Gary. These insights are very much appreciated and I thank you for your input. To extend your good will even further, I am hoping that other people would write in with their insightfull comments so things can be properly sorted out once and for all. This really, is not a beef between the ordinary Canadian the ordinary aboriginal. It is government to ? governement? bickering. This average Canadian wants to wish all average aboriginals well.

Somewhere down the road perhaps all of us can learn from each other to be supportive of one another in truly healthful and helpfull ways. This blog may not be going to places where we would all like it to go but at least we can communicate and know and share where we stand and what our understood truths are. We, as individuals, are not each other’s enemies. We happen to be caught up in the most sordid of human affairs for purposes of which we may not currently be aware.

Yours is a move toward an honesty that this writer respects and honours. I appreciate your contribution.

bozh. Perhaps so, but is is part of an economic order that is even more intense today. You “peoples” are fortunate that you have both a rural and an urban lifestyle that is guaranteed by government support while the rest of us are caught up in being a slave to an economic order bent on destroying the planet. And no, it is not a “white man” thing it is a GREED thing and greed can effect any human being and the actions of your own people are living proof to this.
Don’t forget, bozh, your grandfathers were guaranteed a place to live and to receive economic support from the beginning of the first rudimentary treaty. How the wording of that treaty has evolved into contemporary adaptability is truly astounding. “Indians” were given one thing back then but the Supreme Court has abstractly expanded the wording of those treaties to include what it might mean today for YOUR survival. Whether every “Indian” gets their fair share is the problem of the individual aboriginal and their clan governments, such as it is, if it can be called such.

Blame the victim? Who is the victim here? The suckers that keep forking money over to a squeaky wheel or a culture that just refuses to help itself adapt to world conditions beyond everyone’s control? Your people want to live isolated from the rest of Canadians and the world outside and your way of life has been guaranteed from the treaties of yesteryear and you are the victim? The Iroquois used to disembowel and burn at the stake their war captures. The ‘white man”, as imperfect as you, gives you almost everything you need or want, as long as the chief doesn’t skim off the top first, and you are a victim?

Truth and Reconcilliation. Ya, let’s have lots of it. The truth as the first casualty. Reconcilliation? Ya, once all people get to see how much they have been conned.

bozh. Thanks for your contribution.

I want you and many others to realize that the actions of the working pawn of the colonizing monarchy of the U.K. in our great-grandfathers’ age were individually fulfilling the wishes of their masters. They took an opportunity to earn a living but it was the masters who decided to do things that effect our way of life today. The ordinary Canadian of today have hearts like the ordinary aboriginal. We both are caught up in something bigger than ourselves but we all have a commonality and a love for each other that manifests itself in numerous ways. I’ll say it again – the average Canadian working shlep wants you to be healthy and to prosper. WE WANT this for you. Please do not ever forget this.

But every person ever alive in the past and will be in the future hates being lied to and extorted from. All of humanity thrives in good will. All of humanity loves honour and honesty. Yours is not the only culture in all of ageless humanity to be dealt a slight of hand. Compared with cultures of the past, how your “people” were treated is in stark contrast to the sickenly brutal regimes of yesteryear. Your “people”, in comparison, came out relatively well, actually. Currently this writer believes that Canadian society is being dealt a slight of hand from your “peoples” and again the residential school issue looks like another fiasco and cash grab from the ordinaty working people of Canada. With this issue, though, both sides are milking the gravy train. I do not trust the side that your “peoples” maintain and the side that is allegedly my side of things, the government. It’s about politics, for some other end, and it stinks. Truth, please.

ab the word adapting to euro’s ways “overnight”, the word may be a stretch. i’d like to hear from others as well whether it was inadequate.
but there is no question that euros wanted them to accept their way of life; possibly quickly or right away.

it is common practice to use rationalization in order to blame the victim:
they r lazy, uneducated, dirty, unmotivated, etc.
a criminal might say, oh well, they have too much; it wasn’t guarded, so i ‘took’ it; i’m helping the poor, etcetc.
a wife beater might say, she’s got big mouth; she’s always nagging me; she’s never thankful, etcetc.
a rapist might say, she asked for it, etcetc.
thnx

“for 10 td yrs they adapted to ther habitat for survival. but euros were never intending to recognize it as success but failure.”

