And the Federal Government has been making the Indians pay for their victory at Little Big Horn ever since. Our history with the original inhabitants of this country is an utter disgrace.
And the Federal Government has been making the Indians pay for their victory at Little Big Horn ever since. Our history with the original inhabitants of this country is an utter disgrace.
To survive at the cost of others is the essence of fascism to me; and most humans have a share of this. What we can always do is celebrate the true historians, like HCR here, and Bejamin Madley in An American Genocide, about the Californian Indians.
I disagree that “most humans…survive at the cost of others”. My family was poor, but incredibly generous. If someone came for dinner, and there were five of us and four servings, our guest always ate. Yes, the genocide of the Native Americans must never be forgotten and must be taught in whatever way we can. I was a law student in LA in 1976-80. Leonard Peltier was being held in the LA County Jail for the murder of two FBI agents at Wounded Knee in 1976 (?). The government never proved it, but Leonard is still serving two consecutive life sentences. Guess who refused to pardon him? Obama. A tragedy.
I did not write that 'most humans survive at the cost of others', so there is no disagreement. 'Our' survival goes generations back, meaning life has come to us exactly through all our ancestors. Hardly any reason for blame, we also most likely have a share in some that stood up against surviving at the cost of others. If Leonard Peltier was not guilty, there is someone who survived at his cost. I just think we must have an understanding of fascism that goes beyond the simple blaming of others, in times of war mongering. Putin's lies about Ukrainians are pathetic, especially since he is paying right wing extremists all over Europe, but it works as far as he can control information.
I apologize in advance and most sincerely for bursting any bubbles, but Peltier is no hero. Feds aside, he had tortured and had a female AIM member murdered just on suspicion that she was going to flip. I don't mean to make you feel embarrassed, that is not my intention, but if you are looking for heroes, don't look at Peletier, and senior AIM leadership for whom holding him up as some sort of martyr was politically expedient rather than face who he really was and what he really did. With peace and respect to you Elisabeth, there is more to the story than is usually publicly spoken about. It could be argued that Leonard had paid his debt to society, but he's no angel, he did the crime for the time he's served.
"... there is more to the story than is usually publicly spoken about."
Always true, Kimimela - including this story of Custer's Last Stand, just barely scratching the surface of the whole truth ... I don't know enough to tell more, but there are those who can - and have ... at this point, I am wondering what good it will do if nobody listens, and so few want to hear the truth, in fact ....
What is sacred - to whom ... what does it mean to make - and keep - a promise ...?
I had no clue. Wow. Really tragic and just wrong. Maybe Biden could do it. Heather, you've got his ear! Mr. President, if you're reading this ... hint hint. Please and thank you.
Like Obama, he has too many crosses to bear. Most constructed by the previous administration. That’s what republicans in this day and age do. Well, back to Hoover at least. Destroy while democrats try to make it right. As a Twitter person said, and I paraphrase, they piss themselves every presidency and us “tax and spend” libs have to buy new sheets.
Thank you Olof, Madley's book covers 1846 to.1873 , the 'Gold Rush' period into the 1870's.when the indigenous Americans were reduced to about 30,000. There was also rapid depopulation throughout the far west into the eastern Pacific. Many of us still remember the Miwok, the Ohlone (coast dwellers) and the Nez Pearce on the Columbia Plateau.
Is your intent to trivialize fascism by making many of us unwitting fascists? In an era where many U.S. elected officials and their supporters promote and/or embody key tenets of fascism as more commonly described, I don't think this is a great idea. Surviving at the cost of others does seem to be at least part of the essence of sexism, racism, and classism, not to mention feudalism, slavery, and various other forms of social organization. I think a case could be made that most of us in so-called advanced societies do survive at the cost of others, but those others are generally invisible to us so we can choose not to see them or the cost they're paying for our creature comforts.
No intent to trivialize, rather what you are doing: understand and explain that this is a pattern that belongs to humanity. Maybe make us a little less unwitting, because many conflicts are initially inflamed with demonizing of the enemy. Also that there might be a legitimate survival at the cost of others, as the archetypal pattern that women, who can give birth, have a right to survive at the cost of others. I guess we agree that Ukrainians have a right to survive at the cost of Russians within Ukrainian borders, as they are faced with an operation of intentional genocide. I agree with your case of our invisible international survival at the cost of others. Just the subtle evaluation of others currencies, for one thing. That's why I think documentary films could be very important, by clipping together what is otherwise invisible to us. For long I had the idea that the misery of the London slum of early industrialism was not abolished, it was exported; the same with Swedish misery and welfare of course.
Absolutely, gale! “ Our history with the original inhabitants of this country is an utter disgrace,” and we continue to follow that history in equally shameful ways. In lieu of reparations, we carry on with our assaults through discriminatory aggressions, microaggressions, and second class citizenry.
During the time when our indigenous inhabitants lived according to their own choices one of their main soul-comforting aspects of living in comfort was/is their reverence for the earth they lived on.
The United State of America government was/is totally oblivious to this fact.
USA's removal of our indigenous inhabitants from their life-style of choice into a land not of our indigenous inhabitants choice, (a land uninhabitable to their way of living life), literally ripped the soul out from from them. Soulless people are the lost souls seeking that which was ripped out from them. The easiest solution for most was the numbing solution induced by cheap-rotgut alcoholic stupor.
Also remember the 19th and 20th centuries attempts to stamp out Native American culture entirely via the boarding schools and placement of native children into White families.
That did not kill their culture (though it did, literally, kill a substantial part of a generation of Native Americans, it just went "underground" for many decades although, you're right, that was the aim of stealing those children. Throughout the U.S., Native Americans continue to celebrate their culture and their heritage, and to share their cultural heritage for those of us open to it.
White men still “speak with forked tongue”. White men take what they want and do not care about others. Not all I know but a lot.
The last 4 Supreme court “justices “ lied under oath and then did the one thing they swore not to. Chicanery in our hollowed courts. Back in time we go… Good having to stand against evil once again. I am 75 and am living a happy productive life with the woman of my heart. We were legally married after already better together for 29 years. Now 35 years into this marriage ( legal or not) these lying haters are telling us that we are an abomination. Clarence Thomas give me a break with your black to white marriage that was a hanging offense historically. Not to mention that your wife is a traitor.
We Americans who believe in our Democracy truly have one last chance to stop this madness. Stand in line and VOTE by the millions. Show these would be autocrats that they are in the wrong place. This is America and we are a country for ALL! Even the haters if they will return to silence and put down their guns.
No more time for apathy and heads in the sand. We Must Stand Up against this evil!
Yesterday across the state of Virginia, three 'All in to Win Virginia' events were held. State and Federal elected officials spoke along with 18 groups like Moms Demand Action and Planned Parenthood. The goal was to fire up women (and the men who love them) to run for office, get out the vote and stop the attacks on education, women's rights, and the infiltration into local, state and national offices by those who would harm democracy. Sold out crowd, rousing success. One quote: "If someone says to you "I'm not really into politics", say "Well politics is really into you!" Okay one more quote: "Discouragement and despair are luxuries you can't afford."
No, attendees were all committed Democrats. But one speaker representing youth, reminded that absentee ballots need to get to college bound students before they leave in August.
I too am 75 and have been in a beautiful lesbian relationship for 39 years, legally married for 14 of those years. I've been battling for civil and women's rights for almost 50 years. It is heart rending to watch everything we have worked so hard to achieve thrown into the gutter by factions led by rich white men. All I wanted was to live out my final years in peace and harmony. Now this! I am infuriated yet again! The struggle never ends.
