Aboriginal Civil Disobedience

[Rhea]

The other very interesting manifestation here is the really detailed and persistant refusal to talk about the actual tragedy. The 1500+ bodies of dead children buried in unmarked mass graves on the site of religious residential schools.

I find it unexpected, and immensely interesting how several people can work so hard to avoid talking about that tragedy. It takes a lot of work. And it is work done by entering a thread on the topic, and writing thousands of words to avoid the topic.


Some people just avoid threads on topics like this. But others come to the topic and expend vast amounts of energy to change the conversation to something else. It’s very interesting to think about it what drives that.

 

[Jarhyn]

The other very interesting manifestation here is the really detailed and persistant refusal to talk about the actual tragedy. The 1500+ bodies of dead children buried in unmarked mass graves on the site of religious residential schools.

I find it unexpected, and immensely interesting how several people can work so hard to avoid talking about that tragedy. It takes a lot of work. And it is work done by entering a thread on the topic, and writing thousands of words to avoid the topic.


Some people just avoid threads on topics like this. But others come to the topic and expend vast amounts of energy to change the conversation to something else. It’s very interesting to think about it what drives that.

Indeed.

To me, the whole situation is like being in a place where there is a border. On one side of this border, there is acceptable, socially positive or agnostic behavior. When everyone stands here, and doesn't walk or shove us over there, things will be generally good.

On the other side, though, there is fallen world. It is what happens when the mess is already made. When you find yourself dragged by some inexplicable monstrosity in human form into that place, where the only path out is through someone else on wings of violence, where you have to cross through the place you find yourself so as to leave, things get crazy and chaotic.

The point is, people found their culture raped, their children stolen and killed or brainwashed.

The answer is that while it is right in some cases to do things like "burning down a building that belongs to someone else", it can also be right to seek to catch the arsonists and try them and put them in corrective custody.

I just am not interested in calling for any such action until the church does the needful.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

But then, 'Native American' is a misnomer. Nearly all Americans are native, but calling a group 'Native Americans' suggests very strongly that somehow the others aren't native.

Incorrect.

You might not know this but in American culture a person often indicates the ethnic origins of their family or of groups of citizens, especially when there's some sort of festival or celebration involved. We speak of Irish Americans on St. Patrick's Day, or Portuguese Americans during the Blessing of the Fleet in Gloucester, or Asian Americans when the Chinese New Year is celebrated, or Italian Americans when we're in the North End of Boston looking for a nice bowl of Pasta Fazool. And we speak of Native Americans when the discussion turns to things that involve or primarily affect them.

YMMV but it's commonplace here.

I am familiar with that, and that is why my point is correct. While those terms are also inaccurate, they are descriptive as I pointed out in the case of "Native American". For example, the term "Italian American" is commonly used to mean an American with recent Italian ancestry, which is a distinctive feature of that person. But "Native American" has two significant differences:

The first one is that being native is not a distinctive characteristic of the descendants of tribes that were in what is now America when Europeans arrived. Nearly all Americans are native Americans.

The second one is that it capitalizes a word (namely, 'native'), which is an adjective and is not normally capitalized. This makes it look superficially like "Chinese American", "Italian American", etc., but it is not so; those words refer to a national (or in some caes regional) origin, whereas 'native' does not.

A similar usage would be something like 'Comanche American', or 'Apache American', or 'Sioux American', etc., but those are not in use.

Correct. And in Alaska, that distinction affects important things like membership in health coalitions and subsistence fishing and hunting, which is why we don't conflate 'native' and 'Native'.

What I am saying is that 'Native' is a misnomer, and has negative consequences. Of course, if that is the term used around you and usage is socially enforced, the social cost of not using it may well be too high to make it obligatory not to use it.

I agree it is more sensible to withhold making sweeping statements about it, but I will point out that the kind of mass killing you're talking about requires large, well organized groups of hostile invaders, and the places we're talking about don't have the resources to support them. Not only that, the weather here is a significant factor and so is the terrain. It's not like the balmy Mediterranean where Alexander the Great was rampaging along the road system. Plus there's no evidence of that kind of mass slaughter in the oral traditions or archeological sites, so it's really not likely.

