When I began this blog in 2001, I was appalled by President Bush's headlong rush to an illegal war (we were not in fact under attack). As time wore on and Bush began his assault on the Constitution and any people bold enough to criticize, I believed that "the republic is endangered more by actions of our own government than by those of any terrorist." With the election of a high-minded, compassionate, intelligent man like Barack Obama, my fears have ceased.
"Honor them with peace, not war"
United for Peace
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Lies My Teacher Told Me
So, the founding father were not exactly geniuses, as books have said (for coming up with democratic ideas). They merely saw how the native Americans governed themselves and borrowed heavily.
Alas, eventually the European way of murder, theft and dominance took over.
Copyright © 2001-03 Pam Shorey
(except the specific sources credited in quotes)
Things about US history my textbooks never told me
Lies My Teacher Told Me
Native American ideas may be partly responsible for our democratic institutions. We have seen how Native ideas of liberty, fraternity, and equality found their way to Europe to influence social philosophers such as Thomas More, Locke, Montaigne, Montesquieu, and Rousseau... Through 150 years of colonial contact, the Iroquois League stood before the colonies as an object lesson in how to govern a large domain democratically' (111).
'Both the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention referred openly to Iroquois ideas and imagery... As a symbol of the new United States, Americans chose the eagle clutching a bundle of arrows. They knew that both the eagle and the arrows were symbols of the Iroquois League... John Mohawk has argued that American Indians are directly or indirectly responsible for the public-meeting tradition, free speech, democracy, and 'all those things which got attached to the Bill of Rights.' Without the Native example, 'do you really believe that all those ideas would have found birth among a people who had spent a millennium butchering other people because of intolerance of questions of religion?'' (111-112).
'For a hundred years after our Revolution, Americans credited Native Americans as a source of their democratic institutions... When colonists took action to oppose unjust authority, as in the Boston Tea Party.. they chose to dress as Indians, not to blame Indians for the demonstrations but to appropriate a symbol identified with liberty' (112).
So, the founding father were not exactly geniuses, as books have said (for coming up with democratic ideas). They merely saw how the native Americans governed themselves and borrowed heavily.
Alas, eventually the European way of murder, theft and dominance took over.
Palema
8:51 PM
Comments:
Post a Comment
Copyright © 2001-03 Pam Shorey
(except the specific sources credited in quotes)
|
|