The Cultural Historian

2012-01-18T05:23:00.001-08:00

The FEMA Camp Song or The Homeland Security Shuffle

2011-12-17T22:14:00.000-08:00

Over the past week we have witnessed the creation of a law that has the capacity to end American society as we know it. For years we have heard conspiracy theorists clanging the gong, warning us about over the power grab of the government, the Fed, corporations and their masters the plutocrats. It seems that the time has come. Some call for revolution while others are preparing to ride out the coming onslaught of regulations and rules.

The papers and alternative news sources have said with the passing and signing of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 the Bill of Right’s, which has been a safe guard for over 200 years, has been gutted. Passing NDAA brings section D of the act into effect. It states, because of the need for "counter-terrorism," the military will be allowed to detain anyone, including US citizens, on home soil, without having to guarantee a trial. Essentially, you can disappear off the street on your way to get a pack of smokes, maybe forever. The act mentions not only someone being associated directly or indirectly to particular Islamic terrorist organizations but also those who seem sympathetic. All you have to be is Middle-Eastern, or a Muslim or maybe a natural born Anglo-Saxon American who writes a blog that occasionally supports Muslim Women Education and off you may go. When SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) passes there will be a plethora of laws that you can be arrested for or information will be directly censored.

Add it all together and all of a sudden the conspiracy “nuts” aren’t so nutty anymore. There has been a lot of talk of FEMA camps to incarcerate those taken and “awaiting” trial. I think the time has come to be more aware of coming developments. Someday soon, there will be a knock the door and . . . . .

F.E.M.A. Camp Lyrics

Artist(Band):Incarcerated People

Lyrics by: @CulturalHistory

Young man, put your ass on the ground.

I said, young man, put your face in the ground.

I said, young man, 'cause now you've been found

There's no way to be real happy.

Young man, there's no place you can go.

I said, young man, when you're shot in your throat.

You will stay there, and I'm sure you will die

Many ways to take up your time.

It's the end to stay at the F-E-M-A.

They take everything you need to enjoy,

and hang you up with all the boys ...

It's the end to stay at the F-E-M-A.

You can get yourself clean, you can have a crap meal

They’ll do whatever they feel ...

Young man, are you listening to me?

I said, young man, you had better agree!

I said, young man, you can forget your dreams.

But you've got to know this one thing!

No body dies all by their self.

I said, young man, keep your pride to yourself,

And just go there, to the F.E.M.A.

I'm sure they will kill you some day.

It's the end to stay at the F-E-M-A.

They take everything you need to enjoy,

and hang you with all the boys ...

It's the end to stay at the F-E-M-A.

You can get yourself clean, you can have a crap meal,

They’ll do whatever they feel ...

Young man, I was once in your shoes.

I said, I was down and out with the blues.

I felt no man cared if I were alive.

I felt the whole world was so jive ...

That's when someone came up to me,

And said, young man, get your face on the street.

It's a place there called the F.E.M.A.

They can stab you in the back any day.

It's the end to stay at the F-E-M-A.

They take everything you need to enjoy,

and hang you up with all the boys ...

FEMA

It's the end to stay at the F-E-M-A.

Young man, young man you must get out of town

Young man, young man go to the underground

F-E-M-A

then just go to the F-E-M-A

young man, young man I was once in your shoes

young man, young man I said, I was down and out with the blues.

F-E-M-A

Cover-up? ‘or’ You can’t bury the truth.

2011-10-01T19:39:00.000-07:00

The indigenous populations of North America have been poisoned, scalped, forced on death marches (Trail of Tears), systematically murdered (genocide) and driven off their land. The land they were given tin return typically was not prime pieces of territory. Out west they received land that was barely farmable and needed government subsidies to survive. Some of the tribes in the east however were able to retain parts of their ancestral homeland. Even in these places, over time, they had their territory altered when land was taken by eminent domain and poisoned by the surrounding industries. This is exactly what happened at Akwesasne (St. Regis Mohawk Reservation). In the 1950s the St. Lawrence Seaway came though northern New York. A large amount of the land was covered over by flooding when they constructed the hydroelectric dam and the locks. Some of the best pieces of their territory are now under water. Upstream from them ALCOA, Reynolds Aluminum, and General Motors polluted the land and the St. Lawrence River. In fact at one point liquid aluminum was trucked in open trailers from Reynolds to the GM plant for manufacturing. After it was demonstrated there were environmental problems from the old sites the federal government and the state came in and tried to cover it up legally and literally. Here’s the story of one Mohawk trying to fight back and save his family and his land from industrial waste.

On August 12, 2011 a news article in the Massena, NY Daily Courier-Observer entitled “Toxic Soil Removal Attempt Ends In Arrest At GM Site” (by Brian Hayden) and talked about Larry Thompson of the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation.

Here’s the article: MASSENA — A Mohawk man long frustrated with the cleanup efforts at the General Motors-Powertrain site decided to take matters into his own hands on Thursday. Larry Thompson, who goes by the Native American name of Kanietakeron, attempted to remove contaminated soils on the GM site by digging into a 12-acre capped landfill area with an excavator on Thursday morning. For a period of over two hours, he dumped the contents of the landfill in a nearby spot.His wife, Dana Leigh Thompson, said the plan was for backhoes to take the contents from the landfill and then transport them to rail cars, which would cart the waste to a secure location. A group of fellow Mohawks looked on, and by 11 a.m., about one dozen state troopers were also on the scene. Mr. Thompson didn't get to finish his job. By 1 p.m., state police had arrested him. He was charged with two felony counts of second-degree criminal mischief for damage in excess of $1,500, as well as misdemeanor counts of second- degree reckless endangerment and resisting arrest. He was arraigned by Massena Town Justice Gerald P. Sharlow and remanded to the St. Lawrence County Correctional Facility on $100,000 cash bail or $200,000 bond.

The fact is Larry Thompson had every right to be concerned over the capped landfill containing hazardous waste. An excerpt from “Clash of Cultures: Uprising At Akwesasne” pages 94-96 explains the environmental impact that hadn’t really changed since 1989. (excerpt)

After the industrial development of the area, the Mohawks noticed that their crops and livestock seemed diseased. They found cattle and crops dead and the health of the residents of the island impaired. Upon investigation it was found that the crops and animals were poisoned by fluoride. The Reynolds Metals Company (Reynolds), Aluminum Company Of America (Alcoa), and General Motors Corporation, Powertrain Division Massena (GMPT), industrial plants seemed to be polluting the Canadian islands downwind and downstream. In 1978, two US doctors conducted a study investigating the emissions from the Reynolds plant and the downwind consequences of the two smelters. They found that in nineteen years after the smelters opened in1959, twenty-five million pounds of fluoride had drifted over and settled on Cornwall Island and other areas of the reservation.[1] They found the children “were showing the brittle and stained teeth characteristic of excessive fluoride exposure.”[2] By April 1981, “Judge Howard G. Munson of the Northern New York District Court ruled that the band has a case against Reynolds, and Alcoa and ordered that the matter go to trial.”[3] Although the aluminum companies used legal tactics to delay the action, the Mohawks were given the ‘go-ahead’ by the court to sue for $50 million.[4]

On October 30, 1980, Health Minister Monique Begin announced a $1,600,000 study on the affects of the pollution on the health of the Mohawks at Akwesasne. The study investigated the “presence of such contaminants as mercury mirex, PCBs, and fluoride, on the health of the reserve residents.”[5] In 1985, a wildlife pathologist with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Dr. Ward Stone, tested the animal life. Capturing animals within three hundred yards of the GM dump, he dissected them and found that there was 875 parts per million[6] of PCBs and insecticides such as Dieldrin in the turtles.[7] Jay Palter, spokesman for Greenpeace Toronto, stated that a chlorine plant upstream, on the Canadian side of the border, was allegedly discharging mercury into the St. Lawrence River. “‘Fish taken from those waters,’ Palter said, ‘have been found with one part per million of mercury in their flesh, twice the limit for human consumption set by the province of Ontario.’”[8]

Since 1983, both the US and Canadian governments have tried unsuccessfully to respond to the pollution found at Akwesasne. Their attempts have been more bluster than actual solution. By 1985, the tribe was $2.5 million in debt from fighting Reynolds over fluoride contamination.[9] Reynolds paid $650,000 in damages to the tribe and cut emissions by seventy-five percent.[10] The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did attempted to help and raised the tribe’s funding 250 percent a year for air and water quality improvement programs. However, that meant they still only received $120,000.[11] In June 1989, the Mohawk tribe filed intent to sue the Alcoa, Reynolds, and GMPT for damaging the Raquette, St. Lawrence, and Grasse river systems.[12] By the end of 1989, nothing had changed for the Mohawks. They were confronted with the pollution and found no real answers or solutions. The Mohawks were losing out on their sovereignty with their land taken once more, this time ecologically.

The Press-Republican police log (Plattsburgh, NY) on August 13, 2011 had a little mention about a felony arrest at Akwesasne

AKWESASNE-A Rooseveltown man was arrested Thursday for allegedly using a backhoe to dig up a capped, contaminated landfill at the former General Motors plant in Massena. Larry Thompson, 56, was charged with two counts of second-degree criminal mischief and one count each of second-degree reckless endangerment, third-degree criminal trespassing and resisting arrest, said Massena-based State Police. He was arraigned in Town of Massena Court and taken to St. Lawrence County Jail. By Staff Writers Andrea Van Valkenburg and Denise Raymo

A few days later on August 15, Charles Kader, a Mohawk from the Turtle Clan, sent me a transcript of the hearing and told me I could publish it here. Here is the transcript as received, what do you think? Transcript:

Larry Thompson Hearing Over EPA Superfund Site Dig as recorded by Charles Kader.

The Town of Massena Court Room was the scene of Larry Thompson’s hearing following his arrest on Friday August 12, 2011. Town Justice Gerald P. Sharlow presided over the hearing, which was scheduled to begin at 1:00 PM but did not commence until 1:52PM.

Mr. Thompson was brought into the courtroom to cheers from a packed section of onlookers and supporters before he went into a conference room with his defense team.

A bearded elderly Caucasian male with a sign that read “PCBS ARE POISONS” repeatedly told assembled law enforcement officers in the hallway outside the hearing that they had arrested the wrong person and that they should be going after General Motors and the United States Government. The man was eventually allowed into the hearing after he put down his sign.

The public defender, Allison Appleby, requested that the defendant be allowed to offer an opening statement. The prosecutor, James Monroe, objected. The justice relented. Mr. Thompson stated his original name of Kanietakeron to the court to be his true name and that he asserted himself to be of the ancient ways. The defendant invoked the Great Law of Peace (Kaianerehkowa) as his constitution and that he followed no other document calling itself that. Mr. Thompson stated that he was duty-bound to honor the way he observes life. Mr. Thompson stated that the roughly 500 years that his people were affected by Europeans arrival on his people’s lands brought him to this day, and it would take 1-2 hours of education just to assist the Town Justice to see what was going on, this day. Instead, the defendant offered a nutshell version. Mr. Thompson grew up nearby the GM Plant site. The defendant stated that this was about the small people versus the corporation. The system is only reading from the letter A to the letter M, and not looking at the whole alphabet, A to Z, according to Mr. Thompson. Mr. Thompson stated that this leeching mound at the EPA Superfund Site had taught him about how an entire people get treated and he did not look forward to talking about his poor health, his sick family, and his dying friends. Thompson stated that he did not want to do what he had been involved in and that it was a deliberate protest, one that made him make a choice of what he could do personally.

The prosecutor, Mr. Monroe, called witness one, NY State Trooper BCI Andrew Gayeskie. The investigator recounted his involvement in the activities of Friday August 12, 2011. Gayeskie described seeing a man who had chained himself to the back-hoe steering wheel assembly and a man who would not stop digging at the mound of dirt. Mr. Gayeskie described Mr. Thompson dumping a pile of dirt in front of six NY State Troopers, before a bigger earth mover was summoned to attempt to block Mr. Thompson onto the former GM Site, but Mr. Thompson eluded the effort and retreated to an area below and outside the GM fenced property. It is alleged by Investigator Gayeskie that Mr. Thompson breached a gated section of the fence to gain initial entry.

The defense attorney questioned the investigator on the sequence of events. The investigator stated that Mr. Thompson informed him that he would not go into arrest easily. Gayeskie did make the arrest.

The prosecutor called David Graham, the Racer Trust site representative as a witness. Mr. Graham recounted his actions on that Friday morning. The Racer Trust employee started by retelling his publicized statements that suspicious vehicles were surrounding the old GM Site before he became aware of the unauthorized digging taking place in the rear of the contaminated property. The Racer Trust representative then described a 50 x 50 opening on the EPA Superfund Site mound that Mr. Thompson began enlarging as Graham watched.

The defense attorney, Ms. Appleby, then questioned Mr. Graham. Graham verified that he had not personally checked the lock on the gate that Mr. Thompson is alleged to have driven through, but that others working for him routinely did. Mr. Graham admitted that it was Brandenburg Contractors who drove the larger earth moving equipment which had been summoned to block in Mr. Thompson. Mr. Graham also admitted that he did not agree that two feet of topsoil was present in the area of the EPA Mound that Mr. Thompson began to operate his back hoe at, but it was actually a lesser amount.

The prosecutor called Daniel Casey, a construction manager with Arcadis, a contractor on the former GM Site for over twenty years. Mr. Casey submitted a cost impact report to the Town Hall court detailing the damages that Mr. Thompson is alleged to have caused during his actions on August 12, 2011.

Defense Attorney objected to Exhibit A being submitted to the court in this abrupt manner. Mr. Casey stated that he finished the report over the weekend, since the event took place. Casey detailed his ensuing conversations with Harris Environmental Controls, the EPA, New York Department of Conservation, New York State Troopers, as well as the Transportation Security Administration, the US Border Patrol and the Immigration, Customs Enforcement agencies.

