I saw one of the most thought-provoking movies I've ever seen today called "Why We Fight." It was a great documentary about exactly that question, what pushes the United States into war. It looked mostly at the military industrial complex beginning with a stern warning from President Eisenhower as he left office that the Military Industrial Complex must be carefully managed so it does not gain control over the President and Congressional bodies in Washington, DC. The documentary takes a look at the military industrial complex (the business of making war) and at its power over politicians and presidents of both parties and its power over society in general. It was a scary look at America.
Additionally, the movie looks into conflicts of the past 50 years, especially the War in Iraq, and the influence of the MIC and the actual results. The most thought-provoking part to me was about the media and think tanks. It talked about how Vietnam essentially failed and that now the Pentagon and military has extensive training in giving interviews and goes to great lengths to "embed" reporters and give them a sympathetic look of the military instead of having them shoot images of body bags. I just thought of the news we constantly see and how all the reporters we see are in a sense, manipulated by the military. Scary stuff. Without the free press, it is much easier to convince a nation to go to war. The think tank component was also scary. It talked about how the majority of policy decisions now come from think tanks where researchers, high ranking officials, and other well-known people are gathered to find justification for their policy goals, which in the movie is going to war. It looks into the Iraq War and notes how not only was the Axis of Evil speech taking ideas form think tank papers published BEFORE 9/11, but that members of certain think tanks were actually given an office in the Pentagon and an official position as advisors. Thus, war is justified by these think tankers on numerous shaky grounds and facts are spun into ideas like Iraq aided terrorists, Iraq has WMD, and Iraq tried to acquire nuclear material from Niger. All of which were based in some sort of report, except the facts were taken out of context without qualifiers to make it say what the think tankers and according to the movie, the MIC wanted.
I feel suddenly embolden to research and find a way to dig deeper on these trends. It's a problem not of one party, but rather of our democracy. If we want to have elected officials do what the majority wants, we need to eliminate the power that think tanks and military businesses have over them while simultaineously educating citizens with what is actually going on. Free media + people + voice = power.
It's been a bit of a throw-back week here in Brookville, USA. I headed down to Kansas City on Saturday and went to the Twins game and my brothers and I were pumped because my dad spotted a woman he thought he knew: Jason Kubel's mom! For everyone else in the world who doesn't know who Jason Kubel is, he is a young prospect for the Minnesota Twins baseball team. Anyways, he spent a few years of his life in Tyndall, South Dakota where my dad grew up and his mom went to school with my aunt. So, after some urging (and after her husband had left to get food), my dad snuck down and talked to her. He found out that it was actually his aunt, but still, cool enough. Then, on the way back to the hotel on a city bus, we were surrounded by Twins fans, including the aunt and uncle of Josh Rabe, another young player for the team. We were almost as excited as the one time we met Dennis Eckersely in the hotel lobby. funny stuff.
Well, on top of baseball (which is obviously not only childhood, but also a current passion), my bros and I busted out our old Magic cards. These are the nerdy cards that are used to create some sort of fantasy-battlefield where we fight with wizards and mythical creatures. The best part is just laying down and card and all of us going, "Oh yeah, I remember THAT card!"
Finally, I figured out how to run old mac programs on my laptop, so I dusted off the old Civilization II game in which you build empires from a single settler. So, today I have been working on putting the Lakota Sioux in charge of the world. Instead of having treaties broken, I'm doing the breaking! Oh my Machiavellian world! So, back to ruling the world while my brother touches his website up next to me.
I have just returned home after four days in Pine Ridge, but it feels like I was there so much longer. I feel like I learned more in those four days than I have all summer, and although I am nowhere near qualified to be an expert on Native American issues or history, quite a few things stood out that I want to share.
First, the biggest thing is realizing how little I knew. It is unbelieveable that this enormous part of South Dakotan and American is glossed over at best in schools, media, and conversations. For me, this trip was supposed to be for research for my master's thesis, but it was quickly apparent that it was more of a personal journey for me, one that I think I have wanted to take ever since reflecting on my South Dakota roots while in Norway.
