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Post by Marks - the Earth's Sun on Jul 10, 2005 16:28:02 GMT -5
Indians face steep odds, says keynoter Former senator rails against Schwarzenegger By TOM WILEMON THE SUN HERALD
BILOXI - Former U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a chief of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, spoke about the economic plight of the American Indian and misconceptions about tribal casinos in his keynote address Wednesday at the Southern Gaming Summit. He accused some states, notably California and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, of trying to "literally extort" Indian tribes involved with casinos to "pull out of deficits." Campbell expressed his displeasure at having read in newspaper accounts comments about Indians "not paying their fair share" or "ripping us off." "I would say that's a comment made by somebody who has just got off the boat and doesn't understand the history of what has happened to Indians in California," Sen. Campbell said. "They paid for their lifestyle in blood, lost relatives, millions of acres of lost land, untold billions of dollars in lost revenue from what's under the land - oil, gas, coal and so on... They've paid their dues, Mr. Schwarzenegger." The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which Campbell co-authored, legalized tribal casinos, but a subsequent court case, known as the Seminole decision, gave states more power in regulating their expansion. Casinos have helped improve the lives of many Indians, but their expansion has led to many misconceptions that all Indians have gambling and that they are all getting rich, he said. A Harvard University study released this year showed per capita income for Indians rose 33 percent compared to 11 percent for the American population as a whole from 1990 to 2000. However, Campbell pointed out the numbers show a change in growth, not a bottom-line change in lifestyle. Although the unemployment rate is decreasing rapidly, as many as 75 to 90 percent of the population for some tribes is without a job. It would take 100 years in some cases for the unemployment level to drop to 25 percent, which would still be five times today's national average, Campbell said. Throughout the conference, he and other Indian leaders appeared to be speaking off the same notebook as they told how tribal casinos have created more than 550,000 jobs for all Americans and given millions to charities. In recent months, tribal casinos have been somewhat blemished by congressional investigations into the work of Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who allegedly took millions from Indians and gave them little or nothing in return. Suzette Brewer, communications director of he National Indian Gaming Association, stressed in one of the sessions that tribal casinos do generate money for federal income taxes and are highly regulated. She said thus far in the congressional investigation no wrongdoing has been alleged against Indians. She said is has been only in recent months and years that Indians have actively engaged the media to dispel misinformation about tribal casinos.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom Wilemon can be reached at 896-2354 or tewilemon@sunherald.com
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Post by Marks - the Earth's Sun on Jul 10, 2005 16:28:21 GMT -5
Lobbyist Helped Indian Leaders Meet Bush
Wednesday June 8, 2005 7:16 AM
AP Photo WX123
By SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - An arrangement involving two Indian tribes, the head of an anti-tax organization and a lobbyist now under criminal investigation - plus $50,000 - secured Indian leaders a private audience with President Bush.
Each of the players, including the president, had something to gain from the deal, carried out in 2001 and confirmed by tribal lawyers and documents showing the solicitation of money and the promise of a meeting with Bush.
The tribes were seeking to protect their casino gaming revenues from tougher labor regulations and to block changes in federal gaming laws that might interfere with their casinos. The anti-tax organization wanted sponsorship money for a political event, and the lobbyist acting as a go-between was charging his Indian clients millions of dollars for his services.
For Bush, participating in an event sponsored by the Americans for Tax Reform gave a hand to a pro-Republican group and its head, Grover Norquist, a longtime Bush ally and political consultant. Besides, lobbyist Jack Abramoff himself had raised more than $100,000 on behalf of Bush and had his own ties to Norquist.
``What this is, is the president helping out Americans for Tax Reform by agreeing to speak at their event,'' said Larry Noble, the former chief lawyer for federal election enforcement who now heads the Center for Responsive Politics. ``The quid pro quo is ATR helps out the president with support of his agenda at the same time ATR is able to sell it to lobbyists and others as something that needs to be underwritten.''
