Native Amerikkkan Genocide

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Fri May 10 14:38:49 PDT 2002



> Stannard67 at aol.com>...> Yup, no denying that the US killed millions of Native
> Americans.
>
> The question is not whether the US killed them. The question is whether it
> was an official policy to eradicate them; that's what makes something
> "genocide." And it was.
>
> stannard

Michael Pugliese:
> Genocide. No question about it.Though I have not read, "American Holocaust,
> " published by Oxford Univ. Press, blurbed by Zinn on this.
> Since, one of my recent book puirchases was the new book by Samantha Power,
> "A Problem From Hell: America and Genocide, " which opens with a chapter on
> Lemkin and the original codification of the legal and moral definition of
> genocide (and, Peter K. posted notice of the book heree to silence...) I would
> be interested to hear of y'all reactions to her work. An excerpt of it was in
> the NYRB recently and she has an article in the newest issue of Dissent.
> Michael Pugliese

I read the article in _NYRB_ twice, the second time because I didn't see anything in it about the extermination of the Indians and I thought any consideration of the U.S. and genocide would have to start with that rather major fact, if only to shuffle it off. According to Theodora Kroeber in _Ishi_, Indians were still being hunted for sport in California in 1910. It was only thirty-two years or so to Wannsee.

However, I didn't rant about this lacuna anywhere because it occurred to me that I might be reading an excerpt, or that I had missed something.

-- Gordon



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