THE NATIVE UPRISING

A little bit about me. Passing me on the street, one would see me as an older white lady. I am, but I am also an enrolled citizen of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.I have always lived on the west coast, but my mother grew up on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota. She made sure her children became enrolled tribal members, and she made sure we children were well aware of the conditions of poverty which she and her siblings grew up with as a mixed blood family in South Dakota.

I always have been proud of that special percentage of me that is Native American. I have deep respect for the tribal members whose families never left the reservations, and thus lead much more challenging lives than mine.

In April of this year LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, a Sioux historian whose work I have read online, became alarmed when it became apparent that construction of a crude oil pipeline was coming very close to her home and possibly through sacred grounds. The pipeline was also slated to run beneath the Missouri River, the most important water source for the region. LaDonna used social media in July to call out to any Native Americans who could, to come camp by the Cannonball River and try to get the pipeline company to reroute, as the company had done for the city of Bismark to the north.

First a trickle, then a deluge of people from tribes throughout the nation arrived. With thousands of campers it became the largest gathering of Native Americans in at least 100 years if not more. Each tribe flew its flag. It became the United Nations of the First Peoples. 

When one considers the true history of Native Americans in North America, that they were often sworn enemies, this confluence becomes doubly beautiful. And many socially aware groups from around the world have made known their desire to "Stand With Standing Rock". Called Water Defenders, the activists have sworn to keep things nonviolent. As of this writing, they have encountered state militia, private security thugs with attack dogs, road blocks stopping delivery of camp supplies, mass arrests, and now that fall has arrived on the prairie, they were struck by water cannons in below freezing temperatures.

The first blizzard of the season has come through, and I don't know how the campers can remain without casualties. What I do know is that whatever you want to call the descendants of the indigenous tribes of North America - Indians, Native Americans, First Peoples, Natives, or by their tribal affiliation - they have joined and they have risen and they will never be again relegated to a footnote in history.

A COMMONER'S OBSERVATIONS

I assume no one wants to hear yet another set of theories about what the hell just happened, but I want to lay this out at least for myself.

There are times that the President's actions do directly, and sometimes existentially, effect our lives. For this reason I always watch the presidential campaigns carefully.

Elements of Hillary's Loss

• Misogyny, both unconscious and overt. This is still ingrained in our culture, even though some strides have been made.
• Ageism. Overt. Not only was she a female, she was an older female. I could tell that some of the former-Bernie/never-Hillary young adults who were posting on social media saw her as the stern mother or grandmother (whether they realized it or not).
• Long History. This woman was a politician, either directly or by association, from her college years to the present. With politics being so sketchy and dirty, no one can come out clean as a whistle after that many years and that many positions served. The target on her back was her long history of public service, both triumphs and warts. Being female made that target even bigger.
• Over Confidence. After all, the U.S. had just twice elected a black man as President. It may have been presumed that this paved the way now for a woman President. 
• Blindness to The Shrinking Middle Class. I think she didn't see the full picture of the massive festering negativity of the lower middle class who never fully recovered from the Great Recession. Those people are probably the largest demographic that turned against her.
• Bernie's Millennials. In their youthful ideal hearts, they could not accept that Bernie did not win the nomination. In a tantrum, they didn't do what Bernie next asked for them to do - vote for Hillary.
• The OJ Effect. I realize that this is is a controversial statement from me. President Obama practically begged people of color to honor his legacy by voting for Hillary. It turned out they did not vote for her in the numbers that they had for him. I think it was a lack of enthusiasm for her based on her race as well as her gender.
• Cuba. The elder Cuban Americans in south Florida did not like one bit the normalizing of relations with Cuba, having spent their lives hating the Castros, and so they kept their votes Republican.
• Dislike of Them Both. Counties were reporting that there were thousands and thousands of ballots where the voters voted for everything else but for President. Compounding that was the percentage of eligible voters who didn't vote at all, which was disappointingly and embarrassingly high.
• Diminished Voting Rights Act. It has been reported that there were over 800 LESS polling places in the South.
• The Electoral College System. Historically this system was established as a buffer between the real voices of the citizenry and the federal government status quo. There is no reason for this system to remain today. Twice now in 16 years it has awarded the Presidency to the person with less actual votes. This demonstrates that it is no longer a fluke event. In the name of Al Gore, we can't let this issue just slide away once again. It must be eliminated.
• Enthusiasm. The haters really, really hated. I watched the Republican convention and it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The mob type hatred mentality displayed by the whole crowd as well as the speakers made me think of Germany in the WWII era. 
• Campaign Rallies. Trump held many more rallies than Hillary did and they were big, loud, and hateful. There was one long weekend when she announced that she was going to take a break to do some fund raising. Trump doubled up on his rallies during that time.
• Unfettered lying. Her opponent with no hesitation lied as big and as often and as ugly as anyone ever has in history. The great mystery is why so much of the population either didn't realize he was lying, or didn't care that he was lying.

