouth as he questioned her at an AIM conference. There is no eye witness to affirm that this incident actually happened.
During Robert Eccoffey’s testimony he states that Arlo told him that when they crossed the fence, she (Anna Mae) knew what was going to happen. Roger Amiotte had testified that the fence had not been there in 1976, the year he found the body.
Why did Arlo have a detailed memory of crossing a fence that would be built years later? Why did he recall that by crossing that yet-to-be fence Anna Mae knew she was about to be killed?
Eccoffey thinks he sees rope burns on the corpse’s wrists in the crime scene photos. It is here that the kidnapping story is born. There is no mention of rope burns by either medical examiner in both autopsy reports.
Dr. Gary Peterson who performed the second autopsy said that Anna Mae’s severed hands were returned to him. He examined them and rejoined them with the body.
Dr. Peterson also said he examined the genitalia and it appeared normal. He did not mention evidence of trauma or rape.
Many lies and exaggerations have been told by FBI and their spin doctors in this story to manipulate our emotions. One of the worst is the rape of Anna Mae.
Both Arlo and John have been accused of raping Anna Mae by the FBI spinmeisters. Dill and Demain have ranted that six to eight AIM men raped Anna Mae Aquash either while she was interrogated or being held captive. That is a sick male fantasy.
Dr. Gary Peterson did not say there was evidence that Anna Mae had been raped and beaten. How many friends have cried over the years at the thought of their sister being bound and gang raped by her brothers? The thought of her being beaten so badly that ten teeth are knocked out is heartbreaking. Those lies are unconscionable.
This case is classic FBI cointelpro. Anna Mae Aquash was targeted by the FBI for elimination. They think they are wriggling out of their responsibility for her assassination by this sham trial of Arlo Looking Cloud.
The FBI has used Indian journalists to plant their lies and shine the light away from their culpability. They claim to have lost all evidence connected with the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. They continue to release new accusations of a nonexistent beating and rape.
There was no evidence presented at Arlo’s trial linking him to the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. By their own testimony some of those who turned state implicated themselves. They appear guiltier than Arlo.
Angie Janis admits being a part of the Denver AIM meeting that decided that Anna Mae Aquash was an informant. She physically stops Troy Lynn Yellow Wood from calling the police to save Anna Mae.
John Trudell claims to have received a distress signal from Aquash in the form of a ring. A letter supposedly from Anna Mae was recently released on the internet. The letter states the ring was given to AIM attorney Beverly Axelrod to mail. That letter was supposedly written while Anna Mae was in a Vancouver Washington jail after the Brando motor home bust on November 14 of 1975.
There was plenty of time for Trudell to intervene on Anna Mae’s behalf if she had been killed on December 12 1975 as the FBI asserted in Arlo’s trial. There would have been more time if she had been killed in the middle of February as stated by the FBI’s first press release of her death.
Kamook Nichols Banks Ecoffey stated in her CBC interview with Anna Marie Tremonti that she learned one day that Anna Mae was having an affair with her husband Dennis Banks. The next day Anna Mae was interrogated about being an informant.
Dennis Banks stated to Tremonti that if he had a choice of who he would spend the rest of his life with, he would have chosen Anna Mae.
Kamook testified that Dennis Banks and Leonard Peltier forced Anna Mae to make bombs. They wanted to frame Aquash with her own fingerprints on the bombs. It would seem that fingerprints would be destroyed when the bomb detonated.
There seems to be descriptions of at least two different bodies in the crime scene reports and the two separate autopsies. Anyone who points this out is ridiculed by the FBI apologists. Yet the strongly differing descriptions are in their own reports in their own words.
No evidence of any kind was presented during the trial to prove that Anna Mae Aquash was kidnapped, held prisoner, beaten and raped. There is no evidence linking Arlo to a kidnapping, rape, or murder. All testimony was hearsay. Most of it was about the American Indian Movement, not Arlo.
Arlo’s new attorney Terry Gilbert filed an appeal on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel; plain error of the court in admitting into evidence non-probative information that was highly prejudicial and not relevant to the case, admission of hearsay evidence and failure to give appropriate jury instructions and insufficiency of the evidence.
