Why politics?

 The politics that are creating difficulties   for Native Americans are mainly   consisting of altered treaties, many   violated treaties, Indian laws, corruption   in some tribal governments, the policies   of te BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) in the   USA and the Minister of Indian Affairs and   Northern Development  in Canada, the   disinterest by the media and the   general ignoring and ignorance by   authorities as well as the public. This   general invisibility is something that   activists need to fight by making some   good noise about it.

  This noise is really very much necessary because Native Americans are actually the most   forgotten and ignored people on earth. And what many people often don't realize is that the   Western media are not really as free, neutral, democratic, balanced or independent as we all   may think they are. We only need to turn on the television to see how frequently the same old   news items get endlessly recycled, even on the news stations that claim to bring "world   news". But the reality of the REAL news is much more diverse than that. Every news station   has some kind of opinion or is often dependent on government subsidies from governments   that have other interests than gving out the whole truth of what's happening in the world.   Most of us really do care about injustice and will have our say about the treatment of women   in Arab countries, the treatment of Tibetans by the Chinese authorities, the illtreatment of   animals, or the swaetshops in the wellknown low wage countries, but quite often we do not l   like to hear the same kind of criticism if it happens to be about our own country. Yet there are   injustices taking place in every imaginable country on earth but the changes to improve this,   need to happen right there and are dependent on the people who live there and who in their   turn need to take an honest look at themselves for this. Criticizing the things that need to be   criticized can often mean being accused of being "anti-american" as I have many times   experiences but we shouldn't be bothered by this bromide. It is simply inevitable and it's going   to happen over and over again anyway. There will always be people who will get offended by   it but if it were to deter us then we won't make a change and everything will be just the way it   is which is not what was good.

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