We were taught by our elders that greed has never been a part of our culture and yet it is greed that is leading to the corruption so prevalent in Indian country. Over the past few years tribal employees at Pine Ridge have been charged and convicted of theft of tribal funds and just recently employees of Red Cloud Indian School were charge and convicted of theft. It has reached the point where the honest leaders do not know who to trust anymore.

 

It should go without saying that the people on Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Crow Creek and Standing Rock reservations are among the poorest of the poor in America and yet the corruption among some of their leaders is causing them great suffering.  It is very difficult for the poor people of these reservations to live in poverty while their leaders gain in wealth.

 

It doesn’t have to be this way. In Ivan F. Starr’s column this week he writes about morality amongst the Lakota. “People clearly understood Tiospaye laws during traditional times. Moral character and rigid ethics played a major role in Tiospaye leadership. In contrast modern leadership roles are unclear, laws are vague and confusing, and a clearly identifiable dishonesty controls government,” he wrote.

Another of the gifted columnists for Native Sun News, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, has written about the role colonialism has played in the lives of the People. She has clearly seen through the eternal smokescreens thrown up by the federal government in its actions to institute laws that clearly clash with the traditions of a People and under the guise of progress, destroy the fabric of a society that once had total and unflinching control of law over its own People.

 

And she surmises correctly and worse yet, that the Indian leadership is blinded by the false promises and non-traditional laws that are bringing once great nations to their knees as they bow to a higher power, whether it is church or state that is gradually leading them to their own demise.

 

There is an old saying that goes, “A prophet is a prophet everywhere except in his (or her) own land. In our midst we have Lakota/Dakota/Nakota elders that are truly the prophets of our time, people like Ms. Cook/Lynn and Ivan F. Starr (Star Comes Out) who have lived through the many changes that have impacted their lives and the lives of their friends and relatives on the Indian reservations.

 

Lionel Bordeaux, President of the Sinte Gleska University, is a visionary and prophet who saw the value of an education for his People and dedicated his life finding a way to provide it. These individuals should never be taken lightly for the sake of politics. Modern politics as played on the Indian reservations of America have, for the most part, been built upon greed and self-aggrandizement.  Modern politicians always place themselves above the People.

 

Starr believes that we may never go back to the old ways and for good reason. But he still has hope. He wrote, “The key is to find that god-given morality that our Lakota ancestors once lived by and enjoyed and give it to our youth. Meanwhile we must survive as best we can under our current adverse living conditions because that may not improve in our lifetimes.”

 

Elizabeth Cook-Lynn exposes the federal and state charlatans that are leading the Indian people like a herd of sheep to their own destruction. And in expressing her profound opinions, she has earned the ire of the white media and of the modernist, corrupt politicians. Cook-Lynn does not expose the individuals, but instead exposes the system of deception that far too many Indians have accepted as truth.

 

Tim Giago, Editor and Publisher