The eighth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Arlo’s appeal. They ruled that Rensch did not provide ineffective assistance by failing to move to suppress the taped police interview because Arlo was intoxicated. The police did not test the level of alcohol and drugs in Arlo’s system. There was no evidence that he was incapacitated.
The most damning testimony was that of Darlene “Kamook” Nichols Banks Eccoffey. They deduced from Kamook’s testimony that several AIM members (including Kamook) took Anna Mae away for weeks to “watch her.” Kamook said that Aquash was constantly watched, was not allowed to go anywhere alone, and was not permitted to go home despite her requests to do so. According to Ken Stern’s book “Loud Hawk” Anna Mae had the power to deny Russ Redner’s request for a weapon on that caravan.
The trial of Arlo Looking Cloud is frightening for several reasons. The American Indian Movement appeared to be on trial not Arlo. The Movement was found guilty of a propensity for violence. That was primarily based on Kamook’s testimony. There was no physical evidence presented against Arlo himself.
Angie Janis testified that Anna Mae was carried from Yellow Wood’s house tied to a board. Yet she did not see Anna Mae’s hands tied. Yellow Wood testified that Anna Mae walked out and left of her own accord, though unwillingly. The court accepted Angie Janis’ version, the kidnapping story. The court deduced that since Aquash was tied to a board, Arlo knew she was going to be killed.
Kamook Nichols Banks Ecoffey claims that Anna Mae was her best friend and she was a prisoner on the Brando motor home caravan. Kamook did not try to help her escape. She was part of that cell. Did she aid and abet in the kidnap and imprisonment of her best friend? She did not use her influence as the wife of AIM’s cofounder and top leader to stop the rumors or to protect Anna Mae.
If a kidnapping did occur in Denver then Angie Janis aided and abetted by stopping Troy Lynn Yellow Wood from calling for help. Angie Janis received the phone call and carried the message to Denver AIM that Anna Mae was to be returned to South Dakota. She admits to sitting in on a meeting that decided that Anna Mae was an informant.
The American Indian Movement dies in a snake pit from its own venomous bites. Members point fingers at each other and hurl accusations.
John Trudell testified that he was told of Anna Mae’s murder by Dennis Banks. Trudell says this was before the FBI announced that the Wanblee body was Aquash.
Dennis Banks stated in his memoir “Ojibwa Warrior” that Trudell told him that the Wanblee body was Anna Mae. This was also before the FBI announced the name.
The trial transcripts read like a bad script for a really bad movie. The federal government may have convicted Arlo Looking Cloud of aiding and abetting a murder. Without concrete evidence against Arlo, the federal government did not acquit themselves of the murder of Anna Mae Aquash.
Contrary to the overactive imaginations over at alt.native I HAVE NEVER ASKED MONICA CHARLES TO POST ON ALT.NATIVE FOR ME….
until tonight.
My Father’s name is Stephen Richard Tool he died a few years back…I will never forget the sound of my Mother screaming over the telephone….
MY DAD HOLDING ME WHEN I WAS A BABY
He was not perfect. Like most parents he had his good along with his bad…he had regrets in his life….mostly that he was too hard on my brother.
HERE IS A PAGE FROM THE 1964 ANNUAL OF THE MADDOX
He served 20 years in the Navy and this annual was from the year before I was born.
I think he was happier in the Navy.
ANNUAL FROM THE MADDOX
This survived the burning down of my brothers house notice the cross imprinted on it.
MY DAD IN UNIFORM
Like I said he wasn’t perfect but he had some qualities that have had a profound effect on my life.
For instance when we moved to a logging community in Oregon he drove a yellow Chevy Luv. Most men wouldn’t be caught dead driving a pick up much less a yellow Chevy Luv. Most men have to have a great big four wheel drive so that they can feel like they are men….even if it means that their kids don’t have enough to eat….
THIS IS MY PERSONAL FAVORITE OF ME AND MY DAD
When you disrespect my Father’s name it is only your own father that you are disrespecting.
That is TOOL THE COOL FOOL to you. Go ahead it doesn’t bother me.
