The Latest Issue to Stir Up Anti-Indian Sentiments

In 1998, we watched the Minnesota Legislature miss an opportunity to settle the dispute with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe over fishing rights on Mille Lacs Lake.  The ignorance and arrogance expressed by those forcing a court settlement seeking more than the Indians were willing the relinquish is a textbook example of poor political sense.  In the case State of Minnesota 1999 v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, Minnesota lost.
 
Focus on the Mile Lacs Lake fishing conflict only serves to incense the public and does nothing to move beyond contentious nature of these concerns.  Now we see another similar conflict looming on the horizon.  This time it involves the Red Lake Indian Reservation.  
 
The issue at hand is Princeton resident Jerry Mueller traveled across the border of the reservation waters into the western portion of the Upper Red Lake and had his boat, motor, trailer and fishing gear seized by tribal officials.  Since the tribe has jurisdiction they are legally able to confiscate Mueller’s property.  He now is the poster boy for Proper Economic Resource Management (PERM), a nonprofit group that regularly opposes tribal authority in these matters.  PERM was one of the staunchest supporters in 1998 and their spokesperson is often former Vikings Football Coach Bud Grant.    
 
We expect this will be an issue ratcheted up during this falls elections.  Especially since Rep. Sondra Erickson (R-16A, Princeton) has taken on the cause.  Erickson represents the district in which the Mille Lacs Band reservation is located and her opposition to initiatives advanced by the tribe is well known.   She is joined in her quest this time by Sen. Betsy Wergin (R-16, Princeton) on her attack against the institution of whatever.
 
The Red Lake dispute is expected to increase in attention the closer the election gets and we hear Congressional candidate Rod Grams (R) is talking issue in his campaign against Congressman Jim Oberstar (D-MN8).  
 
This is the type of issue where emotions win out over common sense and no one wins on either side.  Acknowledging the divisive nature of this issue people should question the motives of the advocates.  Is the intent to resolve the problem or just to exacerbate and infuriate?
 

"Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people;  but we also will have to repent for the appalling silence of good people"  

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.