Today marks the anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, when Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, who led the 7th Cavalry, lost his entire command to Lakota warriors after falling on them unexpectedly in their own territory.
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?
I remember in 7th grade Colorado History, we learned about "the Battle of Sand Creek," fought by many of the "Founding Fathers" of Colorado. I said to the teacher that reading it, it sounded like a massacre. For which I promptly went and spent the rest of the day "polishing the bench" outside the Vice Principal's office, one of many days spent in my battle to keep my perfect record of every report card saying "does not respond to properly constituted authority" I spent 12 years suffering through. A few years back, my oldest friend in the world, who stayed back there and became a teacher, told me it's now in Official Colorado History as the Sand Creek Massacre, and the genocidaires (like my great grandfather the Indian murderer and buffalo killer) are no longer considered "Founding Fathers."
In the California public school system of the 1960s, the Spanish conquistadors were presented as heroes. Now, we see them as treacherous liars and, in some cases, genocidal maniacs.
It's the way the world was run back then. How long have we have Peace studies in our schools/ colleges? Not long. But long enough that I recognize the dinosaurs still still roaming the land -- Putin, Trump, Ortega, Lukashenko, Orban, etc.
Yes, Custer did have it coming. He was a vainglorious nitwit. His incompetence resulted in the deaths of others who were obeying his orders. The US military, in the efforts to subdue the western areas had no problem killing women and children, whom whites considered “savages.” Those battles began the moment white Europeans set foot on this continent. Those Indigenous peoples were defending their home territory from invaders, exactly what anyone would if they came under attack.
I have often wondered who the true “savages” were.
Custer ran out of water for his horses and his men. He was forced to defend out in the open. Exhausted Horses became useless. Men suffered heat strokes as they struggled to defend themselves in open ground against greater numbers but not better armed force of Lakota’s.
Today, I’m thinking how we the people can be like the Lakota’s that day and for the next. The truth is the Lakota’s saw an opportunity and they did not hesitate to take advantage of it. They organized and attacked with relentless passion. We have to be that kind of ready for November. Getting more people to vote is the solution to the SCOTUS assault on our freedom and democracy today.
Great analogy Ted. We need some "trick plays" to support us until November. I wish that recent SCOTUS decisions (and a big one to come on the EPA) will galvanize the portion of our electorate that otherwise stays home. That is the key. But I know that there is a deep frustration in the ranks, and they want something done. Otherwise, too many will lose hope and stay home in November. But I have to say - the Republicans have us by the short ones. First - SCOTUS - it is as if Trump is still president. Ginsburg dying, and the Garland appointment being illegally held back by McConnell, are giant developments that allowed Trump to hand pick justices when the House and Senate were in Republican hands. That is not going to change for quite a while. Bad luck. But it's more than that. Republican mantra is to resist change or go backwards. With the filibuster and a sprinkling of gerrymandering, they can subvert the majority who are looking for progress. As if they are the majority. See? Young voters for the most part do not realize this. What they must realize is that in 2020, with their help, we got the ball back. We didn't score a touchdown - we just got the ball back. Now we are up against a stiff defense, and our quarterback just got sacked behind the line (Roe overturn). Second and long. The EPA is fixing to get scalped here soon - that's another sack. We need some kind of trick (executive actions?) that will get us a couple of first downs. Give people some hope. Then in November, we score the touchdown on a long pass (a blue wave of voters). What we have to have ultimately is 60 Senators, and hold our gains in the House, since we will get zero Republican support. A big ask. But without those first downs, I don't think we are going to get there.
This book is about the Doctrine of Discovery and both how it's been used and how it gave permission for white supremacy to commit genocide, seen in the almost complete extermination and defrauding of America's indigenous peoples.
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The truth behind 'We the People' - the three most misunderstood words in US history
The son of an American woman of Dutch heritage and a Navajo man, Mark Charles offers a unique perspective on three of the most misinterpreted words in American History. Written in the Papal Bulls of the 15th Century, embedded in our founding documents in the 18th Century, codified as legal precedent in the 19th Century and referenced by the Supreme Court in the 20th and 21st Centuries, the Doctrine of Discovery has been used throughout the history of the United States to keep "We the People" from including all the people.
Unfortunately, if you, I, or any of the rest of us were to look in the bathroom mirror, it's likely we would be staring at the descendant of one of the "true savages." I know I am. My great-great grandfather Weist went from being the youngest drummer boy in Sherman's Army on the March to the Sea (he ran away from home at 14 to join up) to being a "professional hunter" for the railroads (they used to bring a train near a buffalo herd and then shoot them till all were dead, and leave them to rot on the prairie as a way of exterminating native Americans by cutting off their food source) and "Indian fighter," (genocidaire). I have a photo of him at age 28 in 1877, and even with 19th century photography you can see the spider veins in his nose and he looks like someone you would cross the street to avoid. He's also, as I have figured out, the main source of the four generations of untreated PTSD that flowed through the generations and poisoned my family with his dysfunction. (I have another photo of him in the midst of his 11 grown children in the 1890s - they're all giving him sidelong glances like what one does when they know there's a hand grenade with the pin pulled there)
Can’t do better ‘til you know better. That’s why knowing our family history and true history of events of this country are so important. When you’ve lived a lie given to you there is one path and one only..the lie. When you know the truth, then you have a choice of a couple paths. The lie might work for you or perhaps it’s another way that is chosen. It’s something I believe about writers. There’s something in them that just has to “KNOW”.
When given a choice, most will choose comfort over challenge. This is why kindness works so well to break the cycle of trauma and the challenge that comes with it. Those with social support built with kindness are better equipped to accept the challenge of learning the past, accepting the pain that comes with uncomfortable truths.
The scalpers didn't invent it - the British did. Scalping goes back to the Royal Governor of Massachusetts in King Phillip's War in the 1680s when the Good Pilgrim Fathers finished the job of exterminating the local native Americans they began the afternoon after dinner of the "first Thanksgiving." And yes, it was for "proof" to get the bounty for killing one.
If you're going to change it, you first have to admit it's there, and too much of America thinks all we did is just fine, the way John Wayne went on bout "the Indians selfishly wanting to keep all this land," or my own father saying they "just let everything be" while we "made better use of it," which I always disagreed with.
How many long long years did it take for them to admit the truth? Funny about that - the same enlightenment has taken place in far too many instances - exactly what "exceptional" white men have done for hundreds of years - because they have made this country "great"! Right? Boy, have we all been snowed (a polite way of putting it) from kindergarden on. Frankly, TC your perfect record & the bench polishing are both very impressive. Wish I could say I had been that enlightened that early.
TC must’ve had some special insight as a youngster. I was too young and naïve to have any clue how the public school system was bullshitting and indoctrinating us. My German immigrant parents taught me exactly nothing, except integrity, but nothing about history and the world. It took Howard Zinn to even begin waking me up, and I’m still learning.
TC, you are full of a never-ending cache of stories from your own life that are parables for political enlightenment. It's like you've been issued an assignment, and the ammunition to enforce it. What good fortune that you have the skills, and the determination, to make it so interesting to your audience.
Growing awareness is leadership. Early on in discovering the truth, the few that tell it, suffer for it. As fast as things go bad, good takes so much more time and effort… and pain.
Thank you, Heather, My great grandfather's sister, Fannie Hoyt McGillycuddy was married to Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy, MD. Dr. McG was one of the first white men to explore the Black Hills with the Army. He was at Fort Robinson when Crazy Horse came there after surrendering to General Crook. Dr. McG treated Crazy Horse's wife Black Shawl for tuberculosis and by the account of his second wife Julia in the biography she wrote "McGillycuddy, Field Agent" became friends with Crazy Horse. When Crazy Horse was mortally wounded by a soldier driving a bayonet into his back, Dr. McG was the attending physician. When Crazy Horse died Dr. McG made sure the family received the remains who buried him at some unknown location in the Black Hills. Later Dr. McG was appointed the Field Agent at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Fannie was there with him, the only white woman in two hundred miles. With this family connection to the Oglala Lakota, I am a donor to the Lakota Law Project working to protect Lakota rights. https://lakotalaw.org/ A federal judge in south Dakota has ruled in favor of the Lakota on violations by South Dakota of the National Voting Rights Act. The US Supreme Court will hear arguments on South Dakota violations of the Indian Child Welfare Act in the fall. South Dakota has been removing Lakota children from their homes and placing them with white families when Indian relatives are available. This travesty is literally taking the next generation away from their Lakota heritage. I hope they fair better with the egregious Supreme Court than this week's removal of the rights of women.
Wow. Amazing story and information. It's appalling. Thank you for sharing. I had the honor of being invited as a dancer's sponsor to a Sundance ceremony in 93 on Pine Ridge. For some reason that memory has been very active in recent days. This whole thread feels like confirmation of some larger force at work here. What a beautiful people, the Lakota Sioux. They deserve all respect and honor. As do all indigenous people on Earth.
Go. It's incredible. I love much of the Native philosophy in general. I felt like I had found my people at long last. It's perfectly understandable to me why that sentiment was not reciprocated, but wow did I want to stay, for good. This world of white man's rules is wearing me down. Go...😉
I'm with you on that. As far as I am concerned they are showing Bad Behavior and the five of them should be impeached. I feel no need to support any ruling they make. Since the word "woman" isn't mentioned in their ruling or in the Constitution I feel I can ignore their rulings which can't apply to me, a woman.
