Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

This is a day that I think should be for the Native Americans.  I choose to remember what my ancestors did.  Mass Genocide.  I choose it, not as a way to feel down, but a reminder that humans need to start treating eachother with respect.  We all need to try and work with eachother.  I myself have some boundaries on what that means.  I am all for humanity relearning to be human again.  The Native Peoples, are good folk, and we need to squelch the barriers from eachother.  There is no time left for this kind of junk anymore.  On this day, I will envision a different outcome, I defy the darker forces that led to it and I imagine a different world here with the Native Americans, with all the different tribes, living with the white man in harmony.  That’s the outcome I choose for my vision.

Let there be Peace in Humanity.

Halima Bashir is the first woman to write and publish a memoir after surviving the horrific genocide in Darfur. Co-written by Damien Lewis and published by Random House,

Tears of the Desert illustrates the life of a tremendously brave woman. In 2004 Bashir’s village fell prey to the genocidal acts of Janjaweed Arab militias; the attacks Bashir witnessed were savage. As her village’s first formal doctor, she cared for the traumatized victims – including 42 raped school girls, some as young as eight years old. When Bashir decided break her silence and speak out against the violence, she endured terrifying trials of the body and spirit. “Raw and riveting, Tears of the Desert is more than just a memoir – it is Halima Bashir’s global call to action.” -Random House

On our part, we demand dialogue. But if they are not going to do that and continue the offensives against us, we have to resist and fight back. That is our own measure. We are in a position to resist. Today, we are taking part in the revolution and it is just. The public has the right to defend itself. As for the oppressed public, if they are warred upon, they have the rights to defend themselves.’

Padoh Mahn Sha Laphan, General Secretary, Karen National Union, 10/07/06
KNU(Karen National Union) General Secretary(1943-2008).

“Man is the cruelest animal. At tragedies, bullfights, and crucifixions he has so far felt best on earth. And when he invented hell for himself, behold, that was his very heaven.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

A woman’s genitalia slashed four times, after which (they) fired a bullet into it. They speared both of her eyes, shot both her breasts, cut off her feet, fired into her mouth.

A few kilometers off the main highway, on a remote hilltop covered with waist-high grass, bodies lay with twisted hands reaching in the air. They had been shot point-blank. Nearby, cadavers were being laid out under banana leaves.

That wasn’t a scene from a Lars Von Trier movie. It wasn’t a nightmare sequence.

It was a sickening description of Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangundadatu of his wife’s fate.

His wife, sister, aunt, several women and media practitioners were massacred in Ampatuan, Maguindanao.

While the mutilation is difficult to prove without autopsy reports, the very thought of a 57 (and counting) death toll over an election-related mass murder is horrendous itself.

Words are not enough to describe the horror of what happened.

Reading through how the people were beheaded, shot multiple times, ran over with the truck, and buried in a pre-dug hole makes one’s stomach turn upside down and over.  It makes one squeamish, angry, horrified – all at the same time.

We begin to wonder how such acts of inhumanity can ever exist. We begin to ask how can the perpetrators even sleep at night?

But then again such creatures who commit such crimes aren’t people. They are not humans.

We all believe in the justice system. We are at least forced to believe that in situations like this, justice will be served. But knowing how the system can be easily corrupted, we can’t help but wonder if it is easier to retaliate. To do the same thing to the arrested individuals.

For the record, Thanksgiving as a Nationally observed holiday is a ridiculous retelling of an awful truth about United States history.

Indigenous People were exterminated in a genocide that that included mass hangings, relocations, and the destruction of a culture.

It’s important that we acknowledge this fact.  It’s unfortunate that most of us are so relieved to have a day off of work that we shrug off any guilt we might have about the reason we’re celebrating.

Either way, I have the day off and I was reminded how few and far between real appreciation can be- so I sent my family and friends some Happy Thanksgiving videos to let them know I’m thinking of them. It made me happy to make silly short videos and I like to imagine what they’ll say. I am Thankful for so much in my life. . .

Happy Thanksgiving to you-

George Orwell, author of “1984”, once wrote: “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”

Such holds true about the history of “Thanksgiving.” Those who are indigenous to the land we now call the “United States of America” have been long misrepresented, demonized, and effectively marginalized in American history textbooks in favor of glorifying European colonialism. Why does a democracy, such as ours, refuse to teach that 10 to 30 million Natives were unjustifiably slaughtered in the name of conquest and imperialism? Where is our “free market of ideas” when selective and biased history is being taught in our educational institutions?

There is no other way to put it, but erasing the memory of an entire race of people is systematic racism. Not only is biased history presented to us through a distorted lens, but we are also subjected to an ever-growing culture of capitalism, in which commercialization of an ambiguous holiday merely pulls us away from facts and meaning. Turkeys are associated with “Thanksgiving” in the same way Santa Clause and the Easter bunny have become synonymous with Christmas and Easter, respectively. Through the guise of innocence, capitalism is constantly telling us to consume because consumption equals “happiness.” It is no coincidence that we all rush to our favorite malls and shopping centers on “Black Friday” for “big savings.”

And as children dress up as Pilgrims and Natives to reenact the romanticized version of history, they are not only perpetuating stereotypes, but more importantly, they’re embodying racist and ethnocentric lies. What do they really know about the Pilgrims and the Natives? Consider a high school history textbook called “The American Tradition” which describes the scene quite succinctly:

After some exploring, the Pilgrims chose the land around Plymouth Harbor for their settlement. Unfortunately, they had arrived in December and were not prepared for the New England winter. However, they were aided by friendly Indians, who gave them food and showed them how to grow corn. When warm weather came, the colonists planted, fished, hunted, and prepared themselves for the next winter. After harvesting their first crop, they and their Indian friends celebrated the first Thanksgiving.

This patronizing version of history excludes many embarrassing facts of European history. As stated by James W. Loewen, author of “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” many college students are unaware of the horrific plague that devastated and significantly reduced the population of Natives after Columbus’ arrival in the “new world.” Most diseases, for instance, came from animals that were domesticated by Europeans. Cowpox from cows led to smallpox, which was later “spread through gifts of blankets by infected Europeans.” Of the twelve high school textbooks Professor Loewen studied and analyzed, only three offer some explanation that the plague was a factor of European colonization. The nine remaining textbooks mention almost nothing, and two of them omit the subject altogether. He writes: “Each of the other seven furnishes only a fragment of a paragraph that does not even make it into the index, let alone into students’ minds.”

Why is it important to mention the plague? Quite simply, it reinforced European ethnocentrism and hardly produced a “friendly” relationship between the Natives and Europeans. To most of the Pilgrims and Europeans, the Natives were heathens, savages, treacherous, and Satanic. Upon seeing thousands of dead Natives, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, called the plague “miraculous.” In 1634, he wrote to a friend in England:

But for the natives in these parts, God hath so pursued them, as for 300 miles space the greatest part of them are swept away by the small pox which still continues among them. So as God hath thereby cleared our title to this place, those who remain in these parts, being in all not fifty, have put themselves under our protect…

The ugly truth is that many Pilgrims were thankful and grateful that the Native population was decreasing. Even worse, there was the Pequot Massacre in 1637, which started after the colonists found a murdered white man in his boat. Ninety armed settlers burned a Native village, along with their crops, and then demanded the Natives to turn in the murderers. When the Natives refused, a massacre followed.

