posted on September 30, 2008 08:43:36 PM new
As it happens, I'm spending the night bunked at an actual ranch in Page Springs Arizona, about 1/4 mile from where Palin is ensconced at the McChange "ranch" to bone up for her debate Thursday. I hauled two horses up here to trade, and passed three black dark tinted Suburbans staked out on the road to Hidden Valley, where McGain's "ranch" is located. FYI, it's NOT in Sedona, where the media likes to pretend it is, but in Cornville, AZ, zip code 86325. I don't know if she can see Russia from here or not.
The guy I'm doing horse business with is Indian, and he has pointed this news out to me. Native American voters here in Arizona are hopping mad about this. Somehow, I'm not surprised.
Sarah Palin's hostile record on Tribal issues in Alaska
By Lloyd Miller and Heather Kendall Miller
News From Indian Country 9-08
Perhaps no issue is of greater importance to Alaska Native peoples as the right to hunt and fish according to ancient customary and traditional practices, and to carry on the subsistence way of life for future generations. These rights are not just a matter of custom, they are a matter of necessity in a State where Native villages are spread across a largely roadless area covering 375 million acres, and where subsistence foods are still fully 60% of the local diet.
But Governor Sarah Palin has consistently opposed those essential and fundamental rights.
As soon as Palin was sworn in as Governor she set a firm course against Native subsistence rights. One of her very first decisions was to continue litigation that seeks to overturn every subsistence fishing determination the federal government has ever made in Alaska.
The goal of Palin's law suit (now known as Alaska versus Kempthorne) is to invalidate all the subsistence fishing regulations the federal government has ever issued to protect Alaska Native fishing in navigable waters. If successful, Palin's attack would move every subsistence issue into the courts and thus tie up Alaska Native subsistence for generations. The reason is no secret: to diminish subsistence fishing rights in order to expand sport and commercial fishing.
As it turns out, last year the federal court in Alaska rejected Palin's main challenge. The Court held that in 1980 Congress had unequivocally granted the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture joint authority to regulate and protect Alaska Native (and even non-Native) subsistence fishing activities in most navigable waters. But that defeat has not deterred Palin.
Palin opposes subsistence protections in marine waters, she opposes subsistence protections on many of the lands that Alaska Natives selected under their 1971 land claims settlement, and she opposes subsistence protections in many of the rivers where Alaska Natives customarily fish.
Today Palin continues to argue in court that federal subsistence protections are too broad, and should be narrowed to exclude vast areas from subsistence fishing in favor of sport and commercial fishing. Palin opposes subsistence protections in marine waters, she opposes subsistence protections on many of the lands that Alaska Natives selected under their 1971 land claims settlement, and she opposes subsistence protections in many of the rivers where Alaska Natives customarily fish. Palin even opposes subsistence fishing protections on Alaska Native federal allotments, even though those riverside allotments were deeded to Native people purposely to foster Native subsistence activities. In less than two years Palin has proven herself no friend of Alaska Native subsistence.
In her short tenure, Palin has also tried to overturn critical federal protections for Alaska Native customary and traditional uses of game, again simply to enhance sport hunting. Palin's attack here has targeted (among others) the Ahtna Indian people in Chistochina, and although the federal court last year rejected this challenge, too, Palin has refused to lay down her arms. The battle has thus moved on to the appellate courts.
In both hunting and fishing matters, Palin has challenged critical protections that Native people depend upon for their subsistence way of life, merely to enhance sport fishing and hunting opportunities. She has tolerated leadership on her state regulatory boards that is openly hostile to Native people, including people who have gone so far as to suggest, when chairing public hearings, that all Native people are drunks. Palin's lawsuits are more than insensitive; they are a direct attack on Alaska Native people.
Sadly, Palin's campaign has not stopped with her attacks on subsistence. At the very same time that she has challenged federal subsistence rights, she has waged a second battle against tribal sovereignty. While Palin pays lip service to the fact that Alaska Tribes are federally recognized, it is an empty statement because she insists they have no authority whatsoever to act as sovereigns despite that recognition-unless, she argues, the State first permits a Tribe to take some particular action.
So unyielding is Palin on tribal sovereignty issues that she has sought to block Alaska Tribes from even exercising authority over the welfare of Native children - again, unless the State through its courts first authorizes a Tribe to act. It is a position that is so extreme that, not only have the federal courts rejected it, but even her own state courts have rejected it. Nonetheless, Palin stubbornly refuses to relent, regardless of the consequence for village children caught in the middle of the resulting jurisdictional nightmare.
A third prong in her assault on Native peoples has been Palin's refusal to accord proper respect to Alaska Native languages and Alaska Native voters, by denying language assistance to Yup'ik-speaking voters. As a result, this July Palin was ordered by a special three-judge panel of federal judges to provide various forms of voter assistance to Yup'ik voters residing in southwest Alaska. Citing years of State neglect, Palin was ordered to provide trained poll workers who are bilingual in English and Yup'ik; sample ballots in written Yup'ik; a written Yup'ik glossary of election terms; consultation with local Tribes to ensure the accuracy of Yup'ik translations; a Yup'ik language coordinator; and pre-election and post-election reports to the court to track the State's efforts.
Palin's record is clear, and measured against some of the rights that are most fundamental to Alaska Native Tribes - the subsistence way of life, tribal sovereignty and voting rights - that record is a failure.
