Blog: Off the Reservation
Why Isn’t McCain Visiting Indian Country?
By Troy Doney, 10-22-08
Al Franken, the comedian cum Minnesota politician, visited the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, Red Lake Band of Chippewa and the White Earth Band of Ojibwe on Sunday, October 19.
From the Bemidji Pioneer:
“Their needs are tremendous and … this is about the unique challenges that Indians face by being on the reservation, they’re so easily isolated and there is this legacy of cultural trauma that is still with them,” Franken said. “There is a legacy of poverty and of problems like domestic violence or violence, and the pathologies that come out of addiction and things like that they face that compound some of the other challenges they face,” he said.
While I like to see an intelligent, empathic understanding of the issues facing Native Americans from a politico (even one as fresh-faced as Franken) in this modern age, the article also brought up something that makes me less happy.
“Democrats such as Humphrey and Wellstone often visited area reservation(s), a place Republicans rarely visit. It was a point not missed by Leech Lake Tribal Chairman Arthur “Archie” LaRose.
“Where is Norm Coleman?” LaRose said in introducing Franken. “He hasn’t come to see us and to my knowledge he hasn’t been up to see our relatives at White Earth or Red Lake. …The fact is that Leech Lakers have historically been Democrats and are today strong Democrats. We know who our friends are and will support them.”
It’s a darn good question. Where is the distinguished competition? There should be a scramble for the votes of Indian Country, not just Democratic jaunts into sovereign territory. Why is it that I can’t find anything on Google News about Sen. McCain visiting a Reservation?
Sen. McCain has done much for Native Americans during his two terms as chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. He played a pivotal role in transforming Indian Gaming into the multi-billion industry that it is today and a McCain was a principal sponsor of the Tribal Self-Governance Act of 1994, so he’s aware of the issues of Native Americans. He even almost delivered a video message at the National Congress of American Indians 65th annual convention, but had to withdraw a week before.
But why not visit a reservation this election season? While McCain has shown much interest in Native American issues in the past, they don’t seem to be a priority now. What’s worse, this isn’t the exception, but rather, the standard for his party. I’m trying very hard not to demonize any party here and would love some evidence to the contrary. While Indian Country votes predominantly Democratic, I can’t help but find it amazing that there aren’t even attempts to sway some of that vote. If it smells like apathy.
I certainly hope it’s not, though. It would make me immensely happy to know that Republicans do care about Native Americans. I just can’t seem to find much to support such a statement.
[End of article]I don't think Indian country would benefit from being on McCain's radar screen. Many times McCain's legislative assistance has been a veil for increasing Federal regulatory control over important issues of economic development. Other legislative assistance has been directed at cutting some of the more important programs and services owed to Tribe's.
This is one politician that we should be hiding from, not running into the arms of. People like those who Chair NIGA and who praise tribes for paying state taxes and who endorse republican strategies for Indian country are simply promoting their own political agenda (one as ward of the state with limited sovereignty) and not the nationalist agenda Native people need to embrace and reinforce.
I'm not a McCain supporter, but didn't he visit one of the South Dakota reservations earlier this year?
Comment By Rob Schmidt, 10-23-08You haven't heard about any of McCain's trips to reservations because he hasn't made any. Per Indianz.com, "He has not visited any reservations during the race or disclosed meetings with tribal leaders."
See http://www.bluecorncomics.com/2008/10/voting-for-deeds-not-words.html for a fuller picture of McCain's Indian record.
McCain LIVES in Indian Country! Obama is the one that NEEDS to VISIT Indian country. Has Obama supported any tribal members for high level governmental positions, ie, U.S. attorney, like McCain has in AZ? Tell me what Obama has DONE for Indian country, not what he has gone around VISITING Indian country for the first time to make promises. How many times have Indians heard promises from politicians. When he has a track record, then I'll listen. No record, NO VOTE!!!