I think the statements are justified on the basis of the available evidence. But regarding the mass killings, they do not seem to require that sort of resources. Where resources are scarce, there will also be competition for them. And the target population might not be nearly as large as that of the attackers. At any rate, there is plenty of different ways invaders will destroy a culture, or at least much of it, and then other waves come, etc.

But to consider some examples from cold climates, the Neanderthals are gone with their culture, and so are plenty of cultures in cold regions e.g., Scandinavia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Scandinavia ).

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Ever hear of this concept?

Yes (though it is inaccurate, but I'll leave that aside).

At the very least I have a moral obligation as a human being and self-identified Humanist to learn how to recognize the legal and cultural mechanisms that allows some people to mistreat others and to work to eliminate them.

I would ask why do you think it would be unethical to contribute in some other way to make the world a better place. Given that your time is limited and that the time you use working to eliminate those legal and cultural mechanisms is time you do not work doing some other stuff - which can also be good, like developing vaccines, or something else.

Even if you do have an obligation to work to eliminate some of those legal and cultural mechanisms, you have to choose which ones. Because you cannot work on all of them - too many; the world is too big -, and also because the time you spend focused on one of them is time you could spend on another. And why should you not choose one or a few where you think you can make a bigger difference (for example)?

My point is: granting that you have that obligation to recognize the legal and cultural mechanisms that allows some people to mistreat others and to work to eliminate them, why would you have an obligation to focus on this particular set of crimes, rather than focus on doing something else, e.g., trying to persuade people that some other behaviors are unethical, or whatever you think you can do more effectively.

That says more about you than it does about anyone else.

You don't see any good reason to believe one has a moral obligation think about child abuse, ethnic cleansing, genocide, or the abuse of government powers against the helpless when the evidence of it becomes unavoidably obvious.

I was talking about specific crimes, not general categories like "child abuse", etc., because that is what we were talking about. And I was talking about your claim involving thinking about all of the things that you mentioned.
Our time is limited. Our resources are limited. If you choose to think carefully about all crimes you hear about, you probably will fail due to a lack of time. But even if you do not, you may very well make a bigger difference focusing on a few cases, not spreading your resources on a gazillion cases.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The other very interesting manifestation here is the really detailed and persistant refusal to talk about the actual tragedy. The 1500+ bodies of dead children buried in unmarked mass graves on the site of religious residential schools.

I find it unexpected, and immensely interesting how several people can work so hard to avoid talking about that tragedy. It takes a lot of work. And it is work done by entering a thread on the topic, and writing thousands of words to avoid the topic.


Some people just avoid threads on topics like this. But others come to the topic and expend vast amounts of energy to change the conversation to something else. It’s very interesting to think about it what drives that.

But in order to figure what drives other people's behavior, you should first realize what it is your opponents are doing. Which is not what you think we are doing.

In particular, there are actual wrongs committed in the thread involving things like collective blaming, blaming the innocent, misrepresenting what others say and believe even in spite of repeated clarification, condoning of and apologies for arson in the case under consideration, and so on. Some people prefer to use more resources to deal with the actual wrongdoings they see when they can do something about it - like refuting the improper claims or arguments, calling the people engaging in unethical behavior on that, etc. -, rather than to use them for something they reckon they can't anything about.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

This mood affects different people very very differently, apparently. I’ve already mentioned some of those different affects in a previous post (#418) but the topic that is so interesting right now (juxtaposed against one thousand five hundred bodies of children found buried in unmarked graves on the properties of Catholic schools.) is this idea that there is no Catholic church, there is no “they” there. The catholic church has never done anything wrong because there is no “they.” Never done anything wrong. Like the inquisition, for example. Not a thing that “the Catholic Church” has to acknowledge as a thing that “the church” did, because you can’t name the specific person and/or that person is dead.

And then more misrepresentation. Yes, there is a Catholic Church. My position is, however, that that is constituted by the activity of some people, and the RCC cannot be guilty of anything except in the sense that some individuals (e.g., some leaders) can be so. That's because the RCC does not have a mind - except in the sense that its members do -, and minds are necessary for guilt.

