Off-Reservation Elders upset over cut to their annual Christmas checks

Over the past couple of weeks, off-Rez tribal elders have been receiving their Christmas checks and getting quite a surprise. For many years our elders were given $150 every year, and that included all elders whether they lived on the Rez or off, whether they were 60 or 80, or full blood or 1/8. It didn't matter, but this year the tribal council decided to give off-Rez elders only $50, cutting an expected $100 from their check, and this was done without warning.

There was quite an uproar on Facebook on a large group page dedicated to LCO members, with some people under the impression that the LCO Elders Council had made this change, when in fact, it was the LCO Tribal Council and the elders council had nothing to do with it. I spoke with Jason Weaver of the council last month and he mentioned that the council had to find a way to cut $1 million from the budget in order to meet the escalating casino bond payment that was taken out back in 2006. This is a monthly payment that our tribe has to make or we'll lose management of our casino and any revenues to the bond holders. The payment increases each year and in 2016, the payment amount is expected to exceed the amount of monthly revenues the casino takes in. You can read all about the bond payment here http://lcotoday.blogspot.com/2015/03/casino-bond-needs-to-be-restructuredor.html

Anyways, this cut to the off-Rez elders is most likely part of the overall strategy to cut $1 million from the budget and save our casino from default. The problem was the tactic and the delivery that upset so many of our tribal members. Some felt that all tribal elders should receive a pay cut rather than a specific group. And, people were also upset that they weren't given a heads up.

One member who lives in Milwaukee wrote a great commentary on the issue and posted it to the Facebook page, but in it he questioned that the LCO Elders Council had made this decision because that's what so many were saying on the other Facebook threads, and this was because some elders who were asking questions were told by members of the council that it was the decision of the elders council, but this wasn't true and Vern Martin, a member of the elders council made a post on the Facebook page saying that the elders council had nothing to do with this. He said if it were up to the elders council it would have never happened. The issue did cause quite a divide between elders.

Jason Northern, LCO citizen, the Milwaukee member wrote a second commentary and I'm going to print that post in its entirety because he makes some great points about our people needing to come together and makes a few suggestions. He also discusses his research into the new wording in our tribal constitution calling our people citizenship rather than membership.