Comment By darciedd, 10-23-08I have a secret desire.... I would love the Democratic party to win Montana in the Presidential election! And the BIG kicker? For the Native vote to be the reason!! It could happen! It happened for Schweitzer! GET OUT AND VOTE ALL YOU NATIVES! (And of course I mean for OBAMA!!) =D
Comment By Troy Doney, 10-24-08Seems that McCain was able to deliver his video message at the National Congress of American Indians 65th annual convention.
So...um...McCain deems Native Americans important enough for a video message.
To be fair, Obama hasn't visited a reservation since he went to Crow back in May. He also delivered a video message at the NCAI con.
I'm excited, I'm looking at the state polling figures! As we all were reminded in the 2000 election, the presidency is not decided by popular vote. It's decided by the Electoral College, the candidate who gets 270 Electoral College votes wins.... Looking at the Electoral projection maps from around the web I was delighted to see on Karl Rove's Electoral College Map he has Montana as a toss up state!! YES! My belief is even stronger now that MONTANA CAN GO DEMOCRATIC! To make me even more delighted, Pollster.com also listed Montana as a toss up state!! I think it's because Obama is dispatching representatives to the Reservations to speak in his behalf. When you have an NBA superstar visiting Reservations urging you to vote Obama and telling the youth to tell their moms and dads, aunts and uncles, gramma's and grampa's to get out and vote for Obama; it's giving the message: Obama cares for the Native Americans! GO OBAMA!
Comment By cfm, 11-30-08what now?! just kidding, WELL WHAT DO U EXPECT FROM THOSE FUCKING CROWS, AS IF, I MEAN IM A BIGTIME OBAMA SUPPORTER, BUT THE FUCKING CROWS ALWAYS HAVE TO GET THERE BROWN NOSING, ASSKISSING FACES INVOLVED IN THE GOVT, ALL THE FUCKING TIME, ALL THEY ARE IS FUCKING TRADERS TO THE NATIVE COUNTRY, WHY THE HELL DO U THINK CROW REZ IS SOOOOO MUCH BIGGER THAN ALL THE REST OF THE REZ'S IN MONTANA, CAUSE THEYRE FUCKING SELL OUTS TO THEIR OWN PEOPLE, COME ON NOW WHO THE FUCK GAVE US UP TO CUSTER,,,COUGHCROWSCOUGH, AND TO THINK, OBAMA IS ONE OF THEM NOW,,,
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Hi
What is the Truth?
Is there then any truth in this term, "Judeo-Christian"? Is Christianity derived from Judaism? Does Christianity have anything in common with Judaism?
Reviewing the last two thousand years of Western Christian history there is really no evidence of a Judeo-Christian tradition and this has not escaped the attention of honest Christian and Jewish commentators.
The Jewish scholar Dr. Joseph Klausner in his book Jesus of Nazareth expressed the Judaic viewpoint that "there was something contrary to the world outlook of Israel" in Christ's teachings, "a new teaching so irreconcilable with the spirit of Judaism, " containing "within it the germs from which there could and must develop in course of time a non-Jewish and even anti-Jewish teaching."
Dr. Klausner quotes the outstanding Christian theologian, Adolf Harnack, who in his last work rejected the hypothesis of the Jewish origin of Christ's doctrine: "Virtually every word He taught is made to be of permanent and universal humanitarian interest. The Messianic features are abolished entirely, and virtually no importance is attached to Judaism in its capacity of Jesus' environment."
Gershon Mamlak, an award-winning Jewish Zionist intellectual, recently claimed that the "Jesus tradition" is essentially the ultimate extension of ancient Greek Hellenism and is in direct conflict to Judaism's "role as the Chosen people".
Dr. Mamlak, writing in the Theodor Herzl Foundation's magazine of Jewish thought, Midstream, maintains that the prevailing theory that Christianity originated in the spiritual realm of Judaism "is anchored in a twofold misconception: 1) the uniqueness of Judaism is confined to its monotheistic God-concept; 2) the 'parting of the ways' between the Jesus coterie and Judaism is seen as the result of the former's adaptation of the doctrines of Christology."
