Oglala Sioux Tribe President John Yellow Bird Steele. Photo from Bureau of Indian Affairs / Twitter
Is Pine Ridge a failed experiment in socialism?
By Jeffrey Whalen
Native Sun News Today Columnist
nsweekly.com When looking for the true definition of Socialism a person can find a lot of slightly different variations to explain exactly what it is. The short answer is; “ownership of the means of production by the state.” If we looked for a strong example of Socialism a person can simply point toward Germany and try to understand how their government works. We are going to “compare and slightly contrast” Germany to the Oglala Sioux Tribal Government which means we will look for similarities and some differences in the two governments. We’ll talk about two forms of Socialism, a State Directed Economy and Market Socialism. According to Wikipedia, (I like to use Wikipedia for references because it is so diverse, even though the Professors sometimes don’t accept anything from that website), the State Directed Economy is where technical specialists administer or manage economic enterprises on behalf of society and the public interests instead of workers, councils or workplace democracy. Or we can say it simply means the public ownership of large industries (Wikipedia) . In Germany we can see that the government mostly owns enterprises that profit and the government is supposed to provide for the welfare of the people with those profits. In Pine Ridge and under John Steele’s leadership, we are supposed to be living in a Democracy, meaning it’s “the rule of the people.” In comparison and looking at it on a per capita scale, it seems that Germany and Pine Ridge both own enterprises that profit in some way. The tribe applies for federal grants which is their main source of income. The tribe is the largest employer on the reservation which means they control the production of human resources. Germany owns and controls almost all production of materials, supplies and services. The difference or contrast is that presumably in Germany they are providing for their general public, maybe not so well, but they are still providing. In Pine Ridge the tribal government must adhere to federal law and distribute grant benefits according to those laws. So they are stuck with that but where are the revenues from the tribal enterprises going (casinos)? The tribal government never provides a report to the tribal membership on its finances. At the beginning of the Steele/Poor Bear 2014 administration, President Steele and the Treasurer Melanie Two Eagle went to the bank to get a loan of 2 million dollars. The repayment was supposed to come from the Ramah settlement. By the way, we have not received Ramah settlement money yet. On the way to the bank, it was apparently decided by the two politicians to borrow 4 million instead of the authorized 2 million. My questions are; Did this really happen and where is the money?
Read the rest of the story on the Native Sun News Today website: Is Pine Ridge a failed experiment in socialism? (Contact Jeffrey Whalen at Jeffrrey.whalen2@gmail.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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