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Post by Melani on Jan 17, 2009 15:44:49 GMT -6
There are a number of living history presentations around the country where they pretty much do what you are talking about in regard to the old ways of living, both Indian, and white, but as type of performance, not people actually living there. When the park or whatever closes for the day, they go home and take showers and change their clothes, maybe catch a movie, etc. That way you can have the best of both worlds. I have seen postings by a Lakota reenactor at Bent's Old Fort, for example, who says that when he goes there, he and his wife live in a tepee, leave their cell phones at home, and generally do everything they can to re-create their ancestors' way of life--for the weekend. Then they go home and turn their cell phones back on and post to online discussion forums.
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Post by clw on Jan 29, 2009 10:00:02 GMT -6
I've often wondered why we went to such lengths to forcibly evict people from the land, and then not utilize it. Seems to me Gordie is alluding to us being 'dog in the manger' types. I went through the guilt phase, then moved on to reality. It's a process. And just to ruffle a few feathers.... viva NDN casinos! The exploited have become the exploiters. There's a certain symmetry in that.
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Post by BrokenSword on Jan 29, 2009 10:24:21 GMT -6
clw - "...And just to ruffle a few feathers.... viva NDN casinos! The exploited have become the exploiters. There's a certain symmetry in that..."
No ruffled feathers here, or was that a joke? I don't gamble, and I've never felt any guilt about what was done in the past, and before 'my' time - to or by anyone. Anyway, I've always thought that the legalization of casinos on the reservations was an absolutely brilliant idea. I'm familiar with ones in Mississippi, and not any of those out West, but have seen the positive monetary effects they have brought about in the South.
I’m not sure that it’s actually symmetry though. The whites used both hands to take from the Indian. In the casinos, the ‘robbers’ are mainly of the one arm variety.
M
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lizs
Full Member
Discovering the West
Posts: 161
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Post by lizs on Jan 29, 2009 23:17:33 GMT -6
The casinos employ people on the reservation, true, but you realize management comes from the big boys in Vegas, etc. While the income is helping the rez and communities, I think a lot of profit is going to the land of bright lights and strippers....
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Post by biggordie on Jan 30, 2009 2:03:40 GMT -6
And so am I, to EL VEE, that is. Next year I will test the casinos in Montana. I don't like to think of myself as a gambler, but a player, and although I sometimes do feel guilt over some of the things I've done in my life, it's never for what someone else did, but only for what I did. There's too much of my own, for me to carry anyone else's burden on MY shoulders, hunched and stooped as I am now.
Gordie poor old geezer
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Post by clw on Jan 30, 2009 9:10:00 GMT -6
I hear you lisz, but every Nation that has casinos is different. And there's a learning curve involved as time passes. No big boys draining the Seminole operations -- as if. Wish I had access to their healthcare programs. The Mille Lacs Ojibwe out your way are quite a success story. So are the Oneida who have been able to buy back lots of their ancestral land and raise the standard of living for their people in many ways. Indian gaming has really made a difference in many instances.
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Post by BrokenSword on Jan 30, 2009 11:41:03 GMT -6
Clw - “…I hear you lisz, but every Nation that has casinos is different. And there's a learning curve involved as time passes….”
Yep, and that goes for the individuals involved as well. I’m not familiar with any of the casinos other than the one in Mississippi. You’d not even know you’d crossed any border into tribal lands, as you travel along a major road that passes through it, until you pass beneath a magnificent arched walk-way that connects the two magnificent casino buildings sitting on either side of the road.
Along that road you can see beautiful two-story, white columned brick homes, with perfectly landscaped front yards sitting right next to dilapidated trailers (or mobile homes - long since mobile) offering an assortment of equally immobile and rusty vehicles of every description and scattered about the property. In many of those drive-ways sit $60,000 worth of tricked-out pick-up truck, and a huge television satellite dish, perched either on the sagging roof or somewhere among the lawn fixtures.
That’s in no way meant as a criticism. It’s their money and they are completely free to decide how best they care to spend it to enhance their lives. The scenery is exactly the same when driving through non tribal lands. It’s just that there is now a choice to be had in how they live, where little was to be had only a few years ago.
Did anyone suspect, one-hundred years ago, that Indians would so eagerly, and warmly, welcome the ‘white man’ into Indian lands? Even the ones like me who have to date only dropped $5 into the slots? He-Whose-Fist-Is-Tight is their adoring name for me. Among the guards anyway. Who are mostly female, Indian, cute and probably adoring of me for many other completely obvious reasons.
BS
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lizs
Full Member
Discovering the West
Posts: 161
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Post by lizs on Jan 30, 2009 12:46:33 GMT -6
hip waders on... and I seem to be having a coughing fit, BS
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Post by BrokenSword on Jan 30, 2009 13:30:53 GMT -6
Lizs - “hip waders on... and I seem to be having a coughing fit, BS” You naughty, doubtful little minx. I am TOO adorable. Just ask my mom. So there.
BS P. S. Have you no chest waders?
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Post by Melani on Feb 3, 2009 13:26:58 GMT -6
I have seen the effects of Indian casinos, at least one--a place called the Chicken Ranch, outside Sonora. In the 1970's it was a collection of wooden shacks with tar paper roofs, and drinking water had to be purchased and hauled from town, since they could not get proper services. Then they built a huge casino on that location, and their lifestyle improved considerably--better housing, drinkable running water, and so on. I think the casino is also called the Chicken Ranch.
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lizs
Full Member
Discovering the West
Posts: 161
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Post by lizs on Feb 6, 2009 11:53:27 GMT -6
I don't doubt the casino revenues are helping many tribes. But I do think there may be some big-style management not immediately obvious that could be taking some significant funds that could further help. It seems like I **knew** that to be fact for some Indian casino, but can't remember now. It only makes sense - the big boys have the big expertise in running casinos.
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Post by BrokenSword on Feb 6, 2009 14:57:58 GMT -6
litz,
I remember reading, several years ago, that organized crime was attempting to get its finger into the pie for 'a piece of the action,' just to 'wet its beak' (a little ganster lingo, there). It seems that the FBI was looking into it, but I don't remember the outcome of the investigation.
I hope it is not the case, but neither do I see how it could easily be avoided. Any business which deals with so much cash is wide open to corruption and corruption's influences. I once read a paper on corruption, and what level is to be expected in any organized endeavor, as well as how to best deal with it, once beyond the level of 'tolerability'. It was written by Nguyen Cao Ky, former Premier and Vice-President of the Republic of Vietnam, and a man well versed in corruption's effects and consequences. I have to admit - he made some astute observations.
Ky was coming from a corrupt society's perspective, as is the 'Mob.' It is to be hoped that the Indian mentality is not one of acceptable corruption by tradition. In the end it will be the Indians themselves who must not take their eyes off the ball. Gaming is a winner for them, and we can only hope it will not be the big loser too.
M
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Post by clw on Feb 6, 2009 16:33:52 GMT -6
They were victimized far more by the likes of Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay than by any "big-style management". Jack took them to the cleaners for around 85 million and the list of those in it with him is long and famous.
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Post by BrokenSword on Feb 6, 2009 17:00:27 GMT -6
clw (She-Who-Speaks-For-The-Fireflies)
"any organized endeavor" goes double, probably triple, for government entities.
M
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Post by Treasuredude on Feb 7, 2009 8:54:46 GMT -6
The casinos employ people on the reservation, true, but you realize management comes from the big boys in Vegas, etc. While the income is helping the rez and communities, I think a lot of profit is going to the land of bright lights and strippers.... You got something against strippers? ;D
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