Chapter 26: The Need for Change

I believe in the equality of man;
and I believe that religious duties
consist in doing justice, loving mercy,
and endeavoring to make
our fellow-creatures happy.

THE AGE OF REASON
Thomas Paine [1737-1809]

The finest thing we can do is to uplift mankind. Americans should not be skin-heads or brutes, we are responsible for our acts, and we are our brother’s keeper. Our religious and ethical principles say it, and both Moses and Christ did it. It is a worthy thing to do justice, and we can follow in the footsteps of heroes like Martin Luther King, Jr. That means more than just refusing to do wrong, we must confront evil and take a stand against it.
You have seen that something is terribly wrong, and I am telling you that together we can do something about it. You and I have the opportunity to do immortal works that will live long after we are forgotten as individuals. The goal of this book is to improve the underlying conditions and institutions that allowed deplorable and unjust situations to come about and not be corrected. If you join with me in this struggle, you must be prepared for opposition from people you thought were friends.
Many Americans are unwilling to question the widely accepted myths about American history and about Indian people. Society resists change, and although rebels are necessary if the world is to improve, they are never popular.
If your neighbors have doubts about supporting the Constitution, or don’t want to bother with ethics, then urge them to drive down to your local cemetery and count the headstones with a military Cross or Star of David. Those who gave their lives thought it was worth the bother. I suggest we look at history and ourselves honestly, so we can understand the problems of human nature and deal with them. It is said that the history books are written by the winners rather than the victims, but there can be no place here for the usual “feel-good” game of self-deception.
Nuremberg Trials:
Following the Second World War, the world was shocked when the horrors of the Nazi political party in Hitler’s Germany became known. Million’s of Jews, Gypsies and other minorities had been murdered. Court trials were held at Nuremberg, Germany to consider the atrocities. Certain principles were developed from this, and the world was to hear an eternal truth which could save it from repeating these horrors. We learned some things that came at the cost of millions of lives, the horror of the holocaust, the Hitler experience and World War II. Please read what follows with care. If you are not familiar with it, then learn it. If your children don’t know about it, have them memorize the words you find most important here.
In the Nuremberg trials, the U. S. prosecutor, Robert Jackson, said this during his opening statement:
“This trial represents mankind’s desperate effort to apply the discipline of the law to statesmen who have used their powers of state to attack the foundation of the world’s peace and to commit aggressions against the rights of their neighbors.”
I saved a clipping from a 1979 newspaper account in my files, and keep it with my most precious papers. It’s an article from the Christian Science Monitor, by Dr. Richard Falk, a professor of international law at Princeton. I underlined his statement, and this is what your children and mine must know:
“In essence, the idea at Nuremberg was that every person, no matter what his or her position in society, has a moral responsibility and potential legal obligation to expose and resist the crimes of the state or other organization of power.”
The article reports that the outcome at Nuremberg was unanimously endorsed by the United Nations in 1946. Dr. Falk ends the article by suggesting we turn the Nuremberg Obligation into a badge of good citizenship. The madness of destroying a People and their culture, even by non-violent means, must stop right now. These lessons must be applied here and now to ourselves and to our Indian citizens.
Good People and Dirty Work:
It is a shock when you discover that otherwise decent people sometimes will deliberately harm others, and in my thinking and research one of the best things I found on this was a writing by Everett C. Hughes, titled “Good People and Dirty Work, published in 1962 by the Society for the Study of Social Problems. His review noted that people have a lapse of memory concerning such matters, and that their minds push away thoughts that are unpleasant or that threaten the group’s image of itself. Further, we divide our world into convenient groups of “us” and “them,” and what happens to “them” is always less important than self-interest.
The situation gets out of hand when we leave the fate of “them” up to some other group or person who is immune from the checks and balances of morality and social order. If you substitute “BIA” or “Federal Government” for “group or person,” this describes the situation we are facing.
Need for Reform:
Certainly these are guilt ridden situations, but it accomplishes nothing to soak ourselves in guilt. The point is to look frankly at the horrors humans are capable of, and then rather than bury our heads in the sand, do something to prevent such crimes in the future. We must reform our institutions and require responsibility from those entrusted with government.
If you followed the news reports in the fall of 1993 about increasing the grazing fees paid by ranchers that use Federal land in the Western states, you have seen how Western Senators use their political strength. They combined forces to defeat every attempt to increase the grazing fees, in spite of all evidence that the rates are much less than the market (of supply and demand) warrants.
The low grazing fees amount to a federal subsidy paid to ranchers, at the expense of all taxpayers. The ranchers are a small minority, but they are organized and (indirectly, of course) pay the Senators for their special privilege. This is a kick-back, with taxpayer money going back into the campaign funds of the Senators. We need to defeat political dishonesty.
How nice it would be if we could just point to the “Skin-heads” or the KKK, or the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and place the blame on them for all damages to humanity. The real problem is that the majority of “nice folks” allow these things to happen. To borrow words from Walt Kelly (“Pogo”), we have met the enemy, and he is us! I know this isn’t what you want to hear, and you may have a monumental headache by now, but we allowed these problems to develop, and it is up to us to correct them. Let’s convert useless feelings of guilt and sadness into a group responsibility for reform and improvement in our systems and institutions.
I hope you will agree that right and wrong are not just a matter of opinion, or the option of whoever has the power to smother resistance. There is often a clear choice between good and evil and when that is true we must support the good and defeat the evil.
We need changes, it is up to us to decide what they are and then to apply pressure until the job is finished. Congress will dodge the problems with investigations, delays, empty promises to address the problem, and soft laws designed to be sidestepped. Patronage is something they choose not to disturb, so we can expect powerful resistance. People get killed for doing what I will propose to you. If you don’t have the guts for this or don’t like where we’re heading, I suggest you get out now. If you continue, you will have the chance to endorse or reject each proposal presented, and by that means your decision will be made known and counted.
Criminal Behavior:
One thing leads to another. My immediate concern after being fired from BIA was my own situation. In time, my increasing contacts with Indians led me to understand that their needs were greater than mine, and I included them within my search for justice. Looking at the problems within BIA and government led next to the subject of accountability, and the cause for that failure is the doctrine of sovereign immunity.
I have exposed criminal behavior within government done against ourselves, and the loss of freedom by those marked as Indian. This is vile discrimination based on race and national origin, and it can not be tolerated in a land we call free.
Three Issues:
There are three issues to be solved. Personal justice for myself and for Julie Matt, Indian recovery, and federal government reform. We will touch on each of these, offer a way to get things changed, and then ask for your help. The story is not over, and we are nearing the place where you can indicate your judgments, and leave your mark forever on the history of this nation and the world.