From: jimmo@sco.COM (James Mohr)
Subject: Re: Native Americans
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 18:37:57 GMT


In article <1992Aug18.150324.22042@brtph560.bnr.ca> ritz@brtph95.bnr.ca (Charles Ritz P215) writes:
>   Comparing the Nazi atrocities to the United States policies
>towards Native Americans is specious at best for many reasons.
>
>1) There was never any 'plan' to exterminate the Indians.

Bullshit. Many territorial governors would offer rewards for killing
Native Americans to free up the land for their of their friends' use.
The way to verify that they had infact killed one was to bring in the
dead person's scalp. This is how it started: by the whites, not the
native americans.
What about all the instances where an individual or small group was
being sought by the authitives for some crime (real or imagined) and
the US Army would wipe out an entire village just to ensure they got
the one person they were looking for?
There may have not been any official law or policy, but the extermination
of the Native Americans was done in such an organized way that 'plan'
is the closest word I can come up with.

>   In fact, there are nearly 1 million Native Americans
>   currently living, about as great a number as when white
>   people arrived.  Almost every Indian nation that existed
                     ^^^^^^
VERY important word here folks. 'Almost' every nation still exists.
We WERE successful in destroying entire peoples.

>   in 1600 still exists today, albeit on reservations.  The

Another very important point. The life expectancy on these reservation
today is about 45 years. This is about what it was 200 years ago (or
more) for the whites. Note, this is LESS than their expectancy 100
years ago.

>   great majority of Indians that died died as a result of
>   disease, battle deaths and alocholism, not from planned
>   extermination.  The Nazis specifically planned for the
>   extermination of world Jewry.  There would be no 'reservations'
>   for Jews.

Ah, come off it!!! The battles most of them died in were protecting 
their OWN land from being illegally taken by the whites. The diseases
were a result of sticking them on reservations. They became alcoholics
because we gave away tens of thousands of gallons of alcohol in an
effort to make them alcoholics!!!
Saying that there was no 'plan' to exterminating the Native Americans
is akin to saying the Nazis didn't kill the Jews in the gas chambers:
they died of respitory problems.

>
>2) Unlike the Jews, most Indians were utterly hostile to
>   assimilation by the dominant (white) economic and social
>   organization.  Jews never declared 'war' on the 'Aryans',

Assimilation? You mean they objected to having their culture destoyed?
Wouldn't you?  You've been living somewhere for ten thousand years
and now someone comes along and says your way of life is now null
and void and you must adjust to the new way or be murdered.

>   but Indians often declared war on the whites, and proceeded

ALL, repeat ALL, treaties ever broken, were broken first by the whites.
It is a matter of history.  Do you blame them for declaring war? A good
analogy would be WWII. Hitler 'promised' to not to invade the USSR.
However, he did. Stalin then declared war on Hitler. 

>   to wage them with great ferocity, often killing all of
>   the whites, men, women and children, that they could get
>   their hands on.  Indian massacres were a fact of life
>   in the old west.  When has their ever been a Jewish massacre?
>   The only 'evil' the Americans committed in the Indian
>   wars was to win.

Enough with the American self-righteousness! What you are saying is that
any lunatic has the right to break into your house, rape your wife,
steal your property and if you even think about fighting back, the
crook has the right to murder you.  Added to that their are federal
laws protecting that crook from any act on your part to defend yourself.
What you are saying is complete and utter bullshit. Scalping was started
by the whites. Massacres of men, woman and children was started by the
whites. Of course, the only 'evil' we committed on them was too win.
Remember, history is written by the winner. We rewrote history to make 
ourselves out to be the 'good guys'.

