tango

I know I contributed, but just a reminder that Ireland is not America, and thus not the topic of this thread. Anybody have a good argument to say there was no genocide of Indigenous Peoples in the Americas in the 1500's?

I'm not sure what you are referring to. Are you looking for employees? According to others, you should try the food bank. However, some clients there are already employed full time, but minimum wage is well below the poverty line for raising a family.

So you consider only the physically disabled to be 'deserving'? Well our disability support, meagre as it is, does not agree with you. What about learning disabilities? What about mental illness? What about developmental handicaps? What about addictions? What about combination of all of these? Who determines who is employable? Are you hiring? You are very naive about human afflictions, Dancer.

- From the savings when thousands of bureaucrats are no longer needed to to 'means-testing'. - From redistributed from the top 10% of income earners, because the gap is far too big and getting bigger all the time. The current trajectory is not sustainable and needs a large correction.

The introduction of Christianity to Ireland dates to sometime before the 5th century, presumably in interactions with Roman Britain. All that can be certain is that by 430, Palladius, a bishop of Britain was sent by Pope Celestine to minister to the "Scots believing in Christ." While this is evidence of Christianity existing prior to 430, nothing more may be said for certain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholicism_in_Ireland Interesting point. Thanks. Funny how Catholicism became so entrenched there.

Use of the word "savages" is outdated and offensive.

And 18 year old boys ... ??? Great post, Army guy! Thanks much! Send it to Michael Coren, eh?

I think the crux of the issue is Israeli powers-that-be defining everyone in Gaza as "terrorists", thus de-humanizing the population and 'justifying', in their minds and for their soldiers, use of illegal methods of war against civilians. However I very much doubt that the UN and the world in general sees all Gazans or Palestinians as "terrorists". Israel has to be accountable for its actions, imo, as we all do.

I think this answers your questions, and there is much more information available on the net, if you are interested in investigating the history of germ warfare yourself. One of the earliest western references to this latter theory appears in On Agriculture by Marcus Terentius Varro (published in 36 BC), wherein there is a warning about locating a homestead in the proximity of swamps: "...and because there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and there cause serious diseases."[2] In The Canon of Medicine (1020), Abū Alī ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) stated that bodily secretion is contaminated by foul foreign earthly bodies before being infected.[3] He also discovered the contagious nature of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, and introduced quarantine as a means of limiting the spread of contagious diseases.[4] When the Black Death bubonic plague reached al-Andalus in the 14th century, Ibn Khatima hypothesized that infectious diseases are caused by "minute bodies" which enter the human body and cause disease. Another 14th century Andalusian physician, Ibn al-Khatib, wrote a treatise called On the Plague, in which he stated:[3] "The existence of contagion is established by experience, investigation, the evidence of the senses and trustworthy reports. These facts constitute a sound argument. The fact of infection becomes clear to the investigator who notices how he who establishes contact with the afflicted gets the disease, whereas he who is not in contact remains safe, and how transmission is affected through garments, vessels and earrings." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease Some of the first recorded biological terror attacks occurred in the 6th century B.C. The ancient Assyrians (whose civilization began around 2400 B.C. in modern Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq) poisoned enemy wells with ergot, a fungus that can grow on wheat, rye and other grains. It produces LSD-like chemicals that cause hallucinations and other symptoms. In another 6th-century biological assault, the ancient Greeks, besieging a city called Krissa, poisoned its water supply with the herb hellebore. It causes violent diarrhea. During their sieges, ancient Roman soldiers threw decaying human corpses and carcasses of dead animals into their enemies' water supplies, and catapulted them over the walls of enemy towns. A Tartar army in 1346 launched a biological assault that may have gotten out of control - big time. While besieging a city in modern-day Crimea, soldiers hurled corpses of bubonic plague victims over city walls. Fleas from the corpses infested people and rats in the city. Plague spread as people and rats escaped and fled. Some experts believe it triggered the great epidemic of bubonic plague -the "Black Death" -that swept Europe, killing 25 million people. http://www.rense.com/general16/thehistoryofgerm.htm Biological warfare has been practiced repeatedly throughout history. Before the 20th century, the use of biological agents took three major forms: * Deliberate poisoning of food and water with infectious material * Use of microorganisms, toxins or animals, living or dead, in a weapon system * Use of biologically inoculated fabrics [edit] The ancient world The earliest documented incident of the intention to use biological weapons is recorded in Hittite texts of 1500-1200 B.C, in which victims of plague were driven into enemy lands. Although the Assyrians knew of ergot, a fungus of rye with effects similar to LSD, there is no evidence that they poisoned enemy wells with ergot, as has often been claimed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_warfare

DNA evidence proves that they are still here, jbg, the mysterious Caucasian haplogroup x, the Mound People, among today's Indigenous Americans and Canadians. There is significant evidence that their arrival pre-dated the Asian influx across the Bering Strait. Physical evidence of the 'red-haired giants' has been hidden, destroyed and re-interpreted from early settlement days to today, but the DNA doesn't lie.