Age is merely a number. “A time of life, not a state of mind”. The lesson in the letter today is that when the people are lazing, distracted, or become complacent, expect an attack. This was the mistake by the Lakota’s organizationally and by Custer tactically at Little Big Horn. In todays politics, the Radical R’s plotting began in the 70s as a response to the 1960’s. The attacks began in the 1980’s with Reganomics, appointing radical judges, that “Gov was the problem”, but like the geographically isolated Lakota’s, we thought we had won it all in our cities and blue states. But also like the Lakota’s we grew complacent comfort, ignoring all the signs that an attack was coming. We may think this week was a surprise attack, but it was decades in the making. Our task now is to educate the young of how we failed, and how they can not. There is in this country probably the largest reservoir of wisdom that has ever existed. That collective wisdom can be like Sitting Bull’s and Crazy Horse’s warriors that destroyed Custer’s invasion forces.
Ted Education and accumulated wisdom—what a lovely image. I was a history professor at a community college from 1992 to 2013. I was appalled at how little high school graduates knew about American history, including the Constitution and checks and balance, as well as the role of Blacks and women in much of our history.
I surmise that this has not since improved, especially in states that seek to block ‘diversity’ in telling the American story. When one student thought that we entered WW II when the Japanese dropped an atomic bomb on Pearl Harbor and another thought that WW II commenced when Russia attacked the Soviet Union, what is the likelihood for education-based wisdom?
Ignorance makes an easy target for manipulation. Especially by a demagogue or false leader, or those building a radicalized cult, prostituting it as a political party.
I have some ex-students who are married to their partners and I support them always as well as all others who are with the people they love. Yesterday while posting about the abortion issue in answer to someone who thought it was a joyous decision, I said that guns now have more rights than women. The answer I got was pure reductio ad absurdum akin to cars kill people, so we should ban cars. Why can't these zealots just leave others alone. Yes, I know, because they are zealots.
I was explaining the same to my 15 yr old daughter, that now they have given more liberty to guns than to women's productive rights. It's so backwards. And not easy to explain because it simply doesn't make sense... to our liberal family.
And because, starting about the time of Reagan, very rich white men realized that they needed more voters to sustain low taxes, no regulations, so they figured out that there were Catholic democrats and a-political evangelicals ripe for the plucking. They just needed the right issues. Abortion, guns, immigration, gays....and very skillful messaging to rile up the potential zealots. I wonder if it would make any difference to them to know how many rich white men pay for their mistresses abortions. Apparently in at least this one case, it didn't make a difference. https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/07/24/desjarlais-pro-life-congressman-who-urged-abortions-for-ex-wife-and-mistress-is-running-again So maybe we need to focus our energy and efforts on the independents, "didn't voters" and next generation, and let the duped zealots be.
I mostly let them be because I only have a couple or so as Facebook friends. I sometimes find them on other people's threads. However, certain things I am not going to let pass like my ex-classmate who posted a meme that blamed the CA fires on atheists. She did get an earful...as polite as I could be and then she backtracked and pretended that she did not mean what the meme said. Sigh. Then there was the guy who claimed after the abortion ruling that here in Oregon you could legally bop babies on the head while they were being born. I did lambast him, but so far no reply.
The solution is simple...but it will require working into exhaustion...
VOTE intelligently and help, as much as you can, please help many others clearly understand the issues, the candidates, (and their funding resources), and the incumbents, (their voting record---NOT THEIR SLOGANS---and their FUNDING RESOURCES)
Totally agree. But Americans will vote based on gasoline prices before they will vote for democracy. And the media constantly portray Biden as weak and ineffectual. And voter suppression will become (more) rampant. So what shall we do after the midterms? It’s highly unlikely that Dems will hold both houses of Congress. There has to be a plan beyond the midterms. I see us catapulting toward a fascist police state, and though I currently live in an island of blue, that will be scant consolation when the party of small government (hahaha) finishes pushing through its anti-democratic agenda via the filibuster and the “Supreme” Court (comprised of only three real justices plus six shysters).
It could be that you are underestimating the powerful backlash that is brewing after this last decision by the Gilead Court. I could be wrong. It happens all the time. But...
The turnout for "mid-term" elections is usually small. But that can change. I have linked below a fascinating article about the 2018 election voting patterns.
My unofficial, purely intuitive, non fact based prediction is that women will be voting in numbers and percentages never seen before in American history. The Dobbs decision is such a face slap, such a mortal challenge - such an outrage - that I predict polls will be overwhelmed with voters with rage in their hearts.
Even TFG has been quoted as saying that overturning Roe would be bad for Republicans. Maybe emotions like a threat of government takeover of one's body will supersede the inconvenience of expensive gasoline and milk.
While I agree with your sentiments, I don't think we should see this as a doomsday scenario. What if we look at this whole period in our history symbolically. We are squeezing the puss out of a wound. We are lancing a boil. We are popping the whitehead of white male supremacy.
Let's see how many people we can get to vote. Peer pressure. Parental pressure. Take no prisoners, drag people to the polls. Tell them they vote or we ghost them forever. We CAN rebuild our majorities in the House and Senate.
The plan beyond the mid-terms? New younger leadership in the Democratic Party. My generation needs to pass the baton to the next - real soon.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I do feel a sense of despair in the wake of Friday’s decision, yet I also believe that hope is, in effect, persevering in the face of and beyond despair. I am desperately seeking hope, and your comments have helped.
Btw, I’m old (teetering on the brink of 75) and have no children, but I love my country and care very much about what happens to it, even though I won’t be here to experience much of it. Totally agree re the baton needs to be passed.
I am 75. Our kids are middle aged. They are very, very upset. Again, this is just intuitive. But I feel a groundswell of anger and indignation. 2022 may be historic and defy the common "wisdom" of the TV talking heads.
As to the popularity polls and polling in general, I remind myself that if they were even remotely accurate or meaningful, Hillary would have been elected in 2016. Biden's approval rating is right about where other Presidents are at this stage of a term. Using that as some predictor of the Mid Terms is silly, me thinks.
Bill - your view of this is consonant with one of mine (not the only one - I have a couple of competing views) - the more hopeful one. And that is that the SCOTUS has just done us a big favor. A couple of them. They have just struck down a NY gun law that should be a model for the whole country ("proper cause"). That should enrage and galvanize young voters especially added to the existing rage over Uvalde. That decision was largely buried by other news, but it can be unburied. Now this RvW thing - which should move the needle quite a bit with women and the men who support them. The dog has just caught the proverbial car, or bus. It's the kind of thing that has staying power too - it should still be quite hot in November. And coming down the pike here, I understand, is the decapitation of the EPA and its ability to control carbon emissions. That should also galvanize gen Z'ers no end, as more and more of them are realizing that today's governments (especially the US) seem hell bent to leave to them a dystopian Mad Max planet. Dem's have a whole lot of red meat now to feed pissed off citizens.
But Dems are so namby-pamby in our messaging. Will we go after the rethuglicans who voted against Build Back Better bill and are now claiming credit for how it's helped their constituents? I don't see it happening.
Yes these other factors will weigh in. I mentioned Parkland because those young people are a force. Add in the Sandy Hook, Columbine, Pulse nightclub, Vegas, Buffalo and too many others and the NY gun decision will bring many around. If the gen Z"s pay attention to climate change, water quality, etc. great. I am not tuned in to many of them in that respect. Truly in order to level the playing field for everyone in this country we must work double hard to elect Democratic candidates.
Women will vote and again kids. After Parkland, those "kids" managed to have protests around the world. If you know a graduated high school senior, encourage them to register to vote if they have not already done so. The women, young parents and new electors will be the telling tale.
