Remember Native American Genocide.

[Universal Struggle]

Native Americans suffered Genocide at the hands of the English and later the United States.These stories will not be found in our history books and if by some chance one is found in the history books, it will be written so that it would be difficult to realize it was the same story. Our children were brought up on the story of Pocohantas and how understanding the English were.


http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/8059/columbuslw2.gif


MILITARY CAMPAIGN AGAINST POWHATAN
During the summer of 1610 in Jamestown, the Governor, Thomas West De la Warr had directed Powhatan to return several runaway Englishman.
It appears Powhatan did not respond in a satisfactory manner.

De la Warr felt this was sufficient reason to conduct a military campaign against Powhatan. George Percy, brother to the Earl of Northumberland and De la Warr's second in command headed up the military action against Powhatan.
The following is Percy's description of the actions that took place;

Drawing my soldiers into battle, placing a Captain or Lieutenant at every file, we marched towards the Indian Town...and then we fell upon them, put some fifteen or sixteen to the sword and almost the rest to flight...My Lieutenant brought with him the Queen and her children and one Indian prisoner for which I taxed him because he had spared them.

His answer was that having them now in custody I might do with them what I pleased. Upon the same I caused the Indians head to be cut off, then disperesed my files, appointing my soldiers to burn their houses and to cut down their corn growing about the town.

With the Indians dead or disperesed, their village destroyed, and their food supplies laid to waste, Percy sent out another raiding party to the the same to another Indian Town and then marched to his boats with the Queen and her children in tow. There, however his soldiers "did begin to murmur because the Queen and her children were spared.

" This seemed a reasonable complaint to Percy, so he called a council together and "it was agreed upon to putt the children to death THE WHICH WAS EFFECTED BY THROWING THEM OVERBOARD, SHOOTING OUT THEIR BRAINS IN THE WATER."

Upon his return to Jamestown, however, Percy was informed that Governor De la Warr was unhappy with him because he had not yet killed the Queen.

Advised by his chief Lieutenant that it would be best to burn her alive, Perry instead decided to end his day of "so much bloodshed" with a final act of mercy:instead of burning her, he had the queen quickly killed by stabbing her to death.


WOUNDED KNEE
About a week prior to the slaughter at Wounded Knee, L.Frank Baum, editor of South Dakota's Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer newspaper advocated the extermination of all America's Indians.

Quote; The nobility of the Redskin is extinquished and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them.

The whites by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians.

(WHY NOT ANNIHILATION?)Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced, better they should die than live the miserable wretches that they are.

[khad]

For some reactionaries on this site, it's not genocide. It's about the modernization of "alcoholics, gang-bangers, and really fucking destitute people" whose problem is that "they haven't been integrated into capitalism."

http://www.revleft.com/vb/would-america-have-t135830/index.html?p=1755131#post1755131

[Scary Monster]

^^Looks like WhichDoctor is a damn moron.

Genocide and atrocities committed against my fellow native americans still happen as late as the 1970s:



Wounded Knee and the American Indian Movement

In the summer of 1968, two hundred members of the Native American community came together for a meeting to discuss various issues that Indian people of the time were dealing with on an everyday basis. Among these issues were, police brutality, high unemployment rates, and the Federal Government’s policies concerning American Indians.
From this meeting came the birth of the American Indian Movement, commonly known as AIM. With this came the emergence of AIM leaders, such as Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt to name a few.

Little did anyone know that AIM would become instrumental in shaping not only the path of Native Americans across the country, but the eyes of the world would follow AIM protests through the occupation at Alcatraz through the Trail of Broken Treaties, to the final conflict of the 1868 Sioux treaty of the Black Hills. This conflict would begin on February 27, 1973 and last seventy-one days. The occupation became known in history, as the Siege at Wounded Knee.

It began as the American Indian’s stood against government atrocities, and ended in an armed battle with US Armed Forces. Corruption within the BIA and Tribal Council at an all time high, tension on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation was on the increase and quickly getting out of control. With a feeling close to despair, and knowing there was nothing else for them to do, elders of the Lakota Nation asked the American Indian Movement for assistance. This bringing to a head, more than a hundred years of racial tension and a government corruption.

On that winter day in 1973, a large group of armed Native Americans reclaimed Wounded Knee in the name of the Lakota Nation. For the first time in many decades, those Oglala Sioux ruled themselves, free from government intervention, as is their ancient custom. This would become the basis for a TV movie, “Lakota Woman” the true story of Mary Moore Crowdog, and her experiences at the Wounded Knee occupation.

During the preceding months of the Wounded Knee occupation, civil war brewed among the Oglala people. There became a clear-cut between the traditional Lakota people and the more progressive minded government supporters. The traditional people wanted more independence from the Federal Government, as well as honoring of the 1868 Sioux treaty, which was still valid. According to the 1868 treaty, the Black Hills of South Dakota still belonged to the Sioux people, and the traditional people wanted the Federal Government to honor their treaty by returning the sacred Black Hills to the Sioux people.

Another severe problem on the Pine Ridge reservation was the strip mining of the land. The chemicals used by the mining operations were poisoning the land and the water. People were getting sick, and children were being born with birth defects. The tribal government and its supporters encouraged the strip mining and the sale of the Black Hills to the Federal Government. It is said that at that point in time, the tribal government was not much more than puppets of the BIA. The sacred Black Hills, along with many other problems, had become a wedge that would tear apart the Lakota Nation. Violent confrontations between the traditional people and the GOONS (Guardians of Our Oglala Nation) became an everyday occurrence.

The young AIM warriors, idealistic and defiant, were like a breath of fresh air to the Indian people, and their ideas quickly caught on. When AIM took control of Wounded Knee, over seventy-five different Indian Nations were represented, with more supporters arriving daily from all over the country. Soon United States Armed Forces in the form of Federal Marshals, and the National Guard surrounded the large group. All roads to Wounded Knee were cut off, but still, people slipped through the lines, pouring into the occupied area.

The forces inside Wounded Knee demanded an investigation into misuse of tribal funds; the goon squad’s violent aggression against people who dared speak out against the tribal government. In addition they wanted the Senate Committee to launch an investigation into the BIA and the Department of the Interior regarding their handling of the affairs of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. The warriors also demanded an investigation into the 371 treaties between the Native Nations and the Federal Government, all of which had been broken by the United States.

The warriors that occupied Wounded Knee held fast to these demands and refused to lay down arms until they were met. The government cut off the electricity to Wounded Knee and attempted to keep all food supplies from entering the area.
For the rest of that winter, the men and women inside Wounded Knee lived on minimal resources, while they fought the armed aggression of Federal Forces. Daily, heavy gunfire was issued back and forth between the two sides, but true to their word, they refused to give up.
During the Wounded Knee occupation, they would live in their traditional manner, celebrating a birth, a marriage and they would mourn the death of two of their fellow warriors inside Wounded Knee. AIM member, Buddy Lamont was hit by M16 fire and bled to death inside Wounded Knee.
AIM member, Frank Clearwater was killed by heavy machine gun fire, inside Wounded Knee.

Twelve other individuals were intercepted by the goon squad while back packing supplies into Wounded Knee; they disappeared and were never heard from again. Though the government investigated, by looking for a mass grave in the area, when none was found the investigation was soon dismissed.

Wounded Knee was a great victory for the Oglala Sioux as well as all other Indian Nations. For a short period of time in 1973, they were a free people once more. After 71 days, the Siege at Wounded Knee had come to an end; with the government making nearly 1200 arrests. But this would only mark the beginning of what was known as the “Reign of Terror” instigated by the FBI and the BIA. During the three years following Wounded Knee, 64 tribal members were unsolved murder victims, 300 harassed and beaten, and 562 arrests were made, and of these arrests only 15 people were convicted of any crime. A large price to pay for 71 days as a free people on the land of one’s ancestors.


