Lakota Independence Story A Media-Encouraged Hoax! (updated)

I posted on the story a few days ago briefly, and even the local progressive group blog, Scrutiny Hooligans noted it.

Now, it turns out that the Legacy Media (Legacy: as in outdated) has been ginning the story from Indian activists who don't even speak for the leadership! From Newsbusters:

And who is the Russell Means? He is a long time Indian activist who does not officially represent any tribe, that's who. It takes the local press to make this clear. The Rapid City Journal of Rapid City, South Dakota informs us that, "Means' group is based in Porcupine on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation," and that "it is not an agency or branch of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Means ran unsuccessfully for president of the tribe in 2006."

Yet in report after report, this Means character is presented as if he is "the Lakota Sioux" when, in truth, all he really is is A Lakota Sioux -- not a representative of all of them. He does not represent American Indians except as a tangential, activist. He has no authority to make this "declaration of Independence" for the Lakota or any other American Indian tribe.

It turns out that these reports are nearly all just a rehash of Russell Means’ press releases and not based on any real reporting at all.

And here is the worst part. The bulk of the news outlets that have picked up this story are foreign press agencies like the Agence Presse France, The Telegraph, and Radio Netherlands, all of whom presented this as if it was somehow legal and binding instead of an activist's scheming.

Source: Newsbusters, who have once again busted the legacy media.

Once I found out, I knew I had to issue a correction to the story.
Will the Legacy Media? I doubt it, unless it is in really small print on a back page somewhere.

**update 3.12pm** Captain Ed interviewed Russell Means yesterday on Blog Talk Radio. Click here to download the MP3.

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Massive Redesign of Thunder Pig Coming

Your voices have been heard load and clear, West of the Balsam Readers!!!

I fully admit to having abandoned load-time for "pretty pictures and shiny objects."

My recent access to a Giga-bits per second connection from a secure location has blinded me to the needs of my Primary Audience...the people from West of the Balsams.

From home, I have access to the intertubes via a "56k line" that seems to average right about 40k or so, with swings from 22k to 45k depending on how many clouds are in the sky, birds on the wire, and Floridiots lost in my driveway.

I test loaded Thunder Pig from home last night, and was shocked. My blog took 13 minutes 42 seconds to fully load, although posts were readable nearly 8 minutes into the loading...a full minute behind the local paper.



I apologize, and will work on correcting that grave error.

I'll work on stripping the time-consuming photos and graphics from my sidebar on Friday, and be ready for a leaner, meaner, relaunch on Saturday with Thunder Pig 3.0.

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Correction to a previous post

Lightning Baron was so kind to correct a misapprehension I had over the music in a recent BSG video on You Tube, and I have corrected the post.

So, if you are working on a BSG Tribute Video with 300 music, you haven't been scooped yet!

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