Re: Canadian Indian Claims
Robert Rosenstein wrote:
If there is no such thing as obligations to past generations, then the
idea of History is nullified.
Perhaps there are one than one "idea of History". Santayana's
warning that "Those who do not remember the past are
condemned to relive it" is in no way vitiated by giving
up the idea of *blood feud*.
It seems to me that the only ontological status of
"past generations" is their present-day living
*memory* in us ("history", like "the universe, etc. is not
a material (is there a German word: "Stoffish"?) "reality", but
rather an existential modality of human
Being-in-the-world ("Dasein"). Funerals, for instance, clearly
are productions of, by and for the benefit of the survivors,
not the funerees(sp?) -- who either have passed
into another life or "into" no-longer-being-at-all.
An exception I can think of to this is the Roman
Catholic Church's notion of *indulgences*.
In no way am I condoning The Holocaust (or even
my own middle-class Anmerican 1940s-50s social
milieu of origin). But it does not seem to me that
the *children* of Nazis (to pick one example)
should be punished for their parents' crimes, or
that the residents of southern Fairfield County, Connecticut, USA
should be dispossessed because of injustices which
were done by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs
(etc.) to the Pequots.
If an action such as a genocide has no
force after a given number of years, then as long as one can get away
with it for the requisite period, the action has no value except to let
others know what can be gotten away with. Consequently, except for a
nuclear winter in which the slate is wiped clean, there is no justice.
This is, in my opinion, *factually* the case, whether we
like it or not. As the old cliche goes: No one will ever
know the identities of the best money counterfeiters
(etc.). Escape from justice by death happens all too
frequently (or, perhaps, not frequently enough -- since
society is saved a lot of expenses when criminals
die as part of their criminal acts, or shortly thereafter).
Nietzsche wrote (and I think he here if not always he has
merit):
That man be delivered from the spirit of revenge is for me
A bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after ong storms.
Or, as Jesus said:
Leave the dead to bury the dead. (except in urban settings,
where corpses are a public health problem)
\brad mccormick
--
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
---
![%THINK;[XML]] Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: Canadian Indian Claims
If any value including justice is made an absolute with no limitations, we end up with a mess of insoluble complications, and much of what is ultimately solvable benefits the lawyers far more than the victims, as Ed Weick notes. Is there such a thing as collective guilt? Are all whites legally liable to compensate all Indians for the undoubted injustices? Or do we sort it out on the basis of family history? Ed makes a good case that his Central European ancestors had nothing to do with exploiting the first nations. I suppose I could do the same. My German great-grandfather was certainly not a very successful exploiter; in the mid 1870's he was in the workhouse (Victorian workfare) at Berlin [Kitchener], Ontario, and so poor that he literally sold my three-year-old grandfather to a prosperous merchant who wanted to adopt him. Even if we go with collective guilt, we find messy situations that cannot be sorted out. Do we prosecute the descendants of Danes for the extirpation of independent Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the eighth century, which same Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were founded by driving out the Celts? Do the modern Italians have to make reparations for the damn near successful Roman genocide against the Jews under Vespasian (68 A.D.)? Do the modern Jews have to make reparations (and to whom?) for the multiple genocides against Palestinian tribes in the Old Testament period? To cite just one example of many, God is presented as ordering King Saul (ca. 1010 B.C.E.) to commit a genocide against the Amalekites: "This is what the Lord Almighty says, '...Now go attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." (1 Samuel 15:2-3) As is well known, the Old Testament records that God deposed Saul because he failed to carry out this order to the letter. However, the genocide was completed in the expansionist reign of King Hezekiah (720-692 B.C.E.) "They [families from the clan of Simeon] killed the remaining Amalekites who had escaped, and they have lived there to this day." All this is NOT meant to suggest that we can ignore Indian land claims or the claims arising out of the World War II Holocaust. It is meant to suggest that striving for absolute justice creates more problems than it solves. In justice as in medicine we need to do a kind of triage, ignoring the cases which are past help, dealing first with the most serious cases which can be remediated (but probably not fully healed) and leaving to the end the minor cases. Victor - Original Message - From: Robert Rosenstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: July 29, 1999 10:13 PM Subject: Re: Canadian Indian Claims | If there is no such thing as obligations to past generations, then the | idea of History is nullified. If an action such as a genocide has no | force after a given number of years, then as long as one can get away | with it for the requisite period, the action has no value except to let | others know what can be gotten away with. Consequently, except for a | nuclear winter in which the slate is wiped clean, there is no justice. | | Robert | | ___ | Get the Internet just the way you want it. | Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! | Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. |