Women and the men that love them Can Beat This!! Speak out everywhere and tell folks young and old that today is the being of a fascist court that will love the taste of power they a wielding upon us. We must stand against them. They are leaders of the army that has the killing machines. Many of us do not own guns and the majority do not want these weapons of war on our streets. But there rights “Trump” the value of our lives (young and old) and our freedom of choice. This is a sad and frightening time. I hope with all of my heart that “America” is not over.
I'm with you. I do think we can still save America but it won't be easy. Yes, together we can beat this. This is a one issue election - do we have a democratic republic or not? We must all get people to the polls!
If we can give Biden a majority in the house and senate he will have legislative authorities to help us. Starting with increasing the numbers of the court. Just another good reason to VOTE!
Absolutely agree! We need to get everyone to vote. There are four blocks of voters - Republicans (I'm holding ALL of them accountable and have vowed not to vote for any of them), Democrats, Independents (about 40% of voters so key to having a majority) and those who have never or seldom vote (need to get them motivated to vote!) Leave no stone unturned!
Here in Australia, the INDEPENDENT parties have just broken the stranglehold of our Right-leaning LNP who had cheated their way into power for ten years, and given a majority to the left-leaning Labor party. (I hesitate to name the parties because they don't correspond with similarly-named parties in America).
"Aƞpétu wašté from the Cheyenne River Nation. As you know, the welfare of our children has been a longstanding issue for Native communities. Centuries of colonization means we’re always in the crosshairs. As I discuss with my granddaughter in this video, our people are marginalized — especially our young parents and grandparents — by the State of South Dakota and the Department of Social Services, and our children are taken from us at an alarming rate."
"Watch our video to learn more about our work for the children."
"We have worked to solve this problem for decades, and we have specifically confronted issues surrounding the Indian Child Welfare Act. If the Supreme Court overturns the Indian Child Welfare Act, Native families, mineral rights, and self-determination could quickly become collateral damage."
Wopila tanka — thank you for supporting our children!
In a huge win for voting rights and Native justice, on May 26, a federal judge in South Dakota ruled in Lakota Law's favor that the state has repeatedly violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
This judgment is a giant step forward in the battle to make sure Native voices are properly heard at the ballot box — especially in a state where we make up a whopping nine percent of the total population!
Lakota Law joined the suit last year as a plaintiff alongside our friend, Standing Rock Sioux tribal member Hoksila White Mountain. Together with the Oglala and Rosebud Sioux Tribes and Rosebud Sioux tribal member Kimberly Dillon, we sued South Dakota Secretary of State Steve Barnett and a trio of agency heads after an investigation uncovered the state’s pattern of noncompliance with the NVRA. Of course, this lack of compliance has had an outsized effect on Indigenous communities.
The court agreed with our group’s contention that, too often, potential South Dakota voters — especially Natives — encountered systemic problems when trying to register to vote at state-run public assistance offices and the Department of Transportation. The state has effectively disenfranchised us by failing to adequately provide legally required training, forms, and services.
We thank our partners from the Native American Rights Fund and Demos for their dedication and excellence in litigating this case. It exemplifies just how much we can accomplish when we work together to create positive change, and it will set a precedent that other tribal governments, Indigenous voters, and voters of color can use to defend the guarantees of the National Voter Registration Act long into the future.
Wopila tanka — thank you for supporting our mission for justice!
A beautiful history, Cathy. And I am smitten with the name "Valentine McGillycuddy." Just as I was with the name Crazy Horse when I discovered it in a library book when I was eight. There weren't many books (any?) then that told the real or full story of the Lakota, but I kept searching over the years. I recommend "Crazy Horse, the Lakota Warrior's Life and Legacy," written by his descendants, as told to William Matson, and "The Journey of Crazy Horse," by Joseph Marshall III, who was born on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation and holds a PhD from the reservation university he helped establish.
My grandfather's middle name was Valentine and he hated it. Always only used the initial V. Nevertheless it was an honor for him to carry the name. Dr. McGillycuddy was born on Valentine's Day February 14, 1849. My great grandfather taught agriculture at the Haskill Institute in Lawrence, Kansas. My grandfather and his two brothers were the only white children at this Indian school.
Cathy thank you!!! What a wonderful family history. It is all such a tragic reminder of the cruelty of man met with some kindness.
We have our early American stories of the Indians who helped the Pilgrims survive a brutal winter.....but all too soon as more of us came into this new country, we pushed the tribal people away. Many of these peoples did not consider owning the lands but moved from place to place for hunting. some planted crops, all had some form of worship which had to do with their deep knowledge of nature.
In our greed and selfishness we have missed out on so much. We have missed out on relationship.....and yet those whom we have treated with cruelty have contributed to the existence of this nation. and continue to contribute. One of the Indian languages was used to create a secret code during WW2 which contributed to our victory. ...and poets and leaders in our current government.
My great grandfather, Fannie's brother, taught agriculture at the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas. My grandfather, whose middle name was Valentine which he never liked and just used the initial, and his two brothers were the only white boys at this Indian School. Dr. McGillycuddy was born on Valentine's Day in 1849.
Because "Justice" Alito says a right must be "rooted in history" I looked at the correspondence between Abigail Adams and her husband John. Remember the Ladies. Many of us are familiar with Abigail Adams's quote "remember the ladies". Looking at the this in the context of the letter, Abigail was ready to foment a rebellion.
On March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams wrote a letter to her husband, founding father John Adams
“I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
In response, John Adams wrote back to her:
“As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bands of government everywhere .. Depend upon it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems. … “
Today we have a majority of Supreme Court Justices who are basing their decisions that only rights “rooted in history” are valid. They are saying only the white patriarchal male perspective of the founding fathers is valid.
They choose to ignore the 9th Amendment that Despite the majority of American citizens saying Roe v. Wade, an almost fifty year old precedent, should not be overturned, the Supreme Court ruled:
“We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives."
However, in the state of Texas, a super majority of male Senators and Representatives, have exercised their power and ignored the will of the majority of the citizens and the explicit Constitutional tenant of religious freedom by codifying a single religion’s doctrine.
The League of Women Voters statement on this is:
“Today’s ruling, which fails to even say the word "women," sends a terrifying message. When women and other childbearing people can no longer control their own bodies, they are no longer equal in our democracy.
Further, this decision threatens the status of other constitutional rights, such as those protecting marriage equality, intimate conduct, and the right to contraception.
The League continues to stand in our power with our reproductive rights partners and all persons who fear the dangerous consequences of this decision.” - Dr. Deborah Turner, LWV US Board President
Please note that it isn’t just women’s reproductive that are under attack here. We are already seeing bounty hunters given carte blanche to sue citizens, personal privacy rights are being threatened, and the signaling that more rights are on the chopping block by the Robert’s Court.
So, I call on all women and every citizen to help get out the vote so our combined voices are heard at the ballot box. When our elected officials are truly representative of the entire population and listening to their voices, our democratic republic will be strengthened. Let's stand on the shoulders of Abigail Adams and continue the fight for the rights of all.
“We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” – Thomas Jefferson
Seems we are in another time when women need to foment a rebellion. I'm in! We, the People, all of us this time.
Excellent quotes which are definitely geared towards the absolute travesty of our present day! Women must become rebels in this revolt. That’s what it is, you know. It’s WAR!
Brava! Thank you for the Adams’s letters. As we women fought for the vote, we must now use it to turn America so blue that it can stay there long enough to get us to a place of “Justice for all.” (Perhaps, like the Whig Party from which they came, Republicans can find another Abraham Lincoln. Until then, let them remain out of power.)
Cathy, thanks for Abigail's full quote, much more powerful than 'remember the ladies'. And John's response is so telling. This court's decision surely calls on women of all political parties to react loudly to the the loss of their rights, along with every citizen who recognizes the implications for additional rights to be seized. All Americans should be 'All in' to rescue our freedoms from those who have not evolved past John Adams' primitive view of society.
Cathy, you’ve had many “moments” I am sure. I believe you to be one of the leaders in the current efforts to be waged in this time in our country’s history. There are many people, who for the very first time, will not be just watching. This battle has pulled them off their perch. I believe your voice will be a voice that many will turn their ear to.
Thank you for your kind words, Christine. This has certainly made me angry enough to channel it into some significant action to take us forward. I will not go back and we owe it to the next generations to go forward!
This quote certainly does not make John Adams look good. But then again, every single white male in America must’ve been a sexist and a chauvinist back then.
We are in a better time only because sexism in America has likely gone past the tipping point, the turning point. But that makes the sexists work even harder, witness Leonard Leo’s project that has turned into our Supreme Court. More like “Supremacist Court.”
The conservatives on the Supreme Court are all sexist and chauvinist. Does that surprise anyone? It takes work to clean up your act and develop clean values. The default for most humans is just the lazy collapse back into Stone Age cultural DNA: Women are property and furniture and can be abused like pets, and Europeans can abuse everybody else who isn’t. Humans are pathetic. Humans are degenerate. Humans are programmed for slavery, being economic slaves themselves and subjecting everyone who isn’t male and white to slavery. It is difficult to have respect for the human race.
