Here's the NYT report. Excerpt:
“If the investigation confirms the reports, it will be yet another genocidal massacre resulting directly from the Brazilian government’s failure to protect isolated tribes — something that is guaranteed in the Constitution,” said Sarah Shenker, a senior campaigner with the rights group....
“When their land is protected, they thrive,” said Ms. Shenker... “When their land is invaded, they can be wiped out.”
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I don't know that they "thrive" but they should be left alone.
Descendants of Spanish and Portuguese are still killing off the indigenous South Americans for their gold. Ho, hum
Even though anthropologists hate to admit it, you know what helps these peoples to survive? Missionaries. Missionaries becomes the interface between the tribes & the wider world, including the involved Christian community that knows what bells to ring when the objects of their missionary efforts are getting massacred by the locals. It's also missionaries who often create the first studies of the tribes' languages.
On some level, the missionaries are there to destroy a vital part of the tribe's culture -- its religion. On the other hand, having the contacts with the broader outside world that missionaries bring can help prevent the physical extermination of these native peoples, in which case, religion, language, & all their culture is lost.
Book TV has broadcast at least two authors summarizing their research about attacks on American Indians during the California Gold Rush.
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Professor Benjamin Madley talked about his book, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?427014-5/american-genocide
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Professor Makeda Best talked about the photographic portrayal of California Native Americans during the 19th century, focusing on how photographers portrayed the Modoc tribe leading up to their 1872-73 war with white settlers.She also spoke about how photographs of native people were used to promote western expansion after the Civil War.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?415630-1/modoc-indians-photography
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“When their land is protected, they thrive,” said Ms. Shenker... “When their land is invaded, they can be wiped out.”
It would have been much more acceptable had the local government gone to court to affirm the right to take the land through eminent domain. To bolster their claim, they could cite the benefits to the local government from larger tax revenues from the gold miners than the tribespeople.
They could call the whole thing Kelo or something.
Kelo being the word used by the indigenous Brazilian tribespeople for "Help! Someone is taking my land!"
With land disputes on the rise in many remote areas of Brazil, indigenous groups, rural workers and land activists have all been targeted by violence. More than 50 people had been killed as of the end of July, compared with 61 in all of 2016, according to the Land Pastoral Commission.
I'm guessing that a lot of this murderousness is a direct result of the recent Amazon gold rush. Gold rushes have a habit of bringing out the very worst behavior into people.
Violence is never the answer...unless you're antifa.
So just claim a higher moral calling. Done.
"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Matthew 25:40
I wonder if there is anyway for the gold to be gotten from the land without taking the land from the indigenous groups.
Are they at all interested in trade?
I also wonder if keeping them indigenous is more for their sake or for ours.
I'd like to recommend the Althouse Amazon portal, but they don't sell ammunition.
Easy solution:
1) Have the government allow the miners to rape the land beneath the indigenous people.
2) Have the government give the indigenous people the exclusive right to operate casinos.
The miners get their gold. The indigenous people get the money back anyway. And the government gets to tax them both.
Win-win-win.
They need nukes. Some of the most backward people on Earth have them now. If you have em, you can do anything you want and only get stern letters from the U.N. If you don't have 'em, you get dragged through the street, hung, or chopped up.
I blame Bush.
I don't know that they "thrive" but they should be left alone.
There are a few good arguments about "uncontacted peoples", but I do not believe they are conclusive. Certainly, they represent something of value to cultural anthropologists who have always had a Rousseauian longing for a "pristine" culture uncontaminated by the decadent West, but how can one study such a tribe and not contaminate them? What value do they put on themselves? If they are in total ignorance of modernity how can they fairly judge the value of their culture? Maybe if given the choice they would prefer to wear discarded AC-DC tee-shirts rather than go naked except for warpaint? Are we being presumptuous to impose isolation on them?
but how can one study such a tribe and not contaminate them?
