This is from the comments section of this POST, but I thought I would move it forward out of respect for Tamra and her site NDNnews . Tamra patiently explains to Victor Rocha's lackey the difference between a casino tribe sponsored website/casino Indian website (of which, Victor is one, making $36,000 per month in per capita, now that Pechanga terminated 25% of its tribe)
Here's Tamra's Takedown (emphasis mine):
Rob,
My website IS a NDN news source and has been for many years. I am not a main stream site, like ICT or Indianz, nor would I want to be. I would also like to point out, in case it was over looked, that ICT and Indianz are operated by casino tribes. And furthermore, ICT is owned by the Oneida Nation, INC. another Tribe that has disenrolled hundreds of their members.
So, they certainly have the man power and funding to have top of the line sites, posting hundreds of items each day and considered the news "source." I would too if I made $20K+ a month or more, with all that casino money. I too could have a staff and spend all my time posting articles. However, I am GRASS ROOTS, I am not a casino ndn, I work full time, I have two grassroots organizations and run NDN News.
I actually pro actively work on issues in NDN Country! I run NDN News by myself, its mine, I do not have a staff or answer to anyone. The things that I do, including NDN News, I do to help and FOR the people. My focus is to help spread the word about on going issues in NDN Country, my listserv has thousands of people of it, I know they appreciate the info I get out there. Seems to me, you are on that list, if I remember correctly, or were at one time.
I am not a journalist, I am a activist and I work FOR the people. I don't just post articles and be done with it. I spend all my time directly working on issues, I am on the ground, hands on, making phone calls, attending hearings, initiating writing campaigns, fighting against racism, protection of sacred sites and burial grounds, assistance programs for rez's in need (helping elders and children), fighting fema for the toxic trailers they dumped in ndn country after all these disasters, the list is endless of the issues that I am, and have been, involved with.....including Tribal Disenrollent!
I have worked on this issue for many, many years now, been at more than one protest gathering in So. Ca., for this issue and supported ALL of the victims of today's genocide, Tribal Disenrollment. And, will continue to do so! Seems to me, that alot of people have forgotten where they came from, what all of our ancestors gave or should I say, had stolen from them. Maybe if people stopped absorbing themselves into today's society of materialistic greed, they would remember their roots. Being NDN is not having fancy cars, fancy houses, fancy clothes, club med memberships........being NDN is, culture, ceremonies, honoring your ancestors, traditions, being humble and helping the people.
Remember the days, many years ago, before the big casino's, when all of these people were very much apart of the Tribe. There is NO excuse for the rude, vulgar statements and behavior that have been made to us. I don't care if we agree on the issue or not, there is absolutely no excuse or reason to be this disrespectful and crude. Wouldn't it be more productive to respond with a intelligent, educational response, take a stand on your own side. But instead, you both personally attack and disrespect women........proof in the making on what you stand for.
Tamra spells it out PERFECTLY. PLEASE, visit Tamra's site at http://www.ndnnews.com/ and hit her sponsors. She needs our support right now and for you disenrolled, terminated, abused and moratorium people, you have been the benficiary of hers.
15 comments:
Bravo Tamra you are quite a Lady,your point of views are smart, intelligent and informativly written without being crude and profane. Victor Rocha could learn a lesson from you.
I've noticed that Marc has to try and post the only simi-intelligent comments from the CPP. Victor, along with the rest of apple pie indian wanna b's in the CPP can't say more than one or two words. Blah, Blah, Blah!
Oh ya,
We aint goin no where!
So get over it.
Tamra....Been reading NDN NEWS for the past 45 minutes...very good blog...I'VE READ NEWS I NEVER SAH in Pechanga.net, good reading,stories are well written, learned some new things...thanks.
NDNnews is not just a blog, it's a newsletter.
Please sign up for it to keep informed.
Mr. V’s statements give further proof that money can not buy class, but it dose prove that even with it some will always be an; accentually you get the point he wont and never will. The cards of the CPP’s house are starting to fall to the floor. Remember the little ant who pushed over the rubber tree plant
NDNnews.com: 1-2 Native stories per day.
PECHANGA.net: 75-100 Native stories per day. That includes all the articles on Caledonia, the Yankton hog farm, the Longest Walk II, and other urgent Native issues. Multiple links on Native land, water, energy, environment, government, legal issues, crime, health, education, history, culture, and arts every day. Which may explain why the site gets 50,000-70,000 hits per day.
Nuff' said.
It would be helpful if Tamra told us how many hits NDNnews.com gets per day. Then we could discuss which sites Indian country relies on for its news.
I'll get things started. Here the rankings of the most popular websites from Alexa.com:
Yahoo.com: 1.
NYTimes.com: 102.
MSNBC.com: 2,305.
Indian Country Today: 221,841.
Indianz.com: 259,464.
BlueCornComics.com: 324,105.
PECHANGA.net: 395,325.
BSNorrell.blogspot.com: 1,511,083.
NativeNewsOnline.org: 3,083,555.
IndianCountryNews.com: 4,307,680.
NDNnews.com: 4,851,800.
OriginalPechanga.blogspot.com: 9,239,654.