Which I mentioned before. They, Catholics, behave as if there is “a church” and they refer to it as the basis for their identity, and the mandate for their position in the world. They, Catholics, refer to the institution of the church as something that “does good.” And so whoever they mean when they accept that mantle of goodness, is the same they when they have to accept the mantle of shame when works done by the same “they” are monstrous.

Some Catholics do, though I do not believe in general they behave as if the RCC has a collective mind of sorts, which is what would be required for moral guilt on its part.

You can argue all you want that I am wrong to think of “the church” as an entity that should feel shame with a leader who should feel responsibility. But the Catholics - nearly all of them, think of “the church” as an entity that should feel responsible and glorious and a leader who should feel pride.

So I think it is not your call, but theirs.

No, it is not. And neither it is mine. Rather, whether or not an entity is the sort of thing that can be guilty depends on whether it has a certain kind of mind. If it has no mind whatsoever, it cannot be guilty of anything, again except if one is talking in a non-literal manner to speak about some of its leaders, members, etc. And that is an assessment I make, but I see no good reason - indeed, it would be improper - to somehow shut up and not explain that they are mistaken just because they are Catholic. In fact, Catholics are mistaken about many, many things involving their beliefs and the RCC. For one thing, God does not exist. And the Biblical creator would not be God if he existed. But he also does not exist. And the pope never has infallibility. And so on.

 

[Arctish]

I am familiar with that, and that is why my point is correct. While those terms are also inaccurate, they are descriptive as I pointed out in the case of "Native American". For example, the term "Italian American" is commonly used to mean an American with recent Italian ancestry, which is a distinctive feature of that person. But "Native American" has two significant differences:

The first one is that being native is not a distinctive characteristic of the descendants of tribes that were in what is now America when Europeans arrived. Nearly all Americans are native Americans.

You so clearly missed the point I wonder if you're deliberately avoiding it.

Native American with capital 'N' and native American with lower case 'n' re two different things here in America. If you can't comprehend that, then some important context is just going to be mystery to you.

Anyway, this quibbling over Native vs. native is a distraction. This thread is about the recently discovered graves of thousands of children. That is the only matter I will continue to discuss with you in this thread.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Ever hear of this concept?

Yes (though it is inaccurate, but I'll leave that aside).

At the very least I have a moral obligation as a human being and self-identified Humanist to learn how to recognize the legal and cultural mechanisms that allows some people to mistreat others and to work to eliminate them.

I would ask why do you think it would be unethical to contribute in some other way to make the world a better place. Given that your time is limited and that the time you use working to eliminate those legal and cultural mechanisms is time you do not work doing some other stuff - which can also be good, like developing vaccines, or something else.

Even if you do have an obligation to work to eliminate some of those legal and cultural mechanisms, you have to choose which ones. Because you cannot work on all of them - too many; the world is too big -, and also because the time you spend focused on one of them is time you could spend on another. And why should you not choose one or a few where you think you can make a bigger difference (for example)?

My point is: granting that you have that obligation to recognize the legal and cultural mechanisms that allows some people to mistreat others and to work to eliminate them, why would you have an obligation to focus on this particular set of crimes, rather than focus on doing something else, e.g., trying to persuade people that some other behaviors are unethical, or whatever you think you can do more effectively.

That says more about you than it does about anyone else.

You don't see any good reason to believe one has a moral obligation think about child abuse, ethnic cleansing, genocide, or the abuse of government powers against the helpless when the evidence of it becomes unavoidably obvious.

I was talking about specific crimes, not general categories like "child abuse", etc., because that is what we were talking about. And I was talking about your claim involving thinking about all of the things that you mentioned.
Our time is limited. Our resources are limited. If you choose to think carefully about all crimes you hear about, you probably will fail due to a lack of time. But even if you do not, you may very well make a bigger difference focusing on a few cases, not spreading your resources on a gazillion cases.

You seem to be proposing picking out individual cases on a whim rather than attacking systemic problems systematically. That is in keeping with your focus on individual Catholic clergy and teachers rather than focusing on the church hierarchy that oversaw the operation of those schools. That is also in keeping with how the Archdiocese of Boston protected hundreds of priests who sexually abused thousands of children over several decades and stonewalled efforts to investigate their crimes.

