"There are two basic methods by which man can feed his ego and make himself seem important. One is by genuine accomplishment. The other is by making a second party appear inferior... This is the root cause of bigotry and can occur in the most learned of men, when circumstances are sych that ethics can be conveniently shunted aside. Politics... can create these circumstances. "

"... the Indians were ruthlessly destroyed in California. This was accomplished, not only directly by the most brutal class..., but through the acquiescence of all the 'decent' people who did not care enough to be outraged about what was taking place..."
These passages are taken from the book, "When the Great Spirit Died: the destruction of the California Indians 1850-1860" by William B. Secrest.These passages were meant to describe the conditions that existed in California during the 1850's. Conditions which led to the campaign to exterminate California Indians by settlers and others who had "adopted" California as their home.These same passages could be applied today to the conditions that exist in many places in Indian Country. The lone exception being that the exterminators are no longer white settlers (or are they)...the exterminators are other Indians.Mari Sandoz, a late historian, is quoted as saying: "Properly conditioned, any people will produce a good percent of men (including women) who look upon the extermination of those who differ from them (and have something they want) as the proper destruction of a predatory animal. It is not only the Nazis that do these things, or the wool hat boys of the South. We can all be led down this path if the approach is insidous enough."

Does this sound like a place you know of or heard of? Does it make you think of any number of gaming tribes who use methods such as disenrollment or moritoriums to exterminate their own and take what is not theirs?