re cruel was re political atheists in article r j d e fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article apr bmerh bnr ca dgraham bmers bnr ca douglas graham writes according to jerry mander s in the absence of the sacred good book btw the great binding law of the iroquois confederacy also played a significant role as a model for the u s constitution furthermore apparently marx and engels were strongly influenced by a study of iroquois society using it as the prime example of a successful classless egalitarian noncoercive society mander goes on to say that both the u s and the u s s r would do well to study the original document figure out where each went wrong and try to get it right next time that s fascinating i heard that the chinese rather than the italians invented pasta that s fascinating i take it that you re expressing skepticism at the idea that those ignorant savages could have influenced the constitution of the people who stole their continent you could be right but it sounds plausible to me is there any reason that you dismiss it out of hand here s some more recent scholarship has shown that in the mid s indians were not only invited to participate in the deliberations of our founding fathers but that the great binding law of the iroquois confederacy arguably became the single most important model for the albany plan of union and later the articles of confederation and the constitution that this would be absent from our school texts and from history and from media is not surprising given the devotion americans feel to our founding myth great men gathered to express a new vision that has withstood the test of time if it were revealed that indians had a role in it imagine the blow to the american psyche by when most of these men and others gathered to creat the albany plan of union the first try at confederation they invited forty two members of the iroquois grand council to serve as advisors on confederate structures benjamin franklin freely acknowledged his interest in the iroquois achievement in a famous speech at albany congress it would be a strange thing if six nations of ignorant savages sic should be capable of forming such a union and be able to execute it in such a manner that it has subsisted for ages and appears indissoluble and yet that a like union should be impractical for ten or a dozen english colonies according to grinde franklin convened meetings of iroquois chiefs and congressional delegates in order to hammer out a plan that he acknowedged to be similar to the iroquois confederacy grinde is professor donald grinde jr of the university of california at riverside whose book the iroquois and the founding fathers of the american nation addresses this issue doug graham dgraham bnr ca my opinions are my own
