Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker is here to help nominate President Barack Obama for a second term, and he doesn't hold anything back in his praise for the president.
Obama, Baker said here Tuesday, “is the best president for Indian Country in the history of the United States.”
Through the years, Indian tribal chiefs have met a lot of U.S. presidents, but the meetings with Obama have been more than just superficial photo opportunities, Baker said.
“This president has made promises to Indian Country, and he's kept them,” Baker said. “He is a promise keeper. And that needs to be recognized and rewarded.”
Since his election, Obama has directed his agencies to incorporate tribal input on a broad range of issues.
The Obama administration made Indian Country a significant part of the stimulus and health reform legislation.
And it resolved long-running lawsuits involving Indians and the federal government, including the one involving the mismanagement of individual Indian trust accounts.
The administration also helped push major legislation on tribal justice through Congress, has worked to streamline the leasing process for Indian trust land and launched an initiative to improve Indian schools.
I have to say that of ALL of the endorsements that the President has received lately, and I have listed a number of them here, THIS one really impresses me. I mean REALLY impresses me!
Perhaps it is because I live in a state that has a shameful history concerning its treatment of our indigenous population, but I am particularly sensitive to the idea that we owe the native community an incredible amount of restitution for how they were treated.
So seeing how impressed this community is by how this President has respected them makes me even prouder that I have supported him all of these years.
THIS is the kind of man I want running my country. A man who really cares, and does the right thing simply because it IS the right thing to do.
That's what hands me a laugh about those bitter, old lily white Patriot wannabees who whine about immigrants, foreigners, thems who ain't the right brand of Xtain and yap endlessly about taking their country back. Excuse me..THEIR country??
ReplyDelete" I am particularly sensitive to the idea that we owe the native community an incredible amount of restitution for how they were treated."
ReplyDeleteI agree, 100%. I am sickened by the treatment Native Americans received when white men first came to this country and started taking THEIR land away from them. And the way our history books portray Native Americans is also unjust.
Thank you Gryphen, for posting this, and also l love this comment: THIS is the kind of man I want running my country. A man who really cares, and does the right thing simply because it IS the right thing to do.
Obama 2012!
R in NC
Thank you Gryphen. As one who spent a lot of years and cried a lot of tears working on Alaska Native issues, Baker's endorsement means a lot to me.
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ReplyDeleteI am from Oklahoma, and let me tell you, these tribal leaders have it RIGHT. Now, I don't agree on a lot of things, but when their people need help, they help them. I lived in Choctaw Nation and the Cherokee Nation. One of the best hospitals in Oklahoma is in Ada, OK, where it is totally free health care. There isn't enough facilities like this in Oklahoma, but they are FOCUSED on preventative care. Free contraception. Free counseling for mental health and addiction issues. Free health care, dental care, vision. Free Employment training. If you don't have a job, they will CREATE you a job. There is a lot of lazy Native Americans, dont' get me wrong that simply rob the system, but the Native American system has it right for the most part when it comes to assistance and needs for their people. Their healthcare system employs physicians that aren't native, but they can work there and get their loans paid off. They are good people. Good hard-working and friendly people. Don't let the GOP spin this into the Indians in Oklahoma are just free-loaders. They will.
Shelly
shellyamberstone@yahoo.com
There is no more a larger percentage of "lazy indians" than there are of lazy fat ass white people. FUCK YOU! BTW THe term is NAtive American, unlike your lily white bigoted fat ass.
DeleteAnon 4:33 --
DeletePerhaps you should acquire better reading skills. And better manners.
Shelly -- thanks for this info. Ignore the jerk at 4:33.
DeleteI too am a proud "Okie" and in addition to what Shelly has written all five of our Civilized Tribes, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole and Creek make many donations to the entire State. They have provided many rural water systems; they make donations to various school districts; they provide services and donations to disaster relief from tornado, flood, wild fire damage, they are leaders in our clean water projects, and the list goes on. As to "lazy Native Americans" we have more than our fair share of "lazy Whites, Blacks and Hispanics too". Laziness is not determined by the color of your skin, but by what kind of person you are inside. Personally, I think this country and the State of Oklahoma owe more to the Native Americans thank we could ever repay.
DeleteMaybe I did't write that as well as i should have. I meant, there are NATIVE AMERICANS that live off the system just like other people who live off of the Welfare system. I wasn't saying there are "lazy" Native Americans, and in Oklahoma, they LIKE to be called INDIANS.
