No matter how progressive, humble or earnest he sounds, Pope Francis fronts for the Catholic Church, engine of colonialism, author of vast horrors, ongoing and unrepentant. Pope Francis is the first New World pontiff and so what? Now he's honoring Conquistador confessor Junipero Serra who established the California mission system which worked their indigenous captives to death, fed a diet intended to starve them. The Third Reich modeled their concentration camp program after the Franciscan forced-labor "missions" which externinated the west coast native Americas.
Tag: Native Americans
“What’s wrong with you guys?” asks mentally ill man as police murder him.
DENVER, COLORADO- Native American Paul Castaway was having a schizophrenic episode when his mother called the Denver police for assistance. Castaway held a knife to his own neck as he tried to hold off the officers but they shot him anyway. As DPD cuffed the dying 35-year-old, Castaway spoke for everyone when he asked "what's wrong with you guys?!"
Manitou Indian Center yet Idle No More
MANITOU SPRINGS- Idle No More organizers from Denver and Pueblo woke the sleepy local Native American community with a spirited gathering on Saturday, smack in the middle of Manitou, neath the town clock, only blocks from the CS Indian Center.
First Nations insurrection flash mob IDLE NO MORE hosting a round dance at a mall near you
DENVER, COLORADO- This was the scene in Denver's Cherry Creek Mall on Saturday, December 29, where a flash mob of over 300 Native Americans commemorated the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, in solidarity with "IDLE NO MORE" demonstrations stretching from Canada to Mexico, where First Nation members are raising their voices to defend their land and sovereignty. So here's a wonderful video of the event: This one's a bit shaky, but it's filmed with the exuberance of someone simultaneously dancing: Here's Mall of the Americas in Minnesota on the same day: Winnipeg, Manitoba, December 22: Edmonton, Alberta, on December 18: What it's all about. December 10:
Happy ThanksNowFuckOffAndDieGiving
THANKSGIVING would seem to commemorate misplaced thanks. Our thanks are not for the bounty of the New World, or for receiving aid from the indigenous peoples, or for being bequeathed stewardship over their gardens and farms, or God forbid for their joining us for supper. American white folk give thanks that the North American indigenous resistance quite unwisely didn't massacre our settlers to the last man and refute at least symbolically the European invasion of their continent. How many acts of turning the other cheek have been rewarded with a victor's treachery? It's become fashionable among environmentalists to think of mankind as a parasitic scourge soon to overrun the Earth its host, but that's only Western Man isn't it? Indigenous anarchist man has led a sustainable existence for longer than we celebrate our HAPPY history.
The guard towers of Camp Amache, CO, Japanese-American internment camp
Visitors to what remains of the WWII-era Granada Relocation Center located on Highway 50 past Lamar, are tempted to conclude that the remote location was isolation enough to restrict the movement of its 7,000 Japanese-American internees. Gone are all 560 buildings except their concrete foundations; the few remaining photographs depict a vast layout of spartan barracks, playing host to ordinary civilian lives, minus the atmosphere of incarceration. Were there cyclone fences and watch towers? The answer should not surprise you. Of course. Camp Amache was ringed by the usual multiple perimeters of prison fences, including six watch towers manned by military police, who were there, it was explained, for the internees' protection. I think plans to further restore Amache need to begin with the security fortifications. If such blights on American history as these race-based detention centers are memorialized in the hope that our nation not do it again, it dishonors our victims, and blunts the lesson, not to illustrate our heavy hand. I attended a recent screening of a documentary made of Camp Amache, attended by its producers, who expressed the usual motivation: in remembrance, never again. Special emphasis was placed on the contributions made by Japanese-Americans during the war, and on the magnanimity with which the internees accepted their lot. Survivors were not to receive an official apology until 45 years later, given $20,000 restitution for their livelihoods and families destroyed. It would be safe to say the audience felt well beyond the prejudice that had motivated their parents. Against Japanese-Americans. Unfortunately both the documentary and the filmmakers' commentary left the impression that "never again" describes a successful holding pattern. Of course, America has been at it again and as usual, its citizens have been obliviously complicit. Look at the War on Islam, which has necessitated the internment of Muslim-Americans and Muslims worldwide. Guantanamo is not much different from the Wartime Relocation Authority (WRA) special Isolation Centers such as Dalton Wells, near Moab, where the WRA sent internees profiled as potential insurgency threats. America has been building a network of fresh detention facilities to house Hispanic-Americans who run afoul of the country's illegal labor market. Most of the detainees are promptly deported, but many languish while immigration issues and family ties are sorted out. While ICE pretends to protect the American people from the security-threatening unlawfulness of illegal aliens, in reality its detention centers enforce the successful abuse of a Hispanic-American slave labor pool. You need only visit a traditional prison or jail to see that an overwhelming disproportion of its inmates are African-American and Hispanic-American, far exceeding what can be excused as representative of America's poor. The American judicial system is still stacked against non-whites, and motivated by the same racist premise of protecting the security of white Americans. And of course there are the open air prisons which still incarcerate the Native-Americans, the internment camps we call reservations, the original Wartime Relocation Centers.