But the values of the US Constitution were ahead of their times (Age of the Enlightenment: Diderot, my favorite 18th century writer, Voltaire, Paine). Never forget that the Catholic Church only “awarded” souls to women in the twelfth century (probably Kavanaugh would like to go there), and we humans are very aspirational when not driven by fear.
Thomas as well. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that women only had legal rights contractually, and they only had the right to vote, beginning (depending on the country) at some point in the 1900s. In my lifetime, African Americans were still segregated and lynched. In my lifetime, the human race is still adjusting to women (and many other groups) having full human rights. It’s pathetic. It’s ridiculous. This society is so incredibly backwards. We are living in the Stone Age of civilization. I must not be of this world, because treating women like the Republicans and SC Roman Catholics do is so completely foreign to me. I could never imagine, Virginia, treating you any less or any differently than every other person. It’s just ill. It’s a mental illness.
Roland, obviously you are a man comfortable with women, a condition rarer than I would once have thought possible. The five SCOTUS judges are also as racist as misogynistic, I fear. If they were unaware how this decision would fall on the poorest and least able to defend themselves, they are too stupid to be judges.
I am writing a sci-fi story, futuristic. I can only imagine sexism and racism and genderism as diseases, and sexists + racists getting treated and getting therapy.
I believe the human race can mature and become what many of us aspire to. Even as second class citizens, women have more freedom than they did in 1776. I think the time is NOW. One thing I admire about the Lakota is that wealth is measured in generosity where the entire tribe thrives.
Awww, darn it all, I'm sure I wrote close to a Tuscan novella-length comment, but, ahhh, alas (probably only a pity for me I would guess) the ubiquitous "it" crashed on me... but for a change I'm taking that as the universe telling me I write wayyyyy too much, ahaha, so I shall be light on my critiquing and less gushing in my praise (if I can!!).
Thank you so much for recognizing this day that is a grim anniversary for my people, not any cause for celebration, for it was just one more unrelenting step toward losing our ability to live on the land. We have a belief that we don't need to heal Grandmother Earth, we just need to stay out of Her way to let Her heal Herself, and after She heals Herself She will heal The People. Allll the people because mitákuye oyás'iŋ, we are *all* related.
My people went from having, by area, the biggest non-European land empire the entire Western hemisphere has ever seen, to our rezes having the highest levels of poverty in said hemisphere rivalled only by Haiti. The poem by Shelley Ozymandias comes to my mind, oh boy does it ever...
Thank you in particular for mentioning what we use in reference to the battle, the Greasy Grass; it may seem a small thing Ms. Cox Richardson, but when anything is a big deal then small gestures become magnified into truly touching, well, touches, very easily. This was a small thing that meant a lot to me at least.
And now the fan-girl stuff yay!: I love your column, like, adore it, on my worst days it gives me a reason to get up in the morning for real, and this is a rarity (my husband will attest to this) that there has simply never been a word of yours I've read that I do not fully 100% agree with (he wishes he were so lucky, haha). I don't know how much of this may be repeating myself as I don't understand the pipes and widgets and so forth that make up the Internet, and specifically regarding if any of my former message survived, so at the risk of repetition, I just think you're the bee's knees, and this column has ensured that I will walk tall today my sister, and I thank you for that, because that is all you Heather. It means the very world.
Ahhhh, and here I missed my silly segue which was a big part of the point. The brother of Chief Black Bull was the one who dispatched Custer as he was hiding in a ravine (all oral history, but that pen was never put to paper shouldn't be held against a good story, right?)
Custer didn't have his regular "prize" horse with him, but his back-up one was and through a series of presents and dowries and such made its way to the strong Lakota encampment that lasted for 30 years after the Battle of Greasy Grass at the bend in the river at Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, though that city has all but ignored it's Lakota heritage... even the old Lakota burial grounds have a Cree name now as a park people walk and play over sadly. To the victors go the spoils and all that.
But back to Custer's horse. Eventually it was part of dowry for a Lakota woman in Moose Jaw, and it spent its last days delivering milk up and down the avenues of that once bustling Prairie town. This is my first comment so I have no idea if Heather ever reads these, but if she does I just thought this may be one of those silly pieces of historical flotsam and jetsam that I know I delight in coming across. And, yes. when I was a little girl I met this woman who was the final owner of Custer's back-up ride. I thought it was pretty cool!
Besides the content of your writing, Kimimela, I very much enjoy your writing style. It's like talking to a good friend. I'm looking forward to seeing your name and your perspective in future threads. Thank you for expanding on HCR's storyline. All the best to you with your future plans; your life experiences are what gives depth and meaning to what you share with us and your community. 💞
Welcome Kimimela Wiyakasapa-Reihl. This day has been enriched by your presence among us and the reading of Heather Cox Richardson's Letter about the Battle of the Little Bighorn. You have added importantly to our learning. May you continue to teach us and be our friend. We learn from one another. That you have spoken to us on anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 is the beauty of people coming together.
Thank you for the history! That’s how every child can become closer to history - tales of horses, other children, dogs, which they can relate to. Think of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Why did they live? Stories like these. And that is why we can teach our WHOLE History and be the better for it. It’s human, so humane.
Hello Kimimela, what a pleasure having you here. Your words are like honey, so soothing and mellifluous. As for being overly wordy, you would fit beautifully into our family: my wife and I can easily talk as much as the birds do. Delighted to hear your voice.
Kimimela Wiyakasapa-Reihl - "The brother of Chief Black Bull was the one who dispatched Custer as he was hiding in a ravine (all oral history, but that pen was never put to paper shouldn't be held against a good story, right?)"
Aww, thank you! This was my very first post, and it was very intimidating for me because I knew very well-educated people would be reading my words, but my spouse encouraged me (I dropped out of school in eighth grade, though I wouldn't be surprised if I somewhat got the equivalent of several bachelors' degrees almost by happenstance just reading in libraries to keep from freezing in the winters depending where I was living.... and I am very insecure about what I may or may not have to contribute to, well, life!! So thank you Lynell of VA bwo MD & DC! You have made me feel most welcome, my cheeks are all burny red hot in that wonderful way that I feel not ashamed but blushed with that particular sort of happiness!
Thank you Frederick, I'm beginning to learn that myself. I was on the street since 14 but this last year has been amazing, I'm back on track to having a more normal life. Thank you for showing me such sweet respect, and I'm going to get my GED and have found an accredited university that I can do the first two years by correspondence (yay!!!). But I totally agree, some of the wisest as well as most well-read folks, well, you find them where you'd least expect them!
Thank you for being so very welcome Frederick, I've been a free-rider with Heather's column for about 10 months and she's just so good that I felt guilty not paying for the quality she was giving to me, I actually lost sleep over it for real! I will take you up on you kind offer and will keep coming back Frederick! What a nice and welcoming community! That's why I not-so-subtly dropped my former homeless status, I wanted to know right off the bat because some people, well, you'd be surprised at how rude strangers can be to someone who has committed the grand crime of being homeless *gasp!!!*, and how sometimes they'll drive one away almost because they don't want to face the reality of how common it is. But that's sad stuff, and today is a happy day because I deem it so!
Keep at it, Kimimela. You are a gift to us as is Heather. Inspiration of one historian to a new one. Keep telling your stories and do think about a book telling the story of the horse. This child (I’m 88) still recognizes a good horse story to tell history, when she sees it.
“Today is a happy day because I deem it so”. I love that. And I also love the idea of you writing a children’s book (or several) to pass on your oral history to our children & grandchildren. The victors write history. It’s about time we heard from the other side. Thank you and keep writing
Homeless schmomeless. You are who you are. You have the experiences you have. We all have challenges in life, they make us who we are. As you can see, your life experience is being appreciated, not judged.
Education should lead to wisdom. Kimimela’s education is what we are benefiting from here. Her education is rare, she is sharing it, we are privileged to be recipients. She might think of a children’s book about the horse, which would also tell the whole story for children.
Being an autodidact is nothing to be ashamed of, and fancy degrees from famous universities are no proof of anything. The proof is always in the pudding. Loved your comments.
Yikes, Kimimela, you've just blown me away...again! My husband got his GED in his thirties. He was smart even before the piece of paper. Education doesn't just come out of a classroom. I like your profile...We Are All Related. As Frederick says, keep coming back. We need your voice in this community, for sure.
Thank you for this post, Kimimela. Welcome aboard! Not all of us are educated (formally); many of us are simply students of the times. (I do understand; I feel woefully ignorant sometimes...)
Thank you for sharing this. It is so important to hear this The soldiers saw the native people as animals, taking body parts as trophies. What is wrong with white men? Not all of them, of course.
We need more of this truth in our country so we can face our true heritage -- one characterized by greed, hatred, superiority, violence, and disregard for life. How else will we ever change? We can't learn from our mistakes if we don't know what they are/were. And we need to make reparations with Native Americans. Not just words of apology, though that would be a good start.
DeSantis is an extremely dangerous man, is only 43 years old, and is clearly gearing up for a presidential run. He attended Yale and Harvard (I guess we can hold both of those against him) and as someone said on NPR the other day he speaks in full sentences which puts him "intellectually" ahead of trump. That anyone would follow, let alone vote for such depraved people indicates Flint, MI was and is far from being the only place with lead in the drinking water!
Yes. The "Great Mandator" frees us by mandating! He is fairly well blinded by his political ambition now so he does not see his own contradiction. He is exponentially more dangerous than tfg.