This is purely anecdotal and only ONE example, but knowing this person and her connections, I tend to think she is representative of others like her. She moved to this red state from CA several years ago, and though she professed herself to be "independent" she always voted R (she described herself as "Republican light".) The Dobbs fiasco has so infuriated her (and her friends) that she has officially registered as a Democrat and announced it publicly on her FB page. Likewise, another young woman from a family who ALWAYS voted R, has expressed her anger and her commitment to vote against R's in November. She too has connections with similar feelings. Another friend (a male) has contacted the local Democratic organization to help register voters. I listen to and read about and personally experience this outpouring of anger and I tend to think as you do, Bill, that there will be an enormous backlash. This cynical and misogynistic "ruling" by six extremists who contort and twist history and law to suit their own agendas and their religious doctrine may have inadvertently undone their Federalist plans and set in motion reforms that may make their lifetime appointments less comfortable and assured. This is what happens to folks who live in a bubble of indifference and hubris and pay no attention to the fact that they are completely out of step with 2/3 of the population. And the last time I checked, the "popularity" of the Stench Bench was down to 25% and falling. If that 2/3 of the population considers this body to be illegitimate and worthless...well, then, robes or no robes, these six are as naked as the emperor and as toothless as a tired old tiger. My money is on angry voters.
I don't see them as toothless at all given that they are essentially untouchable. I have come around to the belief that the only solution is expanding the court. That can't happen unless Democrats achieve a majority in both the House and the Senate in November, especially the Senate, a minimum of two more. We all need to support Tim Ryan OH against J.D. Vance, Fetterman PA against Oz, Mandela Barnes WI against Ron Johnson, Val Demings FL against rubio, Mark Kelly AZ (primary not yet held) and others running for election or re-election to the Senate.
There are a number of governor's races I've been supporting as well, and recommend those in a position to do so, identify them and donate to campaigns.
I'm concerned we older folks (I'm 60) don't have a handle at all on what the younger folks will do. My 26 year old daughter is furious but equally so with the Dems, and is listening to /reading commentary from sources that have encouraged this and I can't blame them. They are pissed off at the two party system, feel sold out by the Dems who promise all sorts of change that sounds great to young people, and then they don't have the courage to get it done (end the filibuster) when they're in power and nothing seems to them to change at all, in fact, it gets worse (Roe overturned "on our watch"). Young people don't want to hear how change takes time, the moral compass arcs toward justice, it's all bullshit to them, realistic or not. It sounds to me like a very real possibility we'll have a lot of trouble getting them to vote. They tried an alternative candidate in 2016 - Bernie - and we screwed them over.
I'm not saying this is truth or realistic so please don't argue with me; I'm passing on what I'm hearing from a young aware progressive person. I'm just warning my own cohort that we cannot assume or hope to know what the next generation will do based on our mindset. Maybe we need to get out of the way and let them take the lead and show us what to do.
We DO need to get out of the way except for voting. I hope your daughter and her disillusioned friends take action and support the people who can be positive change agents.
I suspect that philosophically she and I are quite aligned. I was for Bernie in 16 and Warren in 20. But my thought to her is that Biden has been very progressive and if not enough is getting done in Congress it is because there are NOT ENOUGH DEMOCRATS in the Senate. And two of them are DINOs.
In other words we barely have any control over legislation.
Beth, I need to object to the notion that “we screwed them over” with regard to Bernie Sanders. There’s not much difference between diehard Bernie supporters and MAGAts - they both seem to believe that their idol’s election was “stolen.” The fact is they both lost. Lost.
Maybe it starts with a conversation. The anti-abortionists worked with the GOP for literally decades, steadily and single-mindedly, to get a SCOTUS that will do their bidding. We obviously can see the fruits of their labor. The Democrats would do well to learn from this unwavering insistence on achieving a goal in the face of all opposition and no matter how long it takes. I’ve been frustrated with aspects of the Democratic Party for ages, yet our political structure almost guarantees that a third party on the left will lead to a significant win on the right.
Bill, I have a similar intuitive prediction. Even before the "Court" issued its Roe decision, Georgia held its mid-term election primaries, and the turnout was historically high - even significantly higher than the 2020 presidential election. At first, when calculating the number of voters in each party, I was dismayed that there were more Republican votes than Democratic. However, I learned a few days later that the huge number of votes for Republican candidates was due to the fact that about 70,000 Democrats had apparently participated in what appears to be "crossover voting." Usually, this means that they vote for a candidate from the opposing party in the primaries, either to strengthen a candidate that is the lesser of two evils in the opposing party or the weakest person that is the least threat to one's party candidate. Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, while engineering a great number of bills that suppress the vote, are not as vile as the Trumpists that they faced in their party. They both won by large margins - probably due to crossover voters, a trick the Republicans have used for years. In November, I am anticipating that, fueled by the shocking lack of integrity of the six ultra-conservative "justices," in addition to Clarence Thomas not recusing himself from the vote about the emails involving QAnon cultist Ginni, those additional 70,000 votes will turn Georgia from purple to bright blue. If I'm wrong, at the age of 79, I won't have to deal with this circus much longer.
yes!!!! Let's NOT get on the doomsday wagon! We - all of Heather's readers, and those who read Robert Hubbell's Today's Edition - CAN rebuild majorities in Congress - let's not be swayed by the media commentators - get everyone to vote - especially those who don't usually vote - and YES, the next generation needs to be fired up by us (me, I'm an elder) - check out Bill McKibben's Third Act - Let's get on it!!!!!
See my comment above. My daughter's response to attempting to fire her up to vote (she always has before) and getting others to do so, "We've been voting. We voted in 2016, 2018, 2020 and look where it got us". This is what we're up against.
Joanna, we have choices in the way we respond to crisis: to trade in our big cars for more fuel efficient ones, to car pool, to eliminate expensive vacations, to examine "our real needs" etc. as well as to look around and help others. Our world is in crisis.
What really hurts me is Ukraine's fight to just live in freedom. Their choice is costing them their lives, their beautiful culture, their ability to trade wheat to others who need it. We need to continue helping and that costs too but it will cost the freedom for each and all of us if we don't. We also need to vote as citizens of this country if we want to remain free.
Absolutely. We must destroy the GOP in 2022. Vote BLUE. Will all wome in the states that don’t allow abortion go to jail? The prisons will be overflowing. Courts will be backed up for years.
Because of HCR's excellent recounting of the details of American Governments cheating lies and heartless murders of all Indigenous Americans including the Teton Lacotas, Eastern Santee, Northern Cheyenne, Sioux, I remain ever heart wrenchingly embarrassed and guilty as I claim to be an American citizen.
All this and even now more so as I acknowledge that my American’s Supreme Court has become the protectorate enclave of
(1). A drunken-lying-rapists,
(2&3). The seditious Treasonous pair husband/wife co-conspirators,
and
(4&5). Two more than willingly scheming lawyers complicit in the Moscow mitch self-aggrandizing political power grab obsession to control government forever!
Yes, of course you are right. I think it is a toss up as to who the early Americans treated more badly, the original inhabitants of this land, the Native Americans or the enslaved Africans. I don't know where this group got their hubris( the British monarchy maybe?)but their elevated opinions of themselves made our early history a murderous bloodbath if you were not white and wealthy and male...and it continues.
All true, but the "hubris" seemed be all the colonial powers in Europe, especially in Africa. Check out the Belgians in the Congo for a terrible example
Thank you Gale! Indigenous peoples of Grandmother Earth who have been colonized in Australia, the Americas, and Palestine are of a very unique category, as their suffering is of a very particularly unique kind as it involves cultural genocide as well as the theft their land, and it's a wrong to equate any other groups, regardless of their particular suffering, with Indigenous peoples. I'm glad you helped shine a light on this fact, and again I'd refer anyone making false equivalencies to the UN Declaration on the Right of Indigenous People, please and thank you.
When we are speaking of indigenous people, the original inhabitants of a land, that is a unique situation, and a particular evil. However others may be treated awfully this must be kept in mind.
Please refer to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People if you need any further understanding or clarification as to what I am referring to or further understanding Sandy, with all respect that is due you. A'ho.