Captain John Mason and his colonist army surrounded a fortified Pequot village and reportedly shouted: “We must burn them! Such a dreadful terror let the Almighty fall upon their spirits that they would flee from us and run into the very flames. Thus did the Lord Judge the heathen, filling the place with dead bodies.” The surviving Pequot were hunted and slain.

The Governor of Plymouth, William Bradford, further elaborates:

Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so that they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire…horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them.

Perhaps most disturbing: it is strongly argued by many historians that the Pequot Massacre led to the “Thanksgiving” festivities. The day after the massacre, the aforementioned Governor Massachusetts Bay Colony declared: “A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children.” It was signed into law that, “This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots.”

Now, one may ask: What about Squanto, the Wampanoag man who learned to speak English and helped the hungry, ill, and poor Pilgrims? As cited by Professor Loewen, an American high school textbook called “Land of Promise” reads:

Squanto had learned their language, the author explained, from English fishermen who ventured into the New England waters each summer. Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn, squash, and pumpkins. Would the small band of settlers have survived without Squanto’s help? We cannot say. But by the fall of 1621, colonists and Indians could sit down to several days of feast and thanksgiving to God (later celebrated as the first Thanksgiving).

Note that this text states the first Thanksgiving was on 1621. Indeed, there was a feast on that year, but it was not called a “Thanksgiving feast” nor was it repeated until years later after the Pequot Massacre in 1637. In regards to Squanto, the correct question to ask is: How did Squanto learn English? History textbooks neglect to mention that the Europeans did not perceive Squanto as an equal, but rather as “an instrument of their God” to help the “chosen people.” It is also omitted that, as a boy, Squanto was stolen by a British captain in 1605 and taken to England. He worked for a Plymouth Merchant who eventually helped him arrange passage back to Massachusetts, but less than a year later, he was seized by a British slave raider. Along with two dozen fellow Natives, Squanto was sold into slavery in Spain. He would manage to escape slavery, journey back to England, and then talk a ship captain into taking him along on his next trip to Cape Cod in 1619.

As Squanto walked back into his home village, he was horrified to find that he was the only surviving member of his village. The rest were either killed in battle or died of illness and disease. Excluding Squanto’s enslavement is to paint an incredibly distorted version of history that suggests Natives, like Squanto, learned English for no other reason but to help the colonists. It is to glorify the Europeans and erase the struggles and experiences of the Native people.

When history is transformed into myths, tales, and bedtime stories, we ignore historical research that enables us to learn valuable and meaningful lessons about our present, as well as about our future. History is meant to be an accurate and honest account of civilizations, cultures, and events; not a one-sided narrative of ethnocentric and selective alterations.

As Professor Loewen states:

Thanksgiving is full of embarrassing facts. The Pilgrims did not introduce the Native Americans to the tradition; Eastern Indians had observed autumnal harvest celebrations for centuries. Our modern celebrations date back only to 1863; not until the 1890s did the Pilgrims get included in the tradition; no one even called them ‘Pilgrims’ until the 1870s.

I did not write this article with intentions to offend or say we shouldn’t celebrate “Thanksgiving.” None of us are responsible for the atrocities committed hundreds of years ago. None of us caused the plague or the massacres. But as human beings, I do feel that it’s important for us to approach history with honesty and integrity. Yes, we should spend time with our families and Loved ones, and yes, we should be grateful and thankful for all that we have, but not at the expense of ignoring an entire race of people, their culture, and their history. A hopeful and optimistic view comes from Jacqueline Keeler, a Native American, who writes:

I see, in the “First Thanksgiving” story, a hidden Pilgrim heart. The story of that heart is the real tale than needs to be told. What did it hold? Bigotry, hatred, greed, self-righteousness? We have seen the evil that it caused in the 350 years since. Genocide, environmental devastation, poverty, world wars, racism. Where is the hero who will destroy that heart of evil? I believe it must be each of us. Indeed, when I give thanks this Thursday and I cook my native food, I will be thinking of this hidden heart and how my ancestors survived the evil it caused. Because if we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle. And the healing can begin.

The fact that history textbooks and schools try to glorify the Pilgrims while omitting significant facts about the Natives represents that there is a lot to improve in the United States. Let us not become blinded by super-patriotism or the blowout sales of “Black Friday.” Let us be conscious of our brothers and sisters in humanity, learn about their contributions, and embolden ourselves to stand up against racism and genocide in all forms.

Peace.

~ Jehanzeb

Thanksgiving is an annual holiday celebrated by a fairly large number of Americans.  It’s usually marked by an oven-roasted turkey, golden corn, a hot apple pie and warm family gatherings.  We’ve all heard the myth of why we celebrate Thanksgiving; the Pilgrims settled in New England, and after a long, unusually harsh winter, celebrated with the Native Americans by sharing with each other fresh crops and warming hearts with honest thanks.  Thanksgiving has become a day where we recall this myth as we sit around our dining room tables with our families, reminding each other to ‘be thankful’ for what we can call our own.  Then we over-indulge our gluttonous desires with comfort foods and feel the effects of tryptophan take over our bodies…

In recent years, I’ve began to wonder: is Thanksgiving really celebrating the coming-together of Pilgrims and Native Americans in a fun, heartwarming feast of thanks and wonder?  Given the bloody, genocidal past of United States’ history, I became skeptical and decided to investigate.

Many Americans (particularly those white Americans in power…those who rewrite American history and create capitalist Hallmark holidays) believe in the myth of Thanksgiving and give it no second thought as they generously help themselves to Betty Crocker mashed potatoes.  They probably prefer to keep it that way, as is seen generation after generation of school children who come home from school with their paper turkeys, eager to tell their parents about how wonderful the Pilgrims were for inviting the Indians to join them in a feast of thanks giving.  What’s the harm in ruining this tradition of false teachings and beliefs?

The truth of the matter is: the first Thanksgivings were celebrations of victory by the white man who mercilessly slaughtered nations of Native Americans in their conquest of what is now the United States.  In their mission to fulfill Manifest Destiny, the white man wiped out thousands and thousands of Native peoples, audaciously celebrating each bloody scalping, murder, and rape by having feasts on their newly stolen land, over the dead bodies of their victims.  The truth of the matter is: following the mass genocide of Native Americans solely at the hands of the white man on a rampage to spread white supremacy, the white man (as capitalist history writers) needed a way to make what they have done appear not so bad.  They needed something to cover up their massacres and make them the heroes in the end.  Thus came the invention of Thanksgiving as we know it today: a Hallmark holiday and family tradition in which the kid-friendly version of Thanksgiving’s origin thrives and fools Americans into blindly celebrating mass genocide.

Paul R. Hollrah, O.E.
The Twenty-Eighth Amendment
November 24, 2009

Since the horrific Fort Hood Massacre of Nov. 5, ‘09, suggestions that Islam should be outlawed increased in frequency and intensity.  The latest call for delegitimization of Islam does not come from a blog or comment, it comes from a freelance writer and think tank fellow,  published by New Media Journal.

I found three interesting quotes in the preamble; they are reproduced below, in block quotes, followed by my commentary.

