There are hundreds of Iraqui war veterans without homes (this also occurred in the 1970’s when soldiers returned home from the Viet Nam conflict, can we learn ANYTHING from killing others as a means to solving problems?). Others are homeless because they have lost their jobs due to the ignorance of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of State Condelezza Rice, by causing the Iraq War. This war cost Americans billions of dollars. What was the reason for this war? Anyone? If a small portion of this money would’ve been spent to capture Osma Bin Laden, as President Bush said he was setting out to do, shortly after 9/11, America would be economically in better shape than it is today.

There are also other Americans who live in poverty because of other circumstances. Although American Indian reservations like Pine Ridge, which has lost people to starvation and the cold weather because of lack of resources to buy space heaters, stoves, food, etc. I have been confronted by others, primarily Native American people, who have told me that by “feeling sorry” for Native Americans, I am feeding into their needs, when they should be learning how to help themselves out.

It doesn’t matter to me whether I’m feeding into their needs, or not, what matters to me is that thousands of Native Americans are suffering poverty and other problems because many Americans have this shaded notion that helping people in other countries is helpful to these people as well as to themselves. To grab a bunch of Haitian kids and smuggle them out of Haiti to give them “good” homes in America is ignorance. Possibly overcome by the emotion of loss in Haiti, many Americans have bent over backwards, to use a cliche, to help Haitians out.

Meanwhile, thousands of Americans are in similar need. Why doesn’t John Travolta fly a plane full of space heaters, toilet paper, food, blankets, clothing, Church of Scientology people, etc. to Pine Ridge? Why? How many of you can answer that question? It certainly would be helpful to people on this Rez, similar to the help Haitians are receiving from Mr. Travolta’s mission to Haiti.

The fine point of this rant is that we need to, as a people, gather together to help out Americans in need, before we pour our emotions and hearts into helping out people in other countries. What will happen if we don’t, we will be looking to Haiti one day for their help. Do you want your children and grandchildren to have that experience? I certainly don’t.

The question:

What does it take to get an equal call to citizens of the
United States to help out American citizens who
have, are and will be experiencing metaphorical
earthquakes of their own?

Native Americans. Homeless war veterans. The
homeless. Poverty-stricken people in the United States.
Those who have lost their jobs and homes and had
and are having their lives ruined because
of ignorant, fear-filled human beings like George Bush
and Richard Cheney, who plunged the United States
of America into a meaningless war that caused the
murders of thousands of Americans, Iraquis, and
others, and in turn, created the economic turmoil
that has placed the United States on the brink of
financial disaster. These two individuals live in
warm, safe, secure homes, and are revered in some
circles, as wonderful men. With what legacy will history
books credit them? Because America honors those who
serve in public office, for some strange reason, more
than any other American, they will prevail with
their new libraries, etc.

Who is going to create a text message number for
people to call in to donate money to help out those
Americans who were figuratively destroyed in the
past by greed and self-interest like these two men?
Who? And when?

The United States has always been helpful to
people in other countries. It has helped make
America, in many people’s eyes, the great
country that it is. It is almost cliche. What
about Americans who need help? Think
about it. Where is the outpouring to
help Americans in need, like what is
going on in Haiti now? Where is it,
folks? And that is not to slight Haitians
one bit. The horror they are
experiencing is unimaginable. We
must help them out. I’m simply
saying that we have Americans
in America who are experiencing
the same kind of horror.

Food. Shelter. Clothing. Possibly a bit of
recreation. Where has it gone for thousands
of Americans who have been, are, and will
be devastated by this metaphorical earthquake
that plagues Americans as a people?

It is time for the United States of America to
put forth the same effort it does to help out
Americans like Haitians are being helped now.

It is time, or, the infrastructure of America will
continue to decay, and die.

It is time.

And for those of you, after reading this, who will want to compare me to Rush Limbaugh’s bellowing about American citizens’ income tax money that goes to Haiti, forget it. Rush Limbaugh is a squeaky
conservative. Oiling his hinges would only be a beginning to turning
around his idiocy. For me, my hinges are oiled. I am tired of those who try to make a show by giving others money, when many Americans in their backyards are struggling to stay alive.

We have always given as Americans. So much so,
we are blinded to the fact that there are thousands
of Americans who need the same kind of help
Haitians are struggling to receive. If you want to
argue this point, before you do, I encourage you
to visit some Native American reservations in
the United States. Visit them. Roll in the dirt,
feel their earth. Go to the Conoco convenience
stop in Lame Deer, Montana. Stand in line
with what you want to purchase. Observe
those standing in line with you. Who are
they? They are Native Americans who live
on a poverty-stricken reservation where
drug and alcohol abuse stalks each Native
American who lives there, like actually,
forced to live there, because their ancestors
were shot and killed when they resisted
attempts at curtailing their rights to
follow the buffalo and to live free.

Go there, my friends, before you flap
your tongue about me, and my
pontificating. Sit and ponder there.
Then, tell me that America’s
indigineous people in addition to
those Americans who live in
cardboard boxes under bridges
do not need the kinds of help some Haitians
are presently receiving.

Tell me. Tell me. Churches who
spend all of their might on helping
people in other countries who are
experiencing plight, poverty, hunger,
disease, AIDS, and a host of other
horrifying things that most Americans
do not. Why is it that there are
Americans in America who live
in “Third World” countries, or as
some idiots say, “developing nations”,
which is hilarious to me, here in
America? Check out Pine Ridge,
folks, before you attack me for my
presence of mind here.

