ICT - Opinion - Columnists

Rice: Nothing scary in a Carcieri fix

Recent newspaper reports suggest that there is concern in Rhode Island, and perhaps elsewhere, that a Carcieri fix to the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 will allow tribes to acquire trust land wherever they choose, resulting in tribes building Indian casinos willy-nilly outside their reservations and without appropriate input from the state. These reports appear designed to create unjustified fears of an Indian gaming boogey man hiding in a closet of the Carcieri fix.

Mause and Moorehead: Climate change indecision can be costly

This year began with congressional and presidential commitments to addressing global warming. At the same time, those Indian tribes with energy resources continued to consider energy development as an economic development strategy. All tribes, whether energy producers or not, will be affected by proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

LaDuke: A shot at true self-determination

We have a shot at being self-determining or we can be the victims. This is a time of tumultuous change, economic downturns, accelerating climate destabilization and the depletion of oil supplies, meaning loss of access to cheap petroleum. If we don’t act, we will be caught in a very difficult place as indigenous peoples.

Trahant: Indian country as the 51st state – and short topics

I’ve written a post for Kaiser Health News that advances the meeting with tribes and President Barack Obama Nov. 5. I’ll write something again after the meeting and post it here late Thursday.

Bordeaux: The time for action is now!

The Sioux Nation has prepaid for our health care. In our treaties, our Indian nations ceded millions of acres of land; land that America now calls home. In exchange, we preserved our Indian reservations as permanent tribal homelands, under tribal self-government, and secured the United States’ pledge of health care, education and assistance to make our reservations livable homelands.

Marketplace insights

The Native American workplace is often identified as having a very casual work atmosphere. For most Native businesses and organizations, dress requirements and workplace etiquette are not strongly enforced.

Wildcat: The climate is changing. … and it better

In a little less than three weeks, from Nov. 18 – 21, at the Mystic Lake Casino and Resort of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux, Winona LaDuke and I will convene the second Native Peoples Native Homelands Workshop. Only 11 years ago, in the fall of 1998, the first Native Peoples Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop was convened in Albuquerque as the first U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change was being developed.

Trahant: The debate that drags on and on

How long will the health care reform debate drag on? The Hill newspaper says “deep into December and possibly beyond by a lengthy floor debate.”

Cristobal: Decolonizing is pueblos’ first step

On Aug. 10, 2008, we honored the Ohkay Owingeh (formerly San Juan Pueblo) leader Pope who led the Pueblo Indian Revolt, which took place Aug. 10, 1680. It was not simply a revolt as portrayed in New Mexico’s colonial history, but the only successful indigenous revolution against the powerful sovereign of Spain, and long before the American Revolution of 1775 – 1783.

Newcomb: The smoking gun

We now have conclusive evidence: In a legal brief filed in the case Tee Hit Ton, the United States government traced the origin of Indian title in U.S. law to the ideology that discovering Christian sovereigns had the right to take over and acquire the lands of “heathens and infidels.”