The defense attorney objected again, stating that the report was based on hearsay and was lacking conclusivity, including actual estimated costs to repair the alleged damage that was incurred by the defendant. Mr. Casey detailed that the Brandenburg Contractor cleaned out its rail car that Mr. Thompson had been loading the dirt into for disposal. Mr. Casey admitted to the defense attorney that the gate had been bent back into shape and was still standing, using improvised materials.

Mr. Casey, the last witness, was excused and the defense attorney Ms. Appleby then objected to the inconsistency in testimony among all of the witnesses that were called, on the following points: the fence line still being intact at the present time despite contrary claims, the cost impact report veracity including fence replacement cost, and top soil cost. The fence may have been the scene of an accident but that was not a crime, according to the defense attorney, and that Mr. Thompson was a person of the land, and not likely to commit a crime against the land as has been described.

The issue of bail was raised for its excessive amount by the defense attorney and Mr. Thompson’s ties to the community were recounted as surety for a reduction action in the stated amounts from the day of the incident.

Mr. Thompson was given permission to present a closing statement on his own behalf, which he requested. The defendant stated that the land must always be considered, as the women are the titleholders of the land. The damages that he was involved with were minimal in connection with how much damage has already been done to this specific piece of land, according to Mr. Thompson. The people living here are dying a slow and painful death, Thompson stated, with the exposure still going on. Mr. Thompson described commonly going onto the site when he was younger with others, retrieving loose lumber and pallets lying around, with no fence in place, picking stuff off the ground, who left it there? The defendant disclosed the medical ailment of his nephew, and who was the bigger criminal, Larry Thompson or the corporation that made this incident take place? Thompson described the giving of small-pox infected blankets to Indians in the past, and now we are all affected by the molecules that this leeching mound is giving off each day.

Mr. Thompson continued that he has proven that this is Indian Land in the past and that he will do it again in this instance, it is not New York State. GM must be called onto the carpet for their actions; this sacrifice is something that we hoped that we would never have to do, according to the defendant. I am not the criminal, Larry Thompson stated. Look at the bigger picture, EPA can only do so much, according to Mr. Thompson. I did not wish to be stripped of my health, stated the defendant. What is it to be healthy, Thompson mused? There is such a pain in me; I was never able to run; now I cannot even walk, stated the defendant. My sister had her kidney removed last week, Thompson related. When I talked to Anne Kelly about this, years ago, before she was promoted to her present management position, she told me that this cap on the mound would continue to allow leeching, and that it was not a solution, that the air was bad, she knows this, Mr. Thompson stated.

Mr. Thompson continued in his statement, the United States bails out GM and GM has made billions, they are back on top, because of bankruptcy laws. New York has failed, according to Thompson. No license was ever issued or the process monitored, Thompson stated. The people have no recourse, Larry Thompson asserted. We are married to the land, and it brings to your attention the wrongs that have been committed, Thompson claimed. I do not blame the expatriated Indians who the United States holds authority over, I have never made an agreement or entered into a contract under duress, Thompson assured the court. I am still sovereign, and in all honesty, I have documents to prove this, Thompson stated. The defendant stated he is not involved in any social security system, no covenants, and no treaties. Only an agreement to share the land involves me, Thompson stated. The church and state had to get rid of the Indians, according to Thompson. A toxic bomb was placed there to accomplish this, Thompson asserted. Reynolds, Alcoa and General Motors are all guilty, Thompson stated.

Attention must be placed on General Motors for what they did to the entire North Country, Mr. Thompson stated. Do this clean up right, the defendant maintained in his statement. Remove it and get it out of here, Thompson insisted. It is unacceptable, according to the defendant. We will all sleep easier at night if this was done, Thompson asserted

A license to kill our people is what has taken place, Thompson continued. The people were starved and then told they could get food if they stayed in one place, according to Larry Thompson. The blankets were then given out when the people had nothing to make sure they stayed on the reservation, Thompson recounted. The United States acted in bad faith and fraud. This can still be brought up, how we became sacrificial lambs, Mr. Thompson maintained.

People are the power in our way, according to Mr. Thompson. Everyone thinks civilized Indians are the ones who follow another constitution. Thompson related. There were people who were left out of the United States Constitution, the defendant asserted. Why would the United States take the people’s power out of the US Constitution, Mr. Thompson wondered? I believe in the real constitution that has the mind and heart working together, Thompson maintained. I did not do this for myself but for all of the people out there, the defendant stated at the end of his statement. (END OF STATEMENT)

Justice Sharlow stated that this was a Municipal Court and that the phase for a trial hearing would find the Thompson statements more pertinent.

Justice Sharlow stated that the case would be presented to a grand jury. (Local research indicates that it may take up to six months for a grand jury to be called to return an indictment.) No date has been scheduled for the next step in the process, according to Sharlow’s closing remarks.

Justice Sharlow indicated that he was aware that Mr. Thompson has strong ties to the community and that as long as he promises to keep off the GM land and refrain from further criminal activity; his bail will be reduced to $5000 cash and $10000 bond.

Prosecutor James Monroe objected, stating that although an eloquent statement was exhibited, that $62,000 in submitted damages was noted by site engineers, that Mr. Thompson does not recognize this court or this jurisdiction, and the proximity of his home to Canada as all reasons to uphold the high bail amount.

The court hearing ended at 2:55 PM and court onlookers erupted in whoops and cheers as Larry Thompson was led away back to St. Lawrence County Jail in Canton, New York 30 miles away. His brother, Loran Thompson, spoke to reporters before following Larry to Canton to bail him out afterwards.

On August 12, 2011 a news article in the Massena, NY Daily Courier-Observer entitled “GM landfill investigation continues” (by Brian Hayden) spoke of the continuing investigation into the permanent cap over the site. Hayden in his article writes:

Massena-Local officials are still seeking answers as to why the federal government decided to permanently cap a 12-arce landfill at the General Motors Powertrain site. Last month, St. Lawrence County Legislator Anthony J. Arquiett, chairman of the North Country Redevelopment Task Force, launched a formal inquiry into the history behind the Environmental Protection Agency’s 1992 decision. That inquiry followed Larry V. Thompson’s illegal excavation of a portion of the landfill Aug. 11.

As of now Larry Thompson is still charged with two felony counts of second-degree criminal mischief and misdemeanor charges of second-degree reckless endangerment and resisting arrest. At this point the state and federal government is denying Thompson’s claims and maintains there is no leakage from the capped site. What do you think? Was Mr. Thompson justified in doing firsthand investigation of the site to protect his family? Do you think the state and federal government are trying to cover something up?

Back in the 1970s there was a little place outside Buffalo called Love Canal. It was a small housing project that had been built on an old Hooker Chemical waste site. Many died and many contracted various illnesses and cancers. At the time they said the site was OK too. But it wasn’t. What is your opinion? Comment below.

[1] Yves Lavigne, "US Court Upholds Indian Band's Right to Sue Metals Firms," The Globe and Mail, April 17, 1981.

[2] Janis Barth, "A Land Lost, a People in Agony," The Post-Standard, April 15, 1990.

[3] Lavigne, "US Court Upholds Indian Band's.”

[4] Ibid.

[5] CP, "Ottawa Backs Study of St. Regis Band," The Globe and Mail, October 31, 1980.

[6] “ . . . 3 parts per million of PCBs in poultry is considered unfit for human consumption; 50 parts per million in soil is hazardous waste. . .” Barth. "A Land Lost, a People in Agony."

[7] Ibid.

[8] Janis Barth, "Greenpeace Plan St. Lawrence Pollution Protest," The Post-Standard, May 13, 1988, B3.

[9] Barth, "A Land Lost, a People in Agony."

[10] Ibid.

[11] Barbara Stith, "St. Regis Mohawks Find Environment a Unifying Issue," The Post-Standard, February 25, 1990.

[12] CP, "Mohawk Tribe, NY State Suing Three Us Firms over Pollution," The Toronto Star, June 1, 1989.

Migration or Invasion?

2011-09-05T19:22:00.000-07:00

Through out history there has been a number of migrations, at times forced, and invasions that result in either new nations being created or loss of territory. Many times it’s not just a transfer of control of territory but an influx of a new culture displacing the prevous one. We find this situation with Alexander the Great. The Macedonians had adopted Greek culture and language. Eventually they were the point of the Greek spear into Asia Minor. Alexander comes to the throne after his father’s death and puts in place his father’s plan to defeat the Persians. To make a long story short, history tells us that as Alexander was defeating the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and eventually all of Persia he dragged the Hellenistic culture with him. By doing this he changed the culture in that part of the world for a millennia and made Greek the international language for centuries.

Other times the invaders adopted the culture of the vanquished. Again we can turn to Greek history to the times of the Minoans. There is some scholarly difference of opinion as to the actual mechanism of the Minoans falling to the Mycenaean but after a few centuries the Minoans fell. The interesting aspect is that the Mycenaean adopted the Minoans, but when they came to power the Mycenaean operated the society as the Minoans did.

There are those instances where migration and a mixing of cultures over borders happens during the course of decades or possibly over a century or two. There are a number of examples of this scenario. Probably the one that is most likely known from high school but usually misunderstood is the Barbarian invasions into the Roman Empire. The over all impression left from a high school class is the barbarians, sometimes actually referred to as Germanic tribes, invaded the empire and sacked Rome. In some enriched classes in accredited high schools they may entertain concepts such as the Huns invasion into Europe and the use of German tribes as mercenary troops.

Scholars in the past generally agreed that various Germanic tribes caroused around Europe fighting each other or entangling themselves in battles with the Celts living in the area. Germans and Romans eventually clash in CE 9 with the decimation of the Roman troops. From that time onward the Romans made few large scale probes into German territory. Over time some Germans migrated in to Roman territory as farmers and even slaves and eventually a sort of parity developed between the two. The Huns changed this situation when they invaded Europe. They swallowed up eastern Germanic tribes outside the empire and drove others into the arms of the Romans. The Romans who were finding defense difficult against the Huns drafted individual Germans and in some cases whole tribes into the military. The Visigoths were one such tribe that was drafted into the Roman military. As the Huns dwindled after Attila’s death the Germans continued to infiltrate and defeat Roman legions with the Visigoths eventually sacking Rome.

Modern scholarship points to a little different situation. True the groups of people labeled Germans were tribal and yes they did defeat Roman Legions in CE 9, but there was ea balance between the Romans and the Germans. Dr. Norman Etherington in his American Historical Review[1] points to recent scholarship that the Germans were not some “fur-clad invaders from far away”[2] but they were groups and in some cases villages outside the borders of the empire. Over time Germans migrated into the empire peacefully. The Visigoths came into the empire as Roman troops and because of mistreatment went to war and sacked Rome in CE 410.

By the time the Huns (CE 451) came into the picture, the ‘German’ populations were not just along the borders but were numerous in parts of the interior. The Huns put pressure on groups outside of the empire and drove those already inside deeper into Roman territory. The Romans and Germans held a line against the Huns but the pushed migration of Germans into the empire changed the demographics in such a way that eventually the empire in the west collapsed. There were internal battles and starting in CE 527 some re-conquering of territory by the Byzantines under Justinian. With the short lived victories Western Europe fell into various tribal governments. The aspect of this event to take note of is that the Germans didn’t so much invade, as heavily migrate into better territory and over time became the majority culture.

In our modern world we find similar problems. The situation with Kosovo and the Serbians has the same overtones. Kosovo since antiquity was seen as a part of the Serbian homeland. Kosovo today is an enclave of ethnic Albanians and a minority of ethnic Serbians that is a recognized international state. Its beginnings however are tied much closer to Serbia. In fact Kosovo is remembered by many as Old Serbia and since the 1100s as the homeland of the Serbian people. In the 1400s the Ottoman Turks controlled the region and with the end of World War One the region was coalesced into what would in modern history be called Yugoslavia. With the Tito and the communist era Kosovo was seen as a semi-autonomous region of Yugoslavia. With the 1990s, Serbian irredentist feelings gave rise to its claims over Kosovo. Its arguments included the history of the area and the ties to it as their homeland. The new residents were appeased and on June 16, 2008 with the backing of the United States, Kosovo was recognized with full international status.[3]

We now look at the US southwest. One has to wonder if the US will support a similar situation there as it did with Kosovo. We have seen from the history of the past two centuries how the US treated its indigenous populations and how Indian land was reallocated. In fact most of the west including California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas was all part of Mexico. The population was a mix of Indians, Spanish Europeans, mestizos (Spanish-Indian), and Criollos (European descent born in America). However, through the conquest of the US government and their imperial notion of Manifest Destiny these groups of people were either expelled or subjugated by the new government administering the area. This situation has persisted with border travesties occurring and within the last 30 years increasing. The demographic differences in the southwest are now detectable because of migration. Peoples who were divorced from their ancestral homes are migrating back and not paying attention to borders. They’re not invading, but moving to an area that is economically better. As of 2008 13 million illegal immigrants were living in the US. The immigration pattern isn’t that different from what was going on with the Germans into Roman territory, or Albanians into Kosovo. The situation of immigrants moving to an area that has superior economic advantages will eventually change the demographics with the foreign (new) culture becoming the majority culture.

Looking at this situation it seems if things continue the southwest of the US will eventually become culturally Mexican and predominantly Spanish speaking. Judging from history it would not be impossible if the southwest was reunited to Mexico or as with Kosovo, made independent. There are a number of reasons for this. The territory was originally Mexican so there are national and political irredentist aspects involved. Additionally, the Mexican population in the US southwest is climbing and in some areas becoming the majority. What would the US response be if a majority of the UN Security-Council called for a demilitarization of the Southwest border of the US or as in the case of Kosovo, just determine it to be a separate entity? Would the US government be as supportive of the geopolitical change in the US southwest as they were with Kosovo, or for that matter as with Croatia and Slovenia? Would the US government still think what is good for the goose is good for the gander? If it occurs will it be seen as a migration or an invasion? Probably what is written will depend on who writes it, the immigrant or the government.

