>Again, I'm specifically addressing the issue of disease as a factor in
>reducing the native american population. The numerous cases of massacres
>and theft and destruction of resources that took place should be denounced
>as horrible, indefensible crimes. But someone who tries to determine, as
>objectively as possible, the facts of the situation shouldn't be denounced
>for it (although they could be criticized for other reasons, i.e., shoddy
>scholarship, etc.)
Look, I'd be the last to argue against the virtues of careful research. But what I see in the Boddhi line, despite all professions to the contrary, is an attempt to minimize the genocide on which the Americas were founded. Apologists can say microbes did it, not gas chambers, but the microbes wouldn't have been there if the Europeans hadn't thought they could barge in and steal someone else's patch of land. Even today, North American Indians are among the most impoverished and unhealthy people in the hemisphere. Should we put that into "perspective" too?
Doug