Pine Ridge, South Dakota #DAPL #NODAPL

There are so many problems across Native America, pipelines are not one of them.     

Many if not the majority could be eradicated if reservations across the continent could do one thing.

If only they could mandate Native children be brought up in two-parent households with a father and mother.   The siring needs to stop.  The need for fathering is long overdue.  

Hope was tried 8 years ago, look where that got us.

Last week I was in Pine Ridge, South Dakota and visited the high school where I attended.   I hadn't been back in over 40 years.  When William Clinton was President I took a phone call from his people inviting me to attend a speech he was to give in Pine Ridge.  I politely declined even if they would have sent me a plane ticket.   Presidents can't change Pine Ridge, Billy Mills can't change Pine Ridge.   Dean Parisian wishes he could but only Pine Ridge can cure what ails it.  

It's been over 40 years since I graduated high school.   In those years I don't know if Pine Ridge, the community, has made great strides or if the high school has made great strides in educating the youth in the Pine Ridge community.  I will find that out in due time.

What I do know is that the visual blight and neglect is hard to believe.   The staggering loss of human capital and it's impact on family structure is the biggest loss to Pine Ridge. 

Obviously the liberal policies over the last 40 years have done little if anything to change the dynamic of the Oglala Nation. 

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has a history of mismanagement and corruption. 

Reservations are the ultimate welfare state, a liberal utopia. Why work when government gives you a tiny check every month? I have never understood why America supports people to stay poor. What is the motivation to succeed if they are rewarded to stay dependent (on my labor and taxes) ? The permanent victimhood class and the welfare state has created generational welfare to warehouse generations who have been told they are powerless and have no hope of succeeding on their own. The BIA handouts have been sold as a substitute for hard work, ambition and success. Social programs have been sold as a replacement for a job and an education. The BIA has even been sold as a replacement for a father and in some cases, the entire family.  To pay people not to work, to incentivize fatherless parenthood and diminish the importance of the family and guess what will happen?   That in a nutshell is Pine Ridge.

Yes, it's okay, just look in the mirror. The only person that can make a substantial difference in my life is the person I see in the mirror. Least of all, not a sitting President. My decisions affect my outcomes. I accept that personal responsibility and I will refuse until my dying days to beg for scraps with the illusion that something of significance is being done by the BIA to help Pine Ridge. 

Unfortunately the addiction has not gone away.  White Clay, Nebraska has not changed. Business in White Clay is good.  The outcome is still killing Pine Ridge.