Before the World went Crazy, A Man Poured his Soul onto the Sacred Ground

Authentic text of Chief Seattle's Treaty Oration - 1854[Originally published in the Seattle Sunday Star, Oct. 29 1887]

Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change. Today is fair. Tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never change. Whatever Seattle says, the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can upon the return of the sun or the seasons. The white chief says that Big Chief at Washington sends us greetings of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him for we know he has little need of our friendship in return. His people are many. They are like the grass that covers vast prairies. My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain. The great, and I presume - good, White Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our land but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably. This indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country.
There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory. I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame.
Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the white man began to push our forefathers ever westward. But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old [men who stay] at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.
Our good father in Washington-for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since King George has moved his boundaries further north-our great and good father, I say, sends us word that if we do as he desires he will protect us. His brave warriors will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill our harbors, so that our ancient enemies far to the northward - the Haidas and Tsimshians - will cease to frighten our women, children, and old men. Then in reality he will be our father and we his children.
But can that ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads an infant son. But, He has forsaken His Red children, if they really are His. Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us. Your God makes your people wax stronger every day. Soon they will fill all the land. Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return. The white man's God cannot love our people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we be brothers? How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness? If we have a common Heavenly Father He must be partial, for He came to His paleface children. We never saw Him. He gave you laws but had no word for His red children whose teeming multitudes once filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament. No; we are two distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies. There is little in common between us.
To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors - the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people. Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the happy hunting ground to visit, guide, console, and comfort them. Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense darkness.
It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indian's night promises to be dark. Not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man's trail, and wherever he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.
A few more moon, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.
We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Ever part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land.

Society would be perfect if it weren't for "people"

Hello my faithful and benevolent friends. I know some of you are cringing at this expecting that this will be the continuation of my last post. Well, lucky for y'all, it's not. That's next time. This one is more of my patented ranting. I will, however, leave you with one fact I've learned since my last post. It seems that in the Signals Intelligence Community (SigInt), there's an International surveillance program called Project ECHELON. It's generally administered by the NSA and gathers data from ALL correspondence, both foreign and domestic. Essentially, we've been being spied on without implicit knowledge for years. Just an interesting piece of info I found. On with the show.

Why do stars, celebrities, athletes, politicians and public persons in general need "people"? There's always statements made like "his people must have had him retract his (usually stupid) remark." Okay. Who are "people"? Where does one get "people"? Did the Founding Fathers have "people"? Did Lincoln have "people"? I don't recall the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement being responsible to any "people" during their struggles. "People." It's short for P.R. people. All these P.R. people and personal injury lawyers and "handlers" and Press Secretaries and publicists and spokespersons. Good god. When did all these people become the lubricant for the engine of popular culture? Why are most of them necessary at all?

Here's what I see as the reason for this exponential propagation of "people": a complete free fall of responsibility in American culture. I'm not referring to the "responsibility" batted around and spewed out by (mostly conservative) politicians, plutocracy and the narrow-minded. That's a type of "responsibility" that's suggested solution is to "not be the problem," hence you should be able to handle anything with privatization or just die. It really doesn't matter what somebody does as long as they're NOT OUR PROBLEM. That kinda responsibility is just a cop-out and device to maintain an ideological position that is untenable in human terms. It's a viral perspective so don't be infected.

The responsibility I'm talking about is something far more vital. It's taking responsibility for one's life and the consequences it incurs on others and the world. It's also, more specific to this post, taking responsibility FOR WHAT YOU SAY AND/OR DO. The "people" are hired as a way to circumvent this responsibility. They are sentries who wait for statements or events and then rush in to spin them, revise them or deny them. They would probably erase the public's memory with the blinky thingy in Men in Black if they could. But they can't. (Can they?)

Basically, if you say it, stand by it. Or don't say it. Wow, isn't that complicated? What a unique concept. Don't hire fake people to bury a statement which makes you fake by association. Just think before you speak publicly. (Memo to Imus.) Just think. Then you won't need people to rescue you. Life is really NOT rocket science. Tread mindfully and all things are your ally.

Let us eat cake

**EDITOR'S NOTE**

Exciting news! Your favorite blog has become it's own page. Now you can access this blog at anytime by bookmarking http://www.speaking4thedead.com/ . I've also added content at the bottom. After reading the latest post, scroll down to learn interesting things. Just diversifying a bit. More changes to come. Hang with me.



Main Entry

Okay. It's been a while. I've been waiting for the muse to gently whisper in my ear. Well, apparently, she's on vacation in Cancun. I'm on my own while she's drinking Margaritas at the beach. Oy! Given this unfortunate circumstance, I have to improvise. Falling back on my motto of "when in doubt take a Jello shot" I'm going to...wait, silly me. I meant the OTHER motto: "Think globally, act globally." (There's also a third motto that's more esoteric than the others: Love is its own justification.) Anyway, I'm going to espouse a cultural critique of Capitalist America. Be aware that THIS IS NOT MARXIST! I repeat this is NOT Marxist. While I generally find Marx's critique of Capitalism accurate, his prescriptions for the negative aspects of Capitalism are horrendously problematic. As example, refer to the recent history of Russia. That's a failed Marxist system. I, in my brilliance or madness depending on how you choose to perceive it, have begun to develop my own critique and prescription for our Capitalist culture. This post is the first in a series I've titled the Neo Systema or "New System" roughly translated. This first entry lays out the primary problem with Capitalist America as I see it. I call it the Echelon.

