I survived the Great Midwest Blizzard 2009. And thankfully this blizzard brought only inconveniences, and no deaths! There were only local blackouts with many road closures resulting from the 15 foot snowdrifts blocking the highways.
Now, on to the meat, every year I notice that a couple of the Great Sioux Nation tribes resort to begging from the bleeding hearts of America for heating assistance for their unfortunate tribal households whose government heating assistance runs out during these ferocious blizzards. For me, this is so puzzling as this points to unpreparedness although everyone in the Upper Great Plains knows that winter brings blizzards. These tribes’ failure to prepare for these blizzards is genocide; on the scale similar to the headlight-blinded deer staring at you in the milliseconds before you smear it at 90mph. Why does this sad tragedy puzzle me? Because many of these tribes have casinos that cannot be used to provide heating assistance for their freezing tribal households. Inexplicably, these tribal casinos are prevented by federal regulations and funding to provide these emergency needs; the tribes are threatened with decreased federal funding for heating assistance if they use casino revenues.
The puzzling part is if the IRA tribal governments are just extensions of the federal government, why must these tribal governments be forced to continue the suffering brought about by colonization? In other words, why can’t the tribes force amendments to the gaming regulations to provide necessary services to their tribal households without affecting their federal subsidies?
