Why are so-called "progressives" and "liberals" so deferential to religious nonsense by Indians?

[Tom Sawyer]

Ya, if they have 12 different reasons for opposing it, I probably agree with 11. I'm speaking solely of having religious prophecy as one of the reasons for the opposition. The other 11 aren't the topic of this thread.

 

[Derec]

So I just watched the video and I'm missing the part where the doomsday prophecy was the reason that they were against the pipeline.

Watch again. Thom said that prophcy is "scaring the Bejesus out of the Lakota" for example.

The reasons I recall were (1) aquifer contamination,

That's an old chestnut of anti-pipeline propaganda. The fact is, any human activity has some risk. The question is not, is there any risk, but how does the risk compare to alternatives (such as oil trains).

(2) climate change from burning fossil fuels, and

Do we really have a choice in the short- to medium term? No we do not.
Besides, these Indians use oil themselves. It reminds of the the joke that was going around Germany about their anti-nuclear activists. Their slogan was "Atomkraft? Nein danke!" ("Nuclear power? No thanks!") and what was added to it was "Mein Strom kommt aus der Steckdose" ("My electricity comes from the wall outlet.")
To apply that to the anti-pipeline activists it would be:
"Pipelines? No thanks! My gasoline comes from the gas station."

(3) damage to historical cultural sites.

I have only seen claims that the pipeline is going to be close to some burial grounds. It is an extension of the general oppositions of any development (other than casinos) by Indian tribes. It is not dissimilar to opposition to the Thirty Meter Telescope by some idiots in Hawaii who are making similar religious claims.

Besides, all three of these points seem to be their interpretations of what the prophecy will cause.

The imagery about the black snake seemed to be for effect. Surely we don't all think Oppenheimer really believed himself to be a Hindu god?

No, but I think these Indians are much, much closer to Ken Ham or Harold Camping than they are to Oppenheimer.

 

[Derec]

I think you are correct and I agree with your position on this, but I think the bigger point is a comment Toni made - that religious/cultural grounds likely have a better chance of success through constitutional legal means than simply rational environmental concerns. "Freedom of religion" is a concept conservatives understand very well, and not all of them are stupid enough to be too obviously discriminatory about which religion.

Where is precedent of using "freedom of religion" to stop any nearby development religionists disagree with? Should a church be able to likewise veto any abortion clinic or gay bar within several miles radius of it? Or do you think there should be some special rule applied to Indian religions? After all, the pipeline is not going through any actual Indian territory, just "nearby".\

It is also a very sensible project, connecting the Bakken development to Illinois. The shale revolution enabled US to produce as much oil as Saudi Arabia and Russia in recent years.

 

[Deepak]

Ya, if they have 12 different reasons for opposing it, I probably agree with 11. I'm speaking solely of having religious prophecy as one of the reasons for the opposition. The other 11 aren't the topic of this thread.

I'm missing where the religious prophecy was given as a reason. Is saying the 'floods in India are of Biblical proportions' actually invoking belief in Xian mythology? If I stub my toe and yell 'god damnit' am I therefore a theist? If we say someone's political campaign is reborn like a phoenix evidence of belief in Zeus?

It's invoking imagery for effect. I was expecting the video in the OP to be a long religious diatribe, based on the description, but it's nothing. He doesn't seem seriously worried that the wechuge will go extinct.

 

[Deepak]

...
No, but I think these Indians are much, much closer to Ken Ham or Harold Camping than they are to Oppenheimer.

What? The thread title is about liberals and progressives giving deference to religious nonsense. Of course the religious believe the religious nonsense - per se.

Is the guy in the OP (or are other liberals or progressives) actually being deferential to the religious nonsense in a way that's materially different from the examples in my last post?

 

[Derec]

In general, they are not the same as any other American, "no more, no less". They are sovereign nations within our borders.

Which is bullshit of the highest order. Either they should be sovereign, and be responsible for themselves as all sovereign countries are or they should be treated as Americans, "no more, no less". Under current configuration they get to double dip and claim America when it suits them and sovereignty when that suits them.

The rules ARE different for them because they are supposed to be.

Liberals are supposed to advocate same rules applying to everybody equally. To abandon that principle because it favors a group you like and support is no better than Jim Crow. Treating certain ethnic groups better than others does not become righteous if that group is on top of the progressive stack.

So unless you are talking about breaking YET ANOTHER TREATY with them, you can drop all of the boo-hooing about casinos, reservations, etc.

I think all these treaties should be null and void. Either they become part of America same as everybody else or they can seek independence. This double-dipping is bullshit.
And with the exception of wildly wealthy casino Indians, most Indians are not doing too well under this policy of preferential treatment that has been going for the last 50 years or so. Perhaps it is time to rethink that.

