Oh I agree Yammer

The story was excellent - the point I was making, which you obviously missed, was a pun on the term ground-breaking AND a notice that rammed earth buildings have been around British Columbia for a while.

The single quotes should have given it away.

In fact, the practice goes back to pre-Christian times and, as such, is a perfect choice for the 'structure' this article celebrates.

Nice to see you commenting here again.

And...put a mark on the wall - rammed earth or otherwise

Since I can't remember a single time I've ever agreed (even marginally) with Gordon Campbell about anything, I will take this opportunity to put on record that he is at least partially correct in his reaction to the remarks of IOC heavyweight and Vanoc Board Member Dick Pound about Canada's First Nations being 'savages' at any point in their pre-contact history.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081022.BCOLYMPIC22/TPStory/TPNational/BritishColumbia/

He shouldn't have just called for Pound to apologize - he should have called, as Chief Philip Stewart has, for his immediate resignation.

David Ahenakew apologized (as Pound has done) for his own egregious mis-statements ...and that certainly has not 'been the end of it' for HIM.

This kind of double standard has had currency too long in this nation.

John Furlong's remarks are risible.

Campbell deserves at least some credit.

For being a knee jerker.

Yes.

The Savage Campbell

In my books, this premier has a LOT more ground to make up for the Referendum in 2002

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/aboriginals/bc_treaty_referendum.html

So perhaps a Dr Pangloss can find the benefit of praising such a Baron who put to popular vote the rights of peoples already guaranteed since 1763.

Well then, let's toast the Campbell who has learned not to call out rude names in public.

"Any country where begging and mendacity are professions is ill-governed" Voltaire

OilbertaRedTory - well put...

You are absolutely correct sir...I would not want my praise of Campbell to be seen as anything but fulsome...in the proper meaning of that word.

Having expended a good deal of bird shot on the man for the past several years - and anticipating another few months of doing the same - I judged a single instance of giving him credit for one more meretricious thing he's done in his public life would not be held against me.

As someone or other has put it: the exception proves the rule!

I think your reference to Candide is deliciously appropriate.

And, I'll sadly mention one example

I'll sadly mention another example of the opposite point of view - and its many promoters - which has raised its ugly head in Canada's 'National' newspaper this morning.

As if Dick Pound weren't bad enough, the irrepressible Margaret Wente has rushed into the breach in his defence...

God, can we still be so ignorant?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081024.wcowent25/BNStory/specialComment/home

Cultural genocide continues apace.

Chief Bill Wilson was obviously correct.

GWest

Wente's column is "cultural genocide"????

ROFLOL, - And you're so SINCERE about it too !!!!! LOL LOL LOL

What are you talking about ME2?

Did you read her column?

Do you know what caused the fuss?

Do you know who the 'character' she's used as her avatar is?

Her background, her education (or lack of it) and her history in Nunavut.

If you don't, I suggest you head back there and start reading - the website I mean - I'm not going to go into it here - this isn't the place.

I will add

That I never suggested Wente was practicing cultural genocide - she's just consorting with someone who believes in it.

What I was talkin about.

Your comments were regarding that particular column of Wente's. Reading it literally without bringing old baggage into the interpretation of it, her comments easily withstand critical analysis.

Similarly, Dick Pound's comments were accurate too, and could not possibly be construed as racist or supportive of "cultural genocide" - except by the PC vigilantes.

Treat yourself to all the feel-good PC nonsense you want, Garth. Just don't expect to bully ALL of us with it.

The comments were not about anything

The reference, as you well know, was to the attitude of the avatar Wente picked to support her false argument that there was nothing wrong with Dick Pound and his prejudices about Aboriginals as 'savages';
I don't care how you read it - it was as offensive as Pound's own roundly condemned remarks were.

There is nothing feel good or PC about that - it was, pure and simple, racist prejudice of the most offensive kind.

I'm not bullying anyone - people are free to go to the website, read the column and the comments and decide for themselves. My remarks were, as you can see, in response to another poster's thoughts about people who take a Panglossian attitude toward our own place and time - and in particular in reference to the Campbell/Plant referendum on Natives' treaty rights....and how that connected, in a circular fashion, to Campbell’s hypocritical decision to condemn Pound so unreservedly. You're a clever enough fellow, if you go back to the beginning of the comments thread you'll be able to follow the narrative.