Re: Canadian Indian Claims
I said: First, it is NOT the issue you are describing. It is the abrogation of legal contracts that were ignored by looters and brigands who found their way into the government. Many of those people's children today are living off of the fruits of that theft. Brad replied: Opening up Pandora's box (snip) The issues here seem to me complex, but simply punishing Nazis' children or people who bought houses on putative former Indian territory, thinking they had clear title, doesn't seem to me to be the answer. Nor do I. But the Germans evidently disagree since they have paid reparations to survivors families. They obviously agree with Kant or maybe he was just clearly within the best ideals of their culture. But the best we get from the Christians is an "Oops, it was bad and we're sorry about that." I believe the answer to be found in Governments protecting their citizens by paying their debts. In the case of the Black Hills which is more to the Lakota than Jerusalem is to the Jews, I think there is only one answer and that is to become Hitler or to get out and let them have their sacred lands. They are just as stubborn as the Spanish. The Lakota have the only Amnesty International recognized political prisoner in American Prisons. And the government is turning him into a poet and a Mandela. Self destructive. They one the only war against the U.S. then the government took the Lakota General Red Cloud to the East Coast and showed him the masses of populations. His response was like an American when China entered the war in Korea. "They are like the leaves on the Trees." It broke him but not the Nation's spirit. Poor they are but not of spirit. It will ultimately be the American people who lose that one. It always seems that the war is hopeless. Although when my Grandfather bought a mountain top in Tennessee and started a Cherokee community there, where the people spoke Cherokee and functioned like a small corporation, there was a lot of resistance from the locals. It was illegal to practice our religion until 1978 when Congress wrote the Freedom of Religion Act for Native Americans, but my Grandfather had found a way around it by forming and incorporating a church called the "Temple of the Great Spirit." From Tennessee he spread it out to the seven surrounding states and made it possible for all Indian people to use the structure as a legal protection from the law. (What's in a name?) But this is a much longer story so let me just say that the family of a local powerful Senator in Tennessee connected to the Railroad "discovered" coal on that mountain and also discovered an older title to the land that my Grandfather's legal title search had not. Of course they simply strip mined everything and my Grandfather lost his community, his home and his business. He had a store and restaurant along the local highway. He was a Master Chef who had been one of the chefs for the Shoreham Hotel in Washington. He lost that too to the lawyers in the fight. So my point here Brad is that the system is not challenged when a White Man loses his land to such a thing. They just say that the right to private property and deeds is supreme. And it is too bad for the individual. That was what they said also about my Grandfather. But when it is an Indian claiming an older deed that is different. You should read the front page articles, I'm sure they are still searchable on this year's NYTimes about the mineral royalties owed to our people in Oklahoma. They pay out five bucks a month for a working oil well on Indian property because the oil companies can lobby the government or they just drive their trucks up to the spicket and steal it. So your complaints ring more than a little hollow to me. Brad said: If one wishes to enlist the aid of the children of the exploiters in helping bring about conditions of more *universal* justice, it seems to me that they [the children of the exploiters] need to see themselves as benefitting from the solution, *as well as* helping the victims. And, again, I think the ultimately nihilistic notion of *blood feud* (and related consepts) is relevant here. Blood feud is between individuals, families or clans not governments. This is an issue of sovereign governments. When in the government it is called "rule of law." Brad said on jobs: It seems to me that the issue is how to minimize the cases of *anybody* losing a job to anybody else. The only problem I see here is similar to that of two [wo]men lusting after one [wo]man: In thos cases where a job can only be done by one person, then some people will necessarily be disappointed (astronomers may face this problem in "getting time" on the best telescopes, e.g.). Corporate jobs are notoriously over-staffed and inefficient. I have had people working for corporations spend many hours on projects that they sold to me, using the corporation's own technology, and were still
