Please Watch and Read
Vital Vocabulary
Poli = Multiple or Many
Tics = Blood Suckers
PAC = Political Action Committee (Political Slush Fund)
Bundler = A Major Donor who gets others to make Major Donations
Primaried = When a sitting member of Congress gets a challenger from their own party
Pay to Play = You have to make political donations to be listened to by members of Congress
My very first day of Political Science Classes as an undergrad taught me something I had understood instinctively. The first words out of my professors mouth were, "the definition of politics is.” And every one of us in class started taking notes, “Poli which means multiple or many and ticks which are blood suckers.” Then he immediately went on to say that “Money is the lifeblood of politics.” Politicians and their “bundlers” always have "their hands out for more and more money." They also know, "that those who give normally give to get influence over the way a candidate will vote. Money buys access and influence. If you are poor and have nothing a politician wants, they have not use for you."
While I knew this type of thing existed, I was shocked at the extent to which it encompasses. About 20 months ago, after contacting Congress to try to get a second meeting with the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs or a first meeting with the Indigenous People’s subcommittee, I received telephone calls from several “friends” who all informed me of the same type of information. First, I was shocked these "friends" knew we were contacting Senators and House Members, then I remembered DC is a very small place, even during COVID-19.
Each of these “friends” said almost the same thing verbatim, “No Member on the House or Senate Committees will speak to you because they will immediately lose their campaign contributions and find they are being primaried.” This is what that means in laymen’s terminology. If any member of the House of Senate Committees which deal with Indian Affairs actually talks to you and allows you to present your information to them, they will immediately have all of their political campaign contributions from all of the different contributing subsidiaries of the “Tribes” and then there will be a person run against them in the next primary who the “Tribes” will fund the opponent’s campaigns.
There is a dirty little secret that everyone on the House and Senate Committees dealing with Indian affairs knows and does not talk about because of the massive amounts of funds would be lost to them from corporations called “Tribes.” The dirty little secret is that the Curtis Act of 1906 terminated several Tribes and most of them have ever been re-recognized. They are now corporate entities of the state of Oklahoma masquerading as "Tribes". Today, these so called “Tribes” donate millions of dollars to most of the politicians on the House and Senate Committees which oversee Indian affairs. They act like “Tribes” and even pretend to be “Tribes” but they no longer exist as Tribes, because their governments ended for them with the Curtis Act of 1906.
To prove a point, I suggest everyone go to the following website, Open Secrets, and take a look around. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/. I would suggest you type in the name of anyone of the “Five Civilized Tribes” and find out how many subsidiaries and how much money each of those subsidiaries actually give to House and Senate Members and their PACs, especially those on the House Committee on Natural Resources which oversees the subcommittee for Indigenous peoples, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and the donations to the committees themselves. Most of the “Five Civilized Tribes” have more than one sub group that they use to make political campaign contributions through as well because there are limits of giving. Having numerous groups giving for the same “Tribe” allows the influence to be expanded exponentially.
Here is one example: Click on https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/cherokee-nation/summary?id=D000060635 and look at the bottom right of the first box and find “View All Recipients” Click that link and scroll down toward the bottom and there is another box called All Recipients. This is who this tribe made political campaign contributions to during the 2020 election cycle. You can look at election cycles from 2022, 2020, 2018, 2016, 2014, and 2012. This is “REAL” money.
Over the last 3 years, every time I have called to speak with a House Member or Senator, there is a person on the other end who answers the phone and refers me to speak with an aide. Those “Tribe” leaders who make political campaign contributions, do not suffer the same disrespect I suffer, their phone calls are routed to the House Member or Senator. This is called Pay to Play. They make political donations and they get heard. Much like when they agreed to ally with the United States against the Chickamauga since late June of 1776.
Chickamauga Nation, what do we have to “offer” as “gifts” to members of Congress so we can “Pay to Play”? What do we have that members of Congress want or need? As an impoverished Indigenous Tribe, who has a government to government relationship with the United States, we do not have 30 pieces of silver to offer members of Congress to Pay to Play. When members of Congress say, “we are with the government and we are here to help,” what we must interpret that to mean is, if you want our help, give me something I want.
Right after the 2020 election, I contacted the House Member from Arkansas who had just become the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Natural Resources. This is a very powerful position and he has the ability to determine what issues will be placed in from of the Indigenous People’s subcommittee. When I called his office, I was rebuffed by a person on the other end of the phone, and told, “the Congressman is too busy to talk to you.” What he does not realize is that there are thousands of Chickamauga in the State of Arkansas and his office was disrespectful of each of them. We did not come bearing “gifts” to lay down in his political coffers so we did not get to play.
I also contacted the office of one of the Arkansas Senators asking for his help to have us placed on the List of Tribes who are Eligible for Services by the BIA. His staffers immediately contacted the Office of Federal Acknowledgement who informed the Senator that the United States had “NO HISTORY” of the Chickamauga and that they are NOT on the “List.” I received a terse letter from that Senator saying there is nothing he can do to help us, but if we need help in the future to let him know. Was this a veiled request for a Pay to Play scenario? I had not asked him or his staff if we were on the List, I asked his office to help us get on the List. Again, we had nothing to “offer.”
I had informed the Senator’s staff, a young man named Jimmy, that it was illegal for us to go through the Part 83 process for federal acknowledgement through the Office of Federal Acknowledgement because we are already federally recognized and the process is only for the determination to decide if a tribe is federally recognized. We had already provided them with the information that the Office of Federal Acknowledgement is run by a Cherokee Nation citizen named Lee Fleming. Lee Fleming’s OFA is run by numerous Cherokees. We explained that Cherokees are the mortal enemies of the Chickamauga. I explained to him that the Cherokee committed Genocide against our Lower Town villages and was responsible for bringing the US Military and the state militias into the Lower Towns to murder, rape and pillage our ancestors.
We have spoken to the staff of several Congressmen and Senators from Arkansas, Tennessee, and Georgia. All to no avail. No one will help us get a meeting with the appropriate committees. One House member from Tennessee who is a military veteran said, “Yeah, you guys are the Chichimaka from Louisiana, I know who you are.” Apparently, ignorance is bliss.
For our first political primer, I want to recap our lesson.
1. American politics is a game and it is rigged against the weak and poor.
2. Politicians always have their hand out and unless it is filled with “Pay” there is no Play.
3. Terminated “Tribes” control the Office of Federal Acknowledgement, The Bureau of Indian Affairs
4. Terminated “Tribes dominate political campaign contributions to the politicians on the House and Senate Committees overseeing Indian affairs
5. Politicians who work with us will find their political donations dry up and they can be primaried.
6. All of this is a continuation of the ethnic cleansing of our people by the United States.