The article below appeared in the Bemidji Pioneer today. The event takes place tomorrow.
We have the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association manipulating this event which was planned long ago.
The intent of the organizers was to exclude people from the grassroots because they did not want to have controversial questions asked of the candidates; questions which would prove embarrassing to the candidates, one of whom will most likely emerge the next governor.
One need only look at the announced attendees cited in this article to determine that this is nothing but a dog-and-pony show created by the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association:
Attendees will include Marge Anderson, chief executive of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe; Kathryn Beaulieu, secretary of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa; Elizabeth Towle, chairwoman of the Native Vote Alliance of Minnesota (member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe); and Peggy Flanagan, director of Wellstone Action’s Native American Leadership Project (member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe).
One of the primary organizers of the event is Sally Fineday and another is Audrey Thayer... both seek to cover up the injustices surrounding the Indian Gaming Industry and seek to hide the connections between these DFL candidates for Governor and the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association which owns all the horses in the race so no matter who loses, the corrupt and racist Indian Gaming Association comes out the winner... of course, Tom Rukavina's campaign is already being undermined by the hierarchy who do all the controlling and manipulations in the Minnesota DFL whose candidates receive millions of dollars every election cycle from the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association.
Just what does the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association purchase from the DFL through its maze of bribery which makes jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff look like a piker:
Forty-thousand Minnesotans work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws.
In addition, the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association gets to have appointed, its racist friends like Rita Albrecht to important positions in government where they make the decision to refuse to implement affirmative action in hiring policies so as to keep people poor; thus assuring the casino industry of a ready supply of cheap labor. In what other division of the hospitality industry can cooks be hired for minimum wage as they are at Red Lake's brand new Seven Clans Casino?
Poverty wages means big profits for the casino owners and managers who have raked in over sixty-billion dollars in sheer profits this year in Minnesota, alone... this is not to mention the even more lucrative "businesses" that go along with the Indian Gaming Industry like drug dealing, prostitution, loan-sharking, the illegal gambling with betting on everything from high school basketball games to professional sports and the ponies.
In the case of Red Lake Gaming Enterprises which is supposed to be a "dry" casino operation, management makes big profits selling booze on the sly to its favorite customers.
What is being covered up by all this controversy surrounding this event with Republicans crying about being excluded, is the very fact that the organizers of this event like Audrey Thayer and Sally Fineday and those from Wellstone Action refuse to address the issue that in spite of so many candidates running, not one is a Native American Indian or a person of color. Kind of strange that this little group would avoid this issue.
As it is also very strange that this outfit pretending to be for involving Native American Indians in the political process... not one single one of these organizations has ever lifted a finger or their voices pointing out that not one single Native American Indian is sitting in the Minnesota State Legislature nor among its Congressional or Senate delegations.
What is going on here? Payoff a bunch of racist bigots to let a bunch of mobsters who own the slot machines run off with all the profits leaving people in poverty while these politicians build up a nice little nest-egg for the next election--- very slick, everyone is taken care of; everyone that is except the majority of the people for whom this creates a life of poverty which accompanies great misery.
How is it that these organizations have sat back doing nothing and putting forth no effort demanding enforcement of affirmative action in hiring when it comes to the Bemidji Regional Event Center?
They were no place to be seen when Rita Albrecht told Kraus-Anderson they need not enforce the City of Bemidji's own affirmative action policies as the Bemidji Regional Event Center is being constructed... and here they are in complete silence as hiring for the staffing and maintenance of the Bemidji Regional Event Center is about to get underway by a private management firm--- VenuWorks--- which is notorious for its union-busting, poverty wage and racially discriminatory hiring practices from one end of the United States to the other which is now engaged in talks with these casino managements to enable these casinos to bus in people from activities at the BREC to get them to the one-armed bandits, drugs and prostitutes.
Look at the organizations sponsoring this event and fronting for the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party which has been the primary obstacle to Native American Indians getting a voice in the Minnesota State Legislature who now claim to be sponsoring some kind of "non-partisan forum" even though it includes only Democrats:
Native Vote Alliance of Minnesota, American Civil Liberties Union-Minnesota Greater Minnesota Racial Justice Project, Wellstone Action Fund’s Native American Leadership Program and Take Action Minnesota.
Again, Audrey Thayer does her thing that the foundations hire her to do: Make excuses for this kind of anti-democratic and racist behavior.