I hope you're happy with these results, because I sure am. The only thing that would make me happier would be to see BlueCornComics.com and PECHANGA.net ranked higher than Indian Country Today and Indianz.com. But we all need goals to strive for.
Any questions about where most Indians go for information?
It's cute how you use words like "lackey" while complaining about how much you've been insulted. Hypocritical much?
I hope you were more civil in your hearings before the Pechanga membership committee. If you ranted the way you do in this blog, I can imagine why you lost your case.
No, there's no question, they go to Indianz.com and Indian Country Today.
How about helping some Indians out and putting a link to my blog on your blog? Send some of your readers over to see if they are interested?
We are not a broadbrushed blog, mainly focused on the despicable acts that Pechanga did to their own people, as well as other tribes like Picayune, Redding, Enterprise.
We were civil, so much so, that Pechanga Tribal Council members WEPT with sorrow at what they did to us.
So much so that the SECURITY GUARDS who were there to protect the Tribal Council from us, WEPT and HUGGED us as we left.
SO MUCH so, that Butch Murphy could not look us in the eyes in SHAME because of what he was masterminding.
So much so, that even Mark Calac got an understanding of the gravity of the situation.
Rob sure is pomous.
His statement about the actions of the Hunters in our case is just a real smart guy, that has things all figured out. We get it. You have a top notch site that gets tons of hits. Try not to hurt yourself patting your own back. He doesn't even get the issue here coruption & greed. Or he is soo smart that he knows the only argument that holds water is how great his site is. Cheer to you rob.
Rob, if you where not in that DISENROLLMENT COMMITTEE hearing and you did not see the evidence they presented in that hearing, then you don't know what you are taking about and you are just blowing smoke and hearsay from you'r boss. It seems to me that you are kissing Victor Rocha's ass by talking shit about the Ex tribal members - who by the way had all the proof as to who they are - real Temecula Indians FROM THE PECHANGA TRIBE. So all you are doing is, quoting lies and protecting your meal ticket.
I think Rob may be feeling a little picked on so he lashes out at us.
He, to his credit on his blog, was trying to get more balanced reporting on the disenrollment issue but what he doesn't seem to see is that there really is no credible evidence for the other side of the issue, the pro disenrollment side.
So far, the only responses in favor of disenrollment has been the "fluff" press releases by the tribe spouting sovereignty and his pal Victor R's rants against Indian women who brought up some good points, plus an occasional pro disenrollment poster popping in to take cheap shots at us.
I, like Rob, would welcome any intelligent argument against our position but unlike Rob I don't expect to get someone to challenge us on the facts as I feel we can refute any such arguments and deep down our opponents know it.
Rob, do you realize that in every instance when we have tried to get redress for our grivences in outside courts that the judges have all said our cases have merit but so far they lack jurisdiction to do anything about it and that the pro disenrollment side's only so called "argument" has been parroting the sovereignty line.
I was hoping, when I saw that Victor R had responded to an E mail he received against what has happened to us, that he was going to make some sort of argument in support of the tribe's actions but all we got was his profanity.
I think that in itself says a lot and I am still waiting for someone to challenge us on the facts but I don't see it happening anytime soon.
But the disenrollment issue is not the only issue where Pechanga has done the wrong thing.
They got the land that the golf course is now on put into the trust by telling the federal government that they were not going to do any development on that property, that they wanted to keep it in its natural state to protect culturally significant reources.
As I said in another post, what cultural resources, golf?
Reportedly, tribal chairman Mark Macarro gave a congressional committee just such assurances of no development of any kind.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_casino24.3135a70.html
The above link is to a Press Enterprise story about the Soboba tribe's plans to annex land in the San Jacinto area.
A side issue in the story is how other tribes, in this case Pechanga, have said one thing to get land into trust and than did another once they got the land.
Note Pechanga general council John Macarro's, Mark's brother, response below about being able to do anything they want with the land once it is put into trust.
Pechanga's General Counsel John Macarro, wrote, "Once the land is placed in trust, a tribe has complete zoning and planning authority over it and can change land uses just as a county or city can change or update its general plan or zoning designations."
Re "there's no question, they go to Indianz.com and Indian Country Today": They go to Indianz.com, Indian Country Today, and PECHANGA.net and not to NDNnews or this blog, you mean. For news about Indian gaming and disenrollment issues, I believe they go to PECHANGA.net first.
Re "Rob, if you where not in that DISENROLLMENT COMMITTEE hearing and you did not see the evidence they presented in that hearing, then you don't know what you are taking about": Are you people incapable of reading plain English? I said I hoped you were more civil than you are in this blog. That isn't a statement of fact, it's a wish. I don't have to know what transpired in the hearings to express a hope about how you acted.
As for the golf course, I've seen it. Pechanga did take steps to preserve the site's natural and cultural resources while developing the course. More people can experience the natural and cultural resources than they could when the site was wilderness.
More to the point, I haven't seen any evidence that the land taken into trust was the same parcel of land made into the golf course. Mark Macarro's testimony in Congress doesn't address this point. So show me the evidence and make sure it's unequivocal.
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