What's so important about reservations? Why don't you just haul your asses out of there and work in America like everybody else?
Several weeks ago when for some idiot reason we were all talking about immigration, I spontaneously composed a speech as if I were the President. As part of my multipoint program to fix immigration in a period of 3 years (basically by making Enterprise Zones of four Western states) I focused on the unnecessary complexity of the standing of persons in America.
There have to be at least 20 different classes of officially recognized persons in this big old country. Non-resident alien, student on visa, tourist, naturalized citizen, sponsored worker, blah blah blah. I have issues with the phlegmatic process between wanting to be a full citizen and actually being effectively a second-class citizen. There are too many nooks and crannies. But the one oddment nobody often speaks of is the status and standing of Natives in their reservations and casinos etc.
It was the concept of freedom struggle that made me consider the idea. The tribes and bands and nations lost their wars of independence. They were outnumbered, outgunned, outdone. And so they had to retreat. And whatever the Reservations are, I think of them as little more than little Letsothos in our South Africa. Island nations surrounded by bigger, richer, more powerful nations. Why would anybody stay? Is it a matter of citizenship? Is it a matter of pride? Is it a matter of rights? What exactly did the Natives lose? Their religion, their culture, their god, their land, their people? And if it was all of that, what consolation is there in the Reservation?
Obviously the Natives, despite some sophistication I've heard tell about in their diplomacy and federation of tribes and families, were not beneficiaries of the Industrial Revolution. Living tribally works in certain badlands, and that's all that can be expected. After all, what are hillbillies? You can't farm in the mountains. With no goods or services to compete in the big economy, you've got nothing. War is hell, but losing a war is worse hell, especially when you've got no moola and no economic base worth jack. Germany? They had something. Japan? They had something. Vietnam? They had to build something. Angola? Where are they now?
It seems to me that there is no promise, no treaty, no arrangement made with Natives in this country that's worth the paper its written on. Those who are confined, by choice or default, to the Reservation system are living in the ultimate welfare state with ridiculously poor health, education, housing, transportation and anything else you might measure civilization by. It makes no sense for any person living in America to be part of that subordinate second-class standard. The history may confound, but the result is plain. These are the losers of wars gone back to backwards 'nations' hacking out a separate and unequal existence in the Land of the Free.
So once again to those suffering agony because maybe you can't build a 10 story glass building in Lower Manhattan including "a 500-seat auditorium, theater, performing arts center, fitness center, swimming pool, basketball court, childcare services, art exhibitions, bookstore, culinary school, and a food court serving halal dishes", and find that possibility a stain on America, you're just playing footsie with Fox. Like Batman, you never kill the Joker, and why is that? Because you've got nowhere else to go.
Natives have everywhere to go but they don't. What's keeping them where they are?
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