Please read my posts. I'm talking about the Spanish/Portuguese conquest, because that's when 95% of Indigenous Peoples died.

The Native Americans, like the Moors in Spain, were for a time considered without rights as long as they were not converted to Catholicism.[citation needed] Columbus was made governor of the new territories and made several more journeys across the Atlantic Ocean. He profited from the labour of native slaves, whom he forced to mine gold; he also attempted to sell some slaves to Spain. ... He returned to Hispaniola and the Taíno (Arawaks) in 1493 demanding food, gold, spun cotton and whatever else they could get from the Indians. Cooperation was ensured by a punishment system: any minor offense by an Arawak would result in a Spaniard cutting off his ears or nose only to be sent back to the village as living, breathing, bleeding example of the work expected and the brutality of which the Spaniards were capable. The Taínos began to resist by refusing to plant for the Spanish and abandoning captured towns, but over time this rebellion grew physically violent. At first, the conquistadors were victorious everywhere they marched and this led to a massive Spanish slave trade in which Columbus brought back some 500 "specimens" to work as slaves in Spain—while another 500 stayed as slaves for the crew left in the Americas. ... In 1522, a Taíno Cacique named Enriquillo waged a successful rebellion causing the Spaniards to sign a treaty granting the Indian population the rights of Freedom and of Possession. It had little consequences however, as by this time the Indian population was rapidly declining due to European diseases. Columbus used this resistance by the Indians as a reason to wage war and on March 24, 1495 the famed explorer set out to conquer this race that he had labeled "inferior" and "stupid."[citation needed] The Taíno often refused to participate in the new lifestyle being forced upon them by the Spanish which resulted in suicide. In addition, children were often killed as a perceived escape from a terrible life to come.[citation needed] Before Columbus's arrival, hundreds of thousands of people populated Hispaniola alone. By 1509, only 60,000 Taíno remained there. Although population estimates vary, Father Bartolomé de las Casas, the “Defender of the Indians” estimated that there were six million (6,000,000) Taíno in the Caribbean at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_colon...of_the_Americas

http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/northa...er1500/economy/ Just as in India, China, or Europe, most of the [indigenous] people who lived in North America around 1500 AD were farmers. There were also some people who hunted and gathered their food, like the Cree people who gathered wild rice, or the California [View map] people who gathered acorns to crush into bread. Traders continued to bring metals, stone, shell and furs all up and down the rivers from coast to coast. When most of these [indigenous] people died of smallpox and measles, in the 1500's and 1600's AD, trade pretty much fell apart for a while. You can imagine that if you were catching all sorts of unheard-of diseases, you might not want to see very many strangers! But soon Spanish traders sailed to North America, looking for things they could bring back to Spain [View map] with them. ... At the same time, with so many people dead from smallpox and measles, and from being killed by European invaders, there were a lot of abandoned fields and villages all over North America. The point I have been making repeatedly is that the epidemics of disease that killed the vast majority of Indigenous Peoples of North America occurred in the 100 years following early exploration (Columbus, 1492) and before settlement of colonies (1607). This was the period of the Spanish and Portuguese "conquest" of the Americas, when there were primarily European military, missionaries and traders, but not European settlers in America. Indigenous oral history indicates that boatloads and wagonloads of [infected] blankets were delivered to Indigenous communities either by the (Spanish or Portuguese) military or by Catholic missionaries. Whether this germ warfare continued under the French and British may be debatable, but there is little question that the Pope's Spanish/Portuguese 100 year "Conquest of the Americas" led to the deaths of 95% of its Indigenous Peoples.

references please

Smallpox can be murder, if boatloads and wagonloads of infected blankets are delivered to Indigenous communities by missionaries and soldiers, as reported in Indigenous oral histories, during the 100 year conquest of the Americas - ie, throughout the 1500's.

