Pawnee, not Shawnee. That movie was laughable, quite apart from any Ojibwa/Lakota squabbles (and the Lakota were west of the Ojibwa, not east, and as I recall were pushed west by Ojibwa aggression). I mean, Plains Indians who had never seen a white man, in the 1860s? Please; totally unhistorical; the Lakota had been trading with whites for over a hundred years by then. What changed was white encroachment into their land, which before the discovery of gold was considered a wasteland.

The Lakota came from the east into the plains territory, took over the plains life style, and displaced the Ojibwe. That is the story. The Lakota had hegemony in the area. I'm just telling you what he said. I'm no historian, as is obvious!

I did check out the Lakota from the east thing at the time. Yes, in the 18th century they moved west from, I don't know, western NY or something.

I'm pretty sure the reason I conflated Shawnee and Pawnee is that I grew up near Shawnee, OK, and so the name is bigger in my mind than Pawnee. Even though there is a Pawnee, OK, as well.

I'm pretty sure the Shawnee were the "enemy" of the Cherokee in the Daniel Boone show, which is probably another reason I conflated them.

My apologies to the Pawnee, I think.

"Most of the immigrants are Native American." He wasn't talking about immigration. He was talking about the conquistadors and the 19th c Mexican govt, which no doubt was predominantly ethnic Spanish. However, for current victimological purposes, there's no distinction between Spanish and Indian ancestry. It's all "Hispanic".

which before the discovery of gold was considered a wasteland.

The settlement of the Dakotas was driven by agriculture and ranching, not minerals.

I think your Ojibwe friend got it backwards; this is from the Milwaukee Museum:

"Like other Indian tribes, the Ojibwe allied themselves to the French militarily and economically. They traded with the French who entered the Great Lakes in the 1660s, and their desire to obtain European trade goods drove the Ojibwe to expand westward into Lake Superior to find richer fur-bearing lands. Soon, they came into contact with the Eastern, or Santee Dakota (commonly known as the Sioux). During the 1730s, the Ojibwe and Dakota began to fight over the region around the western point of Lake Superior and the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota and this war lasted until the 1850's. The Ojibwe were generally successful, and they managed to push the Dakota farther west into Minnesota and North and South Dakota."

heh. I like "pecking order" better, though.

I hear "food chain" used in a business context sometimes and the image of the big eating the small always strikes me as being not exactly the image they want to project. It's not generally what they're even talking about--sometimes it's a reference to smaller companies that make a living off a big company's products--repair, support, etc.

Actually, Daniel, that is quite interesting. I'm glad to stand corrected on that. I wonder how he could get so mixed up.

The article says "English-speaking Leftists ... Why, when they recall their history, do they focus, not on the extensions of the franchise or the war against slavery or the defeat of Nazism, but on the wicked imperialism of, first, the British and, later, the Americans?"

The writer must just know different English-speaking Leftists from the ones I know.

When they recall their history they focus on the Putney Debates, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, and indeed the extensions of the franchise, the abolition of slavery, the defeat of Nazism, the passing of labour laws and the building of welfare structures. Also the Spanish Civil War, for some reason. But mostly on arcane internal debates within left wing politics of the type satirized by Monty Python (splitters!).

Didn't finish my thought: I meant to add that I think it was a poor choice of words because, among other reasons, leftists, broadly speaking, don't take "the history of Anglo-American civilization in general" as *theirs*. It's something alien to them.

Their view would rather be that this is the true history of the aspirations and achievements of the "English people", the most important part of "the history of [English] civilization in general". I can't vouch for their views of American history.

I don't doubt that some left-wingers are actuated by hatred of their country, but I've never met any of them. My personal experience is all the other way.

Somehow I forgot to mention the Rochdale Pioneers.

I'd describe it as a Manichean picture, in which most of the visible history of the nation as nation is the work of the dark power, with the light power always struggling against it, and they themselves part of it.

The Howard Zinn historiography.

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Conservatives tend to revere it, regarding it as a brilliant scheme for a stable government, and the bedrock of the nation. Leftists tend to see it as a tool by which wealthy white men insured their continued dominance, and have no more respect for it than is expedient.

I think you are off by several generations in your comparison. The disposition of the portside since 1937 (or perhaps since 1954) has been to regard the Constitution not as a law with a specific (governing) text, but as a reflection of their own desires. Policies they do not like are reconceptualized as 'unconstitutional' and taken out of democratic give and take courtesy their allies in the legal profession.

Nothing I've said was intended to imply that the right doesn't have its own pathologies. You may not find as much healthy patriotism on the left as on the right, but you'll find a lot more unhealthy patriotism on the right.

I did not think you had implied the right did not have its own pathologies. Mostly they are in the realm of what one wag called 'self-validating narratives'.

My point re the Constitution is that you are attributing to the left a viewpoint that has not been modal since the Depression. The federal courts got out of the way of the federal executive after 1937 and by 1954 came to be an instrument of portside social policy. With the exception of a few oddballs (Michael Kinsley, R.M. Kaus, John Hart Ely?), you would have a hard time finding a soi-disant liberal born after about 1926 who was not in favor of wanton judicial annullment of statutory legislation provided he got the policy result he wanted.

Don't know when I've heard so English a word as "Tolpuddle."

Heh!

:-) Like I said, "martyrs" might be a bit of a stretch. Especially as most of them were allowed to return from that awful place.

I forgot to read about the Rochdale Pioneers earlier. Very interesting.