the sad red earth

Perry Link at the NYR Blog reports on the circumstances surrounding the eleven-year sentence in China of writer Liu Xiaobo,”which aims at Liu’s support for Charter 08 and his writings on human rights, democracy, and rule of law in China.”

Liu Xiaobo

If the purpose of the harsh sentence was to intimidate others, it has not worked well. Hundreds of signers of Charter 08 have endorsed an additional statement declaring that if Liu Xiaobo is guilty then we are, too. Cui Weiping, a film scholar (and translator of Vaclav Havel into Chinese), spent the days following the announcement of Liu’s sentence conducting a telephone survey of more than 100 prominent Chinese intellectuals, including both signers and non-signers of Charter 08, on how they viewed the sentence. Finding almost unanimous disgust, she collected her findings under the heading “We Give Up on Nothing” and published them in a series of twitter feeds that circulated widely in China and abroad—even to my computer in California. Until now, the authorities have not been able to stop her….

The eminent historian Yu Ying-shih, reached at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, noted that this was the third time in twenty years that China’s rulers have sent Liu Xiaobo to political prison, and “each time has been more glorious than the last.”…

On Liu’s own opinion of his sentence, we have the following written statement, relayed from prison by his lawyers, on December 29, the same day he decided to appeal:

The sentence violates the Chinese constitution and international human rights covenants. It cannot bear moral scrutiny and will not pass the test of history. I believe that my work has been just, and that someday China will be a free and democratic country. Our people then will bathe in the sunshine of freedom from fear. I am paying a price to move us in that direction, but without the slightest regret. I have long been aware that when an independent intellectual stands up to an autocratic state, step one toward freedom is often a step into prison. Now I am taking that step; and true freedom is that much nearer.

(H/T Normblog)

*John Donne, Meditation 17

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 1:41 pm by A. Jay Adler and is filed under The Political Animal.

Spanish soldiers made often brutal explorations into the southeastern area of North America, including Virginia, all throughout the sixteenth century. The English themselves attempted a colony at Roanoke long before succeeding at Jamestown, where the colonists came in contact with the Pamunkey Indians as well as other Tribes of the Powhattan Confederacy. However Jamestown was the first lasting, if not, ultimately, permanent English colony. The story of Pocahontas and John Smith as popularly retold is representative of the mythologizing of European-Indian contact. Smith himself recorded Pocahontas to have been ten years old when he met her. Other estimates place her at twelve years of age. There is no evidence at all that they were ever lovers, and contemporary Pamunkey Indians do not believe so. Many historians have also long doubted the story, offered only by Smith many years later, that Pocahontas intervened on his behalf when he was captured by the Pamunkey. Nonetheless, Smith established a friendship with Chief Powhattan that did lead to some period of friendly, if never truly trustful relations between the colonists and the Pamunkey. The common story ends there, with most Americans left not to wonder how it is that, as far they know, the Pamunkey no longer exist. They do not learn that over 22 years of off-and-on conflict, the Tribes of the Powhattan Confederacy fought back against English encroachment until they were finally defeated, their number nearly, but not quite eliminated in 1644. Although they lost their language about 150 years ago, some Pamunkey continue to live on the oldest reservation in the United States, established by treaty. Kevin Brown has been their Chief since December 2008.

AJA:    Describe the Pamunkey reservation and community.

KB:     The reservation has been described as an “Island, a hideaway, a secret place.”  Maybe that’s why we’ve been able to keep a lot of our traditions, while other native people have lost theirs.

AJA:    How many people live on the reservation?

KB:     There are 38 households on the rez with about 75 people total. There are a lot of retired people.  Most people move back here after retirement.

AJA:    What are the Tribe’s sources of revenue?

KB:     The tribes sources of revenue are land rental  for agriculture and marsh rental for duck hunting.

AJA:    What is the history of the reservation?

KB:     The treaties of 1646 and 1677 established the reservation as we know it. We are descendants of Oppechancanough, Powhatan’s brother. Our oral history states that “He was carried on to the battlefield on a stretcher to watch his men attack the English (1644). He was so old, two warriors had to stand on each side of him and hold his eyelids open to watch the battle. He was then captured and taken prisoner to Jamestown where he was shot in the back. During the Civil War we piloted ships for the Union, and the Confederates heard about it and rounded up every male of the tribe and marched us off to Richmond to be hanged.  One man escaped , Chief Terrill Bradby, and hid in a railroad culvert, while the troops searched for him. Robert E. Lee pardoned everyone.