But it is the violent and criminal acts of Muslims…acts which they see as religious imperatives, while to Christians and Jews they are repugnant acts of violence…that concern us most. We are told again and again that Islam is a religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims want nothing more than to live in peace. Although this may be true in most cases, it is entirely irrelevant so long as peace-loving Muslims fail to stand up and expose the radicals in their midst. The Muslim who claims to love peace, but who ignores the radicalism he sees and hears in his mosque is just as guilty of terrorism as those who carry out terrorist attacks against innocents.

I am not concerned as much by the violent acts as by the immutable, intrinsic doctrines of Islam which motivate and perpetuate a succession of violent acts. The violence prone zealots who obey Allah & emulate Moe have the weapons and will to use them.  The meek wind up dead in a ditch.

The Muslim who knows, believes and tacitly accepts the demonic doctrines which sanctify and mandate conquest, genocide & terrorism are just as guilty as those who carry out those evil acts. The ignorant or peace loving Muslim of good will who goes along with the flow is almost as much a victim of Islam as those the terrorists seek to harm.

 

 

Today, it is the fanatics who rule Islam; who war against non-Muslims; who slaughter Christians and Jews around the world; who bomb, behead, murder, and honor-kill; who take over mosque after mosque and radicalize its members; who stone and hang rape victims and homosexuals; and who teach young men that they will have eternal joy in paradise…to say nothing of seventy-two virgins…if only they will strap bombs to their bodies and detonate them in crowded marketplaces. These are the things that the Koran teaches.

Because the Koran teaches those things, the men who preach & practice them are not fanatics, radicals or extremists;  they are believers.  Those who do not preach  & practice Jihad are hypocrites, not good Muslims.

If Islam, as we know it today, had existed in the day of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and had Muslims been present in large numbers during the early years of our Republic, religious liberty would today be an entirely different matter.

Islam, as we know it today, existed in  Thomas Jefferson’s day. It plundered American merchantmen, killed or enslaved the crews and demanded tribute, which the new nation paid until 1805 when Jefferson summoned his resolve and sent the Marines to Tripoli. Anyone who doubts this should read about the Barbary War.

Jefferson’s contemporary, J.Q. Adams  understood Islam, as demonstrated by this quote.

 

“In the seventh century of the Christian era a wandering Arab, of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combing the powers of transcendent genius with the preternatural energy of a fanatic and the fraudulent spirit of an imposter, proclaimed himself as a messenger from heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth.

Adopting, from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God, he connected indissolubly with it the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war as part of his religion against all the rest of mankind. The essence of his doctrine was violence and lust; to exalt the brutal over the spiritual part of human nature.

Between these two religions, thus contrasted in the characters, a war of more than twelve hundred years has already raged. That war is yet flagrant; nor can it cease but by the extincture of that imposture, which has been permitted by Providence to prolong the degeneracy of man. While the merciless and dissolute are encouraged to furnish motives to human action, there never can be peace on earth and good will toward men. The hand of Ishmael will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.” John Adams, 1830

–John Quincy Adams, “Christianity—Islamism.” “Unsigned essays dealing with the Russo-Turkish War, and on Greece,” originally published in The American Annual Register for 1827—1829 (New York, 1830), Chs. X-XIV: 267—402. (source)

 

The text of Paul R. Hollrah’s  proposed amendment follows.

“The right of the People to be secure in their persons and property shall not be abridged, and no person, or group of persons, may interfere or attempt to interfere in the right of others to pursue life, liberty, religious practice, or freedom of expression. No religious sect or denomination may advocate violent opposition to any other religious sect or denomination, or to the members thereof. Any religious sect or denomination which utilizes its religious freedoms in pursuit of political ends averse to the general welfare, at home or abroad, shall be in violation of this provision, shall forfeit the right to peaceably assemble, and shall not maintain places of worship.”

Unfortunately, that text would be in conflict with the existing First Amendment. In my view, it is necessary to exclude Islam from membership in the set of recognized religions.  An institution which is not a religion is not protected by the First Amendment’s free exercise clause and may be proscribed by law.

Closing Mosques, Islamic Centers & Madrassas is not sufficient action to solve the problem. So long as individual Muslims are present among us, free to indoctrinate their children and proselytize, the threat will not be reduced, it will increase.  Resident Muslims constitute a fifth column, each one a sleeper cell of one, capable of activation at any time, unpredictably.  We remain at risk until they die, emigrate or sincerely & finally abjure the doctrines of Islam.

Islam is what Moe preached and emulated, enshrined in the Koran & hadith; codified in Shari’ah.  Until you will read a sufficient sample of Islam’s canon of scripture, tradition & jurisprudence, your knowledge of Islam is speculative and probably false.  Islam is not moderate, it is aggressive, intolerant and violent by design.

A Muslim described as moderate, who neither participates in nor approves of Jihad, is one whom Islam’s founder described as a hypocrite, whose Islam goes no deeper than his throat.

Shari’ah requires Muslims to participate in annual attacks against disbelievers; neglecting to do so when it is possible is sin. I refer doubters & dissenters to Reliance of the Traveller, O9.1   It is the duty of the caliph to make war upon Jews, Christians & Zoroastrians until they become Muslim or pay the jizya as prescribed in 9:29. Let doubters & dissenters read O9.8.  It is the duty of the caliph to fight all other people until they become Muslim as prescribed in 8:39. Let doubters & dissenters read O9.9.  Once you have opened and loaded the file, you can use the Windows search function to find the reference letter & numbers  using the Ctrl f key combination.

Islam is supremely intolerant. 3:85. And whoever seeks a religion other than Islâm, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers.    Islam denies your right to live and own property.  Let doubters & dissenters read Sahih Bukhari 1.8.387. “I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: ‘None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.’ And if they say so, pray like our prayers, face our Qibla and slaughter as we slaughter, then their blood and property will be sacred to us and we will not interfere with them except legally and their reckoning will be with Allah.”

Given the fact that Islam is intolerant & violent, dedicated to the destruction of our system of government & economy and Hellbent on enslaving us,  tolerating Islam is suicidal idiocy.

The first corrective measure known to me was proposed by Pedestrian Infidel in the spring of ‘07: A Proposed Constitutional Amendment. Although I disagree with the fourth article of that proposal, I  have endorsed it, because it was the first and  remains the best option.

The Outlaw Islam! petition languishes with 124 signatures. I urge lovers of life & liberty to sign it, copy it and send it to everyone they can hope to influence with an exhortation to forward it.  When you have signed the petition, use the facilities of http://www.congress.org/ to send a link to the petition to your Representative & Senators.

I’m expecting a few big changes in my life in the next few months. Hopefully things get a bit better. Although, I’ve been quite active, doing different things to have a little fun on the side. I had invitations to 2 different Thanksgiving parties, but one of them was somewhat un-practical and the other one was going to be one of those family parties that you only know one person and can become quite awkward or whatnot. So, I decided to stay at home and perhaps save a poor turkey. These poor bastards are victims of genocide if you ask me. For this “special” holiday thousands or even millions of these poor bastards are slaughtered to overfill our hungry stomaches for a day or two.

I wish I could provide more details and information about the stuff I’ve been doing or some fascinating stuff I’ve been hearing from my circles, but anonymity is very important to me. A while back when I had the ear infection, I went to see a doctor and they asked me to fill out a questionnaire that was asking about depression and stuff. I totally denied having any signs of depression just because I don’t want special attention. These days I don’t have the symptoms as much, but I’m totally wounded deep inside. So sad inside that I can effortlessly start crying in seconds…

It was Monday and we just ended our daily story conference in the afternoon. I was just fixing the schedules for the RPN 9 afternoon team. I remember deploying one of my reporters to a feature story in Mandaluyong.

