Arrrghhh! This is what got me started writing a book on the American Indian and Marxism. A Maoist was debating Russell Means in Pine Ridge in the early '70s and defending "dialectical materialism" which meant assimilating into white capitalist society and giving up Indian identity and beliefs. To cinch his argument with Means, he claimed that archaelogical evidence in New Mexico from 10,000 years ago suggested that indigenous peoples ate their own feces when times were hard. There, the Maoist said to Means, how can you deny that it is better for the Indian to be "raised up." There is nothing lower than eating your own shit. As Ward Churchill said in rebuttal, the "archaelogical" evidence is dubious at best, but white bourgeois society is not above cannibalism in times of hardship itself. More to the point, this type of argument is nothing but naked racism. At 03:25 PM 9/3/98 -0400, you wrote: >In pondering the shit thread, I rememberd the following. On necessity of >race purification for Bolivian "development" in the 19th century, prominent >statesman Gabriel Rene Moreno wrote: > >"If in any way the indians and cholos [poorer peoples of peasant-indian >extraction, who have left the countryside] are to intervene in the >progressive evolution of Bolivian society, it will necessarily be passively >through slower or faster disintegration, like secreted products expulsed >from the organic cavities of the social body, like residues pulled from the >depths of the economy ... thereby consummating the complete purification of >the national Caucasian race." > >Whoa. And there are DOZENS of grade shcools named after this guy all over >the country. > >Tom > >Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia >Tel/Fax: (591-4) 248242 >Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