>3) Let's face the facts, the Indians were total barbarians
>   living in the stone age.  Every Indian nation ever found
>   practiced torture, slavery and, of course, wars of extermi-

Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Most indian nations were
peaceful. Some did not even have words for things like lie, steal,
murder or war. There were a few warlike tribes, but a VERY small
percentage. This crap about slavery and tourtune is just that: crap.
What issue of MAD magazine did you get this shit from???
The Cheyene's means of 'battle' was to 'count coup', which meant
getting close enough to an enemy and tapping him with a stick.
This was meant to humilate, not hurt, an enemy. Others would do
their battle by stealing things from their 'enemy' and have them
'beg' to get it back.
Living in the stone age? Oh, so technology makes you civilized? 
It very civilized to use 'smart bombs' to kill innocent women and
children! Granted they lived at a technological level below that
of the whites, but that does not make them either barbarians or
uncivilized. They were far more advanced socially than the whites.
Their social organization is still thought of as being some of the 
most advanced in history. You obviously don't do much reading on 
anthroplogy or sociology.
Again, I go back to the point of no words for lie and steal. 
They shared everything. If their neighbor was starving they would
share the food. The land belonged to the earth, not to an individual.
That's why we were so able to rip them off when we stoled, er,
bought, Manhatten Island. It wasn't their's to sell. The whites
wanted to give the Native Americans a handful of trinkets to use
the island and the Native Americans saw nothing wrong in that.
The whites INTENTIONALLY ripped them off. Which group is more
'civilized'.
What about the Jamestown colony? They would have starved without
help from the Native Americans. That's why they were invited to
the first 'Thanksgiving'. It was a 'thank-you' for saving the
whites' ass the year before.

Slavery? Bullshit. Maybe the few who were warlike. NOT the rule.

>   nation.  They lived constantly on the edge of starvation.

Bullshit! They were very well fed, their argiculture was on a par with
that of the whites. Many had a knowledge /understanding of
astromony that was better than most people have today. Were YOU 
aware that the moon goes through the same north-south movement that
the sun does?  If so, how long does it take? Do you know when the
logest day of the year is? Could you calculate a calendar accurate to
a few seconds per millenium? Do you know what stars lie on the ecliptic?
Do you even know what the ecliptic is?

>   There was no law courts, no democratic elections, no
>   protections against minorities.  

Bullshit! Many tribes did elect their leaders. Most did have
things similiar to out courts. There weren't words for most
of what we call crimes because they never happened
Minorities. What minorities? They were all one race.  

>Child mortality was almost
>   certainly greater than 50 %.  Maternal mortality was high

Again, utter bullshit. The mortality rate of MOST Native American
tribes at the time was LESS than that of the whites. What issue
of National Lampoon did you get this poiece of crap from?

>   as well, though of course Indian women were considered
>   useless if they could bear children.  They were often killed

Don't you mean "couldn't"?

>   when (and more importantly, if) they reached menopause.

Bullshit! Native American women had alot more say than the white
women of that time. Do you know the episode of Star Trek - The
Next Generation "Code of Honor"? Their is a race of people where
the woman own the property and the men simply govern it. This was
based on several Native American tribes. The reason was as a protection
for the woman. Hunting was not a job for the women, so owning the
property was a means of ensuring they would be taken care of.

>   Of course, all of the crippled were killed as well.  Needless

Bullshit! Few, if any, tribes engaged in such practices.

>   to say, there were no pensions for the aged.  If they were
>   too weak, they died as too.  In short, the Indians were

Bullshit! Older people were taken care of. When THEY decided it was
time to die, they would often go off by themselves to let nature take
its course. How could their be any 'pensions'???? They didn't use money.
They were simply given food and shelter. What more did they need?
Besides, they was no pension plan AT ALL for the whites of that time.
If you couldn't pay  bills you often lost all of your land and property
and would eventually starve yourself.

>   not 'noble savages' and pre-Columbian America was not a
>   garden of eden.

Bullshit!

>-- 
>
>Charles Ritz   The opinions above do not necessarily represent the
>BNR, Inc       views of my employer, but they should.


Charles, it is really embarrasing as an American to have you say this.
Very little of what you said has even a glimmer of truth to it. What
you're saying is that because the Native Americans were 'uncivilized'
in your opinion, the whites had the right to murder them into 
extinction.

That is EXACTLY the attitude Hitler had. You've just proven what
you were trying to argue against. America was just as bad as
Hitler.