AJA:    What is the nature of your work as Chief of the Pamunkey tribe?

KB:     I have administrative duties as well as legislative responsibilities.  I’m basically “the complaint department”.  If somebody has an issue with someone, they come to me.  I can’t always do anything about it, but I guess that people feel good about having someone that will listen to them.

Chief Kevin Brown

AJA:    You work, too, on getting the Tribe federal recognition. How is it that a Tribe with so long and well recorded a history does not have federal recognition? Whom do you liaise with at the federal level? Also, I believe you have Virginia state recognition? With whom do you liaise at the state level?

KB:     I spend 20 to 40 hours a week working on our petition for federal recognition.  We were just overlooked in 1776. That’s when we should have received it.  Our treaty pre-dates the Constitution.  The BIA determines who gets recognition.  The Native American Rights Fund is representing us.  We deal directly with the Governor of Virginia at the state level.  Our treaty is with England. The Governor used to be the Crown’s representative in Virginia.

AJA:    How did you come to be chief?

KB:     I was elected as Chief.  I only won by one vote.  We have an election every four years. We have no term limits.  We had one Chief that was elected to 11 consecutive terms.

AJA:    Why did you seek to become Chief? What do you hope to accomplish?

KB:     I ran for Chief partly out of frustration.  I felt that we weren’t working hard enough on federal recognition, and the tribe was not promoting Indian culture.  I hope to push towards federal recognition, and have set up a series of cultural workshops, in beadwork, basket making, language, regalia, drum making, pottery.

AJA:    What is your own family history?

KB:     My Grandfather was born and raised on the Reservation.  He was also Senior Councilman.  My great, great grandfather was Chief.  I moved here after I graduated from high school in Pennsylvania.

AJA:    How did you and so many other Pamunkey come to live off the reservaton in Pennsylvania? Didn’t you spend time living on the Iroquois Reservation? How has that shaped you?

KB:     My Grandfather moved his family to Pennsylvania to find work.  I moved back with Him to the rez after he retired.  I traveled to some of the Iroquois rez’s and was married and lived at Onondaga for 10 or 12 years.  The Iroquois are much more traditional than we are, and I hope to bring some of that tradition here.

AJA:    In the 1970s, you experienced an evolution in your consciousness as a Native American. Tell us about your experiences.

KB: I moved back after spending many summer vacations here.  I was looking for something in my life, and boy did I find it.  I found a whole generation of Indians that were reaching out and trying to connect with others.  I had a van, and traveled to reservations all over the country. Many of my old friends are now Tribal Chairmen and Councilman, and educators.  I feel very fortunate to have been a part of a movement that meant something.

AJA:    You seem to think that period was important and beneficial. It is controversial and connected to some violence. What are your thoughts about all of that? Also, why do you think the energy and spirit of that time has been absent for so long since?

KB:     Everyone seemed to have settled down to raise kids or take their place in their communities.  We are near the time of the prophecies, and our traditions will help us survive in the next world. (2012) The Hopi say that the first world was destroyed by fire, the second by ice, the third by flood, and the fourth will be destroyed by fire again.

AJA:    Do you have any particular feelings about the terms Native American and American Indian?

KB:    Indians are Indians.  I don’t know anyone that calls themselves, “a Native American.”

AJA:    How do you feel about athletic teams that have Native mascots or that have names associated with Native culture?

KB:    I hate to say that I’m a “Redskins fan,” but it’s the only games that they broadcast in this area. I like the Blackhawk’s logo.  The Cleveland Indians need to “give it up”. I guess it all depends on the intent.

AJA:    How do you feel about non-Natives who seek to practice forms of Native spirituality?

KB:     I used to be hard on Non-Indians that wanted to hang out w/ Indians, or learn stuff.  Now I have a little more respect for those people.  We can learn a lot from some non-Natives.

