An incredible moment of healing at Standing Rock: Hundreds of veterans ask Native elders for forgiveness.
“We fought you. We took your land. We signed treaties that we broke. We stole minerals from your sacred hills. We blasted the faces of our presidents onto your sacred mountain… We didn’t respect you, we polluted your Earth, we’ve hurt you in so many ways but we’ve come to say that we are sorry. We are at your service and we beg for your forgiveness.” – Wes Clark, Jr.
More about Wesley Clark Jr and this amazing event here:
All I want to add here is to express my utmost respect and admiration for Wesley Clark Jr and all the veterans who joined him. As we say in Russian “just one righteous man saves the entire city“.
The Saker
UPDATE1: the first two comments I got to this post where both outraged reactions of defenders of the “White race”. Oh boy, I knew that “patriots” would have a fit, but I had hoped that this would be balanced out by more rational comments. I don’t want my mods to spend hours wading into a intellectual cesspool of racist comments so if this continues, I will simply shut down all comments under this post. Also, moderation rule #3 will be ruthlessly enforced :-P You have been warned :-)
UPDATE2: okay, the dummies win. I shut down the comments. Too many “White race” trolls out there tonight.
The Saker
I nave nothing but the utmost respect for Wesley Clark Jr and the veterans that supported him.
Hum, okay, so basically,if I understood correctly.. Thesaker feels that it is not enough for the USA government to apologize for it’s crime.. Instead thesaker wants “the white race” to apologize for the crimes of – “their race”, do I understand that correctly?
Well, it’s true that whites did fight with Indians. And the fighting was often extremely unfair. Who takes responsibility for those who fought? Can a Russian publicly apologize for invading Poland in 1792? Can a Chinese publicly apologize for occupying Tibet? I think that if you want an admission of responsibility, those would be the people to do it.
As John Pilger wrote in “The New Rulers of The World”, quoting an Australian Aboriginal elder referring to Australia’s attitudes towards Aboriginals “Unless you give us back our nationhood, you can never claim your own.”
The same applies to the USA. The US Govt apologising is only the first step towards a recognition and reinstatement of long-lost sovereignty of the First Nation in America. This means starting with respecting culture. The US has scored no points in this area. It is a govt that has practised and is built on genocide. Even the Constitution was been “tweaked” to protect slave owners, such as Washington. To be frank there is nothing at all that the US govt ever did to be proud of with respect to the First Nation. For these reasons the US itself can never really claim true honest sovereignty, or, rather, nationhood.
For a better understanding of the history between the Sioux nation and the US Govt read any work by Joseph M Marshall III – his works should be a part of school curricula in the US.
The land in question belongs the Lakota, as a sovereign nation. Couple that with all the other things Native Americans have and are enduring and you see the problem is not simply the crimes of ‘the white race’ of the past but what is still happening, how compensation has not been adequate, and what widespread current attitudes, among non-government people, still are. The problem is widespread racism — against non-whites everywhere.
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” ― William Faulkner
Hum, okay, so basically,if I understood correctly.
You did not. “White race” is a category I never use since I find it totally meaningless. Furthermore, only a dull racist can see Wesley Clark Jr. as representing a “race” in this event.
If Wesley Clark Jr. makes me feel good about my fellow human beings comments about the “White race” make me feel like howling in despair.
The problem is that the idiots posting this nonsense are simply too stupid to realize how stupid they are (if they could, they would, and they would not post this kind of nonsense here).
I am seriously considering adding a new rule of moderation: “any comment including the expression “White race” shall be immediately sent to the trash bin”.
Does that bother anybody? Cry me a river :-P
As for me – I am closing the comments here. This “White race” crap really pisses me off.
My apologies to the sane people for that decision – but these race-trolls really make me feel like flushing my mental toilet.
The Saker
PS: especially for Mr Seagull: yes, Russians should apologize for every wrong they have committed towards others. I have NO problems with that AT ALL. In fact, we should ALL apologize for anything and everything we did wrong, both as an individual and as a nation (but not as a race, since races do not exist other than a pretty vague – and toxic – concept). And its not like the Russian ever genocided the Poles whereas what European did to the Native American is the “poly-genocide” of an ENTIRE CONTINENT – something never seen in history. Finally, “everybody else did it too” is not only the lamest and most pathetic excuse not to admit one’s fault, but in this case is inapplicable since this was by far the worst crime in the history of mankind. And, just to really piss you off, can you guess what the 2nd worse one was? Yup, you got that right – the deportation, torture and enslavement of millions of Africans. So please, your invasion of Poland is a hilariously stupid comparison.
It is my understanding that there may be one thing taken from the native peoples of North America that they proudly gladly gave, or lent without any expectation of its return:
Means of maintaining peaceful relations among a confederation of the following tribes:
Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Seneca, the Oneida, and the Tuscarora.
Which Alexander Hamilton and James Madison studied and borrowed from for checks and balances features incorporated into the US Constitution.
https://www.indigenouspeople.net/iroqcon.htm
The Iroquois Confederation. And its oral constitution, now written in the above link.
Thanks for posting this video, Saker. Now, besides vaguely knowing about the Iroquois Constitution, I intend to read it.
The racists who denigrate one race or people denigrate themselves, the entire human race and the earth itself. They foul their own nest, since we all live in the same nest, which is the planet and the universe. The reality of this principle is here, now, for all to see if they open their eyes.
“All I want to add here is to express my utmost respect and admiration for Wesley Clark Jr and all the veterans who joined him. As we say in Russian “just one righteous man saves the entire city“.
Very strongly agree with this.
“UPDATE: the first two comments I got to this post where both outraged reactions of defenders of the “White race”.”
Scratch a white supremacist and inevitability one will expose a zionazi fruit underneath. I’ve found that most of these freaks that spam websites with that nonsense are zionist Jews play acting or their tag along shabbas goy sidekicks.
One thing I found that startled me on the now defunkt uk guardian talk board was the hatred expressed towards Indians/Native Americans there. It was later I realised zionists, which was required on that site to avoid summary banning, identify I/NAs as american equivalents of Palestinians, for the very obvious reason both were persecuted by genocidal invaders.
Solidarity: It was when 2,000 veterans made plans to place themselves as human shields facing police lines in front of the Native American protesters that all of a sudden an alternative route was found for the pipeline.
This is how the world will be reborn–when we do not let them divide us and when united we face the common enemy on the issues that count.
http://www.infowars.com/standing-rock-a-great-sioux-nation-perspective/