Blackbear

************************************************** ******
This Message Is Reprinted Under The Fair Use
Doctrine of International Copyright Law:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
************************************************** ******

FROM: THE SYRACUSE POST-STANDARD NEWSPAPER

http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststa.../1116319067132
800.xml&coll=1

Group Battles Indian Policy

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

By Peter Lyman
Washington bureau

Central New Yorkers who oppose sovereign status for Indian lands are joining
like-minded activists from around the country in Washington this week,
attending meetings on their shared interests and lobbying members of Congress.

Judy Bachmann, of Vernon, vice chair of the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance,
is attending her fourth national meeting of CERA, which contends that "federal
Indian policy is unaccountable, destructive, racist and unconstitutional,"
according to its mission statement.

"The thing that I have learned, through CERA, is that my problem is not with
the Native Americans," Bachmann said Monday as about 50 people met to screen a
documentary produced by CERA members. "My problem is with my government, with
the federal Indian policy and the loopholes that they provide."

The theme of this week's meeting is "Tribal Sovereignty: Separating Fact From
Fantasy - Confronting the Chaos." Participants spent Sunday and Monday in
seminars, including a session on the impact of the March 29 Supreme Court
decision involving the city of Sherrill and the Oneida Indian Nation. In that
decision, the court ruled 8-1 that the nation cannot claim sovereignty over land it
sold more than 200 years ago.

"When I first started coming to CERA, the Sherrill situation was foremost in
my mind because I felt it was an economic strangulation of my economy," said
Bachmann, who is attending the Washington gathering with her husband, Fred.

"That (by) not paying taxes, (the Indians were) having privileges that my tax
dollars were paying for, that I was subsidizing - I thought was grossly
unfair," Bachmann said. "I still believe it's grossly unfair that I should be
subsidizing other people's gambling. But I see issues that are much further
reaching in the issues of jurisdiction and sovereignty, and who controls what happens
on my land."

"There is nothing in the Constitution to suggest that Native American Indian
tribes enjoy sovereignty," said Washington lawyer Bruce Fein, Monday's keynote
speaker and a Justice Department official during the Reagan administration.

That interpretation puts Fein and CERA at odds with President Bush, who in
September emphatically endorsed the concept of sovereignty for Native American
nations.

"Native American cultures survive and flourish when tribes retain control
over their own affairs and their own future," Bush said.

Since the Supreme Court ruling in the Sherrill case, the Oneidas and the
Cayuga Indian Nation have applied to have their land holdings put into a federal
trust to exempt them from local taxes and regulation. That development was on
the mind of Richard Tallcot, chairman of the Cayuga-Seneca chapter of Upstate
Citizens for Equality, as he attended the Washington meeting.

"I'm gathering information on the trust process and arguments for it and
where to access information, what the actual regulations are and qualifications
for that," Tallcot said. "I've learned there are other places in the country
where the (Bureau of Indian Affairs) has actually violated its own regulations."

Before the screening of the film "Going to Pieces," producers Kamie Biehl and
Elaine Willman, of Washington state, described how they traveled across the
country to document the hardships that people - Indian and non-Indian - have
suffered because of federal Indian policies.

"This is a mirror we're holding up," said Willman, who is of Cherokee
ancestry and lives on the Yakima reservation.

It is sadly ironic, she said, that at the same time Americans are fighting to
establish democracy elsewhere in the world, the federal government is
promoting tribalism in the United States.

DVDs of the film, and a corresponding book, are available only at the Web
site www.equilocus.com

__________________
Don't worry that it's not good enough for anyone else to hear... just sing, sing a song.

Blackbear

************************************************** ******
This Message Is Reprinted Under The Fair Use
Doctrine of International Copyright Law:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
************************************************** ******

FROM: THE SYRACUSE POST-STANDARD NEWSPAPER

http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststa.../1116319444132
800.xml&coll=1

Federal Indian Policy Fought

Sovereignty foes gather for annual meeting of Citizens Equal Rights Alliance.