AJA:    What has been your experience of relations with the surrounding Virginian population?

KB:     It never seems to change.  There are some really great people out there, and there are some real jerks too.

AJA:    Spoken like a good politician. One older member of your Tribe told me that white people had treated him like shit all of his life. Given the fact that the Europeans “won” – they got the land and made their own country – why do you think any white people today would have any kind of animus against Indians?

KB:     White people are uncomfortable around Indians because they know that their ancestors gave us a raw deal, and we deserve justice.  But they turn a blind eye toward it and don’t want to give up anything.

AJA:    Eastern woodland Tribes have very different histories from that of, say, the Western plains Tribes. For one thing, the ultimate conquest by European settlers came centuries earlier. What are your thoughts about how this influences the nature of the tribes’ different experiences and, perhaps, present needs?

KB:     The western tribes need to know that we fought for centuries before they ever saw a white man. We Pamunkeys fought a 22 year war against the English, but Chief Joseph gets all the credit for fighting for 2 years

AJA:    Should I understand from you answer that maybe the Eastern tribes tend to be overlooked in the consideration of Indian issues and needs? And why do you think it is that there is greater awareness of and attention to the Western tribes?

KB:     Most of the time Eastern Indians don’t get the respect that we deserve. Sometimes it’s from the Western Tribes, sometimes the government.  We need to work together better and renew old alliances.

AJA:    How do you imagine the future for the Pamunkey and Native Americans in general? Given the unalterable past, what is it that you would want from American society?

KB:     We just want the same opportunities that the federally recognized tribes have.  We deserve it.

AJA:    What are the benefits of federal recognition?

KB:     One of the benefits of federal recognition is trust lands.  We can “buy back” our land and use it for economic development: smoke shops, casinos, golf courses, shopping malls.

Photography by Julia Dean

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 1:09 pm by A. Jay Adler and is filed under Indian Country.

This is my adventure to Iguazu, between Argentina and Brazil. The night shot is from the full moon walk out to Devils throat from the Argentina side. It is all a sight to be seen. The helicopter ride from the Brazil side is a must. What a thrill. If one has a chance of this beautiful experience, take it. It is well worth every bit of energy expended to do it.

Julia Dean Photo Workshop Student Donna Stellini

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 1:00 am by A. Jay Adler and is filed under On The Road.

On Banning the Burka

I’ve been meaning for some days to touch on a subject Norm Geras raised recently at Normblog – the wearing of the burka by Muslim women and the appropriateness, in all due consideration of civil and religious liberties, of a nation banning the practice in public, as the French are debating. I have called attention before to different French conceptions of religious liberty, given France’s particular notion, arising from its history, of the primacy of the civil and secular sphere.  The 2004 French law banning the wearing in public schools of conspicuous religious symbols – as I understand it, no one is checking to see if a child is wearing a crucifix or a Star of David, let’s say, under the shirt – is an example. This is an approach very different from American conceptions of personal freedom, to which, not surprisingly, I’m partial, but I think it a good thing for all people to consider that there is more than a single possible regime of presiding conceptions, policies, and laws that may enact civil liberty. This is particularly true of Americans, I think, too many of whom react to the idea of doing anything the way others do it – even other Western democracies – as if it offered the prospect of regressing to a state of border-lurking barbarity.

I find the burka objectionable in every way I consider it. On the most general level, I think it an obnoxious public imposition on the sensibilities and the environment of others, not less, visually, than is, aurally, the power car of your choice offering its musical library to the non-assenting world around it. That the wearer simultaneously withdraws, declines to present her identity, though in public, to the others that present themselves to her, leaves her no more elevated in my regard than the, no doubt, shaded musicologist invisible behind the tinted windows. Much more significantly, I object to the burka’s literal effacement of female personality and its overall representation of female servility and oppression. I could go on, but I think that should be sufficient for now.

Norm responds here and here to notions of how important it is to reveal one’s face in human interaction. While finding the wearing of the burka objectionable, in each case he protests against excess in the argument against, in one case that the burka is a denial of “our shared humanity,” in another that face-to-face communication is “crucial to human interaction.” I think he well finds the flaws in these arguments. What Norm does nonetheless observe, while disagreeing with Christopher Hitchens and Oliver Kamm that the burka should be banned, is that it violates – in most societies, I imagine – cultural norms regarding mutual openness and trust.