We are all humans, good or bad (usually a bit of both). But SCOTUS has shown itself an evil power in our democracy. If Roman Catholicism is the guiding factor behind this decision, then all five judges can be impeached for not upholding their vows to uphold the Constitution which is explicit about the separation of church and state.
We must vote for Democrats who can outvote Mitch McConnell who made certain we got this court, and see to it that all members of Congress who are part of the 1/6 plot are also impeached abd/or imprisoned.
Custer died for our sins, but the United States government has always been the real “indian giver”. The Puritans were invaders. It wasn’t like no one lived there like my textbooks implied. We all live on stolen land.
The corn, the turkey, the lies. It’s the history of explorers and exploration on every continent. Mostly white men, but maybe just mostly men. The power structure from exploration to stealing and settling the land to establishing governments. Unfortunately mostly males have made the laws. Just as today, lopsided courts of men and decrees that established constitutions, laws and rules in courts and “compromises.” Might makes right. Today it’s the courts and the guns. And the suits. One thing might change the future. The Vote. Men and Women and new laws. We can begin to create a new history.
Haha. Well I think you started something now. Yes. The vote. Also would argue that our wallets are a weapon. If lobbyists dictate policy, let's give our dollars to the lobbyists (or the companies they represent) with whom our values align. In other words, starve the opponent of cash and weaken them. Money is their fuel.
And we could all do well to leave the turkey out of it now. Enough is enough. It wasn't meant for hundreds of millions. It was sacred. Now it's just horrifically cruel factory farming for these beautiful birds. The Native American people would never ever ever have supported this abominable treatment of brother and sister Turkey. Corn for me please.
Yes. The New World was stolen from its rightful owners, who are much closer to the land and to Mother Nature than the builders and developers who rape her. The construction footprint of America is hideous.
Look for and read, or better still, listen to an Audio-book by Sarah Vowel, which she reads wonderfully: “The Wordy Shipmates” first source history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony founders.
I have read all of Sarah Vowels books. She is a treasure. That is why I prefer Puritan to Pilgrim. My husband is a descendant of those religious nutters.
"The Indians must fight".....It's funny, this is the quote I posted today for my friends, before reading this. Kind of a different way of saying the same thing.
MAYA ANGELOU: "..... I would say you might encounter many defeats but you must never be defeated, ever. In fact it might even be necessary to confront defeat. It might be necessary, to get over it, all the way through it, and go on. ...."
Thank you for this post, Jennifer, and your specifically relevant quote. I think this passage is worthy of highlighting as well:
BILL MOYERS: What did whites look like to an eight-year — old black?
MAYA ANGELOU: (Laughs) I didn’t see them. I mean I didn’t think that they were people. I thought whites were like ghosts, that if you put your hand on one, your finger would go all the way through (Laughs) I didn’t…
BILL MOYERS: You know what?
MAYA ANGELOU: What?
BILL MOYERS: That’s what we felt like. (Laughter from Angelou)
MAYA ANGELOU: I thought, you know, the real people were black people and the others were white folks. And they weren’t — you didn’t have — they didn’t have kidneys and hearts, and things like that. They didn’t cry. We knew that, you know, because black people — I used to see black people weep. So I knew they didn’t cry, because people cried, and white folks just stayed white and floated around, like that. (Laughs.)
My entire life, every time I’ve heard of this story, I’ve sided with the opponents of Custer. How many times have I seen Dances With Wolves. And Thunderheart.
Remarkable story! Thank you Heather Cox Richardson for continuing to shed a light through the maze, and bringing to life history! I appreciate your writing so very much!!
In my lifetime, our understanding of this piece of history has morphed entirely from a perspective of Custer as a martyr of sorts to that of mourning for native Americans whose cultures were experiencing violent extermination at the hands of euro-American immigrants in conquest of land, assets and natural resources over centuries of our history. Somehow, remnants survived to become part of a permanent underclass, corralled and sustained in a subservient dependent relationship with the US Government. Those who emerge to integrate fully into modern society are viewed as extraordinary, modern survivors of an impoverished origin. Pre-European America was a continent sparsely populated by peoples as diverse or more than our current population. Incalculable losses occurred as cultures, languages, native knowledge of our land and how to live with it and on it were exterminated. Genocide on a scale previously unheard of and largely unacknowledged was utilized to make conquest of the continent. Concurrently, it also occurred in many other places; Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central and South America, many places where indigenous peoples were considered little different than native animals, to be replaced by domestic livestock. Its hard to think about this dispassionately, rather like an epic and endless tragedy. It's equally hard to avoid carrying guilt and blame, although none of us were alive to influence the events of that era. Reparations, a topic that most Americans would rather not address, is difficult and rarely results in the kind of cultural restoration one would hope for. However, its useful to remember that even today, the Federal Government is the largest landholder in our country and restoring native lands, in part, to native peoples does not always require "taking" it from current owner/occupants. As generations pass and further integration occurs, it becomes more and more difficult to understand to whom and from whom these reparations should be awarded. It's a form of cultural work that is very difficult, but it's part of the fabric of our nation, a public expression of values directly contrary to those exhibited in today's political environment where power and privilege are increasingly controlled by a chosen few. While none of us individually may be personally accountable for that history, as a nation we are collectively accountable and there ARE things we can do to deliver justice, even if it is delayed by a century or more from the date of crimes against humanity.
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!
As the old saying goes, "Custer had it coming."
I remember in 7th grade Colorado History, we learned about "the Battle of Sand Creek," fought by many of the "Founding Fathers" of Colorado. I said to the teacher that reading it, it sounded like a massacre. For which I promptly went and spent the rest of the day "polishing the bench" outside the Vice Principal's office, one of many days spent in my battle to keep my perfect record of every report card saying "does not respond to properly constituted authority" I spent 12 years suffering through. A few years back, my oldest friend in the world, who stayed back there and became a teacher, told me it's now in Official Colorado History as the Sand Creek Massacre, and the genocidaires (like my great grandfather the Indian murderer and buffalo killer) are no longer considered "Founding Fathers."
In the California public school system of the 1960s, the Spanish conquistadors were presented as heroes. Now, we see them as treacherous liars and, in some cases, genocidal maniacs.
Roland (CA->WA)
Correcto-mundo!
In your same era I too remember in Venice High School those "Politically Palatable Proscriptions" adulterating the real historical truth.
In those days I must admit my attention was mostly on:
(1). The day's weather report about the possibility of Off-Shore-Wind-Direction and surf size
(2). Caravanning to the day's biggest consistent surf break
(3). Teaming up for two man beach volley-ball
(4). Mid-day napping on the warm sand using it as my "pillow"
Then, a few years latter, the world all of a sudden became rather complicated especially the lottery-draft paranoia solution...doobies! Far-out-man!
Imperial system invaders, same as Russia attacking Ukraine. Invade to enslave and exploit for a King to profit at the native peoples tragic expense.
It's the way the world was run back then. How long have we have Peace studies in our schools/ colleges? Not long. But long enough that I recognize the dinosaurs still still roaming the land -- Putin, Trump, Ortega, Lukashenko, Orban, etc.
That is a really good analogy. Like the dinosaur…
Yes, but a dinosaur will still tear your head off....
Yes, Custer did have it coming. He was a vainglorious nitwit. His incompetence resulted in the deaths of others who were obeying his orders. The US military, in the efforts to subdue the western areas had no problem killing women and children, whom whites considered “savages.” Those battles began the moment white Europeans set foot on this continent. Those Indigenous peoples were defending their home territory from invaders, exactly what anyone would if they came under attack.
I have often wondered who the true “savages” were.
Custer ran out of water for his horses and his men. He was forced to defend out in the open. Exhausted Horses became useless. Men suffered heat strokes as they struggled to defend themselves in open ground against greater numbers but not better armed force of Lakota’s.
Today, I’m thinking how we the people can be like the Lakota’s that day and for the next. The truth is the Lakota’s saw an opportunity and they did not hesitate to take advantage of it. They organized and attacked with relentless passion. We have to be that kind of ready for November. Getting more people to vote is the solution to the SCOTUS assault on our freedom and democracy today.
Great analogy Ted. We need some "trick plays" to support us until November. I wish that recent SCOTUS decisions (and a big one to come on the EPA) will galvanize the portion of our electorate that otherwise stays home. That is the key. But I know that there is a deep frustration in the ranks, and they want something done. Otherwise, too many will lose hope and stay home in November. But I have to say - the Republicans have us by the short ones. First - SCOTUS - it is as if Trump is still president. Ginsburg dying, and the Garland appointment being illegally held back by McConnell, are giant developments that allowed Trump to hand pick justices when the House and Senate were in Republican hands. That is not going to change for quite a while. Bad luck. But it's more than that. Republican mantra is to resist change or go backwards. With the filibuster and a sprinkling of gerrymandering, they can subvert the majority who are looking for progress. As if they are the majority. See? Young voters for the most part do not realize this. What they must realize is that in 2020, with their help, we got the ball back. We didn't score a touchdown - we just got the ball back. Now we are up against a stiff defense, and our quarterback just got sacked behind the line (Roe overturn). Second and long. The EPA is fixing to get scalped here soon - that's another sack. We need some kind of trick (executive actions?) that will get us a couple of first downs. Give people some hope. Then in November, we score the touchdown on a long pass (a blue wave of voters). What we have to have ultimately is 60 Senators, and hold our gains in the House, since we will get zero Republican support. A big ask. But without those first downs, I don't think we are going to get there.
