The authoritarian right-wing mindset in all its glory:
Latest Right-Wing Freak-Out: Obama Wants To Give Manhattan Back To Native Americans
The good news is that the right-wing isn't talking about President Obama being a secret Muslim right now. The bad news is that they're now concerned that he's going to use his honorary status as a Crow Tribe Indian to return the United States to Native Americans.
The outrage began after the President announced on December 16 that the U.S. would reverse course and support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. The Declaration was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2007, but the U.S., under President Bush, opposed it.
"The aspirations it affirms -- including the respect for the institutions and rich cultures of Native peoples -- are ones we must always seek to fulfill," the President said of the Declaration at White House Tribal Nations Conference where he announced the reversal. He went on to describe efforts to improve health care, education, and unemployment rates in tribal areas.
Article 26 of the Declaration asserts the right of indigenous peoples to their traditional lands and the resources they contain.
Now, there are non-insane objections to Article 26. It's vague for one thing, it pits national treaty frameworks against a new international norm, and it could lead to reopening land claims and treaty issues long considered settled. Never mind that those might be good things. The article, like the rest of the Declaration, is in any case non-binding and aspirational - meant to guide future negotiations with indigenous peoples to a place of respect, cooperation, and true partnership. Endorsement of UNDRIP signifies at least a willingness to work toward those goals instead of rejecting them outright.
But is that the reaction from the professional right wing? Of course not:
Last week, the "Director of Issues Analysis" for the Christian conservative American Family Association, Brian Fischer, wrote a blog post claiming that "President Obama wants to give the entire land mass of the United States of America back to the Indians. He wants Indian tribes to be our new overlords."
"Perhaps he figures that, as an adopted Crow Indian, he will be the new chief over this revived Indian empire," Fischer wrote. "But for the other 312 million of us, I think we'll settle for our constitutional 'We the people' form of government, thank you very much."
Yesterday, the right-wing blog World Net Daily took it a step further in a post called "Obama to give Manhattan back to Native Americans? President believes nation can spare some sovereignty." The article describes how "President Obama is voicing support for a U.N. resolution that could accomplish something as radical as relinquishing some U.S. sovereignty and opening a path for the return of ancient tribal lands to American Indians, including even parts of Manhattan."
Clearly, cooperation and mutual respect are concepts right-wingers and their media champions can't comprehend. All they can see is dominance and hierarchy. Either we dominate and crush you, or you will dominate and crush us. No middle ground.
It's the societal vision not of human beings, capable of respect, tolerance, and cooperation for mutual benefit, but of a pack of wild dogs, each animal fighting ferociously to devour as much as it can for itself, leaving nothing but the scraps they didn't want anyway for those at the bottom of the hierarchy.