A few notes before I begin. I braved the land mines at alt.native and once again left because I was very confused. I e-mailed Monica and asked her for a list of who is who and how they are involved in the Anna Mae case. It was most helpful.
If you are really interested in learning more about this case go to alt.native and read the comments to my saga and other posts. There are some really good comments. Aside from the obvious…Monica Charles. There is a man named Dave who has written a book about the murder but it has not been published for legal reasons…I’m a bit embarrassed that Dave is reading anything I write because he is also the author of several books, most notable is POW WOW HIGHWAY(I ordered a copy for 2.52 on Amazon. Which I will feel guilty about now!) which was turned into a movie. He has also written an epic poem CREATION’S MYTH ( I cannot find anywhere) which has been compared to PARADISE LOST by John Milton. More books I need to read!!!
Thank you thavanag for pointing out my obvious error J.Edgar not Herbert. And Monica you were exactly right I was pissed off and do know the difference. If you all knew how many times I went over my posts and still miss obvious mistakes…Scholar I do not pretend to be!
Here are links to comments from alt.native concerning Anna Mae Part 1part 2 and part 3.
Now for Anna Mae’s continuing saga…
Dr. W.O. Brown,….the pathologist…was unrepentant (about his inability to find the bullet in Anna Mae’s head).
“A litle bullet isn’t hard to overlook,” he said. “It certainly isn’t the first time a bullet was overlooked.” And, Why all the interest in this case? It seems awfully routine, you know. So they found an Indian body-so a body was found.” And, “I suppose the Indians will never let that woman die. AIM’s trying to stir up all the trouble they can. It’s a matter of record that Indians use every little incident that they can to create a situation over. They distort facts and use it to their advantage to further their cause. But I’ve tried to remain neutral. . I don’t think I ‘m prejudiced.”
…he had missed it only because the hospital’s X-ray machine had been broken. But he soon reversed course:
The machine was fine.
…he had merely chosen not to use it because X-rays were “too time-consuming,” “too awkward,” and “at times unsuccessful.” And anyway, since “it’s fairly common for Indians like these to die of an overdose,”…
(…Aquash’s blood was free of drugs or alcohol.)
…he had cut short his exam because the body was”stinky” and decomposed”
But from his verdict he did not swerve. It was the frost that had taken Anna Mae Aquash, not the bullet. The bullet, he said, may have pierced the brain casing, but not the brain proper. If it had entered the casing, it might have started a chain of events that incapacitated Aquash and left her at the mercy of the cold, but the shot did not kill her.
So basically this guy missed….
the stained sheet under her head…
her gunpowdered and bloodied hair…
the hole through several layers of bone….
(includingthe brain, through which the bullet had in fact passedand which Brown had removed and examined before dumping it in Aquash’s chest with the other dissected organs). I don’t get this part is Hendricks saying that Brown did find the bullet or is Brown claiming that he did see it but was lying???
And finally the bullet itself.
Among other “errors” in the autopsy, he claimed to have dissected and measured Aquash’s stomach, one of her kidneys, and her adrenal glands, but Dr. Peterson found all of these organs were attached, unopened, and with the metrics quite different from Brown’s.
….Dr Brown reported that Aquash had not been raped and had been dead no more than 10 days, Peterson concluded that rape could not be ruled out and Aquash could hav been killed weeks, even months, before she was found.
To be continued with SPECIAL AGENT ZIGROSSI CONFUSED AGAIN!
Hi Pudgy Indian!!
Thank you Lizzy. The only reason I am reluctant to put the names back up is the continued threat of litigation. Thank you for taking up this bout, as well. I don’t think these folks know me very well. I think they thought I would just cower at their continued threats to make me apologize. Taking down the post and comments thereon was not enough to these MEN. They, of course, are not coming forth with any proper introductions. They are coming forth with attempts to coerce me into saying things I will not say.
Eugene I was surprised yesterday to find an anonymous comment in response to a comment you left on a post I wrote in September 2007!
I want to thank Eugene and Rhonda for everything they are doing. Thanks to anyone else that has come forward, for standing up to persons not mentioned. I truely appreciate it.
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