Friday, September 23, 2011
But hey - we gave them some free desert land to farm, what's the prablem?!
Not entirely sure why I thought of this this morning, but I wonder what Native American Indians think when they have heard their whole lives to get over the genocide their people endured over the 500 years since we white folks first settled here, but when we lose a tiny fraction of our population on September 11, 2001, the rallying cry is "We will never forget!".
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Hear Hear Jamie! we always sweep that little inconvenient bit of history under the rug, You would think we would have learned from that episode (and countless others) that other countries and cultures probably do not want or need our input, probably should not want us or need us, that our foreign "germs" so to speak ,may do as much harm as good.I am not surprised that we are hated around the world. That all being said, I try not to judge our ancestors too harshly. They were a product of their times and there was an undeniable, unfortunate zeitgeist to that time, fueled in part by Greed, Hubris and buttressed by Social Darwinist philosophy so that most people of that time saw it as not just inevitable but actually the "right thing to do"....to most people,logical, inevitable, "progressive" even "scientific "to move the Indians for their own good", as wrong and repulsive as that all sounds to todays society. I think those philosophical underpinnings and result should also be examined because it still exists today with an even shinier scientific gilt. We eagerly condemn the act (because it is easier and specific and able to be symbolized and, yes, propagandized) but not the cause of the act. 9-11, Indians relocated..french and russian revolution, nazism Slavery are all effects. How could these things have been prevented? Can and should they have been prevented by force or from changes within individuals?
ReplyDeleteYou know how baseball plays can turn on a thousandth of an inch? Columbus was reknowned as a Navigatior, yet in going over his journals it can be seen that he was "shockingly wrong" according to historians in some of his calcutions, making mistakes in math that a schoolboy could do.Jjust think if he actually made it to China insead of the Americas?
Sorry to take up so much of your space here. I wanted merely to give you a "What Ho!" but warmed to the subject. Keep up the postings! It is cool having virtually your own magazine!.....mb