Jay Silverheels (Tonto) to The Lone Ranger - "What? We Whiteman?"

I am debating some of the opinions of the Globe & Mails', Margaret Wente in her article "What Dick Pound said was really dumb – and also true".

"The kinship groups in which they lived were very small, simply organized and not very productive."

Wente's rantings are still stuck in a recently discredited and imploded economic system - GDP. Western 'Civilization' is about to hit the wall, possibly not neolithic, of being not very productive as a result of the savagery of the Global Mergers and Acquisition mentality, privatization, de-regulation, willing white governmental blindness.


"in a world where native spirituality and "traditional knowledge" are held to be just as valid as Western science."

Has Wente not heard of "Western Science's" progress in search of the "God Particle"? Quantum and Particle physics have many parallels to Eastern Philosophy and Buddhism. Einstein is quoted from Wikipedia as "In his book "The World as I See It", he wrote: "A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms—it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man."

I don't think I would be far wrong by seeing Native Spirituality in this.

"Did the Iroquois Confederacy really influence the Declaration of Independence? Sorry, no"

From Wikipedia one reads that to one degree or another the Confederacy did have some influence not as Wente says "no". Here is an interesting and suggestive quote, "In 2004 the U.S. Government acknowledged the influence of the Iroquois Constitution on the U.S. Framers.The Smithsonian Institution also noted the similarities between the two documents, as well as the differences. One significant difference noted was the inclusion of women in the Iroquois Constitution, one group among many that the framers of the U.S. Constitution did not include."

Strikes me as more democratic.


"They deserve to interact with the modern world like everyone else."

The Modern World is going to Hell in a handbasket and it will be inevitable that if we don't make a massive cutback in our lifestyles we will be worse than neolithic.


Oh Canada
Our home on native land
We lost our way
For India was our plan

With fire sticks
And quill pens
The treaties we did make.
As the years passed by
We changed our minds
The treaties we did break.

Don’t whine to me.
The ride is never free.
Just keep in mind
We’ve done this thing before.
Just keep in mind
We’ll do this once more.

Happy Halloween