WhichDoctor says in that thread linked by Khad that it would have been better for the natives if they would let themselves be integrated into capitalist society. Just utter bullshit. As we can see from history, and from the article I above, the closet fascist government never allowed this to happen, and will never allow it to happen, as native americans continue to live in extreme poverty, even to this day, as a direct result of the US government's atrocities against my people for the past centuries. This, of course, is the same story with countless other people all over the world.

Does anyone know how native american genocide is supposed to be represented in the new Texas school books? I wouldnt be suprised if no mention of it will be in there at all.

[Universal Struggle]

Yeah, sorry for leaving out Modern day oppression of Native Americans, i will make another thread after doing some research.

And WD has some disgusting outlooks on imperialism eh.

[which doctor]

To call what happened a genocide is historically misleading. Of course there's no doubt that European settlers enslaved and treated horribily the local indian populations, but what one needs to be reminded of is that they're mass die-off was not deliberate or ideological, like an event like the Holocaust was, but was largely a result of the lack of disease resistance. There's no doubt what happened as a biological catastrophe on the level of the Black Death, but to call it 'imperialist genocide' is just plain inaccurate.

[Obrero Rebelde]

Xicanos are NATIVE and INDIGENOUS "Americans". We were in what is today the U.S. Southwest before the fucking U.S. even existed.

[Os Cangaceiros]

To call what happened a genocide is historically misleading. Of course there's no doubt that European settlers enslaved and treated horribily the local indian populations, but what one needs to be reminded of is that they're mass die-off was not deliberate or ideological, like an event like the Holocaust was, but was largely a result of the lack of disease resistance. There's no doubt what happened as a biological catastrophe on the level of the Black Death, but to call it 'imperialist genocide' is just plain inaccurate.

I don't think that it's misleading to classify it as "genocide" in areas like California, where Native Americans were in fact hunted down and exterminated, with the permission of state authorities.

[Obrero Rebelde]

Oh, come on, you guys. Quit trying to re-write history. The white devils came here and their policy, like with the wolves that roamed this continent, was to exterminate the red skins to make conquest of the entire land mass an American milestone.

Well, the whites succeeded. And they live to argue about it, don't they?

How quickly whites -- commies included -- forget the truth of history.

[Communist Theory]

which doctor is an absolute moron.

[Obrero Rebelde]

Call it "UNINTENDED GENOCIDE BY WHITE MEN'S DISEASES", or better yet, the white man's earlier history of BIOLOGICAL WARFARE. It was still fuckin' genocide.

[Obrero Rebelde]

If "which doctor" really needs a euphemism to calm his guilt-stricken racist soul, he can call the extermination of the indigenous peoples "COLLATERAL DAMAGE."

Feel better now, "which doctor"?

[the last donut of the night]

To call what happened a genocide is historically misleading. Of course there's no doubt that European settlers enslaved and treated horribily the local indian populations, but what one needs to be reminded of is that they're mass die-off was not deliberate or ideological, like an event like the Holocaust was, but was largely a result of the lack of disease resistance. There's no doubt what happened as a biological catastrophe on the level of the Black Death, but to call it 'imperialist genocide' is just plain inaccurate.

No, it wasn't largely disease, because that basically cleans the hands of the imperialist forces in the Americas. Most of the deaths were intentional, as European forces were actively looking for territory to settle and use for their own profit. There was a clear intention to kill off native populations; in fact, at certain points in US history, there was a reward on Native scalps. Your post shows your complete fabrication of history to fit your own racist arguments.

[Prairie Fire]

Which Doctor:


To call what happened a genocide is historically misleading. Of course there's no doubt that European settlers enslaved and treated horribily the local indian populations, but what one needs to be reminded of is that they're mass die-off was not deliberate or ideological, like an event like the Holocaust was, but was largely a result of the lack of disease resistance. There's no doubt what happened as a biological catastrophe on the level of the Black Death, but to call it 'imperialist genocide' is just plain inaccurate.


Best case scenario, Which Doctor is woefully ignorant; worse case scenario, he is a liar and apologist for ethnic cleansing.

Here is the understanding of what defines Genocide in international law:
(http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm)




"Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:


(a) Killing members of the group;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_River_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyesville_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Washita_River
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marias_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Grant_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Robinson_tragedy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre

http://www.eaglesnestcenter.org/wounded-knee.jpg
http://members.aon.at/calvin/wknee/images/wknee_01.jpg
http://www-tc.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/images/wimg680/wkgrave.gif
http://www.danielnpaul.com/BritishScalpBounties.html
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Scalpin/oldfolks.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_tears

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
http://www.bcmj.org/traumatic-pasts-canadian-aboriginal-people-further-support-complex-trauma-conceptualization

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/206157/history_of_the_buffalo.html?cat=37


General Philip H. Sheridan was the commander of the United States forces at that time and he had plans of exterminating the buffalo. He thought this would kill the Plains Indians. "Kill the buffalo and you kill the Indians" he said.
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/2056/bisonskullpile1870ks.jpg


(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/sterilize.html

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system


As you can clearly see, all of the points defining genocide were clearly perpetrated against the aboriginal peoples of of the New World (The list of what constitutes Genocide also usually includes the forced relocation of an ethnic group, which corresponds to the various 'Trails of Tears' in the Southern United States). Meeting even one of these requirements constitutes Genocide; the European colonization of North and South America meet all of the requirements.

While the majority of deaths where because of diseases which the indigenous peoples possessed no immunities to, to ignore the amount of humyn beings who still perished because of policy directions, warfare, enslavement, forced relocation... to ignore scalp bounties, the "Indian Removal act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Removal_Act)", to ignore the residential schooling system where children were forcibly taken from the parents and which had a 50% mortality rate in Canada, to ignore the scalp bounties instituted on the Beothuk people of Newfoundland which lead to their extinction, wiped out to the last living survivor...

To ignore Sand Creek...
To ignore wounded Knee...

Small pox was said to have been eradicated in 1979; In the same decade, the "Family planning act" introduced by George H.W.Bush lead to the involuntary sterilyzation of aborignal (and African American) peoples. An estimated 42% of aboriginal womyn of childbearing age were sterylized, either with "consent" forms which did not meet HEW regulations, through coercion, or with absolutely no knowledge of the procedure at all. Was the subsequent effect on birthrates of aboriginal peoples simply a force of nature? A blameless act of god that couldn't be contained by the good-intentioned colonists and the state that they established?


You have either done no research on the subject, or you are an un-repentant apologist for colonization ( which may be the case, given your previous comments and the way you trivialize the slavery that went on.)

Thank you for this recent quotation, as you are strengthening the case against yourself and alienating those who have previously come to your defense in a thread currently calling for your dismissal.

You are finished, Eichmann.

[the last donut of the night]

why the fuck isn't which doctor banned?

[Glenn Beck]

"My original convictions upon this subject have been confirmed by the course of events for several years, and experience is every day adding to their strength. That those tribes can not exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear."

Source: http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/JacksonFifthAnnualMessage.htm

You're a Holocaust denier, which doctor.

[khad]

You're a Holocaust denier, which doctor.
Which doctor is yet again misdirecting and evading the issue, which his white supremacist organization is quite famous for doing. Sure, Native Americans suffered greatly from pathogens carried by the settler colonialists, but their mortality rates were exacerbated manyfold by the enslavement, immiseration, and general brutality that they endured at the hands of the invaders.

I wonder how this board would react if WD claimed that the Nazis weren't responsible for ALL of the Holocaust, since there were plenty of Jews, Gypsies, and communists who merely died of disease. In fact, since disease typically accounts for the largest portion of famine mortality, it was to be expected.