I think Norm has gotten very much to the point, though the notion of “cultural norms” is by now such a soft one, easily deprived of force by its inherent relativity, that it requires some back up. At that soft level, well, you know, I lived most of my life in New York City. I am so accustomed to being accosted by beggars for change and seers in their own minds, proffered flyers for pizza and puntang patronage, and retailed stories of lost-Greyhound-ticket woe, that I am ready to opine at the drop of a Buenos Aires morning on human interactions that begin in the absence of mutual openness and trust. Anyone wishing to communicate with me wearing a mask and a cape, or any simulacrum thereof, might, on my sunnier days, get the day, but surely not the time. Certainly, my temperamental response is Ban the Burka!

Adjusting, however, for the temperamental nature of my temperament, I confess that I can be of such mood that

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate.

I might well wish, feeling so out of fortune and sorts, to venture into the world and affirm myself by nullifying myself, and dis-appear before the world as a nearly featureless blob. Who are you to say to me I cannot? Or, of course, I to you. If my essential, self-evident human rights begin anywhere, it is in the right to be, or not to be – to be present in my absence, as in writing I am now , or absent in my presence, as a mask makes me – as I will.

Everyone else, however, is free to respond to and reject this behavior as they will. And in most cases, as I see it, should.

Norm, with Alice Thompson, is “not in favour of banning [the burka], only of making it clear that we regard it as ’socially unacceptable’. I think that’s the right approach for anyone who does so regard it, leaving people free both to wear what they want and to express their views on the subject.”

I think regarding the burka as socially unacceptable permits, might even encourage, not simply expressing one’s view on the subject. No bank will serve a masked patron. Why should any business, or government office, for which assurance of identity and both trustful and trusted intercourse is the foundation for the exchange, accept such a condition? Why should individuals reveal and offer themselves in personal welcome to others who disguise and withdraw from them in a manner that fails to acknowledge that they, too, have a right – the right to be approached on equal terms or not permit it? We should feel free to accept such an approach, unobstructed by law, but we should be free to feel discomfort, too, or disapproval, or an inclination to disqualification, and decline to accept the encounter.

Freedom is not just the freedom to affirm, assert, or even, to a degree, impose upon. It is also the freedom to reject.

AJA

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 1:37 pm by A. Jay Adler and is filed under The Political Animal.

Argentine Amor

In Recoleta Cemetery, burial place of Eva Peron and many notables, among the mausolea.

The Renowned Photographer & the Obscure Writer

Photography by Julia Dean

AJA

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 6:48 am by A. Jay Adler and is filed under On The Road.

Our presence in Buenos Aires suggests a stirring return to How We Lived on It (7), and its tribute to the Tango.

Number 12 is in a not dissimilar vein.

Photographs by Jacques-Henri Lartigue

Model & Muse: Renée Perle

Music from the film The Moderns, by Alan Rudolph, score (The Moderns: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) by Mark Isham, and his variation on “Parlez Moi d’amour,” by Jean Lenoir

Video: Irwin 1021

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 9:24 am by A. Jay Adler and is filed under A Blue Guitar, Culture Clash.

Julia and I will be traveling in Argentina & Uruguay over the next two weeks – we just landed in Buenos Aires yesterday – so posting will be a little erratic. I will try to keep it up, though, and interesting. Since I’m with a pack of voracious photographers, I’m going to flatter them with the prospects of an immediate audience and try to get some of their work up. Tomorrow, another taste of How We Lived on It.

AJA

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 5:17 am by A. Jay Adler and is filed under On The Road.

The late comedian Sam Kinison had a classic, foul-mouthed routine about common sense advice to the regular victims of famine in certain remote areas of the world – something to the effect of YOU KNOW WHY YOU’RE STARVING? YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! THERE’S NO FOOD THERE! NOTHING GROWS THERE! NOTHING IS GOING TO GROW THERE! MOVE WHERE THE FOOD IS!

