The Free Lakota Nation Establishes a Non-Reserve, Non-Fractional Currency

[jynxxxedangel]

Story here.

Free Lakota Bank

I like this idea.

[aequorea]

very interesting.

i am curious about the gold and silver currency... will the value of lakota bank currency change based on current market values for precious metals?

i do really like the idea of microeconomics. i have been hearing more about it lately... microcurrency, microlending, etc... this is the only microcurrency project i have heard of with a gold/silver standard though.

[jynxxxedangel]

i am curious about the gold and silver currency... will the value of lakota bank currency change based on current market values for precious metals?

From the website, a disclaimer:

"Be aware of the heavy government manipulation in the value of gold and silver."

I'm assuming the answer is yes.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

I am troubled by the fact that they think the "American Dream" is somehow chained to the banking system and the Federal Reserve...

[phee]

I am troubled by the fact that they think the "American Dream" is somehow chained to the banking system and the Federal Reserve...

If you were a Lakota... would you not see it that way?

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

From the website, a disclaimer:

"Be aware of the heavy government manipulation in the value of gold and silver."

I'm assuming the answer is yes.

but... more than anything else in the world, Gold value is set by supply and demand.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

If you were a Lakota... would you not see it that way?

Perhaps... if I could not read and didn't know that the Federal Reserve and our banking system are only half as old as the "American Dream".

[jynxxxedangel]

I see it as the Lakota Oyate thumbing its nose at the U.S. Federal Reserve-- counting coup against the wasichu in a game they invented. I think it's great.

Then again, I am also adopted by the Sicangu Lakota Tetunwan Oyate..

[phee]

I see it as the Lakota Oyate thumbing its nose at the U.S. Federal Reserve-- counting coup against the wasichu in a game they invented. I think it's great.

Indeed

[taysteewonderbunny]

I don't know enough about it to comment except to say that it's interesting. I hope that more discussion comes out of this. I would like to learn more regarding the arguments for and against. Please.

[Goth Brooks]

Well... the coin looks nifty.

[Head Wreck]

good for them.

the price of these precious metals is quite high. unlike the time that morin in number 10 decided to sell half of our gold reserves off.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

I see it as the Lakota Oyate thumbing its nose at the U.S. Federal Reserve-- counting coup against the wasichu in a game they invented. I think it's great.

Then again, I am also adopted by the Sicangu Lakota Tetunwan Oyate..

Thats one way to see it. Another way to see it is they are capitalizing on the current rush on the gold market that the financial crisis has created... i.e. taking advantage of scared people to make money. That fits in nice with the "Capitalist Dream" that they are confusing with the "American Dream".

[jynxxxedangel]

Most of the people who are scared and selling their stocks, and scrambling to close out their bank accounts right now, deserve to be. I have no pity or sympathy. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[taysteewonderbunny]

Thats one way to see it. Another way to see it is they are capitalizing on the current rush on the gold market that the financial crisis has created... i.e. taking advantage of scared people to make money. That fits in nice with the "Capitalist Dream" that they are confusing with the "American Dream".

The coins I saw were silver, not gold. Same effect, though?

[Oh_My_Goth]

I am troubled by the fact that they think the "American Dream" is somehow chained to the banking system and the Federal Reserve...

Just out of curiosity.....

Just what is the "American Dream"? To you, that is.

Because it seems to Me that you are referring to a dream that was around long ago & is now DEAD

'Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness.....Religious freedom'

Stuff like that.....In this day & age you can not have such things unless you have $$$$$$$

On the subject at hand.....I don't think a different money system will help for that long.....It will soon become a

corrupt unstable system, just like the current one.....

[Rayne]

If you were a Lakota... would you not see it that way?

Hell, I'm Cherokee and I see it that way.

[Mean Salley]

Thats one way to see it. Another way to see it is they are capitalizing on the current rush on the gold market that the financial crisis has created... i.e. taking advantage of scared people to make money. That fits in nice with the "Capitalist Dream" that they are confusing with the "American Dream".

It would be way more important to look into the facts that led the Lakota people to become their own soveriegn nation and to have a good understanding of what Native American peoples all over North America are dealing with now.

If you were familiar with some important facts, you'd think twice about insinuating that they're doing it to take advantage of people. Mind you Native Americans NEVER asked for the capitalist system to be forced on them, but they have no choice in the matter.

Here's a few starters

For years, you've heard the horrors of the life expectancy of black males being 55

for Native American men in the United States, the life expectancy is 44. FOURTY-FUCKING-FOUR. <--- lowest in the world.

The infant mortality rate for indigenous infants in the U.S. is 200 times higher than any other ethnicity in the country.