At the behest of Abramoff, two Indian tribes - the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana and Mississippi Band of Choctaw - paid $25,000 each to Norquist's group to underwrite a 2001 event that included a private meeting with Bush. Two other entities, which the group declined to identify, also helped underwrite the event.
``The exposure would be incredible and would be very helpful,'' Abramoff wrote to one of the tribe's attorneys in asking for the donation. ``One of the things we need to do is get the leaders of the tribe (ideally the chief) in front of the president as much as possible.''
Indian tribes were uncertain how the Bush administration would treat Indian gaming since many Republicans historically had been anti-gaming.
A federal grand jury is investigating whether Abramoff and a lobbying partner overcharged Indian tribes millions of dollars for their work.
Abramoff spokesman Andrew Blum declined to discuss the 2001 White House meetings. In the past, Abramoff has denied wrongdoing and argued his clients got their money's worth for his work.
Abramoff's association with Norquist dates to their college years when they worked together in the College Republicans club. They both have ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and were instrumental in helping Republicans take over Congress in the 1990s.
Norquist's group has been fighting a subpoena from the Senate Indian Affairs Committee demanding documents showing its relationship with Abramoff and the tribes. It confirmed that some tribal leaders along with state legislators attended the 2001 event and met briefly with Bush but declined to identify the donors who underwrote the event.
As the Senate and criminal investigations of Abramoff heated up earlier this year, Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform sent a letter to the Coushatta tribe clarifying that the White House meeting was not provided in return for its contributions.
The group's letter said that state legislators and representatives of Indian tribes who pass resolutions backing Bush's policies and the group's position on issues were invited to an ``Appreciation Event'' where they can meet with House and Senate leaders and Bush.
Former President Clinton was heavily criticized by Republicans for rewarding big donors with invitations to special White House coffees and overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom. Those donors usually contributed directly to the party.
Abramoff enlisted the tribes as sponsors through e-mails from Norquist and forwarded by Abramoff, attorneys for the tribes said. Copies of e-mails sent to the Coushatta tribe were published in the Texas Observer, a political news magazine, and the tribes' attorneys confirmed the information.
Lovelin Poncho, who is stepping down after 20 years as Coushatta tribal chairman, recalled meeting with Bush for about 15 minutes, his attorney said. An itinerary said the meeting was in the Old Executive Office Building, next to the White House. Poncho recalls Abramoff also attended, said the lawyer, who spoke on condition he not be named.
The White House has no record of the Coushattas or Abramoff at the May 9, 2001, meeting, spokeswoman Erin Healy said. Records show representatives from the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas and the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana met with Bush, along with 21 state legislators, Healy said.
Officials for the Kickapoo and Chitimacha tribes didn't return calls seeking comment.
Bryant Rogers, an attorney for the Choctaws, said e-mails initially sent to the Choctaw tribe did not mention a White House meeting. Instead, Abramoff solicited the contribution as support for the ongoing anti-tax efforts of Americans for Tax Reform.
``The Choctaws contributed $25,000, viewing this as support for a general series of anti-tax meetings that (Americans for Tax Reform) had routinely sponsored. However, neither Chief Martin nor any other tribal representative was present at any of these meetings on May 9, and in particular didn't go to the White House meeting,'' Rogers said.
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Post by Marks - the Earth's Sun on Jul 10, 2005 16:28:40 GMT -5
Now with all this said... What are your opinions on the Navajo Nation getting into the gaming industry? I for one am totally against this venture. I think that it is a lazy and costly venture. Costly in the terms of loss of traditions, culture, language, and society. There are so many things that the tribe can pursue for revenue. What is your opinion?
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Post by Marks - the Earth's Sun on Jul 10, 2005 16:29:12 GMT -5
I am siding with the opposition on this matter...
