First blog!

Looking back on the sad past of America is difficult to do, at least for me, while laying on my comfortable air conditioned room and typing on my laptop. It's an incredibly disjointed and conflicted situation, it's easy for me to sit at my computer and lament the loss of an amazing self-sufficient culture which practiced peace and simplicity. But it'd definitely be impossible for me to adjust to the Native American lifestyle. I naturally feel guilty as Mitchell states is something inevitable after reading such a heartfelt and sad speech, acknowledging the eventual demise of his people and his culture. I also feel obligated to react in some way, in order to make it right and fair. The opportunity to do that is, at this point in time, lost. There's no method of traveling back in time and steering Columbus off-course, though that would only prolong the inevitable. The world is finite and the Europeans acted in the only way they knew how, the only way that made sense to them. Even given different circumstances, different people, they would have acted with the same basic behavior installed in all humans, which I do believe is something spread throughout cultures, with no boundaries. People are motivated by the same things, the people who are close to them, and their possessions, and they act in horrible, conniving and unthinkable ways in order to advance themselves and what's important to them.

I digress from my people suck platform to say that Chief Seattle's religious parallels are intriguing and engrossing. He plainly states that he believes that the White Man's God has no place for the red brothers, which is a thought contrary to the actual Christian ideology of accepting all worship. The thought that God would abandon an entire people and favor another is heavy and depressing. Yet demonstrates Chief Seattle's understanding of American culture. He uses comparisons and expressions that all (English speaking) people would comprehend, and uses his mastery of the language to engage and connect to his audience, and eventually to all of us.