Looks Like Indigenous People Own the Moon

[Steve]

If it is accepted that indigenous means the people who were the first at a given location then the moon, by that definition, is the property of the USA. And if there is a racial component to indigenous then the moon belongs to white Americans.

 

[The Atheist]

I will never understand why anyone would feel guilty about events that happened before they were even born.

Mainly because they're told to.

It's an entire industry in NZ, manufacturing white guilt. From pop songs to prize-winning poetry, making whitey feel guilt for the sins of people who died over a century ago is very popular.

 

[theprestige]

I will never understand why anyone would feel guilty about events that happened before they were even born. You can recognize that people were treated poorly and take action to compensate for at least some of that without any guilt whatsoever.

But ceding them the moon is not a part of that compensation.

I mean, someone steals something, then gives it to you, I'd hope you feel some compunction when the original owner asks you for his stuff back.

"It's not my fault my grandpa stole your land and then I inherited it! I live here now, so it's mine. Your beef is with pop-pop, dead these many years. It's nothing to do with me."

 

[Steve]

I mean, someone steals something, then gives it to you, I'd hope you feel some compunction when the original owner asks you for his stuff back.

"It's not my fault my grandpa stole your land and then I inherited it! I live here now, so it's mine. Your beef is with pop-pop, dead these many years. It's nothing to do with me."

More correctly - "It's not my fault that persons, long dead and several generations older than my grandfather, and that I am not related to, stole land from persons equally long dead that you are (likely) not related to."

In a nutshell, yes. I feel no compunction whatsoever. And, as I said, I do not understand why others do. I inherited nothing. And the long dead original owner is in no position to ask for anything.

 

[Trausti]

I mean, someone steals something, then gives it to you, I'd hope you feel some compunction when the original owner asks you for his stuff back.

"It's not my fault my grandpa stole your land and then I inherited it! I live here now, so it's mine. Your beef is with pop-pop, dead these many years. It's nothing to do with me."

“Stole.” Eh, does anyone alive today not have ancestors who engaged in wars for land?

 

[Steve]

“Stole.” Eh, does anyone alive today not have ancestors who engaged in wars for land?

I think the idea is that you are supposed to feel guilty about it. Particularly if your ancestors were on the winning side.

 

[Olmstead]

More correctly - "It's not my fault that persons, long dead and several generations older than my grandfather, and that I am not related to, stole land from persons equally long dead that you are (likely) not related to."

In a nutshell, yes. I feel no compunction whatsoever. And, as I said, I do not understand why others do. I inherited nothing. And the long dead original owner is in no position to ask for anything.

I don't know about feeling guilty, but so much land having changed hands at gunpoint (or spearpoint, as the case may be) is a good moral argument for socialism.

 

[kali1137]

I had to stop reading after page one. Being indigenous, I am horrified at the level of racism in this thread. I would have thought better of some people here but I shouldn't be shocked after all these years. Don't mind me, I will go back to panhandling white people for money since that is apparently all we do.

 

[Steve]

I had to stop reading after page one. Being indigenous, I am horrified at the level of racism in this thread. I would have thought better of some people here but I shouldn't be shocked after all these years. Don't mind me, I will go back to panhandling white people for money since that is apparently all we do.

Nicely passive aggressive post complete with non sequitur. I noted exactly one somewhat racist post on page one. Did you see more?

FTR - While I am not indigenous North American my adult adoptive daughter most definitely is. She takes a great interest in indigenous affairs and we discuss them regularly. She is of the general opinion that no small number of North American indigenous persons are rather too quick to call racism when comments on indigenous affairs are not in lockstep with their own opinions. Perhaps you would care to discuss - in a new thread if it is becoming off topic for this one.

 

[korenyx]

Well, if they're claiming it's too sacred to use, I'm not sure whether there's a material difference. The point is that it would seem there's something a bit more than usual in claiming control over an entire planet.

If it keeps people from trashing the Moon the way we've trashed Earth I'm all for it.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

I don't know about feeling guilty, but so much land having changed hands at gunpoint (or spearpoint, as the case may be) is a good moral argument for socialism.

How so?

 

[Roboramma]

Semantics I think. If they were the first there, they were the original people there, even if they arrived from somewhere else. But if you prefer we can call them first people, or first nations, etc., as some do.

Not always so clear though. The Navaho weren't the first people to live in the land that they later called their own, either.

Even if we talk about the Maori, they are the first people to have come to New Zealand, but New Zealand is a big place and there were many Maori tribes who fought wars with each other, and in that time land changed hands between them as well. Is the tribe that was on that particular piece of land when the British arrived "the first" people there? Well, they probably took that land from some other Maori group a hundred years ago. But they're all descendants of the same original Maori group that first arrived in New Zealand (1000 years ago? 500? I've forgotten). How granular do we get in defining "first people"?