Opposition hopes to halt $2B operation By Ryan Hall, The Daily Times Jun 16, 2005, 11:04 pm
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SHIPROCK — Several organizations concerned about the pollution that would be generated by a proposed $2 billion coal-burning power plant in Nenahnezad will stage a rally Saturday in Shiprock to protest the construction of the plant. The Dooda Desert Rock Energy Plant Rally will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Nizhoni Park. Dooda is the Navajo word for “no.” Sarah White of the Diné Citizens Against Ruining our Environment (CARE) said the goal of the rally is to present information about the power plant and air quality while promoting fellowship. “It’s mainly for people to have some fun and get some information,” White said Wednesday via phone. That information includes the proposed power plant’s effects on the land, air, health and children, according to a release issued by rally organizers. The goal is to begin building the 1,500 megawatt plant by the end of next year, with it being completed and online by 2010, according to developers. The rally is sponsored by the Dooda Desert Rock Power Plant Committee, an affiliate of Diné CARE in cooperation with San Juan Citizens Alliance of Aztec and Durango, and will feature speakers, music, food and Navajo storyteller Sunny Dooley. “We couldn’t have done it by ourselves,” White said in praising the combined efforts of the groups to organize the event. According to a release by Diné CARE, the group is opposed to the proposed plant because there are already two coal-burning power plants between Farmington and Shiprock, where the proposed Desert Rock plant would be built. The release notes that the two existing plants “spew out tons of pollution that is harmful to our health.” The group argues that additional pollution, no matter how minimal, is not needed after years of emission reductions. Frank Maisano, a representative of the Washington, DC, law firm representing the plant’s developer Sithe Global, said the various groups opposed to the plant are “fundamentally misrepresenting” the benefits and environmental safety of the plant. He said the plant would bring a number of jobs to the Nation and would increase emissions by approximately 10 percent of the amount from the two existing plants, which have been reduced in the last 10 years. “This will be the state of the art facility that will set the bar at a new level for coal-burning plants,” Maisano said. Dirk Straussfeld, vice president of operations in Houston for Sithe Global, agreed the added emissions from the Desert Rock plant will be minimal. “The message is everything is getting worse and that’s inaccurate,” Straussfeld said. He pointed out a graph developed by the Environmental Protection Agency showing total emissions from the Four Corners Power Plant and PNM San Juan Generating Stations have dropped from just over 70,000 tons in 1995 to a projected amount of just over 30,000 tons in 2010 with the Desert Rock plant included. Without the Desert Rock plant, projections show approximately 28,000 tons of emissions in 2010. “Everyone can have different opinions but we want to get the facts on the table,” Straussfeld said. White said regardless of how environmentally friendly the plant is or how many jobs may be gained, the Navajo people and residents throughout San Juan County are, and should be, concerned. “We are the people that live in the area, we have family, we have kids, we have grandkids. Even the baby that’s going to be born tonight is at risk,” White said. “We’re better off with no power plant at all. Is it worth it to put your life on the line for a few jobs?” She noted that while Navajo people need more jobs, any new employment opportunities should be environmentally friendly and not pollution producing. “These people are talking money, we’re talking about life, about clean air, about our health,” White said, using her four sons as an example. “They need high paying jobs, but not at the sake of somebody’s health.” She added the argument that the plant will bring revenue to help solve the shortfall in the Navajo Nation budget, along with new jobs, is off base. White said the two power plants currently in operation between Shiprock and Farmington, along with numerous oil fields, have not eliminated the debt of the tribe or offered full employment for Diné people. She said she has heard the developer and DPA talk about money for the nation, but without full Navajo ownership and control, the revenue isn’t worth the potential risk. Straussfeld said the ownership of the plant would be divided among Sithe Global, the Navajo Nation and off-takers, or customers. The off-takers will own approximately 50 percent of the plant while the Navajo Nation and Sithe will split the other 50 percent with Sithe taking a bigger cut, according to Straussfeld. Additionally, if the plant is constructed, the power produced at the plant likely wouldn’t be available on the reservation as it is to be sold to Phoenix, Las Vegas and other locations throughout the Southwest. The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA), which supplies power to the reservation, buys its electricity from Tucson Electric Power. They have previously said they will continue to buy power from the cheapest source. The NTUA will not have a stake in the Desert Rock Energy Plant and is separate from the DPA.
