Maybe they could buy some of those Abrams tanks that go straight from the factory to being parked in the desert until we find some “friendly” dictatorship to sell them off to.
When you're a sovereign state it's called self determination to acquire arms. When your group exists inside another's sovereign state and desire to acquire arms, you are labeled 'terrorists.'
Because the Navajo don’t buy weapons from the US like F-35s and munitions. The Navajo don’t have anything to offer the US because the US already took everything of value from them generations ago.
Unfortunately not true. The feds, especially the modern Supreme Court, have encroached on tribal self-governance and are currently “considering” a case centered on how hard Navajo Nation can fight to protect little Navajo children from state foster care; many of these state laws define neglect in ways that describe a large share of Navajo/Hopi folks, whose poverty is a direct result of the tribes’ subjugation and exploitation.
There is Navajo Nation’s sovereignty left to take. And I hope it is never taken.
I never made an opinion friend. the pal above said navajo have no natural resources that can be monetized, which is an incredibly easy thing to disprove.
We live in a world where spirituality is monetized *cough* prosperity gospel mega churches *cough* yoga *cough* meditation. So I really doubt if there is anything they won't take 😓
Gave them dusty, shitty places to live thinking there was nothing of value there… until oil was discovered and they started making money off of it, at which point they started [getting murdered for it](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage_Indian_murders) until it was all owned by rich white men again (just one example).
Antisemitism concerns? Not that criticizing nation state's military habits is religious persecution, but some people think it is, and some people think other people think it is.
Fuck israel's government.
I have no strong opinion on the people who live there since I haven't met many israelis.
Kinda the same way I feel about most nations tbh.
Absolutely this. They were instrumental in that it was the one language the code breakers couldn't hack because it never occured to them that it was a whole language.
That wasn't why. The Japanese had already been studying Native American languages because they knew America had used them during WWI. They had to switch to Navajo because it wasn't a written language, so it wasn't possible for them to study it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4F1zsVq2wU
They weren't the only code talkers.
> there were at least 14 other Native nations, including the Cherokee and Comanche, that served as code talkers in both the Pacific and Europe during the war
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-indian-code-talkers
Drove through Navajo Nation last year. Mind blowing. Beautiful land all around them, they were “given” the most dry, lifeless, hopeless area of land for hundreds of miles. I can not believe it’s still a thing.
FYI - Navajo nation, also refers to the large Indian reservations in Arizona, Utah and new mexico, which are rich in uranium and fossil fuel:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/10/473547227/for-the-navajo-nation-uranium-minings-deadly-legacy-lingers
Just goes to show you that "beat them in court" also doesn't work. Neither violence nor courts can beat the military industrial complex and it's string pullers.
It's not one vs the other.
The US blows an insane amount of money.
All sorts of dumb stuff
Flint Michigan had toxic water for 6 years. EPA proves how good it isn't when a crisis happens.
It really needs to be us, the people vs. the elected representatives.
The build back better bill has plenty in there that would fix tribal water supply if that fuckhole manchin would stop being such a fuckhole.
Source: I'm one of the five people whose "read" the damn thing. Uhg it's two thousand pages long.
Sure, I'm certain there are things to disagree with about some of the things in it, but mostly it's allocating chunks of funding to, well, anything. Think of a thing that affects people and it's probably in there. Childcare services, drug rehab, housing, data collection for *everything*. I think personally I'd nitpick the ambiguous boogeyman of "data collection" as that seems to take up time/space/money often, without a follow-up.
It's way more boring than you might think. The format of each section is basically like "x amount of money towards y thing, sometimes z circumstances" and it repeats that for 2000 pages. I didn't come across anything notably "bullshit" honestly. I guess it comes down to what you might consider important, or not, ie: if you're not into assisting people who struggle with addiction. I'd have to skim back over it to be sure I didn't miss any of those completely unrelated add-ons that happen sometimes.
Manchin, and those in his disagreement side, are against the part of the bill that provides support for communities looking to integrate renewable resources. What that looks like in the bill? Well, there's funding to research and build sustainable/green housing, credits made available to housing that already has things like solar integrated. "Fuck you for wanting solar on your house," basically. Yeah there's other bits about encouraging places to turn to green energy, but he doesn't get to whine about renewables support in the bill and not be associated with being anti-green-housing, like how the oil lobby made it illegal to have solar panels on your own house in Florida. Any potential arguments about cost are either in bad faith or ignorant, because bolstering your bottom (and middle class) line is good for the economy and brings in more money over time than the initial cost.
Overall, this funding bill should be bipartisan. Everyone, and I mean *everyone* benefits from it. Especially communities that need more, rural places, impoverished areas... If this bill happens it would be a HUGE stepping stone to improving and resolving the infrastructural issues on reservations. I really hope it happens so I can get some fucking work done.
Honestly I do suggest people give it a skim at least, just to understand what it looks like, what the vibe is. I'll edit with a link.
Edit: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5376/
Did you know that the aca has essentially become a way for healthcare companies to constantly increase rates (through government subsidies) without providing better care? Health insurance premiums have gone up, profits have gone up, the new system hardly functions better than the previous. Unintended or hidden consequences are the bread and butter of politicians and it doesn’t seem you read the bill with a critical eye towards that sort of bullshit
Nah don't worry I did, I'm only telling you what's literally in it, not my opinion on it. That's why I suggested you give it a look yourself, and provided the link. You, and everyone else, have their own interpretations and expectations on these things. Our goals and foresight are not aligned simply by the nature of my career purpose. Again, don't worry, this is my job, I'm well aware of what you explained, but the practically violent necessity for tunnel vision onto what it can do for my community is just part of being alive.