Christians versus Lyin-Heart medal
Starting with REAL Christian values, as preached by Christ. Sojourners, whose mailing list led me here...(aside from me taking the long way home due to road work, thus stumbling on to Camp Casey) and other Christian groups, some of the names surprised me, have entered the budget battle with T.V. and radio ads, some in Boehner's home district, denouncing a budget plan which beats down the needy for the sole benefit of the Greedy... and urging the Rabid-Ass Wingnutz to actually do the works that Jesus told us. or just quit taking His name in vain. NOW, Cowboy! Man up and do it! Then there's Colorado Springs "Christian" School, who gathered the richest and most vicious oppressors of the Poor, to give the "Lion Heart" medal... to a Chickenshit Chicken Hawk whose Daddy's Money kept his worthless arse out of Vietnam. Who performed Satanic rituals using the bones of an American Hero, who unlike ANY of the Bush Klan, actually DID fight for America, was a prisoner of war, died in a Military concentration camp, and Grandpa Prescott Bush and some of his fellow overly pampered buddies robbed his grave, out of U.S. Army cemetery, at the Ft. Sill, Oklahoma concentration camp. His birth-name I'm not privileged to know, none of his tribe ever told me. He was born in what's now New Mexico, and like most Indians had a name given by the magistrates of the conquerors. Like Russell Means, Ward Churchill, Leonard Peltier, George Guess (his Tsa-la-gi name is "Sikawi") and Jonah Brown. The man whose bones they use in their freakish Satanic rituals, died with the Spanish name Geronimo. (St. Jerome) The Colorado Springs Overly wealthy "Christian" establishment worship the cowardly, arrogant, war criminal THIEF, using an award named for yet another murdering scum war criminal "Christian", Richard Coeur de Leon. They bow down to him calling him a "Christian Warrior" although he's neither, and sacrificing their children to advance his agenda. Many, but not all, in the Jewish community are likewise bowing down to the wannabee AntiChrist. Again, I call on them, Repent, or stop using God's name in vain. You who are Christian take His Name, in the most literal sense possible. As Paul said, by adoption into His house, the way an adopted child takes the name of his new family... And as John the Revelator said, by marriage, the Church as Bride of Christ. You owe it to Him to bring forth works meet for Repentance. If your Right hand is busy doing evil, left hand grabbing up the money from it, your mouth boasting of the evil you do and mocking those who reproach you for it... What then do you have left to do the work of God? "Thou shalt not bear false witness" doesn't have and escape clause, like "unless you want-covet the lil wealth of another nation like Iraq, Mexico or Venezuela and need WMD type of lying excuse". And where, in "Love thy neighbor" or "Thou shalt not kill" does it say anything about killing people while robbing their country, or killing
Cartographic traces of Lake, Colorado
Maybe like me you're wondering how a landmark falls off the face of the earth, in particular Google Earth, assuming as we do that web crowdsourcing is archival, not perishable. A stagecoach watering hole in Kansas Territory, formerly Arapaho, was Hedinger's Lake, between present day Limon and Hugo. Like the history of Colorado's water, Lake became Lake Station, later a railway siding, today a creek. First some back-story: 1750. When gold looked to become the carrot to drive white man's Manifest Destiny, the Indian Territories of what would become Colorado were labeled simply the Gold Region. Back in 1815, the West was still La Louisiane, and place names were native, French and Spanish. Taos was one of the oldest Spanish settlements, site of the First American Revolution, against the Spaniards, and another revolt when the US invaded. Camp de Baroney sits on the Arkansas River, eventually resettled as El Pueblo. And there's La Fourche Republicaine, a fork of la Rivoire Missouri, soon to lead a prominent migration trail west. By 1848, St. Vrain's Fort and Grante Ft., Bent's Fort, were already protecting Anglo trading interests. (Note by the way, Old Park and New Park, eventually to be become the "North" to South Park.) By 1864, the Cheyenne and Arapaho found themselves bordered on the west by the "Military Department of Utah" and ceding their lands to the Kansas Territory. (On this map we can see Montana City, the original Denver City. Denver eventually overtook Auroria and the metropolis. Mineral Springs became Manitou and Colorado Springs at the foot of Pikes Peak.) Note the curiously singular representation of a "Kansas Lake" depicted at the tip of the south fork of the Republican River, whose waters will originate in the later to be named Lincoln County, at whose heart will lie Lake, Colorado. The Rocky Mountain region lost many lakes by the mid 1800s when beaver were hunted to near extinction and with them the beaver dams. Note just West of "Kansas Lake" lies Beaver Creek. With the gold rush, settler trails crisscrossed the West, for wagon trains, stagecoach and mail carriers. Lake was a stage at the convergence of the Butterfield Overland Dispatch and Republican Fork Trails, where they crossed the Big Sandy Creek to join the Smoky Hill South and North Roads (after similarly named rivers which were starting points in Kansas) or the spartan Starvation Trail to Denver. Today's I-70 follows Smoky Hill North. Was Hedinger's Lake the water which travelers sought at the end of the South Republican Fork Trail? This 1868 Union Pacific map predicted the stops heading eastward from Denver to be Parkhurst, Beaver, which later became Deer Trail, and Coon Creek, which became Kit Carson, opposite Sand Creek. By 1870, Kansas was a state and the Kansas Union Pacific RR reached Denver. (Beyond the mountains: North Park, Middle Park and South Park.) By 1873, leaving for Denver from Fort Wallace, there were stops at Kit Carson, Aroyo, Lake, Agate (pronounced "A-Gate") and Deer Trail. (Note: still no Colorado Springs.) A map circa 1880s,
Steve Bach, mayoral candidate…