Check out parts of Los Angeles,
New York City, Chicago, Denver,
etc. Everywhere, and anywhere you
go in the United States, you simply
need to open your eyes, and you will
see human devastation.

So, close your mind. Kick me in the ass
for this article. Say that I am an idiot.
It doesn’t matter. My plea is simply to
open your minds and eyes to the
devastation in America as you have
opened your minds and eyes to
Haitians. Americans need your
help as well. They also need your
hearts and your love. Who is the
first one to raise their hand and
pledge, as you are pledging to
Haiti, to exude the same passion
for America’s people who are
less fortunate than you? Who?

Your work regarding diversity in the United States,
as well as globally, is well-recognized. Now, it is
time to address America’s native people by doing
what you can do to get Congress to legislate a
bill to require American native studies on all
school curriculums. This way, America’s
infrastructure will take on strength by providing
a vehicle for all Americans to learn about
Native Americans.

We’ve gassed up the Prius here in Colorado.
We’ve made a couple of short films about
the Sand Creek Massacre, which gives viewers
an in-depth view about how this tragedy effects
America’s indigenous people today, 145 years
after the massacre. It continues to effect their
abilities to live productive lives in America.
Poverty, disease, drug and alcohol abuse,
etc., prey on America’s native people.

Ignorance caused the Sand Creek Massacre.
Racial prejudice permeates America of its
native people. This can be changed. But,
we need your help. Put us together with
Congress so that we can get a bill passed
that will require American Native studies
on all school curriculums. When this is
achieved, it is then, and only then that
the ignorance will begin to fade away in
young minds, and be replaced with an
awareness of America’s indigenous people
that does not now exist.

Please contact me with your interest.

Thank you for your consideration.

Best Regards,

Donald L. Vasicek
OLYMPUS FILMS+, LLC
The Zen of Writing/Filmmaking/Consulting
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“We’ve used a passive approach to the telling of the brutality at Sand Creek for the purpose of showing the ignorance of utilizing killing as a means to solve problems. Violence always leaves an impact, but the graphicness of the murders, the rapes, the mutilations, even after people were dead, leaves a remarkable imprint on students, parents, and educators. They see an historic reality that motivates them to do more to circumvent violence in the present as a means to solve problems. And that includes fourth graders who viewed the film in an elementary school in Centennial, Colorado who shared their thoughts with me after the screening.”

-Donald L. Vasicek
Award-Winning Writer/Filmmaker/Consultant

“We Cannot Be Who We Are Not” “Always keep in mind that the main issue which has led to so many other issues is land. The earth has always been the Cheyenne/Arapaho’s power. As their lands dwindled because of European immigration, their power dwindled.  Today, most older, and many younger Native Americans are living without that power. Instead, they are living on reservations that yield little, ifany resources. This has reduced Native Americans
to a cross between their native heritage and the incursion of others into their space. Many know little about moving forward, because the past is where all of their power resides, and, it is gone.

Native Americans are born to roam the earth.  Many of their ancestors went where the buffalo went. The buffalo were the source of their existence. In the beginning, the Cheyenne and Arapaho people had 51 million acres of land. They were free. They lived with the elements and they prospered. Today, most conceive themselves as prisoners of a society that has little bearing to who they really are, what they inherited from their ancestors, not too unlike each one of us.  How can we be who we are not? The answer is, we cannot be who we are not, and until we discover who we are, then live that way, is when we experience the ultimate peace of who we are. It is my belief that most Native Americans are not who the society they live in forces
them to be, in order to survive.

So, if you surround yourself with this attitude, with this approach, with this theme, then, everything else you are being asked about which to understand, will fall into place.”

-Donald L. Vasicek

“Award-Winning Sand Creek Massacre Film Archived”

August 27, 2008 — CENTENNIAL, CO — Golden Drover Award winner for Best Native American Film in the Trail Dance Film Festival, “The Sand Creek Massacre”, has been archived in The Billie Jean Baguley Library in the Heard Museum in Phoenix.

Award-winning Writer/Filmmaker/Consultant, Donald L. Vasicek,
said, “By having the film archived in these prestigious institutions,
my goal of informing, educating and creating awareness for the
Cheyenne and Arapaho people via their oral histories in the film,
helps all American native people. The Cheyenne and Arapaho
people, vowed, after the Sand Creek Massacre, that they would live
on this earth forever. The film keeps their dream alive regardless
of the genocide that has stalked all American native people from
the inception of European people’s arrival on their lands to the present.
The film is a permanent recording of their ancestors and who they are as
a people.”

Vasicek continues his efforts to record the Cheyenne and Arapaho
history. He has placed, “Ghosts of Sand Creek”, a two-hour, six
episode series, into development. Vasicek said, “Ghosts of Sand
Creek” will dimensionalize the Cheyenne and Arapaho people’s
story. It will show the white man’s continuing invasion of their human
rights.

“I read recently where actor Brad Pitt raised $500,000 for
people in Darfur. He should now raise money for American native
people so that they can also eat. Walk down the main street
in Lame Deer, Montana, on the Northern Cheyenne’s reservation.
Cruise the Northern Arapaho Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.
American natives on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota
need groceries, socks, underwear, shirts, shoes, trousers, fuel to
keep warm, etc. And they have to go across the border into
Nebraska to buy liquor. You will experience, as I have, many times
over, the abject poverty American natives experience. This is
genocide at its finest in all centuries.”

Vasicek said, “America’s native people need America’s help. Be part
of ‘Ghosts of Sand Creek’.” Go to donvasicek.com for details.

Contact:

Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net