[gorillafuck]

You're a Holocaust denier, which doctor.
He's an apologist for the genocide of the Native Americans, which in my opinion was just as bad as the Holocaust (though I'm not sure how I feel on "rating" genocides...) but it's incorrect to call it a Holocaust because the Holocaust was a very specific thing.

[Prairie Fire]

Zeekloid


but it's incorrect to call it a Holocaust because the Holocaust was a very specific thing.


You are in contradiction.

On the one hand, you have distaste for the rating of historical acts of ethnic cleansing, elevating some and diminishing the importance of others.

Immediately following that, you claim that the Holocaust was a very specific thing, was unique.

As we have pointed out, state initiatives to wipe out a people are not unique.
The methods of the holocaust were not unique either.

The concentration camp was not invented in the Third Reich, but rather in South Africa by the British during the Boer war (Even prior to that, similar internment camps were used for Cherokee people in the United States in the 1830's).

As for the use of toxic gasses, Britain also used toxic gas in the 1920's against revolting arabs and Kurds in what is now Iraq.

This is something that authors such as Ward Churchill and Tim Wise have struggled against, this notion of the "uniqueness" of the holocaust, and this is featured prominently in Churchills book " a Little matter of Genocide".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Little_Matter_of_Genocide
(My emphasis added)



Churchill has debated historian Deborah Lipstadt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Lipstadt) over the singularity of the Holocaust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust). In a 1996 review of Lipstadt’s book Denying the Holocaust, Churchill defended the German philosopher Ernst Nolte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Nolte), whom Lipstadt criticized for asserting that the Holocaust was a non-singular event. Churchill argued that the Holocaust was one of many genocides, as opposed to Lipstadt’s view of the Holocaust as a singular event. In A Little Matter of Genocide, Churchill accused Lipstadt of denying what he sees as the genocide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide) of Native Americans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas), notwithstanding his respect of her work. Churchill argues that by claiming that the Holocaust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust) cannot be compared to anything else in human history, citing its uniqueness, one does not recognize the genocide of Native Americans to be as morally despicable as the Holocaust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust), then one is denying the true nature of that genocide, similarities among these otherwise-disparate genocidal phenomena.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Little_Matter_of_Genocide#cite_note-ChurchillLittle-0)[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Little_Matter_of_Genocide#cite_note-ChurchillForbid-1)



http://www.timwise.org/



Holocaust Denial, American style
by Tim Wise (http://www.redroom.com//blog/tim-wise/holocaust-denial-american-style)
November 28, 2008, 8:13 am


Recently, after a presentation to teachers about racial bias in high school curricula, I got into a tiny spat with an instructor who objected to my using the word "holocaust" to describe the process by which nearly 99% of indigenous Americans perished from the 1400s to the present day. He also objected to the use of the term to describe the experience of Africans, forcibly kidnapped and enslaved throughout the hemisphere.

The teacher seemed especially concerned that as a fellow Jew I would suggest that our people had not been the greatest victims in world history, let alone sui generis in our suffering; that I would offer as a possibility the idea that others had also faced mass death, even extermination, and that there was no such thing as "The" Holocaust, but rather, several such events in history, including but not limited to the one perpetrated in the name of Hitlerism, which claimed millions of victims: Jews, Roma, homosexuals, communists and the disabled.

In defense of his position he averred that the definition of holocaust was "a genocidal program carried out with the intent of completely exterminating the target group." This, he insisted, was not what had happened to blacks or Indian folks. The former had been valued as forced labor, thus there had been no campaign of deliberate murder launched against them, and the latter had died mostly from disease (coincidentally one presumes). As such, the homicidal intentionality that motivated the Nazis could not be ascribed equally to the colonists, or the slavers of the West, and the term "holocaust" simply didn't apply.

There is much that could be said here, and I managed to say most of it at the time, concerned as I was that someone entrusted to fill the minds of young people should find himself in such a confused position as this.

First, before addressing the inaccuracy of the teacher's historical and etymological wisdom, there was the matter of why he had felt it necessary to rank oppressions in the first place, especially when the three cases being discussed had been of such magnitude as to make them among the gravest crimes in history. After all, there comes a point where tallying body counts, or trying to compare suffering of this scale approaches the threshold of mendacity, only to cross it violently on its way to obscenity. I queried as to the wisdom of his particular taxonomy of terrors, only to be met by a look of disdain, as if it should be quite apparent, without having to withstand scrutiny, that Jews had suffered worse than any others in the history of the cosmos: something he noted he made clear to his black students, so as to help them "put things in perspective" whenever they opted to focus on that which had been done to them. How nice.

But in addition to the strange psychology, by which some folks apparently need to be the biggest and most sympathetic victims, the teacher that day simply had it wrong. His definition of holocaust was purely fabricated, comporting with no actual dictionary version upon which he could truthfully claim reliance, and had been offered up without the slightest regard for the term's actual and easily discovered origins. As it turns out, the word holocaust is defined in most dictionaries as "destruction or slaughter on a mass scale," and derives from a Greek term for a sacrifice made upon a burnt altar.
This somewhat theological etymology probably explains why the term preferred by many Jews to describe Hitler's FInal Solution is not Holocaust at all, but rather the Hebrew term, shoah, since to equate the killing of millions of Jews with a sacrifical offering to God carries with it fairly obvious and disturbing connotations and places Hitler's maniacal practices on a par with ancient religious rites.

Shoah, in comparison, means any "catastrophe, calamity or disaster," and, as with holocaust, relies not at all upon deliberate extermination as a necessary component to the term's factual fulfillment.

That clarified, the only issue then should be whether or not the indigenous of the Americas or those enslaved here experienced large-scale death: a point requiring little debate or deliberation, as the historical record on this point is clear. The Middle Passage, without which enslavement in the Americas could not have progressed, claimed millions of lives, and as many as 93 million indigenous persons perished in the Americas following the onset of European conquest. That such facts as these suggest a Holocaust, a genocide of monumental proportions, should be obvious. Sadly, it is not.

And so this Thanksgiving morning, I awoke to discover a nationally-syndicated column in my local paper by Mona Charen, who felt as though the best use of her weekly 700 word-limit would be to deny that which history tells us is apparent: that the native persons whose conquering we are in effect celebrating today did indeed suffer a genocidal extermination. Such a claim as this, to hear Charen tell it is not only factually false, but a left-wing conspiratorial calumny placed upon the nation's head by radicals intent on warping the views of children and turning them into America-haters.

Charen, borrowing from conservative talk-show host Michael Medved's recent bookThe 10 Big Lies About America, argues that the charge of genocide leveled against our nation's founders "cannot withstand scrutiny," because Indian deaths were not principally the result of overt extermination campaigns. As Charen explains it, Indian depopulation was merely the happenstance consequence of diseases against which the natives had, sadly, no immunity (Charen calls this a "tragedy, but not a crime"), and the fact that the Europeans were technologically superior.

That the superior and "more advanced" civilization should prevail in such an instance has nothing to do with the desire by that bunch to destructively press its advantage against others, according to Charen, and nothing to do with greed or the maniacal desire to enrich oneself at all costs, but is simply the "usual course in human affairs." In other words, we should presume that the clash of civilizations in the Americas had been inevitable, as if the Europeans had had no choice but to take to the high seas, in search of riches and land; as if the North American continental shelf had possessed some kind of literal magnet, the pull of which simply could not be physically resisted by the white man, who then, amid tears and anguish, had no recourse but to spread throughout the western hemisphere. Reducing a half-millennium long process of displacement and destruction to the equivalent of a "Shit Happens" bumper sticker, Charen suggests we should happily consume our annual turkey and dressing absent so much as a twinge of remorse.