My husband has Lakota Sioux ancestry and the cousin who first made contact with us had a great grandmother that survived Wounded Knee. So we are in contact with many of his relatives and have learned a great deal from them including the mass execution in 1862 which before then I had never heard of. There is an excellent book on the history of Lakota that came out within the last few years written, interestingly, by a historian in England. Yes, our treatment of Native Americans has ben an utter disgrace. I do see some good things happening recently. Just yesterday there was an article in the Oregonian about an agreement between tribes and the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department to manage an area in southern Oregon which is afflicted by drought among other things. There also has been the return of certain tribal areas here in Oregon. I also see some Native Americans in the Biden administration, all of them there for a first. My husband also has an ancestor who was a preacher on Sunday (died in the pulpit of a local church) and an Indian fighter the rest of the time. We have a set of orders from that period where the commanding officer is sending out troops to deal with the Indians. His instructions are to pursue this goal no matter what included eating horses and if necessary, also Indians. He says he will give them a bad report if they fail to follow his orders. I used this document in my writing class as an example of an original source which they had to assess in terms of bias among other things. They were taken aback by the contents. The original document is in the Lane County Historical Museum in Eugene and ours is a copy.
I didn't know anything about the hangings. I learned about them from one of my husband's Sioux descent cousins when we were discussing Lincoln. She is an interesting person...told me that on the rez she was told she didn't look Native American enough and once living off it, that people refused to believe her when she told them. I guess she doesn't look enough like those 19th century pictures.
Comanches adopted the horse from the Spanish conquistadors. Once they learned to ride and breed the horse, and shoot from the horse, they became like Moguls….the Lords of the Plains. Of all the Native Peoples, the Comanches were the most capable fighting force and the most feared.
Since you seem interested Michele there is a book by a Finnish historian that won an absolute slew of awards including the NYT Critic's Top Book of the year for 20019, in the Smithsonian Ten Best History Books of that year, and on and on. I'm not an academic but I am quite a keen student of history, and this along with "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William L. Shirer are the best history books I've ever read (and I was a homeless prostitute from the age of 14 until 25, this year I got off the street due to the love of a good man who I've already married, perhaps to quickly, but when you know you know, so I spend an very, very awful lot of time in library reading, often just to stay warm and to keep from freezing).
The book is called, "Lakota America", for any student of Indigenous peoples of any sort, but particularly my people, this book is just mind-blowing and I cannot recommend it enough. The author is (and I am missing the Finnish accents here, my apologies for that" Pekka Hamalainen who previously wrote the also highly award winning, "Commanche Empire".
I want to start going into what it's about, but I would find it near impossible to stop I fear, so I'll leave it at what I have written, and I sure hope if you check it out you'll be as taken with it as I am. I am Oglála-Mnikȟówožu Lakota, but I believe any history fan, particularly of Turtle Island, that is North American, will find this fascinating regardless of their ethnicity. My husband is Austrian and he found is as riveting as I, as have others that have no connection to the Lakota peoples whom he has recommended it to as well. I'm not surprised by that shocking (to most) original source documentation you referenced.
I'm very light skinned (for which I was, well, half despised for as iyéska (a half-breed), half envied that I could pass for a White when I was growing up. I was even excluded from some of our ceremonies sadly because I wasn't full-blooded Lakota, and that was because on both sides of my family I had the blood of blue-coat cavalry rapists in me through no fault of my own. The men of my clan were away hunting, and couldn't spare anyone to guard as so many had been killed in warfare when all the children were slaughter and all the women stolen.
The men were not strong enough to get their wives and mothers and daughters back, but they recruited help from other Lakota, Dakota, and Northern Cheyenne bands and tracked them down and won them back, but by that time almost all the women were pregnant with the children of the White soldiers. And hence my brunette hair, light skin, and light brown eyes for which I was still outcast growing up though it was over a century later.
So, yes, I got off track, Lala had the Army documentation still where our women were listed with things like flour, meat, pack animals, their listing was, "field whores", and I cry still just writing that at the inhumanity of anyone who, well, I cannot write anymore than that. Thank you for sharing Michele.
And thank you for sharing this with me. First of all, I am glad you have found a good man to be with and who supports you. I am sorry for your time on the streets and but glad to know that you survived. And as a former librarian I do appreciate what a refuge the library can be. I was in a high school, so no people off the street, but often students who were lost or needed protection. One of them even tried to protect me once from a nasty parent who was the reason her kids had problems. My husband, as I said has Sioux ancestry, so we are in touch with some of his relatives. We both enjoyed Lakota America and learned so much. We also have a small library on the Sioux, especially Red Cloud. I am sure you are not surprised about the document because Native Americans know this history all too well. It just appalls me. I am part way through a book about the removal of Native Americans from the east to across the Mississippi and I had to put it down. I am afraid we have lots of lighter skinned people in this country because of rape. This sadly has always been the prerogative of soldiers and slave owners among others. There is even a book about this as what generally happens. I haven't read it because I know I would be furious. I taught high school history, but am not a university academic. I read a lot of history of all sorts, so I share your interest there. Btw, read The History of the Third Reich years ago. I have also read the three volume set on Nazi Germany by Richard J. Evans which absolutely floored me even though I knew the general outline and have been to Auschwitz and am a fan of Timothy Snyder. Once again I appreciate your response. I have said this before, but I say it again: I learn so much from the insights and life experiences of the people who post here.
Our history with anyone who is not “white” is abysmal. We have been responsible for the mistreatment and death of innocent people since we stepped on these shores. Indians, Chinese, Blacks, Japanese, Muslins, and any people we consider the other. Where are “the better angels of our nature?
And the Federal Government has been making the Indians pay for their victory at Little Big Horn ever since. Our history with the original inhabitants of this country is an utter disgrace.
To survive at the cost of others is the essence of fascism to me; and most humans have a share of this. What we can always do is celebrate the true historians, like HCR here, and Bejamin Madley in An American Genocide, about the Californian Indians.
I disagree that “most humans…survive at the cost of others”. My family was poor, but incredibly generous. If someone came for dinner, and there were five of us and four servings, our guest always ate. Yes, the genocide of the Native Americans must never be forgotten and must be taught in whatever way we can. I was a law student in LA in 1976-80. Leonard Peltier was being held in the LA County Jail for the murder of two FBI agents at Wounded Knee in 1976 (?). The government never proved it, but Leonard is still serving two consecutive life sentences. Guess who refused to pardon him? Obama. A tragedy.
I did not write that 'most humans survive at the cost of others', so there is no disagreement. 'Our' survival goes generations back, meaning life has come to us exactly through all our ancestors. Hardly any reason for blame, we also most likely have a share in some that stood up against surviving at the cost of others. If Leonard Peltier was not guilty, there is someone who survived at his cost. I just think we must have an understanding of fascism that goes beyond the simple blaming of others, in times of war mongering. Putin's lies about Ukrainians are pathetic, especially since he is paying right wing extremists all over Europe, but it works as far as he can control information.
When gold or other resources are at stake, human kindness, ethics, governance just evaporates.
I apologize in advance and most sincerely for bursting any bubbles, but Peltier is no hero. Feds aside, he had tortured and had a female AIM member murdered just on suspicion that she was going to flip. I don't mean to make you feel embarrassed, that is not my intention, but if you are looking for heroes, don't look at Peletier, and senior AIM leadership for whom holding him up as some sort of martyr was politically expedient rather than face who he really was and what he really did. With peace and respect to you Elisabeth, there is more to the story than is usually publicly spoken about. It could be argued that Leonard had paid his debt to society, but he's no angel, he did the crime for the time he's served.
"... there is more to the story than is usually publicly spoken about."