The Bemidji police get away with murdering a young Native American Indian--- Audrey Thayer is right there to make excuses.
Affirmative Action is intentionally not enforced by a racist City Planner who comes under attack and there is Audrey Thayer covering for Rita Albrecht right on her own blog.
Audrey Thayer has made excuse after excuse as to why 40,000 Minnesotans are going to jobs in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages and without any rights under state or federal labor laws.
Audrey Thayer is right there "investigating" racist police activity which she claims is a common occurence yet she has never called for the prosecution of a single police officer.
Excuse after excuse after excuse for the racism which is responsible for the complete impoverishment of people living on Indian Reservations... and with the clout to bring together every single Democrat seeking to become Minnesota's next governor, none of these basic questions are being asked.
Sally Fineday is the voice of the Native Vote Alliance of Minnesota... only days ago, in a letter written by John McCarthy who heads up the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and singed by Sally Fineday on behalf of the Beltrami County DFL; in this letter Fineday and McCarthy present a most racist, perverted and twisted view of "sovereignty" in defence of the continued injustices casino workers are being subjected to while in the same letter Fineday acknowledges what Brian Melendez has been denying for years that the Minnesota DFL has nothing in its platform calling for enforcement of affirmative action; yet, in this same letter, Fineday and McCarthy and the Beltrami County DFL attack one of their own candidates running for Senate District 4 who has led the fight for enforcement of affirmative action and full accountability from this Indian Gaming Industry which has created massive poverty as DFL candidates continue accepting bribes from the Minnesota Indian Gaming Industry as they look away in indifference to the disgraceful, racist poverty they cannot help but see as they go to pick up their campaign contributions.
Since when is "sovereignty" a right to abuse working people and pay them poverty wages and force workers to be employed without any rights?
Each and everyone of these Democratic candidates for governor have been a party to maintaining the institutionalized racism in this state.
It is interesting that this article in today's Bemidji Pioneer by Brad Swenson picks up on the exclusion of the Republicans instead of focusing on these issues of injustice in a way that would finally force these politicians to explain how it is they are running for governor without so much as a peep about any of this poverty, racism and corruption.
Perhaps it is the advertising revenues derived from this racist and corrupt casino industry preventing newspaper reporters from delving into these questions--- if, so; so much for all the talk about a "free and open media" enabling democracy to thrive in our great big bastion of democracy that needs to be shoved down the throats of the rest of the world at gun point.
Why hasn't the Bemidji Pioneer editorialized insisting that these DFL candidates for governor answer these very simple yet very basic, fundamental and important questions?
These candidates have been talking about everything under the sun on their escapades into the racist wonderland known as Beltrami County; yet, these issues are yet to be addressed:
Affirmative Action
Worker's Rights
Elimination of poverty
Native American Indian representation in the Minnesota State Legislature
There are other issues which these candidates refuse to address:
Minnesota continuing to support the Israeli killing machine through its purchase of Israel's bonds.
Refusal to implement Canadian-style health care.
The destruction of the Big Bog by peat mining interests.
Failure to legislate a real living minimum wage based upon real cost of living factors.
Allowing the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Plant to close its doors after investing tens of millions of tax-payer dollars subsidizing Ford's profits for 80 years and providing the Ford Motor Company with free electricity the entire time.
I can't help but wonder what kind of news coverage we will be reading the day after this great non-partisan, no-issue American Indian Forum takes place.
Will people readsing the Bemidji Pioneer learn why each and everyone of these white candidates who have been in and out of the area have remained silent as the racist and corrupt DFL'er Rita Albrecht told Kraus-Anderson they did not have to implement affirmative action in hiring policies in a city with a 25% Native American Indian population with over 80% living in such abject poverty they have to line up directly across the street from the Bemidji City Hall at the Beltrami County Food Shelf in minus 30 degree weather to get food for their tables. How is it that City Planner Rita Albrecht could look into the faces of those forced to live in poverty and then turn around and tell Kraus-Anderson and VenuWorks they do not have to be concerned about implementing affirmative action in hiring policies?
How is it that Audrey Thayer now tries to cover for this dirty racist public official by posting to her blog that she is competent and did a good job? Coincidentally, John McCarthy also has written in defense of his racist friend, Rita Albrecht... and through all of this there has not been a peep from any of these other leaders claiming they are trying to get Native American Indian participation in the political process--- for years now we have seen what kind of "participation" is wanted from the Native American Indians in the political process by those like Sally Fineday, Audrey Thayer and this bunch of Democrats--- just keep the money flowing to our campaign coffers and you will have the right to work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights; and this is why there is this late notice with no suggestion that candidates for governor should have to answer real questions about jobs, poverty, racism and people's livelihoods.