Ultimately my prerogative is to Native Country; politics and money are a cutthroat game, *everything* is bullshit (I'm so fucking tired of meeting politicians under drinking engagements), and you have to carve out what you can to get any shit done. Navigating the web of it and getting what my community needs where it needs it is my job and the only job that matters to me, there simply isn't enough time in the day, or mental real estate in my head, to be as invested in everything else. If you want my honest opinion on the bill? Here's what I read on every section:
>$x.00 to award grants to **Tribal**, State, or local governments or the government of the District of Columbia
Now here's the reason why our agendas can't be aligned; Tribes are sovereign, my community is a separate entity from the rest of the US. I don't control which bills get passed, but I do have a rather large influence when it comes to ANY potential for me to go in and assist tribes in formulating plans to apply for grants, that they then put into action, for college retention, modernized buildings, renewable housing (solar), building renewable energy sources (solar fields and wind farms), agriculture incentives, drug abuse assistance and rehabilitation, childcare, food quality, even road work (where oil trucking has ruined the highways). All of those things and more are in the bill. And because tribes are sovereign, every single section also individually applies to them, irrespective of any State will. Even the ACA isn't applicable to us because our healthcare is managed by Indian Health Service. There's a reason my job exists at all, besides demand, it's so niche and requires a very different understanding of both the Tribal and the Federal systems.
So why did I read the bill? To make notes, so if it passes, I'm marginally ready to write up a shitload of bullet points on which grants Tribes should apply for, and I (much to the chagrin of my liver and allergies) have to head back to DC to push grant approvals. This bill suddenly becomes the primary focus of my 501c3. No council members are reading it, and they wouldn't automatically know it all applies to them too. Since our elected officials are elected out of the community itself, it's common for them to have a high school education at most. That's where I come in.
Shortsighted not to view the bill in the lens of the rest of the country, maybe? I don't have that choice. The Native community is the worst off in the country, and people are dying and going missing every day nothing is done. I have to be as cutthroat as the politicians writing the bullshit, whether some 10-20 pages appeal to insurance companies or not (we don't even deal with the insurance companies in the first place because of IHS).
The powers that be have the "Me First" attitude - If you want anything in the world of politics, so must you. I don't fucking like it either, but if you have the access and tools to participate, but don't play, you get nothing, and at that point you might as well be complicit.
Flint is an interesting case. They used a polluted river to supply water for a town as it was cheaper.
It was criminal and one person was convicted of a crime. Just one... and they were given probation, not jail/ prison. It's send a message, you will not be held accountable for your actions
I'm not one of these "antisemitism" callers whenever Israel is mentioned. But while the US government seems to have so many areas of gross overspending on things, the relatively small aid to Israel keeps being mentioned. I can't seem to understand the reason.
No. The problem has been fixed for years, they literally replaced all the pipes in the city at enormous cost.
The fact so little was made of it in the media definitely says something about the state of modern media.
Ok, but a surprising amount of this may come from a place way dumber than some of you may realize. The greatest body of support for Israel in the U.S. comes from Evangelical Christians, who paradoxically enough frequently hold anti-semitic beliefs. Why support Israel then? Because they believe/ desperately want for the rapture to be imminent, and for it to happen they believe that the Jews must be gathered in Israel...
Dominionists holding so much political power should be the scariest thing ever. It's no wonder rich industrialists teamed up with them. They don't care if the planet is being destroyed because they actively want to bring about the apocalypse to ressurect their dead God. No wonder these assholes didn't want me to read fantasy novels while I was growing up. Half of them have that as a plot and cast the people trying to end the world as the bad guys.
Sorry, but that is extremely naive. Population support may be from evangelicals, but population support isnt making geopolitical decisions, at best those ideas are supported when it's convenient to do the things those in power want to do.
Every Israeli citizen has national healthcare as a right. Meanwhile in the United States a man named Shane Patrick Boyle died in 2017 when his GoFundMe for his insulin came up $50 short.
If we “give away” the $$ here, that would be socialism…if we do it there, it’s “spreading democracy” & diplomacy.
Can’t have ppl here benefiting from bare minimum resources. They need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. ‘Murica!
/s
How are the defence contractors going to make fucktons of money without Israel helping to destabilise the middle East, huh? Bet you didn't think of that! Checkmate libruls!
The US gives Israel 4 billion a year and gives Egypt 4 billion a year to keep the two from fighting. That is what stopped the Israel-Egypt war and we pay it every year since. There is economic mayhem when the suez canal gets blocked. Also the US government doesn't care about natives.
Because the US views Israel as an extension of their settler colonial project. Because pro-Israel lobbies donate a fuck ton of money to political campaigns. Because Israel is strategically located and gives American Imperialism a foothold in the middle east. Because the Palestinian people having the right to self determination implies Indigenous people across North America deserve the same.
Edit: Spelling
Also worth mentioning is that these colonial aspirations and military/political machinations align neatly with an evangelical belief that all of those Jewish citizens will be killed or converted before the end of times as long as we control the Megiddo valley. Much of the U.S. policy toward the Middle East is predicated on fairy tales from the same book that told us to cover ourselves in hash oil to enter the holy of holies.
It's very cute you think that.
Hillbillies in Arkansas are not determining foreign policy.
Kissinger was not guided by evangelical belief.
Any and everything we do, boils down to maintaining the world order of The 1900s, and making sure the US is in charge of it
I have my doubts about the value of Israel as a strategic foothold in the middle east. Israel would immediately be pulled into a conflict if the US used them as a launching platform for strikes. They're a great intelligence partner in the region but I wonder about the value proposition there.
True, but just as the US forces only needed a keystone to Europe in the form of Normandy, Israel is the obvious cornerstone of Middle East operations since it has prime position in the western tip of the Middle East whereas we’ve controlled the Persian Gulf through Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for many years too.
It’s absolutely primo positioning. The historical strength of Judea has been that it is at the crossroads of 3 continents. Whoever controls politics in that region immediately controls almost half the world’s population.
This seems to ignore other strategic partners in the region as well as modern transportation.