Always true, Kimimela - including this story of Custer's Last Stand, just barely scratching the surface of the whole truth ... I don't know enough to tell more, but there are those who can - and have ... at this point, I am wondering what good it will do if nobody listens, and so few want to hear the truth, in fact ....
What is sacred - to whom ... what does it mean to make - and keep - a promise ...?
Heather's book, Wounded Knee, is well researched.
Ah, good - thank you Kathy!
Who are you Kimmiela? Asking for a friend.
I had no clue. Wow. Really tragic and just wrong. Maybe Biden could do it. Heather, you've got his ear! Mr. President, if you're reading this ... hint hint. Please and thank you.
Like Obama, he has too many crosses to bear. Most constructed by the previous administration. That’s what republicans in this day and age do. Well, back to Hoover at least. Destroy while democrats try to make it right. As a Twitter person said, and I paraphrase, they piss themselves every presidency and us “tax and spend” libs have to buy new sheets.
I will have to remember this description about sheets.
Destroy and distract.
SEE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO9DBYVhR_s
READ:
Attached comments to this youtube video
Olof wrote: "To survive at the cost of others is the essence of fascism to me".
Ah yes, "whataboutism." :)
Not me, I made no mention of pres. Obama. That was someone else.
SHEEESH!
Thank you Olof, Madley's book covers 1846 to.1873 , the 'Gold Rush' period into the 1870's.when the indigenous Americans were reduced to about 30,000. There was also rapid depopulation throughout the far west into the eastern Pacific. Many of us still remember the Miwok, the Ohlone (coast dwellers) and the Nez Pearce on the Columbia Plateau.
It’s always a pleasure to hear your voice Olof. 🏆🏆
Is your intent to trivialize fascism by making many of us unwitting fascists? In an era where many U.S. elected officials and their supporters promote and/or embody key tenets of fascism as more commonly described, I don't think this is a great idea. Surviving at the cost of others does seem to be at least part of the essence of sexism, racism, and classism, not to mention feudalism, slavery, and various other forms of social organization. I think a case could be made that most of us in so-called advanced societies do survive at the cost of others, but those others are generally invisible to us so we can choose not to see them or the cost they're paying for our creature comforts.
No intent to trivialize, rather what you are doing: understand and explain that this is a pattern that belongs to humanity. Maybe make us a little less unwitting, because many conflicts are initially inflamed with demonizing of the enemy. Also that there might be a legitimate survival at the cost of others, as the archetypal pattern that women, who can give birth, have a right to survive at the cost of others. I guess we agree that Ukrainians have a right to survive at the cost of Russians within Ukrainian borders, as they are faced with an operation of intentional genocide. I agree with your case of our invisible international survival at the cost of others. Just the subtle evaluation of others currencies, for one thing. That's why I think documentary films could be very important, by clipping together what is otherwise invisible to us. For long I had the idea that the misery of the London slum of early industrialism was not abolished, it was exported; the same with Swedish misery and welfare of course.
Absolutely, gale! “ Our history with the original inhabitants of this country is an utter disgrace,” and we continue to follow that history in equally shameful ways. In lieu of reparations, we carry on with our assaults through discriminatory aggressions, microaggressions, and second class citizenry.
Not to mention poverty, drug addiction, alcoholism as a result of the cruelty of the White Man.
During the time when our indigenous inhabitants lived according to their own choices one of their main soul-comforting aspects of living in comfort was/is their reverence for the earth they lived on.
The United State of America government was/is totally oblivious to this fact.
USA's removal of our indigenous inhabitants from their life-style of choice into a land not of our indigenous inhabitants choice, (a land uninhabitable to their way of living life), literally ripped the soul out from from them. Soulless people are the lost souls seeking that which was ripped out from them. The easiest solution for most was the numbing solution induced by cheap-rotgut alcoholic stupor.
We did this to them!
AND
WE CONTINUE TO DO THIS TO THEM EVEN TODAY!
Also remember the 19th and 20th centuries attempts to stamp out Native American culture entirely via the boarding schools and placement of native children into White families.
Yes. For those indigenous people left on the land, the taking away of children killed their culture and heritage.
That did not kill their culture (though it did, literally, kill a substantial part of a generation of Native Americans, it just went "underground" for many decades although, you're right, that was the aim of stealing those children. Throughout the U.S., Native Americans continue to celebrate their culture and their heritage, and to share their cultural heritage for those of us open to it.
It wasn't the red man that had the forked tongue.
White men still “speak with forked tongue”. White men take what they want and do not care about others. Not all I know but a lot.
The last 4 Supreme court “justices “ lied under oath and then did the one thing they swore not to. Chicanery in our hollowed courts. Back in time we go… Good having to stand against evil once again. I am 75 and am living a happy productive life with the woman of my heart. We were legally married after already better together for 29 years. Now 35 years into this marriage ( legal or not) these lying haters are telling us that we are an abomination. Clarence Thomas give me a break with your black to white marriage that was a hanging offense historically. Not to mention that your wife is a traitor.
We Americans who believe in our Democracy truly have one last chance to stop this madness. Stand in line and VOTE by the millions. Show these would be autocrats that they are in the wrong place. This is America and we are a country for ALL! Even the haters if they will return to silence and put down their guns.
No more time for apathy and heads in the sand. We Must Stand Up against this evil!
Yesterday across the state of Virginia, three 'All in to Win Virginia' events were held. State and Federal elected officials spoke along with 18 groups like Moms Demand Action and Planned Parenthood. The goal was to fire up women (and the men who love them) to run for office, get out the vote and stop the attacks on education, women's rights, and the infiltration into local, state and national offices by those who would harm democracy. Sold out crowd, rousing success. One quote: "If someone says to you "I'm not really into politics", say "Well politics is really into you!" Okay one more quote: "Discouragement and despair are luxuries you can't afford."
Will repeat ad nauseam
Do you know if there also were tables for registering anyone not yet registered to vote? I hope that's the case at all of the demonstrations.
No, attendees were all committed Democrats. But one speaker representing youth, reminded that absentee ballots need to get to college bound students before they leave in August.
"When Indians must fight, they must."
I too am 75 and have been in a beautiful lesbian relationship for 39 years, legally married for 14 of those years. I've been battling for civil and women's rights for almost 50 years. It is heart rending to watch everything we have worked so hard to achieve thrown into the gutter by factions led by rich white men. All I wanted was to live out my final years in peace and harmony. Now this! I am infuriated yet again! The struggle never ends.
Age is merely a number. “A time of life, not a state of mind”. The lesson in the letter today is that when the people are lazing, distracted, or become complacent, expect an attack. This was the mistake by the Lakota’s organizationally and by Custer tactically at Little Big Horn. In todays politics, the Radical R’s plotting began in the 70s as a response to the 1960’s. The attacks began in the 1980’s with Reganomics, appointing radical judges, that “Gov was the problem”, but like the geographically isolated Lakota’s, we thought we had won it all in our cities and blue states. But also like the Lakota’s we grew complacent comfort, ignoring all the signs that an attack was coming. We may think this week was a surprise attack, but it was decades in the making. Our task now is to educate the young of how we failed, and how they can not. There is in this country probably the largest reservoir of wisdom that has ever existed. That collective wisdom can be like Sitting Bull’s and Crazy Horse’s warriors that destroyed Custer’s invasion forces.
Ted Education and accumulated wisdom—what a lovely image. I was a history professor at a community college from 1992 to 2013. I was appalled at how little high school graduates knew about American history, including the Constitution and checks and balance, as well as the role of Blacks and women in much of our history.
I surmise that this has not since improved, especially in states that seek to block ‘diversity’ in telling the American story. When one student thought that we entered WW II when the Japanese dropped an atomic bomb on Pearl Harbor and another thought that WW II commenced when Russia attacked the Soviet Union, what is the likelihood for education-based wisdom?