Maybe this event should have been held in the almost completed Bemidji Regional Event Center... or, is there something the politicians don't want people to see? Something like racism.
Published January 13, 2010
http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/event/article/id/100014891
DFL gubernatorial candidates set for American Indian forum
All 10 announced Democratic candidates for governor this year plan to be in Bemidji on Thursday to discuss American Indian issues.All 10 announced Democratic candidates for governor this year plan to be in Bemidji on Thursday to discuss American Indian issues.
The purportedly non-partisan forum at Bemidji State University has no Republican candidates, with one GOP operative charging that the forum was intended that way.
Billed as the first-ever, cross-tribal, pre-precinct caucus governor candidate forum on American Indian issues, the forum is sponsored by Native Vote Alliance of Minnesota, American Civil Liberties Union-Minnesota Greater Minnesota Racial Justice Project, Wellstone Action Fund’s Native American Leadership Program and Take Action Minnesota.
Confirmed candidates are Minnesota House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Sen. Tom Bakk, former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton, former House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, former Sen. Steve Kelley, Sen. John Marty, Rep. Tom Rukavina, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Rep. Paul Thissen.
All are Democrats.
“It seems a bit disingenuous to claim that a program is non-partisan when only feeble (if any) attempts were made to get representation from all gubernatorial candidates,” John Carlson, Bemidji campaign coordinator for GOP candidate Rep. Marty Seifert.
Carlson was responding Monday to an e-mail from Audrey Thayer, director of the Greater Minnesota Racial Justice Project, a sponsor.
“My concern is we have also four candidates (that I am aware of) who are Republican that may or may not (have) been sent letters. I do not have their contacts,” Thayer wrote Carlson. “Apparently, the Republican Party was sent a letter. and was to contact their potential candidates.”
She notes that some of the organizers of the event “are very young as community organizers and may (have) not known the process of community organizing for an event such as this.” Her organization “has pushed the issue of being non-partisan with all those organizations who are working on planning this event.”
Candidate information is posted with the state Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, Carlson says.
“One doesn’t have to know much or look far to find the information if there is a true desire to be non-partisan,” he wrote. “Whomever claimed they didn’t have contact information is either lazy or ignorant and really didn’t want broad representation from the entire political spectrum.”
Candidates’ calendars fill up quickly, Carlson, a former Republican House 4A candidate, wrote. “To get this information 76 hours before the event all but assures that candidates, whose information ‘could not be found,’, would be no-shows (which appears to be the desired outcome).”
Formal notices to the media didn’t go out until Monday, although the event began showing up on the DFL candidates' publicly available event calendars late last week.
Local Republicans will have their own, partisan event on Jan. 26 in BSU’s Beaux Arts Ballroom. Confirmed to that GOP-only governor candidate forum are the six remaining announced candidates (former State Auditor Pat Anderson dropped out of the race Tuesday and instead will run for her old job).
That event is sponsored by the Beltrami County Republicans, and is believed to be the first time where all GOP candidates for a statewide race were in Bemidji. The same can probably be said for the DFL gathering Thursday.
Also in the works is a Beltrami/Cass County DFL gubernatorial forum Jan. 23 at Northern Lights Casino south of Walker, and a Jan. 30 governor candidates’ forum at the new Red Lake Casino which hopes to draw from both parties.
Thursday’s event begins at 5:30 p.m. with an Indian taco supper, followed at 6:30 p.m.. with the candidate forum. Originally slated for the Beaux Arts Ballroom, it was moved Tuesday to the American Indian Resource Center, also on the BSU campus.
“Over the past decade, native Americans have increased their political involvement in Minnesota, impacting state House elections from Red Lake to Mille Lacs and even the 2008 U.S. Senate elections,” according to a statement on the event. “At the same time, native Americans are getting engaged in the 2010 elections earlier than ever. At this forum native Americans from Prairie Island to Fond du Lac to Red Lake will be raising their concerns and hopes for Minnesota and getting responses from gubernatorial candidates.”
Attendees will include Marge Anderson, chief executive of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe; Kathryn Beaulieu, secretary of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa; Elizabeth Towle, chairwoman of the Native Vote Alliance of Minnesota (member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe); and Peggy Flanagan, director of Wellstone Action’s Native American Leadership Project (member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe).