bozh. Who has been telling you this? What have you been reading? The people in your great grandfather’s era very much respected your great grandfathers. Respected so much that instead of killing off any “Indian” found on the land tracts of land were given to them once the battle for ownership was determined. Reservations were set up for your great grandfathers’ survival when they had no where else to go once the fighting stopped. If you read history the whole of humanity has been consumed with wars, land expropriations and killing. It is a human condition that has consumed not only the “euros” that you write about but many other cultures outside of your chosen isolated culture. Others living outside of Canada whose only exposure to the “Indian” issue is from the “poor us” camp know very little about how Canadians and facets of the Canadian government, such as it corruptly is, have good will for your “people” and have demonstrated this for many many years with all of the easy access to a guaranteed existance. If you people still cannot make it look to your own people and how you are messing yourselves up. Your “chiefs” for example. We’ve heard of stories about how the chief and his/her family reap enormous benefits from the free unaccountable money given for all reservation residents but stay within the bank accounts and pockets of the chief’s family. How do you set out to blame “the white man” for this? Get your houses in order, please.

Nothing is ever perfect and things are always a work in progress. Many working Canadians would like to see some evolution in the manner in which the government deals with the native issue. And the native issue is not the fault of the ordinary hard working Canadian citizen whose taxes support you and your corrupt representatives. Mostly people are just sick of the extortion for more money over issue upon issue for your people to selfishly stuff their faces with unhealthy lifestyle choices. Ordinary Canadians are sick of the corruption and political stink from their representatives, too. There is a big world outside of your puny territory and beyond the rest of insignificant Canada. That big world wants the resourses that are found here and heaven knows what is in store for all of us.

Many see much wrong with the way things are and want to change things but cannot. First we have to discuss the truth from all sides. We may have more in common than you are currently led to believe. Let us meet with honesty and then let’s get down to business making this a better world.

“bohz”. We want your “people” to thrive and survive. Let this sink in, would you. The Canadian government gives your people so much free service and you do not so much as have to do anything to receive anything. It appears to this writer that your own cultures contribute to your own genocide, cultural or otherwise.

“then, once euros arrived, at once or the moemt a euro saw them, they went limp/helpless, etc.”

bohz. Please. Your “people” did not go limp and helpless the moment a euro saw them. Your “people” still are unique in the world with your knowledge that you keep all to yourselves on the tracts of lands that your great-grandfathers decided to choose to raise their great grandchildren on.

” and so, indigenes had to adapt to a new way of life/thinking/attitude overnight or marked for near extinction”

Your extinction at your own hands, bohz, and it was not overnight. Your “people” just refuse to adapt to a way of life for your own benefit. Blame someone else for your own shortcoming. We are here to help your people and have been doing so for quite a while. By the way, many regular people do not exactly enjoy the way things are in this world, too, and are just getting by themselves.

“according to what i know, from 10-20 td yrs yrs ago redpeople have never heard of euros let alone seen any or needed their tender care.
they survived. ”

bozh. I’m not exactly understanding your comment above. But, if as what you wrote about is true: “redpeople have never heard of euros let alone seen any” then how does this account for the numerous visits that Europeans, long before Lewis and Clark, made to North America and they never saw any “redpeople” either? Unless the wilderness of North America really was not inhabited by anybody and perhaps those that were living somewhere in the wilderness were like everybody else who visited; just happened to come upon this place. People of many cultures have been living and roaming on this planet for a long long time and many have passed through North America over the years. Nobody really truly knows or understands how humans came to be but the “redpeople” did not just grow from a seed that was planted in the ground. “Redpeople” came from somewhere else just like everyone else.

And yes, is by merely repeating similarily agreed upon positions by you and your friends on this topic above everything else as well?

It seems that you trust no one — not Indigenous leaders, not advocates, and not politicos. Well how about the Law Society of Upper Canada ?

On 19 June 1996, the Law Society of Upper Canada v. Bruce Clark found:

“The ‘genocide’ of which Mr. Clark speaks is real, and has very nearly succeeded in destroying the Native Canadian community that flourished here when European settlers arrived. No one who has seen many of our First Nation communities can remain untouched by this reality.”