One scholar said “kindness”. That is it.
Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery
by Mark Charles, Soong-Chan Rah
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46033992-unsettling-truths
This book is about the Doctrine of Discovery and both how it's been used and how it gave permission for white supremacy to commit genocide, seen in the almost complete extermination and defrauding of America's indigenous peoples.
*******
The truth behind 'We the People' - the three most misunderstood words in US history
https://www.ted.com/talks/mark_charles_the_truth_behind_we_the_people_the_three_most_misunderstood_words_in_us_history
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HOktqY5wY4A
The son of an American woman of Dutch heritage and a Navajo man, Mark Charles offers a unique perspective on three of the most misinterpreted words in American History. Written in the Papal Bulls of the 15th Century, embedded in our founding documents in the 18th Century, codified as legal precedent in the 19th Century and referenced by the Supreme Court in the 20th and 21st Centuries, the Doctrine of Discovery has been used throughout the history of the United States to keep "We the People" from including all the people.
Unfortunately, if you, I, or any of the rest of us were to look in the bathroom mirror, it's likely we would be staring at the descendant of one of the "true savages." I know I am. My great-great grandfather Weist went from being the youngest drummer boy in Sherman's Army on the March to the Sea (he ran away from home at 14 to join up) to being a "professional hunter" for the railroads (they used to bring a train near a buffalo herd and then shoot them till all were dead, and leave them to rot on the prairie as a way of exterminating native Americans by cutting off their food source) and "Indian fighter," (genocidaire). I have a photo of him at age 28 in 1877, and even with 19th century photography you can see the spider veins in his nose and he looks like someone you would cross the street to avoid. He's also, as I have figured out, the main source of the four generations of untreated PTSD that flowed through the generations and poisoned my family with his dysfunction. (I have another photo of him in the midst of his 11 grown children in the 1890s - they're all giving him sidelong glances like what one does when they know there's a hand grenade with the pin pulled there)
Can’t do better ‘til you know better. That’s why knowing our family history and true history of events of this country are so important. When you’ve lived a lie given to you there is one path and one only..the lie. When you know the truth, then you have a choice of a couple paths. The lie might work for you or perhaps it’s another way that is chosen. It’s something I believe about writers. There’s something in them that just has to “KNOW”.
Salud, TC.
When given a choice, most will choose comfort over challenge. This is why kindness works so well to break the cycle of trauma and the challenge that comes with it. Those with social support built with kindness are better equipped to accept the challenge of learning the past, accepting the pain that comes with uncomfortable truths.
The true savages:
• The U.S. Cavalry
• The Spanish conquistadores
• The settlers who butchered Native Americans
• The whites who invented scalping as a means of proving a murder so they could collect U.S. bounties on dead Natives
• The whites who invented and established those bounties
• the culture of European invaders that condoned lynching of Natives, “Chinese” (= Asian immigrants), and kidnapped Africans
The scalpers didn't invent it - the British did. Scalping goes back to the Royal Governor of Massachusetts in King Phillip's War in the 1680s when the Good Pilgrim Fathers finished the job of exterminating the local native Americans they began the afternoon after dinner of the "first Thanksgiving." And yes, it was for "proof" to get the bounty for killing one.
Is any human tribe without some sort of historical evil brutality? “Evil is banal” Hannah Arendt
If you're going to change it, you first have to admit it's there, and too much of America thinks all we did is just fine, the way John Wayne went on bout "the Indians selfishly wanting to keep all this land," or my own father saying they "just let everything be" while we "made better use of it," which I always disagreed with.
No need to wonder. It seems quite clear.
TCinLA - "As the old saying goes, 'Custer had it coming.'"
All the lies that were spoken
All the blood we have spilled
All the treaties that were broken
All the leaders you have still
Custer died for your sins!
Custer died for your sins!
Oh, a new day must begin
Custer died for your sins
All the tribes you terminated
Or the myth you keep alive
All the land you compensated
For freedom you deprive
Custer died for your sins!
Custer died for your sins!
oh, a new day must begin!
Custer died... for your sins
Custer died for your sins!
Custer died for your sins!
Oh, a new day must begin
Custer died... for your sins.
For the truth that you pollute
For the life that you have tossed
for the good you prostitute
And for all that we have lost
Custer died for your sins!
Custer died for your sins!
oh, a new day must begin
Custer died... for your sins.
Custer died for your sins!
Custer died for your sins!
Oh, a new day must begin
Custer died.. for your sins.
Custer diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiied!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY_a-HjdiOE
I've long had the Floyd Red Crow Westerman CD on which he sings this. Wrenching.
How many long long years did it take for them to admit the truth? Funny about that - the same enlightenment has taken place in far too many instances - exactly what "exceptional" white men have done for hundreds of years - because they have made this country "great"! Right? Boy, have we all been snowed (a polite way of putting it) from kindergarden on. Frankly, TC your perfect record & the bench polishing are both very impressive. Wish I could say I had been that enlightened that early.
TC must’ve had some special insight as a youngster. I was too young and naïve to have any clue how the public school system was bullshitting and indoctrinating us. My German immigrant parents taught me exactly nothing, except integrity, but nothing about history and the world. It took Howard Zinn to even begin waking me up, and I’m still learning.
me, too.
Good work.
TC, you are full of a never-ending cache of stories from your own life that are parables for political enlightenment. It's like you've been issued an assignment, and the ammunition to enforce it. What good fortune that you have the skills, and the determination, to make it so interesting to your audience.
Thank you. I used to think it was a curse.
Growing awareness is leadership. Early on in discovering the truth, the few that tell it, suffer for it. As fast as things go bad, good takes so much more time and effort… and pain.
🐴
Thank you, Heather, My great grandfather's sister, Fannie Hoyt McGillycuddy was married to Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy, MD. Dr. McG was one of the first white men to explore the Black Hills with the Army. He was at Fort Robinson when Crazy Horse came there after surrendering to General Crook. Dr. McG treated Crazy Horse's wife Black Shawl for tuberculosis and by the account of his second wife Julia in the biography she wrote "McGillycuddy, Field Agent" became friends with Crazy Horse. When Crazy Horse was mortally wounded by a soldier driving a bayonet into his back, Dr. McG was the attending physician. When Crazy Horse died Dr. McG made sure the family received the remains who buried him at some unknown location in the Black Hills. Later Dr. McG was appointed the Field Agent at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Fannie was there with him, the only white woman in two hundred miles. With this family connection to the Oglala Lakota, I am a donor to the Lakota Law Project working to protect Lakota rights. https://lakotalaw.org/ A federal judge in south Dakota has ruled in favor of the Lakota on violations by South Dakota of the National Voting Rights Act. The US Supreme Court will hear arguments on South Dakota violations of the Indian Child Welfare Act in the fall. South Dakota has been removing Lakota children from their homes and placing them with white families when Indian relatives are available. This travesty is literally taking the next generation away from their Lakota heritage. I hope they fair better with the egregious Supreme Court than this week's removal of the rights of women.
Wow. Amazing story and information. It's appalling. Thank you for sharing. I had the honor of being invited as a dancer's sponsor to a Sundance ceremony in 93 on Pine Ridge. For some reason that memory has been very active in recent days. This whole thread feels like confirmation of some larger force at work here. What a beautiful people, the Lakota Sioux. They deserve all respect and honor. As do all indigenous people on Earth.
I haven't been to Pine Ridge yet but want to go. I love much of the Lakota philosophy. Like wealth is measured by how generous a person is.
Go. It's incredible. I love much of the Native philosophy in general. I felt like I had found my people at long last. It's perfectly understandable to me why that sentiment was not reciprocated, but wow did I want to stay, for good. This world of white man's rules is wearing me down. Go...😉
I hope nothing of this "Supreme Court".
I'm with you on that. As far as I am concerned they are showing Bad Behavior and the five of them should be impeached. I feel no need to support any ruling they make. Since the word "woman" isn't mentioned in their ruling or in the Constitution I feel I can ignore their rulings which can't apply to me, a woman.
Women and the men that love them Can Beat This!! Speak out everywhere and tell folks young and old that today is the being of a fascist court that will love the taste of power they a wielding upon us. We must stand against them. They are leaders of the army that has the killing machines. Many of us do not own guns and the majority do not want these weapons of war on our streets. But there rights “Trump” the value of our lives (young and old) and our freedom of choice. This is a sad and frightening time. I hope with all of my heart that “America” is not over.
I'm with you. I do think we can still save America but it won't be easy. Yes, together we can beat this. This is a one issue election - do we have a democratic republic or not? We must all get people to the polls!
Cathy, I believe you have hit the nail on the head here: one issue, democracy or autocracy. Rule of the people or rule over the people.
And you also, Richard, have hit the Nail on the Head!!!
And we also can learn much from Indigenous Beliefs and Principles!!!💗
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Love it!!!!!!!!
If we can give Biden a majority in the house and senate he will have legislative authorities to help us. Starting with increasing the numbers of the court. Just another good reason to VOTE!
Absolutely agree! We need to get everyone to vote. There are four blocks of voters - Republicans (I'm holding ALL of them accountable and have vowed not to vote for any of them), Democrats, Independents (about 40% of voters so key to having a majority) and those who have never or seldom vote (need to get them motivated to vote!) Leave no stone unturned!