Ryan Hall: rhall@daily-times.com
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Post by Marks - the Earth's Sun on Jul 10, 2005 16:29:47 GMT -5
I hope someone reads this. I was angered and saddened by this article. please take the time and read this...
Major Reservations Nationwide, voters are being asked to support gambling as a way to save impoverished Indian tribes. What they're not being told is why so many Native Americans oppose it.
By Candi Cushman
S ome call it America’s Third World, this forgotten land of strange, mythic rock formations that jut dramatically from the ground, where towering red cliffs are interspersed with dilapidated wooden shacks, occasional tepees and lonely trailers. It seems such a strange contrast — this abject poverty in the midst of majestic creation, with its telltale signs of a culture in decline: bright yellow “don’t drink, don’t drive” signs and tiny white crosses marking drunken-driving accidents dotting the highway every few miles.
Welcome to the Navajo Nation, an enchanting yet tragic land, whose 298,000 tribe members — more than half spread over a 17-million-acre land mass roughly the size of West Virginia — have struggled for centuries to overcome poverty, addiction and fragmented families. But now some people say they have found the Navajos’ salvation: casinos.
“More senior citizens get quality health care, more children can afford a college education . . . and every Indian tribe has equal opportunity,” promised pro-gambling commercials that accosted Arizona television viewers this spring. Against a backdrop of sunny-faced Native American children, plaintive elderly men and young families, the ad urged voters to support efforts to expand gambling over the next two decades because “our future demands nothing less.”
Similar emotional, quick-money pitches intended to guilt-trip communities into approving Indian casinos have successfully spread through Louisiana, California and New York in recent years. But those behind this latest advertising blitz have neglected to mention an important fact: The majority of voters in the Navajo Nation — America’s largest Indian tribe, covering New Mexico, Arizona and Utah — oppose gambling. So much so, they voted it down twice.
During a trip across the Southwest, Citizen met these voters — an array of Native Americans that includes housewives, tribal leaders and former medicine men — who believe gambling will destroy, not save, their people.
Beware The Gambler
It’s 10 a.m. on Friday, and 88 Navajo Council delegates have assembled at the tribe’s Capitol in Window Rock, Ariz. — named for a huge sandstone rock that, like a giant peephole into the sky, is punctured with a perfectly eroded circle. Beside the rock sits the Navajo Council Chamber, a round stone fort.
Inside, Delegate Edison Wauneka, chairman of the Navajo Public Safety Committee, complains that casino ads give Native Americans a one-sided view of gambling: “What we don’t get is the other side, the dark side — what’s happening to the families, people addicted to it, the children. The government is not making that known to the people; they are trying to cover that up.”
While gambling advocates promise new jobs and better health care at the expense of rich white tourists, Wauneka sees a different reality. He sees it in the lines of elderly Navajos with Social Security checks in their pockets and single moms hoping for extra rent money who greet off-reservation casino buses at dawn. He sees it in the faces of Indian children confiscated by social services whose mothers left them to play the slots. And he sees it in the fathers addicted to gambling who have started trickling into the tribe’s addiction-recovery offices.
Add to that the scourge of alcoholism — as evidenced by the victims of alcohol-related accidents featured weekly in the Navajo Times’ obituary section. According to a study released last December by New York’s University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions, problem drinkers are 23 times more likely to have a gambling problem. The study also found that pathological gambling is “significantly higher among minorities and lower-income individuals,” which doesn’t bode well for Navajos, since at least 50 percent of them depend on welfare.