That was the expurgated version. The bit is funny (to those with that sense of humor) in part because it so completely without sentiment, either for those who are hypothetically starving or for what they or any people often, to others, inexplicably feel about the terrain from which they come, no matter how apparently inhospitable. It is a wonder to Southern Californians that anyone anywhere in the world lives north of, say, the 45th parallel, but, astoundingly, they do, and choose to remain.

The San Carlos Apache Reservation: Photograph by Julia Dean

So it is, in part, with Indian reservations. Many are situated far from the industrial and commercial centers that sprang up over the growth of the nation without consideration of the completely alien Native way of life and attachment to land. This is fundamental to the problem of joblessness on some reservations. It might seem obvious to many non-Natives that American Indians should just pick up and move to the nearest sizable city to seek employment opportunities, and many have done so, willingly and not, over the twentieth century. That presents its own set of problems. However those who remain on the reservation do so for a variety of reasons, among them the feeling of sovereignty it affords (however trifling it may appear to others) and that attachment to a group and to the land.

All too often, without regard to such human considerations, people will pretend that Native Americans are just another melting pot minority and insist that the solution to Native social problems is a more committed effort at assimilation. It is a suggestion both profoundly callous to, and ignorant of, history. In the history of the American republic, there have been noted seven distinct periods or policies of federal government relations with Native America. Through all of these eras, however  well-intentioned policymakers may at time have thought them, a general ground of cultural disregard and economic rapaciousness persisted.

1. Trade and Intercourse Era (1789-1825)

2. Removal Era (1825-1850s)

During this era the Tribes of the Southeast were foribly removed to the Oklahoma Territory, in order to advance non-Native settlement and economic interests

3. Reservation Era (1850s-1887)

As Tribes succumbed to conquest they were limited or moved, and confined, to much limited land bases, over which, by treaty, they retained limited sovereignty.

4. Allotment and Assimilation Era (1887-1934)

Once the Indian Wars were considered over, the policy began to break up Tribal land bases, as occurred in Oklahoma, and force acculturation. The tremendous advances the Oklahoma Tribes had made in recovering from the Removal were wiped away

5. Indian Reorganization Era (1934-1940s)

In a complete reversal of policy, Tribes were encouraged through legislation to seek self-government and self-sufficiency.

6. Termination Era (1940s-1962)

In yet another reversal, the government sought the elimination of federal recognition of Tribes and large population transfers to urban areas, again with the aim of assimilation.

7. Self-Determination Era (1962-Present)

One more complete reversal.

It would have been quite remarkable had any substantial recovery from conquest occurred amid these frequently changing policies, culturally destructive in their outright intent or through their inconstancy. Many Tribes have made negligible progress. Others are striding forward, assisted in no small part by Casino profits, as I discussed yesterday.

One constant in the success stories, including in education, is the role of Tribal culture in social and educational advance. The Tribal Colleges demonstrate regularly how educational success for Native Americans is boosted by grounding in Native cultures. Carrie Billy, president of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, stressed to us, when we spoke with her this past September, the empirical evidence for this relation. Indeed, when it comes to American Indian success, the key findings of  The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development are that

Sovereignty Matters. When Native nations make their own decisions about what development approaches to take, they consistently out-perform external decision makers—on matters as diverse as governmental form, natural resource management, economic development, health care, and social service provision.

Institutions Matter. For development to take hold, assertions of sovereignty must be backed by capable institutions of governance. Nations do this as they adopt stable decision rules, establish fair and independent mechanisms for dispute resolution, and separate politics from day-to-day business and program management.

Culture Matters. Successful economies stand on the shoulders of legitimate, culturally grounded institutions of self-government. Indigenous societies are diverse; each nation must equip itself with a governing structure, economic system, policies, and procedures that fit its own contemporary culture.

Leadership Matters. Nation building requires leaders who introduce new knowledge and experiences, challenge assumptions, and propose change. Such leaders, whether elected, community, or spiritual, convince people that things can be different and inspire them to take action.

AJA

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 9:04 am by A. Jay Adler and is filed under Indian Country.

Indian Gaming, like reservations, is a complex subject. I address it now because of the coming premiere at the Sundance Film Festival of Casino Jack and the United States of Money, Oscar winner Alex Gibney’s documentary on Jack Abramoff and his lobbyistg scamming of everyone, including, as always, his own clients – various Indian Tribes that hired him to represent their casino interests. Indian Country Today offers a more Native perspective.

