cofax7: climbing on an abbey wall  (Default)

[personal profile] cofax7 2007-12-20 08:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Hmm. I'd wait until it's clear whether this is just a publicity stunt; in fact I'm pretty sure it is. The Lakota make up several different tribes and you'd have to get the political leadership of each tribe to sign off on it, and that wouldn't have happened without a lot more publicity, so... nothing's going to happen. Plus, Congress has plenary authority over the tribes, which they reject, but...

Sorry to be a wet-blanket, and thanks for the link.

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-12-20 08:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, I wasn't quite that serious. It's an attractive notion, though.
cofax7: climbing on an abbey wall  (Default)

[personal profile] cofax7 2007-12-20 08:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, yeah, except I think I'd wait a good ten years until they got all the infrastructure properly funded and scaled up to support the influx of immigrants. *g*

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-12-20 08:23 pm (UTC)(link)
At least someone's being practical :-)

[identity profile] susansugarspun.livejournal.com 2007-12-20 09:33 pm (UTC)(link)
The article does say that they've been working on this for over thirty years, though. They may not be prepared to (or want to) accept a lot of immigrants, but I'm actually inclined to think they're more serious than just a publicity stunt.
cofax7: climbing on an abbey wall  (Default)

[personal profile] cofax7 2007-12-20 09:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, I believe they're serious. But Russell Means isn't, so far as I know, a member of any Lakota tribal council. A group of people declaring seccession doesn't a seccession make.

In other words, there's no legal effect here. Just political. Which is fine, as far as it goes--but I suspect the various tribal councils would like to have a say before giving up their IHS benefits, for instance.