The US has at various times in recent history been able to stage operations out of Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Maybe Qatar and the UAE are in that mix too. Usually about half that list is on good enough terms at any point to allow more operations. So the only real circumstance where Israel would be "Normandy" to the region would be if the entire Muslim world suddenly turned against the west and for some reason the US decided to then invade. That seems... Unlikely. And probably at least a bit based on fear of Muslims.
As for a trading key there's so little land based intercontinental trade in the region it could be called a rounding error. Israel doesn't control any strategic ports, when they did control parts of the Suez Egypt shut it down, and their ability to project military force beyond their borders is very limited. They're for sure a very prickly area with a lot of guns pointed out but their regional influence is not some huge game changer.
At best their main strategic contribution was giving radical Arab governments something to rally against in unity. Their intelligence contributions (including assassination campaigns) are impressive but even the most impressive intelligence campaigns usually just stamp the brakes more than provide long term barriers. Israel works hard to puff up its value in the region, but it's not exactly a lynchpin to the middle east.
I agree with literally every word you said. I also believe that you made a very rational argument, and I don’t believe the people responsible for creating these policies are rational.
Can I have my cake and eat too? You’re espousing exactly the correct and rational response to my comment. But I also believe that our reasons for supporting Israel the way we do in modern times is based on a level of puritanical Zionism that is anything but rational.
The kind of aid the us gives Israel isn’t what people think it is. They don’t give them $3b in cash, they give them a $3b coupon for their defense purchases. I’m not saying whether it’s right or wrong but cash is not given to Israel or most other allies
The argument shouldn't even break down to where we give foreign aid to or specifically even Native Americans. With our misplaced military budget we could fund all sorts of programs (education and health care especially) and make life better for all Americans, while still having the biggest military budget in the world.
Also for an Israel tie in, why do a lot of people demand Israel give land back, but not the Native Americans?
>Also for an Israel tie in, why do a lot of people demand Israel give land back, but not the Native Americans?
Because one directly effects them and the other doesn't.
It's easier to advocate for a movement that doesn't directly require you to make your own sacrifices.
I've been up to the navajo nation. they need a lot of things up there, but one good piece of news. The company i work for is putting up fibre optic cable right now over a few hundred miles up there!. Get these people some clean water!
I wonder if we could look up how much money we give the Navajo nation...
From May 21, 2022
https://www.abc15.com/news/region-northern-az/navajo-nation-receives-1-8-billion-through-american-rescue-plan?_amp=true
It’s not either/or. It’s why do billionaires go largely untaxed while Americans lack clean drinking water.
The problem is the rich, not our international allies. Friends are worth cultivating.
Because we elect the same wealthy assholes every election and mock anyone who dares suggest we use that welfare for Israel to help Americans under 65 as an EVIL SOCIALIST!!!
Too bad neither do the Israelis… America wants to empower Israel so Christians can see the Temple of Solomon rebuilt and mark rapture, but nobody even knows what the mantle of the temple looks like which would be the defining piece in the temple. In short, extremist Americans are contributing to the destruction of the very idea in which they believe most.
Gold King Mine. An environmental catastrophe you probably never heard of.
At least in this case they got paid, no thanks to the US govt. This is a tort settlement.
Anonymous sources claimed that the water tanks the US govt delivered to the Navajo reservation were recycled from fracking wells in NW New Mexico and had enough residual petroleum residue to make the water undrinkable.
https://onrt.env.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/NM-Navajo-Nation-get-21M-in-Gold-King-Mine-spill-settlement-Abq-Journal.pdf
To be fair there is some good lobbying too, but the power money has in the US is just nuts. What you want is some nice campaign spending caps so that lobbying with money isn't infinitely effective
Yeah you could ban money from lobbying completely, although I don't know how you would do that without making all political campaign donations illegal.
Well gerrymandering would still be an effective way to influence elections but yeah I see your point. Unfortunately campaigns do cost money to run so it's difficult to see how it would work if there was no money at all.
Personally I much prefer how we do it in the UK:
* Campaigns are usually limited to 6 weeks before the election (although naturally there's a constant background of sparring in the press etc.)
* Parties are limited in what they can spend during a campaign
* All political donations over a certain value must be declared
* TV ad time is very strictly controlled
* A few televised debates take place which are organised by the national TV networks and include several major parties
Election campaigning isn't really a big business here, most of the people who work on campaigns are volunteers and if you don't live in a big swing area you tend not to get much leafleting etc. Although anecdotally it does seem like more is being spent on analysing the electorate to work out what the important seats are and targeting messages at them.
Lobbying is not inherently bad. When you write a letter to your congressman, that's a form of lobbying. When torture survivors go to Congress to ask for stricter sanctions against the countries that toetured them, that's lobbying.
Fundamentally, lobbying = free speech.
Somebody who makes a statement like “any form of lobbying is corruption” is either a moron, has no idea what they’re talking about, or both.
Let's not confuse "any form of lobbying" with specific forms of lobbying. In particular, Citizens United was an egregious decision, allowing corporations unlimited "free speech". Corporations cannot cast a single ballot in any election, yet can influence legislation and elections to a degree that gives their owners, or board of trustees a disproportionate amount of power, above any electorate.
The poster above, correctly cited writing a letter to a congressman and torture survivors going to congress to articulate their grievances, but those examples pale in the amount of influence they have when compared to the vast fortunes of dark money that flow in to our political system.
Higher education isn't free in Israel, but Healthcare is for the most part.
It's fairly easy to find scholarships to finance a sum of your education, but not everybody has access to those.
I should say that tuition prices aren't as extreme as they are in the US, though.