Please post a video of Thom Hartmann discussing a Christian religion so I can compare his level of deference vs contempt.

Thom was just an example for the general attitude among so-called progressives.

 

[RavenSky]

I think all these treaties should be null and void.

So apparently yes - you are in favor of the United States of America breaking its contracts. Got it.

Please post a video of Thom Hartmann discussing a Christian religion so I can compare his level of deference vs contempt.

Thom was just an example for the general attitude among so-called progressives.

Which means you are ranting about a red herring of your own making again.

 

[Derec]

FWIW, the religious/cultural grounds may have a greater chance at advancing the cause of stopping a pipeline project that merits extremely serious concern for environmental reasons.

Does it? I know ecomentalists oppose any pipeline no matter what. And Indians oppose any development that is not a casino within 100 miles of their reservations. Often they work together like opposotion to the Thirty Meter Telescope and, 20 years before, opposition to Mt. Graham observatory.

I can understand why Indians would promote this reasoning as well, regardless of their stand on science and environmental objections. It's politically expedient, for one thing. It can generate a certain amount of sympathy and serves to remind people of the tremendous harms that were done in the past, even as they continue to ignore the current harms being done now.

What harms are being done now that are not the result of misguided Indian policy of the last 50 years? Again, Indians should be treated as everybody else, no better, no worse.

Many, but certainly not all, conservative and religious conservative people have sympathy for wrongs done to Indians in the past-and in the present. Religious people are sometimes swayed by some measure of respect for expressions of religious belief by other peoples (except for Muslims. Muslims are baaaaaad. ) Unless it interferes with their right to hunt or fish wherever they want.

Just because there were wrongs done to Indians in the past does not justify preferential treatment they are receiving in the present. And it certainly does not justify taking their religious mumbo jumbo seriously.

 

[Deepak]

Besides, all three of these points seem to be their interpretations of what the prophecy will cause.

Pardon the triple post, but this stuck out to me - mainly because I was surprised that their legends foretold of fracking and the dangers of carbon emissions from internal combustion engines. So I dug up the piece from the Guardian to see if your claim was even in the realm of possibilities.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/18/north-dakota-pipeline-activists-bakken-oil-fields

I'll leave the interpretation as an exercise to the reader.

 

[Derec]

So apparently yes - you are in favor of the United States of America breaking its contracts. Got it.

They have long outlived their usefulness. Discarding them would do both US and the Indians much good in the long run.
And besides, many points of special treatment of Indians are result of federal law, not treaties. Indian casino monopolies are result of Indian Gaming Act, considering any burial ground in vicinity of an Indian tribe their property no matter the history is result of The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. And so on.

Which means you are ranting about a red herring of your own making again.

Not at all.

 

[Derec]

Pardon the triple post, but this stuck out to me - mainly because I was surprised that their legends foretold of fracking and the dangers of carbon emissions from internal combustion engines. So I dug up the piece from the Guardian to see if your claim was even in the realm of possibilities.

The very first paragraph:

Our elders have told us that if the zuzeca sape, the black snake, comes across our land, our world will end. Zuzeca has come – in the form of the Dakota Access pipeline – and so I must fight.

Sure, their legends did not really foresee fracking et al. But neither did the author of Revelation foresee nuclear war and other interpretations of the images in that book.
How is what this "activist" is doing any different than what Tim LeHay or Hal Lindsey did?

 

[Deepak]

Jesus H Christ...

 

[Derec]

To be fair, your typical conservative counts protesting against the Keystone XL as a form of abuse, hence their confusion.

Different pipeline, same idiocy. Oil has to be moved from the fields to the refineries. Pipelines are the best method we have to move large quantities of oil overland. Both when it comes to cost as well as safety.
So why this categorical opposition to all pipelines?

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I sometimes find Thom's deference to religion annoying, too, but it's not exclusively the American Indians he defers to. He tends to defer to mainstream Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, as well.
His criticism of religion is mostly in it's application. Use religion to justify some abuse and he'll condemn the application, use it to promote some useful or progressive cause and he'll support it.

He judges them by their works.

I can see Islam. Radical leftists are in love with radical Islam and have been for decades. But do you have a video of him deferring to Christianity or Judaism?

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Another thread in praise of intolerance.

What intolerance? Not taking talk of a giant black snake (which originally was probably a reference to the railroads, the 19th century technological boogeyman of the Indians) seriously is not "intolerance".

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Should Lakota do not have the right to protest?

They should have the right to peacefully protest. Mind you, that does not include the right to trespass or impede construction.

And my right to free speech includes ridiculing their mumbo jumbo and criticizing those who defer to it out of political correctness.