"anti-establishment" but being heavily funded by the Real Estate thieves who make up the Establishment here in Colorado Springs. The Real Estate Thieves who were willing accomplices to the Mortgage Scam which broke our local economy, that of Colorado, that of the United States and of the entire world. The Real Estate Thieves who inherited the land grab, the baton passed from such murderous thieves as Carson, Custer, Palmer, Andrew Jackson even. The owners of the land still occupied it? Easy solution, exterminate them. Mass Murder, attempted GENOCIDE (but you bastards didn't get ALL of us, now did you?) Thieves like Zeb Pike who was on a mission to map out, for future conquest, this area which at the time wasn't under the sovereign rule of the United States, but instead under the King of Spain. Not much of an improvement either way, but even by Great White Father paternalistic dictatorship laws, it was prelude to Grand Theft. These Real Estate establishment are the ones who are backing him, his advertising budget now includes Television Ads and signs all over the city, the "Freedom Corporation" news outlets like the Gag-Zette backing his play, Fox News backing his play... But he's "anti-establishment". Start your campaign based on a lie, what are you going to build on it? More LIES? Also backing him are the "Strong Mayor" backers, who want to give even more dictatorial power into the hands of one person. Goons like Doug Bruce and Sallie Clark. Goons who take Publicly Funded police and use them in their for profit war against not poverty itself, but people who are impoverished, and visible. Goons like Lisa Czeladtko and Daniel Chacon who have made statements that the Parks and other Public entities, properties and institutions should be the Private Domain of the Very Rich, no "homeless" need apply. Homeless is an adjective, you would think people who promote English as the ONLY language of America would learn to speak it a little better. Used as a noun it strips the dignity and even the status of Child of God Human from the persons so afflicted. Many if not most, made into "the poor" or "the homeless" or whatever adjective-cum-noun is imposed on US by the policies of these same "maverick" (an unbranded steer) "rogue" and "renegade" Politicians who claim not to be Politicians. Set in stone Establishment Lackeys who claim to be Anti-Establishment. They only use the word "homeless" as an adjective when they refer to homeless PEOPLE as "the homeless PROBLEM". Further dehumanizing us. I've been homeless, ain't proud of it but there's not one reason to feel shame about it either. If people who make their money from theft or from enabling the thieves, like Chacon and Czeladtko and Rivera and Palin and Doug Bruce succeed in their goal of privatizing the entire economy of America,bring every last dime into their own bank accounts, they'll be creating more Homelessness. All in the name of Progress. Oh, Maverick, rogue and renegade... They've apparently forgotten those phrases' true origins. Maverick was a rancher in Texas. Open
Marlon Brando’s lost Oscar speech
In 1973 Marlon Brando declined a best actor award for the Godfather in solidarity with the American Indian. Yada yada yada, only that much we remember. Something to do with Wounded Knee, but the average American might be excused for confusing the massacre of 300 Lakota in 1890, the contemporary deadly FBI-AIM confrontation, and Dee Brown's bestseller. A new documentary Reel Injun, about Hollywood's skewed portrayal of Native Americans, unearths Apache Sasheen Littlefeather's incredibly poised delivery of Brando's Oscar message. Littlefeather was confined by time limits to present only this abbreviation, interrupted by audience booing and then simultaneous applause. Youtube has the clip, for which the transcript is below. "Marlon Brando ... has asked me to tell you, in a very long speech which I cannot share with you presently —because of time— but I will be glad to share with the press afterward, that he must... very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award. And the reason for this being... are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry… excuse me… and on television in movie re-runs, and also the recent happenings at Wounded Knee. I beg at this time that I have not intruded upon this evening and that we will, in the future…our hearts and our understanding will meet with love and generosity. Thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando." Brando's formal statement was released to reporters after the ceremonies. For 200 years we have said to the Indian people who are fighting for their land, their life, their families and their right to be free: ''Lay down your arms, my friends, and then we will remain together. Only if you lay down your arms, my friends, can we then talk of peace and come to an agreement which will be good for you.''? When they laid down their arms, we murdered them. We lied to them. We cheated them out of their lands. We starved them into signing fraudulent agreements that we called treaties which we never kept. We turned them into beggars on a continent that gave life for as long as life can remember. And by any interpretation of history, however twisted, we did not do right. We were not lawful nor were we just in what we did. For them, we do not have to restore these people, we do not have to live up to some agreements, because it is given to us by virtue of our power to attack the rights of others, to take their property, to take their lives when they are trying to defend their land and liberty, and to make their virtues a crime and our own vices virtues.? ? But there is one thing which is beyond the reach of this perversity and that is the tremendous verdict of history. And history will surely judge us. But do we care? What kind of moral schizophrenia is it that allows us to shout at the top of our national voice for all the world to hear that we live
The Census and Original Intent of the Founding Aristocrats
Since we have a lot of loudmouth Know-it-all know-nothings running their collective head, in chorus, paid by the richest men in America to cement the notion of an American Aristocracy based on personal wealth, Who tell us every hour of every day that they, and ONLY They, know the original intent of a group of arbitrarily assigned White Aristocrats they call the "Founding Fathers", a group which includes up to ... actually less than, 100 of the richest men in America. Out of the 3,929,326 MEN and only MEN counted in the first census in 1790. Never mind that even the very tiny INSIGNIFICANT representative sample they define as the "Founding Fathers" never unanimously agreed on any single issue, and that John Adams, one of the Richest of the bunch, granted himself arbitrary powers in a definition of the Sedition Acts to jail people who disagreed with his personal agenda. Or that there wasn't a Majority Consensus on the Bill of Rights, which wasn't included in the Original Constitution. Or that of those 3,929,326 MEN more than half weren't allowed to VOTE for who got to represent them... No Taxation without representation? How about "No REPRESENTATIVE DICTATORSHIP without Representation"? Their "original intent" is considered irrelevant by the Pompous Ass Pseudo-Intellectuals who are trying to force their Elitist (just not actually "elite") agenda on the rest of us. What of the OTHERS who had to bear the burdens of the conflicted and contradictory mandates from the Tiny Minority Even Of The Landed Aristocracy who are arbitrarily assigned