Lloyd Miller and Heather Kendall Miller each practice law in Anchorage, Alaska, representing Native American interests. The views expressed here are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of their respective employers or their clients.
posted on September 30, 2008 09:21:10 PM new
I'm really torn on this issue- native peoples' rights versus humane animal rights. Should native people have extended rights to fish salmon? I vote yes. Should they have extended rights to kill baby seals, I vote no.
posted on September 30, 2008 09:28:30 PM new
Gee, Profe, you're very close to my brother's Dancing Apache Ranch(3rd home) there. It's about 160 acres. McCain's "ranch," I'm told, is 3 acres! Pretty country, huh.
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posted on October 1, 2008 06:20:20 AM new
I know the DA well roadsmith. It's real pretty here. I don't know why McCain always claims to live in Sedona. I guess it's because that name is well known nationally. I've heard 3 and also 6 acres on the McCain place. I know he bought an adjacent property from an architect some years ago, so maybe it's 6 now. Either way, it's no ranch. You can't ranch on 6 acres in Arizona unless you're raising guinea pigs or something. Just my barn and corrals cover 12 acres for pete's sake.
posted on October 1, 2008 07:58:24 AM new
Profe51, such close proximity to Palin! Did you hear her shrill voice from where you stayed?
Last week I was reading part of a letter from one of the Alaska natives that was posted on an Alaska blog. He is married to a Navajo lady and was speaking out about the treatment the natives have received from the government. His entire article is posted on the Environmental News Network.
My name is Evon Peter; I am a former Chief of the Neetsaii Gwich'in tribe from Arctic Village, Alaska and the current Executive Director of Native Movement. My organization provides culturally based leadership development through offices in Alaska and Arizona. My wife, who is Navajo, and I have been based out of Flagstaff, Arizona for the past few years, although I travel home to Alaska in support of our initiatives there as well. It is interesting to me that my wife and I find ourselves as Indigenous people from the two states where McCain and Palin originate in their leadership.
Pixiamom, I haven't done any research on how many seals the natives of Alaska hunt but perhaps they need them for food. Do they kill baby seals?
Let me get specific about what is at stake and how this relates to Palin and the Republican leadership in Alaska and across this country. To this day, Alaska Native peoples are among the only Indigenous peoples in all of North America whose Indigenous Hunting and Fishing Rights have been extinguished by federal legislation and yet we are the most dependent people on this way of life. Most of our villages have no roads that connect them to cities; many live with poverty level incomes, and all rely to varying degrees on traditional hunting, fishing, and harvesting for survival. This has become known as the debate on Alaska Native Subsistence.
posted on October 1, 2008 08:08:06 AM new
The state of Washington in comparison respected the rights of tribal needs over 30 years ago in the Boldt decision.
Boldt ruled that Washington state virtually had no authority over tribal fishing; in fact, it was the tribes that ceded to non-Indian settlers the rights to fish -- not the other way around. The decision also would instate tribes as "co-managers" with the state over Washington's salmon fisheries resources.
posted on October 1, 2008 08:58:36 AM new
Kiara, Canada allows native people to club baby seals to death to preserve the commercial value of their cute little pelts. I would hate to see the same inhumane rights extended to Alaska.
posted on October 1, 2008 09:37:38 AM new
pixia - I don't think the clubbing of baby seals in Canada is limited to Native Tribes for subsistence.
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posted on October 1, 2008 09:44:07 AM new
Pixiamom, from my understanding, the Inuit hunt only accounts for about 3% of the total seal hunt. They mainly hunt the adult ring seal for food, clothing and lamp fuel. I'm not certain whether they harpoon them, shoot them or club them but seals are not on the endangered species list.
Palin's approval of aerial hunting of wolves or the practice of running down wolves and coyotes with snowmobiles is cruel also.
posted on October 1, 2008 09:51:06 AM newconsider that the Inuit have hunted seals for generations. Though often discussed in tandem with the commercial seal hunt, the primary animal in the Inuit seal hunt is the adult ring seal for sustenance, not the beater harp seal. However, protest against the seal hunt threatens Inuit traditions and has reduced the value of sealskin, which the Inuit have sometimes sold in international markets, so as to not waste any part of the seal and to supplement income. Animal rights activists are divided into two camps: those who are more extreme and insist that the hunting of seals is wrong in all circumstances, and those who focus on the commercial seal hunt as excessive and unnecessary. The animal rights activists in the second camp believe that the Inuit have the right to maintain their cultural heritage, since their hunt is sustenance-based and not driven by profit or exploitation.
posted on October 1, 2008 08:47:35 PM newKiara, Canada allows native people to club baby seals to death to preserve the commercial value of their cute little pelts. I would hate to see the same inhumane rights extended to Alaska.
Apples and oranges pixiamom.
First of all, Canada's seal hunt is open season. Anyone with a sealing permit can hunt, native or not. Secondly, that hunt is a commercial hunt. Specifically commercial. It is safe to say that none of the hunters there depend directly on seals for survival.
What the above article is about is the rights to the continuity of a culture that has been there for thousands of years. Their take of any of the animals they hunt is dwarfed by the commercial take of the same species by commercial operations and to the greatest degree they actually directly use the animals they harvest for survival, not for sale to wealthy maggots in Europe and Japan. What's at issue is the fact that they have jurisdiction over lands and waters that the commercial operations would just love to get their greedy mitts on, and Palin is just the gal to help them.
