For Indians, a time to protest

SHERRY BROWN / Tulsa World Brenda Golden, seen Thursday at the state Capitol, is organizing an American Indian protest of the state’s centennial celebration this week at the Capitol.

By S.E. RUCKMAN World Staff Writer
11/11/2007

A march and rally decrying the state centennial activities are planned.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Brenda Golden mulled the state centennial for months. In the 11th month of the yearlong celebration, the American Indian activist decided to organize an Indian statement for Oklahoma's 100th birthday.

Golden will be among what she hopes are hundreds who will walk one-quarter of a mile from Northeast 16th Street to the state Capitol on Friday in protest of the event.

"The whole idea (the centennial) always bothered me," she said. "I waited and waited for someone else to do something, so I decided to do it."

Golden and other organizers have acquired a permit to put on a three-hour event. It will include speeches from elders, marching, singing and dancing in full regalia. Student groups from across the state have called to lend support to the idea that statehood also has negative connotations, she said.

"I thought if just a hundred showed up, I'd be happy," Golden said. "But I think we'll get more than that."

The protest coincides with other centennial events. State planners, such as Blake Wade, the executive director of the Oklahoma Centennial Commission, said centennial events are intended to educate onlookers about Oklahoma settlement and mark the event.

"In Oklahoma, the No. 1 attraction to the state is Native Americans," Wade said. "I understand who they are and what they're doing."

Shoshanna Wasserman, the marketing director of the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum, said she did not want the events to be one-dimensional and concentrate solely on protest.

"This is a complex issue. I'm just grateful that we live in a free country, where everyone has a rightful voice," she said. "Native people do have a voice in the centennial."

Organizers said they eschewed the idea of protesting in Guthrie, where other commemorative events are slated this week. Glenda Deer, a Kickapoo from Shawnee, said many were offended by a scheduled mock wedding in Guthrie of "Miss Indian Territory and Mr. Oklahoma."

"That's denial, that's not the way it happened," she said. "I want my grandchildren to understand how Oklahoma was acquired. I don't want them to forget it."

Some leaders of the state's 37 recognized tribes have applauded the idea of an organized independent centennial statement. Jim Gray, the principal chief of the Osage Nation, said his tribe of 16,000 chose not to participate in official centennial events.

"I encourage other tribes to hold their own version of commemorative events, so you can say who you are," he said.

(1) readers have commented on this story so far. Tell us what you think below!

1. 11/11/2007 11:08:10 AM, Johnny , Indianapolis
Right on sisters. So called "tribal leaders," many of them corrupted by casino money, will participate in the centennial because they have learned to be lap dogs of the state of Oklahoma. But there are many of us who are well-educated, and see that the state of Oklahoma still refuses to recognize the contributions of native people. Mock wedding indeed, with a Miss Indian territory and Mr. Oklahoma? Wonder how many "Indian princess" stories that will spawn? Why not reenact the murder of hundreds of Land Run participants by the Sooners who jumped the line and cheated on the cheaters? And while they are at it, reenact the Oklahoma history of the theft of billions of barrels of oil by greedy oil barons whose families still enjoy the benefits of that theft. You go girls, and know that I will be there in spirit.

Johnny, nishnabe podwewadmi

‘NAFTA Superhighway stops here,’ says Okla. senator
Trans-Texas Corridor needs to make ‘Texas turnaround’ at state border

Jerome R. Corsi
World Net Daily
October 1, 2007

Oklahoma state Sen. Randy Brogdon

“The NAFTA Superhighway stops here, at the border with Oklahoma,” Randy Brogdon, a Republican state senator who has championed the fight to keep the Trans-Texas Corridor out of Oklahoma, told a packed 300-person audience at the first public meeting of OK-SAFE in Tulsa on Saturday.

Oklahomans for Sovereignty and Free Enterprise, Inc. is a non-profit, Oklahoma corporation set up to oppose a NAFTA Superhighway and North American Union as threats to the sovereignty of the U.S.

Brogdon objected to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, arguing President Bush had entered the agreement after secret discussions with Mexico’s then-president Vicente Fox and Canada’s then-prime minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, March 23, 2005.

“President Bush has proven that he is more than willing to over-step his executive authority when it came to trade policy,” Brogdon told the group.