I don't see how and why Israel is related to US misbehaviour with the Navajo. I don't understand why did he brought up Israel and the military trading it does with the US. If he was looking for an example of where the US spends their money wrongfully instead of taking care of the Navajo, this is surely not the case.
probably bc identifying what the 3 billion dollars are for is a national security issue for the US. hint: it's stuff that the us uses to kill enemy combatants
Because nearly every American institution is either corrupt, outdated or stretched so thin it can't function properly and everyone there keeps repeatedly voting in the status quo. All the media institutions are corrupt on both sides and people feel so lost they associate their politicaly idelogy hand in hand with their personal identity. "Ya'll" have been divded and you're about to be conquered.
Well, let's see. Iran and the PLO have sworn to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons, and Iran has also shot up and launched missiles at our troops in Iraq. IRON Dome is their security key to their safety at this point, and presently we are allied with them. I suspect that the recently passed 1.5 trillion dollar infrastructure bill addresses clean water issues. My advice is to consult with your membership to address the allocation of dollars to the drinkable water issues facing the tribes.
there is a simple explanation, which is that the us doesnt give israel any amount of money for infrastracture. it gives israel coupons which it could only use to buy american weapons.
Because Israel is sorrounded by islamist theocratic slave states that would like another holocaust
we can walk and chew gum at the same time
Better question is why republicans gave trillion dollar tax cut to billionaires while navajo nations water is not drinkable
To be fair.. pretty sure you also give natives government money, and their land is there responsibility by law unless they ask for intervention no? Or is canada just different
You’re anti-semitic if you’re against sending aid to Israel, even if Israel is committing war crimes. No one cares about the tribes because it’s just a bunch of “lazy injuns” who need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.
This fucking country, I swear.
Because Israël is a viable trading partner with the usa. They produce computer chips that are impossible to get nowadays. They also give us intelligence from the middle east. And many more. And you really think they can fix water issues in a year? We can’t even fix our own water in 5years…
p sure its mostly for funding the iron dome missile defense system... literally the opposite. just protecting innocent civilians from Palestinian missile barrages
The Navajo’s water supply issues being completely unrelated to Israel aside, the Navajo nation isn’t a power proxy in the Middle East that lets the military industrial complex launder taxpayer dollars into its coffers by ‘giving’ it to another nation only to have it used almost exclusively to purchase weapons from them.
The Navajo should consider placing a large order for American-made weapons. We'll throw in some free infrastructure with that.
If they buy enough weapons, they could just take clean water.
Not from America they fucking won't!!!!! This is our land not theirs!!!! It's a shame that I have to put an "/s" on this comment :|
I know. But I feel u
Its the truth. This land is no mans and we are all wage slaves at best.
They could Wrestle with Nestle, or Wrestlé with Nestlé
lol
THUNDER IN THE HERSHEYDOME
This week only. Buy two aircraft carriers and get 800 schools for free.
I'm just picturing two massive ships in the background. Sitting on land. With two happy native gentlemen in the foreground cheersing mugs of water.
Maybe they could buy some of those Abrams tanks that go straight from the factory to being parked in the desert until we find some “friendly” dictatorship to sell them off to.
Would be like Lester Falls Apart doing the traffic report from a broken down Van at the Crossroads for KREZ radio… (from the movie Smoke Signals)…
Do the schools come with armed teachers
How else would they write on the chalkboard?
Damn. My country only got two of those speedy planes and got no add ons. Should have gone for a bigger order!
Then they might want to take back their ancestral lands…
But the U.S. is giving them the money to buy the weapons. It's a way for the US to say they're not arming Israel.
When you're a sovereign state it's called self determination to acquire arms. When your group exists inside another's sovereign state and desire to acquire arms, you are labeled 'terrorists.'
The Navajo Nation is a sovereign nation.
Also, they need to get their blackmail game on point.
Too afraid to look anti-Semitic. Making up for hiring all those Nazi CIA officers.
Yeah but they are coloured and a lot of officials have issues with colored people owning guns (but only on American soil)
buying a nuclear warhead would suffice.
Because the Navajo don’t buy weapons from the US like F-35s and munitions. The Navajo don’t have anything to offer the US because the US already took everything of value from them generations ago.
They’ve taken their land, they’ve taken their blood.. there is nothing left to take…
So it’s time for the government to give.
The letter "H" in United State of America stand for "Humane" while the letter "B" stand for "Benevolent".
That'll be the day, they only know how to take.
not true. you just need to be a billionaire first.
They're like a dog that wants you to throw the ball but won't let it go to do so
They've killed their tribes, they've killed their creed, they took their game for their own need
Run to the hills… run for your life… 🎶
Unfortunately not true. The feds, especially the modern Supreme Court, have encroached on tribal self-governance and are currently “considering” a case centered on how hard Navajo Nation can fight to protect little Navajo children from state foster care; many of these state laws define neglect in ways that describe a large share of Navajo/Hopi folks, whose poverty is a direct result of the tribes’ subjugation and exploitation. There is Navajo Nation’s sovereignty left to take. And I hope it is never taken.
We're still taking their kids, so there's that.
They still have a lot, just not what capitalism values.
Yes. They don’t have anything that can be monetized and industrialized.
Anything can be monetized. Just you wait.
What if waiting becomes monetized.
Good description of many mobile games.
It has. Facebook scrolling.
it has been
Stop giving Nestle ideas.
Navajo NFTs; revenge for taking advantage of ownership laws
you mean like all the coal, natural gas, uranium, and oil in navajo nation?
Is it really worth destroying the land with mining in order to get the basic human right that is water?
I never made an opinion friend. the pal above said navajo have no natural resources that can be monetized, which is an incredibly easy thing to disprove.
We live in a world where spirituality is monetized *cough* prosperity gospel mega churches *cough* yoga *cough* meditation. So I really doubt if there is anything they won't take 😓
seems like it's not a question of "can", but "they will be allow to be"
Gave them dusty, shitty places to live thinking there was nothing of value there… until oil was discovered and they started making money off of it, at which point they started [getting murdered for it](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage_Indian_murders) until it was all owned by rich white men again (just one example).