the title "Founding Fathers" but not only weren't given the Vote, they weren't even COUNTED. Women, Children, Bonded (slavery through debt) and people Born Slaves weren't counted. Nor were the Native Americans in the territories claimed by the White Aristocratic Tiny Minority. Actually, slaves were counted as "Property" not as human population. Wonderful group of Role Models you Right Wing Extremists have there. In 1860 American Indians were counted, but only those who had "renounced" tribal affiliations, and of course, the sovereignty CONSTITUTIONALLY defined by Treaty (Article VI) which was recognized on paper but virtually never at gunpoint. Nor were these Americans who had given up their tribal rights accorded any citizenship rights until 1911, more than a half century later. The United States in 1790 consisted of the 13 original states and the territories that later became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. Notice that save for Maine and Vermont, (two French words actually) the other territories have American Indian names. There's a reason for that. Actually "Indiana" was designated as an entirely Indian territory, hence the name. Then number of American Indians IN WHAT WAS THE UNITED STATES at the time was far greater than the number of those Americans counted as "citizens" and a HUGE difference between their population and the fewer than 100 Rich Bitches who are said to be the Last and Only deciders of American Law. So, are we to join their Rush to turn
Self-contradictory positions taken by TeaBag and Radical Republicans
The list is massive, their own anti-American Terrorist threats in relation to voting rights, civil rights, racism, hate-speech against Muslims, hate-speech inspired attacks against Muslims and other religious, racial, social, or cultural groups and individuals... Oh, and the constant use of Massive Conspiracy theories of their own to denounce "conspiracy theories" like the questions raised over RepubliKlan and TeaBags rigging either the initial attacks on 9/11 directly, rigging the public response to those attacks for the profit of their Warmongering Corporate Leaders, and D) All of the Above. Let's jump right in with Voting Rights, in Houston, one of the major cities in the Exxon Protectorate Territory of Texas. According to TeaBag-RepubliKlan legend, so "Red" that only Massive Commie Infiltration could have thwarted their machinations. A group called True the Vote is insisting that the 70 million to 48 million vote spanking they took in the last election wasn't an adverse reaction to Race Baiting on the part of their Terrorist Candidates McCain, Palin and others further down the ticket all the way to elections for Dogcatcher. OK so the dogcatcher election is an old hyperbole, maybe City Council would be more appropriate. AND they're calling for Armed Poll Watchers... Millions of Armed Poll Watchers. Which was IS Klan terrorism technique used to skew elections. Particularly elections for such positions as County Clerk and Recorder, or similarly positioned Election Oversight officials in different jurisdictions. Like the ones the Right Wing Hate Freaks controlled in so much of the nation 2 years ago that they were confident of cruising to victory with plenty to spare. But with a Republican Machine that rivals the Soviet system in reach and the Tammany Hall Machine in tactics, in place nationwide, there's a 22 MILLION vote difference + another 5 million or so they thought would give them an easy victory. So they come up with a Conspiracy Theory that's an order of magnitude more convoluted than the JFK Assassination theories and 9/11 theories and the whole "I saw Elvis in a UFO" range of theories combined. While alternately condemning as treason or mocking as trivial and irrelevant any questions of just how much political and financial advantage their Parent Corporations gained by the 9/11 attacks. Which is it, TeaBags, (local shout out to Michelle Malkin, Dan Maes, Tancredo, Gunny Bob) Treason, or insignificant rants of lunatics? Cause, cousins, y'all seem to have a Nationwide Lock on Loonie. Seriously. Then they spin that into their Mosque Mania and terroristic Hate Speech and Hate Actions against Muslims and anybody else they think of as being Not White or Christian Enough To Be Considered Real Americans, according to their Hate Speech Real Loonie Leader Sarah Palin. Their level of Violent Hatred has already caused American Deaths directly within the confines of the United States, attacks on Religious and Cultural Institutions such as the Murfreesboro Islamic Cultural Center torched in Tennessee last week, The Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church attacked at the urging of TeaBag Leaders at FOX Networks and Clear Channel, with two dead, the
Tribal Sovereignty means uh… you’re a sovereign entity, with a US passport.
Remember when George Bush couldn't define "sovereignty?" Maybe it wasn't his fault. How would you describe sovereign lands where US extraction and exploitative industries can operate without regulatory oversight, and tribes can issue identification papers unless they mean to travel somewhere. When the original Indian treaties were signed, US destiny was manifested with promises that the former landholders' sovereignty would be respected. The Iroquois Lacrosse team have just learned tribal sovereignty means carrying the occupier's passport. The US State Department at first refused to grant travel permission to the sovereign Iroquois because they didn't have the newfangled, traceable, trackable, American passport. When congressmen intervened on behalf of the Iroquois who did not wish to submit to United States stinkin' papers, the government relented, granting a one-time exemption. How do suppose they mean to explain that? A just-this-once exception on the sovereignty whatsit. But the lacrosse team's destination was England, and British bureaucrats held firm on the original argument that the sovereign Native Americans required non-Native American passports. Post 9/11 days are no time apparently to permit international travelers to pass themselves off with rinky dink documents issued by who knows what maize-republics. The USA may foist whatever charade it wants on its captive vanquished aborigines, that doesn't mean England has to play dumb too. Maybe the British are mindful not only that the Iroquois were among the inventors of lacrosse, but that they once used the pretext of a game to successfully storm an English fort. Is that among their worries, Post 9/11? Post 9/11 is no time for the pretense of sovereignty. Whether schoolchildren can grasp its contradictions or not. Here's Bush again, doing his best Miss South Carolina: "Uh, tribal sovereignty means that. It's sovereign. You're a, you've been given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities."