DeleteThese are a proud people. What I was trying to convey is that the GOP is painting with a very broad brush that people on Welfare are "lazy" and "freeloaders". I can just see the GOP taking this endorsement and turning it into "of course the free-loaders love Obama" But I assure you, for people who DON'T know what a proud and hard-working culture this is, they will buy the bullshit.
And the next time Sarah Palin talks about people wanting free stuff, remind that bitch that she, her husband, her children ad her grandkids are all entitled to free healthcare up there in Alaska because Todd is Native. If that isn't an ENTITLEMENT program, I don't know what is. Being BORN into something is entitlement, Social Security, Medicare are programs WE PAY INTO. That is not entitlement.
Shelly
Don't feel bad Gryphen, I don't think there is one state that has ever treated any of the Native American tribes anywhere near fair. But President Obama is the first President in the history of the United States that is trying to look at claims and agreements. I shudder to think how my brothers and sisters will be treated under a Romney admin.
ReplyDeleteOBAMA/BIDEN 2012
Clinton / Castro 2016 2020
Castro/Warren 2024 2028
Love that he said, "this man keeps his promises!" Can we sue this guy in an ad?
ReplyDeleteWHATTTTT????
ReplyDeletePresident Obama is the BEST President ever for Native Americans??????
I totally disagree with that statement.
Sarah Palin is the BEST ever for Native Americans and Alaskans!!!
It was Governor Sarah Palin Of The Great State of Alaska who took it upon herself to bring a tray of cookies to the cold freezing hungry poor Native Alaskans AND DON'T YOU EVER FORGET IT!
And don't forget the phamplets provided so generously by the great Rev. Franklin Graham!!
DeleteHey Gryph....
ReplyDeleteThanks for including this. NO WHERE in the standard media have I ever seen a story about issues surrounding American Idians... This is amazing stuff.
Thank you... Winski...
Leave it to a man, a President, who has been made to feel a foreigner in his own country to acknowledge with grace and respect, and Presidential power, those from whom the land was taken. Just when I think I cannot admire this man more, I learn of yet another reason to take such joy in my President.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, I think of the words of June Jordan, an Arican American poet and activist (who died of breast cancer):
ReplyDelete"No one has ever known justice. No one has had enough tenderness."
President Obama understands these words, and many other things. That is why I support him.
I like to think Obama coming from Hawaii also affects his decision about indigenous people. After all, the Queen of Hawaii was overthrown by greedy white guys. They locked her up in her own palace while they took the land for their own. All kids learn about it, and the palace is a very real reminder of it.
ReplyDeletehere is a link for the palace: http://www.iolanipalace.org/
Agree!!
ReplyDeleteVery few candidates seem concerned with the affairs of Native Americans. They rarely discuss Native relations nor address them and appreciate them more. So little is said about the people who were here in the first place.
They get little recognition and when I read about President Obama keeping his promises to them, it doesn't surprise me. Another reason to love this President.
Glad to hear that President Obama has done some good in this regard.
ReplyDeleteIf we ever expect true justice for all the native Peoples and their descendants in the USA, we'd need even more than a sympathetic President
We would need an awakening of conscience in our Congress, and a willingness for all US citizens to participate somehow.
The USA broke, illegaly abrogated, and officially ignored hundreds of legally signed treaties and agreements with hundreds of tribes over many centuries robbing them of their lands and resources.
The crimes and outrages perpetrated on the native Peoples are very well documented, and true reparations would require sacrifices on the part of all Americans
I can't imagine the scope of what would be appropriate to really make amends.
Just think of the money we wasted on a needless war in Iraq, and apply even some of that to building schools, hospitals, colleges, houses and facilities for the remaining tribes and their people.
At the very least, each tribe should be forever free from Federal, State, and local taxes.
Each tribe or reservation could be transformed from what are often horrible pockets of poverty into
places of hope and bright futures for the People.
I spent some time on the Pine Ridge res in the Dakotas, and it was a sobering and sad revelation to see what poverty many still live in here in the USA
I wonder if the ultra right Teabagger religious crowd would support such an idea, or would they claim like many used to that "manifest destiny" and spreading the Christian religion justified the rape, robbery, and outrages perpetrated on the native Peoples.
Gryphen, thank you for bringing this to our attention. The shameful treatment of Native Americans has always been a really important issue for me and I am so elated to know that something right is finally being done for them. No publicity has been given to this, and it shows the genuine character of Obama. He does the right thing, even when the public/media is not paying attention.
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