AUTHENTIC TEXT OF CHIEF SEATTLE'S TREATY ORATION 1854
Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change. Today is fair. Tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never change. Whatever Seattle says, the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can upon the return of the sun or the seasons. The white chief says that Big Chief at Washington sends us greetings of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him for we know he has little need of our friendship in return. His people are many. They are like the grass that covers vast prairies. My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain. The great, and I presume -- good, White Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our land but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably. This indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country.
There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory. I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame.
Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the white man began to push our forefathers ever westward. But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.
Our good father in Washington--for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since King George has moved his boundaries further north--our great and good father, I say, sends us word that if we do as he desires he will protect us. His brave warriors will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill our harbors, so that our ancient enemies far to the northward -- the Haidas and Tsimshians -- will cease to frighten our women, children, and old men. Then in reality he will be our father and we his children. But can that ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads an infant son. But, He has forsaken His Red children, if they really are His. Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us. Your God makes your people wax stronger every day. Soon they will fill all the land. Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return. The white man's God cannot love our people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we be brothers? How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness? If we have a common Heavenly Father He must be partial, for He came to His paleface children. We never saw Him. He gave you laws but had no word for His red children whose teeming multitudes once filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament. No; we are two distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies. There is little in common between us.
To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors -- the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.
Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the happy hunting ground to visit, guide, console, and comfort them.
Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense darkness.
It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indian's night promises to be dark. Not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man's trail, and wherever he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.
A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.
We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.
(Appeared in the Seattle Sunday Star on Oct. 29, 1887, in a column by Dr. Henry A. Smith.)
哈哈。老閻你小時候物價和我小時候差不多啊,還是那時候物價穩定。
還得替體育老師代課(給你開玩笑)。是我在文章裏忘了寫那是以千美元為單位,所以,看字麵以100美分為單位你是對的。我沒標注單位(千美元),因為根據習慣,大數據(GDP、債務、銀行儲備基金、國家財政收入、國家預算等等)都是以千美元為單位,而不是以100美分為單位。我小時候生產隊結算都是以分錢為單位,因為一個勞值8分錢,有的生產隊一個勞值9分錢,那就比8分錢的先進,令人羨慕,便佩服那個生產隊的隊長。不能以元為單位,說0.08元太麻煩了。火柴2分錢一盒,冰棍3分錢一顆,切開做本子的白紙4分錢一張,一個雞蛋賣8分錢,豆芽8分錢一斤。也有論毛的,一斤羊肉6毛五,豬肉8毛五。後來就論塊了,大學時每個月生活費給18塊五。我回國發現,鋼蹦子沒有了,都是以塊為單位了。比如一塊錢兩根油條,估計買一根也得一塊錢,因為沒有毛票流行了。
1後麵6個零是米林;1後麵9個零是比林;1後麵12個零是吹林。一個吹林是一兆,也叫萬億。
這應該是670億吧?或者說67個billion.
私人銀行控製央行的優點才是美國成立美聯儲的最科學最合理的內核。這些貴族要比政府的政客們可靠多了。這是為何美國發行的貨幣總是與美國的GDP比例掛鉤,而中國發行的人民幣早已超過美元和歐元總和的原因,因為政府官員可以隨便印錢,而貴族要為美國的長期利益著想,這跟政客隻為本屆著想高下立判。搞不懂這一點而反對美聯儲由私人組成的,才是糊塗蟲。
美聯儲持有國債,企業債或進行債券市場操作,都會有利息收入,但這利息的96%必須上交給財政部,所以美聯儲的股東便沒有賺什麽錢。他們印鈔買國債的印鈔數量也是對應國債的數量,國債數量要由國會批準,過程都是透明的。買債相當於增加基礎貨幣,發鈔的數量是以債務記在賬上,當國債到期回購債務就衝銷了。並不是像外界傳說的那樣是私人銀行控製了美國的央行。
not really. you can say: "The dead is dead."
所以,“The dead” 表明單數和複數都可以。比如,你可以說 The dead are ..., (表明複數);你也可以說 The dead is ... (表明單數)。用於單數時表明普遍意義或現象,用於複數時多表示具體的人群或動物群。
您不是在跟我開玩笑?