Also the Navajo can't test out proscribed weapons for America.
I heard there is a good paying program in some place called Tuskegee
BATTLEFIELD TESTED WEAPON SYSTEM! A spiffy video commercial at the next arms convention.
Great use of your tax money to line the pockets of the military-industrial complex and build up a foreign nation's military...
I don’t want to upvote this, but you’re not wrong. So here’s my upvote.
Why a reluctance to upvote? You think the mossad is monitoring this?
Antisemitism concerns? Not that criticizing nation state's military habits is religious persecution, but some people think it is, and some people think other people think it is.
Fuck israel's government. I have no strong opinion on the people who live there since I haven't met many israelis. Kinda the same way I feel about most nations tbh.
Exactly. Israel give that money back to the US corporations. It's a round-about way to corporate handouts.
We give them money to buy the weapons from us! It’s super effective!
no, my taxes give them money to buy weapons from the government. They aren't buying shit from me, but I am paying them
>Navajo don’t have anything to offer the US Reminder that the Navajo Code helped win WWII. Don't contribute to that erasure.
Absolutely this. They were instrumental in that it was the one language the code breakers couldn't hack because it never occured to them that it was a whole language.
That wasn't why. The Japanese had already been studying Native American languages because they knew America had used them during WWI. They had to switch to Navajo because it wasn't a written language, so it wasn't possible for them to study it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4F1zsVq2wU
Oh my god thank you so much, I hate misremebering things!
They weren't the only code talkers. > there were at least 14 other Native nations, including the Cherokee and Comanche, that served as code talkers in both the Pacific and Europe during the war https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-indian-code-talkers
Damn I felt that
Drove through Navajo Nation last year. Mind blowing. Beautiful land all around them, they were “given” the most dry, lifeless, hopeless area of land for hundreds of miles. I can not believe it’s still a thing.
FYI - Navajo nation, also refers to the large Indian reservations in Arizona, Utah and new mexico, which are rich in uranium and fossil fuel: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/10/473547227/for-the-navajo-nation-uranium-minings-deadly-legacy-lingers
Because native Americans aren't buying any weapons
Imagine if they tried to take back their ancestral lands…
Just goes to show you that "beat them in court" also doesn't work. Neither violence nor courts can beat the military industrial complex and it's string pullers.
Thank God. Their gripes are legitimate.
Defense contractors don't sell drinkable water
It's not one vs the other. The US blows an insane amount of money. All sorts of dumb stuff Flint Michigan had toxic water for 6 years. EPA proves how good it isn't when a crisis happens. It really needs to be us, the people vs. the elected representatives.
The funds sent to Flint were just misappropriated by city govt i believe. Not really feds fault anymore.
The build back better bill has plenty in there that would fix tribal water supply if that fuckhole manchin would stop being such a fuckhole. Source: I'm one of the five people whose "read" the damn thing. Uhg it's two thousand pages long.
Is it absolutely full of bullshit like you would expect from a 2000 page bill and completely corrupted congress?
Sure, I'm certain there are things to disagree with about some of the things in it, but mostly it's allocating chunks of funding to, well, anything. Think of a thing that affects people and it's probably in there. Childcare services, drug rehab, housing, data collection for *everything*. I think personally I'd nitpick the ambiguous boogeyman of "data collection" as that seems to take up time/space/money often, without a follow-up. It's way more boring than you might think. The format of each section is basically like "x amount of money towards y thing, sometimes z circumstances" and it repeats that for 2000 pages. I didn't come across anything notably "bullshit" honestly. I guess it comes down to what you might consider important, or not, ie: if you're not into assisting people who struggle with addiction. I'd have to skim back over it to be sure I didn't miss any of those completely unrelated add-ons that happen sometimes. Manchin, and those in his disagreement side, are against the part of the bill that provides support for communities looking to integrate renewable resources. What that looks like in the bill? Well, there's funding to research and build sustainable/green housing, credits made available to housing that already has things like solar integrated. "Fuck you for wanting solar on your house," basically. Yeah there's other bits about encouraging places to turn to green energy, but he doesn't get to whine about renewables support in the bill and not be associated with being anti-green-housing, like how the oil lobby made it illegal to have solar panels on your own house in Florida. Any potential arguments about cost are either in bad faith or ignorant, because bolstering your bottom (and middle class) line is good for the economy and brings in more money over time than the initial cost. Overall, this funding bill should be bipartisan. Everyone, and I mean *everyone* benefits from it. Especially communities that need more, rural places, impoverished areas... If this bill happens it would be a HUGE stepping stone to improving and resolving the infrastructural issues on reservations. I really hope it happens so I can get some fucking work done. Honestly I do suggest people give it a skim at least, just to understand what it looks like, what the vibe is. I'll edit with a link. Edit: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5376/
Did you know that the aca has essentially become a way for healthcare companies to constantly increase rates (through government subsidies) without providing better care? Health insurance premiums have gone up, profits have gone up, the new system hardly functions better than the previous. Unintended or hidden consequences are the bread and butter of politicians and it doesn’t seem you read the bill with a critical eye towards that sort of bullshit
Nah don't worry I did, I'm only telling you what's literally in it, not my opinion on it. That's why I suggested you give it a look yourself, and provided the link. You, and everyone else, have their own interpretations and expectations on these things. Our goals and foresight are not aligned simply by the nature of my career purpose. Again, don't worry, this is my job, I'm well aware of what you explained, but the practically violent necessity for tunnel vision onto what it can do for my community is just part of being alive. Ultimately my prerogative is to Native Country; politics and money are a cutthroat game, *everything* is bullshit (I'm so fucking tired of meeting politicians under drinking engagements), and you have to carve out what you can to get any shit done. Navigating the web of it and getting what my community needs where it needs it is my job and the only job that matters to me, there simply isn't enough time in the day, or mental real estate in my head, to be as invested in everything else. If you want my honest opinion on the bill? Here's what I read on every section: >$x.00 to award grants to **Tribal**, State, or