But, I was not generalizing over all environmental groups. To make this
clear in my original post, I even included a ""ps:" explicitly stating this.
The intent of my post was not to criticize a specific organization.
Rather, I wanted to warn that there exists groups that may seem fully
supportive of Indian affairs/rights, yet these groups main concerns are
not Indian rights. The main concerns may be something like: "save the planet",
"fight capitalism", "fight the government", ...
I think this is an important message for NativeNet readers to make sure
they are working to preserve tribal rights, rather than unknowingly working
against tribal rights.
As an example, there is a tribe in Southern California who has decided to
allow garbage to be dumped on their land as a boost to their economy.
This has caused great controversy, and a bill has been introduced in the
STATE of California to deal with waste on Indian land. This threatens
the sovereignity of the tribe. The state should not have this power on
Indian land.
I'll write more later. Gotta go now,
danny ammon
[ I think I understood that Danny's intent was to speak in general terms,
but I find myself in agreement with Jym Dyer on the point that it's
more than a bit unfair to speak in such general terms on such an im-
portant issue. Yes, there may be organizations which will exploit such
issues as tribal rights and native land claims in order to advance their
own agendas, and it's good to be watchful for such tendencies, but unless
we deal with specifics, we're in danger of doing more harm than good in
such criticisms and warnings. Perhaps Danny could offer some principles
for helping us come to help us evaluate specific cases of organizations
trying to lend their support to tribal rights cases - or could state if
he feels that it's best for such organizations to just stay out of such
matters entirely, and could tell us why he feels that way.
As for the case he mentions, could we get more details on the situation,
or references on where to get more information? Who is making the de-
cision on behalf of the tribe? I know there have been many cases where
governments have created what amount to phony native governing bodies in
order to push through some decision that they want to foist on the native
people involved. Is the community as a whole behind the decision? Has
anyone in the state brought out the argument that the situation represents
a matter of tribal sovereignty? I don't mean to disagree with Danny's
point of view, but I think this is an important subject, and would be in-
terested in getting more details.
--Gary ]