A Monstrous Tautology

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

From: "The Culture of Make Believe" by Derrick Jensen, Context Books, N.Y.
2002

"In 1823, U.S. Supreme Court chief justice John Marshall wrote a decision
remarkable for its candor about a subject we would all generally prefer not
to acknowledge: The means by which the United States government, and more
broadly EuroAmerican culture, took possession of this continent. By now
there can be few who still believe the continent was empty when the Pilgrims
and other colonists landed here, or that, for whatever reason, the original
inhabitants--the Indians--held no prior claim to the land. To this day, the
federal government admits that 33 percent of the land mass of the
continental United States was never ceded by treaty, and, therefore, is held
illegally. How, then, does the government, and, once, again more broadly, do
we nonnatives, justify possession of this land?

Here's what Marshall had to say about it. In a case called Johnson v
McIntosh, Marshall declared that ' discovery gave title...which title might
be consummated by possession.' He reasoned, ' However extravagant the
pretension of converting the discovery of an inhabited country into conquest
may appear, if the principle has been asserted in the first instance, and
afterwards sustained, if a country has been acquired and held under it, if
the property of the great mass of the community originates in it, it becomes
the law of the land, and cannot be questioned.' Translation: If conquest
forms the basis for your community--if your community would simply not exist
without it--conquest cannot be questioned.

He was explicit: 'However this...may be opposed to natural rights, and to
the usages of civilized nations, yet, if it be indispensable to that system
under which the country has been settled, and be adapted to the actual
condition of the two people, it may, perhaps, be supported by reason, and
certainly cannot be rejected by Courts of justice.' Let us translate this as
well: If an entire system is based upon an injustice, the Supreme Court can
do no other than to codify this injustice into law. To translate it further,
and perform a perhaps forgivable anachronism: To kill one Indian may or may
not be a 'hate crime'; to dispossess and entire culture may 'be supported by
reason, and certainly cannot be rejected by Courts of justice' " (pp. 11-12)

James Craven
(Blackfoot Name: "Omahkohkiaayo-i'poyi-inaa")
Professor/Consultant Economics; Division (Business) Chairman;
Clark College, 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd.
Vancouver, WA. 98663
(360) 992-2283; Fax: (360) 992-2863
blkfoot5@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~blkfoot5
*My Employer Has No Association With My Private/Protected
Opinion*



~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.