If he were still alive, Cardinal Law would approve.

 

[Patooka]

That's because the RCC does not have a mind - except in the sense that its members do -, and minds are necessary for guilt.

Literally every court on the planet proves that is a bullshit argument.

 

[Jarhyn]

That's because the RCC does not have a mind - except in the sense that its members do -, and minds are necessary for guilt.

Literally every court on the planet proves that is a bullshit argument.

I also don't belief that it lacks a mind. It's a very anthropocentric concept of mind and agency to reject such. The Catholic church has rules and procedures, systems of decision making. The operation of it's mind is plodding, slow, and alien.

But that kind still operates, creates organizational agency, and effects change based on priors intersected with principles.

To me it IS a mind and DOES have some expectation of oversight and liability.

 

[Gospel]

You're incapable of doing so if you were obligated. Why ask such a stupid question.

First, if you were obligated, you would be capable of doing so.

Second, the question is not stupid, and the reason I ask it is because an accusation has been made, and the answer is relevant to it.

Being obligated doesn't automatically grant you the capability to hear every single person much less find the time to listen. You'd spend the rest of your days on earth on a lounge chair haring nothing but horror story after horror story. You'd be too crazy to be of any help after all that.

Note: I'm just doing what you do which is make a benign argument out of a small piece of your overall statement and continuously (post after post) drift away from the topic to a point where it is unrecognizable. It's not about you, it's about the graves of children found at a Catholic Church given the authorization by the Canadian Government to forcefully indoctrinate indigenous children and arson. You are not Catholic, you are not the arsonist, you are not the indigenous people and I don't (and I do mean this with respect) give a fuck about seeing things from your perspective. In every one of your posts, you make it about you as if we're to argue about what you should or should not do if you were metaphorically plopped down in Canada as a member of the Catholic church. At no time do you discuss this issue in a broader sense taking into account all of what lead to the current issue. It's all about the arson and the people who did nothing to deserve the Church burning down. Both you and TomC seem to be happy with saying "someone burned the church down, get them and be done with it!" but don't give two shits about 1000's of children in unmarked graves being discovered. Crime is a crime, right? Yet you both seem okey-dokey with the graves themselves.

BTW TomC Yes Canada does not have a statute of limitation. Have you ever considered how Candian Law would be applied to what was done by the Catholic Church? We both know the Arsonist(s) will be held accountable when caught. Do you think the graves should just magically go away? Don't bother answering, I know the hour hand on your clock spun one too many times for you to care.

 

[Jarhyn]

You're incapable of doing so if you were obligated. Why ask such a stupid question.

First, if you were obligated, you would be capable of doing so.

Second, the question is not stupid, and the reason I ask it is because an accusation has been made, and the answer is relevant to it.

Being obligated doesn't automatically...

Yeah, not to mention that I can, in fact, hear every one (assuming that we have done due diligence to guarantee that this is accessible) in the form of recording statistics. And we help every such situation through systemic payment of taxes.

It's when people are silenced, the crimes hidden, the bodies buried in secret mass graves that we are robbed of our power to listen, hear, and react as we are obligated to.

It matters little that the format of me hearing a person's suffering be as the drip of a drop into a bucket, so long as I can always look to see the bucket and how fast it fills, that I may be aware that the faucet is still leaking misery into the world.

It's like AM pretends we can't streamline, and make systematic this obligation to care about everyone. That we have not done it already.

 

[Angry Floof]

Being obligated doesn't automatically...

Yeah, not to mention that I can, in fact, hear every one (assuming that we have done due diligence to guarantee that this is accessible) in the form of recording statistics. And we help every such situation through systemic payment of taxes.

It's when people are silenced, the crimes hidden, the bodies buried in secret mass graves that we are robbed of our power to listen, hear, and react as we are obligated to.

It matters little that the format of me hearing a person's suffering be as the drip of a drop into a bucket, so long as I can always look to see the bucket and how fast it fills, that I may be aware that the faucet is still leaking misery into the world.

It's like AM pretends we can't streamline, and make systematic this obligation to care about everyone. That we have not done it already.