Of course, as with the previously mentioned teacher, Charen's position (and that of Medved, whose shtick she was pushing in this latest column) lacks even a rudimentary flirtation with intellectual honesty.

To begin, Medved and Charen suggest that to qualify as genocide, an action must, according to the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, be carried out with the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, racial or religious group." As with the teacher who insisted that Indians died of disease and thus were hardly the victims of a holocaust, so too these professional atrocity-deniers, who claim the deaths of millions of indigenous persons was virtually an accident. Yet the specific acts carried out against native peoples here are all mentioned explicitly in Article 2 of the Genocide Convention, and as such fall under its aegis. According to the UN, such acts include:
a) Killing members of the group;
b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and/or,
e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Any of those things alone would qualify as an act of genocide, and yet each one of them has been part of the treatment received by indigenous persons at the hands of the U.S. government, or the pre-nationhood colonists. Indians were indeed killed, with the intent of destroying entire bands of natives, in whole or in part. Serious bodily and mental harm was surely inflicted, quite deliberately. Indians were removed from their homes and relocated in large numbers on reservations, which meets both clause b and c of the definition. Indian women were forcibly sterilized--as many as 100,000 during the twentieth century, and even as many as 3000 a year into the early 1970s--thereby satisfying clause d; and as many as 80% of all Indian children were forcibly removed from their homes and families and sent to boarding schools, while others were forcibly adopted-out to white families, and in both cases, stripped of native language, culture and religion during the 1900s, thereby meeting the final clause of the very definition Charen and Medved use to suggest that no genocide occurred.

Both Charen and Medved insist that since most Indians died of disease, rather than direct violence, they cannot be the victims of genocide, but seeing as how the definition of genocide fails to require mass death at all, this argument holds disturbingly little weight. Not to mention, had it not been for conquest, those diseases to which Indians had no resistance--and which colonists praised as the "work of God," clearing the land for them--wouldn't have ravaged the native populations as they did. To imply that such deaths were merely accidental or incidental would be like saying the Nazis bore no responsibility for the 1.6 million or so Jews who died of disease and starvation in the camps, rather than having been gassed or shot. But try saying that at your local neighborhood synagogue and see how far you get, with good reason.

Of course, there is more than enough evidence of the intentionality of Indian-killing to suggest that genocide occurred, even if we were to accept the inaccurate interpretation of the term's definition put forward by Charen and Medved.

And so we have George Washington in 1779, sending a letter to Major General John Sullivan, that he should "lay waste" to all Iroquois settlements, so that their lands may not be "merely overrun but destroyed."

And we have Thomas Jefferson telling his Secretary of War that any tribe that resisted the taking of their land by the United States must be met with force, and that once the hatchet of war had been raised, "we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or is driven beyond the Mississippi...in war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy all of them."

And we have Andrew Jackson overseeing the scalping of as many as 800 slaughtered Creek Indians at Tohopeka (Horseshoe Bend), and bragging of preserving the "sculps" of those he killed in battle. And then, during the Second Seminole War, we have Jackson admonishing the troops to "capture or destroy" all the nation's women and children.

Open and deliberate calls for mass murder and destruction of entire Indian peoples were common. So, for instance, during the laying of the Northern Pacific Railroad through the Montana territory, the area's chief of Indian affairs noted that if the Sioux (Lakota and Dakota) peoples continued to "molest" the laying of the track and the progress symbolized by it, a military force should be sent to punish them "even to annihilation."

In other words, that widespread death of indigenous peoples was the desired (thus intended) outcome of conquest is hard to deny. To suggest that no such intent existed, simply because so many millions succumbed to disease ignores not only that such diseases were welcomed and celebrated (and occasionally spread deliberately), but also implies that had Indian folk not died from disease, they would have been allowed to live and remain on their lands. Yet we know this is not true, any more than the Nazis would have allowed those Jews who died in the camps from typhus to live, had the disease never taken its toll. That disease made the land-clearing and conquest easier--and relieved the white man of the burden of having to actually fight for their spoils in many cases--hardly relieves the beneficiaries of the moral weight of such an end.

What is especially sad is that by excusing genocide, Charen and Medved (and others) perpetuate our identification with those who did the killing and thieving, rather than either the victims, or even the members of the dominant culture who stood against such depravities. Modern-day whites, for instance, could choose to identify with those persons of European descent who stood up against the taking of indigenous land and lives: people like Bartolome de las Casas, Jeremiah Evarts, or Helen Hunt Jackson, just to name a few. But we can hardly feel a kinship with such folks if we know nothing of them--and we know nothing of them, or little, because our schools have been so busy telling us of the heroism and greatness of the architects of genocide, rather than encouraging a connection with those who stood up and said no. That such whites have existed however, in all times and places during the spread of white supremacy, suggests there has always been a different path that we of European background could have chosen.

If we are to be thankful at this time of year, we should be thankful for their example. We should be thankful that within us resides the spark of decency that animated their resistance to the plans of the colonial elite, and later the Washingtons, Jeffersons and Jacksons of their day. We are capable of so much better than they, and we deserve far better role models than we have been offered up to now, by our teachers, or by syndicated columnists and talk-show hosts more interested in covering up evil than celebrating true bravery.

[gorillafuck]

Praire Fire: I meant a specific event.

[Prairie Fire]

Yeah, I heard you the first time, and I responded accordingly.

Did you read my post?

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I think many Americans recognize the fact that this country was conquered by brute force, and the wounded knee massacre especially has become normal curriculum in many history classes. In my high school there was extensive studying of the subject.

While the denial of history is still an issue, I think a bigger one that gets ignored are the enormous challenges faced by native americans today. It seems that many people, people I know, at least, are quick to use 19th century history to show how America (and spain and britain and portugal earlier) had blood on its hands, but a very small percentage has studied the situation and lack of progress that has been made.

For example,

"It has long been recognized that Native Americans are dying of diabetes, alcoholism, tuberculosis, suicide, and other health conditions at shocking rates. Beyond disturbingly high mortality rates, Native Americans also suffer a significantly lower health status and disproportionate rates of disease compared with all other Americans."
— The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, September 2004

For me personally, I still very much remember the first time I was on a reservation. I was living in AZ at the time, and had certainly seen poverty before, especially of the rural variety. But the concentration I saw on the rez was an eye opening experience, and a wake up call.

Not only in AZ, but also California, Oklahoma, Montana, the Dakotas all have reservations which don't get even the small benefit of a casino or two, and many are drowning in poverty. And when I say poverty, I don't mean working poor like many cities are filled with. I mean fucking poverty.



The extent of the problem may not be well known. American Indians and Native Alaskans number 4.5 million. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, these Americans earn a median annual income of $33,627. One in every four (25.3 percent) lives in poverty and nearly a third (29.9 percent) are without health insurance coverage.


To put this in stark terms, counties on Native American reservations are among the poorest in the country and, according to the Economic Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nearly 60 percent of all Native Americans who live outside of metropolitan areas inhabit persistently poor counties.


Contrary to popular belief, the overwhelming majority of tribes are not wealthy by virtue of gaming. This is mostly attributable to a fact which all sovereign nations have come to understand, that geography is all too often destiny.


For most tribes, their remotely placed homes and communities frequently stifle viable economic activity. This disturbing result is particularly harsh when we recognize that Native Americans witnessed their geography chosen for them by those who sought to terminate them as a people.


A major cause of poverty in Native American communities is the persistent lack of opportunity. The Economic Research Service reports that Native American communities have fewer full-time employed individuals than any other high-poverty community. Only 36 percent of males in high-poverty Native American communities have full-time, year-round employment.


