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THE TWO MOST STOLEN ITEMS IN THE WORLD: a pen labeled Surplus Value of Workers Labor, and a lighter labeled Indigenous Land
this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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Yes.
Alternatively, and equally as correct an answer: No.
Ok, so I steal your dads car. Years later, he dies, and they find me with the car. Well your dad is dead, so it's my car now right?
EDIT:
To all the replies, what's the cutoff? It sure seems to conveniently be the one where we keep everything and everyone else is fucked.
Should we give Japanese American/Canadian families back the houses and land they lost when they were interred? Why or why not?
If a car doesn't count, but raw land does, what's to stop the government from taking your house? They have the might, laws governing seizing of land is old, so fuck it, why follow it? Is that ok because they have the might?
If the actions of those 'hundreds of years ago' no longer apply, do Americans lose their constitutional rights? What exactly makes something 'too far in the past' to have actions done with it? Canadians got the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, is that old enough to break, or too new? What is the line in time, exactly?
More like several generations later and anyone who even saw the car in the original owners possesion is dead.
It does get muddy. Is there even any land on earth that hasn't been stolen?
I think land and a car are completely different. A car is a product that has been built and sold for a value. Often it can be proved who owned it, and how they acquired it.
Land is a finite patch of earth somebody got to first and said “Mine”. Do we respect this rule of “ownership” no matter what has changed about the world and no matter how much time has passed?
Are we going to be talking about who said “mine” first for the next two thousand years?
Do we give the Native Americans all the land back and send 300 million people to Europe? Is that your solution?
Honestly at this point, yes. If you want there to be a better solution, come up with something that doesn't involve genocide. It will come to you VERY quickly. (I'll give you a hint: Returning ownership to its rightful inhabitants does not require an ethnic cleansing campaign)
Where do the mixed race people go back to? Like someone who is 25% Indigenous 25% Swedish 25% West African 25% North African?
You didn't listen at all, but just to humor your question: death.
I did listen/read your comments, you just didn't provide any viable solution for mixed race people like me and many millions of others. And the only joke (hopefully at least) answer you can come up with is, somewhat ironically, literal genocide.
You don't have any meaningful solution whatsoever. I don't either, the difference is I'm not claiming I do. You are, but won't provide it.
I would explain what landback is all about but you would just call it white genocide.
I'll wait. I was under the impression land back is about returning land. I support the concept and I too, would like my land back. I'm not white and haven't called anything white genocide ever.
Cool so they get their land back then you get to just continue on living except now you don't have to pay rent because they abolished property ownership. No genocides, no mass displacements. Yeah, I know. It really is that easy. Sounds like a cool plan, we should do that.
So I get to continue living on someone else's land? I really don't feel good about that. And who is the 'they' here? Only pure blood line indigenous people, but not mixed race indigenous people? I sincerely do not understand what you're trying to say here.
I definitely support ending property ownership and am a Marxist. But I still don't know where the mixed race people like myself are supposed to go. And I literally want to go, just trying to figure out where.
Good thing this isn't about you, then.
If you want to feel less bad about it why don't you take a look at this map and learn the language where you live. It won't be on the final exam it's just a little fun exercise to keep your mind occupied.
The area I live in is disputed between 3 different First Nations, one of which I am a part of...
I think you're having trouble picturing me as a minority-dominant mixed race individual because you are white yourself?
If that's the case why the hell do you care?? You have nothing to lose by opposing it.
Because it isn't something that can be meaningfully implemented. Not to mention what if it all goes to a First Nation I disagree with having control of it? Like I said, it's contested between three indigenous groups.
There also the issue, that I keep bringing up, of me being mixed race. I don't see how we can only look at the 25% of my genetic heritage while ignoring the other 75%. The world is a lot more complicated than a binary worldview of 'idigenous or not'.
You, and others blindly yelling 'land back' without any specifics are not being realistic at all and just want to feel better about your own position without actually taking any meaningful specific actions.
You're hopeless. We're going with my original plan. Let everyone know when you're ready to come to the table.
That might seem harsh but the way things are going, that's what's going to end up happening, so shape up while you still can.
I am hopeless when it comes to accepting your white savior view of things, yes. And which original plan? The one in support of murdering all mixed race people? Also which table? I literally don't understand what you're trying to say.
If you can't even justify your position, like...at all. Doesn't that sort of make you consider rethinking your position at least a little bit?
You've already made it clear that you support genocide, so go die. The rest of the world will go on without you just fine.
I'm not going to waste my time with someone whose kill-or-be-killed world view is going to result in both of us dead.
Where did I say anything about supporting genocide? You're the one telling me to die lol. I don't support any form of genocide and at no point in this thread, or any thread, did I say anything to even slightly imply that.
Did you get me confused with someone else you are replying to or something?
If you don't have the strength to physically get it back then I guess you'll have to live with the loss tbh
Should we give Japanese families back houses and land they lost when interred is a great question. My initial thought was 'yes, of course'... but then I thought perhaps we ought to ask the natives whose land those Japanese families had 'stolen'.
See, it gets complicated.
Apparently we just do fuck-all because it's 'too complicated' from what I'm reading here; seems pretty cut and dry. Follow treaties people in the past signed? Nah, why bother. It's in the past. I mean honestly, what rules should we even bother following from back then.
Look, we should do something. I'm looking for solutions. I want Japanese people to get their land back. I want Indigenous people to get their land back. I just don't know how it's even vaguely possible or feasible.
Also, following treaties signed under duress and in situations of radically unequally power dynamics isn't too reasonable either. Not to mention that in much of Western Canada, for example, there aren't many signed treaties at all.
It's complicated, yes... But blindly yelling 'land back' doesn't actually provide anyone any meaningful solutions. No one actually gets any land back that way.
I'm not sure the alternative to following treaties signed under duress is to not even follow said treaties. We can give them all sorts of land that we barely use, nobody is actually suggesting we give them back downtown Vancouver. The issue is we just shrug and go 'yeah well people live in places now'.
Many people are absolutely suggesting we give back Vancouver. Giving back only shit that settlers don't really care about or use defeats the whole point doesn't it?