NOTE: In light of my recent diary criticizing Rep. Alan Grayson for picturing the Tea Party as the KKK at a cross burning, I am constrained to observe that I did not produce the title on this piece at Indian Country Today Media Network, calling the Tea Party "terrorists." You have to understand that the Tea Party has been particularly vicious in its attacks on American Indian interests and we tend to see our fight with them in existential terms. That is, they want to reduce Indian nations to social clubs and we will not go quietly. It's a different fight than the one between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats know they will survive.Indians might hope for a different outcome from the craziness that recently seized Washington, a little something for us, some residue in the can that got kicked down the road past the first of the year. We might hope for fewer condescending lectures about dysfunctional tribal governments.
The colonists really showed us some chops in the matter of dysfunction. The principle at stake in the beginning seemed to be keeping the fire of American exceptionalism burning, in this case the United States as the one industrialized nation in the world with the most expensive health care, bar none, along side the poorest health care outcomes for ordinary citizens.
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