Sioux 2: More on leader planning tribal genocide
In my previous column I wrote about Oglala Sioux president Cecilia Fire Thunder, who has threatened to open an abortion clinic on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation if the new state abortion ban is enacted.
It turns out Fire Thunder is a former abortion clinic worker, something she omitted from her resume until two weeks ago.
It also turns out Fire Thunder made her announcement to “establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land” without checking with Planned Parenthood, which has since issued a statement to the contrary.
Fire Thunder also forgot to check with her tribe – again – for which she has now received her third impeachment complaint in less than two years.
It was only this past January that Fire Thunder came off a two month suspension for charges ranging from most interestingly, failure to pay tribal Head Start bills, to embezzlement, fraud, perjury, threats of bodily harm, and trespassing.
The most serious charge was that Fire Thunder pawned tribal land to secure a $38 million loan from another tribe.
But all charges were dismissed without a hearing by a tribal council that included a convicted felon and was also named in that complaint.
Speaking of embezzlement, Fire Thunder is accepting donations for her abortion clinic at her personal post office box in Martin, South Dakota. Checks can be made out to “OST Planned Parenthood Cecelia Fire Thunder,” even though Planned Parenthood apparently isn’t participating….
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Read complete column, “Sioux 2: More on leader planning tribal genocide,” at WorldNetDaily.com.
[Photo courtesy of WND.com.]
My thanks to two Native Americans in particular – Terry and Stacy – who provided helpful background information. My impression over the last two weeks from research and emails is that Native Americans by and large consider children sacred from conception.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Just read your latest column and I enjoyed your biting wit and appreciated your thorough research. Good job!
Rod Van Mechelen
Member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe
I’m not Sioux, but I’m told I have a thimble full of Blackfoot blood in my veins.
Although I don’t identify with any specific Native American community, from a distance I watch them carefully (and identify with them all, secretly), because it seems that more than any identifiable people groups in these United States, they have failed to embrace the American Dream.
Despite the land, despite the treaties, despite the favored status in the laws (e.g., fishing rights), despite the money, despite the glitz (casinos), they cannot make it out of their disease and squalor. It breaks my heart!
I’m certain your last two expos
I am impressed with the heart of the article today because I know there is truth involved. In my own research of the planned parenthood Fire Thunder it is interesting that there is law and order code in the Oglala Sioux Tribe that basically states the fetus is a human being and should be protected. So we have this woman who believes she is above the law. By the mentioning of a planned parenthood clinic she is breaking the Law.
Leon
I applaud Jill’s work and accept without reservation (no pun intended) that Jerry Vreeland’s intentions are good, so please forgive me for commenting on some of his remarks.
I am an American Indian and a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe. My tribe has a few acres, some of which we are fighting against moneyed interests to take into trust. We do not have a reservation. We do not have any treaties. We do not have any fishing rights, or money, or glitz (casinos).
We do, however, have many elderly members, impoverished members, and members in poor health. Few if any members of our tribe live on a reservation. In fact, less than half of all enrolled members of America’s Indian tribes do live on reservations. Yet the demographics for the American Indian population remain near or at the bottom of American society.
Why? It’s complicated. Some of it, as Michael Medved recently suggested, is internalized. Like Vivian said in Pretty Woman, “it’s easier to believe (and internalize) the bad” things that people say about us. A graduate of the University of Washington, I paid for 8 years of college by working part-time and full-time jobs. No scholarships or grants, no loans, just a lot of hard work. Objectively I know that I am a worthy human being, yet everyday I struggle to overcome the violence and racism of my youth.
It’s also about slammed doors and stolen opportunities. Time after time tribes and tribal members have developed businesses??not special privilege businesses or government granted monopolies, but bona fide sweat-of-the-brow ventures??only to have moneyed interests interfere via many means, including political, to take those businesses away and ban Indians from those enterprises. This has happened again and again, generation after generation, so it’s understandable why apathy and depression is so pervasive among us.
This is where Jerry and I converge on agreement with Dr. David A. Yeagley, who has written that the tribes need to close our (cultural borders) to the “culture of death” and reclaim our traditional values, so that the conservative principles of our ancestors can work for us as they work for all who embrace them.
Rod Van Mechelen
Member, Cowlitz Indian Tribe tribal council
Re: Thunder Chicken, our Aboriginals have got nothing on your Natives. The corruption and self-dealing runs deep.
The unmitigated gall of some of these self-proclaimed Aboriginal leaders, in the face of poverty on the reserves, is hard to swallow. Billions are poured in, tainted guilt money. What trickles down to the families and
their plight are pennies on the dollar.