[1] Etherington, Norman. 2011. Barbarians Ancient and Modern. The American Historical Association 116 (1):31-57.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Jansen, G. Richard. Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo: An Abbreviated History, an Opening for the Islamic Jihad in Europe, Colorado State University, July 22, 2008 April 25, 1999 (accessed Dec 20, 2009) http://lamar.colostate.edu/~grjan/kosovohistory.html.

Cultures Still Clashing, Indigenous vs. Transnational

2011-06-30T18:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not posting since earlier this year. A number of different circumstances have kept me from posting but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been noticing things.

Once again the people of the ‘Land Where the Partridge Drums’ are being pressured and squeezed by the majority cultures that surround them. Most would think I would be talking about the government but it’s actually found in the fourth estate too. Recently reading something from the Irish Times I was surprised by how Akwesasne was described. The author of the article, Lorraine Mallinder, states that,“the Mohawk reservation has no living, beating heart, just a series of potholed roads featuring scattered shops with names such as ““Another Damn Cigarette Store,” a glitzy redbrick casino rising surreally from a vast expanse of wasteland and no shortage of mangy stray dogs. Outside law and order are clearly not welcome, judging by a roadside sign proclaiming the border patrol, state police, FBI and others to be “terrorists.””[1] To be fair she does point out the peace and quiet and beauty of the location. However she does spin the wonderful fishing with reeling in AK-47s and cartons of cigarettes.[2] Yes, there are problems on the reservation with drugs and some violence as there is in almost every community in the US to one degree or another. Overall Akwesasne is more peaceful and safer than a number of cities I have stayed at and I doubt it has anything like the murder or robbery rate of any of the major cities, such as New York, Detroit, Miami or the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex. It is the above portrayal of the Akwesasne area as a no law, shootem’ up wild-west that colors all of the conversation about the area and ends up hurting the area financially, physically and in a way spiritually. It scares investors away and keeps entrepreneurial endeavors bottled up.

Most will say that smuggling is the problem. That all the ills of this Native society are the cross-border trade of contra-band such as cigarettes, marijuana, and supposed illegal immigrants. First, as for the illegal contraband, I do not know of anybody in or outside of Indian tribal government (traditional or modern) that supports the sale, distribution, or transportation of illegal drugs, or individuals that are deemed dangerous or involved in terrorism in the US or Canada. As for legal products and Native people crossing the imaginary border, strictly speaking, the Mohawks aren’t smuggling at all. The two international states that claim geographic sovereignty over the area refuse to understand the historic and long-term truth. They took the land from Akwesasne, the current reservation and a considerable amount of land outside of the reservation, was originally Mohawk land. There was no border it was their land and they could go wherever they wanted. It wasn’t until after the War of 1812 this all changed. The Euro-Americans had made provisions for property deeds so that their possessions were intact, however, when it came to the Mohawks, they were determined to be “citizens” of the territory they found themselves in. So to the Mohawks the idea of smuggling is imposed upon them.

In fact in an article, entitled “Life on the 45^th Parallel,” there was a rebuttal article to the original. Charles Kader, the author states the Mohawks’ view of events clearly. Mohawks “do not consider themselves citizens of either the US or Canada, but as free, sovereign people. These are the same people who once were described by British monarch Queen Anne as “the queen’s special forces” due to their prowess and specialized skill set. Recognition does not require subjugation.”[3]

In fact he writes how Mallinder’s article completely misses the uniqueness of the people, the culture, and the surrounding area. In correcting her view of Akwesasne he writes concerning the sovereignty of the nation and what would seem a viable solution, “to break free of both Canada and the US and function as a sovereign border state, à la Grand Duchy of Luxembourg or Swiss Confederation.”[4] It is doubtful that the either the US or Canada would allow such a construct. I could not foresee either of them wanting a Chinese embassy in Hogansburg, NY. However, there could be some form of semi-autonomous entity that would be possible but even that is doubtful considering the present climate.

Akwesasne is plagued by not only the governments that surround and strangle it but the sensationalizing of those who want to write about an area they know little about.

[1] Mallinder, Lorraine. Smuggling trails make for a bustling nightlife on the reservation, Irish Times 2011 [cited April 23, Available from http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0423/1224295311021.html.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Kader, Charles. Life on the 45th Parallel. Irish Times 2011 [cited April 29. Available from http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2011/0429/1224295671499.html.

[4] Ibid.

Revolutions

2011-03-16T18:22:00.000-07:00

People in the capital were at their wits end with the government. They were sick of being kept down and poor with no real rights, and an autocratic ruler. Over successive days the crowd started to grow. Soon civilian militias started taking on the government troops and in some places the soldiers agreed with the plight of the people. The military even started to fight along side them. Revolution fervor was contagious and it started to spread to other countries linking the area’s classical liberal movements. Each revolution was unique but the central theme was to increase representation and have a fairer society. In some places there was even talk of women’s rights. What I am describing isn’t the revolutions of today, but the Revolutions of 1848.

During the last month we have seen the burning torch of revolution and freedom blazing across North Africa and parts of the Middle East. Starting in Tunisia, moving to Egypt, Yemen and then Bahrain and now we see freedom fighters in Libya going up against a determined dictator. Some of the revolutions have been successful and in some cases have actually set up new governments. However, time will tell if they are successful

The Revolutions of 1848 didn’t end too well. In France the working class and the bourgeoisie liberal class were growing tired of the policies of King Louis Philippe and his minister Francois Guizot. Political banquets were being held around the country agitating for protests against the King. Louis Philippe sent troops to break up the banquet in Paris. Shots were fired and the people once again, as in 1789, went to the barricades. The Nations Guard, which had become politically disenfranchised, went over to the radical’s side and on February 24, 1848 King Louis Philippe was deposed. Alphonse Lamartine formed a provisional government that promoted the right to vote, to free speech, to property, and to a secular education. This became a problem for the conservative monarchist and the bourgeoisie liberal class. They were concerned that the workers would take over and feared a return to the dark days of the Revolution of 1789. The provisional government set up a social democracy with social programs and national workshops to provide work for the unemployed. This caused a flight of the plutocratic wealth and a crash of the stock market. Taxes were increased against the working class and this created more financial trouble. The stances between the bourgeoisie liberal class and the new social democrat working class grew uneasy because of a number of differences in the nature of work, the right to unionize and to pay levels. Further, there were disagreements over the rights of citizens and laissez-faire capitalism.[1]

In April the elections for a permanent government resulted in a very conservative majority in the National Assembly. Debates began over the various social programs and by June the national workshops were closed. Class tensions rose, worker groups rose up in rebellion. They said the government had betrayed the revolution and they wanted a redistribution of wealth. A bourgeoisie and conservative coalition formed against the workers. The workers revolted trying to force their agenda. Eventually, General Louis-Eugène Cavaignac assumes powers and puts down the rebellion with 10,000 dead and a decided victory for the conservatives. In November of 1848 a new constitution was put in place with an elected president and a one-house legislature. During the December elections Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was elected as the first president of the second French Republic. The nephew and heir of Napoléon Bonaparte was the law and order candidate and defeated Cavaignac with 75% of the votes. The bourgeoisie opinion had moved to the right and under this atmosphere the new president, Bonaparte, purged the government of liberals and replaced them with monarchist and ultra-conservatives. Representing himself as the man of the people Bonaparte disbanded the National Assembly and held new elections. His use of force against anyone who disagreed or dissented was widely known.[2]

During the third year of his presidency and with a four-year term limit looming, he asked the National Assembly for an amendment to the constitution. The monarchists in the assembly refused having designs of reinstituting the monarchy from the House of Bourbon or of Orléans. In a calculated risk and putting his hopes on the lower classes and the backing of the military, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte declared himself Napoléon III ruler of the Second French Empire. A plebiscite was held and his absolute rule was confirmed by the masses.[3]

Here we see an example of a popular revolution with the backing of the common people going through a familiar scenario of rights and services being delivered to the poor. In some cases there is even a redistribution of land. However, over time the plutocratic wealth of the country will, in this case through conservatives and the wealthy bourgeoisie, revamp society. The new regime that comes to power will have more power than the original purported autocracy that was deposed. The common worker will at best stay at status quo but in most cases society is financially ratcheted down with a great majority just holding on. Through it all the taste of freedom still remains on the lips of the common worker.

The scenario may be different sometimes but the outcome seems to be the same. In some cases the rulers of the country gave deference to the working and common poor. In Prussia representative government was, against all odds allowed to flourish by Frederick Wilhelm IV. He permitted an assembly and held the military in check. Across Germany revolts broke out and the movement toward a united Kingdom of Germany was almost realized. The Frankfort assembly formulated a government and even offered the crown eventually to the King of Prussia, Frederick Wilhelm IV. However, in a turn of events the system was repudiated the Prussian army crushed the revolution. Germany didn’t unite until 1870 through, as Bismarck said “Blut und Eisner” (Blood & Iron), the Franco-Prussian War.[4]

In other cases the regime will use the superior firepower and outside allies, to attack and destroy the rebels. Hungary in 1848 wanted to devolve itself from the Austrian Empire. The Austrian forces struck back and attacked the Hungarian forces with the help of Czar Nicholas I of Russia and 140,00 soldiers.[5] Hungary would have to wait until 1867 to have its own parliament. It will be interesting to see what the outcome will be in Libya.

Most other examples people like to draw on eventually lead to the same end. The French Revolutions ended with Napoléon I. The Russian Revolution and reorganization of society ended under Stalin and the 30 million dead left in his wake. Some will ask what about the American Revolution? In the classical sense it wasn’t a revolution but a colonial war, with the colony winning its independence. Unlike the typical revolution where the ruler is deposed and killed (Czar & Louis XVI), King George III lived to 1820 and was still on the throne while Napoléon I was in prison on St. Helena.

It will be interesting to see how the new governments in Tunisia, Egypt, and the revolutions in Bahrain, Yemen, and Libya end. If we can use 1848 as a guide the prospects for freedom in all of them seem slim. The question is, what type of government will come to the forefront and take over? What type of government will serve the plutocrats best?

[1] Dr. Ernest R. Rugenstein, “Revolutions of 1848” (lecture, Hudson Valley Community College, Troy, NY, March 8. 2011).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

Did you see that quote?

2010-12-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

For my last blog post of 2010 I thought I would examine different quotes I found on social networking. I have a blog, a couple of twitter accounts, a facebook page, and follow a few blogs and facebook groups. Additionally, I have a linkedin account and between them all I am in contact with a large number of people (500). As I have been viewing and reading the various pages and blogs I see a number of different quotes popping up. Sometimes they are on a facebook status or in a comment area. Other times the quote is in a blog or in the online writings of others. There are two things that I have noticed about these quotations. First, some of the quotes are at times from people who would, at the very least be seen as counter-cultural or even possibly anti-social. Second, in a strange way the quotes are applicable to the times we are living in today. So here are some quotes I have found in the last year on the net. I am not going to disclose the people posting the quote, just the quote itself.

Here are the quotes in no particular order:

Without law and order our nation cannot survive. ~ Adolf Hitler

“No one is more hopelessly enslaved than the person who falsely believes he is free.” ~ Johann Goethe

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~ Thomas Jefferson

The great foe of democracy now and in the near future is plutocracy. Every year that passes brings out this antagonism more distinctly. It is to be the social war of the twentieth century. In that war militarism, expansion and imperialism will all favor plutocracy. In the first place, war and expansion will favor jobbery, both in the dependencies and at home. In the second place, they will take away the attention of the people from what the plutocrats are doing. In the third place, they will cause large expenditures of the people’s money, the return for which will not go into the treasury, but into the hands of a few schemers. In the fourth place, they will call for a large public debt and taxes, and these things especially tend to make men unequal, because any social burdens bear more heavily on the weak than on the strong, and so make the weak weaker and the strong stronger. Therefore expansion and imperialism are a grand onslaught on democracy. ~William Graham Summer

Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death. ~Adolf Hitler

We're not a democracy. It's a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy." ~ Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General

‎"Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy" ~ John Pierpont Morgan

It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. ~ Joseph Stalin

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~ Thomas Jefferson

“. . .it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” ~ Herman Goering

Anyone who'd sell out a whole town wouldn't hesitate to double-cross one man ~ Arnold Rothstein

"If you pray for rain long enough, it eventually does fall. If you pray for floodwaters to abate, they eventually do. However, the same happens in the absence of prayers." ~ Steve Allen

All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.

~ Adolf Hitler

"Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence." ~Anonymous

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise. ~ Adolf Hitler

‎"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." ~ Susan B. Anthony

What good fortune for governments that the people do not think. ~ Adolf Hitler

"Man is a marvelous curiosity ... he thinks he is the Creator's pet ... he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes, and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't that a quaint idea?" ~ Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State." ~ Thomas Jefferson

The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. ~ Adolf Hitler

"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites." ~ Thomas Jefferson

"Please do not whitewash your inherent faults with your acquired virtues. I would have the faults; they are like mine own." ~ Kahlil Gibran

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things, but, for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. ~ Steven Weinberg

"The foolish reject what they see and not what they think; the wise reject what they think and not what they see."

