Lakota Nation Declares Independence from the US

"Indian policy" has now been brought down upon the American people, and the American people are the new Indians of the 21st Century. -Russell Means

On Monday December 17, 2007 the Lakota Nation withdrew from treaties with the United States.

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.

A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old.

Indian in the Living Room

I would like to introduce
someone you have grown up with
refuse to acknowledge
who has made the life you know possible

Hello my relatives
I am the Indian in your living room
I am the First Nations
the original inhabitants of Turtle Island

I am the corn, the beans, the squash
the sweet potatoes
and tomatoes on your dinner table
I am the gratitude you express
every fourth Thursday in November

I am the Corn Maiden, the Two Hills,
the Sacred Mountains, Spider Woman, Shiprock
I am the Kachinas, the Thunderbird,
the Black Hills, and the Buffalo

I am the Pipe Carrier,
the Keeper of the Sacred Bundles
the White Buffalo Calf, Kokopelli,
I am Heyoka
I am Coyote, Raven, Crow, White Old Man, and Salmon Boy
I am the Sun Dance, the Ghost Dance, the inipi wakan, the hanblechya

I am the Indian in your living room

I am the Great Law of Peace
I am the plan for the U.S. Constitution
given you by the clan mothers
of the Iroquois Federation
I am political freedom, free speech, equality,
and freedom of assembly
which you claim as part of being an American
I am the Delaware who allowed Washington’s troops
to survive the winter at Valley Forge

I am the caretaker of Mother Earth
I am the Grandfathers who tell the stories
that teach us how to be human
I am the Ancestors who watch from the heavens
I am Powhatan, Pocahontas, and Sacagawea
who helped the white man survive in a strange land
I am the Brotherhood of the Shield
that used to care for and protect the people
before the white men came

I am the Indian in your living room

I am the residue of Manifest Destiny
I am an inconvenience to progress
I am America’s Final Solution
I am the ghost of Osceola, Pontiac, and Seattle
I am the Trail of Tears, Sand Creek, and Wounded Knee I and II,
I am Baker’s Massacre, Ghost Ridge,
and all the atrocities carried out in your name
I am the guilt you carry for these crimes

I am the Indian in your living room

I am blankets infected with smallpox
I am trade whiskey, forced conversions, and Indian schools
I am slavery, spoiled beef rations, and crooked Indian agents
I am Cornstalk, Chief Joseph, Geronimo, and Crazy Horse,
I am Sitting Bull, Jim Thorpe, Leonard Peltier, and Ira Hayes
I am Squanto, Red Cloud, White Calf, and SuAnne Big Crow
I am the Navajo Code Talkers who helped you win the war in the Pacific

I am a long history of unpaid debts and broken promises
I am the spirit of the buffalo shot from train windows
and left to rot on the plains
I am every treaty ever made and broken

I am the Indian in your living room

I am the reservation
where the Constitution and Bill of Rights do not apply
I am the loss of freedom and way of life
I am poverty and unemployment, alcoholism and diabetes
I am hopelessness and suicide
and I am here to tell you
the reservation now includes your living room
and it just swallowed New Orleans
now we all live here together
Welcome to the reservation
what they have done to me is being done to you
and you let them away with it

I am the Indian in your living room
and I will not go away


I am your past, your future, your heritage, and your destiny
I am that small drop of Indian blood every American family now carries
I am your parent, your grandparent, and great-grandparent
and we are all related

I am the Indian in your living room
and I don’t seek vengeance
I’m done asking for just compensation
Your government is not capable of dealing honestly
I am declaring independence
and you had better respect it

I ask that the people open their hearts and listen
and when you weep
for the loss of my children
as you would weep for your own
then, I will know you have heard