 

[Underseer]

Next white Europeans invade a land, kill most of the indigenous population and place the remainder of them on a barren patch of land and conscientiously destroy their culture, we should be careful not to coddle them so.

I think Indians should be given same rights as any other American - no more, no less. Which also means no casino monopolies, no special legal status for reservations, no ethnicity based laws whatsoever.

But this thread is not about that. It's about people like Thom who would not show anything but contempt for a Christian fundamentalist show a great deal of deference to religious mumbo jumbo when it comes from Indians. Black snake prophecy? Give me a fucking break!

I think it's unfair that we treat Nazis differently than we treat Jews just because of what happened in the past. In many places, the Nazi party is illegal, but it is legal to be Jewish in those same countries, which clearly proves that those countries are being totally unfair to Nazis!

We need to make being Jewish illegal in those countries instead of giving "special rights" to Jews, which is so incredibly unfair to Nazis! Stop the persecution of Nazis by giving Jews special rights!!!!!! [/lampoon]

 

[Derec]

So egalitarian of you,

Egalitarianism is a classical liberal idea, frowned on by so-called "modern" "liberals" who think such ideas frightfully bourgie.

how very white. What if you, as the invader, were given every right due members of the tribe(s) whose land you now occupy?

Borders shift in the course of history. Sometimes conquered peoples can gain independence (see breakup of Austria Hungary for example), sometimes they integrate. But they should not get to have special legal status, and certainly not in perpetuity. France got Elsass/Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine) after WWII. Should any Germans left in that region get exclusive right to operate beer gardens and also not have no pay any excise taxes, pocketing the usual amount of tax as extra profits? Should they be exempt from drug laws, paying various taxes/fees etc? Should orphaned children of a German and French couple automatically have to be placed with an unrelated German over French relations? Should ancient cemeteries close to a German neighborhood automatically be considered German no matter its actual history? So why should Indians be able to (and all these examples were taken from actual laws giving Indians special rights)? There is nothing magical about them that should entitle them to such special treatment.

As if they even have that option - no, they were stuck in a place no white man wanted ... until natural resources were discovered there. Lakota didn't actually have any concept of land ownership in the sense that Europeans did/do, anyhow.

Reservations should be abolished as legal entities. Indians should be able to move around just like anybody else. The only reason they stay in impoverished reservations like Pine Ridge is a) inertia and b) government largess only available to Indians living on reservations. The system of reservations was never a just one, and today is more useless than ever. Why do we keep it?

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I think it's unfair that we treat Nazis differently than we treat Jews just because of what happened in the past. In many places, the Nazi party is illegal, but it is legal to be Jewish in those same countries, which clearly proves that those countries are being totally unfair to Nazis!

We need to make being Jewish illegal in those countries instead of giving "special rights" to Jews, which is so incredibly unfair to Nazis! Stop the persecution of Nazis by giving Jews special rights!!!!!! [/lampoon]

Are you equating being non-Indian with being a Nazi? And for your information, Germany did not give the Jews casino monopolies and tax exemptions in perpetuity.

 

[Derec]

Jesus H Christ...

You surely mean "Oh Great Manitou" or something like that.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Besides, all three of these points seem to be their interpretations of what the prophecy will cause.

Pardon the triple post, but this stuck out to me - mainly because I was surprised that their legends foretold of fracking and the dangers of carbon emissions from internal combustion engines. So I dug up the piece from the Guardian to see if your claim was even in the realm of possibilities.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/18/north-dakota-pipeline-activists-bakken-oil-fields

I'll leave the interpretation as an exercise to the reader.

Hey, thanks for the link. I was basing my responses on a trust of the accuracy of the OP account (I don't click YouTube videos). That was my mistake. The prophecy as a metaphor for the actual effects of the pipeline isn't any kind of problem.

Never mind.

 

[Derec]

Hey, thanks for the link. I was basing my responses on a trust of the accuracy of the OP account (I don't click YouTube videos). That was my mistake. The prophecy as a metaphor for the actual effects of the pipeline isn't any kind of problem.

Never mind.

1) How do you know it's just a "metaphor"? It certainly doesn't sound like that to me, especially in light with other nonsense stuff Indians are spouting (sacred mountains etc.) to oppose development they don't like. Do you think their "Sacred Stones Spirit Camp" is also metaphorical?
2) What do you and other pipeline-haters propose to get oil from Bakken to the market? Teleportation?
Obama and Hillary really disappointed with their opposition to Keystone XL by the way.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

When I read the title of the thread, I thought Derec was now mad a Vishnu.

 

[Derec]

When I read the title of the thread, I thought Derec was now mad a Vishnu.

Feather, not dot.