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle reaches the soft sciences! I like it.
@Qaestor,
Certainly, they represent something of value to cultural anthropologists who have always had a Rousseauian longing for a "pristine" culture uncontaminated by the decadent West,
True dat. But, one wonders just how truly humane such a view can be when that pristine culture carries with it squalid poverty & early death. Would any indigenous parent want their child to die in their arms when a pill bottle of antibiotics could save it? Sadly, that, too, is part of the "pristine" cultural experience. Such forced attempts to maintain a primitive culture in the face of the "primitives" wanting the goods of modernity seem to me to be as evil as the murderous gold miners.
A traditional process in Brazil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandeirantes
Too much Star Trek, with their Prime Directive. It was just a TV show.
Better get those antifa-democrats down there pronto.
There's a book entitled Bruchko about an American teenager (Bruce Olsen) who flew down to South America and walked into the jungle to be a missionary. He's lived there for half a century. He stands up for the tribes against these kind of people -- the original title was something one of the landgrabbers told him: "For this cross I'll kill you."
...a "pristine" culture uncontaminated by the decadent West
Is non-contamination more important than diversity?
I thought immigration was always beneficial?
Now...how is the United States at fault for this?
"Descendants of Spanish and Portuguese are still killing off the indigenous South Americans for their gold. Ho, hum"
Do you say "Ho, hum" to all reports of brutal murders? What a creep.
Such forced attempts to maintain a primitive culture in the face of the "primitives" wanting the goods of modernity seem to me to be as evil as the murderous gold miners.
Which is why I have always thought that Star Trek's Prime Directive was evil.
Bagoh20 got there first.
There was a movie about this, "Ava..."-something.
"Descendants of Spanish and Portuguese are still killing off the indigenous South Americans for their gold."
How do you know the ethnic background of those in that melting pot called Brazil who are killing the Indigenies? Did you 23andMe them? No Black African or Native heritage in their bloodlines?
Sometimes the local government negotiates the rights out from under the indigenes:
The Papua New Guinea - Bougainville peace process
College roommate worked as a mediator in P-NG helping some of the tribes negotiate mining royalties. Said for a time Port Moresby and environs were Dodge City.
"Said for a time Port Moresby and environs were Dodge City."
An Australian acquaintance once (oh, 20 years ago) wanted to hire me to manage, of all things, a brewery in Port Moresby. The money would have been very good indeed.
Cook: Do you say "Ho, hum" to all reports of brutal murders? What a creep.
His "ho hum" is causing as much harm, and doing as much good, as your indignant response.
(Tradguy matacatólicos is just getting in his requisite anti-Cat'lick digs. Just like you're getting in your requisite moral posturing. Ho hum.)
For most of human history, the situation was simple. When you met another tribe, and wanted their land, you killed the men and the older women and inducted the young women into your tribe. If you could. Because if they aren't "us", then they aren't People. They may be people-shaped, and they can talk, but they don't have The Law, so they can't really be People.
Jupiter: For most of human history, the situation was simple. When you met another tribe, and wanted their land, you killed the men and the older women and inducted the young women into your tribe. If you could.
That iron law of territory hasn't changed. Land belongs to the people with the means and the will to take it and hold it. Sometimes the "means" consists of having more powerful people, for various reasons of (hidden or overt) self-interest, enforce the claims of a less powerful group, but the principle remains. Vae victis if it's forgotten or ignored.
It's all about MONEY. Always was.
"His 'ho hum' is causing as much harm, and doing as much good, as your indignant response."
It's not whether the comment does harm, it's that it shows that he's eager to express a blase "so what" attitude about the mass murder of others--whether genuinely felt or not--simply to be snarky on the internet, to show off to others. Only a creep thinks that is amusing or that it shows him to be amusing.
You seem kinda blase about the commie megadeaths, Robert. In your defense, it's not for humor's sake-but to defend the indefensible and promote more of it.
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