On Doing the Right Thing
by Gilbert Oskaboose

Why do you think out of a village of hundreds only 4 or 5 show up for a regular band meeting? Why do you think the People are saying that band employees are generally lazy, uneducated louts that wouldn't last 2 seconds in a job out in the real world? Why do you think the People say that Indian politics adds whole new dimensions to the words dirty and sleazy?

The answers are simple. They don t like band leadership and they sure as hell don't trust it. We may have come a long way on the road to good local self-government, but some of the many things we discarded along the way are ethics, accountability and decent behavior.

What do you think ethics are - something you eat or rub on? Neither one, ethics are the proper behavior at the proper time, a behavioral code set up and religiously adhered to regarding employment, how you conduct yourself at work, how you treat others, how you do business.... Most progressive companies and organizations have a written code of ethics they abide by.

Accountability is another thing missing in Indian Country. People have a vague idea what is means and spend plenty of time beating their gums about it, but it rarely happens. Chief and Council appear to be accountable to no one, least of all to the people they allegedly serve. When things get tense during one of our meetings our chief simply declares the meeting closed. Next problem.

Decent behavior, now there's a joke. Many of our band workers are terrified of band members and rarely, if ever, take the time to visit them in their homes, to see what they want or how they can be helped.. One suggested "angry band members might be lurking behind the door with an axe!" What! I suspect that says more about that particular worker's state of mind than it does about band members themselves.

Our community has yet to get beyond the childish tactic of "getting mad at each other." No one knows who is mad at whom - or why. It s a device used to control others. Pathetic, but it still works in a strange sort of way so it is still used. Why are there only two options about how you feel about people - love or hate. Couldn't you be just totally indifferent about them?

Speaking of strange behavior, band members who are not related to the chief or council, not  currently employed by the band or not "on the good side" of Chief and council are marginalized, put aside, ignored, shuffled off to some sort of band office limbo. If the chief has nothing to do with you, neither will his loyal employees.

Speaking of personal ethics, elderly council members who ran out of ideas thirty years ago are still clinging to power, refusing to step down in favor of younger people who need to learn the ropes.

Many of them claim thirty years experience, but in reality it s one year of experience repeated thirty times. Big difference. If they were all run over by a train tomorrow we would have no leaders. Is this the kind of legacy they wish to leave behind? Probably is. No ethics... no care. If you say anything about this sort of thing in your community you re branded an "elder hater" - and "hated" even more.

The same idiots run for chief and council positions year after year, decade after decade, even though they ran out of fresh ideas and new vision long ago. No personal ethics, just greed and infinite stupidity. Predominant families remain in power by hook or crook or by simple sheer "reproductive powers." Idiots beget idiots, it s one of the natural laws of the universe....

Indian Country has come a long way, but it has a long way to go yet.