Re: Canadian Indian Claims
Victor, I think I answered all of this in my post to Brad. I think that it is strange for economists to mix responsibility for felonies up with financial responsibility for illegality in the observance of valid contracts between large political and corporate entitites. Even an artist such as myself can separate the two.If someone comes afterwards and joins a company that has committed and benefitted from an illegal act then the company still owes the debt and if that late comer is a part of the company and is benefitting from that relationship they also owe a part of that debt. Why is that so hard to understand? It feels a little slippery when one flows so easily between corporate and individual responsibilities. It is the government's responsibility to repay their citizens for any loss due to their illegality at another time, not the people who were victims of that illegality. Valid contracts also have nothing to do with old battles and wars won and lost although the Irish have been fighting that one out for 400 years and as I told Brad, Columbus was able to come to America because the Spanish resisted the Moors and others for 700 years until they were finally strong enough to reclaim their rights and land. Victor, it just makes more sense to me for us to deal with these issues in a way that doesn't create a 700 year wound that will eventually destroy what has been built. What makes you think that we have any shorter memories than the Spanish? Spain was a multi-cultural society much like the U.S. before the Castillians kicked out the Moors. The Basques are still alive and fighting the Spaniards over things that the Spanish did to them that was as stupid as the Moor's and Jews mistakes in Spain. And today the Jews are fighting the same issues in Israel that happened to them. It just has to stop someplace and ignoring the debts is not the way you do it IMHO. Ray. Victor Milne wrote: If any value including justice is made an absolute with no limitations, we end up with a mess of insoluble complications, and much of what is ultimately solvable benefits the lawyers far more than the victims, as Ed Weick notes. Is there such a thing as collective guilt? Are all whites legally liable to compensate all Indians for the undoubted injustices? Or do we sort it out on the basis of family history? Ed makes a good case that his Central European ancestors had nothing to do with exploiting the first nations. I suppose I could do the same. My German great-grandfather was certainly not a very successful exploiter; in the mid 1870's he was in the workhouse (Victorian workfare) at Berlin [Kitchener], Ontario, and so poor that he literally sold my three-year-old grandfather to a prosperous merchant who wanted to adopt him. Even if we go with collective guilt, we find messy situations that cannot be sorted out. Do we prosecute the descendants of Danes for the extirpation of independent Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the eighth century, which same Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were founded by driving out the Celts? Do the modern Italians have to make reparations for the damn near successful Roman genocide against the Jews under Vespasian (68 A.D.)? Do the modern Jews have to make reparations (and to whom?) for the multiple genocides against Palestinian tribes in the Old Testament period? To cite just one example of many, God is presented as ordering King Saul (ca. 1010 B.C.E.) to commit a genocide against the Amalekites: "This is what the Lord Almighty says, '...Now go attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." (1 Samuel 15:2-3) As is well known, the Old Testament records that God deposed Saul because he failed to carry out this order to the letter. However, the genocide was completed in the expansionist reign of King Hezekiah (720-692 B.C.E.) "They [families from the clan of Simeon] killed the remaining Amalekites who had escaped, and they have lived there to this day." All this is NOT meant to suggest that we can ignore Indian land claims or the claims arising out of the World War II Holocaust. It is meant to suggest that striving for absolute justice creates more problems than it solves. In justice as in medicine we need to do a kind of triage, ignoring the cases which are past help, dealing first with the most serious cases which can be remediated (but probably not fully healed) and leaving to the end the minor cases. Victor - Original Message - From: Robert Rosenstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: July 29, 1999 10:13 PM Subject: Re: Canadian Indian Claims | If there is no such thing as obligations to past generations, then the | idea of History is nullified. If an action such as a genocide has no | force after a given number of years, then as long as one can get away | with
Re: Canadian Indian Claims
