Native Americans for Bush?
February 7, 2004 10:07 AM   Subscribe

Russell Means goes Republican. Strange times indeed.
posted by kablam (9 comments total)
 
Interesting.
posted by Slagman at 10:31 AM on February 7, 2004


BTW, Means was in the Denver Post this morning lambasting the white man for prosecuting the case of Arlo Looking Cloud, a fifty-something drifter Indian accused of an AIM execution in the Seventies.
posted by kozad at 10:32 AM on February 7, 2004


Well, many Native American tribes get revenue from discount cigarette shops now. He's just following his friends in tobacco lobby.
posted by Mayor Curley at 11:27 AM on February 7, 2004


Kozad, I wasn't sure what to make of his statement: "Our culture is disregarded and not included and one of the most pathetic men in the city of Denver is given the sole responsibility for the murder ordered by a leader of the American Indian Movement." Apparently, Means believes that AIM leaders (who were not on trial) ordered the killing. The whole trial -- which I didn't really have the opportunity to follow -- was interesting, because it was still, informally, a trial of AIM and Leonard Peltier. (Peltier's comment is available here.)

Still South Dakota's politics seem awfully complicated, since there are so many Native Americans and so many Republican politicians. When Crazy Bob Novak made accusations of voter fraud on the reservations, SD Republicans responsed that the comments were "appalling" and "insane."
posted by subgenius at 12:19 PM on February 7, 2004


libertarian republican?
posted by mcsweetie at 2:34 PM on February 7, 2004


The Dakotas and the reservations are (and have been) unhappy and insane for decades... I'm guessing this is an infiltration strategy, to change the way the SD republicans treat their Indian neighbors. Change the dominant Republican leaders, and you can hopefully change the way johnny redneck down the street treats the people on the reservations. Of course, every time the natives try working with the dominant arseholes, it ends up screwing them in the end, so don't be surprised if this goes the same way.

I don't know about these accusations that the AIM leaders ordered the killing... It really sounds like a bunch of white washing to me. Bring up an accusation of murder against a guy who clearly didn't do it in order to circulate a bunch of 'rumors' that discredit the AIM leadership. I wouldn't at all put it past the people involved in the AIM opposition. Let's remember, after all, how another murder was recieved at the time... Woman found in a ditch with an FBI bullet in her head, and, according to the Feds, she died of exposure. Having read accounts of wounded knee, I'm amazed there weren't far more deaths. And, because of the way the CIA was involved in the affair, there's a lot of disinformation in the air.

This murder trial is just a new example of old tactics in a very, very bitter and long running feud.
posted by kaibutsu at 4:13 PM on February 7, 2004


Yeah, go ask Jimmy Hoffa junior what it's like to make a deal with the Republicans and how they end up screwing you.
posted by jbou at 7:37 PM on February 7, 2004


Aren't the Indians owed some vast debt by the BIA?
posted by ph00dz at 5:32 PM on February 8, 2004


According to this site, Russell Means has not only been a member of the Libertarian Party, but ran for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination in 1988.
posted by jonp72 at 10:18 PM on February 9, 2004


« Older Southeast Asian Monuments: A Selection of 100...   |   Get Hollywood on the phone, quick..... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments