Humor Me

I know you people.  You want some Mongoliangirl quick and dirty freak out on pumpkin muffins or coffee or one of our dogs that can’t crap or one of my fantastic craps.

Today?  You’re going to have to read.

Humor me.  I’ve given you so much pumpkin muffin and fantastic crap lovin’ over the past year that I think you should do this for me.

Plus, I solemnly swear that I will eat a bunch of peanuts that will clog up my colon for 4 or 5 days, and then blog all about the death defying crap it causes me to take if you do this for me. **

Here we go…

THIS happened on Wednesday:

  Greenpeace activists were arrested Wednesday for scaling Mount Rushmore and hanging a banner next to the carved face of Abraham Lincoln urging President Barack Obama to get tough on climate change.

THIS happened in 1868:

The Treaty of Fort Laramie (also called the Sioux Treaty of 1868) was an agreement between the United States and the Lakota nation, Yanktonai Sioux, Santee Sioux, and Arapaho signed in 1868 at Fort Laramie in the Wyoming Territory, guaranteeing to the Lakota ownership of the Black Hills, and further land and hunting rights in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. The Powder River Country was to be henceforth closed to all whites.

Repeated violations of the otherwise exclusive rights to the land by gold prospectors led to the Black Hills War. Migrant workers seeking gold had crossed the reservation borders, in violation of the treaty. Indians had assaulted these gold prospectors, in violation of the treaty, and war ensued. The U.S. government seized the Black Hills land in 1877.

This happened in 1924:

By selecting four great presidential figures for the carving of Mt. Rushmore, the trio of Doane Robinson (Superintendent of the South Dakota Historical Society), US Senator Peter Norbeck, and sculptor Gutzon Borglum sought to create what they called an “eternal reminder of the birth, growth, preservation and development of a nation dedicated to democracy and the pursuit of individual liberty”.

THIS happened in 1971

(John Fire Lame Deer)

AIM (American Indian Movement) organized an occupation of Mount Rushmore itself.  Along with Lakota holy man John Fire Lame Deer, twenty young AIM activists, children and tribal elders climbed to the top of Mount Rushmore and camped out on top of the monument.  Their demand was simple; that the United States honor the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty.  The lands that had been taken in violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty consist of a large portion of South Dakota, North Dakota, and portions of Nebraska and Montana.

Symbolically, Lame Deer planted a prayer staff at the top in order to “make the mountain a sacred place again.”  He also claimed that he was putting a blanket or shroud over the mountain mystically, so that the faces of the sculptures would remain dirty until the Black Hills treaties were made good upon.  The protest was non-violent and the protesters were removed by National Park Service staff and charged with trespassing.

THESE are a few facts about current day affects of thousands of mining operations that have taken place in the territory included in the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868:

The region is honeycombed with exploratory wells that have been dug as far down as six to eight hundred feet. In the southwestern Black Hills area, there are more than 4,000 uranium exploratory wells.  On the Wyoming side of the Black Hills, there are 3,000 wells.  Further north into North Dakota, there are more than a thousand wells.

When the winds come, they pick up the [uranium] dust and carry it; when it rains or snows, it washes it down into the aquifers and groundwater.  Much of this radioactive contamination then finds its way into the Missouri River.

A nuclear physicist has declared one mine in the area to be as radioactively “hot” as ground zero of Hiroshima.

This is what I am thinking:

1. Former US President (1870 – 1880) Ulysses S. Grant was a fuckin’ prick.  It was upon his 1877 orders that the US military turned a blind eye to the first violations of the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868.  Maybe the good part in this is that the US actually kept it’s word for almost a decade.  I mean, that’s a fairly long stretch for this country.
2. Did you notice how the word ‘claim’ was used to describe John Fire Lame Deer putting a shroud or blanket over Mt. Rushmore to have the faces remain dirty until the treaties were made good upon.   ”He also claimed…”  I’m thinking that must have been a wee bit more than a claim of having done something.  I’m thinking he did it.  I’m thinking it worked.
3. Greenpeace can go fuck themselves for using Mt. Rushmore as a way to make a statement about getting tough on climate change.  I would like to make them live for a decade on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and drink the water.  Lots of it.  Every day.  I would like to make them endure the fear, worry and anxiety of knowing their women are pregnant and are drinking water tainted with radiation so dense that it is equivocated to that of ground zero of Hiroishma.
4. Honestly, I wonder what would happen of all of our world leaders went to the homes of their indigenous populations for a while?  If they allowed themselves to be welcomed and taught.  If they let their minds be discovered in a new light.  If they let their feet touch the holy ground of an ancient and sacred ceremony.  Let them dance and feel and move about within it.  If they rested in the humble dwellings of these people and allowed themselves to be wrapped in a blanket of stars and touched by the maker of dreams.  I wonder.

** I am so not going to clog up my colon for you.  Last time that happened I ended up having to get a CT scan and felt as if an alien baby was going to burst forth from my side and take over the earth.