Tuesday, May 17, 2005

By Peter Lyman
Washington bureau

Central New Yorkers who oppose sovereign status for Indian lands are joining
like-minded activists from around the country in Washington this week,
attending meetings on their shared interests and lobbying members of Congress.

Judy Bachmann, of Vernon, vice chair of the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance,
is attending her fourth national meeting of CERA, which contends that "federal
Indian policy is unaccountable, destructive, racist and unconstitutional,"
according to its mission statement.

"The thing that I have learned, through CERA, is that my problem is not with
the Native Americans," Bachmann said Monday as about 50 people met to screen a
documentary produced by CERA members. "My problem is with my government, with
the federal Indian policy and the loopholes that they provide."

The theme of this week's meeting is "Tribal Sovereignty: Separating Fact From
Fantasy - Confronting the Chaos." Participants spent Sunday and Monday in
seminars, including a session on the impact of the March 29 Supreme Court
decision involving the city of Sherrill and the Oneida Indian Nation. In that
decision, the court ruled 8-1 that the nation cannot claim sovereignty over land it
sold more than 200 years ago.

"When I first started coming to CERA, the Sherrill situation was foremost in
my mind because I felt it was an economic strangulation of my economy," said
Bachmann, who is attending the Washington gathering with her husband, Fred.

"That (by) not paying taxes, (the Indians were) having privileges that my tax
dollars were paying for, that I was subsidizing - I thought was grossly
unfair," Bachmann said. "I still believe it's grossly unfair that I should be
subsidizing other people's gambling. But I see issues that are much further
reaching in the issues of jurisdiction and sovereignty, and who controls what happens
on my land."

"There is nothing in the Constitution to suggest that Native American Indian
tribes enjoy sovereignty," said Washington lawyer Bruce Fein, Monday's keynote
speaker and a Justice Department official during the Reagan administration.

That interpretation puts Fein and CERA at odds with President Bush, who in
September emphatically endorsed the concept of sovereignty for Native American
nations.

"Native American cultures survive and flourish when tribes retain control
over their own affairs and their own future," Bush said.

Since the Supreme Court ruling in the Sherrill case, the Oneidas and the
Cayuga Indian Nation have applied to have their land holdings put into a federal
trust to exempt them from local taxes and regulation. That development was on
the mind of Richard Tallcot, chairman of the Cayuga-Seneca chapter of Upstate
Citizens for Equality, as he attended the Washington meeting.

"I'm gathering information on the trust process and arguments for it and
where to access information, what the actual regulations are and qualifications
for that," Tallcot said. "I've learned there are other places in the country
where the (Bureau of Indian Affairs) has actually violated its own regulations."

Before the screening of the film "Going to Pieces," producers Kamie Biehl and
Elaine Willman, of Washington state, described how they traveled across the
country to document the hardships that people - Indian and non-Indian - have
suffered because of federal Indian policies.

"This is a mirror we're holding up," said Willman, who is of Cherokee
ancestry and lives on the Yakima reservation.

It is sadly ironic, she said, that at the same time Americans are fighting to
establish democracy elsewhere in the world, the federal government is
promoting tribalism in the United States.

DVDs of the film, and a corresponding book, are available only at the Web
site www.equilocus.com

__________________
Don't worry that it's not good enough for anyone else to hear... just sing, sing a song.

Privateer6

"Judy Bachmann, of Vernon, vice chair of the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance,
is attending her fourth national meeting of CERA, which contends that "federal
Indian policy is unaccountable, destructive, racist and unconstitutional,"
according to its mission statement. "

She really needs to read the following form the US Constitution that apply to the Native American situation.

Section. 8. Clause 3: [The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes....

Section. 10. Clause 1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; ....

Section. 2. Clause 2: He [The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur....

Again this is from the Constitution. How can US policy towards First Nations violate the Constitution?

Blackbear

Especially when it is in part copied from the iroquois constitution....

__________________
Don't worry that it's not good enough for anyone else to hear... just sing, sing a song.