It has always been my belief that the Indian Act should be abolished because it just suppresses aboriginal freedom. To stand on your own two feet. We require it of social assistance recipients. We give them a hand up, not a hand out. Why should we segregate and label this particular culture and reward it with more than any other culture receives?
Up here in the great white north, Aboriginals are getting sick from tainted water on the reserves. On the other hand, the Chiefs and their assorted bag-men live in palaces, just like tin-pot dictators do, while their people
live in squalor.
My heart hurts for the children, and the disabled ones
like my boy. What hope in hell do they have on a reserve, amid the poverty, booze and drugs? Yet society as a whole turns a blind eye, it’s easier than facing the problem head on.
Nothing more than slavery, reserves are. Segregation of the worse sort, with mortality rates worse than downtown
Calcutta.
This is happening here in Canada, and not some impoverished corner of the world. As a Canadian I feel shame that my government continues to appease instead of raising the Aboriginals from poverty through land ownership, property taxes that raise funds for clean self government. It would make them accountable.
It is what the Aboriginals really need and want to improve their lot, but the Indian Industry and their Armani suited
operatives would rather the status quo continue forever. That the guilt forpast sins, real or perceived, never be erased from our consciousness.
Now that’s the real shame in all this, isn’t it Jill?
Ms. Stanek,
I was just wondering where on Earth did you find that proverb, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly”? What an appropriately patriarchal hegemonic way to speak. Continue the wasicu legacy, keep writing your drivel.
Best,
Torry
Torry,
I got that quote from the Ultimate Patriarch’s book, the Bible: Proverbs 26:11
Regards,
Jill
“Despite the land, despite the treaties, despite the favored status in the laws (e.g., fishing rights), despite the money, despite the glitz (casinos), they cannot make it out of their disease and squalor. It breaks my heart!”
One correction I would make here is that a couple of these things are not working FOR the Native Americans. One, for instance, is “treaties”. The fact of the matter is that every treaty the US government ever made with the American Indians has been broken, and the government refuses to honor them even though it was the government itself who declared treaties to be “the highest law of the land”. As far as “the money” goes, I don’t know about other tribes, but the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council is infamous for either letting money come in one door and out the other, spending $30,000 just to go have an inipi ceremony in the Black Hills, or just giving it to the people with the “right” last names. The same is true of the casino here. If you aren’t related to the right person, you don’t get a job there OR receive the money it is supposed to be generating for the WHOLE tribe.
If you want to know what is REALLY holding the people back, it is a combination of almost non-existent job opportunities and border towns who are allowed to disobey liquor laws and capitalize ($4 Million a year each) on the depression that poverty brings with it. It is the government keeping the Lakota dependent on the wellfare system instead of using its funding to encourage entrepreneureal ventures and economic stimulation. That is why they cannot make it out of the “disease and squalor”, and it breaks my heart, too. The government could easily afford to fix this – even WITH the Iraq War going on – but all politicians ever do here is make promises they don’t keep once elected to office. They just help throw one hum-dinger of a Pow-Wow, give out neat t-shirts with the promise that you will vote for them, and then disappear until the next election.
Hi Leon!:)
This is the “other” Carol that was there the night that van came down to the coffee shop with the Pro-Life materials. I was wondering, can Cecelia really get in trouble just for talking about putting a clinic on the reservation? Is it a “conflict of interest” issue? It also occurred to me, though, that what she is going to get into BIG trouble for is taking donations for the clinic even though Planned Barrenhood already said they were not going to build one, and it is against tribal law to have it here. I don’t know how she will get herself out of that mess, but it seems to me like she would never have gotten elected had she made it known from the start just what kind of nurse she had been. What do YOU think?
Torry,
Be careful with that “patriarchal” stuff. Many TRIBES are patriarchal, and with good reason – to protect the women and children. It ain’t just a “wasicu” thing. In fact, isn’t it a LAKOTA saying that “A woman never precedes a man”? As far as Jill’s continuing with the “wasicu” legacy goes, I believe her article has given ample proof from both tribal law and Cecelia’s OWN words that Oglalas are Pro-Life, so couldn’t you be accused of following the “wasicu” legacy by opposing her? Or are you just being anti-white?
An open letter to Councilman Rod Van Mechelen.
Dear Rod,
Warm greetings from just north of you, in Tacoma.