“Ariticle 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution says, ‘Congress shall have the Power to Regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,’ not the president,” Brogdon pointed out. “Yet President Bush has entered into an agreement with Mexico and Canada called SPP that seeks to eliminate our trade and security borders and he has failed to get the explicit approval of Congress.”

The SPP website, in a section entitled “Myths vs. Facts,” supports Brogdon’s argument, openly admitting that SPP is neither a law nor a treaty.

“Texas highways are famous for ‘Texas turnaround’ U-turns,” Brogdon quipped. “Maybe it’s time we tell Governor Perry to do a Texas turnaround at the border with Oklahoma.”

“We don’t need a new superhighway four-football-fields-wide coming through the heart of our state just so Mexican trucks can carry Chinese containers from Mexican ports to Kansas City,” he said.

Brogdon objected that the Bush administration’s below-the-radar push for a new continental NAFTA Superhighway will risk the supremacy of U.S. laws on U.S. highways.

“Anyone driving on an international highway system running through the United States would be subjected not to U.S. law, but to international law,” Brogdon argued. “We would be subject to an international tribunal in case of a dispute, including accidents or other lawsuits.”

Brogdon objected to the Department of Transportation’s push to allow 100 Mexican trucking companies to have free access on U.S. roads for their long-haul rigs.

“The Bush administration is pushing the Trans-Texas Corridor under the cause of better roads and economic development,” Brogdon stressed. “I’m sure we all want good roads and bridges, but not at the expense of our nation’s sovereignty.”

As WND previously reported, Brogdon has opposed legislation that would have pre-authorized the extension north into Oklahoma, as a deceptive piece of legislation (HB 1917) that would have put Oklahoma in a highway “pilot project” that was unlimited in scope and required Oklahoma to waive its 11th Amendment rights.

“The 11th Amendment gives protection to Oklahoma from being sued in federal court by a foreign nation,” Brogdon explained. “So for us to be a part of this project we had to waive our 11th Amendment rights. This benign piece of legislation that started out as a simple re-surface project in Southeast Oklahoma was in fact the first step to create the NAFTA Superhighway through Oklahoma.”

The bill was strongly supported by the North America’s SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc., a Dallas-based trade organization of which the State of Oklahoma is a member.

Brogdon has championed legislation demanding Oklahoma withdraw from NASCO, saving the state a $25,000 annual membership fee.

“NASCO’s mission statement says their goal is ‘to create the world’s first ‘international, intermodal superhighway’ system,” Brogdon pointed out. “NASCO lobbied the Oklahoma state legislature to pass HB 1917 and they found many of my colleagues sympathetic to their cause. In the state senate, we were able to kill the bill during debate. We won a battle, but the war is not over.”

Brogdon predicted that the battle to extend the Trans-Texas Corridor north into Oklahoma would be pressed once again by NASCO in the Oklahoma legislature’s next session.

“NASCO will probably work with legislators favorable to their cause to package the next bill with a catchy name,” Brogdon warned. “The bill will come down as something like, ‘Economic Development and Transportation for the Next Generation and Our Kids.’ It will be disguised, but I assure you, the outcome will still be the same. Our sovereignty will be under attack.”

Still, Brogdon expressed his confidence in winning the battle against the NAFTA Superhighway in Oklahoma.

“I’m encouraged at what lies ahead for this state and for the nation,” Brogdon told the group. “History reveals that Americans always rise to the occasion to protect this country. We are in a battle for this nation’s sovereignty. But I see American patriots here today, in this assembled group, men and women still dedicated to the Constitutional cause so eloquently laid out by our founding fathers.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, know this – our future will not be determined by the politicians,” Brogdon concluded. “Our future lies solely in our hands because ‘We the People,’ and not some bureaucrats in Washington or a trade group in Dallas, are the government of the United States.”

WND reported NASCO changed its name from the original name, North America’s Superhighway Coalition.

NASCO also has repeatedly redesigned its webpage so as to de-emphasize the continental nature of the “super corridor” NASCO supports.

Infrared Scaners To Scan Automobiles
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-d…./09/30/AR2007093001654_pf.html

What is the ‘North American Union’?