Is This True Pine Ridge Indian Reservation Is The Poorest Place In America?

[rjl78]

The notion of individual wind generators is not a bad idea. Solar power lacks the output for someone to live off the grid unless they make changes in lifestyle.

[vkhmini]

I remember hearing, I think about a month ago, that Leonard Peltier was denied parole YET AGAIN! This is one of the most shameful stories in Native history, in my opinion. Didn't Obama, at some point before he was elected, promise Peltier a pardon?

[rjl78]

What is shameful is two FBI agents being shot multipe times.

MR.Peltier was given a fair trial and was given due process of the law and found gulity. The agents who lost their lives didn't get that opptunity.

Anyone who promises Peltier a pardon is damned fool and incompentent leader.

[Jammie]

Good post, RJL. Two men were murdered and the killer shouldn't be released. The rhetoric about an unfair trial has been around from the beginning.

Actually, if you do a search, you won't find anything where our Prez said he would free Peltier. There are several letters from Peltier himself and from his supporters that were sent to the Prez, but nothing saying the Prez is supporting him. Many of the letters mention the "change" that Pres. Obama has promised and they try to tie that into saying that he meant that Peltier should be freed. I can't find a single article where Obama said that he will change things and free Peltier. It's just a way for supporters to twist the facts.

[rjl78]

Some reading about the shooting.

Federal Bureau of Investigation - The Minneapolis Division: Blank

[Wildflowers01]

Hello everyone, I just happened across this message board and I really want to express my own personal opinion. Take it or leave it... I don't really care, but I want to say it. People living in the kind of poverty we are talking about on Pine Ridge are not simply lazy... its not as if they are unwilling to work in order to improve their lives. Quite frankly, they don't know how to find work. Just move? How? I have a pretty good job and I find it difficult to relocate because it is very expensive to move. Someone who is unemployed and homeless or next to homeless in one town can't just magically afford a deposit on an apartment in another city, have enough money to pay utility bills and buy food. Plus generally my experience with moving into an apartment has involved a credit check and proof of income. Seriously, how do you expect someone with nothing to come up with all that money? The money from whatever meager government funding someone gets? Wow. What apartment complex is going to accept that as sufficient income? So.. live on Pine Ridge and get a job in a neighboring town? I've been to Pine Ridge, its pretty far away from anything and theres just not going to be public transportation to get someone from Pine Ridge to the next town. Whats all this free gas everyone is talking about? I think the deal is actually that they don't pay taxes on gasoline... but besides that point how many of these people that have such low incomes do you think have cars? So... in order to work in another city we're talking about someone walking about 100 miles into Rapid city which is probably the closest place that could realistically have jobs available (its also very, very cold in SD in the winter... so they'd probably die before they make that walk).

The healthcare is okay for some issues. I've actually been to that hospital on Pine Ridge with my Lakota friend who got sick while we were visiting her family. Its nice that they have healthcare but that hospital is really insufficiently equipped to be the place so many people are dependent upon.

I just think its very easy for people who have no clue what poverty even looks like let alone experienced to sit in judgement and say what other people should know to do to pull themselves out of this situation. Its pretty difficult for people to go to college who have never had family members that went.. can you even consider what it must be like to be someone whose entire family as far back as those family members can remember have lived in poverty like that? If education is paid for, are dorm expenses because I don't know. I honestly don't know. What about food while they are away at school? If you lived in complete poverty without running water or electricity, no transportation, no role models, would you know how to go to college? Would you have any clue how to go rent an apartment? especially knowing that you don't have any money to pay for it... So many people make these judgements that Indians have no work ethic and that they're all drunk and lazy or unwilling to work. I anyone would be unwilling to work if it meant they could have food, clothing, shelter, and just nice things. I think the problem (aside from a lack of job opportunities) is hopelessness and depression... not having the resources, not knowing how to begin. Its pretty easy to get a good start in life when you come from a nice home, if you had your first job while living at home with families and you probably went to college knowing you wern't homeless and knowing that you would have enough to eat (even if it was ramen noodles some nights.) Your elementary and high school had enough books and you had enough supplies to actually learn what you needed to so that you didn't feel like you were lacking in education.. How many of you who are saying all this stuff about the people of pine ridge being unwilling to work have ever really experienced being destitute and having to pull out of true poverty? Its so easy to judge. I think that the solution to this problem is to help and yes, to teach people how to help themselves but you have to give resources, but I don't have any answer other than provide resources of some kind... I'm just saying that i think a lot of people are pretty presumptuous and assuming that people have the same opportunities as you... Think about all that you had and all the support you had before you presume to know that someone else is of inferior character or whatever it is you are thinking...

[Wicked Felina]

Originally Posted by vkhmini

Didn't Obama, at some point before he was elected, promise Peltier a pardon?

No, he did not.

A major financial contributor to the Clinton campaign (President Clinton) had belief that President Clinton would likely pardon L. Peltier. Pres. Clinton refused. That supporter, David Geffen, then 'threw his cash & influence' at Barack Obama which effectively killed Hilary Clinton's campaign for the Democratic nomination for President.

When President Obama REFUSED to consider an appeal of clemency OR pardon for Peltier, that started a sort of blacklash against Pres.Obama.

Don't think for a second that the President's political enemies will not take advantage of the misperception that President Obama supports a Peltier clemency. I couldn't find one shred of evidence for that...and I searched for a very long time.

Originally Posted by Jammie

The rhetoric about an unfair trial has been around from the beginning. It's just a way for supporters to twist the facts.

Several courts (including the US Supreme Court which twice considered and rejected an appeal; I believe the latest is the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals' rejection.) have held that the FBI lied, intimidated witnesses and withheld evidence.

The courts have also held that the misconduct of the FBI in no way was material to the facts that Peltier (and likely two others, imo) murdered agents who were trying to surrender.

The agents were utterly defenseless; they were both mortally wounded and at least one of them tried to surrender. That goes beyond murder; it's an assassination.

I don't know whether it was Peltier himself, or one of the other two who pulled the trigger for the final shots. No matter if the FBI's conduct during the investigation and trial was less than stellar, that is no justification for murder.

Peltier is guilty as sin.

[Fullback32]

Wildflowers, that was an excellent post and tells the truth concerning the situation up there. I am an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma. We Oklahoma NDNs do not have rez's and, as such, don't have the same struggles as our cousins on rez's (doesn't mean we don't have struggles; they are just diffferent).

Having visited both Pine Ridge and Rosebud back when I was in the Air Force, it opened my eyes to how different our worlds are though we Comanches and the Lakota are both native. It is so easy to say "get a job" or "go to college" when one has no clue as to how things really are nor have ever lived in them. There is way more opportunity for a person from the inner cities than rez people could hope for. Some people have no clue as to what poor means and they make pronouncements on a people they don't even know.

I get angry when I see these things like "Idol Gives Back" and all these groups that collect money for "Third World" countries, when we have our own "Third World" right here in the States.

Wildflowers, as an NDN person myself, I appreciate your post and hope some understanding will come of it.

Ura messenah! (Thank you very much).


BTW, I come to this forum every now and then because my daughter is stationed at Ellsworth.