As a former member of the Cowlitz Wakiakum Ministerial Association (Former Associate Pastor of Kelso First Baptist Church), I completely identify with what you, Rod, have said in your response to me.
As a member of the Tribal Council I am going to have to assume that you are either my age or my senior and so I will address you as my elder. First, a little of my own story….
I went to what I was told at the time was the third poorest school district in the United States (South Lincoln County, Oregon). There were no scholarships for me either; but it was not because of ethnicity. At the time, and due to an inferior education, I simply was not able to compete! I paid cash for my college education (OSU ’77) and worked summers.
Because of the era in which I grew up, my father squirreled away 11 years of his social security retirement for my education. I was fortunate, that option was not available for long. Most guys I knew who had retired fathers had the money “absorbed by the estate.”
In a later era when I did my two masters degrees and my doctorate, affirmative action policies were in full force, so women and minorities received the lion’s share of the funding. (I even had marginal students who received scholarships ahead of me – despite finishing at the head of my doctoral class.) I paid cash for 10 years of graduate school.
I still have to ask, though, whether you are bringing to our attention a contention that is based on ethnicity or one that is based on the evil of humanity in general.
My thought is this: Up here in Port Orchard, as well as hundreds of places across the nation, powerful bureaucratic entities are stealing land (eminent domain) and stifling the economic welfare of small business ventures owned by whites as well as anybody else that gets in their way.
For instance, the previous owner of the plot upon which I built my house had three suits against Kitsap County for trying to put through an unnecessary road. Up to this point, all is quiet on the legal front.
It also reminds me of the land grabs from the Kikuyu by Kenyan bureaucrats and Asian business interests as well as the UN during the four years I lived in Nairobi.
Friend, people are bad the world around and they prey on the weak and already disenfranchised.
In addition, big business is voracious. I used to work at an independent industrial laundry in Portland that was first swallowed up by a national service corporation and then by a British corporation and finally by a global entity. Oy! How does anybody, native or alien compete with the likes of that!
It is a shame that indigenous and naturalized alike must be the either the fish that eats the smaller fish or find some quiet backwater in which to swim. I chose the quiet backwater.
Be that as it may, I have no final solution to the problem. Because I’ve staked my claim on the idea that God’s program is the Church in this age, and consonant with Jesus’ teaching on the subject, I believe that the church should have a sharp eye out for the victimized in its fellowship as well as the disenfranchised in society as a whole. Sorry, friend, we have not done as well as we might.
Back to Vivian: the stereotypes exist for a reason, and they are hard to break. In all discussions of prejudice, persecution and abuse I always say: “Yeah, those white boys always called me names and beat me up, too.” They did so merely because my glasses were so thick. Kids are mean, and it seems they never grow up!
I never liked the “drunken, unruly Indian” stereotypes that I heard from my adopted mom (who grew up on Flathead land); but they exist, and like “four-eyes” and “the kid with prescription ashtrays,” we’ve got to break them.
We do that by getting out of the rut and out of the vicious cycle. In my case it meant merely getting contact lenses and moving away from Waldport, “the place where all the old people go to die.” It is more intense and demanding for people with more readily identifiable differences.
However, I do not think isolationism is the answer. “The culture of death” can infiltrate any geo-political entity that I know of. It needs to be defeated at the ideational level rather than with laws and fences. Well, be that as it may…
For my Cowlitz friend, I hope this more broadened understanding unites us in the quest to seek out the disenfranchised of all “races, creeds and colors” and to attempt to make their causes known to those who really ought to care. To this end, I join you in your celebration of Jill Stanek and her tireless quest to keep our unborn alive so that they have a chance, if possible, to make a better world that my generation (boomers) at least didn’t do so well with.
Respectfully and with blessings!
Jerry
I just want you to know that you are the most ignorant person I’ve ever read blabbing about issues that do not concern you. You talk as if you care for Ogala Sioux people and as if you know their culture and “religion,” if you will, when it’s very obvious that this is the first time you’ve looked into anything having to do with this tribe.
Every argument you make in the two recent articles simply tags abortion as “murder” (a very loaded and misleading word) and says absolutely nothing new or relevant to the specific argument.
You then proceed to hypocriticly criticize President Fire-Thunder for using these same types of words (though even less powerful ones) such as child, baby, etc., when the terms used are completely irrelevent – fetus, zygote, take your pick – they all refer to the same entity, and the issue is not what we call that entity.