The Lakota saw six grandfathers where Mt Rushmore fests expansionist four
A recurring discussion at the base of Mount Rushmore is whose face next belongs alongside America's fantastic four. There's room for more obviously, as the mountain's Lakota name was the Six Grandfathers. They saw resemblance enough in the rocks without the Denver Mint faces. Visitors can be excused not recognizing Theodore Roosevelt, the only cameo without a coin --he lacks a DC monument too, but Teddy most certainly belongs here. To determine who else might qualify, we have to wonder at what exactly Mt Rushmore means to memorialize. Mount Rushmore immortalizes above all a New York lawyer who persevered for half a century to assure the not inobscure landmark was named after him. The government approved carve-up was intended to draw visitors to South Dakota. Concurrent tourist spot projects included the cement dinosaurs of Rapid City and Wall Drug. The icon-fashioned mountain became its own icon, casting a Cliff Notes summary of American History into stone. Whatever posterity would have to say about their legacy, these presidents would remain an unscalable height above reproach. George Washington was father of our country, if not what today we hold as our ideals. Washington wanted to liberate colonial profits from the tiers owed its royal investors. He fought only for the independence of the American propertied class, and faced revolt from the common soldiery who bore the brunt of fighting off the British. Thomas Jefferson pushed us west and invented the facade of democracy based on an illusory "all men created equal" utopian agrarian society. Jefferson would have known that no farms can operate without farmhands, and that peasant revolts have never sparked revolution. Above all, who was Jefferson to pretend that you can keep everyone down on the farm once they'd seen Paree? A farmer can imbibe education and culture only if he's got slaves doing the work. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and held the union together. An America divided would have been vulnerable to resorption by the European powers. More important, the engine of our export economy was the South. Cotton and tobacco dwarfed fur. Theodore Roosevelt championed conservation, like the national parks, but he's on the mountain because he took America's Manifest Destiny international. Roosevelt oversaw industry extend its empire-building offshore in search of cheap labor, resources and markets. When conversation turns to whose face should adorn the pantheon of American expansionists, we are not lacking for capitalist do-gooders. I overheard "Obama", "Henry Ford" or "Bill Gates," perfectly in keeping with the theme. In chronological order after the Rough Rider, to my mind, JP Morgan could be the beginning and the end, as father of the malevolent banking monopoly which has fated the world to Potterville. Improving Rushmore would naturally be to efface it. How much longer really are the sculpted heads going to look like a "feat of engineering" and not simply a defilement of nature? Already what's praised as a "work of art" looks more like a bad tattoo. Native American voices oppose the nearby Affirmative Action Crazy Horse Monument because
To GOL! or not to GOL! that was the question.
How would it have been played out in the press had the Team America gone on to at least a higher level of victory? We've already suffered through an anti-Immigrant slam against major league baseball, with all the appropriate "OUTRAGE! (copyright 1993-2010 Fox News Networks)" about Major League players getting visas and work permits when immigrating from Cuba and (gasp!) Mexico. Not any rage against any favoritism but the fact that people PEOPLE from Cuba and Mexico were given work permits in the first place. How dare they let more of THEM infiltrate America! Not much crying about the "patriotic" symbolism of some of our best baseball players being from places like Costa Rica. So how would it play out that a team built on the skills of Immigrants took the U.S. to a World Cup win? More to the non-point, how will it play out with the loss? Will immigration be blamed or praised? I should remind here, and probably should have much earlier, that somewhere near half, plus or minus a few points, of my own ancestors were immigrants. And that many of the "immigrants" who are taking so much heat from the Racists are actually Native Americans, kicked back and forth even in pre-Columbian times by that old devil Imperialism. Now defined more by arbitrary political boundaries than by any REAL considerations. My sister was born in England, off base and at home, rather than on "U.S. Soil" at the Mendenhall RAFB hospital. U.S. Soil could be and has been defined as ships flying the United States Flag. The El Paso County (Texas) Hospital District is about a mile and a half north of the Rio Grande, people born there are Citizens of the U.S. regardless of the citizenship of their parents, if an "All American" mother gives birth in a different hospital on the Mexican side of the bridge, the kid is automatically a U.S. citizen because his parents were. The first case scenario scares living Hell out of the Racists, and they complain about it bitterly. The second case scenario is accepted by them as being a matter of Divine Rights possessed by a narrowly defined group of descendants of Immigrants who happen to have English surnames and somewhat lighter skin tones. An "American" citizen couple with the surname Smith would experience less Racist bullcrap getting their kids citizenship determined than an American family whose ancestors were in Texas for thousands of years longer than the Smiths were, but have the surname Gonzalez. But of course, it's not racist. The Racist Anti-Immigrant Lunatic Fringe insist on that point. In the recent election cycle, Barack Obama was and still is questioned about his citizenship. Someway, somehow, an American who would have been an American citizen no matter what simply because his mother was a citizen, was involved in an elaborate plot to make it appear as though he had been born in Hawaii. A point of citizenship that would only make a rat's ass worth of difference if
An Idea whose time has come…
Seriously, since the NeoCons still insist that we have Hegemony over the entire known Universe, a religious belief that we are so much better than the rest of the world that we owe it to them to run their countries for them... then why not grant each person in each Conque errr... "Liberated" country full United States Citizenship? My soon-to-be brother in law is Tongan by birth, he very seldom goes TO Tonga and was raised in Hawaii from the time he was about a year old. Homeland Security cleared him soon after 9/11, he had a job at DFW loading meals onto flights for AA. One time some Fearful Freak Redneck got all nine-eleven nine-eleven nine-eleven stupid about a Large Dark-skinned fellow being on the plane with his Obviously Non-Racist Arse. Stupid fears, held by stupid people. So he was going to marry my sister last week. Cool, eh? But I.C.E. has to have the last word on everything, he didn't have his ORIGINAL Birth Certificate, so the Frightened Ones wouldn't let them get their marriage license until he proves (apparently with something more than the huge file that the Frightened Feds keep on every "foreign national", even and especially those who grew up here) that he is who he says he is. I mean, come the hell on, they've got hair samples (do you think for a moment that a Racist and Fascist Totalitarian Police State wouldn't have that? think not? Welcome to the REAL world, check your delusions at the door upon entrance) fingerprints, biometrics, iris scans, etc etc etc... as well as a dossier of his entire life history, but he can't get his ID card updated without proving who he is without his Original Birth Certificate. One of Miss Johnnies sons was born on Guam, but they didn't make it to the Air Force Base hospital so he wasn't on U.S. soil. Even though the U.S. Military runs Guam any way they see fit, but only in the Proper Neo-Colonialist Manner, they only beat the Wogs three times a week. How Very Civilized of them. So he's a citizen, both his parents including his dad who died from Agent Orange in service to the USAF, were citizens, but there's still that Birth Certificate bullshit. My other sister, Audrey, same way, born at home off base in London... Citizen, but not "native". And, has trouble getting her Drivers License renewed because of that Original Birth Certificate. Which is purest bullshit, just like the manufactured FAKE scandal about President Obama's Birth Certificate. Guam and Tonga were added to the "not really conquered vassal possessions even though we treat them as such" list through the Wondrous agency of World War 2. And kept in such bondage by the U.S. Military "needing" the bases in THEIR countries in order to maintain our delusion of Masters over sea and land. "We goddamn OWN the world, so we NEED those bases to keep the Peasant Natives from thinking they own their own countries!" Audrey was born
