Aboriginal Civil Disobedience

[ZiprHead]

I had an old barn on my land that I didn’t want any more. I burned it down. Problem?

In my town, yiu just call the fire department and say, I’m going to burn down this barn that’s bothering me, we’re lighting it off at 6:00pm. We had friends over. It burned for 3 days (it was a big barn)

Sounds like these indigenous folks are doing the same. There’s a church on their land that isn’t serving the purpose.

1) You burned up materials that probably were valuable.

2) Quite illegal here.

I've seen barns burned here intentionally.

 

[Elixir]

I had an old barn on my land that I didn’t want any more. I burned it down. Problem?

In my town, yiu just call the fire department and say, I’m going to burn down this barn that’s bothering me, we’re lighting it off at 6:00pm. We had friends over. It burned for 3 days (it was a big barn)

Sounds like these indigenous folks are doing the same. There’s a church on their land that isn’t serving the purpose.

1) You burned up materials that probably were valuable.

2) Quite illegal here.

I've seen barns burned here intentionally.

Round these parts you don't burn nuthin' this time of year. Even dead of winter with two feet of snow on the ground, you don't burn anything more than a cooking fire without getting the fire department out to see what you want to burn and where you want to burn it. They're good at assessing conditions, but still, ditch fires, slash piles etc. get out of control every year.

Anyhow I'm with Jimmy - hope they don't get caught.

 

[Rhea]

I had an old barn on my land that I didn’t want any more. I burned it down. Problem?

In my town, yiu just call the fire department and say, I’m going to burn down this barn that’s bothering me, we’re lighting it off at 6:00pm. We had friends over. It burned for 3 days (it was a big barn)

How unfortunate.

Old weathered wood is quite valuable to the right people. I know a bunch of them in the art and framing world. We aren't interested in structural strength, we're interested in the looks and patina. You might have both kept a few tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and gotten a check.
Tom

PM me. I have another barn. This one is much smaller, but it’s time to go. I got a guy coming to disassemble it and take the inside wood for a camp deck (wood is expensive right now), but the patinaed outer shell is up for grabs - or a fire. The wood from this one would about fill a pickup truck if anyone wants it.

Show

A person could drive around town here and fill a semi flatbed with nice old weathered barnboards if they were enterprising.




That last barn was 25 years ago

 

[barbos]

PM me. I have another barn. This one is much smaller, but it’s time to go. I got a guy coming to disassemble it and take the inside wood for a camp deck (wood is expensive right now), but the patinaed outer shell is up for grabs - or a fire. The wood from this one would about fill a pickup truck if anyone wants it.

Show

View attachment 34323

A person could drive around town here and fill a semi flatbed with nice old weathered barnboards if they were enterprising.

Looks great, can I rent it?

 

[Patooka]

The OP doesn't include a link, so I'll ask.

Were these houses of worship, or abandoned symbols of an ugly past?

If people were going there to do their thing, whatever I might think about that, it's violent vandalism. If the buildings were empty symbols of the bad old days, that's completely different.
Tom

At least 4 Catholic churches were destroyed on Indigenous land in a week

Canadian authorities are investigating multiple fires that destroyed four Catholic churches on Indigenous land in the past week.

They are the latest in a string of recent events affecting the country's Indigenous communities. The churches were destroyed as Canada confronts its history of systemic abuse of Indigenous communities with the recent discoveries of hundreds of human remains at the sites of two former boarding schools, which were operated by Catholic religious groups.

These schools still operated until 1996, apparently. It would require a metric fuckton of obtuse intellectual dishonesty to not think some indigenous Canadians didn't experience some form of abuse in those schools. This is what happens when a powerful oragnisation spend decades covering up horrific shit and then paying only lips service when exposed. I'm not endorsing this, but you'd better fucking believe I won't be outraged or express sympathy towards the Catholic Church either. Those two stances don't have to be mutually exclusive.

 

[J842P]

Well, right. What's wrong with revenge? What could the courts even accomplish?

 

[untermensche]

Burning a church is a tactic.

If it accomplishes something it is a good tactic.

It is accomplishes nothing it is violent revenge.

Is this a Stalin quote?

You think anything good comes from burning a church for this now?

It is a rational opinion.

 

[Toni]

I had an old barn on my land that I didn’t want any more. I burned it down. Problem?