Bam! We can and we do systemically care about all humans, with focus on the most vulnerable. The only reason this aspect of wider human society still does not yet meet the needs of every human is because of so many minds among us willing to turn away from that in favor of protecting powerful authority figures from accountability.

Imagine openly, presumably with a straight face, asserting that it's somehow unfair to hold the RCC accountable for the children it abuses and kills, and spending your frontal lobe activity on finding justifications for that and not for finding ways to protect the least among us and hold accountable their abusers.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

That's because the RCC does not have a mind - except in the sense that its members do -, and minds are necessary for guilt.

Literally every court on the planet proves that is a bullshit argument.

That is certainly false. First, not every court on the planet declares that things that do not have minds are guilty. Most do not, as they do not declare anything guilty.
Second, I am talking of course about morally guilty, that is blameworthy, regardless of what a law might say.
Third, even if every court declared that things that do not have minds are morally guilty, that would not prove that my assertion is false. It would of course remain true, and all of the courts would be in error.

Just think about it for a moment: when you blame some entity X, when you say that some X is guilty, when you are morally outraged because of some unethical behavior, do you really not have in mind guilty human beings?. Are you seriously thinking about some non-human entity, mindless entity ? (I'm pretty sure you're not blaming non-human monkeys)

 

[TomC]

Don't bother answering,

I don't see much point. It's obvious to me what the general view on TFT is.
Tom

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Being obligated doesn't automatically grant you the capability to hear every single person much less find the time to listen. You'd spend the rest of your days on earth on a lounge chair haring nothing but horror story after horror story. You'd be too crazy to be of any help after all that.

It does not grant you any capability. Rather, if you are obligated, then you have it. And since you do not have it, then you are not obligated. Well, that is at least if ought implies can; you seem to be challenging that. So, we disagree.

In every one of your posts, you make it about you as if we're to argue about what you should or should not do if you were metaphorically plopped down in Canada as a member of the Catholic church.

Actually, no, I do not make it about me. Rather, in some of their posts, my debate opponents make it about me by claming I have such-and-such moral obligation, saying or implying I am behaving immorally, etc.. You can see that for yourself, by reading the exchanges.

At no time do you discuss this issue in a broader sense taking into account all of what lead to the current issue. It's all about the arson and the people who did nothing to deserve the Church burning down.

No, it's not all about that. That is one of the topics under discussion. It's also the collective blaming of people. It's also the accusations against dissenters. It's also the misrepresentation of what others say. And so on. There are many things being discussed.

Both you and TomC seem to be happy with saying "someone burned the church down, get them and be done with it!" but don't give two shits about 1000's of children in unmarked graves being discovered.

That is not true. Rather, I have a limited amount of resources, and I try to argue against the behaviors - including blaming the innocent - that happen in the thread, committed by thread posters, and including the condoning of the behavior of the arsonists. No one defends the actions of the kidnappers, abusers, murderers, etc. and at any rate, there is nothing I can do about that.

But when you asked me about those crimes (i.e., the kidnappings, etc.), I did answer.

Crime is a crime, right? Yet you both seem okey-dokey with the graves themselves.

You should not believe that, given my previous reply to you. No, the graves are not okay, though the culpability for each choice to dig them is a matter that has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Again, if someone engaged in murder of children, I think they deserved to be executed. And the kidnappers - graves or not - deserve to go to prison for a long time. And again, I already told you that those are heinous crimes. You keep making things up about me.

Now, before I go on, please re-read the post of yours I am replying to, and see what you just did. Again, you say

You are not Catholic, you are not the arsonist, you are not the indigenous people and I don't (and I do mean this with respect) give a fuck about seeing things from your perspective. In every one of your posts, you make it about you as if we're to argue about what you should or should not do if you were metaphorically plopped down in Canada as a member of the Catholic church. At no time do you discuss this issue in a broader sense taking into account all of what lead to the current issue. It's all about the arson and the people who did nothing to deserve the Church burning down.

and in the very next sentence you make it about me - and about TomC - by saying

Both you and TomC seem to be happy with saying "someone burned the church down, get them and be done with it!" but don't give two shits about 1000's of children in unmarked graves being discovered. Crime is a crime, right? Yet you both seem okey-dokey with the graves themselves.

