Elizabeth Cook-Lynn: Who influences today’s political thinkers?

Monday, May 18, 2020  

I was hardly in grade school when I started reading political stuff, having listened to MANY Dakota/Lakota politicians talk about the problems of Indian life on the Reservation (Treaty Mandated Homelands.) As a result of this VERY early and continuous reading, my political interests grew, and I wanted to be a Journalist.

There was the vague resonance of my recognition that our Indian lands were colonized by whites and turned into pockets of dire poverty even though I was then unable to articulate my reasoning.

I felt even in my painful early years that the 1940’s and 50s were boring. Having little opportunity to learn much about the outside world, (until the Sixties) I seemed untouched by the impending and ongoing global wars even as America was asserting incredible control over its own national fantasies.

It wasn’t until those years when I was in college and reading books like Witness by the ex-communist Whittaker Chambers (who ended up testifying at the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) that I began to understand the arrogance of federal and local governments. Until then, my only experience in such stuff was crowded into long and tedious Tribal Council governance strategies where my COUNCIL-MAN grandfather often held forth in two languages.

Today, in 2020, I hear the President of the United States and many of his Republican Party cohorts like former Midwestern congressman Paul Ryan talk about American life and their belief that the stock market, capitalism and the free market is the path to freedom and success. They are joined by notable marketers Steve Jobs and Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos.

Contact Elizabeth Cook-Lynn at ecooklynn@gmail.com

Copyright permission Native Sun News Today