Tuesday, September 25, 2007

WTF, Andrew Jackson?

I was studying for an American history test and looking at the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Wikipedia mentioned that it was brought up in Andrew Jackson's State of the Union Address from the previous year, so I thought I'd have a look.

It's not quite as racist and insensitive as I would have guessed, but it's still pretty disgusting.


State of the Union Address, December 8, 1829:
The condition and ulterior destiny of the Indian tribes within the limits of some of our States have become objects of much interest and importance. It has long been the policy of Government to introduce among them the arts of civilization, in the hope of gradually reclaiming them from a wandering life. This policy has, however, been coupled with another wholly incompatible with its success. Professing a desire to civilize and settle them, we have at the same time lost no opportunity to purchase their lands and thrust them farther into the wilderness. By this means they have not only been kept in a wandering state, but been led to look upon us as unjust and indifferent to their fate. Thus, though lavish in its expenditures upon the subject, Government has constantly defeated its own policy, and the Indians in general, receding farther and farther to the west, have retained their savage habits. A portion, however, of the Southern tribes, having mingled much with the whites and made some progress in the arts of civilized life, have lately attempted to erect an independent government within the limits of Georgia and Alabama. These States, claiming to be the only sovereigns within their territories, extended their laws over the Indians, which induced the latter to call upon the United States for protection.

Under these circumstances the question presented was whether the General Government had a right to sustain those people in their pretensions. The Constitution declares that "no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State" without the consent of its legislature. If the General Government is not permitted to tolerate the erection of a confederate State within the territory of one of the members of this Union against her consent, much less could it allow a foreign and independent government to establish itself there.

Georgia became a member of the Confederacy which eventuated in our Federal Union as a sovereign State, always asserting her claim to certain limits, which, having been originally defined in her colonial charter and subsequently recognized in the treaty of peace, she has ever since continued to enjoy, except as they have been circumscribed by her own voluntary transfer of a portion of her territory to the United States in the articles of cession of 1802. Alabama was admitted into the Union on the same footing with the original States, with boundaries which were prescribed by Congress.

There is no constitutional, conventional, or legal provision which allows them less power over the Indians within their borders than is possessed by Maine or New York. Would the people of Maine permit the Penobscot tribe to erect an independent government within their State? And unless they did would it not be the duty of the General Government to support them in resisting such a measure? Would the people of New York permit each remnant of the six Nations within her borders to declare itself an independent people under the protection of the United States? Could the Indians establish a separate republic on each of their reservations in Ohio? And if they were so disposed would it be the duty of this Government to protect them in the attempt? If the principle involved in the obvious answer to these questions be abandoned, it will follow that the objects of this Government are reversed, and that it has become a part of its duty to aid in destroying the States which it was established to protect.

Actuated by this view of the subject, I informed the Indians inhabiting parts of Georgia and Alabama that their attempt to establish an independent government would not be countenanced by the Executive of the United States, and advised them to emigrate beyond the Mississippi or submit to the laws of those States.

Our conduct toward these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve for a while their once terrible names. Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay, the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware is fast over-taking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the States does not admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity. It is too late to inquire whether it was just in the United States to include them and their territory within the bounds of new States, whose limits they could control. That step can not be retraced. A State can not be dismembered by Congress or restricted in the exercise of her constitutional power. But the people of those States and of every State, actuated by feelings of justice and a regard for our national honor, submit to you the interesting question whether something can not be done, consistently with the rights of the States, to preserve this much-injured race. As a means of effecting this end I suggest for your consideration the propriety of setting apart an ample district west of the Mississippi, and without the limits of any State or Territory now formed, to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes as long as they shall occupy it, each tribe having a distinct control over the portion designated for its use. There they may be secured in the enjoyment of governments of their own choice, subject to no other control from the United States than such as may be necessary to preserve peace on the frontier and between the several tribes. There the benevolent may endeavor to teach them the arts of civilization, and, by promoting union and harmony among them, to raise up an interesting commonwealth, destined to perpetuate the race and to attest the humanity and justice of this Government.

This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the States they must be subject to their laws. In return for their obedience as individuals they will without doubt be protected in the enjoyment of those possessions which they have improved by their industry. But it seems to me visionary to suppose that in this state of things claims can be allowed on tracts of country on which they have neither dwelt nor made improvements, merely because they have seen them from the mountain or passed them in the chase. Submitting to the laws of the States, and receiving, like other citizens, protection in their persons and property, they will ere long become merged in the mass of our population.



What's equally upsetting is that, despite this, Jackson is recognized on the $20 bill, taking Grover Cleveland's place from 1928 onward, despite his distaste for paper currency.