However, a breaking-news was flashing over ANC. Since I couldn’t see the letters from my desk, I went near the tv.  The slug went “Buluan Vice Mayor confirms death of wife, (x)  people”. Then seconds later, I saw the death toll rising and the word  being used was already “killed” and “beheaded”.

I called up my reporter and said that I was nixing the feature story and directed her to interview the Armed Forces of the Philippines Spokesperson Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner.

Well, at least part of the story was wrong. Many of the victims were hacked, shot, and mutilated. I don’t think someone was beheaded.   Tsk.   I’m not sure but I won’t be surprised if there were severed heads.

A few minutes later the news was already having a life of its own.  Journalists were being mentioned as part of the convoy of Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  The Vice Mayor was not talking about the notorious Abu Sayya or any faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

He was blaming his political rival, the Ampatuans of Maguindanao, for the deaths of more than 20 people.  (The figure has now reached around 60 and I wouldn’t be surprised if it peaks to 100)

At the nightly story conference, I told the news manager that I think this story isn’t just about murder. I said that there is a killing field there somewhere and a team should be sent.  She agreed that

I called up to check our local stations in Zamboanga and General Santos City.  Being geographically challenged that I am, I asked our Zamboanga station what’s the fastest route to Maguindanao.  Then the news manager there referred Gen San.

So I called up the local office and asked to confirm the details that were being aired over the national news.

The confirmation was very unsettling.

I called up my boss and told her about the deployment plans. I couldn’t confirm any flights by the military where we could tag along.  So I just told the team to bring their clothes just in case they have an opening and immediately fly to Maguindanao.

One of the news crew whom I sent elsewhere arrived around 9 pm. They brought me food. I was exhausted not only from the new but I was tired because I was so busy downloading, talking to the phone, sending fax messages, checking media advisories, etc etc.

I knew I had to calm down. I sat down and ate the food given to me. I had 10 minutes for myself.

I said a little prayer for the victims. I knew the feeling of being harassed for doing my job. I knew the feeling of being threatened with guns and homemade shotguns by elected officials.

The journalists who were there died because they did their job. Apparently being killed was part of the job description.

I was imagining myself being there thinking that it was another regular day where I could go back to my family.

I was also putting myself in the shoes of the other victims whose only crime was passing through the Ampatuan highway.

Even for a region where violence has been already been a way of life, this was still quite harrowing.

The body count is still rising. No arrests have been made as of this posting.

Former defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro expelled the Ampatuans from the Lakas-Kampi-CMD party. You have my vote sir. You are the only presidentiable (and an administration ally) who was not afraid of doing something.

Today is a day of National Mourning.  But what good would mourning do if there is no justice? Souls are still crying from the hillside that was already prepared for them by the butchers of Maguindanao.

The United Nations defines genocide as any act committed with the idea of destroying in whole or in part a national, ethnic, or religious group. This includes such acts as:

• Killing members of the group
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
• Deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to physically destroy the group (the whole group or even part of the group)
• Forcefully transferring children of the group to another group

(See: http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/treaties/genocide.asp)

What happened on November 23 was not the annihilation of a race. It was meant to wipe out a family. It was also meant to send a chilling effect against those who want to contest the power that was given to the warring clans.

What happened on November 23 was political genocide in my book.

It is already 8 am,Thursday, November 26 and the latest news was that the AFP already took the provincial capitol of Maguindanao.  I support my soldiers who have fearlessly declared war on bandits who have no respect for human rights. I laud the AFP leadership for their swift action.

Let the critics shut their mouth first until the military finishes its mission in capturing those who have committed the atrocities against our people, against our innocent brothers and sisters, against the journalists.

You will be just creating noise amidst the wailing of an already heart-broken nation.  The AFP is our light and our hope at this time.  They will deliver justice, in whatever means.

Barbaric acts have no place in any society. I support my military in their endeavor because I am angry and because they are our only hope.

I will never forget…11/23/09… The Massacre in Ampatuan…

Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned…. They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features…. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane…. They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”
-( A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn, Professor of History, Boston University)

This mentality was the basis of the first Thanksgiving celebration and the precursor to the decades of slaughter, genocide, theft, and injustice against American Indians that continue in residual effects to this day. The first celebration of Thanksgiving was not a peaceful celebration between pilgrims dressed in buckle hats and Indians bedecked in feathers. It was the celebration of the brutal massacre of thousands of native men, women, and children. The first Thanksgiving began in 1637 when the governor of Massachusetts declared a feast to celebrate the return of the colony’s men who had returned home safely. They were returning from the massacre of over 700 Pequot men, women, and children.

Though I do not celebrate any traditional American Holidays, every year I stand in particularly vehement revolt against Thanksgiving, which I consider to be the most heinous celebration of them all. I stand in revolt in order to honor the victims of massacre, genocide, forced sterilizations, loss of spirituality and language, and all of the seen and unseen abuses against people, animals, and land that continue to this day. The main point for me is that IT CONTINUES, and as long as we continue to celebrate the abuses of the past so blindly that their truth is rendered invisible to us, these injustices will continue. It will continue as long as we unwittingly give thanks for being the murderers, the thieves, the colonizers, the exploiters, and the gluttonous. Thanksgiving is a day of sweeping cultural and political amnesia. This Thanksgiving I will be thankful for one thing: the freedom to resist a culture that continually attempts to blind me.

Homophobia, bigotry and racism were not native to these shores. Tomorrow, while most of the country is feasting, I will be joining thousands of people in Plymouth, MA for the 40th National Day Of Mourning where voices will be raised in resistance against a culture that is run on the blood of the indigenous. Like every year, this will also be a protest against the unjust incarceration of Leonard Peltier, who has been a political prisoner since 1977.

Here is Part 2 of my Thanksgiving posts from 2008:

At the outset, I would like to note that I have relied on many useful scholars and writers to put together this post. The pieces I cite throughout the piece are as follows:

• “Thanksgiving: A Native American View,” by Jacqueline Keeler, published at AlterNet, 2000
• “Celebrating Genocide,” by Dan Brook, published at Counterpunch, 2002
• “Black Folks Guide to Understanding Thanksgiving,” by Dr. Tingba Apidta, an excerpt from The Hidden History of Massachusetts: A Guide for Black Folks, 2003
• “Why I Hate Thanksgiving,” by Mitchel Cohen, published at Counterpunch, 2004 (updated version)
• “The American Thanksgiving: Rejoicing in Genocide and White Supremacy,” by Glen Ford, published at Black Agenda Report, 2005
• “No Thanks to Thanksgiving,” Robert Jensen, published at AlterNet, 2005
• “Why We Shouldn’t Celebrate Thanksgiving,” by Robert Jensen, published at AlterNet, 2007
• “Let’s give thanks for selective memories on Thanksgiving,” by Eric Vieth, published at Dangerous Intersection, 2006
• “The Suppressed Speech of Wamsutta (Frank B.) James, Wampanoag,” published at United American Indians of New England

I would also like to give a nod to my anthropology professor of years ago, who, when I was a sophomore in college, was the first person to truly begin to open my eyes about Indigenous History. That semester, we read Changes in the Land. My feelings towards Thanksgiving, and US colonization, have been radically altered ever since.