~ Huang Po

What God lacks, is convictions and stability of character. He ought to make a decision and either be a Presbyterian or a Catholic or something...and not try to be everything. ~ Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

If God is willing to prevent evil, but unable, then he is not omnipotent. If God is able, but not willing, then he is malevolent. If God is both able and willing, then whence cometh evil? If God is neither able nor willing...then why call him God? ~ Epicurus

"If I really believed that the Jews killed God . . . I’d worship the Jews." ~ Bill Hicks

The great foe of democracy now and in the near future is plutocracy. Every year that passes brings out this antagonism more distinctly. It is to be the social war of the twentieth century. In that war militarism, expansion and imperialism w...ill all favor plutocracy. In the first place, war and expansion will favor jobbery, both in the dependencies and at home. In the second place, they will take away the attention of the people from what the plutocrats are doing. In the third place, they will cause large expenditures of the people’s money, the return for which will not go into the treasury, but into the hands of a few schemers. In the fourth place, they will call for a large public debt and taxes, and these things especially tend to make men unequal, because any social burdens bear more heavily on the weak than on the strong, and so make the weak weaker and the strong stronger. Therefore expansion and imperialism are a grand onslaught on democracy. ~William Graham Summer

"There’s a phrase we live by in America: “In God We Trust”. And it’s right there where Jesus would want it...on our money." ~ Bill Maher

The time to buy is when the blood is running in the streets. ~ Nathan Rothschild

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. ~ George Bernard Shaw

It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept, which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. ~ Albert Einstein

"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." ~ John Adams

"O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble ...homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it..." ~ Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

If a man is dumb, someone is going to get the best of him, so why not you? If you don't, you're as dumb as he is. ~ Arnold Rothstein

He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation. ~ James A. Garfield

Give me control of a nation's money, and I care not who makes the laws." ~ Mayer Amschel Rothschild

A brave man is a man who dares to look the Devil in the face and tell him he is a Devil. ~ James A. Garfield

We moralize among ruins. ~ Benjamin Disrael

We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the future are represented by suffering millions; and the youth of a nation are the trustees of Posterity. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

It makes no difference if I burn my bridges behind me - I never retreat.

~ Fiorello LaGuardia

Leadership is particularly necessary to ensure ready acceptance of the unfamiliar and that, which is contrary to tradition. ~ Cyril Falls

Because my love for you is beyond words, I decided to shut up. ~ Nizar Qabbani

The policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder. ~ Mayor Richard J. Daley (Chicago)

Me, I'm dishonest, and you can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest. Honestly, it's the honest ones you have to watch out for. ~Johnny Depp

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness. ~ George Washington

Kings may be judges of the earth, but wise men are the judges of kings. ~Solomon Ibn Gabirol

I've had a few arguments with people, but I never carry a grudge. You know why? While you're carrying a grudge, they're out dancing ~Buddy Hackett

You can't tell a millionaire's son from a billionaire's. ~ Vance Packard

The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.~ Bruce Feirstein

When all you own is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. ~Abraham Maslow

Everything depends on circumstances. ~ Leon Trotsky

Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong. ~Adolf Hitler

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over” ~ Joseph Goebbels

Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of 'emergency'. It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And 'emergency' became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains. ~ Herbert Hoover

All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.

~ Adolf Hitler

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise. ~ Adolf Hitler

What good fortune for governments that the people do not think. ~ Adolf Hitler

As I read them through these quotes I found that most of them, even though the quotes in some cases are 40 or 50 years old, dealt with some aspect of how people feel about society, culture, or the government or some aspect of each today. There is definitely a dark side proffered here, a side of distrust and maybe a little fear. I’ll be interested in the type of quotes I’ll read in the coming year. Be back in 2011. . . .

On the Border of the Police State

2010-11-24T18:24:00.000-08:00

One of the locations in the contiguous United States that deserves attention is along the US-Canadian border near Cornwall Ontario, Canada and Hogansburg, NY, USA. Some of the things going on right there near the border have a growing connection to the rest of us. The problems of your rights as a citizen are under attack and we see the beginnings here. The St. Regis Indian Reservation (Akwesasne) is in a fairly remote area and occupies a unique position geographically. It sits on both sides of the St. Lawrence River. Approximately two-thirds of the reservation lies on the US side of the border and one-third on the Canadian side. Akwesasne is located in part of two counties of New York State and two Canadian provinces and interacts with five different jurisdictional governments.”^[1] The reservation is surrounded and divided by two federal jurisdictions: the United States and Canada. Additionally, the reservation must contend with the governments of New York State and the provinces of Ontario and Québec.^[2]Residents of the reservation have three area codes: 613 that covers Southeast Ontario, 514 covering Southwest Québec, and 518 covering Northeast New York. Each serves a different portion of the reservation. This division is echoed by zip codes; the American side’s zip code is 13655 and the Canadian side is H0M 1A0. The population of this multi-jurisdictional community is about 13,000 people.^[3] Because of this unique situation, school students are also affected. Some children from the US side of the border go to Canadian schools, and all or some Canadian children go to US Head Start programs.^[4]

“There are three competing self-governments on the reservation with loyal followings; the Canadian Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council, and the Longhouse Mohawk Nation. Traditionalists from both sides of the reservation follow the rituals and traditions of the Longhouse government however the federal, state, and provincial governments do not officially recognize the Longhouse government.”^[5]The St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council oversees “funding programs from Washington and Albany” and interacts with the US side of the reservation.^[6] The Mohawk Council of Akwesasne connects with Ottawa for Canadian programs and agendas. Each recognized council has its band (membership) lists for its community. Technically, residents of the reservation cannot vote for both councils, however, there is nothing to stop a resident from one side of the reservation from moving from one voting roll to the other.^[7]

Another factor the Mohawks have to contend with, in addition to the multiple institutions, are the various ethnic cultural differences in the area. They must interact with cultures such as the French Canadians, the English Canadians, and a distinctive rural northern New York culture found along the St. Lawrence River.^[8] There seems to be more of an affinity at times between the northern New York Culture and the Mohawk culture. This probably stems from the rural nature of both northern New York and Akwesasne.

Most of the Canadian population lives within 100 miles of the US-Canadian border with a majority of their large cities in this area. The exception would be the Gaspé Peninsula in Québec, Newfoundland and Labrador. The opposite is true on the US side of the border in the east. The few cities you find in the US are relatively small. The largest city near the Reservation would be Burlington, Vt., 100 miles away, with a population of around 500,000. Plattsburgh, NY, the next largest city has a population of 20,000 and is 70 miles away. Massena, NY the closest village to the Reservation is 17 miles away and has 11,000 people. This compares to Cornwall, Ontario, Canada that directly borders the Reservation having a population of 45,000 people and the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area, 100 miles away, having a population of 1,130,761.^[9]

It is easy to see the various cultural differences and it’s not inconceivable that this could be a detriment to the Natives living in the area. In fact these cultural differences caused a number of problems between Akwesasne and the various surrounding jurisdictions. It has also created internal problems on the reservation with strife and divisions and even open gunfire between different factions. In 1990 this violence led to death. Since that time there has been a reconciliation of sorts among the Mohawks.

These circumstances bring up a number of situations. The members of Akwesasne do not recognize the border and they see it as an artificial line that runs through the territory they have occupied continuously since 1754. Even though through the early 1800s the border was crossed at will after the Jay Treaty the border became much less porous and Natives were eventually detained paying tariffs on goods being transported.

Beginning in the1950s the Mohawks tested the limits of trade and commerce and transported household goods from one part of the Reservation to another crossing the border in the process. Examples run from bringing a refrigerator across the border to mobile homes. This has created different factions on the Reservation. There are those who feel the border is being too restrictive for the Mohawks to cross in course of daily business. Another faction uses the border area and the river as a no-mans land transporting all types of contraband. This is not to the first era to witness smuggling. Certainly during prohibition liquor was moved in large quantities and no doubt there was the odd illegal immigrant. However, the area changed in the 1950s when the St Lawrence Seaway was completed. Not only were large amounts of land lost to the power authority for the construction of dams but the area also grew in population. This made it more difficult to move things from one side of Akwesasne to the other. From the 1970s to the 1990s the reservation became an avenue for medical contraband, cigarettes, and immigrants. For some who were moving contraband transporting illegal immigrants was preferred. If you are smuggling drugs and cigarettes and you have to drop the load you lose the whole haul. But if you are moving people, well, they can run, less of a chance that you lose money. This went on without many problems. Sometimes smugglers would be caught but most of the time they got through. Then there was the uprising in 1989-1990.

The uprising was really caused through poor cultural inaction between the parties concerned. Because of this forced and arbitrary division the Mohawks cannot really operate as a unified people. In 1989 there was a problem over casinos being operated on the US side of the border but with factions for and against it on both sides of the border. These differences were allowed to fester until people were killed in 1990. After that the police presence increased year after year with more attention to the drug and cigarette trade. As the police became more active the Mohawk smugglers increased. Many traffickers using high-speed craft go right by border patrol speedboats.

With the increased prosecution of the drug war and certainly after the events of 9-11 the reservation became a police state. There is the reservation constabulary on their respective sides of the border. They deal with the day-to-day police effort on the reservation and are answerable to the local Mohawk government. There are still the same federal, state and provincial law enforcement agencies. However, now they are in greater numbers with roadblocks around all the roads in the area. We are not talking about the typical police DWI stops or the rather benign inspection sticker/seat belt stops. These are roadblocks using federal Border Patrol Agents and at times, backed up by New York State Troopers. They have anywhere from 6 to 20 officers and multiple vehicles. I personally went through a roadblock on one of the main roads in the area with agents carrying sub-machine guns and machine pistols. The questions were calmly asked but the sight of so much firepower was very intimidating. “Where are you from? Why are you here? Where are you going? What are you going to be doing? Have a nice day!” All the time officers are walking around your car and peering into your windows looking for any probable cause to rip through your belongings.

Closer to the reservations it’s even worse. In the small villages of Winthrop, Brasher Falls, Bombay, North Lawrence, and Fort Covington the residents (American citizens) are under surveillance by federal and state agents. They say when they go through the federal roadblocks they get the “stink-eye” if they don’t have a place to say they are going or a reason for what they are doing. Heaven help you if you just want to go for a ride.

On the reservation there is a constant presence. Although the indigenous population doesn’t have to worry about the New York State Police, except on state roads, the Border Patrol theoretically can travel anywhere they like and have a no-knock jurisdictional power up to 100 miles from the border or coast since 9-11. In fact, at Akwesasne, the government forces have begun to run down pleasure craft and ram them. “On Monday April 12^th, [2010] 11:00 p.m., Two Akwesasne men were rammed by a boat in Akwesasne waters by two Royal Canadian Mounted Police accompanied by two, U.S. Border Patrol and one Coast Guard, 5 boats in total.”^[10]

Now the population has to be concerned with the federal government using unmanned drones out of Ft. Drum in Watertown, NY. They are using them for surveillance of the indigenous population and are able to go up to 30 miles into Canada.^[11] “These can accurately fire missiles at specific houses, buildings and even people, just like in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They can take pictures and listen to conversations. . .”^[12] For all practical purposes the Mohawks have no place that isn’t under the watchful eye of one government or another using the eyes of the border patrol. Along the border they practically live in a police state. But is it just the border or is this just where it is starting. The jurisdiction of the Border Patrol reaches up to a hundred miles from the border. This means federal roadblocks are allowed and they do not need any sort of probable caused to search your vehicle and under certain circumstances your residence.^[13] If you draw a line 100 miles in from the border or coast you find a very large percentage of the US population falls under the jurisdictional area of the US Border Patrol or in effect Homeland Security. The area I live in is outside this “border area” but millions of Americans don’t even realize that they live within it. Who would think of Hartford, Conn. being a border city under Border Patrol jurisdiction?

Even those of us who don’t live in these “border” areas can feel an ever-watchful eye on us. After a while you don’t even think about the cameras. At the local college where I teach there are signs at all of the entrances that state, ‘You are under twenty-four hour surveillance while on campus.’ This includes the parking areas, parking garages, sidewalks, hallways and anywhere else they can fit a camera. Even the copy rooms have cameras. The only places that are not under the watchful of “public safety” are the bathrooms and the offices however; the offices have a two-way speaker/microphone in them so theoretically the administration/public safety could listen in on conversations.

It’s not just on the college campuses. Many of the stoplights have cameras on them and most highways have traffic cameras trained on the roadways. In fact in the city where I live they have detecting devices hooked up across the city to help pinpoint gunfire. The manufacturer of the devices states they can be additionally equipped with cameras to record whatever is going on. One wonders when state and local governments will employ their own drones like those that the federal government is operating over “border areas.”

It seems that it’s not just the Mohawks and those who live a few miles from an international border who have to worry about a growing and more interfering police state. But those who live a hundred miles from not just borders but beaches also should be concerned with a growing police enforcement presence. Some of us for now live outside these zones but it’s only a matter of time when what is happening to people closer to the border will be happening right here.

“Where are you from? Why are you here? Where are you going? What are you going to be doing? (Papers please) Have a nice day!”

^[1] Ernest R. Rugenstein, "Clash of Cultures: Uprising at Akwesasne" (Ph.D. dissertation, Union Institute & University, 2009), 2-3.

^[2] Michael T. Kaufman, "To the Mohawk Nation, Boundaries Do Not Exist," The New York Times, April 13, 1984.

^[3] Russel Roundpoint, "Akwesasne, Ca.,” Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, http://www.akwesasne.ca/ (accessed September 10, 2007).

^[4] Kaufman, "To the Mohawk Nation, Boundaries Do Not Exist."

^[5] Rugenstein, "Clash of Cultures: Uprising at Akwesasne," 35.

^[6] Kaufman, "To the Mohawk Nation, Boundaries Do Not Exist."

^[7] Ibid.

^[8] Rugenstein, "Clash of Cultures: Uprising at Akwesasne," 2-3.