America is not a “white” nation
Well now... an apparently Southern person wrote in response to an article about the Tea-Baggers and Other Klan Affiliates espousing Hate Crimes against black American PEOPLE, under the banners of the Failed Confederate States, that "you are an Idiot" and saying something about the "palling around with terrorists" badly disproved Tea Party Rhetoric. And then saying that the Southern States will secede along with Alaska. And of course all Southerners are going to agree to this, Right? Allow me to remind you of a few things... The South has changed quite a bit since you Racist Retards decided you were going to take your toys and leave, miffed because a Yankee from Illinois of Mixed Race (what, you didn't hear that part in Texas History? Abraham Lincoln was from an ethnic group called Malargeons, and was often said to be Negro. Of course, in Modern Southern classrooms the Lies from the Last Secession movement about States Rights are more prevalent than saying it was about race) was Elected President and was going to attempt a major bit of Reform which put Human Rights above property "rights" in the case of the "right" to keep Human Beings as property. The secessionists won't have the votes to do it. Same reason they didn't have the votes to stop America from electing Barack Obama to be President. America isn't a "white" nation and neither are any of the states. What would you do, Secessionists, to force the Black and Hispanic AMERICANS in "your" states to either join you in secession or get out? Would you get the White Sheets out of grandpa's closet and ride out lynching anybody who didn't go along with the idea? That's what the Confederacy did the first time, and the only reason they could get it to work TEMPORARILY was the fact that the blacks were held in slavery and deliberately kept ignorant, not allowed to learn to so much as read on pain of beatings and death. They were also kept unarmed. Do you seriously believe that you'll be able to peddle that same kind of shit today? Take all the Tea-Baggers in Texas and descend on ONE Black American enclave, maybe Polytechnic Heights or Stop Six in Ft Worth, maybe South Oak Cliff in Dallas or 5th Ward in Houston. Or the equally hated-by-the-Tea-Party-and-other-Klan-groups Hispanics, the ones who your Stupid Loudmouth Leaders Beck and Limbaugh were confidently predicting would vote against Barack Obama because the Fox News Retards calculated them to be every bit as stupidly racist as the Tea-Baggers. Go to Segundo Barrio in El Paso with that shit. Tell them you're taking over completely in Texas. See how long you would last. Try the same thing in Birmingham Alabama, see how far you get with that. See, in order for your "we're going to take all our toys and go home" snivelly little Tantrum to work, you would have to have unanimous support. You won't get it. Just like you didn't "get" the idea that
Ol’ Momma Karma she’s a MEAN byotch
Saw another bumper sticker "I Will NOT be forced to learn a Foreign Language to accomodate Illegal Aliens in MY Country." First off, it's not YOUR country. You don't own the whole country. Too bad if your nasty little Klansman feelings are hurt. There were people speaking Spanish and French and Native languages HERE, in Colorado Springs, until the English came with their retarded ass "Manifest Destiny" and not only killed most of the Natives,they forced the rest of us to learn THEIR Language. The better to "accommodate" our Bigoted English Masters. Too damn bad y'all English-only Racist Freaks are getting back a small measure of what you dish out. You don't like it, move back to England. The English Nation appreciate your ill humour at those Bad Ol' Wicked Naughty Foreigners refusing to learn the tongue of their "betters". They had to murder Irish people for four centuries getting to speak English to their English Masters. And then the Irish INGRATES actually Rebelled against their Rightful Masters! How Very Dare They! Of course, the British would compel you to learn actual English grammar, spelling and usages.
Remember how in the 60s and 70s …
The propaganda line on Mexican immigrants was they were escaping the economic devastation caused by the "socialist" policies of the PRI parti revolucionario institucional? Blaming Pancho Villa for decades after he died. So what's the excuse now that the Reagan and Bush Regimes force fed them American Capitalist "free" trade? I read one "scholarly" explanation that involves a mistake between the words Melanin and Melatonin. The Darker Pigments in our skin, eyes and hair. The "scholar" who put it together confused Melanin, as I said, with Melatonin, which is a chemical in the endocrine systems of mammals and birds. It has many of the mental and physical effects of Opium. Because the "scholar" couldn't spell the difference between two different words, he leapt to the conclusion that the Dark Pigments in Native Americans, "Mexicans" Blacks, Chinese, Semites, just anybody who wasn't of pure Aryan übermenschen stock was made stupid by our darker skins. Since the closest thing to an honest reason for their hatred of Mexicans being able to succeed in the "free" market capitalism is that it's much easier to keep them down through the use of an International Border. One which was arbitrarily assigned by The United States and actually runs neatly across half of the historical Mexico. Conquest only it's called "Liberation". Freedom to do what you're told. Very Orwellian of them and not at all buoyed up by Racist propaganda like "Darker skin pigments makes them stupid like Opium does".
Buy Nothing Day 2009 now Wildcat Strike
Do you recognize the cat at right? It might be a child's zoo animal rubber stamp if it didn't look so angry. This is a stencil that dates to the Wobblies, when working men were angry. When labor organizers had to fend off union busters and Pinkerton goons, actions had to be called in defiance of the bad contracts and entrenched company-union bosses. Something for UFCW Local 7 to think about. The hasty stencils painted on factory walls announced: Wildcat Strike! Adbusters resurrects the wild cat for the 2009 Buy Nothing Day, whose impact might be better felt as a GENERAL STRIKE. Buy nothing, drive nowhere, turn out the lights, turn of the electronics, go for a walk, and do not go to work. For one day. The day after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving by the way goes off the calendar too. Find something else for which to be thankful besides feasting at the expense of the Native Americans, themselves starved, infected, and driven from their land. Someone someday will be able to mobilize a real general strike. Until then, what can we lose by trying? Do it. This is the splash page which Adbusters recommends for websites planning to blackout.