Surely you realize by now that's my approach to these things... the underlying narrative that is. I had my reasons for giving Campbell more credit than he deserved…but Oilberta RedTory was quite correct in pointing out the inconsistency in my thinking in his/her post entitled The Savage Campbell.

I believe that the attitude some Canadians have toward native peoples in this country amounts to cultural genocide. Just as I think what we've visited on them as Europeans since 1492 has been a holocaust of unimaginable proportions. But of course you know all this – consequently, why bother to bring it up unless you’re looking for a fight – which I’m not.

Others can, and will, believe what they like. I just want as many people as possible to read the words and think about them for themselves – it’s called communication and, occasionally – persuasion/

As for bullying, I don't think so ME2 - I try very hard to address ideas and opinions and I try equally hard to stay away from that kind of thing.

What the comments were about.

That's all very nice, Garth, but the fact is that Pound's comment about pre-contact FNs being "savages" was completely true, as anyone who has studied anthopology well knows. Nor was his remark uttered in a context designed - even remotely - to disparage FNs in general, and certainly not living ones.

And wasn't it YOUR avatar, Bill Wilson, who described the Spaniards who arrived at Friendly Harbour as "disesase-ridden, pockmarked savages"? The comment was widely reported, but nobody nailed HIM for that racist comment.

The reason for not doing so is obvious, since by today's standards many practices of the Europeans were indeed savage. But does that then excuse the savage practices of FNs of the time?

Of course not. But instead of engaging in an unresolvable debate over whose ancestors were the "most savage", we've devised the notion of Culural Relativity, in which no judgement of a culture of a people can be made without compensating for the times in which they lived.

For example, EVERYONE at that time thought war was a normal condition for humanity, and that slavery for some of us was preordained. So can we ascribe willful wrongdoing to everyone who was alive then? Of course not.

But we CAN do so to those who today opt for those practices, since we - and they - understand clearly why they are wrong.

And so it is with racism, an age-old curse for mankind. But this not accomplished by people who wallow in feelgood guilt, who deliberately disallow Cultural Relativity for our European forebears while promoting it - indeed rewriting history in its name - for FN peoples.

And what is worse, and why I have such contempt for those who practice this kind of Political Correctness, is their denial of every honest attempt by the "Dominant Culture" to solve the incredibly tangled problems faced by FNs. For that we are accused of racist "Cultural Genocide".

That's pure sleaze artistry, designed only for confrontation, and deserves nothing better than outright counterattack.

ME2

Did you actually go to the website and read the story and the comments?

If you really want to defend Margaret Wente and Dick Pound and Frances Widdowson and Tom Flanagan then that's the place to do it.

Register and fly at it.

My feelings, which you already know, and which are diametrically and empirically opposed to yours, are posted prominently (under my name) at the Globe's website.

I'm not going to repeat them here or to respond to your accusations which are, from my point of view, pretty much the same old stuff.

So lay on Macduff - I've already had my innings.

My last at bat too on this one

Yes, Garth, I had read Wente's article (as you well knew from my comments) and tonight for the third time. Wente has adequately covered most areas of contention re this issue.

Re the comments section, I find myself in full agreement with the Commenter copied below, and have capitalized his two most relevant observations. I note that by far the bulk of the comments either support Wente or trail off into PC irrelevancies.

The posting time is included for anyone who wishes to verify.

#Posted 24/10/08 at 11:50 PM EDT
"David Gibson from Hamilton, Canada writes: And yes, their society was more egalitarian, except that they wiped out the Neutrals, made them extinct as passenger pigeons. Meeting the Europeans, that was Stone Age vs. Early Industrial Revolution, quite a gap there. WENTE HAS WRITTEN THE MOST RELEVANT thing written on the subject, for some time. How poisonous, that OUR SCIENCES NOW ARE FILTERED THROUGH A POLITICAL SCREEN before our brains are fed the Allowed Thoughts."

Yes the political screen never misses a thing - as you demonstrate in your own comment, Garth.

Posted 25/10/08 at 6:58 PM EDT |(and exerpted)
"That civil servant was Frances Widdowson, who, long before she became Ms Wente's 'expert' of record further said that (traditional knowledge) ...`can be used to justify any enterprise, including the over-exploitation of resources'' ...simply because it can be anything native elders say it is"

For advancing her unwanted opinion, she was relieved of her post as a contracted advisor to the Government of Nunavut (whose policy requires traditional knowledge to be incorporated into decision-making).