Thomas: This is great stuff Ed and I thank you for taking the time to share it, I'm learning. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde -- -- From: "Ed Weick" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Canadian Indian Claims Date: Fri, Jul 30, 1999, 3:54 PM Brad: Another popular idea I find dubious is providing reparations to the living for the harms done to the dead. Should a [black, indian, etc.] M.D., lawyer, university professor, etc. be paid reparations for the harm done to his or her ancestors, who, being dead, are presumably beyond the ability of earthly things to affect them any more? In the case of the settlement of aboriginal claims in Canada, it is not a case of reparations to the living for what was done to the dead. It is a matter of recognizing longstanding rights which aboriginal people have held since time immemorial and which are now entrenched in the Canadian Constitution. The dead held these rights, unique to aboriginal people, and passed them on to the living. The living are now able to enter into a negotiating process in which the rights can be defined and distinguished from more general rights held by the Canadian population as a whole. In this process, certain things to which the special rights apply, such as land and resources, may be relinquished or become part of the public domain, and it is for this that monetary compensation is paid. Canadian treaties and claims settlements, which have acknowledged aboriginal rights, have a rather mixed origin. The earliest treaties in which England was the main colonial power, those in the Maritimes, did not deal with rights but were essentially treaties of peace and friendship. In colonial French Quebec, the process was similar. Initially, the French saw Canada as fully occupied, and apart from establishing centers for trade with the inhabitants, did not expect to settle extensively themselves. In both regions, Indian people were viewed as self-governing nations, and there was no question of having them relinquish their rights to land and self- government. However, both regions were in fact settled. While rights were not extinguished, aboriginal people were pushed to the margins of society. Subsequently, reserves in Quebec and the Maritimes were created in a variety of ways, including lands set aside by the Catholic Church or lands purchased by the Government of Canada. For much of the rest of Canada, more clearly defined constitutional and legal bases for settling aboriginal claims exist. Following the conquest of Quebec, what is known as the Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III to establish a boundary between the colonies (including Canada) and Indian lands. The latter generally lay west of Quebec (excluding Rupert's Land) and the Appalachian Mountains (in what soon after became the United States). Whites who had settled in Indian lands were asked to leave (whether they did so or not is another question). On their lands, as defined in the Royal Proclamation, Indians should not be "molested or disturbed". Purchase of the lands could only be made by the Crown. If Indians wanted to sell their lands, they could only do so if via an assembly for the purpose. Only specially licenced whites could carry on trade with the Indians. Rupert's Land was excluded from the Royal Proclamation because it was already under Royal Charter held by the Hudson's Bay Company. The Royal Proclamation was reinforced in western and northern Canadian lands by negotiation by the 1870 Order in Council by which the Northwest Territories (originally the North-Western Territory, which then included the prairies) and Rupert's Land were admitted into Confederation. It again recognized aboriginal title and provided that such title could not be extinguished except by negotiation with the Crown. However, the precise legal meaning of this OIC, and what requirements and limitations it imposes on government in settling aboriginal claims, is a matter of some ambiguity. More recently, Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act (1982) recognizes two sources of Native rights. One is treaty rights, which consist of land ownership, harvesting, and limited environmental and wildlife management rights. It should be noted that Metis and non-status Indians are included as native people in the Constitution Act along with Indians and Inuit. While recognition of aboriginal rights has a long history in Canada, it is only recently that government dealings with these rights has been a process which might be termed "reasonable" or "fair and equitable". Initial rounds of treaty making in Ontario in the 1820s were essentially land grabs. Reserves granted to Indians at the time were small because they were viewed as being places of transition into assimilation. The "numbered treaties" which were signed with Indian people in western Canad
Re: Canadian Indian Claims
Ray, I'm not really sure of where this is taking us. Much as we would like to, we can't resuscitate history. The bacilli and viruses moved overwhelmingly in one direction and not the other. What was destroyed can never be recovered. While those viruses were doing their thing over here, my ancestors were enmeshed in the famines, pestilence, migrations, persecutions and wars of central Europe. They may have had a greater chance of survival than American Indians, but not that much greater. They and many other poor people of European did not arrive in the Americas until well after the damage had been done. They were peasants trying to eke out a living, and knew nothing about Beethoven, Plato or Goethe. They had never been to a museum, let alone put the artifacts of other cultures into one. All they knew was that they needed land to