Ignorance makes an easy target for manipulation. Especially by a demagogue or false leader, or those building a radicalized cult, prostituting it as a political party.
I have some ex-students who are married to their partners and I support them always as well as all others who are with the people they love. Yesterday while posting about the abortion issue in answer to someone who thought it was a joyous decision, I said that guns now have more rights than women. The answer I got was pure reductio ad absurdum akin to cars kill people, so we should ban cars. Why can't these zealots just leave others alone. Yes, I know, because they are zealots.
When the cars kill people argument is presented, I kindly remind that yes, and to drive requires a license, completed training, and insurance.
She tried to say that what might be required for the purchase of a gun applied to men courting, wooing, chasing(??) women. It was truly absurd.
I was explaining the same to my 15 yr old daughter, that now they have given more liberty to guns than to women's productive rights. It's so backwards. And not easy to explain because it simply doesn't make sense... to our liberal family.
They are pro control of women and not really pro life.
Stupidity cannot be cured however, red hats and flags on a vehicle make it easy to identify.
And because, starting about the time of Reagan, very rich white men realized that they needed more voters to sustain low taxes, no regulations, so they figured out that there were Catholic democrats and a-political evangelicals ripe for the plucking. They just needed the right issues. Abortion, guns, immigration, gays....and very skillful messaging to rile up the potential zealots. I wonder if it would make any difference to them to know how many rich white men pay for their mistresses abortions. Apparently in at least this one case, it didn't make a difference. https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/07/24/desjarlais-pro-life-congressman-who-urged-abortions-for-ex-wife-and-mistress-is-running-again So maybe we need to focus our energy and efforts on the independents, "didn't voters" and next generation, and let the duped zealots be.
I mostly let them be because I only have a couple or so as Facebook friends. I sometimes find them on other people's threads. However, certain things I am not going to let pass like my ex-classmate who posted a meme that blamed the CA fires on atheists. She did get an earful...as polite as I could be and then she backtracked and pretended that she did not mean what the meme said. Sigh. Then there was the guy who claimed after the abortion ruling that here in Oregon you could legally bop babies on the head while they were being born. I did lambast him, but so far no reply.
Jackye:
The solution is simple...but it will require working into exhaustion...
VOTE intelligently and help, as much as you can, please help many others clearly understand the issues, the candidates, (and their funding resources), and the incumbents, (their voting record---NOT THEIR SLOGANS---and their FUNDING RESOURCES)
AND
NEVER VOTE FOR ANY REPUBLICAN WHAT-SO-EVER!
Please!
I voted for Arnold, and I'd do it again
"I'll be back!"
So sorry, Jackye. I am astonished as what happened....but not surprised. They have gotten so much power!
🫂🫂🫂
Totally agree. But Americans will vote based on gasoline prices before they will vote for democracy. And the media constantly portray Biden as weak and ineffectual. And voter suppression will become (more) rampant. So what shall we do after the midterms? It’s highly unlikely that Dems will hold both houses of Congress. There has to be a plan beyond the midterms. I see us catapulting toward a fascist police state, and though I currently live in an island of blue, that will be scant consolation when the party of small government (hahaha) finishes pushing through its anti-democratic agenda via the filibuster and the “Supreme” Court (comprised of only three real justices plus six shysters).
It could be that you are underestimating the powerful backlash that is brewing after this last decision by the Gilead Court. I could be wrong. It happens all the time. But...
The turnout for "mid-term" elections is usually small. But that can change. I have linked below a fascinating article about the 2018 election voting patterns.
My unofficial, purely intuitive, non fact based prediction is that women will be voting in numbers and percentages never seen before in American history. The Dobbs decision is such a face slap, such a mortal challenge - such an outrage - that I predict polls will be overwhelmed with voters with rage in their hearts.
Even TFG has been quoted as saying that overturning Roe would be bad for Republicans. Maybe emotions like a threat of government takeover of one's body will supersede the inconvenience of expensive gasoline and milk.
While I agree with your sentiments, I don't think we should see this as a doomsday scenario. What if we look at this whole period in our history symbolically. We are squeezing the puss out of a wound. We are lancing a boil. We are popping the whitehead of white male supremacy.
Let's see how many people we can get to vote. Peer pressure. Parental pressure. Take no prisoners, drag people to the polls. Tell them they vote or we ghost them forever. We CAN rebuild our majorities in the House and Senate.
The plan beyond the mid-terms? New younger leadership in the Democratic Party. My generation needs to pass the baton to the next - real soon.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/04/behind-2018-united-states-midterm-election-turnout.html
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I do feel a sense of despair in the wake of Friday’s decision, yet I also believe that hope is, in effect, persevering in the face of and beyond despair. I am desperately seeking hope, and your comments have helped.
Btw, I’m old (teetering on the brink of 75) and have no children, but I love my country and care very much about what happens to it, even though I won’t be here to experience much of it. Totally agree re the baton needs to be passed.
Thanks :)
I am 75. Our kids are middle aged. They are very, very upset. Again, this is just intuitive. But I feel a groundswell of anger and indignation. 2022 may be historic and defy the common "wisdom" of the TV talking heads.
As to the popularity polls and polling in general, I remind myself that if they were even remotely accurate or meaningful, Hillary would have been elected in 2016. Biden's approval rating is right about where other Presidents are at this stage of a term. Using that as some predictor of the Mid Terms is silly, me thinks.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Bill - your view of this is consonant with one of mine (not the only one - I have a couple of competing views) - the more hopeful one. And that is that the SCOTUS has just done us a big favor. A couple of them. They have just struck down a NY gun law that should be a model for the whole country ("proper cause"). That should enrage and galvanize young voters especially added to the existing rage over Uvalde. That decision was largely buried by other news, but it can be unburied. Now this RvW thing - which should move the needle quite a bit with women and the men who support them. The dog has just caught the proverbial car, or bus. It's the kind of thing that has staying power too - it should still be quite hot in November. And coming down the pike here, I understand, is the decapitation of the EPA and its ability to control carbon emissions. That should also galvanize gen Z'ers no end, as more and more of them are realizing that today's governments (especially the US) seem hell bent to leave to them a dystopian Mad Max planet. Dem's have a whole lot of red meat now to feed pissed off citizens.
But Dems are so namby-pamby in our messaging. Will we go after the rethuglicans who voted against Build Back Better bill and are now claiming credit for how it's helped their constituents? I don't see it happening.
Yes these other factors will weigh in. I mentioned Parkland because those young people are a force. Add in the Sandy Hook, Columbine, Pulse nightclub, Vegas, Buffalo and too many others and the NY gun decision will bring many around. If the gen Z"s pay attention to climate change, water quality, etc. great. I am not tuned in to many of them in that respect. Truly in order to level the playing field for everyone in this country we must work double hard to elect Democratic candidates.
Exactly!
Women will vote and again kids. After Parkland, those "kids" managed to have protests around the world. If you know a graduated high school senior, encourage them to register to vote if they have not already done so. The women, young parents and new electors will be the telling tale.
This is purely anecdotal and only ONE example, but knowing this person and her connections, I tend to think she is representative of others like her. She moved to this red state from CA several years ago, and though she professed herself to be "independent" she always voted R (she described herself as "Republican light".) The Dobbs fiasco has so infuriated her (and her friends) that she has officially registered as a Democrat and announced it publicly on her FB page. Likewise, another young woman from a family who ALWAYS voted R, has expressed her anger and her commitment to vote against R's in November. She too has connections with similar feelings. Another friend (a male) has contacted the local Democratic organization to help register voters. I listen to and read about and personally experience this outpouring of anger and I tend to think as you do, Bill, that there will be an enormous backlash. This cynical and misogynistic "ruling" by six extremists who contort and twist history and law to suit their own agendas and their religious doctrine may have inadvertently undone their Federalist plans and set in motion reforms that may make their lifetime appointments less comfortable and assured. This is what happens to folks who live in a bubble of indifference and hubris and pay no attention to the fact that they are completely out of step with 2/3 of the population. And the last time I checked, the "popularity" of the Stench Bench was down to 25% and falling. If that 2/3 of the population considers this body to be illegitimate and worthless...well, then, robes or no robes, these six are as naked as the emperor and as toothless as a tired old tiger. My money is on angry voters.
