Posted on 10/08/2007 10:11:47 AM PDT by William Tell 2
One of the present day cultural issues I address in my novel is the way the liberal multiculturalists have done the exact same thing they condemn - that is the demonization of certain classes, cultures and/or ethnic groups at the expense of others.
My novel uses the liberal media ( white liberals) who demonize police officers (primarily white working class), African-Americans demonizing Italian-Americans, and certain minorities and feminists demonizing white male Christian, ethnic groups.
Once he got to the West Indies he did some remarkable exploration.
If Columbus had never sailed, America would have been discovered within a few years by Europeans. Pedro Cabral discovered Brazil in April 1500, while sailing from Portugal to India. Instead of having Columbus Day in October, we could have a Cabral Day in April.
Of course before CC, we had the Norse, the Irish, the Chinese, the Welsh, and, possibly, Africans and Phoencians as well.
I have often thought that formal schooling serves both types of students poorly; those easily misled for they have no curiosity or ambition go away knowing a decreasing smattering about the world which more or less disappears over time, and those whose deep and searching need to know more is unleashed when the final bell rings.
In neither case shall you likely find these two types in general association again until such time as another constrictive assembly is required of them by some controlling force or agent.
“Dances with Wolves” portrayed the Pawnee in a savage, murderous light. It was the Sioux who were treated with kid gloves.
At the beginning of the movie, the Pawnee brutally killed the wagon master.....the guy who led Costner’s character to the abandoned soldier fort.
Also, the white woman.....”Stands with a Fist”.....a flashback scene depicts her entire family under attack, and brutally murdered, by the Pawnee.
War amongst tribes was not unusual long before the white man came to this continent. Tribes scalped one another, enslaved their enemies, and committed atrocities. Some tribes were far more peaceful than others, but some could be, and were, quite violent.
I’ve seen the movie countless times.
bmflr
Totally irrelevant.
Most reasonable people still credit Watt with "inventing" the steam engine; not Hero. The wheel was invented by Mesopotamians or Egyptians, not by the Aztecs.
Democracy applied to the Indians in North America is a joke.
The mild-mannered, kind and humanitarian Vikings may have visited America, but they didn't discover it. Please note that we don't speak a Scandinavian language today anywhere in the American continent.
I celebrate Columbus Day.
I'm a native American and I have no problem with Columbus at all. In fact, 1992 is the only time that I ever attended the parade though I have to admit, I was working a block away and only spent my lunch hour there.
As for the Aboriginal Americans go, I don't care what they think. I don't take offense when they invade Floyd Bennett Field to have their powwows or anything so don't rain on my parade. (Well, it's more my wife's parade -- my parade is in March when it's the Gay Lobby instead of the Aborigines).
Duluth, MN mayor Herb Bergson issued a proclamation that today is “Indigenous People Day” rather than Columbus Day because of the dastardly things Columbus did to the natives.
Any third grader knows that today.
The biggest disservice done to the debate on this subject is viewing events of 500 years ago by today's knowledge of the physical universe.
Mention the name Erathostenes today to any average American and see the blank stares.
How much more clueless is that average American about philosophy, political science and cultural history, or history in general.
Particularly, in the area of ethics and societal mores and attitudes at different times in the civilized world, to the extent that we can identify them 500 or 1000 years later, having a discussion about events of medieval times without a firm grasp of context is a fool's errand.
Giuseppe Garibaldi combined the little city states into one Italy in the 1860’s.
So your ‘bunch of Sicilians’ putting on their tacky parade have pretty much the same reason to do so, as a Genoan or a Napolitiano or a Lombard...(don’t get me started about the Calabrese).
Agreed about the English and the NAs themselves.....”Here chief, take these only-used-once blankets as a symbol of our good faith....”
Q: How can you tell who the gays are in a St. Patrick's Day Parade?
A: They're the ones wearing collars and cassocks!
A key seems to be the 1751 letter from Benjamin Franklin to James Parker, in which he wrote:
It would be a strange thing if Six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such an union, and be able to execute it in such a manner as that it has subsisted ages and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies, to whom it is more necessary and must be more advantageous, and who cannot be supposed to want an equal understanding of their interests.You might be interested in the following, also...
Native American Political Systems and the Evolution of Democracy: An Annotated Bibliography
http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/NAPSnEoD.html
I'm no expert in all of this about the Iroquois, but what bugged me was the way the it seems to me that they had a federal system, but what bugged me was this part:
According to the leaflet's authors, "The American federal system derives not from Europe - whose nation's knew nothing of democracy - but Indian tribal organizations."There might be truth in the statement that our federal system is derived from the tribal nations not Europe, but obviously democracy was known by the Greeks. Still, the difference between a republic and a democracy is important. These are subtle propaganda techniques they are using.
This leaflet distributed to schoolchildren claimed Europeans knew nothing of democracy, a concept and word created by the ancient Greeks.
It's also rotten that mispunctuated pamphlets were distributed in our schools. Where can I get a scan or copy of one of these?
The Greeks not only were familiar with democracy, but European history is full of federal systems: the Delian league, the Achaean league, the Etruscan Confederation, the League of Latium, the Schmalkaldic League, the Hanseatic League, Switzerland, the United Provinces, etc.
The Framers, as is clear from the debates, did not draw on the primitive Iroquois alliance, but from the legal foundations of European history - they made constant references to the Swiss and Dutch federal systems in the Federalist and in the debates.
If the Framers were looking for tribal alliances, they could have looked at the clan federations of their own Scottish ancestors, or that of the Poles.
You're right, of course, and boy, did I state that very poorly! What I meant to say was that the Framers might have looked to the Iroquois, I didn't mean that it was their basis or their inspiration. I don't know what to think of the claims that Jefferson studied it, etc., but I think that even studying it doesn't mean that the basis.
Perhaps I could word it thus: the Iroquois might have influenced their thinking to some extent--that might be possible--but I don't believe it's the foundation.
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Mostly by Sicilian and Neopolitan Americans whose ancestors were culturally and linguistically distinct from the Genoese Colombo.
Columbus Day was pushed by Italian Americans largely to show the larger North American community that they "played a part" in the American narrative.
As for myself, I would prefer celebrating Cortes, but that would REALLY piss off the dimestore Indians and the white liberals.
Sorry, I just realized this was an old thread that I had already commented on!
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