有一個老電影《The dead are alive>>. Dead, 可以是單數,也可以是複數。英語裏有些單數與複數是用同一個單詞。
不過,謝謝你看得如此認真如此仔細。
我曾經有過一個經曆。一天在商店買雞蛋,看得一個人擋著我,他在那裏挑雞蛋,就是害怕裏邊有裂口的。我隻好等著他,等啊等,看他手裏拿著一盒雞蛋,三排,共18個。但見他把每個雞蛋都拿起來仔細查看,轉一圈查看。我簡直不敢相信!那麽認真。那是23年前了,那時的雞蛋便宜到一盒99美分。我不高興,我做過小買賣,對這類挑挑揀揀的人有天然的厭惡心理。我便往前擠,等於把他擠走,那個店放雞蛋的地方小,我想把他擠到旁邊。可他一回頭我倆愣在了那裏。他是我的牙科醫生。有1米9到2米高,很瘦很瘦的白人醫生。他不得不把雞蛋放下跟我握手。我感覺很尷尬,不想聊天隻想走開。我走開後回頭發現他在繼續檢查他沒檢查完的那盒雞蛋。我仔細想,他一個醫生,不會缺雞蛋錢吧?反複想,最後的結論是:他有職業病,他誤以為他是在檢查牙齒,要一個一個地查看是否有牙洞。所以,我猜想你肯定搞過文字編輯吧?
“美國人心目中無時不在的假想敵情結”。很有同感!我去過幾個國家,不是走馬觀花式的旅遊,而是工作和生活較長的時間。發現美國人是最有戒心的 不大氣的。是否因為他們是五月花的後代,在搶到的土地上 心有餘辜 生怕別人也來搶他們 所以就有玻璃天花板和戒備心。
網站隨時給出聯邦繳的利息。去年5600億左右。
美國政府發放貸款,由美聯儲印出相應數量的錢給政府。美聯儲不是美國聯邦政府的,是在Delaware 州注冊的私人公司,由300家私人組成的公司。美聯儲的網站上沒給出每年每家收入是多少,我看過有人給算過,大約每家每年一百萬左右的收益。不是你認為的是零利率,美聯儲這個公司的300家白借錢給美國政府?你查查看。我十年前看的,因為內容太多,沒太注意零利率白借錢給政府那一段。
美聯儲的主席和管理層是美國政府選出來的,但公司是300家私人的,其中很多英國人。不是說在美國的英國後裔,而是現在還在英國的英國公民。就是當初他們合資幹的,可能都屬於英國貴族或銀行家,一代代傳下來了。人家私人公司零利率白借錢給聯邦政府?不大符合資本主義社會規則。當然,由於美聯儲是央行性質,管理層由政府決定,也說不定有規定。但把美聯儲看成是政府的,那是錯的。財政部隻能發放貸款,無權印錢,美聯儲根據財政部發放的貸款額印出鈔票給財政部。隻有當貸款賣出價影響到貸款利息過高時,美聯儲才自己出手買貸款。一旦有機會就立刻賣出去換回美元給財政部。美聯儲到底有多少負債,隻有美聯儲知道,總統和國會想知道美聯儲的所有負債表,美聯儲沒答應。因為是人家私人公司,有隱私權。
在尼克鬆之前,美聯儲印的美元數是根據美聯儲的黃金儲備數來定,那時聯邦政府沒有債務,美國那時是債權國,美元隻與黃金掛鉤。這是成立美聯儲時的情況一直延續到尼克鬆當政。尼克鬆把美元與黃金脫鉤,但沒有同時解散美聯儲然後成立政府自己的央行。這就等於政府發放貸款,根據貸款的數額,決定美聯儲印多少錢,與美聯儲有多少黃金儲備無關了。美聯儲大量購買政府的債券是從2009年金融危機後,叫QE。要讓這300家私人公司零利率白借錢給政府,有點匪夷所思。因為收購長期債券時是公開報出了利息的,記得是把長期債券買進,賣出短期債券,等於擰巴一下。長期與短期的有息差。跟外麵買賣的是一樣的年利息。由於我沒在這方麵花功夫,隻是知道個大概。所以,如果你認為我說的不對,告訴我。謝謝。
無論如何,此文悲壯 發人深省。
本人對一些小事件不敢興趣
“彭麗媛戎裝出任新職 中國文聯副主席”,這個也太明晃晃了吧?請問這個怎麽看?