On the Blackfoot Reservation in Montana, for example, the annual unemployment rate is 69 percent. The national unemployment rate at the very peak of the Great Depression was around 25 percent. That means that each year the Blackfeet people, whose aboriginal lands once comprised Glacier National Park, suffers an employment crisis nearly three times as severe as the Great Depression.

One does not need to travel to a developing nation to find extreme poverty. It is here, in America. In our own backyard.




http://www.spotlightonpoverty.org/ExclusiveCommentary.aspx?id=0fe5c04e-fdbf-4718-980c-0373ba823da7

I remember first becoming interested when I was about 14, when I heard that the Rodeo fire, which, upon merging with another forest fire became the largest in state history, was an act of arson. The young man turned himself in and is most likely still serving his sentence. The reason he gave was want of employment for fire fighters.

That stuck with me.

[Martin Blank]

To call what happened a genocide is historically misleading. Of course there's no doubt that European settlers enslaved and treated horribily the local indian populations, but what one needs to be reminded of is that they're mass die-off was not deliberate or ideological, like an event like the Holocaust was, but was largely a result of the lack of disease resistance. There's no doubt what happened as a biological catastrophe on the level of the Black Death, but to call it 'imperialist genocide' is just plain inaccurate.

Pro tip: Never, ever, EVER accept a blanket as a "gift" from which doctor.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

"I came quickly because I thought they were giving us a vacation from Warsaw, you know, paid train fare and everything."

Uggh its so horrible but the ultimate gallows humor makes me chuckle.

[which doctor]

I'm well aware that they're were numerous massacres and forced relocations of indian populations, but my point is that to scream genocide is to obscure the nature of actual relations between indian populations and the US gov't, and this abdicates the responsibility of conducting a more thoroughgoing analysis of what happened. Furthermore, to compare it to the Holocaust is absolutely outrageous in my opinion, and completely trivializes the ideological character of the event. Sure the colonization of the Americas resulted in the deaths of more indians than the Holocaust did for Jews, but theres more to history than just body counts.

[Glenn Beck]

I'm well aware that they're were numerous massacres and forced relocations of indian populations, but my point is that to scream genocide is to obscure the nature of actual relations between indian populations and the US gov't, and this abdicates the responsibility of conducting a more thoroughgoing analysis of what happened. Furthermore, to compare it to the Holocaust is absolutely outrageous in my opinion, and completely trivializes the ideological character of the event.

Read the fucking quote I posted. Read it.

It was Lebensraum, plain and simple. The ideology was white supremacy and manifest destiny. The result was the abandonment of prior attempts at coerced assimilation in favor of a naked and brutal policy of extermination in order to appropriate native lands to support a burgeoning white middle class in keeping with the ideals of Jeffersonian democracy for an agrarian democracy of petit-bourgeois smallholders.

You're absolutely outrageous, in my opinion. And you're trivializing the Native American Holocaust, one of the greatest atrocities perpetrated, yes perpetrated, i.e. with intent by human beings in all of history.

You motherfucker.

[which doctor]

By the way, I'd like to remind people that, despite what you might assume given the posts in this thread, the declaration about what happed to the native american population as a result of colonization as 'genocide' is by no means agreed upon in the history community, and numerous debate occurs on the topic. Its not that I deny the numerous state-sanctioned atrocities that occurred in America, but I'm very wary of calling what happened 'genocide,' because this is of course a very loaded word, and at a very significant level becomes more a tool of propaganda, than an actual diagnosis.

To label me a white supremacist and get out the ban hammer, just because I take a different position on what is in reality a very contentious issue, is knee-jerk to say the least.

[khad]

By the way, I'd like to remind people that, despite what you might assume given the posts in this thread, the declaration about what happed to the native american population as a result of colonization as 'genocide' is by no means agreed upon in the history community, and numerous debate occurs on the topic. Its not that I deny the numerous state-sanctioned atrocities that occurred in America, but I'm very wary of calling what happened 'genocide,' because this is of course a very loaded word, and at a very significant level becomes more a tool of propaganda, than an actual diagnosis.

To label me a white supremacist and get out the ban hammer, just because I take a different position on what is in reality a very contentious issue, is knee-jerk to say the least.
I call you a white supremacist because you are. By your words and actions, as well as the words and actions of your degenerate organization.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/platypus-t133871/index.html?p=1732385#post1732385

I joined their reading/discussion group, being a young Marxist college student interested in intellectual conversation with like-minded individuals. Or, at least, what I thought were like minded individuals.

What I instead discovered instead nauseated me. At their Chicago citywide meeting, the fare consisted of spending 20 minutes sneering, laughing, and making insulting remarks about the protesters who were occupying NYU at the time. It wasn't even a helpful criticism of their tactics, it was just derogatory attacks on student activism in general as well as anarchists, even though they knew their was an anarchist in the room. Chris Cutrone, one of the editors of the review, then went on to describe a local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which I am active in, as local Hamas cell. When I challenged him, he backed off a little, saying their were not Hamas, but "soft Islamists"(a term he uses in his obsessive articles about Iran). After the meeting broke up, I spent another 20-30 minutes arguing with a rabid Zionist who was defending the Israeli massacre in Gaza, because all Arabs were Nazis. No one contradicted him or intervened on my behalf, but smiled and laughed while he stood there justifying ethnic cleansing. The conversation turned to Latin America, and one member compared Hugo Chavez to Josef Stalin. That was too much for me, I stormed off.

That is why I hate Platypus. They are not socialists, they are not Marxists, they are not even progressive. They follow a bizarre right-wing inversion of Trotskyism. They have articles extolling the American occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq as progressive, they denounce the Cuban and Bolivarian revolutions and parrot right-wing propaganda about both of them, they dismiss all student activists as idiotic and childish, their editor has lied on camera claiming that there is no hunger in Gaza under the Israeli blockade. They claim that the Russian revolution was worthless, almost a 'total disaster from the start'(Cutrone). From start to finish, they are anti-socialist, anti-labor, anti-Third World, racist, snobbish elitist liars, who hate the left and everything it stands for because they have convinced themselves that 'The Left is dead', which they chant like a religious mantra.

[scarletghoul]

I'm well aware that they're were numerous massacres and forced relocations of indian populations, but my point is that to scream genocide is to obscure the nature of actual relations between indian populations and the US gov't, and this abdicates the responsibility of conducting a more thoroughgoing analysis of what happened.
No one's fucking 'screaming genocide' you moron. We, like just about everyone who can read and interpret facts, correctly identify it as genocide because, as PF points out, the word 'genocide' fits in every possible way. It is a textbook example of genocide, and yes, it is of the same nature as the Holocaust.

Anything you might mistake as 'screaming' is infact the justified outrage of people in the face of this most disgusting of all crimes.


By the way, I'd like to remind people that, despite what you might assume given the posts in this thread, the declaration about what happed to the native american population as a result of colonization as 'genocide' is by no means agreed upon in the history community
Yeah and the Holocaust is disputed... by Nazis.
These 'historians' who dispute, try to cover up, the Amerikan genocide are of the imperialist white establishment (ie they are the very same people who committed that genocide).
In fact I have never ever come across a leftist or even a progressive who disputes that it was genocide, as the evidence is overwhelming, any other conclusion is just ridiculous.


Its not that I deny the numerous state-sanctioned atrocities that occurred in America, but I'm very wary of calling what happened 'genocide,' because this is of course a very loaded word, and at a very significant level becomes more a tool of propaganda, than an actual diagnosis.
This was the premeditated extermination of entire peoples. It is impossible to 'hype up' such a horror with 'loaded words' or whatever.

[#FF0000]

To call what happened a genocide is historically misleading. Of course there's no doubt that European settlers enslaved and treated horribily the local indian populations, but what one needs to be reminded of is that they're mass die-off was not deliberate or ideological, like an event like the Holocaust was, but was largely a result of the lack of disease resistance. There's no doubt what happened as a biological catastrophe on the level of the Black Death, but to call it 'imperialist genocide' is just plain inaccurate.