^[9] Chamber Directory Search Page. US Chamber of Commerce, Washington DC, http://www.uschamber.com/chambers, Accessed 2010.

^[10]Norrell, Brenda, Akwesasne Men Rammed by Border Patrol, Hospitalized. Censored News, http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2010/04/akwesasne-men-rammed-by-border-patrol.html, Accessed 2010.

^[11]Mohawk National News. Border Guards Gone: U.S. Drones Patrol Akwesasne. Bauru Institute and Press., http://indigenouspeoplesissues.com/index.php?option=com_ content&view=article&id=922:border-guards-gone-us-drones-patrol-akwesasne&catid=52:north-america-indigenous-peoples&Itemid=74, Accessed 2010.

^[12] Ibid.

^[13] United States Government Accountability Office, Report to Congressional Requester: Available Data on Interior Checkpoints Suggest Differences in Sector Performance. Washington DC: United States Border Patrol, 2005, GAO-05-435.

Doing Research on Troy, NY – What do you find? What do you think?

2010-07-30T20:48:00.000-07:00

My wife and I have been remodeling our house since we bought it. In all honesty my wife has been doing most of the remodeling and I’ve been helping. In any case we have been putting the house back into shape, replacing doors, (we found the original French doors in the basement and refurbished them) and removing paneling and suspended ceilings. My wife has plastered walls and repaired windows - bringing the house back toward its original condition. In the winter we work inside and in the summer we naturally have been working outside. While endeavoring to cut down on the amount of grass that needs to be cut and putting in gardens to beautify we found a number of curbs buried in the ground. We started to investigate what they were and where they came from and it led us down a path to a taste of the history of our house and of Troy, NY itself.

As we explored out new property in 2004 we could tell that there was a lot of curbing around the property. It had broken off in spots. Also in the lawn was the tell tale sign of concrete sticking up through the grass. The thought was that maybe there had been a garage or shed there. However, when we began digging up this part of the yard for flower gardens we found old curbing buried about 5 inches below the ground. At first it looked like there was charred wood or charcoal mixed in but with further investigation it was discovered to be old asphalt.

When we found the curbing and possible charcoal we wondered if there had been another house on the property. An investigation into the deeds for the property stretched back to 1920. This revealed the history of the house and some history from before the area was gridded off for streets and lots. It was around then that what we thought was old charcoal was in reality old asphalt.

From county records I traced the sale of the property in 1921 to the building of the house in 1922 to the improvements made in 1935. This information was particularly important to find. You see, the house we are living in was built, according to the deed, in 1935. But from the great wealth of information I have found my wife and I decided there is no evidence to support that the current house is not the original house. The changes in the year theoretically could have occurred when the information was computerized. So in reality the house was built here in1922 with the improvement of a back porch and an asphalt patio occurring in 1935.

Searching county records also gave some pre-15^th St. history of the area. Thomas Sausse, who lived near the location of present day St. Mary’s hospital, once owned the land on which the house sits. The entrance to the property was off McAdam Rd. (Hoosick St.) or also from Sausse Ave. East of him was the burgeoning city of Troy from Oakwood Ave down to the Hudson River. West of Sause was Gary Brothers who owned land near present day RPI, across McAdam St. to near the present day Frear Park boundary. Even further east lived Nelson Betts who owned land and a large orchard somewhere near what is now 20^th St.

Even more information is found in the old city directories. From the deeds I had a rough idea of who owned the house and when the house was built. There is additional info in the directories than what can be found in county records. The city directories begin to tell you something about the people who lived in the city. There was no 1921 Troy, NY city directory but from the 1922 edition I found that this house and lot was the first one on 15^th St. north of Hoosick St. (McAdam Rd.). The first owners were part of the up and coming class of the 1920s. The Jarvis’ moved from a nice section of the city on Grand St. to up on the hill where the new middle class was building homes. William H. Jarvis was probably more than that. He was the Head Teller, an executive level position in 1920, of the Manufacturing National Bank of Troy, NY and Secretary/Treasurer of the Marshall Sanatorium.

Jarvis’ bought the property from Burton W. Feathers, a builder and speculator who bought a number of lots conditionally from Lindenwood Reality Company and its owner William S Hamill. Hamill owned a construction company, the Hamill Construction Co. Feathers eventually settled down on 15^th St. years later.

Hamill had drawn the housing parcels of the area for the city while he owned a contracting engineering firm called the William S. Hamill Co. 1905-1918. He had been Asst. Engineer of Troy Water Works 1904-1905 was also Superintendant of Construction for the Hudson Valley Construction Co 1905-1911. This is the same year the Hudson Valley Construction Company finished a contract for building infrastructure at Great Meadows Prison. A side note to all of this is that the Hudson Valley Construction Company was indicted in 1913 with Hamill named in the indictment along with the other officers, who included Cornelius V. Collins, Franklin B. Ware, Charles A. Sussdorf, Charles P. Boland, Millard S. Goyer, Timothy D. Lenehan, Samuel Blumenthal and Frank W. Lynch. [1] On April 17, 1914 they were convicted of grand larceny in a debacle of the building of Great Meadows State Prison in Comstock, NY. Apparently construction costs were inflated to almost twice the actual cost. The Hamill Construction Company began in 1918

The Jarvis’ owned the house from 1922 to 1945, a total of 23 years. His wife Sarah Ann died in November of 1944 and the house was empty until it was bought in 1945. Apparently William Jarvis moved near to the United States Naval Training Center near Sampson, NY after his wife died. His son William H. Jr. had been a student with RPI and could have lived in western New York. The new family moving in was the Marvellis.

Anthony and Rose F. Marvelli bought the house in April 1945. According to the deed they bought the house and property along with screens, storm windows, all the awnings on the premises, hot point refrigerator, gas and coal range, Garwood air conditioner and the coal in the basement. They also had a daughter named Anna Mae. Anna Mae had a dance studio, Marvelli Dance Studio, at 71-73 4^th St., Troy, NY. Anthony was a machine operator and Rose it is assumed took care of the house. In January of 1950 Anthony deeded the property over to Rose and then passed away in March of 1950.

Evidence points to around this time Anna Mae met a musician name John F. Romeo. They eventually married with John buying the property from Rose F. in March of 1954. Rose was listed as the owner in the city directories until 1959 passing away in 1990. John Romeo opens Romeo’ Music store with Anne Mae (Marcelli Dance Studio) continuing her dance lessons. In December of 1954 the Romeo’s bought the two vacant city lots that existed between the paper 14^th St. and the back of their property, increasing the size of the property to 3 city lots, almost a quarter acre. The Romeo’s own the property until 1980. This is the longest possession by the same family in the history of the house. Anna Mae (Marvelli) Romeo (Julian) lived in the house almost 35 years.

In October 1980, Kathleen M. Avakian bought the house from the Romeos and moved in. She worked at RPI as a waitress with Deka Food Services. She meets and eventually marries Charles A. Pike who is a molder at Ross Valve on Oakwood Ave. In June 1984 Kathleen M. Avakian, now Pike, sells the property to Robert J. and Eleanor M. Wright.

Robert was a machine operator with General Electric. He and Eleanor raised a large family there. They witnessed a number of changes on the street from seeing it as shady tree covered street to when the city came in and cut down all the trees down around 1994. They saw repaving of the street, a sidewalk project and new trees planted. The property itself was covered and shaded with maple trees. The Wrights owned the house from 1984 until we bought the house in 2004 a total of 20 years.

When we bought the house in 2004 a number of kitchen iterations had occurred. A seat had been built in the bay window in the dining room and the plaster and lath walls had been covered with paneling. Drop ceilings were added and extra insulation was added to the windows and doors. Most of this is now gone. We have brought the house back as close as possible to the original design and continue in that direction.

All of this is the mere tip of the information iceberg on the area and even on the home. I plan on researching and writing a history of the area where the house sits from Paleolithic and Native interaction with the land to Dutch contact, to the Patroonship, through the development of Troy and intertwining it with the history of the people who lived on 15^th St. near Frear Park.

What do you think?

[1] PEOPLE v. HUDSON VALLEY CONSTRUCTION CO., 217 N.Y. 172 (1916)

See maps that follow this post.

Troy, NY Map - 1923

2010-07-30T20:43:00.000-07:00

Troy, NY Map - 1880s

2010-07-30T20:42:00.000-07:00

Troy, NY Map - 1861

2010-07-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

Troy, NY Map - 1858

2010-07-30T20:33:00.000-07:00

Troy, NY Map - 1845

2010-07-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

Clash of cultures: Uprising at Akwesasne

2010-06-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

Abstract

This dissertation proposes a new premise for the increasing conflict that led to the uprising and death in 1990 on the Akwesasne (St. Regis Indian) Reservation. The author argues that it was how the governments of United States, Canada, Ontario and Québec provinces, and especially New York State communicated and interacted culturally with each other and the Mohawks of Akwesasne that led to the violence. The long-held explanation for the hostility on the reservation is that the bureaucratic differences and lack of cooperation between the two countries were responsible. This document explains that the root causes of the conflict were subtler and that the United States and Canadian jurisdictional communications with the Mohawks were culturally insensitive and confusing, and that the New York State government acted too late to stem the escalating conflict. The writer used historical methodology and reviewed twelve hundred written sources, including newspaper articles and eyewitness accounts; of these, approximately seven hundred sources satisfied historical research criteria. These sources show that during 1989, the governments of United States, Canada, Ontario and Québec provinces, and particularly New York State, ignored repeated requests from the elected tribal governments for assistance to address the intensifying conflict on the United States' side of the reservation. By 1990, the various governments recognized the seriousness of the situation, but New York State, which had the greatest ability to act, did not do so until after the exacerbation of violence led to deaths. New York State ignored the tribal government's pleas for help in curbing and stopping the violence at Akwesasne until it was too late. It was the lack of culturally appropriate communication that caused the uprising and deaths.

Rugenstein, Ernest Richard, IV, Ph.D., Union Institute and University, 2009, 227 pages; AAT 3395015

Order a copy: http://bit.ly/boDIKQ

Foiled again: Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

2010-05-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

Looking at the latest news we find ourselves confronted with the combined truth of rhetoric and propaganda. The United States is one of the biggest proponents of the rights of humans. Human Rights are part of the US national conversation. In fact certain human rights are so important in the US that they are mandated in the Bill of Rights, the first amendments to the US Constitution. The idea of human rights is not just considered domestically but US foreign policy is guided by the idea of people having inalienable rights. Yet we find that in a practical sense the US concern over human rights is not so important. We talk a good game about the abuses of China and yet we don’t have any problems trading with them. The concerns for the rights of women are important to the US as long as it doesn’t impinge on our access to oil and profits.

Don’t get me wrong the US is by far more benevolent toward the rights of people than many regimes around the world. But still, let’s not kid ourselves, just because you aren’t the biggest bully in the school doesn’t mean you’re not a bully. It just means there are those that are worse. That doesn’t excuse the minor bully’s behavior. From the US take over of Hawaii in 1896 through the military occupation of the Philippines (via Spanish-American War) to the diplomatic imperialism of the ‘Open Door Policy’ in China, the US has shown its nature. Let’s just say that in a game of RISK you wouldn’t trust the US player.

Human rights in the US are tricky to understand. Most of the treaties made with recognized nations of Native Americans have been abrogated in some way. In fact the US has gone so far as to try to disband and unrecognize tribes. Originally, Indians were placed on reservations to marginalize them and later this was combined with trying to assimilate their children to eradicate the culture altogether. Overall, little has changed. Certainly since the beginnings of Red Power and the American Indian Movement of the late 1960s Native Americans have regained some of what they have lost. However, we find many complaints about treatment by Native groups concerning interaction with the federal government and its subordinates. An example of this is a Mohawk powerboat that was run-down by the US Coast Guard and Border Patrol. The boat and its two male crew were traveling from one portion of the Akwesasne Reservation to another. The reservation is divided by the US and Canadian border, which is not recognized by the Indians. During the night a Mohawk boat, going between points on the reservation, was chased, first by the RCMP, and in the end rammed by a US Coast Guard ship. The ramming of the Mohawk boat injured its two passengers. One of the Mohawks is currently paralyzed. There was no contraband found or in fact alleged. This is a case where Native rights are being ignored by the US, a situation where laws and rules are imposed on a sovereign people with no regard to ancient and historic rights or land ownership.[1]

Just recently during another round of voting the United States refused to vote for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.[2] “On Sept. 13, 2007 the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to protect their lands and resources, and to maintain their unique cultures and traditions. About 370 million indigenous people live in the world.”[3] The US, Canada, and Australia have decided not to vote in favor of the UN rights declaration. New Zealand has recently changed its stance.

The perplexing thing here is that the US wants to come across as the human rights champion of the world and puts up a good front in doing it. Yet, here in the United States we find hundreds of thousands of Native peoples who are part of indigenous nations whose rights are ignored. Many have these rights guaranteed by treaties and in some cases law. “Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild-west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination - by starvation and uneven combat - of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity.”[4]

If the US signs the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples then major changes would have to occur in the treatment of indigenous people here in the US. Certainly if Canada and the US sign there would be a redistribution of federal lands and situations such as Akwesasne could no longer occur.

Just recently the US is considering reviewing its stance on this UN declaration. If signing means that human relationships will become better and people will be treated fairer, shouldn’t the US sign?

[1] Nesseth, David. Akwesasne Wants Independent Investigation of Boat Crash. Standard Freeholder, http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2534875, April 15, 2010.

[2] Staff. US Says No to Indigenous Rights. Sunday. Press TV, http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=124290&sectionid=3510203, April 25, 2010.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Toland, John. Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976, 702.

What makes you a citizen?