What American people don’t understand, explains Milton Shirleson — a one-time Navajo medicine man turned Christian pastor — is the devastation wrought by introducing gambling into a society already crippled by alcoholism and poverty. Decades of welfare dependency and addiction have steadily ravaged his people, and now Shirleson fears gambling will strike the final blow.
“A lot of our Navajo people go to the border casinos, and they mix that with alcohol,” Shirleson says. “The husband gambles his money away, comes home, the money is tight, there’s an argument and the guy goes drinking and domestic violence increases. . . . It’s increasing because gambling is so accessible.”
Standing beside a wooden church sign depicting an open Bible and the verse “The truth will set you free,” Shirleson says he has counseled roughly 150 Indian families hurt by gambling addictions: “The first monster I call alcoholism has swept our people. Now there is a second monster our government is trying to release — gambling.”
Long before the advent of casinos, he says, ancient Navajo folklore warned of this new monster. Elderly Navajos still tell stories about a mysterious character called The Gambler who tricked Navajo people out of everything they owned and made them slaves until the people overcame him and shot him to heaven on a rocket. To this day, the story goes, The Gambler bides his time in heaven, waiting for an opportune moment to exact revenge.
Though their tribe has traditionally outlawed on-site gambling, it seems the specter has indeed returned to haunt the Navajos — in the form of U.S. governors offering tempting bargains and peer pressure created by other tribes joining the bandwagon.
This spring, Arizona Gov. Jane Dee Hull pushed for legislative approval of a compact allowing unprecedented gambling expansion in exchange for more state regulation and an estimated $83 million state share in casino profits — despite a federal judge’s ruling that governors don’t have the power to bind the state in tribal gambling deals. After their proposal failed, Hull and leaders from 17 tribes joined forces to get the compact on the November ballot.
Feeling the pressure, Navajo leaders signed an ordinance last October allowing individual tribe chapters (political entities similar to states) to seek exemption from tribal gambling prohibitions — even though thousands of Navajos like Shirleson voted down casinos during reservation-wide referendums in 1994 and 1997. So far, leaders of at least three chapters have requested exemptions, spurring fears that gambling will spread across the reservation.
“It’s already been a problem with all the casinos surrounding the area,” says 57-year-old Jerry Gohns, a member of To’hajiilee, the first Navajo chapter allowed an exemption. Of the eight employees Gohns oversees as transportation director at the chapter high school, “seven are going [gambling],” he says. “When they get paid, the following week they ask to borrow money — even just three dollars. That’s how bad it is.”
Empty Promises
A few miles away, one of the nation’s oldest Indian pueblos, Laguna, offers ominous foreshadowing of where the Navajos could be headed. Like the Navajo Nation, Laguna once forbade gambling and alcohol; but now the pueblo, a rustic collection of adobe homes and ranches near Albuquerque, N.M., has two new casinos and a grocery aisle full of beer and wine.
“We stood against gambling for the longest time,” says Richard Delores, a Laguna native whose grandfather was a tribal high priest. “I can remember saying, ‘This tribe will never give in to gaming; this tribe will stand.’
“But little by little, some of the old folks died out and some younger ones came into political positions, and the foundation crumbled.”
An obnoxious gold-shaped dome that seems an affront to the serene red cliffs behind it, the Laguna-owned Dancing Eagle Casino uses a gleaming white Nissan draped with a “Win Me” banner to attract customers. You can only win the car by betting, Delores says, as he waves to a cousin driving a casino bus and then greets a man gambling inside who works for the tribe’s housing department. The man is surrounded by other Native Americans sitting in a dark, smoke-filled room, spellbound by multi-colored slot machines. The only visible Caucasians are two truck drivers and a retired couple.
Just down the road is the pueblo’s other casino, The Laguna Travel Center, where fields of red dirt are being cleared for 1,000 slot machines, a golf course and RV parking lots. Despite the construction, a hastily erected box-like structure tempts locals with 95 slot machines. Inside, an elderly Navajo couple with sunken eyes and withered faces confess they come here often because “our nation doesn’t allow it.”