I feel like I have seen poverty before in Tanzania and South Africa, but Pine Ridge was different. The people there were not as poor as in other places, but the barriers for people succeed seem greater. The first thing that stood out was the lack of commercial opportunities in Pine Ridge. There is not a single bank in the city of Pine Ridge (the largest city in the Pine Ridge Reservation), and the only outside businesses are a Taco John's fast food restaurant, a small Alltel cell phone store, and a gas station that has grown from an old trading post to its current 24 hour status. There are no small businesses, clothing stores, sports stores, libraries, restaurants, nothing. In fact, the largest employers are the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Fed Gov't), the Tribal Gov't, and the Tribal Gov't services like police, hospitals, etc. It is no wonder then that the unemployment rate on the reservation is 85%! Can you imagine that?
The problems are all so interrelated as well. Another problem on the reservation is a housing/land shortage. People there often live with 8, 10, 12 people to a small trailer-size home. As I understand it, every family from the tribe is allotted a portion of land. When I say family, I mean 3 generations of extended family. In order to sell land, there has to be approval from 75% of the family, which makes it incredibly difficult considering that a majority of the family lives outside of the reservation and are often impossible to contact, especially without help from the government or anyone else who could help faciliate. Thus, if you grow up in your dad's house and want to stay in the reservation, you either have to squeeze another house on the land or live in your father's house. This compounds the problem of getting businesses to the rez since it is so difficult for them to get land themselves.
On top of this, insurance is extremely expensive because of vandalism and probably stereotypes that insurers may have of the reservation. Pine Ridge is also miles away from anywhere so businesses don't want to come there, and the land that the Lakota were corralled onto is basically worthless. Crops hardly grow and there is hardly enough grass to even have a ranch. Plus, there's the history. I learned so much of the dark history of the US while at Pine Ridge. The Lakota controlled land from Canada to Kansas and Wyoming to Minnesota. When gold was discovered in California in 1849, the Oregon Trail cut through Nebraska and the US gov't and the Lakota signed an agreement of non-violence on the trail. This evolved from removing Lakota from the trail to eventually confining them to western SD. Then, Custer illegally entered the Lakota's terrority and discovered gold in the Black Hills, which is the holiest place for the Lakota. It's their Garden of Eden and Jersulaem rolled into one. The Whites of course wanted the Black Hills to extract the gold and they tried to buy it. The Lakota refused (who would sell the wailing wall for mining?), and the US began a nasty policy called sell or starve. They basically slaughtered the buffalos throughout the plains, shooting buffaloes off of trains and just leaving thousands of carcasses to rot. The buffalo were the life source of the Lakota and as the buffalo disappeared, it became more difficult to continue the semi-nomadic life style because there main food source become more and more scarce. As it became more difficult to hunt food, they were forced onto the reservation where the government offered food. The gov't continued to take more and more land, and it culminated in the Wounded Knee Massacre. In 1890 Black Foot, the chief of the Lakota tribe, led his people towards the Pine Ridge Reservation. They were intercepted by US forces and disarmed and escorted to Wounded Knee, a small valley about 10 miles from Pine Ridge. The Lakota were surrounded by troops armed with an early machine gun and at some point, a gun discharged and the US troops opened fire on the 300 unarmed men, women, and children, chasing after and killing victims up to 4 miles away from the camp. It was the last conflict between the Lakota and the US gov't.
This pillaging and massacre-ing was followed by almost a hundred years of forced assimilation by outlawing the Lakota language in schools, "adopting" (read taking) Lakota children from their parents into White families, and outlawing traditional religions and cultural activities. This all culminated in the 1970's. Two Lakotas in two seperate incidents were killed by Whites who were eventually found not guilty. This ignited a civil war on the reservation. The American Indian Movement (AIM) took over the city of Wounded Knee for 71 days as protest to governmental policies. There was a shoot out with government agents and a few casualities on both sides, but it set off a fight between Lakotas who wanted to return to a traditional lifestyle and those who wanted to be more connected with the outside world. In the 1970's there were over 70 unsolved murders as the tribe was divided and in the midst of a civil war between traditionalists and modernists. Everyone was in one camp or the other and at the time Pine Ridge was one of the most dangerous places in the US, maybe the world. Showing up as a white person would be inviting disaster. Even today, there is a tension between tradition and modernity, and although it is no longer violent, it is interesting to see some people practice traditional beliefs like sweat lodges (where lakotas sit in sauna like places and pray) and the sun dance (a traditional religious dance), while others embrace english and christianity. Interestingly enough, many people also practice a hybrid of both.