Some of the candidates also plan events while in Bemidji. Author and retired BSU Professor Will Weaver is hosting Kelliher at his home prior to Thursday’s forum, and Rukavina is holding a meet and greet session 10:30-noon Friday at BSU’s Lower Hobson Union.
The purportedly non-partisan forum at Bemidji State University has no Republican candidates, with one GOP operative charging that the forum was intended that way.
Billed as the first-ever, cross-tribal, pre-precinct caucus governor candidate forum on American Indian issues, the forum is sponsored by Native Vote Alliance of Minnesota, American Civil Liberties Union-Minnesota Greater Minnesota Racial Justice Project, Wellstone Action Fund’s Native American Leadership Program and Take Action Minnesota.
Confirmed candidates are Minnesota House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Sen. Tom Bakk, former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton, former House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, former Sen. Steve Kelley, Sen. John Marty, Rep. Tom Rukavina, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Rep. Paul Thissen.
All are Democrats.
“It seems a bit disingenuous to claim that a program is non-partisan when only feeble (if any) attempts were made to get representation from all gubernatorial candidates,” John Carlson, Bemidji campaign coordinator for GOP candidate Rep. Marty Seifert.
Carlson was responding Monday to an e-mail from Audrey Thayer, director of the Greater Minnesota Racial Justice Project, a sponsor.
“My concern is we have also four candidates (that I am aware of) who are Republican that may or may not (have) been sent letters. I do not have their contacts,” Thayer wrote Carlson. “Apparently, the Republican Party was sent a letter. and was to contact their potential candidates.”
She notes that some of the organizers of the event “are very young as community organizers and may (have) not known the process of community organizing for an event such as this.” Her organization “has pushed the issue of being non-partisan with all those organizations who are working on planning this event.”
Candidate information is posted with the state Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, Carlson says.
“One doesn’t have to know much or look far to find the information if there is a true desire to be non-partisan,” he wrote. “Whomever claimed they didn’t have contact information is either lazy or ignorant and really didn’t want broad representation from the entire political spectrum.”
Candidates’ calendars fill up quickly, Carlson, a former Republican House 4A candidate, wrote. “To get this information 76 hours before the event all but assures that candidates, whose information ‘could not be found,’, would be no-shows (which appears to be the desired outcome).”
Formal notices to the media didn’t go out until Monday, although the event began showing up on the DFL candidates' publicly available event calendars late last week.
Local Republicans will have their own, partisan event on Jan. 26 in BSU’s Beaux Arts Ballroom. Confirmed to that GOP-only governor candidate forum are the six remaining announced candidates (former State Auditor Pat Anderson dropped out of the race Tuesday and instead will run for her old job).
That event is sponsored by the Beltrami County Republicans, and is believed to be the first time where all GOP candidates for a statewide race were in Bemidji. The same can probably be said for the DFL gathering Thursday.
Also in the works is a Beltrami/Cass County DFL gubernatorial forum Jan. 23 at Northern Lights Casino south of Walker, and a Jan. 30 governor candidates’ forum at the new Red Lake Casino which hopes to draw from both parties.
Thursday’s event begins at 5:30 p.m. with an Indian taco supper, followed at 6:30 p.m.. with the candidate forum. Originally slated for the Beaux Arts Ballroom, it was moved Tuesday to the American Indian Resource Center, also on the BSU campus.
“Over the past decade, native Americans have increased their political involvement in Minnesota, impacting state House elections from Red Lake to Mille Lacs and even the 2008 U.S. Senate elections,” according to a statement on the event. “At the same time, native Americans are getting engaged in the 2010 elections earlier than ever. At this forum native Americans from Prairie Island to Fond du Lac to Red Lake will be raising their concerns and hopes for Minnesota and getting responses from gubernatorial candidates.”
Attendees will include Marge Anderson, chief executive of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe; Kathryn Beaulieu, secretary of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa; Elizabeth Towle, chairwoman of the Native Vote Alliance of Minnesota (member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe); and Peggy Flanagan, director of Wellstone Action’s Native American Leadership Project (member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe).
Some of the candidates also plan events while in Bemidji. Author and retired BSU Professor Will Weaver is hosting Kelliher at his home prior to Thursday’s forum, and Rukavina is holding a meet and greet session 10:30-noon Friday at BSU’s Lower Hobson Union.