Eddie Joe's Blog: Got a Novel Idea
"nothing like a little controversy to divide an already divided
community. was cruising the rez, and seen the results of it. its like
the saying they have in alcohol treatment. the one where they say there
is a big pink elephant that no one wants to see. ignoring it doesnt
make it go away.
people are guarded. like are you a good guy or bad guy. you fer us or agin us. us and them mentality all over again. we are no strangers to it. we are used to it. our community was divided before this ever came up. sad to say, we will be again, next year or ten years from now. its has become our nature. we are a community under seige. we are hostages to ourselves.
now for the novel idea. we should liquidate all our assets. invite the whole tribe to come together. then pile the cash up. then burn it. once we all see there is nothing to fight over, we can all go home. if we are to be honest with ourselves, that whole system can shut down tomorrow and life would go on. the ones that would be hurt the most by it would be the ones most dependent on it. but the point is life would go on. it always does.
if change is what we want, why stop with change of leadership. i dont want to shatter the we are living in the garden of eden image we project to the world. we should do something about alcohol and drug abuse. it affects every family in the tribe. it kills the people we love. i have seen pretty young girls age years because of drugs. alcohol breaks up many families. we should do something about spouse abuse, child neglect. it is sad to see little children that dont smile. our language is dying. hardly anyone goes to our ceremonies. without them, what kind of potawatomis are we? if we want change lets make our life better. not just make the money change hands.
i have stated before that inmates run the asylum. there are plenty of employees that wont help us. tell them to get the hell out of here too. we pay them to work for us. if they wont, take a hike. one can go on and on with change. where does it start and where will it end?
personally it doesnt matter to me whos in charge. the ones in the system benefit the most. it will always work that way. we have seen leaders come and go. the way the system works stays the same. we will always want to get rid of our leaders. what we cant afford is to chase away future leaders. if we make it so bad that no one wants to get involved then we all lose."
This is my first time reading comments posted to The Native Blog. Thanks for directing me to the site. As for this article, I think it should be submitted to the PBP newspaper. It has a mild manered tone behind such a strong point. If people want to think about it, it will be their serving of humble pie; and we can all use a piece now and then. Thanks again.
Posted by: ndnkufan | June 07, 2007 at 10:34 AM