Not a list of excuses, but ingredients in a horrific stew we must all now eat.

2017 UPDATE:

• I stand by all of the above, but I didn't realize at the time of writing it that Putin had also been so vigorously stirring the election pot. I now see that this Russian input, along with the laptop e-mails being announced so late in the race, gave the final momentum to push her campaign over the cliff. 

YES, IT REALLY DOES MEAN A LOT

Guys, and I do mean guys, no matter what you may think about the Democratic nominee for President, know that her gender really does mean a lot. Not in the sense of whether she is capable of doing the job, but in the sense of how it will alter the way every woman in America will see her gender.

Please, just take a moment, open your mind, and imagine that you are a girl growing up in the United States:

• In school you learn that the Declaration of Independence was signed by 56 men, and that the Constitution was signed by 39 men.

• You learn that every U.S. President has been a man.

• You learn that women were not allowed to vote for 133 years after the Constitution was ratified.

• You learn that females are 51% of the population but are less than one quarter of the members of the U.S. Congress.

• You learn that the first American launched into space, and every person who walked on the moon was a man, and that no American woman would be chosen to go into space for another 22 years after that first launch.

• Every year your family watches the World Series and the Super Bowl. Every player is a man.
  

• You love books, movies, and TV. Most of the stories are about boys and men.

• You love popular music. Most bands are composed of guys.
  

So this is a sampling of the lens that we girls and women see our country through. It is not a "men bad" thing, it just is the way it has been, and we are so used to it that we don't even think about it a lot of the time. Some progress has been made, but please appreciate the fact that the history going on right now is meaningful to the 51%.

WHICH TRIBE DO YOU BELONG TO?

Watch a group of dogs at the dog park. All the Chihuahua types aren't pitter pattering around together. All the Pit Bull mixes aren't segregated into one area. The dogs who are completely mixed breeds are not shunned. They all know that the point is they are all dogs.

So what's wrong with us big brained humans? We are all obsessed with self-identification to the point of killing each other over the integrity of our groupings. Gender, race, culture, religion, country, region.

And so across The Pond, the UK has just had a major seizure over these kinds of issues, just Anglo style instead. It's rocking the minds of those who were convinced that we were all headed for One World. Globalization may indeed be happening in financial and technological ways, but we human beings apparently want very badly to remain tribal. The passing of centuries has not kept us from those human inclinations in any way.

I think we each have three firm identities. One being our DNA lineages. Second being who we each are in our heart and soul. Third being our physical identity. 

Me, I carry the DNA of many cultures and am happy that I do. And over many years and with much introspection I feel that I know my own heart and soul. People passing me on the street probably view me as a fairly unremarkable short, curly haired older white lady. No problem with that, as this body is merely my container.

In this currently raucous world, it may be time to ask yourself which one is your tribe, and how deeply are you invested in it? 

The way things are going, you may be forced to choose.

MY FEDERAL FANTASY

Seriously though, if the federal government came to me and said I could reorganize federal procedures and systems, here's some of what I'd come up with.

It's a little long, but just hear me out.

State Primaries for the Presidential Election

No voter in any state would ever again feel overlooked or uncounted with the following changes.

• States can hold either votes or caucuses as they please, but there will be only two dates on which these will be held.
• The first date will be for all the lower population states, based on the most previous U.S. Census, until the sum of population for these states reaches at least 52% of the total U.S. population.
• The second date will be one month after the first date, composed of the rest of the states making up the remainder 48% of the U.S. population.
• Candidates for President may not announce their candidacy until the final year of the current presidential term.
• Candidates must campaign in every state.
  