Ward Churchill to speak for O’odham
According to Censored News, Activist and scholar Ward Churchill will speak at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson, 4831 W. 22nd St., on November 13, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. to benefit O'odham VOICE Against the Wall, which since 2003 has organized and advocated for the traditional O’odham leaders and elders of the Tohono O’odham communities in the southern territory of the United States and northern territory of Mexico. Professor Churchill’s talk is part of the “Apartheid in America: Surviving Occupation in O’odham Lands” O'odham activist Ofelia Rivas will also participate. The event is sponsored by the Dry River Radical Resource Center, the Earth First! Journal, and Voices against the Wall. Here's some background on the O'odham struggle: By J. D. Hendricks, 2004 TIAMAT PUBLICATIONS #5 The People Who Emerged From the Earth Over two thousand years ago the descendents of the O’odham moved into the southwestern region of the area now claimed by the U.S. as the state of Arizona. 1 The O’odham have had one of the longest histories of contact with the forces of European colonization compared with the rest of the native North American peoples. The O’odham’s first contact with Spanish invaders took place in the mid 16th century; nearly one hundred years before the colonization of the North Atlantic coast and Great Lakes regions were begun by the French and English colonists. As such, the history of the O’odham provides a good context for an investigation of the colonization of Native North America, and more specifically, an investigation of the interplay between, and results of, the varied responses to colonization – that of collaboration, accommodation, and resistance. Many histories of the O’odham refer to these desert people as the Papago. The term Papago was a name given to the O’odham by the Spanish colonizers, and is likely the result of a Spanish corruption of the O’odham word “papabi” which was the O’odham name for one of their principal bean varieties. Thus, the Spanish colonizers term for the O’odham (Papago) came to mean “the bean eaters.” 2 For the purposes of this study I will refrain from the use of the term Papago and will refer to “the people” 3 by their traditional pre-colonial name. 4 As is often the case, with the name Papago being a good example, European constructs are often imposed upon indigenous peoples by the historians that seek to portray their past. This result can occur when historians seek to glorify European norms and traditions at the expense of indigenous ones, and can also be the result of the subconscious indoctrination of the historian by the dominant culture – in this case that of western style industrial civilization. In other cases it can be the result of a simple uncritical usage of language. One of the most dominant and reoccurring “civilized” constructs imposed upon indigenous peoples history is the commonly understood notion that the O’odham, or any other indigenous North American culture for that
Sept 11 – America Reaps What It Sows!
A post-911 perspective by Black Liberation Army prisoner of war Jalil Muntaqim. U.S. International Warfare Initiates World War III Human Rights During Wartime By Jalil A. Muntaqim In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Americans have displayed their true colors of jingoism, a militaristic spirit of nationalism. Similarly, it was witnessed how the people of Iraq rallied in support of their President, Saddam Hussein, after the U.S. bombed to death 250,000 Iraqis, and continued devastation of that country with collateral damage of 1 million dead women and children. Hence, people rallying in support of their government and representatives is a common phenomenon when a country is attacked by an outsider. The U.S. has been foremost in the world extending foreign policy of free-market economy, to the extent of undermining other countries cultures and ideologies expressed as their way of life. Such conflicts inevitably positions the U.S. as the centerpiece, the bulls-eye for international political dissent, as indicated by demonstrations against the U.S. controlled IMF, WTO and World Bank conferences. The attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon did not occur in a vacuum. The people that carried out the attacks were not blind followers or robots with an irrational hatred of the U.S. peoples. Rather, this attack was part of an overall blowback to U.S. imperialist policy in support of zionist Israel and opposition to fundamentalist Islam. There are essentially three primary world ideologies or world views: the capitalist free-market economy/democracy; the socialist production economy; and Islamic theocratic government, of which has been in competition for many decades. However, in the last 20 years the socialist economies has been severely subverted and co-opted by free-market economies, the ideals of American style democracy. This isolated, for the most part, Islamic theocratic ideology and system of government as the principle target of the U.S. in its quest for world hegemony. This reality of competing world views and economies is further complicated due to religious underpinning of beliefs that motivates actions, especially as they are expressed by U.S. and Western European christianity and Israel zionist judaism in opposition to Islam. From the struggles of the Crusades to the present confrontation, the struggle for ideological supremacy reigns, as the faithful continue to proselytize in the name of the Supreme Being. When geopolitics are combined with religious fervor in the character of nationalist identity and patriotism, rational and logical thinking is shoved aside as matters of the moment takes historical precedents. It has often been said that "Truth Crush to the Earth Will Rise Again". Since truth is relative to ones belief, can it be safely said that America has reaped what it has sowed? The American truth of capitalist christian democracy and its imperialist hegemonic aspirations has crushed both socialist and Islamic world views. It has extended its avaricious tentacles as the world police and economic harbinger of all that is beneficent, in stark denial of its history as a purveyor of genocides, slavery and colonial violence.