I'm not studying medicine or anything but I am pretty sure it's insane for any disease to have a 99% or whatever mortality rate.

[Wanted Man]

Pro tip: Never, ever, EVER accept a blanket as a "gift" from which doctor.

Whatever happened to his ban?

[Prairie Fire]

I'm well aware that they're were numerous massacres and forced relocations of indian populations, but my point is that to scream genocide is to obscure the nature of actual relations between indian populations and the US gov't, and this abdicates the responsibility of conducting a more thoroughgoing analysis of what happened.


Okay, I'll bite; what do you consider to be genocide?

Apparently you are rejecting the definition of Genocide as defined by international law (You're not the only one; I saw another persyn today, who was trying to make the case that genocide of aboriginal people was a "hoax" forced to admit that according to international law all of the conditions of Genocide were perpetrated against aboriginal people. For this reason, this individual defered to a new definition of Genocide, which he was the author of, that was dare I say noticably more lenient.).

Also, from your statements, numerous massacres (with the stated intentions of wiping out the entire nation), and forced relocations (the trails of tears resulted in up to 50% population losses for some of those nations who were forced to march upon them,), don't count as acts of genocide.

I assume that all of the other facts that I quoted don't count (all of which meet the criteria set by international law to define acts of genocide), like compulsory sterilization, biological warfare, forced internment, scalp bounties (in other words, government monetary incentives to wipe out indians, A STATE POLICY AT A LEGISLATIVE LEVEL,), intentional destruction of food sources to starve aboriginal nations ( The Spanish conquistadors used pigs and other animals to destroy crops of agricultural nations; the United States military wiped out bison herds to starve hunter-gatherer plains peoples into submission.), forced abduction of children and assimilation into the dominant culture ( wether through residential schools or through adoptions, which included severe physical punishment for speaking aboriginal languages, practicing aborignal customs and religious rites, and was established under state policy for the express purpose of culturally assimilating aboriginal people and destroying seperate and soveriegn identities.)... apparently none of this meets your criteria for genocide (despite meeting all other criteria established for Genocide).

So, again, I'll bite: What is your persynal defintion of genocide, that all nations facing ethnic cleansing must submit to? What is your criteria?




Furthermore, to compare it to the Holocaust is absolutely outrageous in my opinion, and completely trivializes the ideological character of the event.


Have you been reading anyone elses posts? The whole thing?

1.) I allready tackled Third Reich holocaust 'exceptionalism' in my last post. (I even included an excellent article by Tim Wise on the subject as well).


2.) So, is this your elusive criteria for genocide? It must be "ideological"?

Well, I believe that quotations have been provided (or are available in my sources) to demonstrate George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson (especially him), Theodore Roosevelt, various governors, generals and other state persynelle of the United States government making quotations that make it abundantly clear that total extermination was the goal.

As usual, in correlation with your previous quotations that reject class analysis and class politics, you are putting the cart before the horse; in your flawed analysis, ideology must come before policies and actions, rather than coming into being because of and as a rationalization for policies and actions.

What was the Third Reichs official "ideology" of all slavic peoples being Untermensch, if not a rationalization and justification for Eastward expansion?

And the same thing goes with the United States. The quotations are numerous (and I provided several in my previous post), the paper trail has documented that these were in fact state policies, and all of which were rationalized (even in offical documents) by refering to the Aboriginals with words like "savages" and "heathens".

I have presented numerous cases of state policies:

* Scalp bounties (ie. state provided monetary incentives to kill any indian)

*Military manouvers that resulted in massacre/extermination

*forced relocation ( which severely decimated the populations of the nations that were forced to re-locate)

* mandatory abduction of Children into residential schools (the last of which closed their doors in 1996) and/or White foster parents homes, for the stated purpose of cultural assimilation

* Deliberate Destruction of food sources, with the intended result of starving the nations that depended on them

*deliberate use of viral agents to exterminate a population

* Compulsory sterilyzation ( Not unlike that practiced later in the third reich; preventing future generations from being born has the same effect on a population as murdering it's members)

etc, etc.


How much more do you need? Many have presented the case and proven that it was in fact state policy of all new world governments to exterminate aboriginal nations that they encountered.

What will make it more 'ideological'?

If you are truly interested in the way that mass propaganda justified and rationalized these hienous state policies, I would recommend the book "Fantasies of the Master Race" By Ward Churchill ( an excellent read; I finished it on a long plane ride during the holiday season). This book certainly highlights the "ideological" aspects of American Genocide.

Also, I highly recommend the documentary film "The Canary Effect" ( I never get tired of it).



Sure the colonization of the Americas resulted in the deaths of more indians than the Holocaust did for Jews, but theres more to history than just body counts.


While I am inclined to agree in a generalized sense that there is nuance to everything, we have sufficiently demonstrated the similarities in goals, in methods, and in outcome between the two.

Before the foundations were even laid for Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka and Dachau, the Cherokee nation was interned within camps in the United States. Just as mentally handicapped people were sterilyzed under the third reich, tens of thousands of aboriginal (and black) peoples in the United States were similarly sterilyzed in a compulsory fashion.

I am not trying to hold the "oppression olympics" here, but I am arguing (As Churchill and Wise do,) that the events of the European holocaust were hardly exceptional or unique (unfortunately). In fact, I previously pointed out how the methods for the holocaust itself were drawn from those used by other countries ( Both the Concentration camp and gas were used by the British prior to the Third Reich).


By the way, I'd like to remind people that, despite what you might assume given the posts in this thread, the declaration about what happed to the native american population as a result of colonization as 'genocide' is by no means agreed upon in the history community, and numerous debate occurs on the topic

The only dissenters are those who are trying to rationalize and white wash colonialism (which are generally those in high positions of academia, but not necessarilly those with the correct historical facts).

There is not "consensus" in the history community, just as there has never been consensus achieved on the history of the USSR, or of any socialist state. What is your point?

Has "consensus" ever been achieved on Vietnam?

On Grenada?

What about Iraq and Afghanistan (from previous conflicts)?

Has consensus ever been achieved on the 6 million+ people murdered in the Congo under colonial rule?

Has consensus been achieved on the Aztecs ( Nauhtal Comrades tell me that it is impossible to crack a persyns rib cage open with a ceremonial obsidian knife, which would be required to commit humyn sacrifice, and to illustrate this they point to the advanced machinery that is required to cut a persyns rib cage open today to do open-heart surgery) ?

Hell, there isn't even consensus within the 'historical community' (and I use the term loosely) about wether or not they have found "Noahs ark" on the top of Mt. Arrarat!

As I previously recommended, Ward Churchill has a good chapter regarding official skepticism in "Fantasies of the master race" that takes the official academics to town on their bullshit.

Because you lack class politics, you lack understanding of class struggle, which permeats pretty much every field of accademia. Other than fields that can not empirically be denied (mathematics, physics, Chemistry,) and have absolutely no political implications, History rages with debate between the two outlooks: the exploited and the exploiters, oppressed and oppressors. Given the subjectivity of history based on identification, the same event can be reported different ways.

Do you wonder why Israeli and Palestinian accounts of Al Nackba have not reached "consensus"?

Even though official history has been forced to make small concessions ( to the struggles of politicized aboriginal forces, like AIM,), they still maintain a soft colonial denial. A good example is CultofAbeLincolns observation about all the nasty stuff being a "thing of the past" ( meanwhile, a standoff at Caledonia, Ontario is currently in progress, and has been for over four years).