I don't see them as toothless at all given that they are essentially untouchable. I have come around to the belief that the only solution is expanding the court. That can't happen unless Democrats achieve a majority in both the House and the Senate in November, especially the Senate, a minimum of two more. We all need to support Tim Ryan OH against J.D. Vance, Fetterman PA against Oz, Mandela Barnes WI against Ron Johnson, Val Demings FL against rubio, Mark Kelly AZ (primary not yet held) and others running for election or re-election to the Senate.
There are a number of governor's races I've been supporting as well, and recommend those in a position to do so, identify them and donate to campaigns.
Excellent news!
I'm concerned we older folks (I'm 60) don't have a handle at all on what the younger folks will do. My 26 year old daughter is furious but equally so with the Dems, and is listening to /reading commentary from sources that have encouraged this and I can't blame them. They are pissed off at the two party system, feel sold out by the Dems who promise all sorts of change that sounds great to young people, and then they don't have the courage to get it done (end the filibuster) when they're in power and nothing seems to them to change at all, in fact, it gets worse (Roe overturned "on our watch"). Young people don't want to hear how change takes time, the moral compass arcs toward justice, it's all bullshit to them, realistic or not. It sounds to me like a very real possibility we'll have a lot of trouble getting them to vote. They tried an alternative candidate in 2016 - Bernie - and we screwed them over.
I'm not saying this is truth or realistic so please don't argue with me; I'm passing on what I'm hearing from a young aware progressive person. I'm just warning my own cohort that we cannot assume or hope to know what the next generation will do based on our mindset. Maybe we need to get out of the way and let them take the lead and show us what to do.
We DO need to get out of the way except for voting. I hope your daughter and her disillusioned friends take action and support the people who can be positive change agents.
I suspect that philosophically she and I are quite aligned. I was for Bernie in 16 and Warren in 20. But my thought to her is that Biden has been very progressive and if not enough is getting done in Congress it is because there are NOT ENOUGH DEMOCRATS in the Senate. And two of them are DINOs.
In other words we barely have any control over legislation.
Beth, I need to object to the notion that “we screwed them over” with regard to Bernie Sanders. There’s not much difference between diehard Bernie supporters and MAGAts - they both seem to believe that their idol’s election was “stolen.” The fact is they both lost. Lost.
Maybe it starts with a conversation. The anti-abortionists worked with the GOP for literally decades, steadily and single-mindedly, to get a SCOTUS that will do their bidding. We obviously can see the fruits of their labor. The Democrats would do well to learn from this unwavering insistence on achieving a goal in the face of all opposition and no matter how long it takes. I’ve been frustrated with aspects of the Democratic Party for ages, yet our political structure almost guarantees that a third party on the left will lead to a significant win on the right.
Bill, I have a similar intuitive prediction. Even before the "Court" issued its Roe decision, Georgia held its mid-term election primaries, and the turnout was historically high - even significantly higher than the 2020 presidential election. At first, when calculating the number of voters in each party, I was dismayed that there were more Republican votes than Democratic. However, I learned a few days later that the huge number of votes for Republican candidates was due to the fact that about 70,000 Democrats had apparently participated in what appears to be "crossover voting." Usually, this means that they vote for a candidate from the opposing party in the primaries, either to strengthen a candidate that is the lesser of two evils in the opposing party or the weakest person that is the least threat to one's party candidate. Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, while engineering a great number of bills that suppress the vote, are not as vile as the Trumpists that they faced in their party. They both won by large margins - probably due to crossover voters, a trick the Republicans have used for years. In November, I am anticipating that, fueled by the shocking lack of integrity of the six ultra-conservative "justices," in addition to Clarence Thomas not recusing himself from the vote about the emails involving QAnon cultist Ginni, those additional 70,000 votes will turn Georgia from purple to bright blue. If I'm wrong, at the age of 79, I won't have to deal with this circus much longer.
yes!!!! Let's NOT get on the doomsday wagon! We - all of Heather's readers, and those who read Robert Hubbell's Today's Edition - CAN rebuild majorities in Congress - let's not be swayed by the media commentators - get everyone to vote - especially those who don't usually vote - and YES, the next generation needs to be fired up by us (me, I'm an elder) - check out Bill McKibben's Third Act - Let's get on it!!!!!
See my comment above. My daughter's response to attempting to fire her up to vote (she always has before) and getting others to do so, "We've been voting. We voted in 2016, 2018, 2020 and look where it got us". This is what we're up against.
❤️👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Keep saying it, keep saying it, keep saying it, Bill. There are some of us that keep listening.
You are a like a lighthouse beam.
Salud!
Unitad! 🗽
YES!!!
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Joanna, we have choices in the way we respond to crisis: to trade in our big cars for more fuel efficient ones, to car pool, to eliminate expensive vacations, to examine "our real needs" etc. as well as to look around and help others. Our world is in crisis.
What really hurts me is Ukraine's fight to just live in freedom. Their choice is costing them their lives, their beautiful culture, their ability to trade wheat to others who need it. We need to continue helping and that costs too but it will cost the freedom for each and all of us if we don't. We also need to vote as citizens of this country if we want to remain free.
Absolutely agree.
Can’t ❤️ but YES!
Agreed! 💯. Perhaps if we took a page from the Iroquois. Democracy. Equally for women. We Must Stand Up Against Evil!
See: The Great Law of Peace (New World Roots of American Democracy)
by David Yarrow
http://dyarrow.org/indigenous/GreatLawofPeace.htm
Absolutely. We must destroy the GOP in 2022. Vote BLUE. Will all wome in the states that don’t allow abortion go to jail? The prisons will be overflowing. Courts will be backed up for years.
Amen Sista! True that.
Damn straight!!
Amen, Georgia Girl!
GEORGIA GIRL:
BY ALL MEANS
VOTE INTELLIGENTLY AND HELP OTHERS TO DO SO ALSO, PLEASE!
The last three. Before Gorsuch was Sotomayor and Kagin.
Well said! I was thinking the same thing, so thanks for laying it out! 👍🏼
Mitch McConnell.
Because of HCR's excellent recounting of the details of American Governments cheating lies and heartless murders of all Indigenous Americans including the Teton Lacotas, Eastern Santee, Northern Cheyenne, Sioux, I remain ever heart wrenchingly embarrassed and guilty as I claim to be an American citizen.
All this and even now more so as I acknowledge that my American’s Supreme Court has become the protectorate enclave of
(1). A drunken-lying-rapists,
(2&3). The seditious Treasonous pair husband/wife co-conspirators,
and
(4&5). Two more than willingly scheming lawyers complicit in the Moscow mitch self-aggrandizing political power grab obsession to control government forever!
Don't forget all the "Dark Money" ultra wealthy manipulators behind them.
Yes, of course you are right. I think it is a toss up as to who the early Americans treated more badly, the original inhabitants of this land, the Native Americans or the enslaved Africans. I don't know where this group got their hubris( the British monarchy maybe?)but their elevated opinions of themselves made our early history a murderous bloodbath if you were not white and wealthy and male...and it continues.
All true, but the "hubris" seemed be all the colonial powers in Europe, especially in Africa. Check out the Belgians in the Congo for a terrible example
Gale Watts, do you think our present treatment of Blacks in Texas and elsewhere is any better? Sandy
Of course not. But HCR’s post was about the defeat of Custer at Little Big Horn so I confined my comment to that history.
