Re: [A-List] Dave Zirin on Tookie Williams/Robin Philpot compares EC/Québec aboriginal policy

["Jim Yarker" <sjy_estrien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Macdonald Stainsby <mstainsby@xxxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: The A-List <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: The A-List <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [A-List] Dave Zirin on Tookie Williams/Robin Philpot compares
> EC/Québec aboriginal policy
> Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 17:14:12 -0500
>
> The real gems ...

We can read the slander of a white-privileged English Canadian without
honour or ethics, or we can read Mohawk investigative journalist Doug
George, who edited Akwesasne Notes, a journal dedicated to Mohawk
sovereignty, traditionalism, and environmentalism, and a well-known critic
of the Warriors, as well of of the Bourassa government, a supporter of the
Cree in their struggle against Bourassa's development projects on Cree
lands, etc:

"We have maintained since 1984, when the gambling began, that there were
connections between it and organized crime. These connections had begun to
infiltrate our community and change the nature of our people.
"When the people erected [peaceful anti-casino] barricades, it was
spontaneous, never endorsed by any Mohawk government-neither the Mohawk
Nation Council of Chiefs (the traditional government), nor the Mohawk
Council of Akwesasne, nor the St. Regis Tribal Council. It was the act of
people who thought they had to do something to regain control of their
community. At the end of April violence increased-gunshots every night,
machine-gun fire. It got to the point that people could tell what calibre of
bullet was flying overhead. Yet the weapons, obtained through a criminal
network in New York City, had not been used against other Mohawk people."

Doug George, "When the Violence Began"
http://www.peacemagazine.org/archive/v07n2p21.htm

"The construction of a large casino on the Mohawk territory of Akwesasne is
moving ahead despite a growing environmental crisis which may well turn a
large section of the reservation into an ecological waste land. While
drilling for water to supply the proposed casino, workers struck a reservoir
of salt left over from the era when the St. Lawrence River Valley was an arm
of the Atlantic Ocean. This salt has intruded into the aquifer beneath the
reservation resulting in the contamination of dozens of homeowner wells.

"The high salt content in these wells, from which families draw their water,
has created an environmental crisis on a community which has suffered
immeasurable cultural and physical trauma from industrial plants camped on
its western doorsteps.

"Now the latest assault upon the Mohawk people comes from an internal
faction blinded by its determination to see the casino in operation
regardless of the social or ecological costs.
"This faction is led by the New York state agency called the St. Regis
Tribal Council, the organization cited as criminal enterprise by the US
Justice Department yet is still able to enter into a gambling compact with
New York State later sanctioned by the US Department of the Interior and the
National Indian Gaming Commission."

Doug George, "Casino Drilling Contaminates
Akwesasne Ground Water" http://www.wisdomkeepers.com/doug.html

or we can read Dr. John Bacher, an environmentalist who worked for the Cree
on the Eastmain issue, also (obviously) a critic of Bourassa policies:

"The peak of power for the Warriors and their allied organized crime
supporters took place between 1988 and 1994 when they controlled the St.
Regis Tribal council. Critical to the control of the council was Chief Leo
David Jacobs, who signed a gambling pact with New York State, which was
eventually, in May 2002, ruled illegal by the courts.

"He would eventually be convicted by the Federal Racketeer Influenced
Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute for running the St. Regis Tribal Council
as a criminal enterprise. "
Dr. John Bacher, "Tobacco Road Revisited"

Now to move on from your slanderous and juvenile canard...

Since my remarks were about the Warriors' assault on traditionalists at
Akwesasne, and had nothing to do with the James Gabriel affair on which I
never said anything and on which you've fictitiously attributed to me an
opinion, let's go *back* to the Akwesasne matter, my remarks about which you
never refuted, and see who it was who "got what was coming" and who didn't.
Did Brian Cole, supporter of the anti's, who was beaten by baseball bats,
"get what was coming"?  What about the 100's who'd peacefully manned the
blockade for a month in support of George and his traditionalists?  Did they
"get what was coming" as the automatic weapons fire opened up on them
causing them to flee in terror (if you don't mind me using that word...)?
What about the small group of a dozen or so traditionalists and anti's who'd
holed up at Dave George's place with his brother, and who were massively
outgunned, and who received no help from outside law enforcement agencies
despite desperate appeals, and despite 1000's fleeing the reserve for
refuge?  Were they getting "what was coming" to them?  What about
20-something Mohawk anti-casino activist Matthew Pyke, who was killed while
trying to evacuate people from the siege?  Did he "get what was coming"?
His friend Darren Bonaparte said he felt that when Matthew died, his nation
died with him, and that he could never accept his death, esp with the
casinos being "legalized."  The Warriors stopped the guy who was trying to
take Pyke for medical attention after the shooting.  The Warriors also
claimed Pyke had been killed by a friend.  Some of them decided to pay their
respects to the Pyke family by driving by their house screaming profanities.
Whoever snuffed Pyke doesn't seem to have "got what was coming," since
nobody got charged.  Doug George, who was *there*, unlike uber-rad lefter
than thou Macdonald Stainsby, recalled how RCMP boats would sail along the
river, seeing clearly that the anti's were taking heavy fire, and do
nothing.  The anti's tried contacting Gov. Cuomo's office, but Cuomo took
the Warriors' side, pointing out they'd fought in 'Nam (!) and if they'd
wanted to kill Dave George, they'd have already done it.  How very fucking
reassuring. Pyke's estate filed a suit I believe, citing the racist
negligence of state law enforcement agencies in failing to protect a native
community coming under heavily armed attack.

Maybe you think Doug George got "what was coming" when he was, ludicrously,
arrested by the Sûreté and charged with the murder of the conflict's other
fatality, Mohawk Harold Edwards, who was killed by massive gunfire to the
back according to pathologists, but whose body had been moved, to make it
look like he'd fallen in the other direction?  The charges were later
dropped for lack of evidence, but George's detention caused the entire
Mohawk force in the Sûreté to resign their commissions in disgust..  Maybe
you think George's respected journal Akwesasne Notes (which I remember
reading 20 yrs ago) "got what was coming" when the Warriors torched its
office in 1988, one of what would be a series of attacks?  Or perhaps the
Northern Indian Travelling College, with its numerous archives, interviews
with elders, etc, "got what was coming" when the Warriors torched it?
George has attributed his survival of the siege to the leadership of Richard
Alford, the former Warrior (who'd left the Warriors in disagreement with
some of the activities you don't like to talk about) and Wounded Knee
veteran who helped the anti's hold out.

The Gazette journalist Alexander Norris was branded a racist by the Warriors
for having the temerity to interview Mohawks with anti-Warrior perspectives.
 His response was that in reporting such important conflicts what would
really be racist would be to refuse to report contending perspectives and
movements among natives just because they're natives.  I can see his point,
esp as you've reminded me of it.  Btw, do you think it's respectful of
sovereignty for people in a native community to want a referendum on
casinos?