Echelon

There is stratification in society. There always has been. From Ancient Egypt with the Pharaoh and attendants to Greece with the Publicans to Roman Emperors and Senators through Feudal Europe with Manor Lords all the way to the present day. Societies, like soil over time, settle into layers. The mechanisms that cause the "layering" of society are various and culturally dependent. India's caste system is deliberate and separated by societal function. Priests will always retain higher status than artists in India because religious function is prized more than artistic function. In the West--Europe specifically--people have been sorted by level of wealth. Landed Aristocracy are generally highest and the homeless (beggars in old language) fit the role of Chandala or "unfit to be touched" in Indian. I'm referring to Feudal Europe so that I can create a contrast to contemporary America because our class system has evolved into something different than anything that came before.

America (U.S.) emerged from England and Holland primarily. We began with the English Aristocratic system with Monarchy and all. We were colonized and at the mercy of the British Empire's legal, economic and governmental system. The Revolutionary War was about throwing off the shackles of England to determine our own fate. After the war, we created a society that was deliberately anti-England and anti-aristocracy. We could not, however, cast away the mindset that created Aristocracy in the first place. Slavery was still an American institution, people began to seize land to assure themselves of status and wealth still mattered as a deciding factor in one's place in society. We had, in essence, created a feudal system here. Plantations were like Manors, slaves were like serfs. Society was stratified into white overseers, poor or foreign white people, a handful of free colored people and enslaved people of color at the bottom. It was very similar to Feudal times.

America remained this way until the Civil War which was essentially another revolution. The Confederacy wanted to keep the societal structure that had worked for them for 200 years. The Union was becoming more industrialized and depended less and less on slave labor. The North wanted the South to "catch up" industrially and move ahead as a unified nation. Ultimately, the Confederates lost and the Union forced it's will upon the rebel South. Now, we could analyze this result as the victory of humanitarians who wanted blacks treated equally over the tyrannical Southern slavers. There was that aspect to the war and many had the best intentions while liberating the slaves and reworking the labor system. Yet, I submit that humanitarianism wasn't the primary driver in the Civil War. My conception is that, like all societies, the driving factor was economic. The northern industrialists needed workers for the scads of factories popping up and they saw the southern slavers as capping what was a lucrative labor market. My assertion is the slaves were freed from the fields to become impoverished factory workers. It's a sort of "freedom," I guess. Poor whites were treated much the same as people of color at this time.

The era of tycoon had dawned. Names like Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Ford and Roosevelt became iconic. Strangely enough, while these families built estates with more-money-than-God fortunes, the life of the average worker was a struggle. Their lives were short, cramped and generally hard. They survived and did their jobs, raised their children, so life really wasn't THAT bad. It's just in comparison to the tycoon and family that things get ridiculously disparate. By their example, the tycoons unleashed a trend of entrepreneurship and wealth building that the World had never seen before. This economic explosion was based on certain values that can be detrimental. One is the division of people into employers and employees, wealthy and poor or great and average. The tycoons became viewed as a better "stock" of people who deserved exceptional treatment because they had amassed huge fortunes. It's somewhat akin to "Divine Right" except instead of kings it became the rich. Another problematic value that helped form the Echelon is the Objectivist idea that the "Great" and creative (and wealthy incidentally) have no real responsibility to society as a whole because society consists of "the mob" as presented in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and "looters and moochers" as presented in Rand's magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. Basically, Objectivism's message is that society impedes the liberty of "Great" people to be "Great." It also transvalues the great and wealthy into victims of society who give their greatness to the thieving mob intentionally, knowing that they must "sacrifice" themselves to their greatness. This concept is called the "Sanction of the Victim" and one Objectivist goal is for the great and wealthy to abandon this sanction and follow individualistic paths of collecting more wealth (hoarding) and looking after their interests and the interests of those like them. In this one philosophy, born out of literature, the Echelon as a practical concept emerges. The final detrimental value is a business term called "run to failure." This is a management style in which the equipment of a factory or the site of resource excavation or human capital (i.e. workers) are used until they fail. This is done to extract maximum profit from a business venture. When failure occurs, the business picks up and moves on to the next thing. It's almost viral. The "run to failure" methodology pairs nicely with the inherent short term vision of Capitalist economics. As long as one gets as much as one can in their lifetime, screw the future, or so goes the thinking. For examples of this mindset, all you have to do is look around modern life. Global climate change is OCCURRING and some factories keep spewing carbon into the atmosphere. CEO's keep gouging corporations for insane compensation packages while the corporation itself sinks into bankruptcy leaving shareholders out in the cold. We know that fossil fuels are running out but we don't care because it's the future's problem, which is okay, unless you're IN THE FUTURE. These values form the destructive foundation of the Echelon. If things continue as they have, the Echelon could kill off humanity because the future comes sooner or later.

This is my opening statement for the Neo Systema. I realize it's long and I greatly appreciate those of you who have read to this point. The next post will clearly define the Echelon and how it operates and what dangers we truly face. Until then, take a gander at the graph below. It shocked me. We spend nearly 500% more on the military as the next biggest military spender. We could cut military spending by $150 Billion and still be spending twice as much as the closest spender on military items. Priorities a TAD misplaced?