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The simple point is to appreciate the essence of the issue

2 min readDec 1, 2021

If you look up this quote you’ll find that there is controversy (as usual) about what was really meant, what was the true reality of the situation, etc. etc.

“…when White persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived awhile among them, tho’ later ransomed by their friends and then treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet within a short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it; and they take the first good opportunity of escaping back into the woods [to live again with the Indians] — from whence there is no reclaiming them.”
— Benjamin Franklin, 1753

Or if you see discussions about books like 1491, ditto re: controversies over details.

“Oh, they weren’t really so primitive.”
“Oh, they weren’t really so flourishing.”
“Oh, they weren’t really so impoverished.”
“Oh, they weren’t really so content.”

There is a simple essence that needs to be appreciated:

They lived here for thousands and thousands of years. It should be obvious that, in general, they thrived. The came to fully occupy the two continents. They had lives of full cultural enrichment.

They did it with, relatively-speaking, low levels of technology. How they lived was clearly (again, in general) sustainable.

Those simple facts should be all we need to know. A basic comparison should be all we need to acknowledge: What life was like and what the land looked like after aboriginal human habitation of ten or twenty THOUSAND YEARS vs. what life is like and what the land looks like after four hundred years of habitation by people manifesting modern-civilization lifeways.

The latter have been socially and ecologically ruinous. We’ve lost more than we’ve gained.

So: simply, now, gradually . . . get back.

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https://www.mlive.com/grand-haven/2010/11/one_secret_of_winter_warmth_li.html

“the natives who occupied the Grand River basin over 600 years ago, didn’t only survive, they thrived”

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Steven Welzer
Steven Welzer

Written by Steven Welzer

A Green Party activist, Steve was an original co-editor of DSA’s “Ecosocialist Review.” He now serves on the Editorial Board of the New Green Horizons webzine.

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