... I sent an email to one of the participants. It read in part:

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To quote from David E. Stannard's "American Holocaust":

"The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world."

Exact figures are difficult to determine, but it is estimated that Spain, France, England, the United States and others have exterminated more than 100,000,000 Native American people since 1492. The U.S. was, unfortunately, an active and enthusiastic participant in this genocide, starting with the founding fathers. Both Washington and Jefferson favored the killing of American Indians and the latter once said that the U.S. was "obliged now to pursue them to extinction". This genocide, by the way, continued until as recently as the last two decades, during which millions of indigenous peoples have been killed in Central America.

The African slave trade is estimated to have resulted in the outright killing of somewhere between 40-60 million, many of them enroute to or in the American colonies. And, of course, slavery remained legal in at least some parts of the United States as late as 1863, which made us one of the last major "civilized" countries in the world to outlaw the practice.

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While I doubt that such an atrocity could happen here again, the fact remains that a relatively small group of people in positions of power could make it so. ----- jim o\-S