In the early 1930's Aldolf Hitler divulged where he got his ideas for the death damps. He wrote that the United States has the ideal method for corralling an inferior and unwanted group of people and eliminating them from society. "The Reservation System"

There is a massive legal money-making scheme in the U.S. that is only perpetuating the dilution and loss of indigenous culutres. It's called; "Rich white people adopting indigenous babies for social status". They are NEVER taught anything of their heritage.

Native American people in North AND South America are continually, in 2008, fighting to keep their lands, fighting for the safety and justice of their people as well as economic and social equality.

Native Americans still have to buy goods with $20.00 bills with president Andrew Jackson"The Indian Killer" on the face

There are scores of indigenous languages in North America that are less than a lifetime away from becoming extinct. It doesn't help when neigboring white people are burning down the language centers that Native Americans have built.

Brutal crimes against Native women in Canada such as rape, murder, and dismemberment have often been entirely overlooked and dismissed by our gentle neighbors to the north.

Canada has also started labeling dissident Mohawk people who have taken action against their mistreatment as "Terrorists"

Canada incarcerates more Native Americans, than the U.S. arrests Black people

Native American people are, by a huge margin, the most impoverished, destitute, and discriminated people in the U.S. You may not think so, but how many Native Americans live within 100 miles of you?

Native Americans are not capitalizing, they're not even getting by. These are a tiny fraction of shocking facts that few people know. Any plan they can come up with to help themselves out, I'm all for.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but you're also entitled to be called out if you speak your opinion publicly and are uninformed. When it comes to issues dealing with Native Americans 98 percent of people who are not Native American are extremely uninfuckinformed.

The internet is chock full of inter-web expert/superior thinkers who wouldn't dare to strike up a conversation that they don't know anything about when they're not behind a computer. Well you have every right to do that, but it means what you know or think you know is a crock compared to what people know from experience.

This is my friend Nelson. He was an Arapaho Cheyenne man from Kansas. He was adopted by rich white people that treated him like shit. He ran away to a reservation to find out about his own people and to not get beat on. Because the unemployment rate is ridiculously high, he lived in a house with 16 other unemployed men and drank every day until they couldn't walk.

He was a born comedian, an incredible drummer who taught me much of what I know, and a good friend. He could NEVER find a stable job for himself and resorted to robbery over poverty and starvation. He spent several years in a correctional facility for theft.

He died 2 weeks away from his 45th birthday from liver failure. If you care to make comments about his life choices, don't do it until YOU have confined yourself to a reservation for a minimum of 5 years. You'll still be better off because you're not Native American.

Before you start statements around on the internet ask yourself if you do it make yourself look superior/intelligent, or because you really want to know the truth and want others to know too.

If you aren't the type of person who would ever have the humility to say "I was wrong" and accept what someone else knows to be true, then you're just blowing wind into your own sails.

Some people never learn. A few hundred years ago, the Europeans in North America could have learned a shit ton, about managing an economy and respect for their environment, and not taking everything in excess. Instead we started a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against the people who could have probably kept us out of the economic shit-storm we're in today. We didn't listen, because some people refuse to shut the hell up and listen.

[Rev.Reverence]

Sally...

...very nice Sir. Very nice!

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

It would be way more important to look into the facts that led the Lakota people to become their own soveriegn nation and to have a good understanding of what Native American peoples all over North America are dealing with now.

If you were familiar with some important facts, you'd think twice about insinuating that they're doing it to take advantage of people. Mind you Native Americans NEVER asked for the capitalist system to be forced on them, but they have no choice in the matter.

Here's a few starters

For years, you've heard the horrors of the life expectancy of black males being 55

for Native American men in the United States, the life expectancy is 44. FOURTY-FUCKING-FOUR. <--- lowest in the world.

The infant mortality rate for indigenous infants in the U.S. is 200 times higher than any other ethnicity in the country.

In the early 1930's Aldolf Hitler divulged where he got his ideas for the death damps. He wrote that the United States has the ideal method for corralling an inferior and unwanted group of people and eliminating them from society. "The Reservation System"

There is a massive legal money-making scheme in the U.S. that is only perpetuating the dilution and loss of indigenous culutres. It's called; "Rich white people adopting indigenous babies for social status". They are NEVER taught anything of their heritage.

Native American people in North AND South America are continually, in 2008, fighting to keep their lands, fighting for the safety and justice of their people as well as economic and social equality.

Native Americans still have to buy goods with $20.00 bills with president Andrew Jackson"The Indian Killer" on the face

There are scores of indigenous languages in North America that are less than a lifetime away from becoming extinct. It doesn't help when neigboring white people are burning down the language centers that Native Americans have built.