In my town, yiu just call the fire department and say, I’m going to burn down this barn that’s bothering me, we’re lighting it off at 6:00pm. We had friends over. It burned for 3 days (it was a big barn)

Sounds like these indigenous folks are doing the same. There’s a church on their land that isn’t serving the purpose.

1) You burned up materials that probably were valuable.

2) Quite illegal here.

1. Possibly but honestly, I trust Rhea's judgment about whether there were any salvageable materials in the barn. She's pretty environmentally conscious and seems to care about reusing materials, etc.
2. Rhea doesn't live in a desert and burned the barn with her fire department's ok.

 

[Toni]

Burning a church is a tactic.

If it accomplishes something it is a good tactic.

It is accomplishes nothing it is violent revenge.

Is this a Stalin quote?

You think anything good comes from burning a church for this now?

It is a rational opinion.

Normally, I would be very much against burning down buildings, especially to make a point.

But the Church's silence has been deafening with regards to the deaths of children in their care while at the same time, condemning those who are not sufficiently 'pro-life.'

I can well understand the deep anger, and frustration which perhaps motivated those who burned down these churches. Perhaps it will light a fire under the Catholic Church to actually...do something to indicate their deep shame and regret over the deaths of these children. And then, perhaps, the Church could consider also expressing their deep shame and regret over the kidnapping of thousands of children from their families in the name of making them good Christian servants, emphasis on the first and last, of course.

 

[Toni]

In general, violence begets violence, but the near silence from the Vatican regarding the open secret about what happened at Aboriginal schools run by the Catholic Church, in light of the discovery of unmarked graves and mass graves really makes one think that a pound of metaphorical flesh is called for.

It does not make "one" think any such thing, it makes you think that.

I think it makes a lot of people of conscious, people who value the lives of children and persons of color and Indigenous people think that perhaps, this will get the attention of the Church who remains silent and apparently unrepentant over the deaths of these innocent children, whose lives, the Church taught, were oh, so valuable right up until they exited their mother's wombs.

 

[Metaphor]

In general, violence begets violence, but the near silence from the Vatican regarding the open secret about what happened at Aboriginal schools run by the Catholic Church, in light of the discovery of unmarked graves and mass graves really makes one think that a pound of metaphorical flesh is called for.

It does not make "one" think any such thing, it makes you think that.

I think it makes a lot of people of conscious, people who value the lives of children and persons of color and Indigenous people think that perhaps, this will get the attention of the Church who remains silent and apparently unrepentant over the deaths of these innocent children, whose lives, the Church taught, were oh, so valuable right up until they exited their mother's wombs.

Yeah, this is the second time you've championed your own destructive vengeance impulse as if you had the moral high ground. You also snuck in an implication that people who do not think as you do, do not value the 'lives of children and persons of color and Indigenous people'. Nice--I'm always learning from left wing authoritarian personalities such as yourself at how best to poison the well.

Here's a reality check:

• Burning down someone's property will not make them sincerely penitent for their sins
• An insincere nonpology to soothe ruffled public feathers or to avoid further property destruction is significantly worse than silence (in my humble opinion)
• Not one dead person will be resurrected, and not one traumatised person will be healed, by the violent actions of extra-judicial vigilantes.

 

[Arctish]

Some folks here have really short memories.

It was only six years ago that Pope Francis canonized Junipero Serra, a priest who was wholly complicit in enslaving Native peoples in overcrowded conditions leading to the death of untold thousands, and condoning beating and whipping those who tried to escape that bloody reign of terror. Those missions he founded were concentration camps, indoctrination centers, and slave pens all rolled into one.

And it's only been 2 days since this was reported:

In its latest report released Monday on the sexual abuse of minors, Poland’s Catholic Church lists 292 clergymen who are alleged to have abused over 300 boys and girls from 1958 though 2020.

<emphasis added>

If you think the mistreatment of children by the Catholic Church is old news, you're not paying attention. And if you think this current Pope shouldn't have to address the history of mistreatment of Native peoples by Catholic teachers and clergy, then you're wrong. Pope Francis opened that can of worms himself when he declared Serra was a saint.