Mitakuye Oyasin

Evangelistas

I was watching TV the other day, something I don't do often. I don't subscibe to cable or satellite TV, and I am a channel surfer. I was clicking around the channels, which include several "Christian" broadcast stations, and one of them had on a group of old white men, sitting around a table talking about the sins of the world. It brought to mind people like Jim Baker, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and others of that ilk. It gave me an idea for this poem:


Rich Old White Men Wearing Expensive Suits

Rich old white men
wearing expensive suits
pontificating
on the evils
of liberals and gays
and single parent families
preaching about
the coming final battle
good versus evil
as if they wished
they could make it happen
a prerequisite
for the second coming of Jesus
in spite of all the people
who would be killed in the destruction

Rich old white men
wearing expensive suits
strut across the stage
yelling and waving their Bibles
putting the fear of God
in those who feel the need
to fear something
taking people’s money
to pad their lavish lifestyles
and to promote
their own brand of poison
they fund schools and missions
that obliterate and subvert
the true mission of their Savior
that every man woman and child
should be loved and honored
as if each one
was the Creator in person

Rich old white men
wearing expensive suits
never stood in a food line
slept on a sidewalk
filed for unemployment
they never wore a uniform
feared death in battle
lost a limb or a loved one
to a roadside bomb
or a sniper’s bullet
though their dollars
have often purchased
land mines and sniper’s bullets
they never picked cotton
cabbages or fruit
never swung a hammer for a living
never sweated to make a mortgage payment
or worried about health care
But they will take
an old woman’s last dollar
let her think she’s saved
and tell her Jesus loves her
until she loses her home

Rich old white men
wearing expensive suits
are destroying my country
club people over the head
with their Bibles
use Old Testament Law
for a New Testament religion
that bombs medical clinics
and shoots doctors
invades hospices
trampling family’s grief
there is no New World
to which we can escape them
seek refuge from persecution
like the Pilgrims of old
freedom of religion
freedom from religion
freedom of thought
freedom to live however we damn well please

Rich old white men
wearing expensive suits
we can only wait for them to die

Life in America

Life in America


Put down that plastic
and step away from the sales counter
Visa is not your friend
Capital One
has a place for you
on the rowing bench
below decks

Your house is in foreclosure
the cost of gasoline
is going up again
and the price of milk and cheese
are not too far behind

Your boss hasn’t told you yet
but your job just went overseas
and the guy
sitting at your desk
is thirty years younger
earns half as much as you
and doesn’t speak English

But your Director
is taking his whole family
to Cozumel for Christmas
on the bonus he got
for cutting expenses

And that my friend
is the price you pay
for voting Republican

We're all in this together, like it or not

At one time or another, I have received emails that either poke fun at the immigration problem (usually at the immigrants expense) or contribute to the hysteria spread throughout the media that illegals are taking over our country, bankrupting our social systems, taking all our jobs, etc.
Usually, I didn’t respond (unless I felt they were particularly abusive) because I didn’t see any viable solutions.

Personally, I didn’t find them to be funny and I don’t buy into the hype. As a third generation native of Southern California, I have always taken a small amount of pride in the cultural ties that link that part of the country to Mexico. After all, California (indeed, most of the Southwest) was once part of New Spain, then Mexico, before becoming, briefly, a republic, and then a state. Without that, the Southwest wouldn’t be the Southwest. In truth, the "little brown people" we seem to be so afraid of have lived there long before there were borders.

I don’t deny that illegal immigration is a serious problem, one that has a serious effect on our economy, as well as that of Mexico. The obvious solution is to lean heavily on Mexico to clean up its act and stop giving people reasons to leave, but no one seems willing to look at the real causes of this “invasion”, that is, until now.

I want to alert you to a real solution. Not a bumper sticker slogan, not a right wing fear pogrom, and not a corporate sponsored piece of legislation that skirts real causes to serve the special interests. This is a homegrown, truly “American” solution that addresses the problem of illegal immigration from a number of angles, including ways to create more jobs in Mexico, direct Mexicans who want to migrate through legal channels, and to help and encourage those who are already here to return to Mexico in a way that benefits them and their families.