2010-03-15T19:04:00.000-07:00

In my last posting I wrote about how indigenous people were reclaiming rights in some instances and exerting their rights in others. On two of the reservation of the Mohawks, Akwesasne and Kahnawake, non-Natives are being evicted. This is a process that has occurred in the past and is used to ensure tribal/ethnic "status”. Doug George-Kanentio wrote “at Akwesasne, as is true on other Mohawk territories, having "status" is as precious as it is precarious. Precisely who is considered a Mohawk is a four-step process involving blood quantum, family relations, quality of character, and communal standing. At Akwesasne a person might be 100 per cent native genetically but if they do not adhere to the social standards of the community they might be excluded or expelled.”[1]

The need for native communities to maintain a certain “status” among their people is understandable and in some ways no different for identifying membership than other ethno-centered religions or world-views. The point of interest comes in asking what would the implications be if international nation-states used some form of this four-fold test to identify citizenship? Would they look at a person’s genetic markers instead of some form of blood quantum to see if they had the right ‘stuff?’ Could they identify family relations and review their quality of character try to measure your community standing? According to a four-fold test being born in the country would only count 25% toward being kept as a citizen.

The first part of the four-fold test used by the Natives as a test for citizenship is the blood quantum. This requirement concerns the outdated idea that different races had different types of blood. Although no longer used in its ancient sense it is still used in the Native American community as a simple test of pedigree among the members. Different tribes have different requirements, however it’s not that different than being a naturally born citizen of the US. Either the person is born here in the US or one of the parents is a US citizen. This is a blood quantum of sorts, a pedigree. Presently this is the only requirement for US citizenship. Otherwise you are naturalized which takes on other requirements.

If the government were to adopt the other three aspects of the test it could change the dynamics of citizenship immensely. How would we handle further requirements? Look at the second requirement, what are your family relationships? How do you answer the question as to where you are from or where do your relatives live? Who are your friends? The government would have the right to categorize people into different threat levels or acceptable citizenship levels. Do you cavort with the right people or hobnob with the politically correct? Your citizenship could depend on it.

Add to the aforementioned requirements, requirements three and four and you will have a citizenship test that would be nearly all subjective. Along with the requirements of “blood quantum” and family relationships the quality of your character would be analyzed along with your community standing. What aspects of character would be looked into? Do you belong to ‘Save the Whales?’ Is that a good thing or bad? Would a criminal record mean something, would drug use, maybe liking too many cheeseburgers would be a crime. Do you smoke? Shame on you for smoking, but we’ll take the tax money. Maybe you’re to conservative or liberal, a socialist or a hard-nose capitalist. How would this affect the overall equation in the four-fold test?

The fourth requirement talks about community standing. Do you go to church? Atheist? Monotheistic? Owe a lot of money? Pay your mortgage on time? Have you ever gotten behind on your income tax? Are you for the war, against the war? The answers to these questions could determine your fate as a citizen. Under these circumstances anybody could lose their citizenship or gain it. How much would prevalent moral attitudes change interpretation of the standards? Trying to become a citizen during prohibition may make a difference in acceptance.

The four-fold test for membership makes sense and works in ethno-centric cultural circumstances such as in a religion or ethnicity. Natives Americans need some test to determine tribal membership and this method works well. However, a similar test used to test citizenship in relation to a nation-state would be too subjective.

For a country to come up with a set of tests to ensure correct citizenship smells of emperor worship found during the Roman Empire. To stay in the good graces of Rome and to show loyalty you had to worship the Emperor as a God. A little incense in the fire and a simple ‘Hail Caesar’ and you were good to go. This is the same thing that a test for citizenship would bring. It would be based on some preconceived notion of future bio-politics and justifiable morality. Whatever is deemed the best for the country or should I say state, would be the how the answers would be interpreted. If you fell outside some preconceived norms you would be expelled (possibly terminated) from the citizenry.

There is a 1996 movie called “Escape from LA.” In the movie it’s 2013. The United States has gone through a series of catastrophes and LA has been separated from the mainland. The US government has become a theocracy and non-desirables are expelled out of the country to live in LA. War hero Snake Plissken is sent into LA to get a device that can destroy modern society. During the time period of the movie the US tests the citizens by having a code of conduct that is acceptable. If you don’t measure up you’re out or if you like, dead. One can see the natural desire in our own society for there to be a test for patriotism, good character, loyalty, etc. Ultra-conservatives and I am afraid some ultra-liberals would like to see something like this. Everyone is afraid and wants to be sure their neighbor is a good guy, all of our needs cared for in one way or another. Sounds nice to be safe and totally secure as a country but at what price. If you watch “Escape from LA” you’ll see how being a citizen could become skewed and that the freedoms you think you have can leave with a vote. Far fetched? Probably. But a test may be in our futures to see if you are a real patriot. Do you think the right way? Act the right way? Believe the right way? I doubt it will come to that. In any case I don’t think we could find a Snake Plissken to save the day.

[1] George-Kanentio, Doug. Why Mohawks Are Kicking Non-Natives Off the Reserve. The Gazette, 2010. Accessed. Available from http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/todays-paper/Mohawks+kicking+natives+reserve/2558867/story.html.

Indigenous Peoples Reclaiming Their Rights

2010-02-28T10:34:00.000-08:00

The 370 million indigenous people around the world are beginning to reclaim the rights they once had. Most were the victim of Social Darwinism where with natural selection the stronger subdues and subjugates the weaker. We have found this repeated in North & South America, Africa, across the Pacific and to the indigenous people in Europe and Asia. This attitude of the oppressor changed when the United Nations General Assembly adopted The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on September 13, 2007. This spurred the surge of indigenous people reclaiming their rights.[1]

Just recently the Natives in Noorvik, Alaska were regaining reinstituting ancient traditions banned by missionaries. Quakers who came to spread Christianity declared traditional dancing evil. At the Cup’ik Eskimo village of Chevak, native dancing was banned by the Russian Catholic Church but revived 20 years ago. When the council at Noorvik found out they would be one of the first communities to be counted by the US census, they wanted to demonstrate their native dance and culture when the federal officials arrived. Even the Christian churches are backing the shift saying that they will be going to a place in the afterlife where we all sing and dance to the Lord. The reintroduction of the dance is significant because dancing has never been done in the current location of Noorvik, which means "a place that is moved to" in Inupiaq.[2]

Native Hawaiians are also trying to regain the rights that were stolen from them in the 1893 coup by native-born descendants of US immigrants backed by US Marines and the Cruiser Boston. Congress has introduced a bill that will allow Native Hawaiians to have a separate government with federal land being redistributed to the people. After years of figurative fighting, the voices of indigenous Hawaiians have finally been heard. The bill will define “Native Hawaiians” as a distinct ethnic group that can trace its lineage directly to indigenous inhabitants of the island prior to 1893. Although some are still fighting the issue, the Governor of Hawaii is strongly supportive.[3]

The indigenous people of Canada also have been struggling. “The Lil'wat, Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations' journey began in 1997.”[4] The recent Olympics have shown that they are no longer “Dime-Store Indians” and are contributors to the nation. The Canadian government had wanted to assimilate them and had outlawed their culture and their language. This is all beginning to change and the First Nations of Canada are trying to their place in the nation. The 633 nations of Canada are now trying to find a new method of partnership.[5]

In Northern New York the Akwesasne Reservation and the Kahnawake Reservation along with other tribes of the Hodenosaunee’s six nations are asserting their rights to control the membership of the nations and who can live on their reservations. They have been accused of being racist but in reality they are just trying to take back control that has been ebbing over time. “At Akwesasne, as is true on other Mohawk territories, having "status" is as precious as it is precarious. Precisely who is considered a Mohawk is a four-step process involving blood quantum, family relations, quality of character, and communal standing. At Akwesasne a person might be 100 per cent native genetically but if they do not adhere to the social standards of the community they might be excluded or expelled.”[6] The US has come to the point where they allow the Native nations a great deal of latitude over their internal affairs, however this is not the same in the province of Québec. As the Mohawks try to solidify their community at Kahnawake, the Canadians view it as racist. “One Quebec writer asked whether the evictions were ‘ethnic cleansing,’ or simply ‘downright racism.’ Federal Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl says he is ‘uncomfortable’ with the evictions. But Strahl admitted there was nothing illegal about them -- and probably nothing the government could do.”[7] It is interesting to note that Québec has no qualms with their own past and the terrible way the First Nations were treated there in the past.

We finally see Native groups reasserting their rights. Even in South America various indigenous groups are moving forward. An example is the Wayúu people who are rebuilding their culture and moving forward in modernizing their lives after being oppressed by various governments.

I applaud the efforts of the Native people around the world to rebuild their nations and to take their rightful place in the world. It is about time that the world recognizes what has occurred and what the idea of Social Darwinism has done to so many. The rest of us, non-Natives, should remember our past of imperialism and the way we destroyed entire peoples. The strongest and the majority are not always right.

[1] UN. "United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People." New York: United Nations, 2007.

[2] D'oro, Rachel. Alaska Village among Native Communities Reclaiming Ancient Traditions Banned by Missionaries. Nation. Los Angeles Times, 2010. Accessed February 21,. Available from http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-reclaiming-native-tradition,0,4992523.story.

[3] D'oro, Rachel. Alaska Village among Native Communities Reclaiming Ancient Traditions Banned by Missionaries. Nation. Los Angeles Times, 2010. Accessed February 21,. Available from http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-reclaiming-native-tradition,0,4992523.story.

[4] Moore, Dennis. Canadian Aboriginal Tribes Want Benefits to Extend Beyond Olympics. USA Today, 2010. Accessed. Available from http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/vancouver/2010-02-25-aboriginal-canadians_N.htm.

[5] Ibid.

[6] George-Kanentio, Doug. Why Mohawks Are Kicking Non-Natives Off the Reserve. The Gazette, 2010. Accessed. Available from http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/todays-paper/Mohawks+kicking+natives+reserve/2558867/story.html.

[7] Cudmore, James. Are Recent Kahnawake Eviction Notices Racist? CBC News: The National, 2010. Accessed. Available from http://www.cbc.ca/politics/insidepolitics/2010/02/are-recent-kahnawake-eviction-notices-racist.html#socialcomments.

Skin Color Map for Indigenous People

2010-02-28T10:28:00.000-08:00

Avatar, Kosovo, and Akwesasne.

2010-01-02T08:46:00.000-08:00

One of the newest movies out is Avatar. I found it to be a good movie experience with some of the best motion-capture graphics I’ve seen. It was a combination of the colors and other worldliness that kept my interest. It told an action packed story with a romance angle where the oppressed eventually win out over oppressor. But it was more than that. The whole experience was rounded out with a caution to enlighten people of today when interacting with other cultures, don’t oppress but collaborate. In some respects the plot is familiar to many. The movie is a rendition of conflict between indigenous peoples and a seemingly superior imperialist culture. What is clear is the wishes of the indigenous people are ignored and the new “superior” culture is forced upon them.

Kosovo today is an enclave of ethnic Albanians and a minority of ethnic Serbians that is a recognized international state. Its beginnings however are tied much closer to Serbia In fact Kosovo is remembered by many as Old Serbia and since the 1100s as the homeland of the Serbian people. In the 1400s the Ottoman Turks controlled the region and with the ending of World War One the region was coalesced into what would in modern history be called Yugoslavia. With the Tito and the communist era Kosovo was seen as a semi-autonomous region of Yugoslavia. With the 1990s, Serbian irredentist feelings gave rise to its claims over Kosovo. Its arguments included the history of the area and the ties to it as their homeland. The new residents were appeased and on June 16, 2008 with the backing of the United States, Kosovo was recognized with full international status. One has to wonder if the US will support a similar situation in its own southwest. We have seen in the not to distant past how the US treated its indigenous populations and how Indian land was reallocated.[1]

So how do the other two situations tie into Akwesasne? Akwesasne, also known as the St. Regis Indian Reservation, lies on both sides of the US-Canadian Border along the St. Lawrence River in Northern New York and Southern Canada. Since the late 1700s the Mohawks at Akwesasne have been caught between different major cultures with their respective federal institutions. Within the last 100 years the Mohawks have been dealing with five different jurisdictions each with constabulary. Unlike the movie Avatar these natives were not successful in resisting the capitalistic taking of their land and the crushing of their culture. In many ways the cultural destruction reached a peak during the Uprising at Akwesasne 1989-1990 when two natives died. Although gambling and gaming on the reservation was the catalyst the real problem was the surrounding majority cultures ignoring the Mohawks concerns, needs, and requests for help. The situation was allowed to boil over into gunfire and violence. The whole problem came down to sovereignty and who was ultimately in charge of Indian land. During 1989-1990 the tribal governments recognized by Canada and the US were ineffective and hampered the Mohawks in dealing with community wide problems. Even when these tribal governments requested help they were ignored. What the situation needed then was a single Native government structure that governed all of the Mohawks regardless of which side of the River they were on or what imposed jurisdictional district they found themselves in. The Mohawks need a government that is autonomous and not controlled by external forces.[2]

The Serbs look back to an earlier time and see Kosovo as part of Greater Serbia. In some respects it was torn from their culture by war and the influence of outside cultures. This is similar to the situation at Akwesasne which gives rise to irredentist feelings the Mohawks have over their land. Large portions of their property have been taken over time with the last great loss occurring during the St. Lawrence Seaway project and international bridge construction. At this time for all practical purposes the Mohawks of Akwesasne are divided jurisdictionally and saddled with governments divided over international borders.

