Believe What You Like But Know What You Must

People are free to be consumed with contemplating their existence, their origins, the origins of the universe, supreme beings, controllers of destiny or anything else. But solving "the Great Mystery" is neither a requirement of being Ohnkwe Ohnwe nor does it provide a path to righteousness. I maintain that spirituality does not require faith or the leaps that faith requires but rather awareness. If it helps to believe that "God has a plan" and we just must have faith that "He" knows what "He" is doing, then walk that path. My interest is in taking the mystery out of life by pointing to the obvious that is ignored everyday in the midst of fanatical ideology and the sometimes not too subtle influences of promoting beliefs over knowledge. I have said it before: “beliefs are what you are told, knowledge is what you experience”. I support a culture that prepares us to receive knowledge and to live a life with purpose. I am certainly not suggesting there is only one way to do that.

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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The Apology is a Joke

There are so many problems with the US Senate's "Apology" that it is hard to know where to start. I guess I'll start with how it was even passed. They had to attach it to a defense appropriations bill. This is where law makers jam in a bill that otherwise can't survive on its own. Makes for a real sincere apology. Add to that all the disclaimers for use in law suits (since we are being so polite, we'll thank the Supreme Court for that one and we'll apologized once again to the Hawaiians). Then we add to the hypocrisy by considering the work in congress to kill the Native tobacco business. States have been putting the squeeze on our nontaxable commerce for decades if not centuries. Congress and the Supreme Court provide them with backhanded ammo and then want to apologize.
An apology is little more than putting something on the record to ease "white guilt". They are as meaningless to us as they are to Black people, Hispanics, Hawaiians, Asians or anyone else in line for an apology.
Hey, Congress, want to do something meaningful? Try wiping out a few of your acts instead of attempting more. Get out of our Casino businesses, our tobacco businesses and every other area of commerce we have or will be in. Stop interfering with Native to Native trade and our international commerce. Get out of our politics. Stop trying to tag us with your ID's. Stop trying interfere with our travel; stick your homeland security where it belongs. Fulfill your financial obligations with education and health care and stop fighting us on reacquiring lands that you were complicate in stealing. This should keep you busy for a while.
Oh yeah, I apologize if I seem less than grateful for all the work that is done on our behalf.

2 comments:

John Kane said...

The reason for the Hawaiian reference is that after Congress passed a resolution formally apologizing for illegallly overthrowing the sovereign Hawaiian government the Supreme Court ruled that these "apologies" and resolutions have no moral, political or legal weight concerning the crimes the apologies address or the actions resulting from those crimes. In a nutshell, the court is saying that just because Congress apologizes for dismantling your government, destroying your culture and stealing your land doesn't mean you can seek compensation. The apology is enough.

John Kane said...

Check out the following articles in ICT.


http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/politics/63849997.html

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/archive/42395937.html