Chief Seattle

[Ichingcarpenter]

Was very popular with my crowd back in the days, he hadn't even seen or heard of fracking or global climate change but knew the score.

[TexasProgresive]

1. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but

Origins: Though undeniably beautiful, the preceding speech is not even remotely authentic. Rather than issuing from the very real Chief Seattle in 1854, those moving words were written by a screenwriter in 1971.

"Chief Seattle is probably our greatest manufactured prophet," said David Buerge, a Northwest historian. The
real Chief Seattle did give a speech in 1854, but he never said "The earth is our mother." Nor did he say "I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train." There were no bison within 600 miles of the chief's home on Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest, and trains to the West were years away.

The words Chief Seattle has become famous for were written by Ted Perry, the screenwriter for Home, a 1972 film about ecology. They have since been widely quoted in books, on TV, and from the pulpit. A children's book, Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A Message From Chief Seattle, sold 280,000 within the first six months of its 1991 issue.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/seattle.asp

[defacto7]

2. But it's a hell of a true sentiment..

n/a

[TexasProgresive]

3. I agree with you.

It is wrong to attribute something to a famous person in the hopes that it will make it more acceptable. These things are all over the internet with the latest craze being "troll quotes' where the quote is enscribed on a picture of the person.

An early example of a quote attributed to another person were these words:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we subconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." — Nelson Mandela at his inaugural address

There is no record of Mr. Mandela speaking those words at either of his 2 inaugural speeches or any speech that he ever gave. But this was everywhere: printed in catalogs, emails, web sites, whatever. The first time my wife saw it she was surprised that Mr. Mandela had read A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. Since that is the origin of the quote not Nelson Mandela. This is a type of plagiarism where a famous person's name is ripped off to give authority to a quote. In the Chief Joseph "quote" it was done by the writer himself, in the Mandela "quote" the plagiarist is anonymous.

Sorry for the long rant but stirring words should be attributed to the person who uttered them and if they are unknown than to anonymous. It ill serves us and the person who said them to attribute their words to others.

[happyslug]

4. But Ben Franklin thought such false attribution good

In his autobiography Ben Franklin pointed out more people would give more weight to a statement if you contribute to someone famous you lived a long time ago. That was true in the 1700s when Ben wrote his autobiography and is true now.