I think Harper did the right thing for Canada when he did this: The House of Commons has overwhelmingly passed a motion recognizing Québécois as a nation within Canada. Conservatives, most Liberal MPs, the NDP and the Bloc voted 266 to 16 in support of the controversial motion, which earlier in the day had prompted the resignation of Michael Chong as intergovernmental affairs minister. Stephen Harper votes for a motion recognizing Québécois as a nation in Canada. Stephen Harper votes for a motion recognizing Québécois as a nation in Canada. (CBC) Fifteen Liberal MPs voted against the motion, including Liberal leadership candidates Ken Dryden and Joe Volpe, along with Independent MP Garth Turner. Prime Minister Stephen Harper had introduced the surprise motion on Nov. 22, raising the ante on a Bloc Québécois motion that sought to declare Quebecers a nation without reference to Canada. The motion states: "That this House recognize that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada." The prime minister has said he is using the word nation in a "cultural-sociological" rather than in a legal sense. "I think tonight was an historic night," Harper said after the vote. "Canadians across the country said 'yes' to Quebec, 'yes' to Quebecers, and Quebecers said 'yes' to Canada. I don't usually have much good to say about Harper, but I think this surprising move has proved very successful, and may help us prevent such tragedies as Bosnia and other mulit-nation conflicts. I see it as a very constructive move to recognize social/cultural Nations of people within the Nation State of Canada, perhaps especially our founding Nations. The Quebecois are the first, but logically Indigenous Nations should be accorded the same status as (founding) nations of people, though not necessarily geographically defined. There is a complication though: In English, the document clearly identifies the Quebecois as a Nation of people. The French version, however, implies a geographic Nation. This is potentially problematic in the future, as Indigenous Nations have claim to large areas of Quebec too, and do not take kindly to the suggestion that Canada or Quebec can make such decisions about partitioning their land. Another issue is the status of non-francophone Quebecers - not 'pure laine' - do they belong to the Quebecois Nation? Some say 'yes we are', some say 'no you're not'. For the moment, however, this recognition of a Nation of people within Canada seems to have created a kind of 'peace accord' with Quebecers. (I've edited the title a bit to reflect the whole discourse here.) It is interesting to note that Canada has three legal traditions: The French Civil Code, English Common Law and Aboriginal Law are all valid in Canada. One interesting caveat in this regard: There is a movement afoot to acknowledge the traditional Indigenous Nations of Canada - also founding Nations of Canada, imo - including acknowledgment of their traditional territories, which include most to all of Canada, of course. Surprisingly (to me at least), this initiative comes from the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, aligned with the Harper Tories (though it's not clear where Harper stands), and opposing the Assembly of First Nations. Traditional Indigenous territories have been mapped by the feds, though not perfectly, following Constitutional talks in the '80's. The suggestion is that all Indigenous people be aligned with their Nation, regardless of whether they live on or off reserve. The legal reality is that all of the Treaties that allow us to live on Indigenous land also reserve for them the right to sustain themselves from that land. In modern terms, this means they have a right to "A say in development and a share in revenues" from the land. In reality, they have to fight our local, provincial and federal governments in court to get them to accede to these legal rights, and are making considerable progress of late in doing so. The latest development is occurring in Ontario, where Brantford sought a court injunction to stop Six Nations from blockading developments. Recognizing Six Nations existing rights on the land and Supreme Court Case Law (url=http://www.ontariocourts.on.ca/decisions/2008/july/2008ONCA0534.pdf]Frontenac 2008; See para 48[/url], the Judge has not granted the injunction to Brantford but instead, ordered the City of Brantford and the Province of Ontario to consult with Six Nations and accommodate their rights on the land in a written agreement, within parameters already defined by the Supreme Court. The three parties to these talks are to report back to the court on May 19. Indigenous Nations are not the geographic nations who were forced onto 'reserves', but in fact are also Nations of people integrated among us, founding Nations of Canada. Despite some ill-intentioned efforts to define Indigenous Peoples out of existence, the legal reality is that that can never happen: International law is clear that Aboriginal Rights cannot be extinguished. The UN has emphasized that Canadian agreements that include such wording (most recently Tsawassan) are simply not legal. Thus, there are changes in the works for Canada to correct historical errors in respecting the founding peoples of Canada, including Quebecois and Indigenous Nations as well as British roots. I think these are generally positive developments for Canada though not without some perils.