“We never win,” admits the wife, with quiet resignation. But before she can reveal how much they’ve lost that day, a security guard escorts Citizen outside for asking too many questions.
Yet statistics reveal what casinos work so hard to hide. Like the fact that most nonmetropolitan gambling operations draw most of their customers from a 35- to 55-mile radius, according to the U.S. Gambling Study conducted by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “When you have that kind of impact, you are not bringing in new dollars. You are drawing out money from local enterprises,” says the study’s director, Robert Goodman.
And even though casinos lure locals, the profits have yet to translate into big bucks for Laguna tribe members, says Delores, who was offered a job at the casino for $6 an hour — half of what he makes as a pesticide man. Meanwhile, some of the community benefits promised by gambling promoters — like more prison space — have yet to materialize two years into the casino’s operation.
Delores, who gets inside access to spray both casinos, is also bothered by the fact that he never sees Indian managers. “They said they would train people . . . but when a nontribal person comes in with skills and money, he gets the top position.”
His observations are on target: The National Indian Gaming Association told Citizen that of the 300,000 jobs provided by 321 Indian gambling operations nationwide, 75 percent are held by non-Indians.
And though Indian gambling has skyrocketed since 1990, “the vast majority of American Indians . . . have not realized the early ‘high hopes’ of the casino boom,” according to an Associated Press computer analysis of unemployment, poverty and public-assistance records released in September 2000.
One of the only studies of its kind, the analysis found that unemployment on reservations stayed at about 54 percent between 1991 and 1997 despite the casino boom. “Overall, the new [casino] jobs have not reduced unemployment for Indians,” concluded the report, adding that only casinos near major cities have thrived while “most others have little left after paying the bills.”
‘Poison coming in’
None of this surprises Delores. “You always heard at village meetings, ‘It’s good money; look at all the money we are going to be getting from truck drivers and tourists,’ ” he says. “But in my heart I knew this was poison coming in.”
And now he sees that poison in the faces of friends and neighbors — like the Laguna family living in a tiny brick and clay home tucked behind a windswept mesa. The mother, Cindy, stands at the kitchen window, gazing blankly at dust devils swirling outside. A physical therapist who works at the local hospital and supports three teenage daughters, she is obviously an intelligent woman. But Cindy can’t figure out how to help her husband overcome his gambling addiction.
“I’ve tried everything; I’ve tried taking him to court . . . I’ve given him so many chances,” she says. The final straw came a few nights ago when her husband lost yet another paycheck at the casino. They fought — hard — and Cindy decided to give up.
“I’m filing for divorce this week,” she says, pointing out the window toward the Laguna Travel Center. “He just goes right down the road here. What they say is true; gambling breaks up families. He’s lost all respect from the kids, and I lost all trust in him.”
Outside, her husband, who declines to give his first name, is equally dejected. “I’ve got a good wife, healthy children, and they don’t respect me anymore,” he says, staring at the ground. “I can’t describe it; it hurts too much.”
It all started the night four years ago he won $5,000 at a casino. “It seems like after that I just can’t quit. . . . I just blame myself,” he says, never looking up as he rakes the yard with angry, jerking motions. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m not the same person anymore. The problem is, I know my paycheck’s going to be there the next week.”
A few feeble-minded addicts like this shouldn’t be allowed to spoil gambling benefits for the whole tribe, argue casino backers who justify their profit-from-the-weakest philosophy by promising funding for addiction-recovery programs.
But gambling’s social costs far outweigh any economic benefit, according to Navajo financial analyst Richard Kontz. While working for the Navajo Economic Development Division in 1997, he examined proposals for 10 on-site casinos and concluded they were a raw deal.