 

[Gospel]

I know for certain I don't have the "moral high ground" when I say, don't drive under the influence of alcohol and you decrease your chances of causing an accident. Don't kill hundreds of children and you decrease the chances of getting your church burned down. Just saying.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Don't kill hundreds of children and you decrease the chances of getting your church burned down. Just saying.

That is true, though in this case, the people who killed some children (I'm not sure any single person killed hundreds) don't appear to have had their churches burned down. Many other people got their churches burned down - the people who were still using the churches. The buildings were the same, but the people - in nearly all cases at least, but probably all afaik - were not. For example:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/29/americas/canada-church-fires-indigenous-land/index.html

When Father Sylvester Obi Ibekwe heard about the fire at Sacred Heart Church, he quickly drove there and realized the historic building was completely destroyed.
"The Church is gone. All I could see were ashes, ruins, rubbles. How could that be? What happened? What can I do now? I felt helpless and powerless," he wrote in a message to parishioners. Ibekwe is the parish priest of the Catholic Parishes of Penticton, which includes Sacred Heart Church.

Mr. Ibekwe came from Nigeria, and had nothing to do with the killings. His parishioners are from Canada mostly, but it is also very improbable that they were involved.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Well, right. What's wrong with revenge? What could the courts even accomplish?

The courts would probably not accomplish anything. Whether there is something wrong with revenge depends on factors such as whom the revenge is directed at, whether the people taking revenge reckoned their targets deserved it, whether they had good reason to believe the targets deserved it, what consequences can be expected for third parties who do not deserve to suffer the consequences of the revenge, and so on.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Don't kill hundreds of children and you decrease the chances of getting your church burned down. Just saying.

That is true, though in this case, the people who killed some children (I'm not sure any single person killed hundreds) don't appear to have had their churches burned down. Many other people got their churches burned down - the people who were still using the churches. The buildings were the same, but the people - in nearly all cases at least - were not. For example:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/29/americas/canada-church-fires-indigenous-land/index.html

When Father Sylvester Obi Ibekwe heard about the fire at Sacred Heart Church, he quickly drove there and realized the historic building was completely destroyed.
"The Church is gone. All I could see were ashes, ruins, rubbles. How could that be? What happened? What can I do now? I felt helpless and powerless," he wrote in a message to parishioners. Ibekwe is the parish priest of the Catholic Parishes of Penticton, which includes Sacred Heart Church.

Mr. Ibekwe came from Nigeria, and had nothing to do with the killings. His parishioners are from Canada mostly, but it is also very improbable that they were involved.

In ashes? Well, maybe they can use the bones of the children the Catholic Church abused and killed to rebuild a new church building.

The aboriginals (First Nations) didn't ask for the Catholic Church to intervene in their lives. These children would never see their families again. Their families would never know what happened to their children. Yes, burning these buildings now is inconvenient (when done late at night and ensuring no one is harmed, unlike what the Catholic Church did) and causes problems for real people. That is why it is called Civil Disobedience.

For religious parallel, let's just call it a re-enactment of Cain and Abel, where God meets Cain's disappointment with silence... (as the Church remains silent on their awful actions) and Cain reacts as he does (though First Nations aren't killed anyone).

 

[Gospel]

Don't kill hundreds of children and you decrease the chances of getting your church burned down. Just saying.

That is true, though in this case, the people who killed some children (I'm not sure any single person killed hundreds) don't appear to have had their churches burned down. Many other people got their churches burned down - the people who were still using the churches. The buildings were the same, but the people - in nearly all cases at least, but probably all afaik - were not. For example:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/29/americas/canada-church-fires-indigenous-land/index.html

When Father Sylvester Obi Ibekwe heard about the fire at Sacred Heart Church, he quickly drove there and realized the historic building was completely destroyed.
"The Church is gone. All I could see were ashes, ruins, rubbles. How could that be? What happened? What can I do now? I felt helpless and powerless," he wrote in a message to parishioners. Ibekwe is the parish priest of the Catholic Parishes of Penticton, which includes Sacred Heart Church.

Mr. Ibekwe came from Nigeria, and had nothing to do with the killings. His parishioners are from Canada mostly, but it is also very improbable that they were involved.