That is obviously an accusation. A false one, and one that you should realize is false on the basis of the posts I made in the thread. I already replied to that one, but here I would like to highlight that you make it about me - again - by accusing me. I have of course other accusers that keep making it about me as long as they accuse me. Generally, when you accuse someone, you make it about that person - not exclusively about that person if you talk about other stuff too, but at least in part about that person.

 

[Emily Lake]

The other very interesting manifestation here is the really detailed and persistant refusal to talk about the actual tragedy. The 1500+ bodies of dead children buried in unmarked mass graves on the site of religious residential schools.

I find it unexpected, and immensely interesting how several people can work so hard to avoid talking about that tragedy. It takes a lot of work. And it is work done by entering a thread on the topic, and writing thousands of words to avoid the topic.


Some people just avoid threads on topics like this. But others come to the topic and expend vast amounts of energy to change the conversation to something else. It’s very interesting to think about it what drives that.

I suspect it's more a case of every poster here agrees that the death of those thousands of children was a horrific abuse, a terrible thing to have happened. Nobody has any counter to that, nobody thinks it was a good thing, or even that it's not a big fucking deal that so many bodies have been found.

We all agree on that. There's no real discussion to be had on that aspect of it. Thus, it doesn't get air time.

Nobody is trying to avoid talking about the tragedy, because we all agree that it was a tragedy.

 

[Jarhyn]

The other very interesting manifestation here is the really detailed and persistant refusal to talk about the actual tragedy. The 1500+ bodies of dead children buried in unmarked mass graves on the site of religious residential schools.

I find it unexpected, and immensely interesting how several people can work so hard to avoid talking about that tragedy. It takes a lot of work. And it is work done by entering a thread on the topic, and writing thousands of words to avoid the topic.


Some people just avoid threads on topics like this. But others come to the topic and expend vast amounts of energy to change the conversation to something else. It’s very interesting to think about it what drives that.

I suspect it's more a case of every poster here agrees that the death of those thousands of children was a horrific abuse, a terrible thing to have happened. Nobody has any counter to that, nobody thinks it was a good thing, or even that it's not a big fucking deal that so many bodies have been found.

We all agree on that. There's no real discussion to be had on that aspect of it. Thus, it doesn't get air time.

Nobody is trying to avoid talking about the tragedy, because we all agree that it was a tragedy.

It's kind of like being in love. If you really are, if you really do, generally you find the ability to actually say it.

The question I keep asking then, and which I haven't seen any good answers to, is "what is to be done to respond to a situation where neither the government nor the responsible organization does anything to reveal the truth of what happened, and to make amends as is necessary?"

Not necessarily of the RCC; but of any organization.

That is what comes next, should anyone here actually decide to advance the topic. We can decide how that intersects with the RCC later.

 

[rousseau]

The other very interesting manifestation here is the really detailed and persistant refusal to talk about the actual tragedy. The 1500+ bodies of dead children buried in unmarked mass graves on the site of religious residential schools.

I find it unexpected, and immensely interesting how several people can work so hard to avoid talking about that tragedy. It takes a lot of work. And it is work done by entering a thread on the topic, and writing thousands of words to avoid the topic.


Some people just avoid threads on topics like this. But others come to the topic and expend vast amounts of energy to change the conversation to something else. It’s very interesting to think about it what drives that.

I suspect it's more a case of every poster here agrees that the death of those thousands of children was a horrific abuse, a terrible thing to have happened. Nobody has any counter to that, nobody thinks it was a good thing, or even that it's not a big fucking deal that so many bodies have been found.

We all agree on that. There's no real discussion to be had on that aspect of it. Thus, it doesn't get air time.

Nobody is trying to avoid talking about the tragedy, because we all agree that it was a tragedy.

It's kind of like being in love. If you really are, if you really do, generally you find the ability to actually say it.

The question I keep asking then, and which I haven't seen any good answers to, is "what is to be done to respond to a situation where neither the government nor the responsible organization does anything to reveal the truth of what happened, and to make amends as is necessary?"