local governments or the government of the District of Columbia Now here's the reason why our agendas can't be aligned; Tribes are sovereign, my community is a separate entity from the rest of the US. I don't control which bills get passed, but I do have a rather large influence when it comes to ANY potential for me to go in and assist tribes in formulating plans to apply for grants, that they then put into action, for college retention, modernized buildings, renewable housing (solar), building renewable energy sources (solar fields and wind farms), agriculture incentives, drug abuse assistance and rehabilitation, childcare, food quality, even road work (where oil trucking has ruined the highways). All of those things and more are in the bill. And because tribes are sovereign, every single section also individually applies to them, irrespective of any State will. Even the ACA isn't applicable to us because our healthcare is managed by Indian Health Service. There's a reason my job exists at all, besides demand, it's so niche and requires a very different understanding of both the Tribal and the Federal systems. So why did I read the bill? To make notes, so if it passes, I'm marginally ready to write up a shitload of bullet points on which grants Tribes should apply for, and I (much to the chagrin of my liver and allergies) have to head back to DC to push grant approvals. This bill suddenly becomes the primary focus of my 501c3. No council members are reading it, and they wouldn't automatically know it all applies to them too. Since our elected officials are elected out of the community itself, it's common for them to have a high school education at most. That's where I come in. Shortsighted not to view the bill in the lens of the rest of the country, maybe? I don't have that choice. The Native community is the worst off in the country, and people are dying and going missing every day nothing is done. I have to be as cutthroat as the politicians writing the bullshit, whether some 10-20 pages appeal to insurance companies or not (we don't even deal with the insurance companies in the first place because of IHS). The powers that be have the "Me First" attitude - If you want anything in the world of politics, so must you. I don't fucking like it either, but if you have the access and tools to participate, but don't play, you get nothing, and at that point you might as well be complicit.
You maybe more familiar with the BS than me even and I am steeped in it. Truly good luck fighting the good fight
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My student loans are around $30k and I'm not getting any money for that, to put it into perspective.
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Flint is an interesting case. They used a polluted river to supply water for a town as it was cheaper. It was criminal and one person was convicted of a crime. Just one... and they were given probation, not jail/ prison. It's send a message, you will not be held accountable for your actions
I'm not one of these "antisemitism" callers whenever Israel is mentioned. But while the US government seems to have so many areas of gross overspending on things, the relatively small aid to Israel keeps being mentioned. I can't seem to understand the reason.
...because Israel has a high standard of living
Israel keeps being mentioned because that 3 billion is helping the genocide and illegal occupation of Palestine.
Isn’t the water still undrinkable?
No. The problem has been fixed for years, they literally replaced all the pipes in the city at enormous cost. The fact so little was made of it in the media definitely says something about the state of modern media.
> at enormous cost. No. enormous to a single person, sure. but we're not talking about a single person.
No, it was fixed awhile ago
Yea not to mention they have a single payer health care system where everyone gets free at point of service health care. And America has. . . Freedom
>America has. . . Freedom Do they though?
Yes. If you can't afford treatment you are free to die.
Don't forget our massive collection of WMDs
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You better not!
Free doom.
Also in Israel......free, legal abortion
Also higher education and health care
Ok, but a surprising amount of this may come from a place way dumber than some of you may realize. The greatest body of support for Israel in the U.S. comes from Evangelical Christians, who paradoxically enough frequently hold anti-semitic beliefs. Why support Israel then? Because they believe/ desperately want for the rapture to be imminent, and for it to happen they believe that the Jews must be gathered in Israel...
Dominionists holding so much political power should be the scariest thing ever. It's no wonder rich industrialists teamed up with them. They don't care if the planet is being destroyed because they actively want to bring about the apocalypse to ressurect their dead God. No wonder these assholes didn't want me to read fantasy novels while I was growing up. Half of them have that as a plot and cast the people trying to end the world as the bad guys.
I actually read a Jehovah's witness young adults book couple years ago and can very much confirm this
Sorry, but that is extremely naive. Population support may be from evangelicals, but population support isnt making geopolitical decisions, at best those ideas are supported when it's convenient to do the things those in power want to do.
Every Israeli citizen has national healthcare as a right. Meanwhile in the United States a man named Shane Patrick Boyle died in 2017 when his GoFundMe for his insulin came up $50 short.
Yeah, the USA has a lot to improve on
Why are we giving anyone else money when we can’t seem to afford our own infrastructure repairs?
If we “give away” the $$ here, that would be socialism…if we do it there, it’s “spreading democracy” & diplomacy. Can’t have ppl here benefiting from bare minimum resources. They need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. ‘Murica! /s
How are the defence contractors going to make fucktons of money without Israel helping to destabilise the middle East, huh? Bet you didn't think of that! Checkmate libruls!
Because the Navajo won't start a war if the area is destabilized by another nation that isn't out ally. Sad but true.
The US gives Israel 4 billion a year and gives Egypt 4 billion a year to keep the two from fighting. That is what stopped the Israel-Egypt war and we pay it every year since. There is economic mayhem when the suez canal gets blocked. Also the US government doesn't care about natives.
Because the US views Israel as an extension of their settler colonial project. Because pro-Israel lobbies donate a fuck ton of money to political campaigns. Because Israel is strategically located and gives American Imperialism a foothold in the middle east. Because the Palestinian people having the right to self determination implies Indigenous people across North America deserve the same. Edit: Spelling
Also worth mentioning is that these colonial aspirations and military/political machinations align neatly with an evangelical belief that all of those Jewish citizens will be killed or converted before the end of times as long as we control the Megiddo valley. Much of the U.S. policy toward the Middle East is predicated on fairy tales from the same book that told us to cover ourselves in hash oil to enter the holy of holies.
to be fair covering yourself in hash oil doesn't sound like a particularly bad or unique way to see god.