Now it seems to me that if I were gov't, I'd want expert opinion on what policy should be and why, even if it offends what I'd LIKE to do. This would definitely apply to something as vague as "traditional knowlege">

But yes, gov'ts reject unwanted advice / advisors all the time (though I strongly suspect Campbell employs a few contrarians while developing his clever wedge policies)

My point here though Garth, is that you are unable to see the logic in Widdowson's observation, even though Wente touches on it, and even while there are plenty enough examples of it unfolding before your blinkered (?) eyes today. Want some examples?

I see you didn't bother bringing over

I see you didn't bother bringing over any of the posts about Ms Wente's avatar - Frances Widdowson and her 'background' as a political scientist in what was a debate about the relative value of 15th and 16th century culture and anthropology - not to mention her connections to Harper ally Tom Flanagan.

I'm surprised at you...Ms Widdowson hasn't even got an oar in the debate about what Pound said.

I think you know that.

Whatever logic her views may hold relative to the current governance models, she is completely unqualified to make the claims she does - and I think you know that too.

Avoiding the 'real' question doesn't get us anywhere.

I'd also point out that you've misconstrued my intent

My suggestion was, and I thought I'd made it clearly enough, that you take your arguments (in neat 2000 character bundles) over to the Globe's website and enter them there.

This thread is a celebration of Natives achievements - I don't think the discussion you're trying to drag me into belongs here.

Furthermore, as I already pointed out, I've written all I want to at Wente's place.

If you want, you can head to the Times-Colonist to read Iain Hunter's caustic appreciation of European culture.

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=8c1953ff-3b33-4415-8ea4-b2bfc8242cb0&p=2

He seems pretty well tuned to my wavelength too.

I will add, for those who are interested

I will add a link to the article Iain Hunter mentions in his column, by Charles C. Mann, originally printed in the Atlantic:

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/Population.html

GWest

You write:

"This thread is a celebration of Natives achievements - I don't think the discussion you're trying to drag me into belongs here."

But it was YOU, Mr West, who brought the Pound issue into it 5 days ago - Everybody else but you was quite willing to leave well enough alone, so two days later you had to bring it up AGAIN, and so I called you on it.

And you also write

"I'm surprised at you...Ms Widdowson hasn't even got an oar in the debate about what Pound said. I think you know that."

That one doesn't work either. I hadn't the faintest idea who Widdowson was until you focussed in on her. In fact, the whole 337 words in your G&M posting deal only with your jaundiced opinion re her credibility.

you would do well to take a course in logic. Or maybe it's memory enhancement pills you need?

Nope, not guilty

And you didn't read all my posting(s) at the G&M either - there were several.

As for logic, it has nothing to do with it. If you'd read Wente's article you'd know exactly who Frances Widdowson is and why her unscientific claims and views are at the heart of the Wente misstatements and her facile defence of Dick Pound.

Perhaps you should go back and try again.

Furthermore, as I explained above in the clearest possible way, my second remark was in response to Oilbertan RedTory's quite reasonable observation that Campbell has a bit more to answer for before being hailed as a savior of the First Nations of British Columbia and Canada.

If you can't sustain the argument that pre-contact natives in the Americas were 'SAVAGES' any better than that maybe you shouldn't post anything further at the Globe site.

Let me know when you get straightened out.

And, since you've posted a couple bits from there

I think I may be forgiven for cutting and pasting the following, I think it sums things up rather nicely:

Ryan Ginger from Canada writes: Ms. Wente betrays her breathtaking ignorance about Native culture--contemporary, historical, or archaeological--in this groundless and truly offensive article. And where is her basic journalistic skills? She takes her ethnohistorical snapshot from a book written by two ex-bureaucrats-cum-academics, Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard, neither of whom possess training in Native history or Native ethnology.

Being that it purports to be a reputable newspaper, I suggest that the Globe and Mail editors put Ms. Wente on a shorter leash, or do us all a favour and send her back to the steno pool where she belongs.

(And no, I didn't write it although I wish I had)

GWest

Trying to force you into dealing with one point at a time is like trying to nail jelly to a tree.

I think I've exposed your tactics well enough now for others to see how you use them.

I cede the field to you.

Thanks

But please, ME2, next time, before you put fingers to keyboard, actually read the material you're supposed to be talking about.

What did you finally think of Ms Widdowson and her political science 'research'?

No tactics, just knowledge and informed opinion, and a willingness to cut through cant whenever and wherever I see it.

And I'm more than happy to stand on my record - here and elsewhere; proud of it, in fact.