1. Wikipedia: United States twenty-dollar bill

Disconcerting signs

...and just to emphasize, these are not photoshopped.





1. In pictures: Silly signs
2. More silly signs: Your pictures
3. Your pictures: Signs in 'Chinglish'

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Senate Iraq Hearings


Nothing new. What's so inappropriate about saying "kicking ass" that ass needs to be spelled out?






Hooray for actual questions!

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Sept. 11, 1973

There was a very good opinion piece in the UDK today (which rarely happens):

By Patrick de Oliveria

Exactly 28 years before terrorist attacks claimed 3,000 lives in the United States, an event took place that would symbolize the terror endured by South American countries for decades to come.

On Sept. 11, 1973, a military coup led by Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically-elected Chilean government of Salvador Allende and installed a brutal military dictatorship. The military and right wing of Chile opposed Allende because of his Marxist positions.

Similar events happened in several South American countries around that period. In Brazil, a military coup had already occurred in 1964 under similar conditions, and in 1976 a military junta took power in Argentina.

Because of the Cold War, the United States supported these right-wing military dictatorships and was involved in many ways. The United States recognized these authoritarian regimes, provided intelligence to them, trained various militaries—who would latter engage in torture and death squads—at the School of the Americas and, if ever needed, would’ve provided military support. All of this despite the human rights abuses and authoritarian measures taken by these governments.

Although I was born two years after the dictatorship ended in Brazil, the horrors of that period are still in the public consciousness. Several figures in my life were affected by it, and South America as a whole is still scarred.

My high school history teacher had a sister who was tortured. My dad’s friend was “asked” to leave the country. My friend’s dad had to hide a student militant in the countryside.

Students and artists were specifically targeted because of their leftist tendencies and calls for democratization. Student leaders would disappear and be tortured or killed. These were people around my age now. Some of the torture methods included driving needles under fingernails, whipping the feet with bamboo sticks and electric shocks.

Throughout high school I heard about Victor Jara, a Chilean musician and activist who was arrested, tortured and then gunned downed because of his political views. And about Stuart Angel, a Brazilian student militant who, after being tortured, had his mouth tied to the exhaust pipe of a jeep and dragged behind it until his death. Every year there would be news about the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo weeping for their thousands of children who disappeared during Argentina’s Dirty War.

The healing process is still going on, especially since new information about that period is still surfacing. Distrust towards the military and police still exists, and anti-Americanism in the region is related with American involvement during that period—especially the hypocrisy of rhetorically supporting democracies and human rights, but in practice doing the exact opposite.

That dark period has now passed, but it shouldn’t be forgotten. However, it shouldn’t be remembered only by the people who suffered it. The process of suffering, mourning and healing should be a global one if we truly want to avoid tragedies like this in the future.

It may sound hopelessly utopian, but the prospect of a better world is deeply interconnected with the ability to sympathize and empathize with other people’s suffering. Although we may disagree with everything else there is one thing we all have in common: we suffer. Only when we start valuing this human connection more than ideologies, politics and power struggles­—whether they be colonialism, capitalism verses Communism or the War on Terror—will a more peaceful condition be possible.

So, when we remember Sept. 11, 2001, let us also remember Sept. 11, 1973.


1. De Oliveira: Sept. 11 should spark memories of other events

Sunday, September 9, 2007

"..." 10

"If the Vikings were around today, they would probably be amazed at how much glow-in-the-dark stuff we have, and how we take so much of it for granted."

—Jack Handey

"..." 9

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

—Einstein

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Philosophy

Monday, September 3, 2007

Poem 25

skipping stones . .  . (
across a glossy sheen
 
) rising to a brim
inside-out, it expands—
plummets, and expands—
 
pouring and pushing,
lush and ringing,
 
inflated and saturated, but
not overbearing—   slowly smoothing into
 
glass-patterned surges;  cleft into channels
 
and broken)     with debris,

Saturday, September 1, 2007

World population growth through history

Sadly, this is the best graph I could find on Google. It does its job though. (Click to view it in full-size.)


It's crazy to me that just over 200 years ago someone could say, "Wow, there are over a billion people! Isn't that ridiculous?—so, so many of us, more than there's ever been." And at the end of this century there may be as many as eight or twelve times that number.

Poem 24

Vermillions and cobalts dive over rectangles
       behind the screen
into a pot-blanket of ivory black.

The horizon careens amid poles
       affixed to bright yellows,
and now the sky's height is turquoise.

Few roving reds scroll through
       tracing lines through dark umber
rectangles as they sprout with leaves.

But behind curtains, this I've seen
       every night. Seen all the blacks,
the reds, and tinged titanium whites,

but there is no canvas,
and soon there'll be morning and again night.