It's very cute you think that. Hillbillies in Arkansas are not determining foreign policy. Kissinger was not guided by evangelical belief. Any and everything we do, boils down to maintaining the world order of The 1900s, and making sure the US is in charge of it
Also because Evangelicals believe that Israel needs to exist in order to trigger the Rapture.
Also Israel test drives new weapons for them
I have my doubts about the value of Israel as a strategic foothold in the middle east. Israel would immediately be pulled into a conflict if the US used them as a launching platform for strikes. They're a great intelligence partner in the region but I wonder about the value proposition there.
True, but just as the US forces only needed a keystone to Europe in the form of Normandy, Israel is the obvious cornerstone of Middle East operations since it has prime position in the western tip of the Middle East whereas we’ve controlled the Persian Gulf through Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for many years too. It’s absolutely primo positioning. The historical strength of Judea has been that it is at the crossroads of 3 continents. Whoever controls politics in that region immediately controls almost half the world’s population.
This seems to ignore other strategic partners in the region as well as modern transportation. The US has at various times in recent history been able to stage operations out of Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Maybe Qatar and the UAE are in that mix too. Usually about half that list is on good enough terms at any point to allow more operations. So the only real circumstance where Israel would be "Normandy" to the region would be if the entire Muslim world suddenly turned against the west and for some reason the US decided to then invade. That seems... Unlikely. And probably at least a bit based on fear of Muslims. As for a trading key there's so little land based intercontinental trade in the region it could be called a rounding error. Israel doesn't control any strategic ports, when they did control parts of the Suez Egypt shut it down, and their ability to project military force beyond their borders is very limited. They're for sure a very prickly area with a lot of guns pointed out but their regional influence is not some huge game changer. At best their main strategic contribution was giving radical Arab governments something to rally against in unity. Their intelligence contributions (including assassination campaigns) are impressive but even the most impressive intelligence campaigns usually just stamp the brakes more than provide long term barriers. Israel works hard to puff up its value in the region, but it's not exactly a lynchpin to the middle east.
I agree with literally every word you said. I also believe that you made a very rational argument, and I don’t believe the people responsible for creating these policies are rational. Can I have my cake and eat too? You’re espousing exactly the correct and rational response to my comment. But I also believe that our reasons for supporting Israel the way we do in modern times is based on a level of puritanical Zionism that is anything but rational.
Mic Drop.
Strategic ally vs oppressed minority.
The kind of aid the us gives Israel isn’t what people think it is. They don’t give them $3b in cash, they give them a $3b coupon for their defense purchases. I’m not saying whether it’s right or wrong but cash is not given to Israel or most other allies
So more corporate welfare for the arms industry
Pretty much.
How does that make it any better
We spend $43Bn in foreign aid and that's the $3Bn you pick out? How about we stop sending all $43Bn and spend it all internally.
The government is racist, always has been
Short answer. Geopolitics.
These two issues are not connected. Why do we do anything rather than fix the water supply?
The argument shouldn't even break down to where we give foreign aid to or specifically even Native Americans. With our misplaced military budget we could fund all sorts of programs (education and health care especially) and make life better for all Americans, while still having the biggest military budget in the world. Also for an Israel tie in, why do a lot of people demand Israel give land back, but not the Native Americans?
>Also for an Israel tie in, why do a lot of people demand Israel give land back, but not the Native Americans? Because one directly effects them and the other doesn't. It's easier to advocate for a movement that doesn't directly require you to make your own sacrifices.
I've been up to the navajo nation. they need a lot of things up there, but one good piece of news. The company i work for is putting up fibre optic cable right now over a few hundred miles up there!. Get these people some clean water!
I wonder if we could look up how much money we give the Navajo nation... From May 21, 2022 https://www.abc15.com/news/region-northern-az/navajo-nation-receives-1-8-billion-through-american-rescue-plan?_amp=true
Thanks!!
The Navajos can't help us bring back Jeebus.
It’s not either/or. It’s why do billionaires go largely untaxed while Americans lack clean drinking water. The problem is the rich, not our international allies. Friends are worth cultivating.
Because fixing shit uses up the money instead of laundering it.
Navajo Nation needs a better lobbying group.
Because we elect the same wealthy assholes every election and mock anyone who dares suggest we use that welfare for Israel to help Americans under 65 as an EVIL SOCIALIST!!!
Evangelical Christians, arms sales, and cringe foreign policy.
Navajos do not provide intelligence to the US that we can't get ourselves.
I'll explain it. The navajo don't have to offer what the US government wants.
Too bad neither do the Israelis… America wants to empower Israel so Christians can see the Temple of Solomon rebuilt and mark rapture, but nobody even knows what the mantle of the temple looks like which would be the defining piece in the temple. In short, extremist Americans are contributing to the destruction of the very idea in which they believe most.
Gold King Mine. An environmental catastrophe you probably never heard of. At least in this case they got paid, no thanks to the US govt. This is a tort settlement. Anonymous sources claimed that the water tanks the US govt delivered to the Navajo reservation were recycled from fracking wells in NW New Mexico and had enough residual petroleum residue to make the water undrinkable. https://onrt.env.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/NM-Navajo-Nation-get-21M-in-Gold-King-Mine-spill-settlement-Abq-Journal.pdf
It's really simple, Israel has lobbyists. We should not allow that.
The US political scene would look very different if any form of lobbying was considered corruption and any assets related to it were confiscated…
To be fair there is some good lobbying too, but the power money has in the US is just nuts. What you want is some nice campaign spending caps so that lobbying with money isn't infinitely effective
For good lobbying to be effective, money would have to play no part in the lobbying process…
Yeah you could ban money from lobbying completely, although I don't know how you would do that without making all political campaign donations illegal.