Casino gambling offers ready opportunity for moralizing, and historically, in addition to killing, conquering, lying to, and stealing from Indians, there is nothing non-Native America has better liked to do than lecture and moralize to them. Pointing out that American Indians engaged in warfare too, and that, now, they are willing to make a buck off one of the time-honored vices of non-Native America, just serves, somehow, to justify it all, certainly wash it away. Apparently, money in the pockets of Indians need be purer than the ethically enriched revenues of the typical non-Native business enterprise. And if the dollars are accumulating too bountifully (which seems to mean noticeably), then the earth will be thrown off its axis. This seemed to be the case when the mysteriously well-regarded Arnold Schwarzenegger first ran for California governor in the recall election against Grey Davis in 2003. (Bang up job he’s done in California, don’t you think, “opening up the books, letting the light shine in,” as he put it at the time? No doubt Davis is choking on the pudding that contains the proof of Schwarzenegger’s political and executive superiority.)

In fact, what was little noted, because so few cared, was that Schwarzenegger ran (please note that I do not use this word often and casually) a pointedly racist campaign against the Indian Tribes of California in 2003. Seeking to stoke further the discontent of Californians with the Davis status quo, the governator decided to run a series of ads aimed at resentment of the accumulated casino wealth of some California tribes.

Their casinos make billions, yet they pay no taxes and virtually nothing to the state. Other states require revenue from Indian gaming, but not us. It’s time for them to pay their fair share. All the other major candidates take their money and pander to them. I don’t play that game. Give me your vote and I guarantee you things will change.

That was the problem with the California economy – the damned Indians (they never cease to be a thorn) were making too much money. They didn’t contribute enough. (The continent, one deduces, was insufficient.) We’re sick and tired of bowing down to them.

The level of historical ignorance was striking, but no more than the electorate would tolerate. The Schwarzenegger advisers bet that there is never any downside to stoking ill will toward Indians, and the results did not prove them wrong.

If a person is inclined to pay attention, there will be news stories about ugly battles, within some tribes, over the divvying up of Casino profits. Some Tribes treat the profits as a kind of annuity, with a yearly dividend to enrolled tribal members. This has led to unseemly battles over qualifications for official enrolled status in a tribe, with disputes about the degree of blood quantum sufficient for that status. Tribal members emerge from obscurity seeking their share. It is all so very atypical of human behavior generally. Add to it all examples of people spending their money on alcohol and drugs, and generally wastefully, and y0u get a story bearing no relation to what has occurred each year since 1982 with the distribution of the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend from oil profits to state residents. During those cold dark winter months, they’re all going to community college courses to retrain and improve themselves.

If one is not sufficiently knowledgeable, one will not know that it hasn’t worked out quite that well for all Casinos and their Tribes. And if a Tribe was really unlucky, it hired Jack Abramoff to try to make its members some money. But that angle is a story for another day. A better contrasting story is of those tribes that have chosen not to payout an individual dividend, but instead to use Casino profits to fund government operations and development initiatives. This is true, for instance, of many of the Oklahoma Tribes, some of which over the past 10-15 years have made enormous strides in social, educational, and cultural redevelopment. In part, among such Tribes as the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Chickasaw, this has been the benefit of uniquely talented leaders coming along at the right time. But those leaders could have accomplished little without the resource of the Casino profits.

The Choctaw, for instance, under the leadership since 1997 of Chief Gregory Pyle have become an exemplar of the kinds of successes a well-governed and adequately-funded Indian nation can enjoy. Aided by federal programs to boost contracts for small, disadvantaged and HUBzone businesses, profits from the casino business have helped establish the Choctaw Manufacturing and Development Corporation and Choctaw Management Services Enterprises. The latter was “created to provide healthcare staff, information technology support, and administrative management for government and commercial clients,” including U.S. military bases and embassies. In Talihina, Oklahoma the Choctaw constructed the first Indian hospital – with satellites throughout the Choctaw non-reservation geographical area – fully funded by its tribe, without funds from the Indian Health Service.

