Robert Avrech on Indians

[Aptrgangr]

Robert Avrech on Indians A Writer's Thoughts


Robert J. Avrech


Robert Avrech is a Hollywood writer and producer. We are privileged that such a busy man would take the time to share his thoughts on American Indians. Of course, he's done that before, with The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden (Seraphic Press, 2006). He is not unfamiliar with American Indian images. More importantly, Mr. Avrech is a man familiar with love. I say this with supreme regard. The love he had for his son Ariel, who died of cancer at age 22, was expressed in a truly remarkable way in The Hebrew Kid. Avrech understands the integration of circumstance with Providence, and with human sincerity. Love is the grandest thing in this world, and Avrech expressed it through a young Hebrew boy and the Apache Indians. Selah. Just think of that. It is an astounding and wonderful story he created in The Hebrew Kid. Now, the thoughts expressed in this Bad Eagle interview may surprise some, offend others, but the point is, we have another candid, open, honest response from a professional, intelligent, and educated man. This is the kind of opinion we need to work with, to understand--that we may better express our own feelings, and communicate with the dominant world about us. We thank Mr. Avrech heartily for his participation in the Bad Eagle interviews. Incidently, he published an article on FrontPageMagazine in 2005, of which I was unaware. "Help! I\'m a Hollywood Republican." He also has a blog, connected with the Seraphic Press site.

Dr. Yeagley: What is your response to the idea of an American Indian being an American patriot? Is it impossibly contradictory? Is it disingenuous?

Mr. Avrech: I see no conflict between being an Indian and an American patriot. Indians are citizens of this country and though, like many minorities, they suffered horribly, it does no good to live in some make-believe world where the Native American tribes are seen as peaceful hippies at one with the earth. The facts are quite different: most tribes were involved in inter-tribal warfare of the most brutal sort. Europeans were simply more sophisticated and brought a western discipline to war that was fated to sweep away the weaker Native American tribes.

This is the way of the world and nation-states. To live in the past and in a world of victimhood is to doom oneself to a life of grievance. I need only point to the Arab/Muslim world to show where that mind-set leads.


Dr. Yeagley: What is your opinion about Indian reservations? Most reservations were won by blood. Indians are proud of this. Indians were the first foreign nations the United States ever made treaties with. Having said that, how do you see their function in America? Are they 'nations within a nation,' to create an unwanted Balkanization, or are they immutable historical tokens, to the honor of both America and Indians?

Mr. Avrech: I will confess to knowing very little about the Reservation system. However, let me simply say this: If there is high employment, fine education, low drug and alcohol abuse and little family violence in the Reservations, then obviously the system works. However, if these social indicators are in the red zone, well then, the Reservation system is seriously broken. Reservations may have been won by blood, but that is beside the point. What is important is whether life on the rez fosters integration into the American community, into the world of free market capitalism, into the world of free market ideas.


Dr. Yeagley: How do you regard race in general? Is it something to be honored and preserved, or something to 'overcome,' in the Communist (Leftist) sense of erasing all boundaries and borders of all kinds, psychological, physical, genetic, etc.?

Mr. Avrech: As an Orthodox Jew and a Republican I have no interest in race. Nazis are obsessed with race. Ku Klux Klanners care about race. In fact, Democrats are obsessed with race. I believe, as did Martin Luther King, that race is unimportant. What is important is religion, faith. And here I'm not speaking about theology—but how people behave under their belief systems. That is something to be honored and preserved—or not. All else is political correctness which demands preserving the habitat of the Hoot owl and the habitat of the Comanche. Both are of equal importance to the Liberal mind.


Dr. Yeagley: What do you think of Indian casinos, and specifically of the idea of land-to-trust, where a tribe buys up land (often of its choice--unconnected to historical ownership) to build more casinos?

Mr. Avrech: I am a free market capitalist so theoretically I should not oppose Indian casinos. However, I don't think that consistency is a virtue. In fact, consistency is usually reserved for Communists and other Utopians who end up as genociders.

I despise gambling. I hate the idea that you can get something for nothing. It is an illusion that destroys lives. Gambling casinos benefit only an elite few, and they corrupt and harm a great mass of people. I would raze Las Vegas and every casino on the planet, salt the earth, and then build churches and synagogues in their place.


Dr. Yeagley: What is your basic concept of a nation? Certainly, America is the exception to many historical precedents. But, if America is a nation, where do Indian nations 'fit in,' and how? An Indian nation, such as the Comanche, or the Apache, or the Sioux, has its own language, its own religion, its own culture, and its own general geographic locale. Are they therefore nations?