Political Party Conventions

• There will be no winner takes all of delegates in any state.
• No superdelegates will be sent to a convention from any state. 
• All delegates must enter their convention pledged to a particular candidate based on their state's primary vote tally.
• Yes, this will take away any suspense of who the nominee will be, but it will free up the conventions to focus on their party platform and campaign strategies.

Presidential Election

• The Electoral College is abolished.
• The direct popular vote will still be carried out county by county to help avoid a national vote hacking event.
• All counties using electronic voting machines must also securely store paper evidence of the votes. Electronic voting machines may not be connected to the internet.
• Every candidate must visit each state of the union at least once in their campaign.
• The President will be elected for a six year term, one term only.

Federal Cabinet 

• The 15 current Cabinet Departments will be reorganized and merged into no more than 10 departments.
• Bureaus and agencies within all Departments will be studied for redundancy and merged if found so.
• Some of the issues currently dealt with by Cabinet Departments now, and bureaus and agencies within them, would be more sensibly and more efficiently handled locally by the states. There will be a tax shift for the states commensurate with their added burdens, meaning some tax dollars would not leave the states to begin with. The entire U.S. Senate will convene to study and determine these changes, setting a firm list of minimum requirements of services that must be provided by all states to their state populations.
• When this merging and elimination of redundancy creates job losses, those former employees will become living generous tax credits for companies and retraining facilities who take them on.

Congress

• A Constitutional amendment will be passed that defines the annual convening and adjournment dates of Congress. The Constitution now states that Congress must meet once a year, and Congress currently sets its own schedule, which is scandalously rife with breaks.
• Also defined in this amendment will be a minimal percentage of votes which a Congressperson must be present for and participate in.
• No political party officials may demand a congressperson spend blocks of time making party fundraising calls. No congressional committee seats will be assigned based on party fundraising efforts.

Congressional Terms

• A Constitutional amendment will be passed that defines a Senate term the same as currently, at 6 years, but with a two term limit. 
• House of Representative terms will be doubled to 4 years from the current 2 years, with a 3 term limit.
  

Congressional Districting

• Each state currently draws its own Congressional districts, supposedly of even population representations. This will no longer be allowed to be done by state legislatures, but rather by elected state commissions. Splitting of cities will not be allowed. Regional/geographic integrity will be the goal. Drawing of boundaries for political party advantage will absolutely not be allowed in any state.

Congressional Legislation Transparency

• Currently, a proposed legislative bill first goes to an appropriate committee, but most bills never see the light of day after that. The committee chairperson sees to that. Congressional website transparency would let citizens easily discover what fluff bills have been proposed and by whom, and what important legislation is being sat upon for political reasons, and by whom.
• Bills must become one issue only. There will be no tacked on hidden amendments that bear no relevance to the main issue. This will force Congress to vote on many more bills, but those bills will be more simple and transparent. Congress will have to do the job it is supposed to. It will no longer be able to sneak tax advantages for lobbyists into a bill.
  
• Bills will be written by Congressional Staff, never by lobbyists.
• Pork barrel requests from Representatives or Senators must be bundled into one big annual Congressional pork barrel bill, with complete transparency about who is asking for what, with complete internet access to this information by citizens.

Senate Approvals

• The Senate currently is supposed to approve or not all types of federal appointments proposed by the President. But the leaders of the majority party in the Senate can choose to do nothing at all as a political jab at the President. This creates large backlogs in the entire federal judicial system especially. A relatively short time limit, such as 90 days, needs to be set, in which approval or disapproval needs to be given, or else an appointment approval will happen by default.
  

Campaign Financing

• If Google can map the entire Earth down to its street levels and into its oceans, there must be a think tank that can study and dissect the costs of state, congressional, and presidential campaigns. I suspect an insane and disgusting amount of money from all sources gets dissolved into thin air, never to be accounted for again. Mandatory campaign spending standards should be set so that a candidate for Congress or the Presidency need not be a one percenter or in bed with the one percenters. Other countries have restrictions. There is no reason we can't.

Campaign Timeline

• A firm timeline standard must be set about when a candidate for Congress or President can publicly announce their candidacy and begin campaigning. That timeline should be the final year of the current term for either office.

So, citizens of the United States, you're welcome!

Remember, the Constitution has been amended 27 times already. What's a little more tweaking?

The big question is, do the citizens of this country have the focus and the will to demand these badly needed changes, or are we just a selfie nation?