Its not that I deny the numerous state-sanctioned atrocities that occurred in America, but I'm very wary of calling what happened 'genocide,'

Again, do you have a persynal dictionary that you have authored yourself that you are more confortable with?

Where is this elusive definition of "Genocide" that you keep refering to?
I would think that State policies aimed at extermination would be at the top of that list (and it is, according to international law).


because this is of course a very loaded word, and at a very significant level becomes more a tool of propaganda, than an actual diagnosis.

So, the insinuation is that this propaganda?

The facts have been presented and re-itterated; quit dancing.



To label me a white supremacist

Aren't you the guy that previously characterized aboriginal youth as "Gangbangers and alcoholics"?

Anyways, wether or not you identify with white supremacy as an ideology, in the context of your denial that genocide even took place at all in the United States (despite the evidence submitted), and in the context of your proposed "solution" that there has been much musing about in the moderators forum (ie. aboriginal people need to abandon their last vestiges of cultural identity and territorial and political soveriegnty, and assimilate into the body politic, and this will somehow solve their economic problems and end the state policies aimed at their extermination), objectively your outlook is in perfect allignment with the policies of more tactless and unrepentant white supremacists.



get out the ban hammer, just because I take a different position on what is in reality a very contentious issue, is knee-jerk to say the least.

The "Ban hammer" is coming out because of a culmination of your world outlook that you have expressed on this forum, not from a single issue, and don't paint yourself as the pure and objective dissident, seeker of truth. We aren't falling for that shit.

This forum's minimum criteria is Revolutionary-Left, and you are niether of those things. In the past, I have argued for those who are reactionary on some aspect to stay and be eductated. You are reactionary in all things, and no evidence to the contrary is shaking your position.

Watch that door on the way out.

[which doctor]

Prairie Fire,

I'm really not interested in arguing about this, and frankly I'm not convinced either way. You clearly only understand the situation through the twisted lens of Ward Churchill, whom you cite numerous times, and has proven time and time again that not only does he plagiarize, but that he completely fabricates historical events to support his own argument. The guy's a complete fool. Go ahead and blame the white-supremacist, academic community for wanting to rationalize colonialism, but you'd only be deceiving yourself.



Aren't you the guy that previously characterized aboriginal youth as "Gangbangers and alcoholics"?

No, and stop twisting around my words. I said that one would find these two things on a reservation.

[Devrim]

To call what happened a genocide is historically misleading. Of course there's no doubt that European settlers enslaved and treated horribily the local indian populations, but what one needs to be reminded of is that they're mass die-off was not deliberate or ideological, like an event like the Holocaust was, but was largely a result of the lack of disease resistance. There's no doubt what happened as a biological catastrophe on the level of the Black Death, but to call it 'imperialist genocide' is just plain inaccurate.


On June 29, 1763, a week after the siege began, Bouquet was preparing to lead an expedition to relieve Fort Pitt when he received a letter from Amherst making the following proposal: "Could it not be contrived to send the smallpox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox) among the disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them." [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt#endnote_strategem)
Bouquet agreed, writing back to Amherst on July 13, 1763: "I will try to inoculate the bastards with some blankets that may fall into their hands, and take care not to get the disease myself." Amherst responded favorably on July 16, 1763: "You will do well to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as well as every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race."[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt#endnote_extirpate)


Devrim

[synthesis]

Given the general polarization of the thread in History, I thought I might egotistically take this opportunity to demonstrate where my perspective differs from that of WD and where they intersect.

First, the argument that the European colonization of the Americas was not strongly characterized by acts of genocide and/or ethnic cleansing is a patent absurdity. To argue that these tendencies "cannot be compared to the Holocaust" is like arguing that "the effects of the Iraq war upon Iraqi civilians cannot be compared to 9/11," simply because the latter was more concentrated, more concerted, occurred in a shorter length of time, and because some percentage of the negative effects of the former were unintentional. It's simply Western exceptionalism.

I'm not sure of the wisdom of WD following the subject from there to here; in any case, the question in discussion here ("Did genocide occur?") is entirely different from the question in History ("Would the Americas be better off if it had never happened?"). Insofar as genocide is defined as "the systematic destruction of part or all of a specific group of people," the answer to the question in this thread is pretty clear cut.

In the History thread, however, the answer is not as cut-and-dry, which is why I defended WD there, particularly because of this quote:


Its useless to ponder historical 'what-ifs' especially ones that were so huge in terms of their effect on modern history.I wouldn't want to be a day laborer in Los Angeles, but I'd rather be that than a member of a subject tribe of the Aztec Empire... and yet I'd rather be that than an indigenous Caribbean around the beginning of the sixteenth century. Historical speculation, when it's that broad, is pointless.

Then again, I also believe that this thread evinces my belief that the term "Native American" is almost entirely meaningless. Has anyone seen that South Park where Cheech and Chong get all the townsfolk to buy "Cherokee Hair Tampons" because they convince the people that they're "Native American," and then when Cheech and Chong admit, "We're not actually Native Americans... we're Mexicans," everyone starts vomiting?

Sorry to use anecdotal evidence, but the only "Native Americans" I've ever known who called themselves "Native Americans" were those who were adopted by liberal white parents. The non-adoptees I've known either call themselves "American Indian" or "Cherokee," "Sioux," whatever. The term "Native American" seems to reflect a certain arrogance among North Americans... only our indigenous people are worthy of the term "Native American." Perhaps we should just say "Native 'Murrrkan" instead.

[black magick hustla]

Oh, come on, you guys. Quit trying to re-write history. The white devils came here and their policy, like with the wolves that roamed this continent, was to exterminate the red skins to make conquest of the entire land mass an American milestone.

Well, the whites succeeded. And they live to argue about it, don't they?

How quickly whites -- commies included -- forget the truth of history.

the white devils huh. the brown devils made my cousin rot in prison and tortured the hell out of him. i dont get this stupid rhetoric

[Universal Struggle]

what brown devils are you refering to, why were they torturing your cousin?

Or are you joking?

[Prairie Fire]

I'm really not interested in arguing about this,


Checkmate. :lol:



I'm not convinced either way.


Yes, I can see that. Why, I have no idea.

Your initial argument was that most casualties were from smallpox; we have demonstrated that millions of casualties were also from deliberate murder.

We have demonstrated that entire nations ( Arawak, Beothuk, etc) were Wiped out by European colonization.

We have demonstrated numerous state policies and quotations from state figures aimed at extermination.

I can't see how your passive argument, where no one is to blame for anything, still holds any water even in your mind, and your elusive definition of what constitutes genocide is still absent (apparently nothing that anyone has mentioned here constitutes genocide according to your own persynal defininition).


You clearly only understand the situation through the twisted lens of Ward Churchill, whom you cite numerous times


I clearly understand the situation as a Metis womyn, with family members who came out of the residential schools.

I clearly understand the situation as a persyn mired in the thick of it.

Instead of making ad-hominem attacks on Churchill, why don't you address any of the concrete points that anyone has put forward, and justify your stubborn skepticism.

If your argument seems as clear as day to you, and so rock solid in the face of evil left-wing agitprop, then why can't you articulate it?



and has proven time and time again that not only does he plagiarize, but that he completely fabricates historical events to support his own argument. The guy's a complete fool.


1. I have posted numerous sources, the majority of which are not Ward Churchill. Are you going to discount them all?

2. Have you ever read anything by Churchill? He does have extensive bibliographies at the end of every chapter, so it seems to me that he has done his homework.

3. You are attacking the credibility of one of my sources, rather than tackling point by point my argument (which is not the domain of any individual scholar or source).

The Ward Churchill books that I referenced were in regards to two subjects:

A.) Mass media portrayal of indigenous people and the rationalization of colonization
('Fantasies of the master race')

B.) Confronting the idea that the German holocaust was "Exceptional"
('A little matter of Genocide')

The rest of my argument, I have drawn from several sources and provided quotations, links, etc.

