What have we learned in 2,064 years? "The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance." - Cicero - 55 BC
We did a similar thing with the Indians in the late 1800s: Took their normal hunting lands and tried to make them become farmers on $h!tty soil in the reservations. This didn't give them enough food so they had to be supplemented by the U.S. Govt......creating a dependence that lasts until this day.
In the 1930s the govt used the indian agency for this. They went to the Navajo Nation and slaughtered 80% of their livestock. Some people were allowed time to sell their livestock, some managed to hide them in the canyons, and some split up what they had with others to keep the numbers at the government approved level. Others were not so lucky. The old people will tell stories of seeing their sheep and goats and even horses shot en masse, or herded into pits and sprayed with a liquid and then set on fire while still alive. It destroyed their economy. In desperation some tried to pick pinion nuts to sell. The agency sent more police to tell them they could not sell the nuts. In the end, many Dine were reduced to taking canned food handouts from the agency, and begging. Our government will go to great lengths to ensure we are all dependent on it for our survival.
Nothing like protecting the land from abuse...oh, wait. Sheep and horses were brought to North America and the South West by the Spanish. By the 18th century, the Navajo had flocks of sheep and herds of horses. Most of these were killed or taken as part of the events leading to the Long Walk. The United States Government and Navajo signed a treaty that returned the Navajo to their traditional lands. One of the 1868 treaty provisions was that each Navajo family was to be given two sheep, one male and one female. Navajos were good shepherds and increased their livestock over the next 60 years. Not only did their reservation increase in size, but the federal government finally was able to stop raiding and looting of the Navajo by outsiders. The Navajo were able to market their wool both as a raw material and as rugs. These were some reasons that their sheep population went from 15,000 in the 1870s to 500,000 in the 1920s. The Navajo's success led to overgrazing. The federal government at first recommended that the numbers of livestock on the reservation be dramatically reduced. This went against many Navajo traditions, not to mention devastated their economy. For example, the Navajos considered their livestock sacred and no different from family. The chairman of the Navajo Tribal Council, Thomas Dodge, tried to present the government's arguments to the people. Because of the strong cultural and economic importance of the livestock, he was unable to sway most of the people.. The federal government decided to take action into their own hands and exterminated over 80% of the livestock on the reservation. To Navajos this became known as the Second Long Walk because of the major impact it had on their way of life. ***************** Corruption and tragic history paralyze range reform on the Navajo reservation - From the August 19, 2002 issue by Laura Paskus This year, conditions on the 17 million-acre Navajo reservation in the Four Corners have followed a bleak timeline. A winter with lower than average snowfall was trailed by a dry, windy spring. In March, Navajo Nation President Kelsey Begaye declared a "drought emergency" and cattle owners - most of whom run 20 head, each of which requires 12 gallons of water a day - were asked to voluntarily cull their herds. By May, tribal rangers were shooting stray cattle that stumbled along roadsides in search of water. And in June and July, people started driving from remote areas of the reservation into border towns like Gallup, N.M., to buy potable water for themselves * never mind their animals. Now, in August, an estimated 10,000 animals are dead, surface waters have evaporated, and few Navajo can afford drilling wells to the 1,300-foot depth required to find water. The Navajo, of course, aren't alone. Ranchers across the Southwest are struggling. But the Navajo aren't eligible for most of the emergency funds or loans the U.S. government funnels to non-Indian farmers and ranchers. Some aid has come from within the Indian community: The Colorado River Indian Tribe has donated 2,100 bales of alfalfa hay and the Navajo Tribal Council has set aside $2.9 million for drought relief on the reservation. But even $2.9 million is too little, too late. "We should have dealt with the management of resources, so that when the drought did come, we would have dealt with it with the least amount of stress," says John Blueyes, director of the Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture. "But we didn't." A burden of history The situation, dire as it is, is not unfamiliar to Blueyes or the Navajo. Overgrazing and soil erosion have plagued the Navajo Reservation since the 1890s. In an effort to solve the problem, almost 70 years ago the U.S. government imposed "reduction" strategies on Navajo sheep herds, slaughtering more than a quarter of a million animals. The slaughter burned deep into the Navajo psyche, spurring most Navajo to dig in their heels against livestock reform. In 1937, the Bureau of Indian Affairs enacted a permit system that, like other permit systems that followed, was widely ignored. In 1996, when a severe drought decimated cattle herds and forced ranchers to sell scrawny survivors far below cost, tribal officials touted range reform (HCN, 8/5/96). But six years later, there's little evidence of that reform on the ground. This past spring, 12,000 permittees legally held 125,000 animal units. But before livestock deaths and sales took their toll on herds this summer, tribal employees estimate animal numbers exceeded 200,000. "History, customs, old laws, past policies all have to be considered," says Gerald Chacon, supervisor of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Cooperative Extension Project. "It took a long time for the Navajo to evolve into the system they have now. It will take a long time for them to make a new system." *************** Tons of photo of the damage caused by overgrazing here http://cpluhna.nau.edu/Change/grazing.htm Do the Natives want this or this? Photographs of ungrazed (top) and grazed (bottom) sections of the Rio de Las Vacas, New Mexico. Photographs courtesy of Forest Guardians. More on the issue here http://www.earthaction.org/2012/03/dessertification-navajos.html http://navajotimes.com/news/2011/0911/090511climate.php
Moderation is not one of mankind's inherent attributes. It seems like excess is often times a problem --and there is no greater example of this than government itself.
Have found out that Cicero's quote was not accurate. He only spoke of the goobermint's excesses and foreign costs. Still a good lesson----that was not and is not being heeded.
Had the government put some effort into it, they could have worked with the Navajo to find a resolution that was at least humane. They didn't. Wholesale slaughtering of their animals while their children stood there and watched, and leaving the rotting carcasses around their home is inexcusable. If they were so determined to reduce the numbers, they could have at least loaded the stock into trailers and hauled them to the nearest livestock auction. Perhaps then the people would not be so resistant to any idea of herd reduction today. The poverty it drove so many families into is part of why I have a Navajo brother.
Some people don't think about tomorrow...just live in the now (like children). For those who settled the West, I blame this on ignorance (or, not having the joy of listening to Fleetwood Mac). In most Indian tribes around the world, a common theme is that they don't take more than they need nor do they over-indulge. There are many tribes who have rituals based on psychoactive/hallucinogenic drugs, yet, have no addictions. Then came along cultural disruption and "fire water." The common problem in both cases is whites' lack of ignominy. (Yes, I am really chelloveck in disguise). Buffalo skulls of white excess.....gotta make that fertilizer.
