NN 10-American Indian Caucus

( – promoted by navajo)

Life experiences, the knowledge and wisdom obtained from them, and how it pertains to American Indian issues and Progressives were addressed at the American Indian Caucus at Netroots Nation’10. In relation to Progressives Meteor Blades sent a strong message.

“We devour our own, so readily. The right wing doesn’t do that, and why that is the case has something to do that we allow each other to disagreee with each other. We thrive on disagreement. Progress is made on disagreement, but somehow we take it beyond that.

“And I today see some of that happening despite that here we are, fifth year now for YearlyKos/Netroots Nation, at a time, at a flex time let’s say, for the future.  The split within the progressive movement over President Obama is something I think we’ve all seen elements of throughout the blogoshpere and throughout our face to face actions….

Continued below the fold

………I’m not going to take a position on any of that right now, but that’s what’s going on; and that’s a message that I hope everybody ponders carefully.  If we split, if we divide now, if we devour our own now, we could have the greatest impact for future change. We can only blame ourselves for it.” -Meteor Blades

The most effective way to share this with you is the video and transcript below the fold.   Navajo and Meteor Blades gift us with a strong message.

American Indian Caucus on Vimeo.

Navajo and Meteor Blades both talked about the Native American Rights Fund.

Navajo–“One of my next little tasks is to add the Native American Rights Fund to our link list. NARF’s practice is concentrated in five key areas: The preservation of tribal existince, the protection of tribal natural resources, the promotion of Native American human rights,  the accountability of our government to Native Americans, and the development of Indian law and educating the public about Indian rights law and issues, so that’s an important one. NARF’s practice is concentrated in five key areas: The preservation of tribal existince, the protection of tribal natural resources, the promotion of Native American human rights,  the accountability of our government to Native Americans, and the development of Indian law and educating the public about Indian rights law and issues, so that’s an important one.”

Meteor Blades—“I’ve been associated with the Native American Rights Fund in a sort of ad hoc years for forty years. This is their fortieth anniversary, and I wrote the first interview with people at the Native American Rights Fund about three months after they got going. Since then, over those forty years they’ve had personal tragedies.  Five of their members were killed in a horrible car accident almost twenty years ago. They have won some mini cases, most of them small that you would never hear of and they have lost many more cases that they have fought. They continue to battle for Indian rights through the law which can be extremely difficult, if there’s anything more complicated than water law in the United States, it’s Indian law. There’s contradiction, there’s state vs. federal,  there is contradictory decisions made by federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, it’s a morass. So, if you have extra money at some time and you’d like to contribute to an organization that I think is one of the premier ones in terms of native issues, the Native American Rights Fund They’re in Boulder, Colorado and I’m sure they’d be pleased to recieve anything that you’d like to give them”.

Emphasis and links are mine, and to note, NARF is an accredited Better Business Bureau Charity.

Navajo:

We are making a difference.

A wonderful recent development is that Sherry Cornelius, who personally delivered propane for us through her mother’s company, St. Francis Energy, on the Rosebud rez during the S. Dakota ice storm is flying to Las Vegas tomorrow. And I quote, “my purpose for this trip is so that I may be able to meet in person some of the DailyKos people and personally to be able to shake your hands and say “thank you.” So, I’m really looking forward to that, I thought that was quite amazing. Sherry now has a user id at Dkos and NAN and participates in comments now and then. We’ve made her one of us.

Sherry did make it to Las Vegas, she is the fourth one in on the left. I’ll let Navajo comment or write more on that, but many thanks were offered through her from the people of Rosebud.

Given the large number of people involved in NAN who could not afford to be at NN we decided to try to take the caucus to them. This was the first year it was livestreamed. We thirty-five total viewers, two of those were from Europe. Thanks to those who submitted comments and questions before and during the caucus.