I'm certain most reasonable God lovers would not want to worship their God in an unclean enviornment. They should give thanks to their saviors. They most likely weren't aware of what their church was up to prior to them going there to worship. Anyhow it's not like the ownership changed, it's still owned by the same Catholic religious organization no? Plus the fire wasn't an attack on individuals it was an attack on the organization. Yeah, the individuals are affected but tough luck, next time vet your church before putting your cock in it.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

In ashes? Well, maybe they can use the bones of the children the Catholic Church abused and killed to rebuild a new church building.

The children were abused and killed by some people. The buildings were used by some other people.

The aboriginals (First Nations) didn't ask for the Catholic Church to intervene in their lives. These children would never see their families again. Their families would never know what happened to their children.

The first sentence is overbroad, but that aside, all true. Mr. Ibekwe and his parishioners had nothing to do with it, though, as far as one can tell.

Yes, burning these buildings now is inconvenient (when done late at night and ensuring no one is harmed, unlike what the Catholic Church did) and causes problems for real people. That is why it is called Civil Disobedience.

No, that is not why you call it "Civil Disobedience". I do not know why you chose to call it that. Most definitions require non-violent means.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/civil-disobedience

But in any case, things are not called "civil disobedience" for causing problems to some people. And of course, plenty of people were harmed, just not physically harmed.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I'm certain most reasonable God lovers would not want to worship their God in an unclean enviornment.

Well, they're not being reasonable in their God loving, but where is the evidence of your certainty? Or is it just because you're pointing out they're not being reasonable because they love God?

In any case, the unreasonableness of their beliefs does not make them involved in any killing.

They should give thanks to their saviors.

The people who burned the churches did not mean to help the parishioners or the priests.

They most likely weren't aware of what their church was up to prior to them going there to worship.

Well, it wasn't really their church. It was the same building, and the same name, but other people, and people are the entities up to things (well, and other animals, etc., but not churches as something separated from their members).

Anyhow it's not like the ownership changed, it's still owned by the same Catholic religious organization no?

In the sense of a legal fiction, yes. But the people who actually own the building are not the same. And in any event, the people who actually use the building - or did until it was burned - was not the same.

Plus the fire wasn't an attack on individuals it was an attack on the organization.

An organization may go by the same name, but it's not the same. It's (part of) the activity of individual humans, and those individual humans are not the same now as they were at the time of the killings.

Yeah, the individuals are affected but tough luck, next time vet your church before putting your cock in it.

Well, that is usually not doable, since people get indoctrinated as young children. But that aside, sure, they should stop being Catholics, but that has nothing to do with what some Catholic priests, etc., did in the past. It has to do with the fact that it's irrational to believe in Catholicism.

 

[Gospel]

Well, they're not being reasonable in their God loving, but where is the evidence of your certainty? Or is it just because you're pointing out they're not being reasonable because they love God?

In any case, the unreasonableness of their beliefs does not make them involved in any killing.



The people who burned the churches did not mean to help the parishioners or the priests.

They most likely weren't aware of what their church was up to prior to them going there to worship.

Well, it wasn't really their church. It was the same building, and the same name, but other people, and people are the entities up to things (well, and other animals, etc., but not churches as something separated from their members).

Anyhow it's not like the ownership changed, it's still owned by the same Catholic religious organization no?

In the sense of a legal fiction, yes. But the people who actually own the building are not the same. And in any event, the people who actually use the building - or did until it was burned - was not the same.

Plus the fire wasn't an attack on individuals it was an attack on the organization.

An organization may go by the same name, but it's not the same. It's (part of) the activity of individual humans, and those individual humans are not the same now as they were at the time of the killings.

Yeah, the individuals are affected but tough luck, next time vet your church before putting your cock in it.

Well, that is usually not doable, since people get indoctrinated as young children. But that aside, sure, they should stop being Catholics, but that has nothing to do with what some Catholic priests, etc., did in the past. It has to do with the fact that it's irrational to believe in Catholicism.

I don't know how to use this message boards code to break down my response in parts (I'll take the time to learn that sometime today).

1) I'm not questioning the reasonableness of anyone's belief.
2) Taking a look at how Catholics define desecration I'd think that some may be relieved to stop presenting themselves to god from a place used to literally kill his children.
3) I didn't say the people who burned the church down did it to help the current Catholics. I'm saying perhaps it's one of the results.

As for the rest, I agree with you (minus the calling their belief irrational part). I'm being snippy because of what happened to children, to be honest.