Re: oldest American skull found!

From: Lee Olsen (paleocity_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 10/15/04 

Date: 15 Oct 2004 08:33:00 -0700

"Erik A. Mattila" <emattila@oco.net> wrote in message news:<416EA657.1080003@oco.net>...
> MIB529 wrote:
> > "Erik A. Mattila" <emattila@oco.net> wrote in message news:<416C4D9B.7040802@oco.net>...
> >
> >>Personally, I don't regard Yuri's position as racist.
> >
> >
> > Then I have two words for you, Erik: South Africa. Under
> > apartheid, the South African government claimed that
> > whites got there first and blacks were later invaders.
> >
> > Rhodesia had a similar story, coupled with the idea that
> > the Phoenicians built the Great Zimbabwe.
> >
> > Thankfully, a bloodless coup in South Africa has brought
> > democracy there, and a more sanguine coup in Rhodeisa,
> > well, it hasn't brought democracy, but at least now both
> > populations suffer.
>
> Oh, yeah - I read that even the illustrious Louis Leakey opposed Raymond
> Dart over the australopithicus fossil. But look, MIB, I'm talking about
> something much more specific in regards to Yuri - who keeps making
> political arguments disguised as "science v. religion" which I think
> stinks.
>
> But then again, why not? "Science v. religion" or " Racism v.
> tolerance" are all arguments that we are familiar with. They come
> pre-packaged with scripts and talking-points and so on. Just add water.
> They easily adapt to a broad range of events, so they are very useful.
>
> That's why I'm making the argument that fossil fights are political
> events. Two distinct groups of human beings going to duke-city over
> property. The reason I like this argument is that it poses both
> entities as equal...there's no-way whatsoever that you can say one group
> is dominant, paternalistic, condescending or whatnot. And also, science
> and religion are equal under this argument.
>
>
>
> >
> >
> >>But I do see
> >>Yuri's position as representative of a general public attitude
> >>concerning the political history of the Americas. To put it bluntly, it
> >>is not Yuri's or any other non-indian's business what NDNs do with thier
> >>graves, any more that it would be a non-Upper Slabovian's business what
> >>soverign Upper Slabovian people do with their graves. That's just the
> >>way it is, period. I think a lot of Euroamericans can't stand this, as
> >>it interferes with their basic concepts of "equal rights" and perceive
> >>the issue as one of "publc access."
> >
> >
> > Which is quite amazing, because they believe in private
> > property wrt everything else, so much that the U.S. is
> > the biggest contributor to several tragedies of the
> > commons, such as acid rain, the greenhouse effect, etc.
>
> Again, we are carefully conditioned to think one way about things from
> the get-go, through the agency of culture.

"We are carefully conditioned" We ???? Who are you making assumptions
about here? Are you speaking for yourself?

> So "critical thought" has
> the initial obstacle of getting through the programing to make the
> unthinkable thinkable.
> And so often the "unthinkable" is actually the
> most obvious and simple.

Yes, you have seemed to have missed the most obvious and simple.
I do not know what part of the world you are posting from, but I know
it is not from the part of the world where the Kennewick Man was
found.

> The controversy over the Kennewick fossil is a
> case in point. Anthros and NDNs battling over property rights.

The reason you can't see the racism argument is because you are
selecting only a part of the picture from the whole.

Your case in point is a pimple on an elephants ass when compared to
the entire problem. The dictionary definition of racism fits the
whole, while isolating just the legal part of the problem does fit
your idea of power struggle.

> So in
> that case it doesn't make a rat's ass of difference is the fossil is
> John Luke Piccard or not. Or it doesn't make any difference if the
> interests of science are being served, or the interests of religion.
> It's a power struggle, and the rest is pretext and sub-issues.

No, the power struggle is the left over aftermath of the original
racism and is secondary to it. The NAs are simply fighting back,
visibly, in court.

>
> To tell you the truth, I don't know the current status of the fossil -

Nor do you seem to be aware of the past status, the events that led up
to what's happening now.
It's kind of a which came first issue, the chicken or the egg? In this
case it's the racism egg that was laid first, and the power struggle
is the sub-issue coming in second.

> if the NDNs or Anthros are winning.

The anthros never had a chance from the beginning. Because they found
a scientifically-illiterate judge to go along with their spin, they
are claiming victory in the war, when in reality it was only a minor
skirmish.
You can follow recent events here:
http://www.kennewick-man.com/kman/news/index.html

>But I have enjoyed the utter
> vehemence expressed by the Anthros when the NDNs won a round. Why?
> Because I'm a seditious ***, I guess.

Seditious? Huh? The govt. was defending the Tribes rights (and
individual rights) in this case.

>
> Erik

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