“They said they would create 3,000 jobs. But when you consider that unemployment is anywhere from 46 to 50 percent, to create 3,000 jobs from gambling would only reduce that rate by 1 percent. And yet think of all the headaches we would bring on — increased alcoholism, increased domestic abuse, increased child neglect. All those increased social problems and the cost of dealing with addicts — it doesn’t balance out.”
So why are government officials and tribe leaders still promoting it?
“It’s not glamorous to say, ‘I created 10 jobs in Pothole, New Mexico,’ ” explains Kontz. “It’s easier for them to say, ‘Hey, I created a $20 million casino.’ It’s a big, glitzy thing for them to point to as opposed to 10 jobs at 15 different businesses throughout the reservation — but that’s what the Navajo people need.”
An Unlikely Alliance
It’s 11 a.m., and seated around a table at the Navajo Nation Inn restaurant, one of the reservation’s only privately owned businesses, are a Navajo mom, the wife of a former tribe president convicted of taking bribes and the financial analyst who testified against him — Kontz.
It’s an unlikely alliance forged around a common cause: opposition to gambling. “[Casinos] are making money at the expense of our souls, at the very fiber of Navajo being,” says Wanda MacDonald, who oversees a government outpatient addiction treatment center.
In addition to escalating addiction, MacDonald (wife of the convicted tribe president) fears gambling will lead to fraud.
“The [Indian] leaders where you put that casino are wide open to manipulation and corruption,” she says, explaining that most Native Americans lack the experience to run million-dollar enterprises and must seek outside help that leaves them open to temptation. “Sad to say, we are just human beings, and it happens. It just gives someone else in the world a big profit . . . and it doesn’t feed back into the community.”
As a result, MacDonald and Kontz — the activist odd couple — have teamed up to spread the word about how gambling hurts their tribe.
Joining them is Karen Schell, a petite, soft-spoken Navajo mother of three, who heard Kontz speak at her church. “I thought, ‘How can I get involved, do it at home and still get out information?’ ”
Then she met a missionary with a button maker. “Me and the kids made buttons up that said ‘Dooda’ [the Navajo word for ‘no’] gaming,’ ” she says. “We had big envelopes and we stuffed about 20 in each of them and sent them to churches with a letter. . . . It said that as Christian Navajos they needed to know how gaming would affect our reservation.”
Other activists, including Navajo lawyers and ministers, have joined Kontz and company, distributing fliers at reservation hearings, pitching in to pay for radio ads and holding community rallies near the Capitol. But with more pressure coming from Gov. Hull and some of their own tribe leaders, they wonder how much longer they can keep the monster at bay.
“To me it’s a spiritual battle, and Satan is not going to quit,” says Kontz. “He wants to destroy families, and he’s going to keep coming from every angle — whether it be alcohol or gambling.”
Back at the Navajo Council Chamber, Wauneka and his colleagues are discussing the same issue. Ironically, Wauneka sits beneath a mural of Indians industriously planting corn and hunting as he warns that parasitic casinos feeding off low-income families only deepen Navajo dependency on welfare. Then he refers back to The Gambler: “The prophecy was that he’ll be back. So a lot of people say, ‘What’s the use of trying to go against it?’
“But I look at it differently. If we fight against it, if we unite to oppose gaming, I don’t care if this is the prophecy or legend.
“The people can prevail.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article appeared in Citizen magazine. Copyright © 2002 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.