Now, confront my argument, or quit posting in this thread. Nobody gives a shit about wether or not you are "interested" in replying, so there is no need to tell us.

Defend your thoroughly discredited viewpoint, or make no further additions to this thread.


Go ahead and blame the white-supremacist, academic community for wanting to rationalize colonialism, but you'd only be deceiving yourself.

That is exactly the case. Many of these 'academics', when asked why their opponents are presenting the genocide as a fact, say that their opponents are trying to agitate people into "hating America".

As I have continually re-itterated to you, if your case is so airtight, so infallible, and ours is based on accusations, hearsay, forgerie and propaganda, than enlighten the rest of us, please.

All that we have heard from you so far is the same shit that we hear from any defender of colonization, that the majority of deaths were from diseases. The rest of the deaths, which can be directly tied to policies and political states, however, are not worthy of mention. The official policies that clearly state that extermination is the goal are inconvenient, and therefore not explored.

If you have an infallible historical case, which you seem to think that you do, present it. Otherwise, what right do you have to clutter this thread with your inane bullshit?

[scarletghoul]

Sorry to use anecdotal evidence, but the only "Native Americans" I've ever known who called themselves "Native Americans" were those who were adopted by liberal white parents. The non-adoptees I've known either call themselves "American Indian" or "Cherokee," "Sioux," whatever. The term "Native American" seems to reflect a certain arrogance among North Americans... only our indigenous people are worthy of the term "Native American." Perhaps we should just say "Native 'Murrrkan" instead.
I'm English and I just say Native American because it makes more sense than calling them Indians because they are not from India.. Maybe its differant in Amerika where theres not a huge (real) Indian community, but yeah


I wouldn't want to be a day laborer in Los Angeles, but I'd rather be that than a member of a subject tribe of the Aztec Empire... and yet I'd rather be that than an indigenous Caribbean around the beginning of the sixteenth century. Historical speculation, when it's that broad, is pointless.
Maybe, but you're speculating wrong in any case :lol:
First, the Aztec Empire would probably not be around anymore, or if it was it certainly would have developed, as would have every native community. Would be completely differant, its not like development of productive forces is a purely European thing as you seem to think. So you can't compare life as it is today with life as it was in precolumbian America, that's just silly.

Would you have supported an Arab conquest of Europe during the Dark Ages ?

[Robocommie]

It's hilarious, it's like certain people didn't get discredited enough as a terrible fucking racist in the History forum, they had to come around and get some more.

[Ocean Seal]

Its blatantly obvious that the European settlers killed off the natives. Hell all one has to do is look up the numbers.

[gorillafuck]

Yeah, I heard you the first time, and I responded accordingly.

Did you read my post?
Yes I did, and then I reread my post and found nowhere where I said the holocaust was "unique" so I'm confused as to why you thought I said anything about the uniqueness of the holocaust. There's a difference between saying something was a specific event and saying it was particularly unique from other ethnic cleansings.

Edit: I don't want to detract from the conversation though.

[GreenCommunism]

under this idea all genocide are unique since they are done at different geographical areas or time. though i understand what you mean. i don't think churchill using gas to fight rebellion in the british empire is the same as gas chambers.

[Barry Lyndon]

One cannot even understand the Holocaust without recognizing what was done to the indigenous Americans as a genocide. Hitler on several occasions expressed admiration for what the United States had done to its indigenous population. If it is not known that European colonial powers and their offshoots(ie the United States) repeatedly massacred, enslaved, exploited, and starved entire groups of people in the Americas, Africa, and Asia for profit and imperial expansion, and weaved together elaborate racial supremacy ideologies to justify it, and that furthermore such views were mainstream in Western political and intellectual discourse well into the 20th century, then you can't understand where Nazi ideology came from. It just seems like some dreadful anomaly.

Whichdoctor is a piece of racist shit. Prairie Fire, as much as I don't like you otherwise, you did a good job putting his face in the dirt. Thank you.

[GreenCommunism]

what are the rational estimates of native american population when colombus arrived? i know some have said 100 million but i thought that was the higher ends of it. with racist conservative claiming it was 8 and socialist claiming it is 100 million. i don't think i would take the middle ground, if there are many estimates i'll take all their numbers and make an average.

[Barry Lyndon]

what are the rational estimates of native american population when colombus arrived? i know some have said 100 million but i thought that was the higher ends of it. with racist conservative claiming it was 8 and socialist claiming it is 100 million. i don't think i would take the middle ground, if there are many estimates i'll take all their numbers and make an average.

The estimates of the indigenous population around 1500 range from less then 10 million at the very least to about 100 million at the very most. It is agreed upon by demographers and historians that approximately 90-95% of this population was wiped out in the 1600's already by European warfare and diseases.
Personally I go for a median estimate of 40-80 million, it makes sense to me as it seems quite plausible that the Aztec and Inca Empires alone were populated by tens of millions of people, given their complex infrastructure and advanced agriculture. It has been verified by both the accounts of the Spaniards and the findings of archaeology that they had large cities(the Aztec capital of Tenochticlan alone had over a quarter of a million inhabitants in the 16th century).

[the last donut of the night]

I'm really not interested in arguing about this, and frankly I'm not convinced either way.

Ironic, because you were the one to incite all of our responses (or do you not remember posting this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1754363&postcount=8)?) It's funny how you are one of the first posters on the subject and then, when you become cornered, you accuse us of being bothersome. And I don't care if you're "not convinced either way", you've shown yourself to be a complete reactionary.


You clearly only understand the situation through the twisted lens of Ward Churchill, whom you cite numerous times, and has proven time and time again that not only does he plagiarize, but that he completely fabricates historical events to support his own argument.

I've never fully read Ward Churchill, but the articles PF posted seem completely rational and respectable enough to be taken as good academic material. You can't accuse the man of fabrication or plagiarism when your arguments are completely reactionary and lacking any logic or factual evidence.


Go ahead and blame the white-supremacist, academic community for wanting to rationalize colonialism, but you'd only be deceiving yourself.

We ourselves have colonialism under a class perspective; it is you, however, that take the reactionary and un-Marxist reading of it. It seems "rationalizing", to you, is taking the blame off White imperialism. Guess who you're siding with now? You're siding with the same people that make history textbooks for high-school kids like me.


No, and stop twisting around my words. I said that one would find these two things on a reservation.

"Sorry guys, you didn't understand me. Not all black people are bad, just those lazy morons, gang-bangers, and thugs that live in the ghetto. I don't hate all black people, I just hate most of them."

See how you sound? The majority of aboriginal youth live on reservations, and if I'm wrong anybody can correct me. So don't try to scurry out and white-wash your racist positions by saying that you're only referring to a small group when in reality you're directing it at the majority of the group.

Again I ask why we still haven't banned you.

[GreenCommunism]

which doctor: I don't give a shit about dying cultures

LOL , sums it all up. i usually don't like to join gang bangs when someone is opposed to a large group of people, but this guy is just hilarious. he's a typical conservative, not even liberal. i mean he actually pretends to be communist? this is ridiculous.

[Invader Zim]

Your initial argument was that most casualties were from smallpox; we have demonstrated that millions of casualties were also from deliberate murder.

Where? Certainly you have listed a number of massacres, some of which numbered deaths into the thousands, and policies, whose intent you argue was to destroy indigenous Americans as a group. I seem to have missed the millions source, could you repost it or point me to the origional post?

[black magick hustla]

what brown devils are you refering to, why were they torturing your cousin?

Or are you joking?

the mexican state. my point is that the nationalist language of "white devils" is compeltely counterproductive.