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Here in Australia, the INDEPENDENT parties have just broken the stranglehold of our Right-leaning LNP who had cheated their way into power for ten years, and given a majority to the left-leaning Labor party. (I hesitate to name the parties because they don't correspond with similarly-named parties in America).
Yes yes and more yes!!
Exactly. 100%
Wow, Cathy! What a family legacy you have and such important work with the Lakota Law Project.
It is a great organization that I'm proud to support.
"Aƞpétu wašté from the Cheyenne River Nation. As you know, the welfare of our children has been a longstanding issue for Native communities. Centuries of colonization means we’re always in the crosshairs. As I discuss with my granddaughter in this video, our people are marginalized — especially our young parents and grandparents — by the State of South Dakota and the Department of Social Services, and our children are taken from us at an alarming rate."
"Watch our video to learn more about our work for the children."
For the Children of Cheyenne River
https://lakotalaw.org/resources/madonna-cheyenne-river-children
"We have worked to solve this problem for decades, and we have specifically confronted issues surrounding the Indian Child Welfare Act. If the Supreme Court overturns the Indian Child Welfare Act, Native families, mineral rights, and self-determination could quickly become collateral damage."
Wopila tanka — thank you for supporting our children!
Madonna Thunder Hawk
Cheyenne River Organizer
The Lakota People’s Law Project
https://action.lakotalaw.org
Lakota People's Law Project
547 South 7th Street #149
Bismarck, ND 58504-5859
The Lakota People's Law Project is part of the Romero Institute, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) law and policy center. All donations are tax-deductible.
Cathy, an amazing story! Bravo for you to keep the Lakotas in your heart. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
In a huge win for voting rights and Native justice, on May 26, a federal judge in South Dakota ruled in Lakota Law's favor that the state has repeatedly violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
https://www.narf.org/nill/documents/20220526-order-msj-sd-nvra.pdf
This judgment is a giant step forward in the battle to make sure Native voices are properly heard at the ballot box — especially in a state where we make up a whopping nine percent of the total population!
Lakota Law joined the suit last year as a plaintiff alongside our friend, Standing Rock Sioux tribal member Hoksila White Mountain. Together with the Oglala and Rosebud Sioux Tribes and Rosebud Sioux tribal member Kimberly Dillon, we sued South Dakota Secretary of State Steve Barnett and a trio of agency heads after an investigation uncovered the state’s pattern of noncompliance with the NVRA. Of course, this lack of compliance has had an outsized effect on Indigenous communities.
The court agreed with our group’s contention that, too often, potential South Dakota voters — especially Natives — encountered systemic problems when trying to register to vote at state-run public assistance offices and the Department of Transportation. The state has effectively disenfranchised us by failing to adequately provide legally required training, forms, and services.
We thank our partners from the Native American Rights Fund and Demos for their dedication and excellence in litigating this case. It exemplifies just how much we can accomplish when we work together to create positive change, and it will set a precedent that other tribal governments, Indigenous voters, and voters of color can use to defend the guarantees of the National Voter Registration Act long into the future.
Wopila tanka — thank you for supporting our mission for justice!
DeCora Hawk
Field Organizer
Lakota People’s Law Project
https://action.lakotalaw.org
Lakota People's Law Project
547 South 7th Street #149
Bismarck, ND 58504-5859
The Lakota People's Law Project is part of the Romero Institute, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) law and policy center. All donations are tax-deductible.
Thank you for adding all the details on what is happening with the rights of the Lakota.
Indeed - thanks to DeCora Hawk of Lakota Law for spreading the word!!
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A beautiful history, Cathy. And I am smitten with the name "Valentine McGillycuddy." Just as I was with the name Crazy Horse when I discovered it in a library book when I was eight. There weren't many books (any?) then that told the real or full story of the Lakota, but I kept searching over the years. I recommend "Crazy Horse, the Lakota Warrior's Life and Legacy," written by his descendants, as told to William Matson, and "The Journey of Crazy Horse," by Joseph Marshall III, who was born on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation and holds a PhD from the reservation university he helped establish.
My grandfather's middle name was Valentine and he hated it. Always only used the initial V. Nevertheless it was an honor for him to carry the name. Dr. McGillycuddy was born on Valentine's Day February 14, 1849. My great grandfather taught agriculture at the Haskill Institute in Lawrence, Kansas. My grandfather and his two brothers were the only white children at this Indian school.
Fascinating
Cathy thank you!!! What a wonderful family history. It is all such a tragic reminder of the cruelty of man met with some kindness.
We have our early American stories of the Indians who helped the Pilgrims survive a brutal winter.....but all too soon as more of us came into this new country, we pushed the tribal people away. Many of these peoples did not consider owning the lands but moved from place to place for hunting. some planted crops, all had some form of worship which had to do with their deep knowledge of nature.
In our greed and selfishness we have missed out on so much. We have missed out on relationship.....and yet those whom we have treated with cruelty have contributed to the existence of this nation. and continue to contribute. One of the Indian languages was used to create a secret code during WW2 which contributed to our victory. ...and poets and leaders in our current government.
You are a fascinating person and writer, Cathy.
Salud!
Thank you. Christine. Salud!
Thank you for giving us a connection to the truth through your family's story!
I hope that Dr. Richardson might write about this case before the Supreme Court rules on it.
Before they get their hands on it. Urgent.
Cathy what an amazing family history. I am deeply impressed.
My great grandfather, Fannie's brother, taught agriculture at the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas. My grandfather, whose middle name was Valentine which he never liked and just used the initial, and his two brothers were the only white boys at this Indian School. Dr. McGillycuddy was born on Valentine's Day in 1849.
Because "Justice" Alito says a right must be "rooted in history" I looked at the correspondence between Abigail Adams and her husband John. Remember the Ladies. Many of us are familiar with Abigail Adams's quote "remember the ladies". Looking at the this in the context of the letter, Abigail was ready to foment a rebellion.
On March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams wrote a letter to her husband, founding father John Adams
“I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
In response, John Adams wrote back to her:
“As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bands of government everywhere .. Depend upon it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems. … “
Today we have a majority of Supreme Court Justices who are basing their decisions that only rights “rooted in history” are valid. They are saying only the white patriarchal male perspective of the founding fathers is valid.
They choose to ignore the 9th Amendment that Despite the majority of American citizens saying Roe v. Wade, an almost fifty year old precedent, should not be overturned, the Supreme Court ruled:
“We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives."
However, in the state of Texas, a super majority of male Senators and Representatives, have exercised their power and ignored the will of the majority of the citizens and the explicit Constitutional tenant of religious freedom by codifying a single religion’s doctrine.
The League of Women Voters statement on this is:
“Today’s ruling, which fails to even say the word "women," sends a terrifying message. When women and other childbearing people can no longer control their own bodies, they are no longer equal in our democracy.
Further, this decision threatens the status of other constitutional rights, such as those protecting marriage equality, intimate conduct, and the right to contraception.
The League continues to stand in our power with our reproductive rights partners and all persons who fear the dangerous consequences of this decision.” - Dr. Deborah Turner, LWV US Board President
Please note that it isn’t just women’s reproductive that are under attack here. We are already seeing bounty hunters given carte blanche to sue citizens, personal privacy rights are being threatened, and the signaling that more rights are on the chopping block by the Robert’s Court.
So, I call on all women and every citizen to help get out the vote so our combined voices are heard at the ballot box. When our elected officials are truly representative of the entire population and listening to their voices, our democratic republic will be strengthened. Let's stand on the shoulders of Abigail Adams and continue the fight for the rights of all.
“We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” – Thomas Jefferson
Seems we are in another time when women need to foment a rebellion. I'm in! We, the People, all of us this time.
Excellent quotes which are definitely geared towards the absolute travesty of our present day! Women must become rebels in this revolt. That’s what it is, you know. It’s WAR!
Brava! Thank you for the Adams’s letters. As we women fought for the vote, we must now use it to turn America so blue that it can stay there long enough to get us to a place of “Justice for all.” (Perhaps, like the Whig Party from which they came, Republicans can find another Abraham Lincoln. Until then, let them remain out of power.)
Cathy, thanks for Abigail's full quote, much more powerful than 'remember the ladies'. And John's response is so telling. This court's decision surely calls on women of all political parties to react loudly to the the loss of their rights, along with every citizen who recognizes the implications for additional rights to be seized. All Americans should be 'All in' to rescue our freedoms from those who have not evolved past John Adams' primitive view of society.
Cathy, you’ve had many “moments” I am sure. I believe you to be one of the leaders in the current efforts to be waged in this time in our country’s history. There are many people, who for the very first time, will not be just watching. This battle has pulled them off their perch. I believe your voice will be a voice that many will turn their ear to.
We Unite! All of us this time!
Unidad! 🗽
Thank you for your kind words, Christine. This has certainly made me angry enough to channel it into some significant action to take us forward. I will not go back and we owe it to the next generations to go forward!
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
This quote certainly does not make John Adams look good. But then again, every single white male in America must’ve been a sexist and a chauvinist back then.
One can't take a person out of the context of their time. Women were property then. I hope we are in a better time but it sure doesn't seem so.