Brutal crimes against Native women in Canada such as rape, murder, and dismemberment have often been entirely overlooked and dismissed by our gentle neighbors to the north.

Canada has also started labeling dissident Mohawk people who have taken action against their mistreatment as "Terrorists"

Canada incarcerates more Native Americans, than the U.S. arrests Black people

Native American people are, by a huge margin, the most impoverished, destitute, and discriminated people in the U.S. You may not think so, but how many Native Americans live within 100 miles of you?

Native Americans are not capitalizing, they're not even getting by. These are a tiny fraction of shocking facts that few people know. Any plan they can come up with to help themselves out, I'm all for.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but you're also entitled to be called out if you speak your opinion publicly and are uninformed. When it comes to issues dealing with Native Americans 98 percent of people who are not Native American are extremely uninfuckinformed.

The internet is chock full of inter-web expert/superior thinkers who wouldn't dare to strike up a conversation that they don't know anything about when they're not behind a computer. Well you have every right to do that, but it means what you know or think you know is a crock compared to what people know from experience.

This is my friend Nelson. He was an Arapaho Cheyenne man from Kansas. He was adopted by rich white people that treated him like shit. He ran away to a reservation to find out about his own people and to not get beat on. Because the unemployment rate is ridiculously high, he lived in a house with 16 other unemployed men and drank every day until they couldn't walk.

He was a born comedian, an incredible drummer who taught me much of what I know, and a good friend. He could NEVER find a stable job for himself and resorted to robbery over poverty and starvation. He spent several years in a correctional facility for theft.

He died 2 weeks away from his 45th birthday from liver failure. If you care to make comments about his life choices, don't do it until YOU have confined yourself to a reservation for a minimum of 5 years. You'll still be better off because you're not Native American.

Before you start statements around on the internet ask yourself if you do it make yourself look superior/intelligent, or because you really want to know the truth and want others to know too.

If you aren't the type of person who would ever have the humility to say "I was wrong" and accept what someone else knows to be true, then you're just blowing wind into your own sails.

Some people never learn. A few hundred years ago, the Europeans in North America could have learned a shit ton, about managing an economy and respect for their environment, and not taking everything in excess. Instead we started a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against the people who could have probably kept us out of the economic shit-storm we're in today. We didn't listen, because some people refuse to shut the hell up and listen.

OK, thats was a whole lot of un-necessary.

I do know American History and how badly the natives were and are treated.

As for how many I live near... up until I moved to Florida... I lived within 10 miles of the Saginaw Chippewa Reservation for most of my life... (for a few years I lived on the Reservations) that means I lived within 100 miles of around 3000 full blooded Native Americans and an unknown number of mixed heritage Native Americans.

I speak a smidgen of Ojibwe and would love to learn more.

Now live within 100 miles of the Seminole tribe for Florida.

My best and oldest friend is 100% Hopi.

So, all I have to say to you is...

Before you start statements around on the internet ask yourself if you do it make yourself look superior/intelligent, or because you really want to know the truth and want others to know too.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Just out of curiosity.....

Just what is the "American Dream"? To you, that is.

Because it seems to Me that you are referring to a dream that was around long ago & is now DEAD

'Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness.....Religious freedom'

Stuff like that.....In this day & age you can not have such things unless you have $$$$$$$

On the subject at hand.....I don't think a different money system will help for that long.....It will soon become a

corrupt unstable system, just like the current one.....

There are thousands of people that immigrate to this country every year that would disagree with you.

[phee]

Sally...

...very nice Sir. Very nice!

Indeed + 1

[phee]

To add:

My focus in College was Native American history, I took classes in Native American literature, my wife is part Cherokee... And you know what.... I don't claim to know "Jack" about the whole of Native American life, I want to know more though....

But one thing I do know is, if these people who have been stomped on by history, can make their lives a little better for themselves and improve their conditions (I am NOT talking about reperations or affirmative action) but their conditions RIGHT NOW.... then good... VERY GOOD.

[Oh_My_Goth]

There are thousands of people that immigrate to this country every year that would disagree with you.

Don't even get Me started on immigration.....

& You did not answer my question.

[Guest greyhalo]

To add:

My focus in College was Native American history, I took classes in Native American literature, my wife is part Cherokee... And you know what.... I don't claim to know "Jack" about the whole of Native American life, I want to know more though....

But one thing I do know is, if these people who have been stomped on by history, can make their lives a little better for themselves and improve their conditions (I am NOT talking about reperations or affirmative action) but their conditions RIGHT NOW.... then good... VERY GOOD.

I agree with you, Phee. I took some classes on Native American History and Literature as an undergrad. I even belonged to a writers group with some Native American students. But, the fact that I learned about some aspects of the culture in an academic setting doesn't mean much.