To begin with a speculation, I would hazard a guess that probably 95% of Americans do not learn that there were at least two ‘first Thanksgivings.’

The story most of us know is of the day in 1621 when Pilgrims and Native Americans supposedly shared in a harvest feast. For what really happened at this time, I defer to Dr. Tingba Apidta. He notes that

“According to a single-paragraph account in the writings of one Pilgrim, a harvest feast did take place in Plymouth in 1621, probably in mid-October, but the Indians who attended were not even invited. Though it later became known as “Thanksgiving,” the Pilgrims never called it that. And amidst the imagery of a picnic of interracial harmony is some of the most terrifying bloodshed in New World history.

The Pilgrim crop had failed miserably that year, but the agricultural expertise of the Indians had produced twenty acres of corn, without which the Pilgrims would have surely perished. The Indians often brought food to the Pilgrims, who came from England ridiculously unprepared to survive and hence relied almost exclusively on handouts from the overly generous Indians-thus making the Pilgrims the western hemisphere’s first class of welfare recipients. The Pilgrims invited the Indian sachem Massasoit to their feast, and it was Massasoit, engaging in the tribal tradition of equal sharing, who then invited ninety or more of his Indian brothers and sisters-to the annoyance of the 50 or so ungrateful Europeans. No turkey, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie was served; they likely ate duck or geese and the venison from the 5 deer brought by Massasoit. In fact, most, if not all, of the food was most likely brought and prepared by the Indians, whose 10,000-year familiarity with the cuisine of the region had kept the whites alive up to that point.”

The fact that the hospitality, the sense of community and inter-humanity is what kept the whites alive is lost in the stories we learn in the US education system. So too is the savagery of the Pilgrims – yes, the Pilgrims were the savage ones, not the indigenous peoples. As Apitda notes, “Any Indian who came within the vicinity of the Pilgrim settlement was subject to robbery, enslavement, or even murder.” Yes, gotta love those happy, God-fearing Pilgrims.

What is also conveniently left out of our historical (un)consciousness is the fact that in the years following that unhappy meal, the majority of Indigenous peoples were either murdered firsthand or else secondhand via the diseases of white folks. As Eric Vieth of Dangeorous Intersection reminds us, “hepatitis, smallpox, chickenpox and influenza killed between 90% and 96% of the native Americans living in coastal New England.” As Vieth further elucidates, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony called this plague “miraculous.” This was the lovely religion practiced at the time – a belief system that saw death of the indigenous population as a miracle, as something to be praised.

This brings me to another myth – that Pilgrims and Puritans (P/P) were God-worshipping people who merely sought religious freedom (rather than power, land, and wealth). In fact, as Mitchel Cohen points out, these peoples who supposedly only desired to worship how they saw fit, used their religion to justify the persecution, enslavement, and murder of indigenous peoples. And, they were not amiss in the persecution of their own either – the gender and class stratifications meant that there was a P/P elite and an oppressed P/P underclass.

Speaking of persecution and murder brings me to the 2^nd ‘1^st Thanksgiving” – the one of 1637 that occurred near the Mystic River and involved the slaughter of at least 700 Pequot Indians. This is the real 1^st Thanksgiving –  the one that was named as such by the leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

As Mitchel Cohen relates (emphasis mine):

“Thanksgiving, in reality, was the beginning of the longest war in the U.S ­ the extermination of the Indigenous peoples. Thanksgiving day was first proclaimed by the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637, not to offer thanks for the Indians saving the Pilgrims ­ that’s yet another re-write of the actual history ­ but to commemorate the massacre of 700 indigenous men, women and children who were celebrating their annual Green Corn Dance in their own house.

Gathered at this place, they were attacked by mercenaries, English and Dutch. The Pequots were ordered from the building and as they came forth they were killed with guns, swords, cannons and torches. The rest were burned alive in the building. The very next day the governor proclaimed a holiday and feast to “give thanks” for the massacre. For the next 100 years a governor would ordain a day to honor a bloody victory, thanking god the “battle” had been won. [For more information, see Where White Men Fear To Tread, by Russell Means, 1995; and Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian Hating and Empire Building, by R. Drinnon, 1990.]“

This 2^nd Thanksgiving is the day which was actually recognized as such by the rulers of the time – and what they were giving thanks for was their massacre of indigenous peoples! Yet, in our sweetened version, we learn of the day in 1621. And, even this version is bent so far from truth as to be fiction – there was no turkey, no happy exchange, no ’sharing’ between Pilgrims and Indigenous Peoples. Rather, Indigenous Peoples GAVE, Pilgrims TOOK.

It is the sweetened 1621 version that President Lincoln harkened back to when declaring the day a national holiday. As Glen Ford notes, “Lincoln surveyed a broken nation, and attempted nation-rebuilding, based on the purest white myth. The same year that he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he renewed the national commitment to a white manifest destiny that began at Plymouth Rock.”

This ‘white manifest destiny’ is yet another piece of the imperial puzzle that we sweep under the rug. What all too often goes unspoken in the historical renderings of this time is race – is the fact that we are talking about not merely Pilgrims or Puritans, but about WHITES, and a white supremacist ideology thought sought to enslave and/or eradicate all peoples of color. The “white man’s burden” as analyzed infamously by Rudyard Kipling was not only a project of India and Africa, but also of the US – even though when “colonialism” is studied, the colonization of the US is often left unexamined. According to most curriculum, the US was not colonized, but settled (even though, hint hint, they called them colonies!).

Another bit of historical amnesia is the linkages between the genocide of indigenous peoples and slavery. As Dan Brook pointed out in his 2002 Counterpunch piece “Celebrating Genocide,” “1619 marks the first year that human beings were brutally “imported” from Africa to become slaves in America, if they happened to survive the cruel capture and horrific Atlantic crossing.” And anyone who knows the true history of Columbus knows he attempted to enslave indigenous peoples from the get go. Each of these atrocities was precipitated by the same thing: greed. Each was justified by the same ideology: white supremacy. Each translated into a CAPITALIST system shaped by racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism.

Thus, with Thanksgiving, as Brook argues, what we are in effect giving thanks is “for being the invader, the exploiter, the dominator, the greedy, the gluttonous, the colonizer, the thief, indeed the genocidaire…” We are giving thanks for what bell hooks terms “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” (For a great video link of hooks analyzing this paradigm, see here.)

As Glen Ford argues,

“The necessity of genocide was the operative, working assumption of the expanding American nation.”Manifest Destiny” was born at Plymouth Rock and Jamestown, later to fall (to paraphrase Malcolm) like a rock on Mexico, the Philippines, Haiti, Nicaragua, etc. Little children were taught that the American project was inherently good, Godly, and that those who got in the way were “evil-doers” or just plain subhuman, to be gloriously eliminated. The lie is central to white American identity, embraced by waves of European settlers who never saw a red person.”

In yet another astute reconsideration of the holiday, Robert Jensen asserts that “Simply put: Thanksgiving is the day when the dominant white culture (and, sadly, most of the rest of the non-white but non-indigenous population) celebrates the beginning of a genocide that was, in fact, blessed by the men we hold up as our heroic founding fathers.”