We are in a better time only because sexism in America has likely gone past the tipping point, the turning point. But that makes the sexists work even harder, witness Leonard Leo’s project that has turned into our Supreme Court. More like “Supremacist Court.”
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The conservatives on the Supreme Court are all sexist and chauvinist. Does that surprise anyone? It takes work to clean up your act and develop clean values. The default for most humans is just the lazy collapse back into Stone Age cultural DNA: Women are property and furniture and can be abused like pets, and Europeans can abuse everybody else who isn’t. Humans are pathetic. Humans are degenerate. Humans are programmed for slavery, being economic slaves themselves and subjecting everyone who isn’t male and white to slavery. It is difficult to have respect for the human race.
But the values of the US Constitution were ahead of their times (Age of the Enlightenment: Diderot, my favorite 18th century writer, Voltaire, Paine). Never forget that the Catholic Church only “awarded” souls to women in the twelfth century (probably Kavanaugh would like to go there), and we humans are very aspirational when not driven by fear.
Thomas as well. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that women only had legal rights contractually, and they only had the right to vote, beginning (depending on the country) at some point in the 1900s. In my lifetime, African Americans were still segregated and lynched. In my lifetime, the human race is still adjusting to women (and many other groups) having full human rights. It’s pathetic. It’s ridiculous. This society is so incredibly backwards. We are living in the Stone Age of civilization. I must not be of this world, because treating women like the Republicans and SC Roman Catholics do is so completely foreign to me. I could never imagine, Virginia, treating you any less or any differently than every other person. It’s just ill. It’s a mental illness.
Roland, obviously you are a man comfortable with women, a condition rarer than I would once have thought possible. The five SCOTUS judges are also as racist as misogynistic, I fear. If they were unaware how this decision would fall on the poorest and least able to defend themselves, they are too stupid to be judges.
I am writing a sci-fi story, futuristic. I can only imagine sexism and racism and genderism as diseases, and sexists + racists getting treated and getting therapy.
I believe the human race can mature and become what many of us aspire to. Even as second class citizens, women have more freedom than they did in 1776. I think the time is NOW. One thing I admire about the Lakota is that wealth is measured in generosity where the entire tribe thrives.
Freedom and POWER
BEAUTIFUL
Awww, darn it all, I'm sure I wrote close to a Tuscan novella-length comment, but, ahhh, alas (probably only a pity for me I would guess) the ubiquitous "it" crashed on me... but for a change I'm taking that as the universe telling me I write wayyyyy too much, ahaha, so I shall be light on my critiquing and less gushing in my praise (if I can!!).
Thank you so much for recognizing this day that is a grim anniversary for my people, not any cause for celebration, for it was just one more unrelenting step toward losing our ability to live on the land. We have a belief that we don't need to heal Grandmother Earth, we just need to stay out of Her way to let Her heal Herself, and after She heals Herself She will heal The People. Allll the people because mitákuye oyás'iŋ, we are *all* related.
My people went from having, by area, the biggest non-European land empire the entire Western hemisphere has ever seen, to our rezes having the highest levels of poverty in said hemisphere rivalled only by Haiti. The poem by Shelley Ozymandias comes to my mind, oh boy does it ever...
Thank you in particular for mentioning what we use in reference to the battle, the Greasy Grass; it may seem a small thing Ms. Cox Richardson, but when anything is a big deal then small gestures become magnified into truly touching, well, touches, very easily. This was a small thing that meant a lot to me at least.
And now the fan-girl stuff yay!: I love your column, like, adore it, on my worst days it gives me a reason to get up in the morning for real, and this is a rarity (my husband will attest to this) that there has simply never been a word of yours I've read that I do not fully 100% agree with (he wishes he were so lucky, haha). I don't know how much of this may be repeating myself as I don't understand the pipes and widgets and so forth that make up the Internet, and specifically regarding if any of my former message survived, so at the risk of repetition, I just think you're the bee's knees, and this column has ensured that I will walk tall today my sister, and I thank you for that, because that is all you Heather. It means the very world.
Ahhhh, and here I missed my silly segue which was a big part of the point. The brother of Chief Black Bull was the one who dispatched Custer as he was hiding in a ravine (all oral history, but that pen was never put to paper shouldn't be held against a good story, right?)
Custer didn't have his regular "prize" horse with him, but his back-up one was and through a series of presents and dowries and such made its way to the strong Lakota encampment that lasted for 30 years after the Battle of Greasy Grass at the bend in the river at Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, though that city has all but ignored it's Lakota heritage... even the old Lakota burial grounds have a Cree name now as a park people walk and play over sadly. To the victors go the spoils and all that.
But back to Custer's horse. Eventually it was part of dowry for a Lakota woman in Moose Jaw, and it spent its last days delivering milk up and down the avenues of that once bustling Prairie town. This is my first comment so I have no idea if Heather ever reads these, but if she does I just thought this may be one of those silly pieces of historical flotsam and jetsam that I know I delight in coming across. And, yes. when I was a little girl I met this woman who was the final owner of Custer's back-up ride. I thought it was pretty cool!
Besides the content of your writing, Kimimela, I very much enjoy your writing style. It's like talking to a good friend. I'm looking forward to seeing your name and your perspective in future threads. Thank you for expanding on HCR's storyline. All the best to you with your future plans; your life experiences are what gives depth and meaning to what you share with us and your community. 💞
Welcome Kimimela Wiyakasapa-Reihl. This day has been enriched by your presence among us and the reading of Heather Cox Richardson's Letter about the Battle of the Little Bighorn. You have added importantly to our learning. May you continue to teach us and be our friend. We learn from one another. That you have spoken to us on anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 is the beauty of people coming together.
Thank you for the history! That’s how every child can become closer to history - tales of horses, other children, dogs, which they can relate to. Think of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Why did they live? Stories like these. And that is why we can teach our WHOLE History and be the better for it. It’s human, so humane.
Hello Kimimela, what a pleasure having you here. Your words are like honey, so soothing and mellifluous. As for being overly wordy, you would fit beautifully into our family: my wife and I can easily talk as much as the birds do. Delighted to hear your voice.
As the caretaker of three horses myself, I know we're going to get along just fine.
Kimimela Wiyakasapa-Reihl - "The brother of Chief Black Bull was the one who dispatched Custer as he was hiding in a ravine (all oral history, but that pen was never put to paper shouldn't be held against a good story, right?)"
See also: https://www.astonisher.com/archives/museum/who_killed_custer.html
Wow, Kimimela, this post of yours is also "the bee's knees," IMO!
Aww, thank you! This was my very first post, and it was very intimidating for me because I knew very well-educated people would be reading my words, but my spouse encouraged me (I dropped out of school in eighth grade, though I wouldn't be surprised if I somewhat got the equivalent of several bachelors' degrees almost by happenstance just reading in libraries to keep from freezing in the winters depending where I was living.... and I am very insecure about what I may or may not have to contribute to, well, life!! So thank you Lynell of VA bwo MD & DC! You have made me feel most welcome, my cheeks are all burny red hot in that wonderful way that I feel not ashamed but blushed with that particular sort of happiness!
Keep coming back, Kimimela!
Your experience is your wisdom (tied to eternal truths).
Wisdom is far more valuable than education, IMHO.
Thank you Frederick, I'm beginning to learn that myself. I was on the street since 14 but this last year has been amazing, I'm back on track to having a more normal life. Thank you for showing me such sweet respect, and I'm going to get my GED and have found an accredited university that I can do the first two years by correspondence (yay!!!). But I totally agree, some of the wisest as well as most well-read folks, well, you find them where you'd least expect them!
Thank you for being so very welcome Frederick, I've been a free-rider with Heather's column for about 10 months and she's just so good that I felt guilty not paying for the quality she was giving to me, I actually lost sleep over it for real! I will take you up on you kind offer and will keep coming back Frederick! What a nice and welcoming community! That's why I not-so-subtly dropped my former homeless status, I wanted to know right off the bat because some people, well, you'd be surprised at how rude strangers can be to someone who has committed the grand crime of being homeless *gasp!!!*, and how sometimes they'll drive one away almost because they don't want to face the reality of how common it is. But that's sad stuff, and today is a happy day because I deem it so!
Keep at it, Kimimela. You are a gift to us as is Heather. Inspiration of one historian to a new one. Keep telling your stories and do think about a book telling the story of the horse. This child (I’m 88) still recognizes a good horse story to tell history, when she sees it.
How brave and courageous you are… your voice is important
“Today is a happy day because I deem it so”. I love that. And I also love the idea of you writing a children’s book (or several) to pass on your oral history to our children & grandchildren. The victors write history. It’s about time we heard from the other side. Thank you and keep writing
Homeless schmomeless. You are who you are. You have the experiences you have. We all have challenges in life, they make us who we are. As you can see, your life experience is being appreciated, not judged.
I think Heather has plenty of money. These Letters are so important they should be free.
Education should lead to wisdom. Kimimela’s education is what we are benefiting from here. Her education is rare, she is sharing it, we are privileged to be recipients. She might think of a children’s book about the horse, which would also tell the whole story for children.
I Totally Agree with You Frederick.!!!💓
Being an autodidact is nothing to be ashamed of, and fancy degrees from famous universities are no proof of anything. The proof is always in the pudding. Loved your comments.
