h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The world can be divided into three categories of people: The Indigenous, The Indigent, and The Indignant, sometimes known as the III or 3 Is.

The first category consists of native people, however you choose to quibble about how to define the term. These people miraculously seem to hold on to remnants of their ancestral territory.

The second consists of people who have be dispossessed of their land and resources and hence must steal other people's land and resources to survive. Whether they live in cardboard shacks outside of Sao Paulo or in suburbs outside of New York City, the only real difference is in their perceived station on the so-called ladder of success.

The third category is perhaps, by their own estimation at least, the most important group of all. They are the people who are indignant because God made all these mistakes in creating the universe which thwart them in their endless search for ways to support their lifestyle without actually working for a living.

They are the self-avowed, if not necessarily advertised, micromanagers of the universe dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal but ought to still know their place and women should be seen and heard, but rarely listened to. Their children are, like many things in their lives, a necessary inconvenience, and the children know it too.

The world, in their estimation, is a personal playground which regrettably has neither enough golf courses nor sufficient sources of credit.

Speaking of credit, these people, although often boasting frequent bankruptcies on their credit histories, still consider themselves the most credit-worthy of all God's children.

And while they disavow approval of the peculiar institution of slavery, still practice it whenever they can since it's allegedly cheaper than working for a living and might even serve as some sort of collateral on their next loan application.

In case you haven't guessed already, it is The Indignant, with clear and present, if not wholly cheerful, assistance, from The Indigent who have historically oppressed and continue to oppress The Indigenous under the rather unpassionate label of The Establishment. When the Fires of Hell finally consume them, the stench of burning manure will be so heavy in the air of Heaven that even the angels will retch. The gray ashes will cover the earth and the buffalo will return, tada!

This collective retching is usually termed The Last Judgment since it is assumed nobody will survive to render anything further in the way of judgments. Nobody's ever explained to me what The First Judgment was but I think I can probably guess. So can you, if you think a minute.

Very fascinating (and well-written) stuff you have here; I do, however, have one question...

>The world can be divided into three categories of people: The Indigenous, The Indigent, and The Indignant<

If I have no ancestral holdings to speak of, and my ancestors were not dispossessed of their land but chose to leave of their own volition--primarily because there were better opportunities elsewhere--am I a member of the Indignant?

Cheers

I suppose it depends on what the opportunities were and who had to be dispossessed for those opportunities to present themselves.

For example, there are many people in the United States who came from elsewhere because of the promise of more or less free land. What they apparently didn't realize is that the land was not uninhabited, nor had it been yielded except under coercion or encroachment. Therefore, they thoughtlessly became parties to a very great injustice, recipients of stolen goods so to speak. This means that great injustices can be committed out of ignorance as well as with deliberation and the effects are essentially the same.

Consequently, I can't really answer the question but I think you can. Perhaps there is a fourth I, the I of the Ignorant or alternatively Innocent? If you are innocent does the I of the Injury that you inadvertently cause disappear?

I don't think so. But many people do. They think if they avoid blame that somehow the matter is settled. But who settles it then? Who answers for the error of omission, the failure of the government to protect the people and their land from the encroachments?

>For example, there are many people in the United States who came from elsewhere because of the promise of more or less free land.<

I'd like to propose a slight amendment to this statement; because the era of land grabs came to an end (AFAIK; please correct me if I'm wrong) during the late 19th (or perhaps very early 20th) century, perhaps a more accurate variation would be "there are many people in the United States who are descendants of people who came from elsewhere because of the promise of more or less free land."

Semantic issues aside, immigrants to the US now (and for the past hundred years or so) come here in search of economic opportunity; higher education--and thus the higher-paying professions that require it--are available to a larger segment of the population than ever before. (Admittedly, the system is far from perfect, but perhaps Churchill said it best: "Democracy is the worst system ever invented...except for all the other ones.") Still, even the economic opportunities available in the US today are probably founded indirectly on the territorial expansion during the growth of the nation; without the history that this country has, things would be unpredictably different now. That, of course, doesn't make any of this nation's bloody history any more necessary or just; it simply is what it is.

So, following that train of thought to its logical conclusion, I must ask another question: if I am a product of those who came here seeking economic opportunities (that are inextricably founded, however separated in time, on the injustices that occurred during the formation and growth of this nation), do I bear the responsibility for the atrocities committed by those who came before me? If so, my very birth was a perpetuation of the wrongs committed during the land grab, as is my continued existence; if not, where do we draw the line?

You ask hard questions; you make me think. Thank you.

Cheers

I appreciate your candor and integrity.

First, the present prosperity is very dependent on the previous land grabs, which haven't by the way ceased. The entire system of credit is secured by such land. Without it there would not have been nor would there be economic expansion. In short, immigrants and their descendents are wealthy because indians are poor.

Secondly, many immigrants, especially in our own time, follow not the opportunities but the cash flow. Because that's how colonialism works. Resources are looted from the rest of the world to support the wealth of America and other developed nations. Otherwise the opportunities would remain localized, as I think they should, but many people don't agree.

This is why for example the Sudan has become a virtual desert in many places in less than a generation. The commercial farming interests have ruined the land to obtain hard currency with which they buy luxury items at the expense of the small farmers and herders. The same thing is going to be done with the oil reserves recently brought into development.

This is more or less exactly what has been done on the American Frontier for something like two or three centuries. Therefore, I tell people, if you want to know what's happening now, the model for it was developed on the American Frontier.

As for what sort of responsibility you bear personally? That's a matter between you and your conscience I think. Whatever is happening right now with your assistance or approval, whether active or tacit, can be directly attributed to you. What you have inherited from your forebears is stolen goods as previously noted.

I don't think it would be in anyone's best interests to try to restore everything, but I do think there is plenty of land in the public domain that should have never been put there in the first place and that land properly belongs to indian people. That land needs to be restored.

This wouldn't work any inordinate hardship on hardworking immigrant's children. Those who are currently using the land under fee would merely pay the fees to the rightful owners for a change.

The government has amply demonstrated it is not an honorable or competent custodian of the trust accounts in those cases where the fees have been collected on behalf of the rightful owners, that is for leases on reservation land. I wonder how the American people can trust the government to collect fees on their behalf.

Since they're not likely to realize any advantage, again, the trust land might as well be returned. At least then there is the possibility of negotiating use for recreation or whatever with local people who care about the land, not government bureaucrats sitting behind desks in Washington, DC.

This is one way we can probably make the best of "what is" without making the future worse. As it stands now, the future won't be any better than the past. The same forces that have raped the continent and its people continue to be active and unless something is done to curtail them, your children may have as little as mine, if I ever have any children.

Already Senator Reid is attempting further alienation of Newe land in Nevada for the benefit of private, corporate interests. Those corporations care no more for you or yours than they do for me or mine. One way or another they'll keep chipping away at the public domain until it no longer exists.

Then you should ask yourself who you would prefer deal with? Some multinational corporation who considers you little more than a potential market for their overvalued and misrepresented products or people who have always shown respect for the law and the land, even law they didn't make and land they never needed to own before because, until the immigrants came, there was no need to establish ownership?

Over the millenia people learned to share the land and use it without depriving their own grandchildren. That might be something worth learning about maybe.

I am owned by the land. It defines who and what I am. I'm not giving it up, not anymore. If you want to help, then join us, and help. If not, then at least leave us alone and insure that the government and corporations who say they represent you or are merely doing what you demand leave us alone too. That would be a good thing I think, don't you?