And the US certainly didn’t stop its genocidal practices once 95 to 99% of the indigenous peoples were killed. Rather, the US has supported and facilitated genocide in Indonesia, East Timor, Cambodia, has sat idly by genocides in Rwanda and Darfur, and has carried out military actions leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Vietnam and Iraq (just to name a few).

When an indigenous person was FINALLY asked to speak truth to power 350 YEARS AFTER the invasion by bloodthirsty, savage Pilgrims, his speech was deemed unacceptable. As detailed at the cite United American Indians of New England:

“Three hundred fifty years after the Pilgrims began their invasion of the land of the Wampanoag, their “American” descendants planned an anniversary celebration. Still clinging to the white schoolbook myth of friendly relations between their forefathers and the Wampanoag, the anniversary planners thought it would be nice to have an Indian make an appreciative and complimentary speech at their state dinner. Frank James was asked to speak at the celebration. He accepted. The planners, however , asked to see his speech in advance of the occasion, and it turned out that Frank James’ views – based on history rather than mythology – were not what the Pilgrims’ descendants wanted to hear. Frank James refused to deliver a speech written by a public relations person. Frank James did not speak at the anniversary celebration.”

To read what Frank James had planned to say, go here.

The silencing of Frank James serves as one specific example of the silencing of indigenous peoples and their history that has occurred since the colonization of the USA by the white killers (no, not ’settlers’). This is why, as Jacqueline Keeler, a member of the Dineh Nation and the Yankton Dakota Sioux, puts it (rather mildly) “For a Native American, the story of Thanksgiving is not a very happy one.”

Keeler’s account of the Dakota view of giving is particularly telling:

“Among the Dakota, my father’s people, they say, when asked to give, “Are we not Dakota and alive?” It was believed that by giving there would be enough for all — the exact opposite of the system we live in now, which is based on selling, not giving.”

Keeler also reminds us that “Nearly 70 percent of all crops grown today were originally cultivated by Native American peoples.” Do we, as we feast on the 4^th Thursday of the month, even acknowledge this fact? Heck no! Our crops come from Costco!

This brings me back to part one of this post, and the capitalist lover that argued the holiday is really about celebrating “capitalist production.” Sadly, she is right on many levels. Our system does not celebrate giving, nor does it promote being thankful.

As those who are privileged by race, class, and other normative social positioning feast on this day, they often give thanks for their bounty. When I go to my mother’s for the holiday, her practice is to ask all in attendance to share something they are thankful for. Yet, rarely does this giving of thanks involve any historical awareness, let alone an analysis, of what the day stands for – both then and now.

According to Glen Ford,

“White America embraced Thanksgiving because a majority of that population glories in the fruits, if not the unpleasant details, of genocide and slavery and feels, on the whole, good about their heritage: a cornucopia of privilege and national power. Children are taught to identify with the good fortune of the Pilgrims. It does not much matter that the Native American and African holocausts that flowed from the feast at Plymouth are hidden from the children’s version of the story – kids learn soon enough that Indians were made scarce and Africans became enslaved. But they will also never forget the core message of the holiday: that the Pilgrims were good people, who could not have purposely set such evil in motion. Just as the first Thanksgivings marked the consolidation of the English toehold in what became the United States, the core ideological content of the holiday serves to validate all that has since occurred on these shores – a national consecration of the unspeakable, a balm and benediction for the victors, a blessing of the fruits of murder and kidnapping, and an implicit obligation to continue the seamless historical project in the present day.”

Thus, when we ‘give thanks’ for our bounty without also acknowledging at what costs this bounty has been made possible, we are accomplices to this “seamless historical project,” we, whether consciously or unconsciously, are giving thanks for genocide, for slavery, and for an imperial project that marches ceaselessly on.

Yet, as Robert Jensen of AlterNet laments, even radicals and liberals resist critiquing and/or rejecting the Thanksgiving holiday. Relating that the most comment argument went like this:  ”we can reject the culture’s self-congratulatory attempts to rewrite history…and come together on Thanksgiving to celebrate the love and connections among family and friends,” Jensen counters that:

“The argument that we can ignore the collective cultural definition of Thanksgiving and create our own meaning in private has always struck me as odd. This commitment to Thanksgiving puts these left/radical critics in the position of internalizing one of the central messages promoted by the ideologues of capitalism — that individual behavior in private is more important than collective action in public. The claim that through private action we can create our own reality is one of the key tenets of a predatory corporate capitalism that naturalizes unjust hierarchy, a part of the overall project of discouraging political struggle and encouraging us to retreat into a private realm where life is defined by consumption. “

What can we do instead? Well, my thoughts on that difficult question, with further reference to the wonderful 2007 piece by Jensen, well be posted in part 3 (either later today or early tomorrow, depending on how much  grading I get done)…

What has all this to do with Jesus, Christianity, or for that matter being a Jew?

The information disclosed in this writing has been offered to Jews only, for several reasons: to help Gentiles, Gentile Christians, Jewish Christians, and all Jews, to understand the truth about the Jewishness of original Christianity: to assist Jews who are haunted by their own confusion concerning their acceptance of the New Testament and their Messiah Jesus: to aid Christian Evangelists to understand that God has not called every Jew into the ranks of Christianity: to tell everyone about the church system used by Rome to deceive the nations into accepting a man as Christ, who is a false Christ: and to lighten the burden of misguided Jews, who have converted to become part of the Gentile form of Christianity: to reduce the pain they inflict upon their own families and friends.

In so much as, the converted Messianic Jews are the ones in error, and not their families for rejecting a false Jesus.  Which rejection, I might add, will not keep them from entering heaven after physical death, as the deluded converts have been brainwashed into believing.  In the immortal words of Jesus, they err because they do not know the Scriptures….

Yet I wouldn’t want either of you Jews, Christian convert or not, to go away thinking you are right and the other guy is wrong.  That is not the case I intended to present.  On the contrary, both are right, even though the converted Messianic Jew may be misguided and deceived.

My argument has been, Jews who reject Jesus will not go to hell for not accepting Jesus.  Since the Jesus presented to the world, as stated in 2 Corinthian 11:1-5, by all Christian Churches is a phony!  Therefore, you Jewish brothers and sisters who reject the present day nonsense about Jesus are right in doing so.

While on the other hand, the converted Jewish Christians, who do not believe or realize they’ve been deceived (even though the New Testament has more warnings against being deceived than any other subject).

They have actually been called by God to cross over into the Gentile world to do a special job for God: which job is to help the misguided Gentile Christians learn the truth about Jesus (the gospel).  These Messianic Jews were called by God to be the teachers of the Gentiles, but there is little hope of them allowing the Jews in their private club: as foretold by Jesus in the parable of the rented Vineyard in Matthew 21:33 to 41.

Christians who have fallen victim to lying Roman teachings and have also been deceived into believing lies about Jesus, will not be forgiven by God for having been deceived.  The Lord plainly warned Christians to study their Bibles not to be deceived.  There is a plan revealed in the Bible concerning a remnant of Jews who would be chosen by God for this very important work amongst the Gentile Christians; but the Gentiles are in control of the kingdom of God.  They took it by force and stole it from the Jews.

The Gentile Churches have learned to deceive people well.  They have learned how put a spin on the scriptures to use them to prove their teachings.  They have learned how to keep the remnant of Jews from becoming effective at their anointed jobs of teaching the Jewish scriptures.

