By Anna Von Reitz
Back in the 70's a scheme to provide a "sin tax" related --and regulated-- economic engine for Native American tribes was instigated in the form of Federal Gaming Acts, which allowed tribes to establish casinos and run them for profit.
This license to run gaming houses created an instant ad hoc partnership between tribal leaders, government bureaucrats, and the Mob -- mostly New York Mob at first, later, Russian/Eastern European Mob and Drug Cartel encroachers.
This was both a move to integrate Native Americans into commercial operations and access supplemental income to relieve government bureaucrats of their obligation to provide for people forced to be dependent on the public dole. And casinos make money. Everyone likes money.
So, there we all were, young and dumb, facing the era of Native-run casinos, first a few created in the traditional gaming destinations like Nevada, and then, over the years, sprouting up like mushrooms all over the country.
Most native leaders adjusted and tried to focus on whatever positive attributes their casinos provided to communities -- looking at it in terms of the hospitality industry, providing hotel accommodations in places that needed such facilities, using casino auditorium and dance hall space for a wide variety of community-related purposes, providing a place for family fun and restaurants, not just hardcore gambling.
By the time all this started, the "Reservation System" --- another polite bit of verbiage to describe what started as illegal open-air internment camps --- was becoming more and more expensive and its failure in human terms was becoming more public, more difficult for "the U.S." to explain or justify to the rest of the world, including all the other Americans who looked at it and objected to the repugnant colonialist crimes underlying it.
The relatively few white people who supported the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the occupation of Wounded Knee and other protest activities at the time --- people like my Mother --- did so from a profound awarements of the injustice the Native People suffered, but that awareness had yet to expand into larger international venues. It was the combined threat of that expansion and the cost of maintaining the reservation system that prompted the establishment of the Native Gaming Commission.
At the time, my Mother and others raised red flags, saying that even the government corporation's proposed remedy --- which was giving the native tribes a franchise license to do something otherwise illegal and providing the Mob Bosses with a new venue --- was not fair or appropriate.
This "business opportunity" forced native people to take a slice of dirty pie, or continue to have no slice at all.
The quid pro quo also required onerous reporting requirements, and paying local, state, and federal bureaucrats large sums as "taxes" and "payments in lieu of taxes". So even the slice of dirty pie was shared out among voracious corporate bosses like the Daley Clan in Chicago -- or Gavin Newsom and the Pelosi Clan in California -- all "representing" the government, of course.
This uneasy and unavoidably unsavory lifeline has puttered along for over fifty years, and now, a combination of new income streams, declining overall economic conditions, and the freedom to be honest, is creating a domino effect resulting in the closure of casinos:
It turns out that government bureaucrats were padding their extraction of "tax" payments to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars that went into the ethersphere --- money extracted from the native tribes that were supposed to be the beneficiaries of the gambling licenses. Not only did the government bureaucrats extract payments that weren't owed, they exercised authorities they didn't have.
Today, justice is finally, quietly, emerging.
Not a big fanfare. Not something that is calculated to take the front page. It's just this: 214 casinos are closing in California alone, and many more will close throughout all the other States.
The casino facilities that remain as physical edifices will provide new opportunities, free of the forced associations and phony tax obligations of the past.
The governmental services corporations and their bureaucrats owe the Native casinos all the tax money that was collected under False Pretenses, plus interest.
Simply closing the doors of the casinos and providing the opportunity for new purposes for these facilities --- while stopping the drain of casino profits into undisclosed foreign coffers -- is probably the best revenge. Quiet. Dignified. No need for further explanations.
Issued by:
Anna Maria Riezinger -- Fiduciary
The United States of America
In care of: Box 520994
Big Lake, Alaska 99652
January 7th 2025
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