Thank you Gale! Indigenous peoples of Grandmother Earth who have been colonized in Australia, the Americas, and Palestine are of a very unique category, as their suffering is of a very particularly unique kind as it involves cultural genocide as well as the theft their land, and it's a wrong to equate any other groups, regardless of their particular suffering, with Indigenous peoples. I'm glad you helped shine a light on this fact, and again I'd refer anyone making false equivalencies to the UN Declaration on the Right of Indigenous People, please and thank you.
She may have been using it as a lesson or an opportunity to show similarities with today.
A'ho!
When we are speaking of indigenous people, the original inhabitants of a land, that is a unique situation, and a particular evil. However others may be treated awfully this must be kept in mind.
Please refer to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People if you need any further understanding or clarification as to what I am referring to or further understanding Sandy, with all respect that is due you. A'ho.
My husband has Lakota Sioux ancestry and the cousin who first made contact with us had a great grandmother that survived Wounded Knee. So we are in contact with many of his relatives and have learned a great deal from them including the mass execution in 1862 which before then I had never heard of. There is an excellent book on the history of Lakota that came out within the last few years written, interestingly, by a historian in England. Yes, our treatment of Native Americans has ben an utter disgrace. I do see some good things happening recently. Just yesterday there was an article in the Oregonian about an agreement between tribes and the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department to manage an area in southern Oregon which is afflicted by drought among other things. There also has been the return of certain tribal areas here in Oregon. I also see some Native Americans in the Biden administration, all of them there for a first. My husband also has an ancestor who was a preacher on Sunday (died in the pulpit of a local church) and an Indian fighter the rest of the time. We have a set of orders from that period where the commanding officer is sending out troops to deal with the Indians. His instructions are to pursue this goal no matter what included eating horses and if necessary, also Indians. He says he will give them a bad report if they fail to follow his orders. I used this document in my writing class as an example of an original source which they had to assess in terms of bias among other things. They were taken aback by the contents. The original document is in the Lane County Historical Museum in Eugene and ours is a copy.
I first learned of the Mankato hangings in a documentary at the National Museum of the American Indian about the Dakota Memorial Ride to Mankato interspersing video of the riders and still photos from the hanging. Hard to watch. It's available on YouTube; link at the end of this article: https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/watch-dakota-38-documentary-remember-those-lost-150-years-ago
Re the Sand Creek Massacre, Smithsonian had a good article about it several years ago wherein we learn that Karma caught up with the Army Officer who ordered his soldiers to wipe out a sleeping, peaceful camp of Native Americans. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/horrific-sand-creek-massacre-will-be-forgotten-no-more-180953403/
I didn't know anything about the hangings. I learned about them from one of my husband's Sioux descent cousins when we were discussing Lincoln. She is an interesting person...told me that on the rez she was told she didn't look Native American enough and once living off it, that people refused to believe her when she told them. I guess she doesn't look enough like those 19th century pictures.
Michele, I would like the name of the book you mentioned. It seems I am uninformed and would like to know the true history of what happened.
Lakota America by Pekka Hamalainen, a don at Oxford. He has also written about the Comanche and I have not read that one.
Comanches adopted the horse from the Spanish conquistadors. Once they learned to ride and breed the horse, and shoot from the horse, they became like Moguls….the Lords of the Plains. Of all the Native Peoples, the Comanches were the most capable fighting force and the most feared.
I think the name of his book is Comanche Empire.
Just put it on the recommended list for our history book group for next year. Thanks for the reference!
Thanks so much.
Since you seem interested Michele there is a book by a Finnish historian that won an absolute slew of awards including the NYT Critic's Top Book of the year for 20019, in the Smithsonian Ten Best History Books of that year, and on and on. I'm not an academic but I am quite a keen student of history, and this along with "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William L. Shirer are the best history books I've ever read (and I was a homeless prostitute from the age of 14 until 25, this year I got off the street due to the love of a good man who I've already married, perhaps to quickly, but when you know you know, so I spend an very, very awful lot of time in library reading, often just to stay warm and to keep from freezing).
The book is called, "Lakota America", for any student of Indigenous peoples of any sort, but particularly my people, this book is just mind-blowing and I cannot recommend it enough. The author is (and I am missing the Finnish accents here, my apologies for that" Pekka Hamalainen who previously wrote the also highly award winning, "Commanche Empire".
I want to start going into what it's about, but I would find it near impossible to stop I fear, so I'll leave it at what I have written, and I sure hope if you check it out you'll be as taken with it as I am. I am Oglála-Mnikȟówožu Lakota, but I believe any history fan, particularly of Turtle Island, that is North American, will find this fascinating regardless of their ethnicity. My husband is Austrian and he found is as riveting as I, as have others that have no connection to the Lakota peoples whom he has recommended it to as well. I'm not surprised by that shocking (to most) original source documentation you referenced.
I'm very light skinned (for which I was, well, half despised for as iyéska (a half-breed), half envied that I could pass for a White when I was growing up. I was even excluded from some of our ceremonies sadly because I wasn't full-blooded Lakota, and that was because on both sides of my family I had the blood of blue-coat cavalry rapists in me through no fault of my own. The men of my clan were away hunting, and couldn't spare anyone to guard as so many had been killed in warfare when all the children were slaughter and all the women stolen.
The men were not strong enough to get their wives and mothers and daughters back, but they recruited help from other Lakota, Dakota, and Northern Cheyenne bands and tracked them down and won them back, but by that time almost all the women were pregnant with the children of the White soldiers. And hence my brunette hair, light skin, and light brown eyes for which I was still outcast growing up though it was over a century later.
So, yes, I got off track, Lala had the Army documentation still where our women were listed with things like flour, meat, pack animals, their listing was, "field whores", and I cry still just writing that at the inhumanity of anyone who, well, I cannot write anymore than that. Thank you for sharing Michele.
And thank you for sharing this with me. First of all, I am glad you have found a good man to be with and who supports you. I am sorry for your time on the streets and but glad to know that you survived. And as a former librarian I do appreciate what a refuge the library can be. I was in a high school, so no people off the street, but often students who were lost or needed protection. One of them even tried to protect me once from a nasty parent who was the reason her kids had problems. My husband, as I said has Sioux ancestry, so we are in touch with some of his relatives. We both enjoyed Lakota America and learned so much. We also have a small library on the Sioux, especially Red Cloud. I am sure you are not surprised about the document because Native Americans know this history all too well. It just appalls me. I am part way through a book about the removal of Native Americans from the east to across the Mississippi and I had to put it down. I am afraid we have lots of lighter skinned people in this country because of rape. This sadly has always been the prerogative of soldiers and slave owners among others. There is even a book about this as what generally happens. I haven't read it because I know I would be furious. I taught high school history, but am not a university academic. I read a lot of history of all sorts, so I share your interest there. Btw, read The History of the Third Reich years ago. I have also read the three volume set on Nazi Germany by Richard J. Evans which absolutely floored me even though I knew the general outline and have been to Auschwitz and am a fan of Timothy Snyder. Once again I appreciate your response. I have said this before, but I say it again: I learn so much from the insights and life experiences of the people who post here.
Our history with anyone who is not “white” is abysmal. We have been responsible for the mistreatment and death of innocent people since we stepped on these shores. Indians, Chinese, Blacks, Japanese, Muslins, and any people we consider the other. Where are “the better angels of our nature?
Here.
“Our history with the original inhabitants of this country is an utter disgrace.”
YES. ‼️ The European Invaders have treated the rightful inhabitants of the New World the way Russian soldiers treat Ukrainian civilians.
I dont’ see it so much as “revenge”, but rather, a continual wiping out of anything that destroyed our national “myth” of greatness.
Be careful. You're getting into critical race theory territory. :-)
Ha!