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Post by Marks - the Earth's Sun on Jul 23, 2005 0:17:26 GMT -5
-------------------- Self-sufficiency, windfall driving Indian casino attempts -------------------- By JOE DANBORN Associated Press Writer July 7, 2005, 7:14 PM EDT COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Oklahoma-based American Indian tribes are leaning on 200-year-old treaties to regain land in Ohio for more modern motives: Money. The Eastern Shawnee tribe sued the state last week, demanding title to 146 square miles of western Ohio along with back taxes and other money the state has made since acquiring it. The suit also seeks hunting rights on another 11,315 square miles. In announcing the suit, members of the tribe spoke about traditional songs lamenting their removal from Ohio in 1831 and promising a return. The Eastern Shawnee readily acknowledge, however, that they'll settle for a piece of land worth building a casino on. "The land is very sacred," Chief Charles Enyart said. "We're also business people." Observers say land claims such as those by the Eastern Shawnee and the swelling revenue of Indian gaming are results of Congress' decision 17 years ago to condone and start regulating the tribal gambling, coupled with increased pressure on tribes to be self-sufficient. Gradually shrinking federal budget allotments are pushing tribes that might have resisted gaming for cultural or other reasons to rethink it, experts and tribe members said. The Bureau of Indian Affairs doesn't track overall federal funding of tribes because the money comes through different agencies. But there's no mistaking the notion that tribes will have to generate more money, tribal members said. "That's forcing them to look at casinos and other economic opportunities that, quite frankly, never would've been considered 10 years ago," said Larry Divine, who serves on the history and culture committees for the Wyandotte nation of Oklahoma. With their remote locations and lack of a substantial tax base, though, many Indian nations have little alternative, said Rob Porter, a Syracuse University law professor and expert in Indian land claims. "Some of these very small tribes with no resources of their own, they're put in a position of, 'Why wouldn't you?"' Porter said. "I mean, I don't think anybody can be faulted for trying to improve their economic condition." It's not just gambling. Also last week, the Ottawa tribe of Oklahoma sued for rights to part of an Ohio-owned island in Lake Erie in a bid to start a small commercial fishing operation. "We feel that this is an opportunity for us to re-establish our roots and to establish economic development in that area," said Larry Angelo, an Ottawa tribal historian and descendant of chief Pontiac. And the Navajo nation has significant energy-production companies in the Southwest. But gambling is the richest, most realistic option for most tribes. The National Indian Gaming Commission will release figures later this month in line with industry estimates of $19 billion in revenue from last year, up from $100 million a year in 1988, said Shawn Pensoneau, a commission spokesman. Last month in New York, the Shinnecock tribe filed a claim to 3,600 acres on Long Island as part of its bid to open a casino near the Hamptons. That filing came days before a federal appeals court overturned a $248 million award to the Cayuga tribe of New York as compensation for land taken in treaties. Attempts to put resort-style casinos in the Catskills and near Denver and Oakland, Calif., drew the ire of Republican John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. At a hearing last week, McCain criticized the spread of Nevada-style operations run by tribes outside their reservations. Indian gaming began to grow from its bingo-parlor origins thanks to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, said Mason Morriset, a Seattle lawyer who specializes in Indian land claims and represents the Eastern Shawnee in their Ohio case. The act instilled rigid oversight controls, namely by creating the gaming commission, but it also opened the door for large-scale projects in certain circumstances. It just took time for tribes to take advantage of it, Morriset said. "It took a while for people to sort of realize what was possible," he said. Much of the gaming wealth goes to the few tribes with the biggest operations, namely those close to large cities. Still, the mega-success of resorts like the Mashantucket Pequot's Foxwoods Resort Casino and the Mohegan tribe's Mohegan Sun, both of which opened in Connecticut in the 1990s, showed smaller tribes the potential, Morriset said. Now, he said, "They see places where there is no gaming, where they have a market, and they have a legitimate claim and they want to try it." ___P> On the Net: easternshawnee.org www.eighttribes.org/ottawa www.nigc.gov/nigc/index2.jsp www.indiangaming.org Copyright (c) 2005, The Associated Press
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zero
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Posts: 5
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Post by zero on Mar 24, 2006 18:03:12 GMT -5
i like to gamble, 21 is my game, i up for casinos on the rez. rather put my money into the nation then any other nation.
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Post by Marks - the Earth's Sun on Apr 29, 2007 12:48:20 GMT -5
But why put that so close to home... why put it so close to people who dont know how to handle their gambling? who would neglect their children more than they already do? Imagine what other social diseases will come of this...
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