It's the hormone disrupters ... http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/aboriginals/health.html "We see the same names over and over on the list of Top Five," says Elaine MacDonald, the senior scientist at Ecojustice, which is Canada's largest non-profit environmental law organization. The companies that lead in emissions of carbon dioxide, volatile organic chemicals, hormone disruptors and heavy metals include Imperial Oil, Nova, Shell, Suncor and Cabot, MacDonald says. Are chemicals behind drop in boys' birth rate? by WILLIAM LOWTHER Last updated at 16:20pm on 5th June 2007 'Gender-bending' chemicals could be to blame for a worrying drop in the proportion of boys born in the U.S. over the past 30 years, scientists have claimed. A massive study found that, the number of boys born for every 100 girls has dropped steadily from 105.5 to 104.5 over the three decades in America. The decline, while apparently small, shows no sign of levelling out and could have major demographic and sociological implications for the future. It means that for every 205 births there is now one boy fewer than 30 years ago. So for roughly each million births in the country, 5,000 fewer boys are born. Figures for Britain show the male-female ratio here has remained fairly constant in the past 20 years, at about 104.9 boys for every 100 girls. It is considered normal in a large population for the number of baby boys to outnumber girls slightly, by a proportion of about 105 males to 100 females. This tends to balance out because of the higher mortality rate among baby boys than girls, a phenomenon which has yet to be fully explained. The study - published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives - also found the proportion of deaths among male foetuses in the U.S. after the 20th week of pregnancy had steadily risen. The researchers from the University of Pittsburgh said similar trends existed in other industrialised countries, such as Japan, where chemicals and other pollutants were in widespread use. Dr Devra Lee Davis, lead scientist on the study, said that while there was no conclusive evidence as yet, it was feasible that the decline was the result of genderbending pollutants in the atmosphere, particularly certain plastics and metals which have been shown to harm male-producing sperm. The study pointed to the example of a small Indian reservation in Canada surrounded by petrochemical plants, where many of the tribe work. The malefemale births ratio there is falling rapidly, heading to 100 female births for every 50 boys. "To our knowledge, this is a more significantly reduced sex ratio and greater rate of change than has been reported previously anywhere," said the researchers. http://antimisandry.com/facts-figures/gend...te-us-5691.html Males are specifically in a decline because of industrial pollutants. There's some irony in that. Speaking as someone who believes the gender balance of power has to change in order to protect our environment, to keep it from killing us all.

Oh I'm not suggesting that he is. But they like his theory. The conquest of America took place from 1492 to 1607. As a result of the achievements of Columbus and de Gama, the Pope divided the Western Hemisphere between Spain and Portugal. For almost the next one hundred years, Spain enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the exploration, settlement and development of North and South America. For over 100 years the military and missionaries completed the "conquest of America", and the destruction of its Indigenous Peoples. Funny ... we talk about the explorers and the settlers ... but what about the 100 year "conquest" by the military and the missionaries? What happened to the Indigenous Peoples then? They sent the pigs among them? Ya ... and their blankets too, delivered by wagonloads and boatloads. You should never rely solely on histories of North America written by and for Euro-Americans. Indigenous people know their history.

You think the 'diseases-not-racism' theory is news? You can find that on any white supremacist site.

from the UN site ... “Some nations, who by rights should be helping to forge a path to a better future, are not here,” Mr. Ban said at the start of the Durban Review Conference in Geneva, referring to countries such as the United States and Israel which have refused to attend the five-day gathering. He also spoke out against the comments made by Mr. Ahmadinejad at today’s session which he said were intended to “accuse, divide and even incite,” calling them a roadblock to tackling the scourge of racism. “This is the opposite of what this Conference seeks to achieve,” noted the Secretary-General in a statement, who, at an earlier meeting with the Iranian official, emphasized the importance of the gathering to galvanize global will to fight intolerance. During their talks, Mr. Ban said that he also underlined the need to look ahead to the future, not to the past of divisiveness, reminding Mr. Ahmadinejad that the UN General Assembly has adopted resolutions rejecting the equation of Zionism with racism and reaffirming the Holocaust’s historical facts. In a statement directed at the Iranian President’s remarks today, however, he said “we must all turn away from such a message in both form and substance.” Also speaking out against Mr. Ahmadinejad’s address was High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who deplored his use of the Conference for political grandstanding.

Who has interpreted Indigenous knowledge for this? I can't really either. But I do know there's something missing: Protecting Mother Earth, for the seven generations of the coming faces, in trust from the seven generations of ancestors. It's not a question of light or heavy. It's not a dichotomous choice. It's HOW heavily can we abuse Mother Earth, until she can no longer support us? That's not the way an Indigenous person would say it, but I hope you get my drift. We all have the privilege of having life on Mother Earth, and the responsibility for sustaining her Life systems, sustaining life itself ... our life. Were there orchards in some of those clearings? "world's largest garden" ... with a population larger than that of Europe at the time. It's important to remember that the explorer and military and missionary carriers of diseases pre-date by far the colonists. It was the clearing of the land ... of people. Today we'd just bomb them ... likely with germ warfare. To produce "Terra Nullius" in North America for the Pope.

Yeah ... just like a crime.

bushcheneyrove ... your posts are becoming too devoid of meaning to bother with.

Yes I noticed, and I'm agreeing with you. (Edited slightly to clarify my intent.) And Ahmejenejad did make a fool of himself too. I'm not on one side or the other in an ideological way. I'm pretty much a total pragmatist who regards ideology with great suspicion. Facts are good.

I already believe Bush to be a sociopath. How many US soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan now? For WHAT???? I certainly believe 9/11 needs to be properly investigated, and that it has not been yet. That in itself is suspicious. It is also suspicious to me that some people are so vehemently opposed to investigation. I believe there is a lot of fear of what the truth might hold.