Historically the Mohawks have had free range over the northeastern portion of North America. This status was eventually codified in the Jay Treaty: Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation (1794) and further explained and guaranteed in the Explanatory Article to Article 3 of the Jay Treaty (1796). Not only did the Jay Treaty normalize relations between Great Britain and its former colonies, the United States, it also made promises to the Mohawks and a number of other indigenous tribes along the border. The Mohawks were promised unfettered access to both sides of the border and that no treaty or agreement could alter it. This is what the treaty states and is still the view that the Mohawks have. They have lived up to their end of the agreement. However, because of the War of 1812 and the subsequent Treaty of Ghent (1814) the Mohawks were given their rights back but now they are by statute, which gives the Mohawks a different status. Interestingly enough aspects of “white” culture such as borders, transactions and the ability to own property were not affected. However, the Native aspects of being able to transport their property and goods where ever they wanted on what they considered their land was abrogated by the 1814 treaty. The problem of paying duty or not paying duty persists today.[3]

For the Mohawks the time since the uprising has been a roller coaster of promises and disappointments with legal gambling and more police presence being the most obvious out comes. Both federal governments and the associated state or provincial governments have created their own set of tensions for the Mohawks. Currently, because of Mohawk fears of armed Canadian Custom officials, the Custom Offices for Canada have been removed from Cornwall Island and placed on the main land. Now if someone from Cornwall Island wants to go to a part of the reservation in New York they must drive to Cornwall, Canada first. If they don’t the Mohawk’s car is confiscated and they pay a heavy fine. The whole process is retributive. This is in addition to the daily problems of someone crossing from the Canadian portion of the reservation in Ontario to another Canadian portion in Québec and having to go through New York State to reach their final destination. Possibly having to pay duty on an item that has never left Akwesasne. These problems persist year after year. It is time for the Natives to figuratively send the outsiders home and reclaim their land and sovereignty as in Avatar. It is time for the US and Canada to turn over their portions of the reservation to the official government of Akwesasne, what ever form it takes and let the Mohawks make their own decisions and control their own land. Of course there would need to be some form of restitution for the land that can never be reclaimed.

Let’s put a stop to an unimaginable hardship in northern New York, southern Ontario, and southern Québec. Just as the world created the international state of Kosovo, let them recognized an entity already in existence with full international statehood, Akwesasne.

[1] Jansen, G. Richard. Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo: An Abbreviated History, an Opening for the Islamic Jihad in Europe, Colorado State University, July 22, 2008 April 25, 1999 (accessed Dec 20, 2009) http://lamar.colostate.edu/~grjan/kosovohistory.html.

[2] Rugenstein, Ernest R., Ph.D. "Clash of Cultures: Uprising at Akwesasne." Union Institute & University, 2009.

[3] Ibid.

Mohawk Warriors Society

2010-01-02T08:45:00.001-08:00

Haudenosaunee - People of the Longhouse

2010-01-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

The Debtor's Prison of Today

2009-11-23T18:52:00.000-08:00

Imagine yourself as a farmer in the early 1800s. You probably own a 40-acre farm with a 1/2 dozen milking cows, a few heifers, a team of horses and some crops in the field. You’re a farmer. Unlike today where you get your guaranteed-to-germinate seed from Monsanto in 1840 it was a hit or miss situation. A few years of bad harvests, animal disease and you find yourself in debt. Your creditors come after you for payment and after a while a few persistent ones get a judgment against you. The judge orders you to pay. They liquidate all your possessions, but there is still money owed. You and your entire immediate family are put in a jail. In some cases they would keep you in the jail until your debt was satisfied.(1)

The jails were dirty being nothing more than large rooms broken into cells with steel bars to keep the debtors in. Disease was rampant and typhoid was known to spread from person to person. Many times more than one family lived together in a cell. They would let family members go out to work and then return every night until the bill was paid. The local court or town would put up markers to delineate how far away from the jail a debtor could go to get a job to pay off their debts. Any farther away and they would be charged with escape. Those with large debts could be living in debtor’s prison for years. Sometimes only the head of the household was imprisoned leaving the rest of the family to satisfy the debt. The family would also be limited in their travels.(2)

Until the mid 1800s a person could be jailed in the US for failing to pay off debts, fines and even taxes. Many times you were not only expected to liquidate the debt to get out of jail but also to pay for the cost of your imprisonment.(3) Originally, the whole idea of a debtor's prison was to encourage repayment of the debt as quickly as possible. Imprisoning people was incentive enough however many simply did not have the skills to take care of the situation. Debtor’s prisons were legal in the US until 1833 when the government passed laws to end the practice.(4)

Most would say that today debtor’s prisons no longer exist. You cannot be jailed because you owe money on your JC Penny charge card or that you are 3 months behind with the pool guy. They just don’t treat debt that way any more. The only way you can be imprisoned for a debt is if involves certain types of fraud, alimony, or child support. Otherwise there are bankruptcy laws and reorganization programs to take care of debt. However, this is starting to change.

Just recently a judge “in Southern Indiana, decided that debtors’ prison needed a comeback. In one case Herman Button, who owed $1,800 to a former landlord but had no assets or income beyond social security, was summoned to court where a … judge threatened him with contempt and imprisonment if he did not pay.”(5) Although a higher court overturned Button’s imprisonment the precedent has been set. Additionally, just as in the past where not only would you have to serve and pay off your debt many prisons are charging prisoners for room and board.(6)

I am not worried about the debtor’s prison of the past coming back into vogue. The idea of going to jail in our modern society is not very reasonable. There would be no way to obtain satisfaction on the debt. Debtor’s prisons today are more much more insidious. There are no bars on the windows or jailer’s keys to unlock the door and yet we find ourselves locked in today more than ever. And although the signs are no longer there at the edge of town to draw a line in the sand there are walls now which lock us in and we can’t see. Today our credit scores limit us. They control the types of loans we can acquire and the interest rate we are locked into if we successfully get a loan. Many will say that this is our own fault, that we are the masters of our credit score. This is a true statement in many cases, however there are those who have befallen on hard times because of no fault of their own.

How many of us have gone for a car loan and heard the salesman say something like, “Listen, the payment seems a little high now, but remember you’ll be getting a raise in the future and today’s dollars won’t be worth the same in the future.” To many the logic was there. In the 1940s my father worked for about $35 a week and could feed a family of three, own a used car and pay rent on an apartment. What’s $35 today? Lunch for two. A sale was made and a car was bought on the promise of the future. But how fast things could change with the loss of a job, or with a prolonged illness or hospitalization and the debt rises fast. The only loser is the debtor. The car dealer and the salesman were paid. The bank will eventually get its money back through repossession of the car and the forced repayment of the debt. The only options for the debtor are repayment or bankruptcy.

This is the situation with student loans. Men and women of all ages decided to go back to school with the promise of a better future. Certainly in our society the higher your education the better your chances of a better life. The “good times” would have been limited to the wealthy if it was not for the federal and state student loan programs and the compliment of private student loans. Many of those who took loans out were following the logic of the used car salesman. Student borrowers, because of their lack of experience about finances and interest rates, were taken advantage of by the banks that will always get their money. The colleges had great degree programs that are expensive but have the promise of a fantastic life if you succeed. Banks with the help of the federal governments willingly gave out money telling their borrowers not to worry. Students/debtors would have to repay but once they got their fabulous job because of finishing their degree, the loan repayments will be negligible over time.

It all works until there are bad economic times. Just as with the car owner, the student is the only one who will get hurt. The difference is the banks can’t repossess the degree, but they can put you in a virtual debtor’s prison. (At least it’s virtual for now.) If the student defaults on his loans, the universities have already been paid. Whatever portion of the loan isn’t guaranteed by the federal government, the banks will force the student to repay over time. While the repayment is occurring the student is branded with their credit score. It locks them into a life of sub-standard housing and transit. In some places mass transit is non-existent and good personal transportation almost impossible. Then there is the situation of a student that hasn’t finished their degree but cannot get a loan because of their credit score. Because of this the banks ensure repayment regardless of the hardship the debtor is going through or the suffering of their family. These are not people who were greedy trying to have physical possessions but went on a journey to better themselves and those around them.

The current economic situation has collapsed academia in significant ways. Some colleges are cutting back on classes, which means fewer professors hired and fewer students attending because of lack of loans. Graduates are finding themselves with fewer job prospects but with the debt of school hanging over their head. Even if they get a job, it may not be in their field or the salary has been reduced for new hires. Unfortunately, the cost of living continues to rise without any relief in sight. At times graduates can find work to live on but not to cover the school loans. They find their credit scores not just keeping them out of the housing market, but out of the running to rent decent apartments. The problems are starting to compile. If the situation continues you will see bankruptcies in the student population rising. Even though the school loans can’t be discharged they will cause students to default on the others. The worst-case scenario would be a large educated disaffected class of people who are without work and in debt with nothing to lose. They’re in debtor’s prison and may be there for years.

_______________________________
1) Michael Pollick, “What is Debtor’s Prison?” Wisegeek, http://www.wisegeek.com/ what-is-debtors-prison.htm (assessed November 19, 2009).
2)Ibid.
3)MyVesta US, “History of Credit and Debt,” MyVesta US, http://myvesta.org/history/ history_debtorprison.html (assessed November 10, 2009).
4) Pollick, “What is Debtor’s Prison?”
5) Marlys Harris, “Could Debtors’ Prison Make a Comeback?” Moneywatch.com, http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/consumer-reporter/could-debtors-prison-make-a-comeback/242/ (assessed November 11, 2009).
6) Ibid.

History doesn’t repeat itself.

2009-10-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

Mark Twain once said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” There is truth in that statement. Many times those who are not students of history will say just the opposite. That somehow history will repeat itself if given enough time, say1000 years, and another Hitler or Stalin would arise or another Genghis Kahn would destroy those powers around him or that eventually a Golden Hoard will cover all of Asia and Eastern Europe. Nothing could be further from the truth. The chance of another Civil War occurring in the United States over slavery and state’s rights is almost impossible and going to war with the Canadians as in the War of 1812 is not even practical. However it’s not just the part of the quote “history doesn’t repeat itself…” that is true, but the second part “…it does rhyme” is also applicable. Similar circumstances will bring about similar results. Although Tyrannies were popular from around 650 BCE to 500 BCE in ancient Greece they were never resurrected there and were only used in limited ways in other times.1 In modern times Bonapartism, which is similar to Tyrannies, has many of the same characteristics, such as coming to power as a populist, but it is still not quite the same. Think of it in terms used in the fashion world. In the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a fad called bell-bottoms. Today there is something similar called flares. Not exactly the same thing but very similar. Another fashion fad would be the hip-huggers of the 1970s and low-rise jeans that are popular today. The clothes are very similar but not quite the same. As I’ve said, the same sort of thing happens in history.

An example of this loosely speaking “rhyme” in history is the rise and fall of international-states and super-powers. All empires, régimes, dynasties, republics, dictatorships, or commonwealths have a beginning, a period of ascendancy, a period of apogee, and then a period of decline until the entity no longer is powerful or doesn’t exist.2 We find this throughout history from ancient times to today and can pick any time period and find an international-state that has gone through this cycle. Some of the rise and falls are short and rather easy to discern. The German Empire of 1871 to 1918 would be a good example of this. The empire was formed through victories at war and the skillfulness of the Minister President of Prussia and eventually Imperial Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. The German Empire at the time had the leading military in Europe, and was an industrialized nation with natural resources and a growing economy. However, by 1918 the empire was finished because of internal and external forces. Of course the war and the armistice left Germany crippled internationally and militarily with a huge debt. But the internal problems were just as difficult. Germany had a population that was starving because of poor harvests and blockades by the victors that lasted until July 1919. Additionally, the economy was faltering with runaway inflation and the paper currency being devalued.3

Those international-states/empires that have had longer life, at least a couple of centuries, show similar problems. A good example of this is the Ottoman Empire that lasted 624 years. From its infant beginnings in 1299 the Ottoman Empire grew to be one of the largest and most powerful empires in Asia Minor. At one point it contained most of North Africa, Palestine and the rest of the Middle East and a large portion of what was the Persia Empire. It contained all of Anatolia and a large portion of what is known as Romalia reaching up though to Transylvania and Moldavia. Yet by 1923 it was gone. All that was left of the once great Ottoman Empire was the rump state of Turkey, the heart of the empire.

Certainly there were external forces that caused the demise of the Ottoman Empire. The warfare that periodically occurred over the centuries had positive and negative effects on the empire. Certainly in its early years the Ottomans used wars to expand borders through gaining territory in all directions. The 1700s and 1800s were centuries of stagnation and the beginnings of decline. Even though the Ottoman Empire was on the winning side of the Crimean War, it was only because the French and British couldn’t agree on how to beat Russian and divide the empire so they decided to support it. Two wars that certainly affected the empire were the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 and World War I. After this the decline was irreversible.

Internally we find there were five major reasons the state declined. First, there was poor leadership. For a period of time the empire had a preponderance of leaders that had little experience and in some cases little ability. Second, the government was marked by bribery, cronyism, nepotism, and positions in government for sale to the highest bidder. This corruption was found in the provincial governments too with greater taxes placed upon the populace. There were also frequent shifts in judicial officials. Third, the military suffered major changes internally. Instead of the onetime handpicked force, the military became augmented with troops of limited ability. This included the use of mercenaries when necessary. Forth, the Imperial economy was suffering. There was severe inflation, the currency was debased and this bred corruption. On top of this there was a negative trade balance with cheaper goods being imported. Finally, there was an intellectual decline.4 This pattern is typical of most major empires/regimes/superpowers from the Assyrians, to Rome, to the Holy Roman Empire and to Bonaparte’s French Empire.

When looking at the United States we see some of the same patterns. I’m not suggesting the US needs to worry about Armageddon being around the corner or that society is slipping into chaos, but we need to remember the rhyme of history.