Not necessarily of the RCC; but of any organization.

That is what comes next, should anyone here actually decide to advance the topic. We can decide how that intersects with the RCC later.

As far as Canada is concerned it's a problem of the electorate: the overwhelming majority of our country is apathetic toward indigenous issues. So unless some outside body forces our government to act, or by some miracle the NDP gets a federal majority, the answer is.. 'not much'.

I see a lot of people in Canada advocating for indigenous issues, just not enough of them to force meaningful action. I think the best we can really hope for is the recent news to put a little more ethical pressure on our government. But I'm not very hopeful.

 

[Emily Lake]

The question I keep asking then, and which I haven't seen any good answers to, is "what is to be done to respond to a situation where neither the government nor the responsible organization does anything to reveal the truth of what happened, and to make amends as is necessary?"

That's difficult to answer.

Was the current government aware that there were thousands of bodies buried there? If they were aware, then sure, I think there should be some anger at it being covered up by the current Canadian government. If they were not aware, then how should they have revealed a truth of which they were unaware?

Was the current RCC aware that there were thousands of bodies buried there?

Who do you think should be making efforts to reveal the truth of what happened? And how should they go about revealing that truth? What is involved in revealing the truth?

Who should be making amends? Are the people that you expect to make amends directly responsible for those deaths? Or are they only indirectly responsible by dint of belonging to the same organization today that committed the atrocities in the past? What kind of amends do you feel are appropriate to make, from who and to whom?

And where in all of that does burning down buildings come into the mix?

 

[Arctish]

The other very interesting manifestation here is the really detailed and persistant refusal to talk about the actual tragedy. The 1500+ bodies of dead children buried in unmarked mass graves on the site of religious residential schools.

I find it unexpected, and immensely interesting how several people can work so hard to avoid talking about that tragedy. It takes a lot of work. And it is work done by entering a thread on the topic, and writing thousands of words to avoid the topic.


Some people just avoid threads on topics like this. But others come to the topic and expend vast amounts of energy to change the conversation to something else. It’s very interesting to think about it what drives that.

I suspect it's more a case of every poster here agrees that the death of those thousands of children was a horrific abuse, a terrible thing to have happened. Nobody has any counter to that, nobody thinks it was a good thing, or even that it's not a big fucking deal that so many bodies have been found.

We all agree on that. There's no real discussion to be had on that aspect of it. Thus, it doesn't get air time.

Nobody is trying to avoid talking about the tragedy, because we all agree that it was a tragedy.

It's kind of like being in love. If you really are, if you really do, generally you find the ability to actually say it.

The question I keep asking then, and which I haven't seen any good answers to, is "what is to be done to respond to a situation where neither the government nor the responsible organization does anything to reveal the truth of what happened, and to make amends as is necessary?"

Not necessarily of the RCC; but of any organization.

That is what comes next, should anyone here actually decide to advance the topic. We can decide how that intersects with the RCC later.

The first thing that needs to happen is a thorough search of the grounds of every of every one of those residential schools. And here's where the government of Canada needs to be at the forefront. It was the government that took those children from their families and entrusted their care to the church-run schools. It is the government that has a duty to investigate what became of them.

If evidence is found that indicates the children were not properly cared for (and I think the thousands of bodies more than meets that requirement) or abused, then it is the duty of the government to bring criminal charges against the administrators and staff.

Also, since it is now apparent that a shocking abuse of human rights occurred so recently that the survivors are still living with the physical and emotional trauma, the citizens of Canada have a duty to themselves and each other to reform their laws and government right f**king now so that abuses of this nature are no longer possible. .

And the US needs to get off its ass and do the same here.

We need to acknowledge what happened to those children and their families. To do that, we need to support the truth about how minorities were treated in this country being taught in our schools. The only people who benefit from concealing this ugly truth are the abusers and the institutions that benefited from the inhumane treatment of children.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

We need to acknowledge what happened to those children and their families. To do that, we need to support CRT being taught in our schools.

No; one may very well acknowledge many children were kidnapped and abused, and some of them murdered, and that their families suffer, without supporting CRT at schools.