 

[Steve]

Not always so clear though. The Navaho weren't the first people to live in the land that they later called their own, either.

Even if we talk about the Maori, they are the first people to have come to New Zealand, but New Zealand is a big place and there were many Maori tribes who fought wars with each other, and in that time land changed hands between them as well. Is the tribe that was on that particular piece of land when the British arrived "the first" people there? Well, they probably took that land from some other Maori group a hundred years ago. But they're all descendants of the same original Maori group that first arrived in New Zealand (1000 years ago? 500? I've forgotten). How granular do we get in defining "first people"?

"When the white folks arrived" does seem to be the criteria for those who like to wallow in their guilt.

 

[Trausti]

"When the white folks arrived" does seem to be the criteria for those who like to wallow in their guilt.

Well, before the White people arrived, everything was peaceful; no war; no conflict. Everyone shared in a proto-socialist paradise. Or, at least, that’s what you learn in college.

 

[theprestige]

“Stole.” Eh, does anyone alive today not have ancestors who engaged in wars for land?

Wars for land are a bad thing. Over time, though, these kinds of grievances tend to fade away. Rarely do you get the kind of thing that plagues the Balkans, with people holding paper for centuries.

But the overrunning of Native American habitats and ranges, and the horrible way they were treated in the process, is a recent thing. It was unequitable and unjust and I think that people alive today still have a legitimate grievance. Claiming a proprietary religious interest in the Moon isn't the way to redress that grievance, but it's not like the Navajo have a lot of other options. Live on a reservation they were forced onto as part of a program of ethnic cleansing, or leave the rez, assimilate, and contribute to the erasure of their history and culture.

The taking of indian land is a shameful passage in American history, and still recent enough that I think America should probably answer for it. It's not something that can be brushed off like, "well the Romans occupied southern Germany, and then the Alemanni took it back, and that's all water under the bridge now, no big deal, stop complaining."

 

[Trebuchet]

There are 12 nearly new Hasselblad cameras on the moon.

Eleven, I think. Apollo 11 had only one.

I'm all in favor of indigenous people celebrating their culture. But when it becomes anti-science, that bothers me.
Not that the cremains which didn't make it to the moon anyhow are "science".

 

[theprestige]

I had to stop reading after page one. Being indigenous, I am horrified at the level of racism in this thread. I would have thought better of some people here but I shouldn't be shocked after all these years. Don't mind me, I will go back to panhandling white people for money since that is apparently all we do.

Dang, I was hoping that as an indigenous person you would stick around long enough to explain the rationale for the Navajo's claim of proprietary religious interest in the moon, and why we should take it seriously instead of pointing and laughing at it.

 

[Olmstead]

How so?

Taking something by violence is morally dubious. Buying and then owning something that has been taken by violence is also morally dubious. Technically, all land has been taken by violence (much of it explicitly so). The only moral thing to do is obviously to abolish private ownership of all land and resources.

 

[theprestige]

A lot of the land taken by violence represents ancient grievances, that have long been redressed or dismissed in one way or another. There seems to be some collective sense of a "statute of limitations" on the subject. And in many cases, the culture that took the land no longer exists anyway. Nobody is holding modern Italians liable for overrunning the Etruscans. Nobody even thinks they're unfairly occupying land that was stolen from the Etruscans. That is all literally ancient history, and for the most part everyone is content to leave it that way.

But the European overrunning of Native American land is recent history. Modern history, even. The culture that did it is continuous with the culture that occupies that land today. The culture that was driven out is continuous with the culture that claims a grievance today.

It is facile and disingenuous to dismiss the Navajo grievance as if it's on par with the Etruscan grievance.

 

[lobosrul5]

A lot of the land taken by violence represents ancient grievances, that have long been redressed or dismissed in one way or another. There seems to be some collective sense of a "statute of limitations" on the subject. And in many cases, the culture that took the land no longer exists anyway. Nobody is holding modern Italians liable for overrunning the Etruscans. Nobody even thinks they're unfairly occupying land that was stolen from the Etruscans. That is all literally ancient history, and for the most part everyone is content to leave it that way.

But the European overrunning of Native American land is recent history. Modern history, even. The culture that did it is continuous with the culture that occupies that land today. The culture that was driven out is continuous with the culture that claims a grievance today.

It is facile and disingenuous to dismiss the Navajo grievance as if it's on par with the Etruscan grievance.

Navajo culture is extant; Etruscan culture is long since extinct. Once a culture is extinct there is no longer any purpose in redressing any grievances.

I once Googled what time an eclipse was occurring for a Navajo co-worker because she had to be indoors at that time and didn't want to risk googling it and seeing a picture. I was happy to learn something about her culture... once she convinced me she wasn't pulling my leg.