Thus rendering the remnant of Jews, who were chosen by God to believe in Jesus, ineffective at helping the deceived Gentiles.  They keep these chosen Jews from following in the footsteps of Paul the Apostle; their Jewish predecessor who was destined to teach the Roman Gentiles.

The Messianic Jews are totally ineffectual and have no effect on the Gentiles in serious trouble by reason of deceit!  Therefore, both sides of the Jewish question are right.  The Jews who know Jesus is the Messiah are right; and the Jewish Old Testament of the Bible is right; and the Jews who reject the false Gentile Jesus are right; and know the Jewish New Testament of the Bible is right!

Now you will say, but Jews who do not believe in Jesus will go to hell because Jesus said, No one comes unto the Father but by Me…. Wrong again, oh misguided one!  In John Chapter 6, verses 43 to 45 Jesus said, No one could come to Jesus unless the Father draw him to Jesus, and everyone shall be taught by God.  Therefore, everyone that has heard, and has learned of the Father comes to Jesus.

Not knowing the Scriptures you always put the cart before the horse.  Besides isn’t the “Me” in verse 44, “No one comes unto the Father but by Me”, referring to Jesus; and isn’t Jesus’ name the Word of God?

Doesn’t the Bible teach the Word is able to save your soul and that the word is able to renew your mind.  The Word is the Holy Spirit. The Word is what a person has to do in order to enter heaven.

Perhaps the guy named Jesus that you purport to follow was just spinning His wheels when He told the rich young man, do the commandments and you shall receive eternal life.  Perhaps eternal life is something different than being saved?

God promised the Jews they would never be consumed, yet they die like other people.  Therefore, the consumption Jesus referred to was genocide in this lifetime and eternal death in the next life, which is hell!

God has a very definite plan for the Jews who reject the phony Jesus, and do so by God’s grace just as you Messianic Jews believe Jesus is the Messiah by the same grace… or perhaps you have set yourself up as the Judge of Israel!  Beware!  I don’t have to teach you what Jesus said about Judging.  Jews were chosen to bait the world into being jealous of them.  They were chosen by God to suck anyone into hell that would dare touch them!

It doesn’t sound like a great profession for an entire nation of people, but neither was being the High Priest of Israel.  If God didn’t accept the offering presented in the Holy of Holies by the High Priest, he was struck dead!

To be continued…

So what in the hell does the holiday known as “Thanksgiving” have to do with holocaust-denial?
For starters, there are holocaust-deniers all around us. We rarely think about being surrounded by revisionist-historians, what some may refer to as extremists. They go about their business, believing that their people’s history is one of altruism, integrity, and peace.
They believe that what happened in the past was brutal, but was not a clear-cut case of genocide. The revisionist-historians read scholars reporting on the holocaust, describing it in intricate details with numbers to back up what happened, and they still have eventful days in which they converge and pretend such horrors never occurred.
They buy the notion that a dominant culture replaced a so-called inferior culture, that of a dominant European archetype.
Unfortunately, I’m not discussing the all-too-creepy holocaust-deniers who perpetuate the lie that genocide did not occur vis-à-vis the Jewish people; this would be too easy. I’m disturbed to report to you that I speak of many of my fellow American citizens in regards to Native Americans, or American Indians.
Ayn Rand’s views on the subject, unfortunately, summate many of the beliefs held by many:
[Native Americans] didn’t have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using . . . . What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their ‘right’ to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent. [1]
In other words, thank the heavens the Europeans came and liberated the red man from the despots of primitive life. This is an all too common perspective. Dissident Noam Chomsky describes the concept:
The inspirational phrase “city on a hill” was coined by John Winthrop in 1630, borrowing from the Gospels, and outlining the glorious future of a new nation “ordained by God.” One year earlier his Massachusetts Bay Colony created its Great Seal. It depicted an Indian with a scroll coming out of his mouth. On that scroll are the words “Come over and help us.” The British colonists were thus pictured as benevolent humanists, responding to the pleas of the miserable natives to be rescued from their bitter pagan fate. [2]
An easy view for imperialists to adopt is that they’re liberating the people they are stealing communal land from, though it’s doubtful that those in power actually bought this nonsense. It certainly was nothing new for the Europeans.
Unfortunately the Randian notion that a dominant, civilized culture simply dismantled a wretched, savage culture has been thoroughly debunked by scholars. To the contrary, a clear, unequivocal example of genocide is shown. Ward Churchill gives us a proper dose of debunking:
[Columbus’ 1492 discovery is] hardly at all the issue. In 1493 Columbus returned with 17 ships, appointed at his own request by the Spanish Crown to install himself “viceroy and governer [of the Caribbean Islands] and the mainland” of America, a position he held until 1500. Setting up shop on the large island he called Espanola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he promptly instituted policies of slavery (encomiendo) and systematic extermination against the Native Taino population. Columbus’ programs reduced Taino numbers from as many as eight million at the outset of his regime to about three million in 1496. Only 100, 000 were left by the time of the governor’s departure in 1500. His policies […] [remained until] only 200 [living Taino subjects] were recorded. Thereafter, they were considered extinct… [3]
Ward Churchill continues:
This constitutes an attrition of population in real numbers every bit as great as the toll of twelve to fifteen million-about half of them Jewish-most commonly attributed to Himmler’s slaughter mills. Moreover, the proportion of the indigenous Caribbean population destroyed by the Spanish in a single generation is, no matter how the figures are twisted, far greater than the 75 percent of European Jews usually said to have been exterminated by the Nazis. [4]
What Churchill is doing here is certainly not making light of the Jewish holocaust; he is discussing the Native American genocide vis-à-vis one of the most common and notable examples of genocide in human history that, most of us, acknowledge occurred. Churchill continues:
Worst of all, the data applied only to the Caribbean basin; the process of genocide in the Americas was only just the beginning at the point such statistics became operant, not ending, as it did upon the fall of the Third Reich. All told, it is probably that more than one hundred million native people were “eliminated” in the course of Europe’s ongoing “civilization” of the western hemisphere. [5]
To be fair, many think Churchill has a political agenda; he certainly is candid about this as a public intellectual. But the truth speaks for itself. That Churchill has collected facts other scholars have shed light on in essays is called radical is quite telling. Let us examine what other, less political scholars have said about such matters.
Take Carl O. Saur, David Stannard, Woodrow Borah, or Sherburne F. Cook. None of these scholars were/are particularly radical or politicized. Some, like Sauer, are described as conservative. Here are some of these scholar’s collective findings:
In American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World (1992), David Stannard gives some population sizes estimated by Carl Sauer, Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow Borah and other members of the so-called “Berkeley School” (University of California) of historical demographic technique. Stannard says: “The results of these efforts were the most detailed and methodologically sophisticated population estimates ever conducted for the pre-European Americans. And the figures they turned up were astonishing: 25,000,000 people for central Mexico alone and 8,000,000 people for Hispaniola are just two of the more striking re-calculations by members of the Berkeley School. By the early 1960s the accumulated body of such studies was sufficient to allow Woodrow Borah to assert that the pre-Columbian population of the Americas was probably ‘upwards of one hundred million’. Soon after, anthropologist Henry F. Dobyns published a famous watershed analysis that had been conducted up to that time. His conclusion was that North and South America contained between 90,000,000 and more than 112,000,000 people before the coming of the Spanish. [Woodrow Borah, "America as Model: The Demographic Impact of European Expansion Upon the Non-Western World," Actas y Memorias del XXXV Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, 1962; Henry F. Dobyns, "Estimating Aboriginal American Population: An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate," Current Anthropology (1966).] Comparative figures for selected others of the world at this same time put the populations of Europe at 60,000,000 to 70,000,000; Russia at 10,000,000 to 18,000,000 and Africa at 40,000,000 to 72,000,000. [John H. Durand, "Historical Estimates of World Population: An Evaluation," Population and Development Review (1977).]” [6]
David Stannard’s work is telling:
In American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World (1992), David Stannard says: “Just twenty-one years after Columbus’s first landing in the Caribbean, the vastly populous usland [sic.] that the explorer had re-named Hispaniola was effective desolate: nearly 8,000,000 people — those Columbus chose to call Indians — had been killed by violence, disease, and despair. … And Hispaniola was only the beginning. Within no more than a handful of generations following their first encounters with Europeans, the vast majority of the Western Hemisphere’s native peoples had been exterminated.” Stannard has sections on the depopulation from 1492 through the 19th century of Arawaks of the West Indies, Aztecs of Mexico, Mayans of Central America, Incas of Peru and Chile, indigenous peoples of Brazil, Powhatans of Virginia, Pequots, Narragansetts, Mohicans, Mohawks and other tribes of New England and what became New York. Cherokees of what became the southeastern United States (later moved to Oklahoma) and others, culminating with the massacres at Sand Creek in 1864 and Wounded Knee in 1890. His summary of Spanish activity from 1492 to 1600 reads: “By the time the sixteenth century had ended perhaps 200,000 Spaniards had moved their lives to the Indies, to Mexico, to Central America, and points further south. In contrast, by that time somewhere between 60,000,000 and 80,000,000 natives from those lands were dead.” Stannard describes a large number of what he calls population crashes of particular Indian groups, giving estimated numbers and percentages of populations. [7]
From a man many consider to be a political prisoner, a black man whose people have the scar of a holocaust in the form of the slave trade and their own internment in the U.S., here’s Mumia Abu Jamal with some thoughts about the holiday of Thanksgiving.

