OP: The FRESNO BEE has an editorial on the greed at Chukchansi that has seen the demise of 70% of their tribe. There will be two follow up posts.
According to Buddha, "There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed."
A torrent of greed is ripping apart the Chukchansi tribe, which owns a Las Vegas-style casino and resort below Yosemite National Park.
OP:THIS IS NOT NEW, THIS has been a decade in the making.
Three factions have claimed to be the rightful tribal council in little more than a year. There has been a riot that required law-enforcement intervention. There have been continuing disenrollments. And, in fact, the situation is so messy that bankers stepped in and froze a $12 million account.
Profits from Indian gaming are supposed to lift up tribal members, many of who are impoverished. The money flowing from table games, slots, hotels and concerts should go for education, health care and investments in other businesses.
But the focus among some Chukchansi has been on getting as rich as possible and as quickly as possible -- even if it means casting others aside. And profits meant to help tribe members are being diverted to lawyers for legal battles.
The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs bears responsibility in these contentious events. Its hands-off policy allowed a feud to snowball into dysfunction. OP: AND VIOLENCE
Finally, last month, Troy Burdick, the Central California superintendent for the bureau, offered mediation. Tribal leaders should take up his offer because it is abundantly clear that they are incapable of working out things on their own. OP: Burdick is ineffective and unwilling to make a hard decision: THE CASINO MUST BE SHUT DOWN. Does the BIA WANT the destruction of Indians.
Most of the tourists and Valley residents who flock to the casino don't concern themselves with tribal matters. They just want to know that their chips will be cashed, the food will be good and there will be clean sheets on the beds.
But with the federal government and Gov. Jerry Brown approving the North Fork Mono Indians' proposed casino along Highway 99 in Madera County, the Chukchansi better soon get their house in order.
It's possible, perhaps even probable, that the specter of a rival casino is driving one or more of the Chukchansi factions. They see the handwriting on the wall, and want to split the spoils with as few as possible.
This is, more than anything else, a classic case of greed. Question is, can it be cured?
Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/04/02/3240794/editorial-greed-could-bring-the.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy
Read MORE about the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians
Congressional Field Hearings on this problem before it get worse.
ReplyDeletewe have tried to implement congressional hearings on numerous occassions in the past by approaching many, many congressional people with our issues...
ReplyDeletehere in california, both senators boxer and feinstein have been presented detailed information on the horrific tribal, civil, and human rights violations against indian people occurring within countless gaming tribes to no avail...i have been in both senators boxer and feinstein's fresno field offices, written letters, and to this day send virtually every newspaper article written on the situation at picayune to both of their offices with no response....
also, senators boxer and feinstein have been implored to back the california indian legacy (and justice) act penned by laura wass as far back as 2007, which also would have placed sanctions on tribes violating their peoples rights through dismemberment and nonrecongnition, remedied those who had been previously violated, and prevented the violations of THOUSANDS MORE who have been affected in the past six years since the senators were approached--both senators boxer and feinstein declined to back this...
and these senators aren't the only ones refusing to act to protect our people...the senate committee on indian affairs, the department of justice, countless senators and congressional representatives, native american rights fund, national congress of american indians, even president obama himself have been begged to intervene with NO-ONE coming to the aide of the thousands of elders and future generations that are violated by corrupt and greedy tribal governments each day...
!!!shame to ALL of you!!!
That's because the Chairmen and lawyers like Howard Dickstein buddy up to the politicians and organizations by giving campaign funds or donating huge amounts of money to their groups and then they do a bunch of what they call native blessings trying to make themselves look as Indigenous and caring as possible. That way everyone believes them and never questions their treatment of their own people, they believe the lies or the reasons that the chairmen and kronies handout. I've heard that Howard Dickstein is trying to befriend the President, who knows he might already have his hand in the kitty, and with all of the lawsuits against Dickstein, I can hear the words Presidential Pardon cross his mind, just in case he gets caught for all of the evil he caused.
ReplyDeleteThere is no need for a Presidential pardon. The tribes have approval from state, federal and local governments to take the rights away from Natives.
ReplyDeleteAnd then you can't even get your neighbor to help you....