Photo by Julia Dean

The following is A Policy Primer on American Indian Governments and Their Gaming Operations, from the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. (Large PDF)

The gaming enterprises of American Indian tribes are operations of American Indian tribal governments. With powers akin to one of the states, these governments are recognized by the U.S. Government pursuant to the U.S. Constitution, centuries-old treaties, numerous Supreme Court decisions, Presidential orders, and acts of Congress. Today, in the lower 48 states, .Indian Country. is comprised of 350 Indian areas that are associated with federally-recognized tribes and tracked by the U.S. Census. These consist of 310 reservations and 40 Indian statistical areas, 29 of which are in Oklahoma.1 The reservations range in size from a few acres to hundreds of thousands of acres: the Navajo Nation.s reservation is approximately the size of West Virginia.

Just as states in the United States have certain powers of jurisdiction within their boundaries, so tribes have governmental powers within their boundaries. While tribes (and states) cannot exercise powers such as raising an army or issuing currency, they possess powers to: determine their respective forms of government (e.g., craft constitutions), define citizenship, pass and enforce laws through their own police forces and courts, collect taxes, regulate the domestic affairs of their citizens, and regulate property use (e.g., through zoning, permitting, environmental regulation, and the like). And like states, American Indian governments have the power to determine whether they will engage in gaming operations.

American Indian governments. rights to gaming have their roots in the U.S. Constitution. The Commerce Clause of the Constitution provides that: .The Congress shall have Power. o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.. Accordingly, when the State of California tried to block the government of the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians from operating a gaming enterprise in the mid-1980s, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Cabazon.s rights to determine for itself if and how it would operate gaming enterprises. The Court recognized California and Cabazon as separate sovereigns . just as California and, say, Nevada (which, like Cabazon, shares its border with California) are recognized as separate sovereigns when it comes to Nevada.s right to allow gaming.

With tribes rights of gaming thus affirmed, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 (IGRA). This Act circumscribes the rights recognized by the Supreme Court in Cabazon. Under IGRA, all gambling activities on the reservations are subject to each tribe.s own gaming laws, ordinances, and commissions. Class II gambling (e.g., bingo and related games) and Class III gambling (including, e.g., slot machines and casino games) are both subject to the oversight of the federal National Indian Gaming Commission. And Class III gambling may be subject to state regulation and oversight depending on how these are specified and negotiated in intergovernmental tribal-state compacts.

Paralleling the decisions of many states to operate state lottery businesses in order to help fund state governmental activities, approximately 200 tribal governments are currently engaged in Class II (e.g., bingo) or Class III (e.g., full-scale casinos) gaming. As required by IGRA, revenues from tribal governmental gaming must be directed towards: funding tribal government operations and programs; providing for the general welfare of tribal citizens; promoting economic development; supporting charitable organizations; and funding operations for local, non-tribal government agencies.

Mirroring the decisions of state governments to create and join various associations of state lotteries, 147 tribal governments currently constitute the voting membership of the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA). Both the Indian and state gaming associations are created pursuant to the respective governments. obligations to serve their citizens. interests, and both types of associations fund research into the impacts of their governmental gaming programs

AJA

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 8:30 am by A. Jay Adler and is filed under Indian Country.

Jeff Weintraub, Comments and Controversies – Pass the Damn Bill

He’s been saying it all week long: Democrats, don’t be punks.

Corey Kilgannon, The New York Times – Serpico on Serpico

For film aficionados and New Yorkers of a certain age: Frank Serpico today. How a whole life can turn on one series of events.

Jeffrey Goldberg – The Taboo That Just Won’t Shut Up, Chapter 43

Just how completely absurd is Andrew Sullivan? Goldblog demonstrates for us.

Michael J. Totten, Commentary - A Third Lebanon War?

And when it happens, how much in denial will how many people be that the theo-authoritarian military organization Hezbollah has hijacked Lebanon, funded and armed by Syria and Iran. See also

Howard Schneider, The Washington Post: Hezbollah’s relocation of rocket sites to Lebanon’s interior poses wider threat.

Maybe they mean what they say.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 5:00 am by A. Jay Adler and is filed under Uncategorized.