The external factors can at times be thrust upon us but the US needs to be mindful of entanglements. Of the 1,379,551 soldiers on active duty approximately 27% are around the world in 150 different countries. Large portions of those soldiers are on a war footing in Iraq, Iran, Korea, and even in the Balkans. Additionally, the government is using private military companies and security contractors to perform historically military duties. The US government likes to call companies such as Dyncorp, Titan Corporation, and Blackwater USA private contractors but in reality they are mercenaries. They are hired guns to work for the government in any capacity the government deems necessary. This pattern found in the military is actually an internal factor that is typical in the period of decline for many nations.5

Other internal factors that need to be recognized include executive leadership, corruption in government, the economy and the need for a society to be supportive of higher education. When reviewing these factors in the US today we see problems. Although the executive leadership of the country is stable there seems to be a great deal of legal and illegal corruption in congress. Both houses appear to be overly affected by lobbyists and periodically caught in a scam of one sort or another. Presently we are told the economy gives the impression of rebounding on “Wall St.” but not on “Main St.” Until the middle class recovers and the poor have a safety net little really can occur. The problem with the economy is that it affects higher education also. With loans hard to get many in the middle class will not be able to continue their education. A persistent lack of support for higher education will eventually have an adverse’ effect on society. As Twain said, “history doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme,” even for the United States.

1 Ernest R. Rugenstein, Ph.D., “The Rise of Greek Civilization,” (lecture, World Civilization and the World 1, Hudson Valley Community College, Troy, NY, September 29, 2009).
2 Ibid.
3 Ernest R. Rugenstein, Ph.D., “The Paris Peace Conference and Peace Treaties,” (lecture, World Civilization and the World 1, Hudson Valley Community College, Troy, NY, April 28, 2009).
4 Richard L. Chambers, The Ottoman Empire. Turizm.net, 2007. Accessed October 16, 2009. http://www.turizm.net/turkey/history/ottoman1.html.
5 Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country. Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2007, 309A.

A Cultural Look at Indentured Servitude and Student Loans.

2009-10-10T08:25:00.000-07:00

In the latter half of the 17^th century over 10,000 indentured servants were contracted for destinations that included the colonies and the Caribbean. They came from throughout England with occupations ranging from barbers and brewers to cabinetmakers, boat builders, gunsmiths, and plowboys.[1] Around two-thirds of the emigrating population was shipped to the colonies. This created some colonies with up to 75% of the population indentured.[2] Being under contract meant that the servant agreed to work for usually 7 to 8 years to cover the voyage to the new location. Any additional pay, as such, would be scant and included only room and board. Those who needed it would receive a minimum of training.[3] Although the work was hard the system worked rather well in the early colonial period. However, when large farms and plantations started being viable the system became similar to serfdom.

When investigating indentured servitude more closely we find a group of people who were willing to take a chance to better themselves. These were people who were willing to leave their comfort zone and yet were not only taken advantage of but were treated at times as little more than intelligent animals. True they were brought to their destination as promised and it was no secret that they would have to work the expenses off, pay back the lender as it were. But their treatment, their quality of life, was horrendous. Richard Frethorne wrote to his parents in 1623 and told them of his experiences as an indentured servant. He complained of eating nothing but peas and water gruel on board ship. After arriving he found all he received to eat after a long day of work was a mouthful of bread and water gruel. Meat was almost non-existent and the little they did see they were not allowed to hunt. Frethorne relates that he ate more in a day back home in England than in a week where he was living. In the letter he writes that another person had stolen his coat and all he had were some clothes that were little better then rags and a pair of shoes.[4] As for the others that were with Frethorne, he said any of them would willing give a literal arm or leg to get back to England. Living disabled was worth the price of getting out of their predicament. The work was hard and had none of the modern contrivances of breaks and a lunch hour.[5]

How did it all end? What was the catalyst for change? Bacon’s Rebellion. In Tidewater Virginia large plantations had sprung up on the large expanse of good farmland. These plantations were controlled by an almost aristocratic class and farmed by indentured servants. The problem that eventually surfaced was that no land was available for indentured servants who had paid off their contract, the freeman. In some cases they became worse off than as an indentured servant. Their only option was to move west into Indian Territory. Naturally this did not go over well with the Native Americans in the area and they, as would be expected, evicted the new comers. Killings between the Natives, and the freeman and plantation owners became more prevalent.[6]

Nathaniel Bacon, cousin of the Governor of Virginia by marriage, arrived from England in 1674 and acquired a plantation. After one of his servants was killed by an Indian 1676 he became an Indian fighter and did not discriminate between friendly tribes and violent tribes. After being rebuffed by the Colonial Assembly, Bacon took it upon himself, on July 30, 1676, to unilaterally present the "Declaration of the People” that proclaimed him leader of a provincial band of men who consisted of indentured servants, freemen, and slaves. They attacked plantations and battled Indians for land. Bacon died in October and British troops arrived and brought back order.[7]

The outcome was that Virginia began an expansion policy to gain land for freemen and to accelerate the eradication of Native presence in the west. It also accelerated the implementation of slavery in the plantation system and the codification of chattel laws. It was decided by the plantation owners that slaves were less trouble and in the long run cheaper than the freeman and indentured servant system. The slaves would still work off their transportation cost and then be kept on to make a profit off them.[8]

When I teach I always try to relate an historical situation using a modern example. Naturally all illustrations break down somewhere. So, as I was thinking about this I could see some similarities between this situation and the student loan problems that have become so prevalent since the financial crisis hit.

As in any contract the parties are bound by the agreement. In the case of student loans the financial institution agreed to give the student a certain amount of money to achieve a college education. The amounts vary but it is not impossible to have over $200K in student loans by the time you reach your desired field. In the 1960s & 1970s, a four-year degree from a state school was around $20,000. Students were able, upon graduation, to go out and obtain a fairly good job. Over time they would pay off their student loans. However, this began to change. Schools began to raise their tuition. Of course part of this was daily inflation that had to be contended with and infrastructure repair. But as the tuition went up so did the amount of money loaned out. Included in this scenario is the enticement to get an education and not to worry about the cost. It was possible to borrow $20K to $40K a semester through federal and private loans every year to pay for school. Lenders would ask you if you were borrowing enough.

The system worked well for quite some time. True there was the occasional person who flunked out of school or could not get a job and go into default just as some indentured servants would have a difficult time. However, we begin to see some similarities here with indentured servitude. Just as the servant would acquire funds to get across the ocean the student acquires loans to get through college.

After a period of time with so many in school and most getting at least a bachelor’s degree employers started demanding a B.A. or B.S. for a job. When a minor recession hit or your field seemed to be full, jobs would become scarce. There was still the need to repay the loan. The only solution for some was to go back to school. School would incur more loans but it would post-pone payment until the student was finished. The idea was that eventually the job market would open back up and then those with a master’s degree would have a leg up. This worked at times. In some fields students finished their doctorates and terminated academically hoping that this would increase their chances of getting a position somewhere. Unfortunately the same situation started to occur that we find with the abundance of freeman in the late 1600s. The lack of jobs and the abundance of graduates brought increasing numbers of defaults on loans.

When the financial crisis hit in 2008-2009 schools were churning out graduates in fields that were becoming overloaded. The financial institutions clamped down on loans and many students were caught, unable to get loans. Students were left with only 6 months to find financing or they would have to take a leave of absence to get a job to pay off the loan on an unfinished degree. Those who graduated faced a job market that was trimming redundant jobs and not creating new ones. There are ways of extending payments, or deferring payments but these are of a limited duration. Those who have good jobs and are able to pay on their loans find the payments becoming a larger percentage of their budget as the cost of living increases and their pay doesn’t. Those who can’t find a job or are underemployed have rescheduled loans that will be looming for up to 30 years. Then there are those who were caught in mid-program and have the loans but not the degree because capital dried up.

Although not of the same type or degree we see more similarities between the indentured servant/freeman of the late 1600s and the highly financially encumbered college graduate of 2009. Both lived in a society that had an over abundance of labor with few jobs and a poor outlook for the near future. Both groups had potential and were hard workers, both had a goal for the future. The indentured servant hoped to pay off his/her debt and with his own farm one day, build a life and have a family. So too is the student and college graduate. Both groups find themselves hampered by not their abilities but by external forces. The people of the 1600s lacked land and room to grow inhibiting them from moving forward but still having the debt over their head, or if a freeman, just mere existence. The modern student lacks a job, and in some instances the ability to even finish his/her degree. On top of this there is a looming debt that many are willing to pay off but can’t. If not paid off, the debt will ruin them and eventually limit their growth and the growth of society.

In the 1600s a rebellion, the opening of more land, and a reordering of society solved the immediate problem. The Native Americans suffered the brunt of this new order with many of them dying and their land taken. The pressures for the freeman were relieved and the future of indentured servants was secured. However, it also condemned millions in the future who did the job of the indentured servant to work as slaves.

One wonders what the solution will be to the student loan problem and the ability of students and graduates to repay these loans in the future. Whatever the solution we need to be careful how it is processed. A rebellion seems a little excessive, but we also do not need a solution that will just take care of the present situation but condemns millions in the future. As different as the culture of the late1600s is to 2009, there are a number of similarities between them.

[1] Schifflett, Crandal. Search the Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654 - 1686. Virtual Jamestown, 2000. Accessed October 1, 2009. Available from http://www.virtualjamestown.org/indentures/search_indentures.html.

[2] Barker, Deanna. Indentured Servitude in Colonial America. National Association for Interpretation Cultural Interpretation and Living History Section, March 10, 2004. Accessed October 1, 2009. Available from http://www.geocities.com/nai_cilh/servitude.html.

[3] Schlafly, Andrew. Indentured Servitude. Conservapedia, November 21, 2006. Accessed October 3, 2009. Available from http://www.conservapedia.com/Indentured_servitude.

[4] Frethorne, Richard. Indentured Servants. Joyce A. Hanson, 2005. Accessed October 1, 2009. Available from http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons /slavery/pages/indentured.html.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Gisolfi, Monica R. Bacon's Rebellion: Colonial Society and Politics. Columbia American History Online, 2004. Accessed October 2, 2009. Available from http://caho-test.cc.columbia.edu/sim/15005.html.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

The Peacemaker

2009-10-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

Living in an urban area one finds different cultures intertwined every day. Albany, a college town as well as the capital of New York, has various provincial and world cultures walking its streets. It is a city that has earnestly tried to integrate the various races that live within its borders. In fact the whole capital region emulates this scenario. I live in Troy. RPI is five blocks away and down the street is a mosque. A few blocks away from there is a synagogue and in the other direction a Fundamentalist Christian church and school. The capital region is an area where many different cultures interact in relative peace and harmony even when some of the cultures are not tolerant of the others. An intolerant culture can hold on to their beliefs but not act out on them. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are mutually exclusive religions where identification with one excludes you from belonging to the other two and yet these groups come together secularly to work on community problems.

During the week of September 21, 2009 a beautiful 150 foot Barquentine rigged Schooner, the Peacemaker, was docked in Albany. A sign was put out front that free tours were offered. Many felt it was connected with the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson sailing up the Muhheakantuck, now the Hudson, in his honor. Apparently once inside you not only received a tour and story about the ship but you were also proselytized into a different culture. The owners of the ship are known as the Twelve Tribes (www.twelvetribes.com). The Twelve Tribes origins are connected to the Jesus Movement of the 1970s. It is composed of a number of self-proclaimed primitive Christian communities that renounce denominationally organized religion. Many called them a cult that convinces their members through religious writings and persuasion to give all their possessions to the community and live communally and in submission. Overall this may not appeal to everyone but it does not seem to be especially sinister in light of cults such as Jim Jones or David Koresh of the Branch Davidians.

When you read their religious writings you start to see a picture of a culture that is the antithesis to the cultures around them. Using the Bible as the basis of their teachings women are told be submissive and not to be logical. The Twelve Tribes’ anti-Semitic doctrine speaks to the Jews as being hostile to all men and that the Jews “inherent double fallen nature is a reproach to the Gentiles.” (www.twelvetribesteachings.com/index.html)

In dealing with children their writings detail how discipline is necessary and obedience mandatory. Naturally spare the rod and spoil the child is part of the instruction manual. Interestingly enough within their belief system they feel Abraham Lincoln went against the will of God when he freed the slaves and that slavery was God’s place for the black man in His ordered universe. Of course gays and lesbians are seen as the pariah of God (Ibid.).

Although there is a natural abhorrence to the doctrines and beliefs of the Twelve Tribes one of the interesting aspects is the selectively retrograde culture they have adopted. The group is modern in many ways and yet very fundamental in their beliefs and 19th century in their attitudes and morals. This is different from the Amish who have willingly refused to modernize since the late 1800s and who are typically tolerant of other peoples and cultures. Even they have made some exceptions in the use of modern equipment. They will not drive a car in favor of a horse and buggy but they will use large diesel motors to run their sawmills. The Twelve Tribes pulled themselves out of a modern society and selectively returned to an earlier cultural period. Interestingly one marked with servitude of fellow humans and with an anti-Semitic air.

The presence of the Peacemaker docked in Albany demonstrates just how different cultures can be from each other and still interact in a peaceful albeit flirtatiously antagonistic way. Strangely enough this shows hope in the ability of different cultures surviving and tolerating each other regardless of the variance in their belief systems. If the Twelve Tribes can exist and find safe harbor in Albany with cultures they are not naturally tolerant of then there is hope with other countries and cultures. The different cultures of the Middle East such as Israel and the Palestinians may eventually find tolerance if not peace with each other. There is evidence that it at least could happen. This gives hope to the cultural interaction of the Turks, Kurds, Armenians and others in the area.

Although the name Peacemaker may seem a non sequitur with the doctrines of the Twelve Tribes it may be a foreknowledge of what can occur with the peaceful tolerance of different cultures.

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2009-09-01T18:45:00.000-07:00

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2009-07-31T09:59:00.000-07:00

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