First off I would to apologize to the elder council. If the elder council was not involved with the decision, then I sincerely and truly to do apologize and to anyone else I might have offended. It was not my intentions to attack anyone or to single anyone out. I did not condone all the mudslinging on individual people that followed, that kind of stuff gets us nowhere. My intentions were to bring to light what is a clear divide with our people, which was made evident with some of the following comments.
My intention as a whole, is for all of us as a tribe to figure out how to come together. It’s very disheartening when I see people bickering and it sounds like “us vs them”. We are a shattered and scattered people. People that come together on a common issue can accomplish great things, especially for something they feel proud to be apart of. Its basic human concept, theres strength in numbers. Its time we start trying to bring these scattered pieces back together and make us whole as it will ever be.
Our people had to endure a lot of change over the years. It will never be like how it was back in the old days, as much as we like to talk about how it was, the sad reality is we can’t live that way anymore. But it doesn’t mean we’re suppose to forget, we will always be Anishinaabe, we will always remember the culture, language, stories and teachings. A revitalization of our culture is happening as we speak, our language is being taught in elementary schools, I am current taking Anishinaabemowin at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. This is revolutionary! So now is not the time to allow us to fracture some more as a people, we are going to need every piece to survive as a Nation. Because we need to take into consideration that the worlds population is increasing exponentially, its growing with or without us.
How do we bring people together? That is a tough question, but since I opened my big fat mouth and went on a rant the other day, some of you were probably saying “where’s all your big ideas?” which is understandable. I did some thinking for ideas on how to get people together and this is what I came up with. Since we can not exactly live they way our ancestors did, we could still do some of the things they did and one of them is farming. Agriculture is huge business and I don’t just mean your average farm, I also mean aquaponics and indoor gardening as well as outdoor farms. You don’t need huge acres of land anymore to grow lots of vegetables. Also I mean serious gardening and not marijuana, not that I’m against it, its just not realistic at the moment.
I say farming because it offers jobs for both kids and adults. And teaching kids how grow their own food is a skill you can’t put a value on. During the summers there could be farming camps similar to the berry camps and maple camps etc, where kids from all over the country can spend a few weeks on a farm learning about culture, language, nutrition and traditional farming techniques. When it all boils down to it, it starts with the kids, the only way we will survive is if we can keep our youth interested and educated. Also we need to give these kids purposes, thats why kids join gangs because they want to feel like they belong to something. Anyone who has kids can tell you that they just want to feel like they’re helping and giving them jobs mixed with cultural teachings can make them feel like they’re apart of something huge while helping to make a difference. How many off reservation families would let their kids go to such a camp on LCO for a couple of weeks, to learn about culture, basic farming, nutrition, language, and overall to develop a sense of pride for something?Remember we are the PRIDE OF THE OJIBWE! lets instill that back into the kids.(I’d like to see responses on this)
By growing our own food we can get on a track of being self sustaining. As a Nation, we need to seriously consider what will happen if civilization collapsed. As ridiculous as that sounds its still a realization that is not completely out of the question. I mentioned earlier the worlds population is growing and on top of all that the worlds freshwater supply is running out and no bullshit, we live in one of the last places in the WORLD! with freshwater, these are FACTS, not fear mongering or speculation. This is speculation but its not that far fetched, there might be time when we won’t be able to buy our food, just something to think about. So I digress, it seems that from reading everyones comments, the consensus was the blame is on council.
Blaming council is common, especially since there isn’t any checks and balances, so council should understand why they get blamed so much. This is one thing I will say to council, give up some of your power. You know we need checks and balances in the government, you had the same complaints when you weren’t council. You can make a real difference, giving up some that power will give people hope that real change is possible. But my issue is not with this council or any people for that matter, my issue is with the way of thinking. For any real change to be done, the way some people think has to change. There shouldn’t be a thought of those that live off reservation are looked at differently.
As someone mentioned in the comment thread, council changed us from members to citizens and I remember hearing about that from the meeting but I didn’t put much thought to it. Alright with any legal document everything comes down to the wording and why would they specifically change the wording from member to citizen? And since this is written in the English language, same as it is in every treaty to the constitution, very specific wording makes all the difference. Now I am going to speculate and so if I am wrong with my assumptions I want anyone to tell me I am wrong or full of shit and then tell me why I am. Because I want to promote open dialogue and not senseless arguing.
“Citizen” is a very specific word, when compared to the word “member” both can seem to mean the same thing but the word “member” is more broad. Now forgive me for my cliche google searches, on the word “member”, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/member and these sites you can look yourself and others, granted its only one source but I have no control of these sites. Thats why I say prove this to be wrong I want to be wrong, please discern for yourselves. Anyways from reading this, “member” means lots of things, but the overall meaning of it is to be apart of something that is whole. Also meaning an object that is missing a member of its body is not whole. A look up of the word “citizen” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/citizen they both have a similar meaning but citizen has one key word that follows it through the different meanings all the way to the origin of it and that word is “inhabitant”.
Now we all know what inhabitant means but what does the word “citizen” mean to you now after doing your own comparison? And what does it mean to the LCO tribes people to be recognized this way? My speculation continues to why the word citizen was specifically used and according to a simple word search, citizens are basically townspeople. The overall meaning from what I gather, as being a citizen of a nation you must inhabit the place of the nation. So what I am getting at is we are all United States citizens, when we go to a different country we are no longer entitled to United States citizens rights while we are out of our country, embassy aside.
Do you see where I am getting at? You would think that having a meeting and discussing the changing of such wording would be such a trivial thing, I mean seriously why would it be even a topic if it didn’t have some deeper meaning? Now if you get into the word citizenship, it has a deeper meaning, look it up yourself, but the overall message of what it means to have citizenship of a nation greatly varies from nation to nation, theres no set definition. So basically its up to our council on how they define a citizen of the Lac Courte Orielles reservation. Again, challenge this thought and tell me another reason why they changed the wording.
To finish I would like to apologize again to the elders council, I was just looking out for all the elders. I am only being vocal because I care about all of my fellow tribal members and I can see us doing great things as a nation. My intentions are to not attack anybody and I hope that people can see that, especially my friends on LCO and my friends on council. I honestly feel people can rationally discuss their differences without hostilities, and I hope to change peoples view points through discussion to close this divide that is so blatantly through us as a nation.