Also, the rape point is ridiculous. Saying that Native Americans are more prone to sexual abuse, etc., simply accentuates the need for such a clinic. No rapist decides to do so beacuse they know their victim can get an abortion. It just doesn’t work that way, and a vast majority of these cases are solved due to evidence such as semen, hair, etc., left on the scene and to say that an abortion is “destroying evidence” is bogus and further seems to de-humanize these entities which you wish to protect.
These articles are filled with empty, gross-generalizations and chosen blurbs and “facts” that you read from the internet.
The assumption that a Planned Parenthood would be simply a “abortion mill” is bogus. From personal experience, I know that the primary service that these clinics provide is contraception, not abortion, and a way for less of these operations to become necessary.
Even in a case such as rape, the morning after pill is a much more used alternative to abortion. The image that is put forth to readers of countless women filing in to dispose of their children is more false and misleading than any statement President Fire-Thunder has made about this issue.
The number of cases of abortions on this tribal land, assuming the clinic is built, will be surprisingly little; hardly anywhere close to “tribal genocide.”
On a wide scale, this will have virtually no effect on the Ogala Sioux population. This word (genocide), once again, is much worse than Fire-Thunder’s use of “baby” and “child” and is used to villainize someone who simply sees things a different way and has much more say in the goings-on of her people.
I have no respect at all for you as a writer, and hope that next time you take a bit more care in planning relevant arguments with relevant research to back them up instead of spouting the same “genocide, murder, kill the kids” bullshit that’s in every one of your articles. I don’t know how you got such a job, but you should be fired.
Jordan,
Particularly my most recent column contained more corroboration – links to news articles – than any other column I’ve ever written. To infer that my information was incorrect is to demonstrate how your view of abortion has clouded your rational thought.
Re: some of your other points:
1. To not see how abortion is an incest perpetrator’s best friend is another demonstration of blindness.
2. Planned Parenthood is the United States’ largest abortion provider. That’s a fact. It has a great, air tight money-making scheme. It pushes and provides sex ed (paid for by tax dollars). It then pushes and provides contraception for profit. If the contraception fails, surprise!, Planned Parenthood provides the solution – abortion for profit. It then starts the cycle again by promoting free sex and contraception. You don’t get that?
3. Words mean things. If they didn’t, people like you wouldn’t call preborn babies “entities.” My pointing out Fire Thunder’s use of human terminology in describing these “entities” was to point out her schizophrenia. She knows they’re human but still wants to kill them.
4. Your argument that you don’t think many Oglala babies will be killed, making it all ok, falls flat. What does it matter how many are killed if they’re mere “entities” and not human? Why should you, like Hillary, care whether or not abortion is rare if it’s such a great thing?
I just want you to know that you are the most ignorant person I’ve ever read blabbing about issues that do not concern you. You talk as if you care for Ogala Sioux people and as if you know their culture and “religion,” if you
will, when it’s very obvious that this is the first time you’ve looked into anything having to do with this tribe.
What, in the second article, did Jill say that was incorrect? All I see are facts listed and backed up by quotes from Lakotas ? some of them by Cecelia herself.
Every argument you make in the two recent articles simply tags abortion as “murder” (a very loaded and misleading word) and says absolutely nothing new or relevant to the specific argument.
Please explain how the word “murder” is misleading. Is a child NOT being killed in an abortion?
You then proceed to hypocriticly criticize President Fire-Thunder for using these same types of words (though even less powerful ones) such as child, baby, etc., when the terms used are completely irrelevent – fetus, zygote, take your pick – they all refer to the same entity, and the issue is not what we call that
entity.
I think what we call that “entity” is extremely relevant, and so does NARAL, Planned Parenthood, CARAL, NOW, and all the other organizations that support a woman’s “right” to choose. Even THOSE organizations steer clear of using words like “child”, “baby”, etc. in favor of words that sound more sterile and scientific such as “fetus” because they know that as long as a woman considers her baby to be just that, she is far more likely NOT to abort it, and abortion is a booming business – 4000 a day, in fact. Frankly, I am surprised that you would fall for the same old tactic that was once used in this country to exterminate the Native population – dehumanize them so you can kill them with a clear conscience. Hitler made good use of that policy, too. In fact, it was Margaret Sanger – founder of Planned Parenthood, and eugenicist who was influential to the Nazis’ extermination policies – who called all the non-white races “human waste” and believed that birth control was the best means of letting them exterminate themselves.
Also, the rape point is ridiculous. Saying that Native Americans are more prone to sexual abuse, etc., simply accentuates the need for such a clinic. No rapist decides to do so beacuse they know their victim can get an abortion. It just doesn’t work that way, and a vast majority of these cases are solved due to evidence such as semen, hair, etc., left on the scene and to say that an abortion is “destroying evidence” is bogus and further seems to de-humanize these entities which you wish to protect.