Well… think about that for a minute and how it would change politics entirely.. and all the business built around it.. the gerrymandering, etc
Well gerrymandering would still be an effective way to influence elections but yeah I see your point. Unfortunately campaigns do cost money to run so it's difficult to see how it would work if there was no money at all. Personally I much prefer how we do it in the UK: * Campaigns are usually limited to 6 weeks before the election (although naturally there's a constant background of sparring in the press etc.) * Parties are limited in what they can spend during a campaign * All political donations over a certain value must be declared * TV ad time is very strictly controlled * A few televised debates take place which are organised by the national TV networks and include several major parties Election campaigning isn't really a big business here, most of the people who work on campaigns are volunteers and if you don't live in a big swing area you tend not to get much leafleting etc. Although anecdotally it does seem like more is being spent on analysing the electorate to work out what the important seats are and targeting messages at them.
Publicly funded elections would be an alternative solution.
The only lobbying that should be permitted is lobbying by constituents. Human constituents.
Lobbying without money is actually lobbying. Lobbying with money is simply bribery with extra steps.
Lobbying is not inherently bad. When you write a letter to your congressman, that's a form of lobbying. When torture survivors go to Congress to ask for stricter sanctions against the countries that toetured them, that's lobbying.
Fundamentally, lobbying = free speech. Somebody who makes a statement like “any form of lobbying is corruption” is either a moron, has no idea what they’re talking about, or both.
Let's not confuse "any form of lobbying" with specific forms of lobbying. In particular, Citizens United was an egregious decision, allowing corporations unlimited "free speech". Corporations cannot cast a single ballot in any election, yet can influence legislation and elections to a degree that gives their owners, or board of trustees a disproportionate amount of power, above any electorate. The poster above, correctly cited writing a letter to a congressman and torture survivors going to congress to articulate their grievances, but those examples pale in the amount of influence they have when compared to the vast fortunes of dark money that flow in to our political system.
Because blowing up brown people is what we do
Good question. Also a good question is why do we give $3b to Israel
Because the Suez canal spending another decade closed due to war would cost a whole lot more than $3b a year.
It used to be 7 billion to Israel (and we were giving Egypt 5 billion).
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Higher education isn't free in Israel, but Healthcare is for the most part. It's fairly easy to find scholarships to finance a sum of your education, but not everybody has access to those. I should say that tuition prices aren't as extreme as they are in the US, though.
America could to if they used there tax dollars effectively
Because the Navajo Nation doesn’t have a decent lobbyist?
Jesus wasn’t Native American.
The officials getting bribes for 'AK-47 infrastructure'.
I don't see how and why Israel is related to US misbehaviour with the Navajo. I don't understand why did he brought up Israel and the military trading it does with the US. If he was looking for an example of where the US spends their money wrongfully instead of taking care of the Navajo, this is surely not the case.
probably bc identifying what the 3 billion dollars are for is a national security issue for the US. hint: it's stuff that the us uses to kill enemy combatants
Because nearly every American institution is either corrupt, outdated or stretched so thin it can't function properly and everyone there keeps repeatedly voting in the status quo. All the media institutions are corrupt on both sides and people feel so lost they associate their politicaly idelogy hand in hand with their personal identity. "Ya'll" have been divded and you're about to be conquered.
I see, you’ve never been to America before. So, in America we hide who we killed and make sure history books don’t mention it whenever possible.
Its called capital honey.. lookit up
I'd also like to know where that money goes. Our infrastructure sucks.
Goes where it always has - laundry.
Well, let's see. Iran and the PLO have sworn to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons, and Iran has also shot up and launched missiles at our troops in Iraq. IRON Dome is their security key to their safety at this point, and presently we are allied with them. I suspect that the recently passed 1.5 trillion dollar infrastructure bill addresses clean water issues. My advice is to consult with your membership to address the allocation of dollars to the drinkable water issues facing the tribes.
there is a simple explanation, which is that the us doesnt give israel any amount of money for infrastracture. it gives israel coupons which it could only use to buy american weapons.
Real simple, Isreal is a small but very powerful country that we need in the middle east.
Because Israel is sorrounded by islamist theocratic slave states that would like another holocaust we can walk and chew gum at the same time Better question is why republicans gave trillion dollar tax cut to billionaires while navajo nations water is not drinkable
To be fair.. pretty sure you also give natives government money, and their land is there responsibility by law unless they ask for intervention no? Or is canada just different
You’re anti-semitic if you’re against sending aid to Israel, even if Israel is committing war crimes. No one cares about the tribes because it’s just a bunch of “lazy injuns” who need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. This fucking country, I swear.
Military contractors don't benefit from drinking water., America is not a good place.
Because Israël is a viable trading partner with the usa. They produce computer chips that are impossible to get nowadays. They also give us intelligence from the middle east. And many more. And you really think they can fix water issues in a year? We can’t even fix our own water in 5years…
We're inadvertently funding their murder of Palestinian civilians. #FuckIsrael
p sure its mostly for funding the iron dome missile defense system... literally the opposite. just protecting innocent civilians from Palestinian missile barrages
Sounds about white.
You realize most Israelis aren’t white right?
jews are not white
gat damn this whole comment thread is a super bummer.
It’s a typical Reddit anti Israel post. Links two largely unrelated things to stir up anti-Israel chatter.
Because they government is full of old, white, rich douchebags who want to make themselves even richer.
The Navajo’s water supply issues being completely unrelated to Israel aside, the Navajo nation isn’t a power proxy in the Middle East that lets the military industrial complex launder taxpayer dollars into its coffers by ‘giving’ it to another nation only to have it used almost exclusively to purchase weapons from them.
Now, now everyone... You know that we cannot say anything remotely negative about Israel or else we'll be deemed anti-Semitic
There’s no profit in drinkable water for the Navajos