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Mangy Peasant
Social climber
Riverside, CA
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My wife and I are good friends with a couple, one of whom is a member of the Pechanga tribe. It is true that each adult member gets about $15-$20K per month.
For much of the tribe, the money corrupts like "new money" often does (drugs, excess, etc.) You have to be 18 to receive the payments, and the tribe does try to educate their members about managing their money (and the tribe's image.) Our friends are educated and handle it well, but they are an exception.
The tribe members tend to have lots of kids because the money is distributed to each adult - bigger family, bigger slice of the pie.
The Indians with casinos are shrewd businessmen and they know how to play the public. The voter initiative about adding slot machines a few years back had me laughing. Those commercials showing impoverished Indians had everybody fooled - the Indians living in squalor weren't going to see a dime from the slot machine revenues.
The treatment of the Indians by European settlers was atrocious and should never be forgotten. Fortunately, the casino Indians will never let us forget - there's too much money to be made.
BTW: Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona is a good read on this subject. (Lots of references to Southern California locations - even the San Jacinto mountains/Tahquitz) The book itself is fiction based loosely upon actual events, but to book's historical influence is important and somewhat forgotten (even my Pechanga friend had not read it until I gave her a copy.)
Also, Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel is a fascinating read on the subject of why some societies developed the technology to conquer the natives of other continents.
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Tobia
Social climber
GA
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My 2 cents worth:
Endless name calling (by people promoting peaceful solutions ironically), back and forth with diatribe trying to prove why yours (or someone else's thoughts) are the perfect solution seems to be not working.
It ain't happening. No form of government is perfect or a cure-all for the problems of humanity. Rude discourse such as insults and belittling of someone else's ideas or thoughts simply discredits any positive thoughts you might have.
With political lines drawn (borders) as well as variations in habitat, religion, history and all other natural and man made factors there is no workable solution to the problem.
Thanks for letting me spend it.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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viva la raza!
Go back to Europe, whitey....
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Hope floats.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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420 burn time
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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fuk you ya little bitch.
I am staying right here, living in peace with "the people."
you and your kind will perish by your own hand.
Well, that makes you a hypocrite. You rage against persecution of minorities like Indians, yet you are part of the 'machine' that 'holds them down'.
And La Raza, by definition, is a racist organization. Just like the NAACP. They may not be as overtly militant as other groups, but they're racist.
These guys are priceless;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajkAP_M4ZAM
And me and "my kind" will perish at our own hands? This dude is my kind;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ6cCPbA8jo&feature=related
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Captain...or Skully
climber
or some such
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You guys DO know that we're ALL just Gonna Die anyway, right?
What World would You leave? You get the one you get.
How about your Great-greats? What do they get? Nobody asked to be here.
As far as I know. WhatinHellDoIKnow? Sheesh.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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They were celebrating the 4th in Paso Robles. I wonder if they got May 5th off?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Just re-read the whole thread. Amazing. I took today off to go fishing, but this thread pulled me in.
John probably laughs robustly.
What I don't think anybody has taken the time to contemplate is that our 'founders' came here to flee oppression, not to impose it. They had the kindest of intentions. They did not come here to kill people and steal land. They came to find a new land and sought freedom.
What happened after that is history. And it is regrettable. I even believe that the people involved in the expansion of the colonies would have regrets as to how it all played out.
We never, I believe, wanted to exterminate the Indians. We were too blinded by expansion. They got in they way and resisted. And attacked us in brutal fashion that ramped up our rage towards them.
I think the original colonists would have played it out differently in hindsight. They weren't savages, and neither were the Natives that were initially met.
That said. I still think we have taken good care of their culture and welfare. They will never have the land they had, as it was. But I fall back to my point that, the world evolves. America was going to be settled by somebody. Would it be better if the Chinese got here first? The Russians? The Japanese? Or the Spaniards?
I think America is doing pretty well. And Native Americans are a national treasure, and always will be.
Cheers John!!! Rest in Peace, dude.
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Mangy Peasant
Social climber
Riverside, CA
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They had the kindest of intentions.
Now that has me laughing robustly!
There are Americans that absolutely wanted to exterminate the Indians. There are those who did not. Some people had more power/influence than others. Opinions and influence change with time.
Thus, the outcome that is history.
"America" is not a single character in the story.
There is no "we."
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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MP, I think that goes without saying. It's a given.
My point is that we came here, initially, just to flee England. We just wanted to be left alone to live. Of course, that changed. We grew in numbers, expanded, and imposed.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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There are Americans that absolutely wanted to exterminate the Indians
The founder of the Democratic party in particular.
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dirtbag
climber
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He does this all the time.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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what a dumb fuk ^^^
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Mangy Peasant
Social climber
Riverside, CA
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There are Americans that absolutely wanted to exterminate the Indians
The founder of the Democratic party in particular.
Gee, I never realized how evil the Democratic party was. Now I cannot agree with them on anything! Such a relevant and convincing argument for keeping the Bush tax cuts in place.
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dirtbag
climber
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The Dems haven't changed, Obama is trying to sell out Israel. The Dems believe in genocide.
Says the bloodthirsty Chickenhawk whose masturbatory bombing fantasies are legendary.
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PP
Trad climber
SF,CA
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This thread is a tragic comedy. Blu your history knowledge sounds like it comes from a early 1960's 5th grade class book. You should read howard zinn's (Peoples History of America?). I think Zinn flew planes in WWII.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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TGT, the fact that you refer to "the democratic party" as if it is the same today as it was back then solidifies your status as a fuking moron.
And yet you are comfortable comparing the colonists to racist, eugenistic Nazis.
EDIT:This thread is a tragic comedy. Blu your history knowledge sounds like it comes from a early 1960's 5th grade class book. You should read howard zinn's (Peoples History of America?). I think Zinn flew planes in WWII.
Where is my history flawed? Flew planes, huh? What does that have to do with anything????
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Quote from a review of Zinn by a real historian, Oscar Handlin, at Harvard for 50 years.
Hence the deranged quality of this fairy tale, in which the incidents are made to fit the legend, no matter how intractable the evidence of American history. It may be unfair to expose to critical scrutiny a work patched together from secondary sources, many used uncritically (Jennings, Williams), others ravaged for material torn out of context (Young, Pike). Any careful reader will perceive that Zinn is a stranger to evidence bearing upon the people about whom he purports to write. But only critics who know the sources will recognize the complex array of devices that pervert his pages... On the other hand, the book conveniently omits whatever does not fit its overriding thesis... It would be a mistake, however, to regard Zinn as merely Anti-American. Brendan Behan once observed that whoever hated America hated mankind, and hatred of mankind is the dominant tone of Zinn's book... He lavishes indiscriminate condemnation upon all the works of man — that is, upon civilization, a word he usually encloses in quotation marks
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dirtbag
climber
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Brendan Behan once observed that whoever hated America hated mankind, and hatred of mankind is the dominant tone of Zinn's book...
I've never read Zinn, but that is a very stupid thing to say.
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