他不是告訴你了?是從聖經讀來的曆史。聖經創世紀在他眼裏是曆史。細菌的細胞是怎麽造出來的?細胞是怎麽構成的?這些最基本的東西都不講,還造人呢。就好比說你會造汽車,可你不知道汽車的基本構件都有哪些,你連軸承都不知道,就說汽車是你發明的。我還沒上學的時候就玩弄那些比我還大一兩歲的傻玩伴們說我昨晚造了倆星星,一個叫牛郎一個叫織女,你們晚上往天上看就能看到。他們都信以為真。類似的故事多了去了,直到初中時在上學的路上我還告訴同學們:“我昨晚發明了個小炸彈,把屋裏的蚊子都炸死了。”他們都信以為真。他們崇拜了我後,我再說什麽他們都不會動腦子考慮我玩弄他們的那些跟神話故事一樣漏洞百出的言論是否有破綻了。就好比李大師說他推遲了地球爆炸30年,他的學員們信以為真。
達賴在西藏時講給他的信徒他拉的屎是大香,他的崇拜者們每天都排隊等著他拉屎後分給他們吃,他們就喊香啊香。你要讓達賴自己親自吃他自己拉的屎,他絕對不幹的,因為他清楚那是騙人的鬼話。但科學研究表明,當達賴的信徒相信了達賴所言後,他們在吃他的屎時的確是香的。就好比我在評論裏說的,李大師的弟子被公安警棍暴打時的確感受不到疼,非但如此,還會增加多巴胺的釋放而感覺舒服。但如果打李大師本人,因為他知道那是鬼話,就會真的疼。這是科學研究的結論。
高智商的上層人物裏,毫無疑問都把聖經故事當成類似李大師的騙人神話故事而已。隻有智商低下的傻子才會拿神話故事當真。李大師的弟子被國安暴打時說不疼,科學證明他們真的感覺不疼,那是因為他們相信大師教導他們的受難是修煉升華的過程。如果你用警棍真的去打李大師本人,他疼得嗷嗷叫。這個道理你是永遠搞不懂的。
但美國人的憂患意識和假想敵情結,應該不是來自西雅圖酋長的演說。
當初以色列人按照上帝的指引進入迦南美地的時候,那地的原住民迦南人和亞摩利人,原是要被斬盡殺絕的,比印地安人慘多了。上帝對以色列民說,這地是我賜給你們的,你們有無條件的所有權,但是我給你們設定有條件居住權。聽我話的,遵行我律令的,你們就可以永遠居住在這塊地上,而且豐衣足食,子孫綿延;如果你們違背我的律法,轉而去侍奉別的大神,胡搞一氣,那我就會把你們趕出去。
熟悉聖經的人都知道,上帝在帶領以色列人從約旦河東麵進入迦南美地的同時,卻帶領另一族人從西麵的海上進入迦南美地。這夥人就是後來的巴勒斯坦人。以色列人當初是何等的強勢,可是誰都沒有想到,一千年後,他們自己卻被亞述人、巴比倫人、希臘人、羅馬人輪流征服,徹底驅趕,以至在二戰中差一點被滅種。
美國是基督教國家,基督徒們熟悉這一段聖經故事的人,遠比熟悉西雅圖酋長演說的人多。
I-5高速旁邊的確有好多土著保護區,應該和這段曆史有關吧。
另外:土著人不可能有這樣的英文文筆,肯定是白人寫的,土人山寨的。
不過,既然美國人從小學習這篇從印第安人心底湧出的文字,怎麽有些人到現在還不明白“印第安人的墓地是神聖的”這一淺顯的道理呢?石油公司鋪設油管繞開印第安人的墓地,多花點錢不行嗎?
不過,我還是沒有被說服。美國人的憂患意識強嗎?有中國人強嗎?我咋覺得他們沒啥憂患意識呢。
所以之前八年的民主黨政府已經開始嚴肅麵對這一潛在的戰略威脅,部分國內媒體幻想川普上台後會因為奉行孤立主義而徹底放棄和中國的對抗,恐怕過於樂觀了。川普很可能是個非常難纏的對手。