I definitely feel guilt and embarassment of what my government and relatives did and continue to do. Fortunately, I feel after being there that there is hope. I mean, if a culture and people can survive almost 100 years of violence and efforts to destroy their culture, it seems that their culture could have a rebirth with space and support from others. There are huge problems with poverty, opportunities, sexism, alcoholism, domestic abuse, and discrimination, but there are talented, hard working people fighting to improve conditions. We just have to do what we can to help and acknowledge what we have done in the past.
There are so many other interesting experiences from Pine Ridge such as the splinter University system in which teachers travel around the reservation so students don't have to and debates in the tribal council now, (done in a mix of English with a little Lakota), about opening a women's health clinic (possibly abortion clinic) on the reservation to circumvent SD laws outlawing abortion. But I ramble. Basically, it was a good experience. I don't know if it will help my research, but personally it was an important experience. I am far from an expert, but I want to learn more and hopefully some of these thoughts will help spark interest in someone else.
Thursday I talked to Larry who is in charge of the SD Lutheran Church's ministry at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Western SD. We talked about how I was interested in researching foreign aid and he ideas of need, etc, etc and eventually we talked about the idea of visiting the reservation to get an idea of what is going on. i thought sometime in august would be great, but he told me that the only time that would work would be Monday. So, after spending the weekend with a high school friend in Iowa, I drove 735 miles today (1182km)to arrive in Pine Ridge. It was a great drive across the southern swaths of SD with massive landscapes devoid of movement. the highlight of the drive was in wagner, sd where i had to stop for 10 min at a construction spot. i had to wait for a car to come and lead me through the construction and while i was waiting i chatted with the guy working the flags. it was 104 degrees farenheit (40 C) at 5 pm and we just chatted with the window down the whole time. a really nice guy, and i think he was happy to have someone to talk to.
My first evening here has been great. we had a speaker tonight (we being the church group from detroit lakes I lopped on with) and he was very powerful. an electric speaker who spoke very passionately about a number of issues...the one the sticks out the most to me was his passionate discussion about women. it was inspiring to hear a leader in the community talk aboutrespecting women and the importance of women. It was the first feminist speak i had heard in a while and it reminded me how rare it is for that discussion to enterinto dialogue in my world. I also got to "interview him". I say that with quotes b/c i'm not supposed to record people here, so I talk to peopleand as soon as we're done talking, i run into another room and record myself saying everything i can remember. i also talked to the pastor and guy working here and they had interesting things to say on both ends of the spectrum. Tomorrow morning i'm going to talk to a guy who runs a coffee shop downthe street who supposedly has a negative view and i'm going to check out the tribal council meeting tomorrow. then we're going to a school at red cloud and having an after school program here in pine ridge later in the afternoon. busy stuff, which is good b/c i'm only here four days.
sorry about the bad space key. off to sleep off miles.
See the extent of the madness at my new photo website.
It's an interesting time to be a peace student. I watch the tv and listen on the radio as people discuss and debate the current situation in Lebanon. What strikes me as ridiculous is how every tv network immediately lands someone onto the battelfield to bring the bloodshed into our homes. It seems unfair that we have the luxury of not only evacuating thousands of US citizens at the drop of a hat, but also that we have the luxury of sending someone into the battlefield at our own behest. For millions of people in the region, it is their life. They didn't choose to enter a conflict situation and they don't have the option of getting on a huge Greek cruiser to leave the battlefield. It is the same problem I've been having with Nicaragua and other places I have gone. How can I live with the fact that I can be airlifted to the safety of home while others simply have to deal with it? I started thinking more about this while reading Silje's blog. I think everyone should read her thoughts (click this link) because she has been to both Lebanon and Israel and is much more knowledgeable than me, and she again begs the question of inequalities and indifference. I don't have a thought or solution, but I just hope that are people are grappling with some of these questions and trying to understand what is happening...
One of the more interesting word combinations in the English language, and one of the side effects I am excited to rid myself of now that I have stopped taking malaria medicine...or maybe I should just stop eating asparagus, (yet another interesting English word).