till. Initially, they had found it in Russia, but that didn't work very well, so they came here. They didn't know that the land they tilled on the Canadian prairies had belonged to others. All they knew was that that is where the government, the lands agents and the railroads put them. In citing Canadian Indian claims policy, I did not mean to imply that it is the best policy or even good policy. I just wanted to let you know how, under our Constitution and system of laws, we have proceeded to compensate aboriginal people for some of their grievances. And I do recognize that only a few of these can be dealt with by negotiation, legislation or the courts, and that there may be no satisfactory way of dealing with many others. Something that has bothered me is that, though our debate has been very interesting, it is difficult to see how it is related to the future of work which, after all, is supposed to be the subject of this list. However, there is a hook. Over the past twenty or thirty years, the Canadian aboriginal claims process has created a wealth of work for lawyers, negotiators and advisors. I personally benefitted from this at various times for several years, as did many of my associates. In the case of the Yukon claim, with which I am familiar, negotiations proved something of an economic godsend to the native communities. Not only were lawyers and negotiators paid, but a great many Indian people who traveled to Whitehorse to present the views of their community were also compensated. As well, the Council for Yukon Indians employed a range of administrative, secretarial and clerical staff. But this is only the beginning. The claims final agreement created a wide range of boards and tribunal dealing with subjects such as eligibility and enrolment, financial compensation, reserves and lands set aside, tenure and management of settlement lands, access to settlement lands, expropriation, surface rights, settlement land amount, definition of boundaries, financial compensation, special management areas, land use planning, development assessment, heritage, water management, fish and wildlife management, forest resources, taxation, and economic development measures. The implementation of all such measures requires either occasional or full time personnel. And coupled with these measures are initiatives which transfer administrative responsibilities and funding from the Government of Canada to the Indian communities to enable them to govern themselves. A claims settlement provides a whole new layer of administration and will inevitably complicate the management regime. Given that public institutions of government will continue to exist, it may take years to fully define the roles of the new claims related boards and tribunals, and it may take almost as long for persons who have been placed on these boards and tribunals to understand their roles. In the interim, considerable uncertainty about who does what will exist, not only impacting on potential economic activity, but creating plenty of work for lawyers. I am not knocking the aboriginal claims or self-government processes. They are absolutely necessary in a nation like Canada in which aboriginal title or rights were never clearly or wholly dealt with. What I am saying, however, is that these processes are extremely complex and cumbersome even though they cover only a relatively small part of the spectrum of aboriginal grievances. It will take decades to deal with the relatively few issues that are being considered. Loading anything more onto them could lead to complete stasis. Ed Weick Did I get it right? I tried hard to make the echo as accurate as possible. This is my experience, not reading. We say that reading can serve only to help one remember what they already know. What did it feel like to be in the reverse? Were you happy, sad, angry, threatened? I have been all of these. Is this policy really the end result of Bach's B minor mass, Verdi's Turandot, the Britton/Owen War Requiem, the plays of Shakespeare, the poetry of Robert Burns and Dylan Thomas, of Goethe? Is this the end result of Judeo/Christian/Moslem
Re: Canadian Indian Claims
Permit me to insert, in medias res, a concern I have: Ed Weick wrote: Too bad they can't assess liability for lost families, intellectual capital, land use ideas etc. It seems to me that you are using the rules of a divorce without separating. Better you start with the ideas of justice and the rule of law as defined by both groups. The truth is that one group has the power, [snip] How to provide reparations to persons whose lives have been adversely impacted by the exploiters, *without* in turn doing injustice to the persons (such as most of ourselves) who are associated with the exploiting classes but have not themselves done significant exploiting? This is, of course, an old problem (reverse discrimination due to "affirmative action", etc.). But let me put it pointedly: What motivation should a person have to help others when there is nothing in it for the person him or herself? For, if *that kind of life* is good for some, then (applying Kant's universalizing logic) it should be good for all, and, therefore, we should help the exploited -- not to have reparations, but to have more deprivation. Another popular idea I find dubious is providing reparations to the living