The first misconception means: "When the affinity of the Jesus coterie with Judaism is evaluated by common faith in the One, severed from the believer's duty to execute the Law of the One and to acknowledge the Chosen Nation of Israel as His instrument-faith in the One becomes anti-Judaism par excellence!"
In Gershon Mamlak's view, "The conflict between Judaism and the Jesus tradition goes beyond the confines of theology. <The>Jesus tradition] was the cosmopolitan renunciation of the national phenomenon in general and extreme hostility to Israel's idea of a Chosen Nation as the divine instrument for the perfection of the world."
Evidently the concept of a common Judeo-Christian tradition has more to do with post 1945 politics and a certain amount of 'public relations' than it does with historical and Biblical reality. Never the less a number of modern Christian polemicists have managed to rest certain New Testament verses in the drive to give a Scriptural basis to their argument.
Confusion over the origin of Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity is the root of the Judeo-Christian myth.
Biblical scholars Robert and Mary Coote clearly show in their book Power, Politics and the Making of the Bible that neither is Christianity a patched up Judaism, nor is Rabbinic Judaism automatically synonymous with the religion of Moses and the old Hebrews.
The Cootes' illustrate the religious climate in Judea two millennia ago: "The cults, practices, and scriptures of both groups, rabbis and bishops, differed from those of the temple; thus we reserve the terms Jew, Jewish, and Judaism for the rabbis and those under their rule and use Judean, contrary to custom, for the common source of Judaism and Christianity...."
"Despite the ostensible merging of Judean and Jew even in certain New Testament passages and by the rabbis who became rulers of Palestine in the third century and continued to use Hebrew and Aramaic more than Greek, the roots of Christianity were not Jewish. Christianity did not derive from the Judaism of the pharisees, but emerged like Judaism from the wider Judean milieu of the first century. Both Christians and Jews stemmed from pre-70 Judean-ism as heirs of groups that were to take on the role of primary guardians or interpreters of scripture as they developed on parallel tracks in relation to each other." (Power, Politics, and the Making of the Bible).
The few New Testament 'proof texts' utilised by Christian Zionists and secular proponents of the modern Judeo-Christian myth are the product of poor translation. Messianic Jewish writer Malcolm Lowe in his paper "Who Are the Ioudaioi?" concludes, like Robert and Mary Coote, that the Greek word "Ioudaioi" in the New Testament should be translated as "Judeans", rather than the more usual "Jews". The Israeli scholar David Stern also came to the same conclusion when translating the Jewish New Testament.
Few Christians are aware that the translators of Scripture often mistranslated the word "Jew" from such words as "Ioudaioi" (meaning from, or being of: as a geographic area, Judean). The word Judean, mistranslated as "Jew" in the New Testament, never possessed a valid religious connotation, but was simply used to identify members of the native population of the geographic area known as Judea.
Also it is important to understand that in the Scriptures, the terms "Israel", "Judah" and "Jew" are not synonymous, nor is the House of Israel synonymous with the House of Judah. The course of history is widely divergent for the peoples properly classified under each of these titles. Accordingly, the authoritative 1980 Jewish Almanac says, "Strictly speaking it is incorrect to call an ancient Israelite a Jew or to call a contemporary Jew an Israelite or a Hebrew."
A writer for The Dearborn Independent, published in Michigan back in 1922, summarised the problem thus: "The pulpit has also the mission of liberating the Church from the error that Judah and Israel are synonymous. The reading of the Scriptures which confuse the tribe of Judah with Israel, and which interpret every mention of Israel as signifying the Jews, is at the root of more than one-half the confusion and division traceable in Christian doctrinal statements."
With this as an introduction, let's take a closer look at those whom I identify as the enemies of Christ and Christianity: the International Talmudic Jews.
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