Let us remember why we’re here this Thanksgiving. What I want to encourage is not guilt, but to the contrary: reflection. Let us show solidarity with Native Americans, and indigenous people everywhere, who have not fared much better than the Native Americans. If we do not grasp and accept the tragedies and atrocities committed in the past, we’re doomed to repeat them, as cliché as it sounds.
Our quasi-genocidal policies in the Middle East are certainly imperialistic. Yet, would we be there if the American people clearly understood genocide, the concept of systematically wiping out a population for political or ideological gain, and were taught about their past? Would we tolerate wars of aggression that, by default, will lead to the death of many innocent people?
These aspects are seemingly worth pondering on this so-called “Thanksgiving”.

Endnotes:

[1] This is an excerpt from Ayn Rand’s hate-filled address to West Point in the ’70’s. So much for individual liberty, if your culture is deemed “inferior”, I suppose. Here is the link.

[2] Noam Chomsky from an article published in Z Magazine. Here is the link to this excellent article called The Torture Memos.

[3], [4], & [5] are excerpts from Ward Churchill’s book A Little Matter of Genocide.

[6] & [7] can be found here.

Simeon Bennett / Bloomberg – November 24, 2009

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) — Adrian Gibbs, the virologist who said in May that swine flu may have escaped from a laboratory, published his findings today, renewing discussion about the origins of the pandemic virus.

The new H1N1 strain, which was discovered in Mexico and the U.S. in April, may be the product of three strains from three continents that swapped genes in a lab or a vaccine-making plant, Gibbs, and fellow Australian scientists wrote in Virology Journal. The authors analyzed the genetic makeup of the virus and found its origin could be more simply explained by human involvement than a coincidence of nature.

Their study, published in a free, online journal reviewed by other scientists, follows debate among researchers six months ago, when Gibbs asked the World Health Organization to consider the hypothesis. After reviewing Gibbs’ initial three-page paper, WHO and other organizations concluded the pandemic strain was a naturally occurring virus and not laboratory-derived.

“It is important that the source of the new virus be found if we wish to avoid future pandemics rather than just trying to minimize the consequences after they have emerged,” Gibbs and colleagues John Armstrong and Jean Downie said in today’s eight- page study.

Link to entire article below…

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=ajw2AS.d1wK8

(An old union buddy of mine wrote the following column in his local paper.  He has graciously agreed to let me re-post it here.)

The Iranian regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today poses a grave and imminent threat to world peace. A wealthy nation, led by apocalyptic anti-Semitic fanatics committed to the eradication of a neighboring nation, is rapidly developing the weapons that will put that goal within its reach.

The whole world knows it; indeed, Iran barely bothers to deny it.

The Iranian regime is and has always been an avowed and implacable enemy of both Israel and of our own country. Their hatred of us and their desire to destroy Israel are not new. What is new is their development of the weapons needed to accomplish their goal of a Jew-free Middle East.

There can be no mistake; the Iranian regime is preparing for its “Final Solution” to the problem of Israel – nothing less than a Second Holocaust. Their denial of Nazi genocide is a smokescreen to distract attention from their plans to out-murder Hitler. With a weapon that Hitler could only dream of, Iran will have instant genocide – the extermination of 6 million Israeli Jews in a single day – at their fingertips.

Diplomacy and sanctions have been tried and have not worked. China (politely) and Russia (rudely) have made it clear (repeatedly) that they will oppose or sabotage serious sanctions. Sanctions will not work under such circumstances.

The Iranians have played the diplomacy game to the hilt, engaging in endless talks while ceaselessly working on their weapons program. They have adhered to Will Rogers’ cynical definition of diplomacy as “Saying ‘nice doggy’ in a soothing voice while stooping to pick up a rock.” They know that time is on their side; they have learned the North Korean lesson that once they demonstrate that they have nuclear weapons, world pressure will avail nothing against them.

So they will continue to play the game, running out the clock while their centrifuges spin day and night. In this situation, and given the demonstrated nature of the regime, it would be the height of irresponsible folly to set further meaningless timelines. If a last diplomatic offer is made, it must contain a deadline measured in days, not months.

For the 30 years since the Iranian Revolution, Israel has been our staunchest ally and Iran our most implacable enemy. That ally now stands threatened with extinction from that enemy. We cannot hesitate to act.

The failure of the previous and current U.S. administrations to deal with this threat have left very few options on the table. In the face of continued Iranian intransigence, some form of military action, such as surgical air strikes to disrupt the Iranian weapons program, may be the only course remaining. If Israel is ready to act in its own defense, we should offer them our full support and assistance.

Military action must be a last resort; its cost is high and its success uncertain. But the cost of continued failure to act is clear and will be terrible. “Learning to live with a nuclear Iran,” as some “realists” propose, is in reality learning to live with genocide.

Seven decades ago, an aggressive and fanatical dictator threatened both the peace of Europe and the Jews of Europe. The powers that could have stopped him chose instead to try to appease him. Appeasement did not work then and it will not work now.

For more information on the Iran threat, I recommend:

Middle East Media Research Institute, at www.memri.org, and United Against Nuclear Iran at www.uani.com.