for the harms done to the dead. Should a [black, indian, etc.] M.D., lawyer, university professor, etc. be paid reparations for the harm done to his or her ancestors, who, being dead, are presumably beyond the ability of earthly things to affect them any more? Etc. These probably are not "popular" thoughts and questions. Of course there are many *exploiters* living among us, who should be brought to justice, and many exploited among us who are in need of reparation. But it seems to me that the objective should be to achieve a "win-win" situation for as many as possible (again, taking into account the need for justice in the cases of those who have used power not for trusteeship but for exploitation). If it is a tragedy for a person to be confined to a wheelchair, it is also a tragedy for a person to have two good legs and not be socially enabled to use them. If it is good for the crippled to be enabled to walk, it is also good for the able-bodied to walk, too. It is popular to rank sufferings, and to dismiss the problems of the relatively well off. But no less a figure than Elie Wiesel said (and I heartily concur): "Don't compare! Don't compare! All suffering is intolerable." -- Elie Wiesel (quoted in TIME, 19Sep94, p.94) \brad mccormick -- Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA --- ![%THINK;[XML]] Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: Canadian Indian Claims
If there is no such thing as obligations to past generations, then the idea of History is nullified. If an action such as a genocide has no force after a given number of years, then as long as one can get away with it for the requisite period, the action has no value except to let others know what can be gotten away with. Consequently, except for a nuclear winter in which the slate is wiped clean, there is no justice. Robert ___ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.
Re: Canadian Indian Claims
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: Permit me to insert, in medias res, a concern I have: Ed Weick wrote: REH not Ed wrote this Too bad they can't assess liability for lost families, intellectual capital, land use ideas etc. It seems to me that you are using the rules of a divorce without separating. Better you start with the ideas of justice and the rule of law as defined by both groups. The truth is that one group has the power, ED was snipped [snip] How to provide reparations to persons whose lives have been adversely impacted by the exploiters, *without* in turn doing injustice to the persons (such as most of ourselves) who are associated with the exploiting classes but have not themselves done significant exploiting? First, it is not the issue you are describing. It isthe abrogation of legal contracts that were ignored by looters and brigands who found their way into the government. Many of those people's children today are living off of the fruits of that theft. I don't know of any private institution that could not demand recompense, the same as the Jews and the Swiss banks, with compensation for lost earnings and wasted lives.It seems to me that you are not believing in your own system. If not then what? This is, of course, an old problem (reverse discrimination due to "affirmative action", etc.). I have had no problem giving jobs up to people whowere qualified and connected. Whether that connection was family, or friends. Work depends upon belief, loyalty and integrity. As I said I have no trouble losing a job to a person who is qualified, and connected. That includes minorities and women who are now connected. Over the years I have seen plenty of incompetent majority folks getting jobs for no reason other than their connections. I've even trained a few when they found themselves overwhelmed at what their BS had accomplished. I do find them lazy and prone to commit the cardinal sin in the performing arts, they are not dependable. Programs are cast sometimes four years away, with millions lost if not delivered. I would hire a martian that was both dependable and could do the work. I see no reason to hire an incompetent simply because they belong to the majority. But then the Arts like the sports world are a no BS tough assed profession. But let me put it pointedly: What motivation should a person have to help others when there is nothing in it for the person him or herself? For, if *that kind of life* is good for some, then (applying Kant's universalizing logic) it should be good for all, and, therefore, we should help the exploited -- not to have reparations, but to have more deprivation. Could you be more clear here. I am reading twocontradictory messages. I do remember a quote from Kant that said something like "You can never give a gift until you have paid your bills first, anything else is theft." Of course there is the issue of Usury as well which relates to the lack of integrity within the spiritual systems of the majority which makes them dis-loyal and undependable. "Who cares who their mother is if they can't shoot the basketball." Or maybe they should come do some of that high metal work with the Mohawks. We'll see how good they really are 54 stories up with no safety rope. And then there is Y2K. I ran my computer ahead and if it is any indication we have been given a blow by the over-complexed that will cost lots of money and give lots