Yikes, Kimimela, you've just blown me away...again! My husband got his GED in his thirties. He was smart even before the piece of paper. Education doesn't just come out of a classroom. I like your profile...We Are All Related. As Frederick says, keep coming back. We need your voice in this community, for sure.
You are very special. Real education is self education, and you have that.
Thank you for this post, Kimimela. Welcome aboard! Not all of us are educated (formally); many of us are simply students of the times. (I do understand; I feel woefully ignorant sometimes...)
Thank You very much Kimimela!!!! I agree and have the Same thoughts!!!💓
Yes!
Broken promises lead to revolts. SCOTUS judges lied so we must resist.
VOTE!!
...united.
Thank you for sharing this. It is so important to hear this The soldiers saw the native people as animals, taking body parts as trophies. What is wrong with white men? Not all of them, of course.
We need more of this truth in our country so we can face our true heritage -- one characterized by greed, hatred, superiority, violence, and disregard for life. How else will we ever change? We can't learn from our mistakes if we don't know what they are/were. And we need to make reparations with Native Americans. Not just words of apology, though that would be a good start.
But the governor of the great state of Florida would not like you to know any of this - so he can do more and more of it in the name of freedom.
DeSantis is an extremely dangerous man, is only 43 years old, and is clearly gearing up for a presidential run. He attended Yale and Harvard (I guess we can hold both of those against him) and as someone said on NPR the other day he speaks in full sentences which puts him "intellectually" ahead of trump. That anyone would follow, let alone vote for such depraved people indicates Flint, MI was and is far from being the only place with lead in the drinking water!
You nailed it. I could not agree more with your description. He's also a sociopath, like Trump. God help us if he is "elected".
Yes
Janet W, thank you for the reminder of the power of lead. I will throw in sugar in our food (also deadly).
sugar is as if we ingested sand flowing throughout our blood vessels and capillaries
The person you heard was Dexter Filkens. I heard same as well. Here is his piece in The New Yorker:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/podcast/politics-and-more/dexter-filkins-on-the-rise-of-ron-desantis/amp
Yes, lead in the water AND far too many mirrors sprinkled through-out his mansion and workplace, Eh!?
"I-am-not-a-crook!"
Extremely.
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Yes. The "Great Mandator" frees us by mandating! He is fairly well blinded by his political ambition now so he does not see his own contradiction. He is exponentially more dangerous than tfg.
Right you are.
We are all humans, good or bad (usually a bit of both). But SCOTUS has shown itself an evil power in our democracy. If Roman Catholicism is the guiding factor behind this decision, then all five judges can be impeached for not upholding their vows to uphold the Constitution which is explicit about the separation of church and state.
We must vote for Democrats who can outvote Mitch McConnell who made certain we got this court, and see to it that all members of Congress who are part of the 1/6 plot are also impeached abd/or imprisoned.
Would it be illegal now in some states to discuss this in grades K-12?
Custer died for our sins, but the United States government has always been the real “indian giver”. The Puritans were invaders. It wasn’t like no one lived there like my textbooks implied. We all live on stolen land.
The first Thanksgiving. The corn, the turkey.
The corn, the turkey, the lies. It’s the history of explorers and exploration on every continent. Mostly white men, but maybe just mostly men. The power structure from exploration to stealing and settling the land to establishing governments. Unfortunately mostly males have made the laws. Just as today, lopsided courts of men and decrees that established constitutions, laws and rules in courts and “compromises.” Might makes right. Today it’s the courts and the guns. And the suits. One thing might change the future. The Vote. Men and Women and new laws. We can begin to create a new history.
❤️ Yes, I was going to say, “ the con, the turkey…”! Yes, The Vote is our most important weapon.
Haha. Well I think you started something now. Yes. The vote. Also would argue that our wallets are a weapon. If lobbyists dictate policy, let's give our dollars to the lobbyists (or the companies they represent) with whom our values align. In other words, starve the opponent of cash and weaken them. Money is their fuel.
Our voices, collectively, must be heard LOUD and CLEAR!
Beautiful.
YES! Our VOTE, OUR VOICES, Our $$$ and Our FEET.
And we could all do well to leave the turkey out of it now. Enough is enough. It wasn't meant for hundreds of millions. It was sacred. Now it's just horrifically cruel factory farming for these beautiful birds. The Native American people would never ever ever have supported this abominable treatment of brother and sister Turkey. Corn for me please.
Sorry if I took that too literally... but I stand by it.
Yes. The New World was stolen from its rightful owners, who are much closer to the land and to Mother Nature than the builders and developers who rape her. The construction footprint of America is hideous.
Look for and read, or better still, listen to an Audio-book by Sarah Vowel, which she reads wonderfully: “The Wordy Shipmates” first source history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony founders.
I have read all of Sarah Vowels books. She is a treasure. That is why I prefer Puritan to Pilgrim. My husband is a descendant of those religious nutters.
ANY RESITANCE IS MEANINGFUL, THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE IN RESISTANCE!
Without resistance there is no traction and without traction neither movement nor progress are possible. Adage of an old man.
"The Indians must fight".....It's funny, this is the quote I posted today for my friends, before reading this. Kind of a different way of saying the same thing.
MAYA ANGELOU: "..... I would say you might encounter many defeats but you must never be defeated, ever. In fact it might even be necessary to confront defeat. It might be necessary, to get over it, all the way through it, and go on. ...."
Watch the whole interview here with Bill Moyers.
https://billmoyers.com/content/conversation-maya-angelou/
Thank you for this post, Jennifer, and your specifically relevant quote. I think this passage is worthy of highlighting as well:
BILL MOYERS: What did whites look like to an eight-year — old black?
MAYA ANGELOU: (Laughs) I didn’t see them. I mean I didn’t think that they were people. I thought whites were like ghosts, that if you put your hand on one, your finger would go all the way through (Laughs) I didn’t…
BILL MOYERS: You know what?
MAYA ANGELOU: What?
BILL MOYERS: That’s what we felt like. (Laughter from Angelou)
MAYA ANGELOU: I thought, you know, the real people were black people and the others were white folks. And they weren’t — you didn’t have — they didn’t have kidneys and hearts, and things like that. They didn’t cry. We knew that, you know, because black people — I used to see black people weep. So I knew they didn’t cry, because people cried, and white folks just stayed white and floated around, like that. (Laughs.)
Brilliant passage, Lynell! Thanks for posting this. I say that as an admitted, and self proclaimed, post-patriarchal, white male.
Somehow, I relate to Ms Angelou more than to the patriarchy. Maybe cuz I was taught to "have a heart"
Hey, Frederick! Off topic for today's Letter, but not by much!
My husband always said that God is a black woman. As a Southerner, I understood.
Love all of Moyers interviews, especially Maya in Stamps, Ark.
So much in the interview. That's why I posted the whole thing, not just the one quote, so we could all explore the whole context.
I understand, Jennifer. Hope I didn't offend.
omg no, I thought it was great you watched the whole thing and got other things from it. She is one of my heroes.
Whew, glad you saw it that way...it's how I intended.
My entire life, every time I’ve heard of this story, I’ve sided with the opponents of Custer. How many times have I seen Dances With Wolves. And Thunderheart.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-battle-of-little-bighorn-was-won-63880188/
Remarkable story! Thank you Heather Cox Richardson for continuing to shed a light through the maze, and bringing to life history! I appreciate your writing so very much!!
And fight we will.
Thank you for writing on this day.
In my lifetime, our understanding of this piece of history has morphed entirely from a perspective of Custer as a martyr of sorts to that of mourning for native Americans whose cultures were experiencing violent extermination at the hands of euro-American immigrants in conquest of land, assets and natural resources over centuries of our history. Somehow, remnants survived to become part of a permanent underclass, corralled and sustained in a subservient dependent relationship with the US Government. Those who emerge to integrate fully into modern society are viewed as extraordinary, modern survivors of an impoverished origin. Pre-European America was a continent sparsely populated by peoples as diverse or more than our current population. Incalculable losses occurred as cultures, languages, native knowledge of our land and how to live with it and on it were exterminated. Genocide on a scale previously unheard of and largely unacknowledged was utilized to make conquest of the continent. Concurrently, it also occurred in many other places; Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central and South America, many places where indigenous peoples were considered little different than native animals, to be replaced by domestic livestock. Its hard to think about this dispassionately, rather like an epic and endless tragedy. It's equally hard to avoid carrying guilt and blame, although none of us were alive to influence the events of that era. Reparations, a topic that most Americans would rather not address, is difficult and rarely results in the kind of cultural restoration one would hope for. However, its useful to remember that even today, the Federal Government is the largest landholder in our country and restoring native lands, in part, to native peoples does not always require "taking" it from current owner/occupants. As generations pass and further integration occurs, it becomes more and more difficult to understand to whom and from whom these reparations should be awarded. It's a form of cultural work that is very difficult, but it's part of the fabric of our nation, a public expression of values directly contrary to those exhibited in today's political environment where power and privilege are increasingly controlled by a chosen few. While none of us individually may be personally accountable for that history, as a nation we are collectively accountable and there ARE things we can do to deliver justice, even if it is delayed by a century or more from the date of crimes against humanity.
I guess doing business with the American government has always been risky at best.
... and "doing business" with private interests is like doing business with the devil!
Such is the nature of Capitalism 101
This is the SCOTUS which passed Citizens United. John Roberts has a lot of blood on his hands.