No roundups, no deportations, no arrests, no border walls, just good solid economic solutions and incentives that real people can use. I just became aware of this website last night. Apparently, so did a lot of other people, because I couldn’t get into it until early this morning. When I did, I was very impressed with the approach these people are taking. It rarely happens these days, but once in awhile, I do run across something that makes me proud to be an American, and this is such a thing.

It’s easy to poke fun and to spread fear, but if you really care about the problem and people in general, check it out

www.matt.org

MATT stands for Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together
Golly, people working together. What a concept!


This Land

The battle you wage
against those who have lived here
must be your last
they were here
before you were born
before your father
before your grandfather
before there was a border

This land
remembers their ancestors
you have treated it
like a waste dump
a disposable commodity
loving only its flag
and its hollow slogans
while you devastate
its water
and its soil

It’s a land that gives life
while you trade in death
a land of broad horizons
you focus only on profit
a land of spirit
that you bulldoze
and pave over
a home for people
you turn into a wasteland

It’s no wonder
your soul has a hole
as big as the sky

Nothing Changes

Dark Angel

The wings of a dark angel
descend again in Baghdad
two more American soldiers
return home in wooden boxes
flag-draped and hidden
from public sight
more than a hundred this month
fallen
more wounded

But those who live there
count their losses
in the thousands
tens of thousands
and the war goes on
and the bombs go off
more each day

And those who survive
will tell you
death has a nameand
they endlessly repeat it
as they cry out in grief
and rend their garments

Amer-ika
Amer-ika

It's a New Day

Spring is just around the corner. The sound of backup alarms has resumed outside my window as the construction crews take up where they left off before winter slammed in. Oh, for some peace and quiet. That's okay. When my next job starts, I won't be home to hear it and it will all be over soon.

I've been hearing a lot of buzz about a new movie and book called The Secret. Oprah featured it on her show a couple of times, and it's been in my email from a number of sources. It's about changing your life by changing your thinking. That's nothing new. I've been talking about it for years. So has Dr. Ernest Holmes, founder of the Church of Religious Science. He published a book in 1938 called The Science of Mind. If you don't like the way your life is going, change your mind.
It's based on a metaphysical principle: thoughts are things, they have power, they go out and do work for us. That's what prayer is. Every thought we send out is a prayer whether we know it or not.

To Pray

to think is to pray

to speak is to pray out loud

to shout is to pray out loud

with feeling

to sing,

ah, to sing

to sing is to pray out loud

with all your heart

I wrote that over twelve years ago, while attending a metaphysical church. The key to the process is finding out who we really are and what it is we are meant todo in this life. Only then can we figure out what it is we really want.

Name

We all have a name

even the least among us

and if you don’t know it

the world can tell you

but you must listen
You can hear it

in the rhapsody of morning

when the earth turns away

from the darkness

to face the bright star

You can hear your name

when the wind stirs the trees

and the birds

wake each other from their slumber

You can hear your name

as the small stream

wends its way

over and around the rocks

and tree roots burbling

It is trying to have a conversation with you

You can find your name

in a quiet pool of water

reflecting sky and passing clouds

as it patiently waits for you

push your thoughts below the surface

You can hear your name

along the high canyon walls

where pine trees shelter scolding jays

the mountain speaks your name

It calls to you

challenges you

invites you to walk in beauty

And now the shameless plug:

I have two poetry chapbooks for sale:

Crow Dreaming

Gray to the Ground

The price is $10 each, or 2 for $15. Shipping in the U.S. is $2.00 for 1- 2 books.

You can initiate an order by sending me an email at edw.hanson@netzero.com

or you can purchase through PayPal, using that email address. Be sure to include shipping info in the notes.

or

You can send a check or money order to:

Ed Hanson

7630 Leyden Lane

Commerce City, CO 80022

Please let me know if you wish any special inscriptions.