of jobs to those who are not paying. Another popular idea I find dubious is providing reparations to the living for the harms done to the dead. Should a [black, indian, etc.] M.D., lawyer, university professor, etc. be paid reparations for the harm done to his or her ancestors, who, being dead, are presumably beyond the ability of earthly things to affect them any more? Legal contracts don't stop at death unless theysay so. The contracts with Indian people in the U.S. said as long as the water flows and the grass grows. And you and I are both legally responsible for those contracts whether we were born or not. But the spiritual issue of the country's identity as a good force in the world or at least in our citizen's eyes is more important to me. Other wise I have to teach my children their country is a sleazebag. Brad, is there not a civil contract to have a society that works?Making such a talented minority as the Blacks, in spite of the racist rhetoric from the bully class, mad as hell and holding them back seems guaranteed to put them in the same place as the Italians, the Irish, the Jews who resorted to organized crime. The Blacks are too many to be held down for long and it is to the advantage of our European brothers who have been patronizers for the last 100 years to help out the Black class. Class warfare just doesn't work in the U.S., there is that sticky constitution that is pretty rickety as it is. I can see the French and others delighting in
Re: Canadian Indian Claims
Too bad they can't assess liability for lost families, intellectual capital, land use ideas etc. It seems to me that you are using the rules of a divorce without separating. Better you start with the ideas of justice and the rule of law as defined by both groups. The truth is that one group has the power, just as with the Kurds or the Bahais in Iran, and the other group doesn't even exist except as a continuing image and a tumor in the empathy of those who continue to benefit from the injustice. The problem with such tumors is that they either make the person inhumane or they eat at the identity until something terrible happens that releases the toxin. Something like a Holocaust, a Nuclear war or a plague to give the dominant population the same experience. Often such unconscious functions are masked by contemporary economic, religious or political myths and the prove tenacious and impossible to stop even when the conscious story is removed. The unconscious is rarely probed for a whole culture. I've always felt that the story of Noah was an example of a culture doing that. Noah of course was furious for some deep unknown reason. A reason so deep that he had to spend some time back in the water contemplating the meaning of his unconscious connections with his spirituality. At one point Jesus said that someone would have to go back inside his mother's belly (the water) before he could change those motivations. But after the catharsis, plague, war or whatever things change. After that they go on, just as the Romans did with the Etruscans. The Christians have a history of absorbing groups like this and maintaining certain images. That is not unlike the Iroquois who rescued a nation that they had defeated and nearly destroyed. The took in the survivors and incorporated their ceremonials into their own tradition. That kept them from feeling bad I guess. It worked for the Church with the Mithrians and the Italians with the Etruscans. The Pope's hat is Mithric and the bull fight is the old ceremony to kill the bull which they then hung above the door to let everyone walk under while they received the power in the blood from the slain bull. The Spanish and the French have kept the fight but I think the French no longer kill the bull. Regards, REH Ed Weick wrote: In a posting yesterday, I made the point that in Canada "we've tried to deal with it via an Aboriginal claims process which is intended to define and make explicit the Aboriginal rights entrenched in our Constitution as these apply to particular groups. This is not a fully satisfactory process since it applies mainly to Aboriginal people who did not come under treaty during the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries and whose rights have not therefore been defined. These people are considered to have 'outstanding claims'." This is known as the "comprehensive claims process". I should have mentioned that there is a parallel process for Indian people who have treaties but can make the case that certain provisions of their treaties have not been honored or have been violated. This is the "specific claims process", One specific claims case with which I have some familiarity deals with lands in Saskatchewan. The Indian Bands of Saskatchewan signed treaties in the 1870s well before Saskatchewan became a province in 1905. Lands and resources were not transferred from the federal government to the Government of Saskatchewan until the 1930s. They were transferred on condition that the Province fulfill all outstanding land-related treaty obligations. The Province did not do so. The result is a recent, and I would surmise, still continuing step-by-step, band-by-band, process of determining how much additional land the Indian people are entitled to and how much monetary compensation this might require in lieu of land. Ed Weick
