<< Listen up, chummers: it seems that a lot of you are lacking in a basic knowledge of history. I figure it's five days into the 50s, so now's as good a time as any to tell you how it is. I've been spending the last few days going out and gathering as many old-timers as I could. I've tried to find people who actually lived through those times so the info is as accurate as possible. Pay attention and you might learn something.>>
<< SysOp SEA Burn >>
<< xx:xx:xx, xx/xx/xx >>
<< Fantasic! I was hoping some old fraggers would get up here and tell us "how everything was," and "when I went to school...," and "why can't kids these days read?" Oh, this should be fun!>>
<< cRaZY-8 >>
<< 02:13:52, 01/05/50 >>
<< You're exactly the kind of person that should be paying attention to this, n00b. If you don't know history, you'll be blindsided by things you never saw coming. So when you're pushing up the daisies, you won't be able to complain to me. Come to think of it, that would be less competition for me, so go on and log off, pup. >>
<< Two Feathers >>
<< 02:15:31, 01/05/50 >>
:: 21 mps deleted by SysOp
<< That's enough of that. This is a history lesson and I'd like to keep flames to a minimum. If you'd like to add to the discussion, that's fine, but I will not tolerate an insult fest...attention spans are low enough these days. Let's get started. This first bit is from a chummer of mine, Two Feathers, who actually lived in a "reeducation camp" in the old United States. I've chosen him to kick this whole thing off and tell about the early days. >>
<< SysOp SEA Burn >>
<< xx:xx:xx, xx/xx/xx >>
HOW WHITEY AND THE CORPS SCREWED US
By: Two Feathers
<< Oh, goody: this should be unbiased. >>
<< Green Giant >>
<< 02:22:12, 01/05/50 >>
So here's how it was: I was fifteen and living on a reservation outside a little trailer park town in Montana by the name of Lodge Grass. Not much around in the area of "things to do," but it was home. At that time, all I was looking forward to was graduating from high school and moving on MSU in Billings. This promptly changed when the Supreme Court of the old US decided to rule in favor of the Seretech and Shiawase decisions.
The first one, Seretech, gave corps (those huge fraggin' things we run against, kids) the right to have personal armies. The second ruling (involving the ever-favorite mega Shiawase) gave the corps complete control over land they owned. In a word, this gave corporations "extraterritorial" powers. What's that mean? Basically, any land owned by a corporation was considered to be a sovereign state (much like the embassies you see all over downtown). This may seem like it's common-place now, but that's not the way it was when I was a kid.
<< Here we go. >>
<< cRaZY-8 >>
<< 02:25:34, 01/05/50 >>
Of course, these decisions were reached after Shiawase was attacked by the environmental group TerraFirst! In hind sight, it was probably crap. Many of us in the shadows believe that the attack was pulled of by Shiawase itself to force the issue in court. Regardless, it worked and corps became countries unto themselves. With mergers galore, the first megacorporations were born.
And that's where the trouble started.
Within days (hours?)of the decision, the government began to move in and claim immenent domain on our reservation lands and then quickly handing them over to the corps. Fraggers sold us out and left us to rot.
<< Partially true. Two feathers has got it right, but left out a few details. While I won't try to justify what the US gummint did, they might have had their reasons. In the early 00's, the US was in a bad place. A few wars, bad economic conditions, and a steady downward slope in the economy led the US to make desparate attempts to "right the ship." Looking for any means to make money, they turned to desperate measures. Selling off the tribal lands was one of these. >>
<< Whispering Wind >>
<< "Keep them peepers open!" >>
I remember these times like they were yesterday. At first, we just responded with stunned silence; felt sure it was a joke or something. No such luck: the corps were all too serious. Some of those corp fraggers actually smiled as they punted us off of "their" land. They had the guns and numbers, though, so what could we do?
Protest. We marched on DeeCee in all our numbers, all the tribes, yelling, waving signs, cursing the corps. What did it get us? Nada. Zilch. We were completely ignored.
A few of us were fed up with the whole process and turned to techniques that were a little bit more in line with what was being done to us. We formed the Sovereign American Indian Nations and went to work.
Looking back on it, maybe some of the things we did were a bit on the shady side of legal, but the government responded quickly. It all came to a head when a few of us (not me, but some chummers of mine) broke into the Shiloh ICBM facility and threatened to launch the birds off unless the corps and government returned the land.
Rolling in dough, the government wasn't about to let go of this new-found cash cow, so they did the next best thing: stormed the place and tried to kill all us "injuns." Did a pretty good job, too, but not before we launched a bird off towards 'ole mother Russia.
Whether the missile was a dud, or the ruskies had good defenses, the missile never blew up, averting what likely would have been severe consequences. Of course, this gave the government the reason they needed to crack down on the SAIM, even those of us who chose to voice our opinions through words rather than bombs or missiles. With the help of a PR campaign by the corps, there were wide-spread attacks on amerindians across the US.
It wasn't pretty times for us.
<< He isn't kidding about that. My grandfather tells stories of how all this hatred boiled to the surface. Casinos, schools, and just about any else on the old reservations were burned to the ground. A lot of us were killed simply for being in the way of some redneck with a shotgun. >>
<< Red Eagle >>
<< "Don't look up." >>
The government of the US quickly branded the SAIM a terrorist group and anyone associated with them were locked away in internment camps. The "Reeducation and Internment Act" legitimized it and the police, national guard, and corp PR machine did their jobs. Of course, it was kind of hard to tell exactly who was with the SAIM and who wasn't, so they took the easy path and just locked up all of us. Canada quickly followed with the Nepean Act of their own, and Canadian indians were also locked safely away. Yep, the US sure handled that one well.
Now let me tell you about these camps. I've seen old trids on these places that claim that they weren't so bad; that we were well-fed, had plenty of space, and still had basic freedoms (other than the fraggin' freedom of being able to leave, of course). All lies. I lived it, chummer, and it wasn't no cakewalk.
Occasionally, food shipments would get "lost" and we'd have to make do with what we had. The water was tainted with Spirit-knows-what. Those of us "redskins" who caused "trouble" had a tendency to get shot while "trying to escape." My mother was one of these. Was she trying to escape? Yeah. Sure she was, chummer. A sixty year-old woman scaling a ten foot-high electric fence topped with concertina wire. Uh-huh.
While the government was busy locking us all away, a few of our sisters and brothers-in-arms stormed an oil corp in Texas. Texans have always loved their guns and they stormed in themselves, mowing down everyone with military-grade weaponry. With the support of the public and fears of terrorism high, laws were quickly passed in the US (and then the world) that allowed urban militia groups to arm themselves with weapons considered illegal before.
Thanks, Texas! Bunch of fraggin' asses.
::End File
<< That sums up Two Feather's bit. The next session goes into a little bit of detail on the rise of Japan as an imperial power, the joys of VITAS, and the Year of Chaos. >>
<< SysOp SEA Burn >>
<< xx:xx:xx, xx/xx/xx >>