Yes, and what about when the rape goes unreported? I PERSONALLY know women and girls out here (because of my occupation) who have been the victims of rape and incest who, for whatever reason, will not report it. In any case, I don’t think that Jill is saying that abortion should be illegal because it “hides the evidence” (which it does), I think that Jill is saying that abortion should be illegal because no one has the right to kill an innocent human being. The “evidence” argument just adds credence to the argument that neither rape nor incest make a child any less of a child, and are not a good justification for killing him/her.
These articles are filled with empty, gross-generalizations and chosen blurbs and “facts” that you read from the internet.
The assumption that a Planned Parenthood would be simply a “abortion mill” is bogus. From personal experience, I know that the primary service that these clinics provide is contraception, not abortion, and a way for less of these operations to become necessary.
It is ALSO a fact that of the 23 brands of condoms tested, Planned Parenthood’s ranked #22 and #23 respectively. I wonder why THAT is.
Even in a case such as rape, the morning after pill is a much more used alternative to abortion. The image that is put forth to readers of countless women filing in to dispose of their children is more false and misleading than any statement President Fire-Thunder has made about this issue.
The morning after pill works by disallowing an already conceived human being to attach to the uterus. Abortion by any other name… Nevertheless, when 1,200,000 babies a year are being aborted, I don’t get the picture in my head of just a trickle of women having the “odd” abortion for rape or incest. In fact, most abortions are “elective”, and have nothing at all to do with rape, incest, OR the health of the mother.
The number of cases of abortions on this tribal land, assuming the clinic is built, will be surprisingly little; hardly anywhere close to “tribal genocide.”
Careful! It was argued in the early 70’s that legalizing abortion would never lead to “abortion on demand”, too. 1,200,000 ELECTIVE abortions a year! This clinic that Cecelia wants to put on the reservation is ALSO for the purpose of aborting non-Lakota babies as well, and – now this is just my personal opinion, here – I don’t think Tunkasila is going to distinguish between Lakota and non-Lakota babies when the time comes to own up, because He created BOTH.
On a wide scale, this will have virtually no effect on the Ogala Sioux population. This word (genocide), once again, is much worse than Fire-Thunder’s use of “baby” and “child” and is used to villainize someone who simply sees things a different way and has much more say in the goings-on of her people.
Was it too strong for Hitler? After all, he just saw things in a different way and had quite a bit to say in the goings-on of his people.
To Cecilia Fire Thunder, President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe:
In your public response to the South Dakota ban on abortion, you made the statement that
To Cecilia Fire Thunder, President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe:
In your public response to the South Dakota ban on abortion, you made the statement that
Hi Jerry, please email me. Rod
I don’t think I’ve ever been as interested in reading a blogger’s comments as I have today! Jill, this blog about Fire Thunder is going to help a lot of people in the next few months – thanks for getting all this info put down in one place!
Just a quick note: “Jordan” had mentioned that semen and hair evidence are what normally convicts in a rape case, not a child resulting from it. That is actually a common mistake – useful DNA evidence is more rare than people think, and convictions usually are based on testimony and corroborative evidence (which is why therape allegations against the Duke University lacrosse team have not gone away, despite a lack of DNA evidence).
Carol, I’m glad I got to meet you last week! Keep up the awesome work!
carol, I too was annoyed by the ignorance of the poster “jordan” and felt compelled to post back but you nailed it on the head and posted just about everything I was gonna write.good job.
I will attack one point he made though:
Every argument you make in the two recent articles simply tags abortion as “murder” (a very loaded and misleading word)
Jordan:can you answer the question or not??
How IS the word murder misleading??
personally I think planned parenthoods words like “tissue” “clot” and “blob”are misleading~such should be replaced with “heartbeat” and “fingers” and “toes”.
If abortion is not murder tell me something~
If my mother (being very mislead on the issue)
did not have an abortion 25 years ago I would have an older sibling right now.25 years old living LIFE,just like you, and just like me.But the only thing that kept my bro/sis from life is one thing ABORTION.Write me back and let me know when abotion=NOT intentionally ending a life.(average of 70 yearsBTW)
Also be sure to tell me when intentionally ending a life somehow doesnt=Murder.??!!!!!!
p.s. Im glad my Mom didn’t make the same tragic mistake twice or I wouldn’t be here typing this post.
LIFE IS SACRED