Who echoed these words? Names, please. What are their political affiliations? With other similarly minded people on the money hunt? Now we are entering in the real nasty dangerous world of politics and in this case appeasement for something which, as in most politics, is not properly defined and entirely discussed. One dominant, and in many cases dishonest, faction pronounces something and the rest of the citizenry have to be in lock step with that all consuming political viewpoint or face alienation and ostracization. This is how politics works Kim.

If you are native you may claim to understand this alienation because of the your views on native “genocide” by the early and newly formed government of Canada. From what I and many other citizens, who remain silent, have seen over the years is the HUGE amounts of money spent to keep native people alive in their chosen environment, the reserve, the choice of your anscestors as well. And if you could speak with average ordinary Canadian people, people who work hard and are taxed for their work to help support you and others with your mutually shared political bent, they would tell you that they harbour no ill will toward aboriginal people. I don’t harbour any ill will or ill intent toward aboriginal people. I will, however, dislike dishonesty and confabulation for the sake of more money for someone else’s crudely defined but obvious greed with emotionally manipulative tactics. Politics, Kim.

What about the “leaders” of your communities who favour their own family members with monetary benefits and inpoversh the other resident of the reserve system. Let’s start looking at the actions of chiefs who misuse money GIVEN to them by well meaning people in the government.

This is a joke? No? Ok, you’re not joking. Genocide is a legal term with very specific legal requirements. So, no slavery is not genocide nor is what’s happening in Darfur (even though there are a whole of lot of Zionists who think that it’s better to have the US jump into Sudan than have the world watch as they pound the living daylights out of the Palestinians!!).

Going to school is not genocide, its just torturefor the ineducable.

js

Article 2(e) speaks of forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. I doubt if residential schools meet that criterea of genocide, either, considering the children were allowed to go home for holidays, and once the school year ended. But since Canada never ratified 2(e), discussion of 2(e) is a non-issue.

But it was an interesting article, and I thank you for affording me the opportunity to increase my knowledge.

To Gary Metallic:
No, I was not a residential school teacher. That article I posted, dec. 23, was written by someone else, an article which I felt added to the discussion and information. The article was properly attributed to the author, but I should have made explicitly clear what I was doing. I apologize for any confusion I have caused.

I also agree with your point- that you don’t supply proof simply because I ask for it. You don’t dance to my tune, and nor should you. Sometimes I ‘speak’ harshly out of exasperation (just ask my wife). And others have ‘spoken’ harshly to me. And that is okay, too: we are all human.

But if the crime of genocide committed by the Canadian Government against Natives has yet to be established, why do you insist on using that word?

To Kim Petersen:
It has yet to be established that a crime, genocide, has taken place- established in the legal sense. You seem to be assuming that because some people use that word, that the crime has been established, the jury found guilt, and the accused has no right to speak. That I can see, the crime has yet to be established, and all accused have a right to speak in their defence.

To all:
I have found this thread to be interesting and thought-provoking. It is always interesting to discuss issues with people who dwell in the world of ideas. I feel I have learned something. I hope others have found my postings equally stimulating.

If you wish for me to continue posting to this thread, I shall do so. On the other hand, if you wish me to stop, to vote me off the island, I shall stop. Your call, guys.

Whichever way you people want it, I wish for all of us that some amicable solution can be found which will satisfy all camps equally.

Happy New Year!

I appreciate you have good intentions, but good intentions can have malicious consequences.

You write: “My main contention was, and still is: there are at least two sides to every story, and in your writings which consider only one side, you are being unfair to all involved.”

I submit that your contention is fundamentally flawed. You are treating it as a universal that there are always two sides to a story (I think everyone realizes that) that there may be blame on both sides. But there is not always blame on all sides. What you are getting at is a seeking of balance: presenting the views of both sides. You argue that the criminals should be treated equally with the victims.

E.g., Heaven forfend that this should ever happen, but for purposes of illuminating the flawed logic of your contention, suppose that a stranger breaks into your abode, murders your family members, rapes you and beats you within a whisker of death, steals all your money, and burns your house down. Are you still going to contend that the perpetrator’s story should be given consideration along with your story as victim?

My writings were not designed to hurt, though perhaps some of them did.

My main contention was, and still is: there are at least two sides to every story, and in your writings which consider only one side, you are being unfair to all involved.

In the meantime, I am sure all posters to this thread are well-intentioned, from their own perspective, and I wish everyone involved a happy and prosperous New Year, and healing, if needed.

ah