Re-enacting and Celebrating Genocide… Just Like Skokie…
As immortalized in the classic Film "The Blues Brothers" where a group of dim-wits put on Historically Authentic Military Uniforms (of the SchutzStaffel) and marched through a largely Jewish suburb of Chicago. So, on Territory Days, can those of us who are of Indian descent expect to see these guys celebrating the American Genocide? Now, I KNOW somebody will point out that there are still American Indians alive today. And say that therefore the Genocide and the attempted full-on Extermination of AMERICANS never happened. Like the Smallpox Blankets, or herding the Indians onto the U.S. version of the Warsaw Ghetto, the mass slaughter of the American Bison (Buffalo, TaTonka...) encouraged and enforced by the U.S. Army in a policy to starve out the plains tribes. Colonels Custer and Chivington both making the statement that killing the women and children was necessary because "nits make lice" and killing off the men without slaughtering the women and children would be a waste of time, you have to kill the Breeders. And in a way, they're almost right. The bastards FAILED... we're still here in spite of the Mass Murders. By the same token, if they want to judge the U.S. Genocide as "false" on those grounds they would have to judge the Nazi Genocide as "false" And they can dress up and pretend to be the perpetrators of the Racist Murders and laugh and joke and pretend that it was somehow righteous... But there will be some, especially ME right here, right now.... Who will call you on it, and remind you that such displays are like these... Might I remind gently that the largest actions the Klan has staged in the past three decades have been attempts to terrorize Native Americans and Immigrants by putting on Period Costumes And marching through the towns, villages and neighborhoods where we live. Like Old Colorado City... where I personally live. Have a Nice Skokie/Selma/Birmingham...
Little Eichmann Country-Western anthem
Of course, that describes most of the Pseudo-patriotic crap infesting the airwaves now... But there's one I heard "that's the way things were and still ought to be" Like honoring our preachers, leaders, teachers and heroes and believing everything they said Charlie Manson was a preacher. Preached Armageddon really really strong. Cotten Mather was a Preacher who gets quoted a lot by the Reich Wing, (Like Chuck Norris and Dawg the Bounty Hunter, just another couple of Wannabe Pigs) whenever they say that America should be a Religious Dictatorship... Who also said that Native Americans were a construct of Satan because we're not specifically mentioned in Genesis, that we had no souls and should be exterminated. And that the people who allowed their kids to play with dolls were practicing witchcraft and should be killed. And the Kiddoes themselves... Imagine, if you will, somebody offing your rug-rats because you gave them a Teddy Bear or let them watch Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny.... And the Good Pastor Mather also owned Slaves. Leaders? McCarthy, for instance, with all the Liars, Murderers and Thieves who were and are his Fellow Travelers, like Reagan, Nixon, Bush (all the Bush Klan), Billy Sunday who was one of Their Crowd and also a Nazi Sympathizer (and, leave us not forget, a Preacher), People who could feel at ease at a Country Club or a Klan Rally? We should believe everything they said or say? Really? We're supposed to (here in Colorado Springs) Revere and Honor "heroes" like Custer and Chivington and Palmer... Racist SCUM who tried to wipe a whole race of Americans from the face of the world. When Custer is quoted in the book (and film) Little Big Man as saying It's more important to kill the women and children, because if we let them breed there wouldn't be any point killing the men It's an accurate representation of what the punk murdering bastard actually DID say. And we've got an Idol of his disciple William Jackson Palmer parked right in the middle of a busy intersection. By the way, Custer and Chivington and Palmer also believed in and quoted Cotten Mather... And the "War on Christmas" loudmouths should remember this, Cotten Mather was a Puritan... whose family had been run out of England for criticizing their Religious Dictatorship and, importantly, pissing off King James by opposing the celebration of CHRISTMAS because it's a Catholic holiday I don't remember the name of the singer, but it's one of those redneck punks who offers to beat up on anybody who disagrees with him. Yep, real Role Model for a working Civilization. The kid who sings the song is (to me) a youngster. Mid twenties, maybe thirties. No way in HELL could this dude remember anything at all about the 70s even. Far Less the 40s, 50s and 60s that's he's so nostalgic about. When Apartheid was the Official Law of the Land in 20 states. People of "color" could be arrested or even hanged for not stepping off the sidewalk to let the Master Race walk past. THAT'S the way things were, and I for one actually
US Army blankets are generic today
When I was assembling my dorm room kit for college, I wanted an army blanket as a bed cover. For reasons I must have understood better then, the heavy duty olive drab wool, emblazoned with a U.S. monogram, was inarguably cool. Its generic quality was iconic, thus it had a caché more authentic than a stack of Izods. I considered my Army blanket to be the No. 2 Pencil of bed linens. I forgot about that blanket until the Ward Churchill trial in Denver, when the contention arose whether the US army spread small pox to North Dakota Indians by means of infected blankets. Native American oral tradition has been retelling this tale, but the White Man's narrative is pushing back. The ignoble suggestion remains a penciled notation in American History texts, except by scholars such as Churchill, because anti-revisionists want to see more proof. Deniers seem to willfully overlook that perpetrators might have cloaked their trail, sooner than document their scurrilous coup. Where are the blankets, or invoices for the blankets? With only songs about the blankets, how is anyone to confirm their provenance? It's hearsay, the defenders say, bitter, vindictive slander to implicate the US Army for the 1837 small pox epidemic, just because the Red Man's comprehension could not attribute another cause. Although the Indian accounts aren't so pointed. They tell of an Indian chief who stole the blankets from the white soldiers, unwittingly bringing the outbreak back to his camp. Now I'll not assert that US Army blankets have always had a "U.S." stenciled on them, nor even that they were army-colored, as khaki wasn't on the uniform palette until the turn of the century. But governments have always needed to distinguish government property, to discourage their agents from divesting of their standard issue for personal gain. I will contend that it is only from the perspective of our contemporary culture of abundance, that we presume a blanket is nondescript without a trademark. In our overloaded consumer economy, it is not unreasonable to believe that an item without its receipt cannot be assumed to have come from a particular store. Indeed we need designer logos to differentiate products when we cannot assess the quality for ourselves. Today, even thread-counters are at pains to tell an Eddie Bauer from a CJ Crew by touch. But not so in the Wild West. The carpet-bagger mercantile purveyors of the West may have ushered in mass-produced dry goods, but I hardly think varieties were indistinguishable. Wanna bet there was quite a difference between blankets woven by Indians, blankets bartered from trading posts, and standard army issue?