Mr. Avrech: The two greatest nations on earth, America and Israel are unique in that both were born of great ideas of democracy, and religious freedom. All other nations evolved slowly out of swamps of history.

Indians fit into America in a fairly unique way—they were here from the beginning, they were conquered. Yet, this should not become a fetish. America is a great country. My grandparents escaped the butchery and pogroms of Europe, and then endured some horrible Yankee Jew-hatred, yet it never blinded them to this country that enshrined: "the pursuit of happiness." I am an American Jew. You are an American Indian. It is that simple, that complex.


Dr. Yeagley: How do you view the idea of Indian mascots for sports teams, or Indian names for states, roads, buildings, companies, creeks, rivers, counties, etc? Does America want an entire ethnic cleansing of all things Indian? Like, a visual genocide? What do you think is really behind this trend to remove Indian images from the country?

Mr. Avrech: Oh gosh, I wish, I really wish some university basketball or football team would call themselves the "Ohio Hebrews," or the "Kentucky Jews." That would be sooooo great! Will that ever happen? No it will not. Oy-vey.

Here are two reviews BadEagle.com offered of Avrech's book:
The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden (June 27, 2006)
Love in the Desert (August 4, 2006)

David Yeagley\'s BadEagle.com

[Errigal]

What should we get from this article?

I would give him an award for Jewish verbal audacity for these two claims:

Mr. Avrech: ...
This is the way of the world and nation-states. To live in the past and in a world of victimhood is to doom oneself to a life of grievance. I need only point to the Arab/Muslim world to show where that mind-set leads.

Mr. Avrech: The two greatest nations on earth, America and Israel are unique in that both were born of great ideas of democracy, and religious freedom. All other nations evolved slowly out of swamps of history.

[Waarnemer]

Originally Posted by Errigal

The two greatest nations on earth, America and Israel are unique in that both were born of great ideas of democracy, and religious freedom. All other nations evolved slowly out of swamps of history.

avrech should learn basic history, the star of america only raised recently and is already fading

[Herceg-Bosna]

The two greates nations?????????
Is this a joke or what??

[Menydh]

I will confess to knowing very little about the Reservation system. However, let me simply say this: If there is high employment, fine education, low drug and alcohol abuse and little family violence in the Reservations, then obviously the system works. However, if these social indicators are in the red zone, well then, the Reservation system is seriously broken. Reservations may have been won by blood, but that is beside the point. What is important is whether life on the rez fosters integration into the American community, into the world of free market capitalism, into the world of free market ideas.

The idea of the Reservations is not far from that of the Ghettos. The main difference being that the former is based on a rural environment whereas the latter is based on a urban environment.

It was not Gentiles who created the Ghettos, but Jews themselves. It is intrinsic to their mentality.

Another parallel concept to Ghettos in Europe and Reservations in America, in which Jews were involved in their creation, is the Townships in South Africa and, on a more developed stage, the African Homelands (Transkei, Ciskei, Bophuthatswana and Venda).

As an Orthodox Jew and a Republican I have no interest in race. Nazis are obsessed with race. Ku Klux Klanners care about race. In fact, Democrats are obsessed with race. I believe, as did Martin Luther King, that race is unimportant. What is important is religion, faith. And here I'm not speaking about theology—but how people behave under their belief systems. That is something to be honored and preserved—or not. All else is political correctness which demands preserving the habitat of the Hoot owl and the habitat of the Comanche. Both are of equal importance to the Liberal mind.

Not that I see much difference between being obsessed with race and being obsessed with a religion adscribed to one given race. All are concepts that are insufficient to provide a strong and real identity on their own.

The two greatest nations on earth, America and Israel are unique in that both were born of great ideas of democracy, and religious freedom. All other nations evolved slowly out of swamps of history.

Never mind that neither is of those states are nations. I don't know if to say that he sounds more American than Jewish, or more Jewish than American.. or if there is a real difference.

[Errigal]

My grandparents escaped the butchery and pogroms of Europe, and then endured some horrible Yankee Jew-hatred, yet it never blinded them to this country that enshrined: "the pursuit of happiness." I am an American Jew. You are an American Indian. It is that simple, that complex.

The Yankees (Puritan Americans and their descendants) are the most Jew-friendly people to ever walk the earth.

I despise gambling. I hate the idea that you can get something for nothing. It is an illusion that destroys lives. Gambling casinos benefit only an elite few, and they corrupt and harm a great mass of people. I would raze Las Vegas and every casino on the planet, salt the earth, and then build churches and synagogues in their place.

Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia