Via QOSHE / NYTs: Kamala Harris Has an Unexpected Ally
The Conversation
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Bret Stephens: Please don’t tell me you’re going to ask how I’m going to vote.
Gail Collins: Well, Bret, why would you imagine such a thing? Just because I keep getting stopped by people on the street, demanding to know whether you’re going to support Kamala Harris. I am not making this up.
Come on. Give us a hint.
Bret: You really want to know?
Gail: Um, yeah.
Bret: Kicking and screaming, I’ll cast my ballot for Harris.
I really would rather have just sat out Election Day. But Jan. 6 and election denialism are unforgivable. And as my friend Richard North Patterson likes to say, “Donald Trump is literally bleeping crazy.” And what crazy brings in its wake is JD Vance, whom I find worse than Trump, because he’s just as cynical but twice as bright. And what it also brings in its wake is Tucker Carlson and the Hitler defenders he likes to platform.
Gail: OK, gonna take a little time to run up to the roof and toot a horn. Be right back.
Bret: Well …
Gail: Hear that, don’t-like-anyone people? Really, if Bret can bring himself to vote for Kamala, you can.
Bret: It’s a 99.999 percent vote against Trump and a 0.001 percent vote for Harris.
Gail: And to bolster the argument, how about a short list of the things that bother you most about your new choice for president of the United States?
Bret: If the G.O.P. had nominated Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis or Doug Burgum, I’d be voting Republican. Probably even Tim Scott: That’s how reluctant I was to vote for her.
I fear that Harris is every bit as vacuous behind the scenes as she seems to be on the public stage. I fear she will be tested early by a foreign adversary and stumble badly, whether it’s in stopping Iran from building a nuclear weapon or China from blockading Taiwan or Russia from seizing a portion of a Baltic country. I fear she will capitulate too easily to her party’s left flank, especially when it comes to identity politics, economic policy or polarizing cultural issues. I fear she’ll have no domestic policy ideas that don’t involve mindlessly expanding the role of government. I fear she’ll surround herself with mediocre advisers, like her embarrassingly bad veep pick. I fear she won’t muster the political will to curb mass migration. And I fear that a failed Harris presidency will do more to turbocharge the far-right in this country than to diminish it.
Gail: That does cover a lot …
Bret: But I won’t fear that she’ll refuse to recognize the result of the……..
Prager’s Description: Dennis defines “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and explains why “Never Trumpers” have a narcissistic attitude that could ruin our country.
Before reading the meat of the convo, keep in mind that the only people really talking about violence if Trump is elected and not authorizing the election are Democrats. A couple examples. Long time Clinton and Democrat ally, James Carville, called for armed revolution if Harris loses:
“People say, ‘What’s at stake in this election?’
“I say the Constitution is at stake,” Carville went on.
“We live under a set of laws, it’s literally at risk and he is telling you that.”
Carville then upped the fearmongering ante.
He blasted journalists and commentators who are discussing polling data showing black and Hispanic men’s wavering support for Harris.
He then claimed this is petty compared to Trump’s alleged authoritarian agenda.
“People want to know about [Harris’ polling] weakness among males of color,” Carville said.
“Okay? He’s gonna arrest all of ya,” he claimed.
[….]
He argued that journalists and even a retired Democratic Party strategist like himself would be rounded up during Trump’s possible future presidency.
“When the paddy wagon comes, you and I are going to be in the back of it, bouncing around, and it’s not going to be very much fun, and they will tell you, the judge said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Carville, Trump said he was going to get rid of the Constitution, I have no choice but to enforce the democratic norms of this country.’”
[….]
“When the Republic was threatened, people picked up arms and answered the call,” Carville said.
“Or, you know, in 1965 in the middle of the Civil Rights movement, I think people decided they were gonna take matters into their own hands and create a better country and that’s what I hope we do here in the next few weeks,” he finished….
Another call to not qualify Trump comes from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who said that Democrats would not certify Trump because he would be a crises for the consitution — adapted.
Congressman Jamie Raskin says EVEN IF TRUMP WINS they will disqualify him on January 6th, 2025 under 14A. — END WOKENESS
THE ATLANTIC as well notes the following after talking to multiple Democrats:
Murray and other legal scholars say that, absent clear guidance from the Supreme Court, a Trump win could lead to a constitutional crisis in Congress. Democrats would have to choose between confirming a winner many of them believe is ineligible and defying the will of voters who elected him. Their choice could be decisive: As their victory in a House special election in New York last week demonstrated, Democrats have a serious chance of winning a majority in Congress in November, even if Trump recaptures the presidency on the same day. If that happens, they could have the votes to prevent him from taking office.
In interviews, senior House Democrats would not commit to certifying a Trump win, saying they would do so only if the Supreme Court affirms his eligibility.
Democrats Call For Violence
A long montage (8-minutes), but the key point is the first few minutes of the longer montage. I have another montage of Democrats calling for violence here
I was visibly upset about this information while at work. I had no idea. The extent of this influence over the many years since the beginning of the Great Leap Forward and all the organizations it holds sway over, I was thinking to myself, “how can we stop this? How can I help stop it?” It just seems so daunting.
SIDE-NOTE:
I heard this on radio today via Bob Frantz, so I wanted to get it on my site. Thanks Bob!
A former student, accompanied Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) on a trip to China in 1995, says the Democratic vice presidential candidate “adores” communist China and is “a Moaist to the core.”
A former student, who accompanied Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) on a trip to China in 1995, says the Democratic vice presidential candidate “adores” communist China and is “a Moaist to the core.”
“It was almost a daily revelation of how much he adores the communist regime,” the former student, who identified himself only as “Shad,” told Alpha News. Former President Donald Trump called Walz a “radical leftist” soon after Kamala Harris chose the Minnesota governor as her running mate.
Walz was a frequent visitor to China for 10 years of his life as he taught at a high school as part of a Harvard University program. He made his first trip to China in 1989 but was in Hong Kong when the Tiananmen Square protests prompted the Beijing government to brutally suppress and kill the student demonstrators.
Walz later visited the site of the massacre, according to The New York Times, but apparently did not disapprove of the violence. He returned home to sing the praises of China. Five years later, he married Gwen Whipple on the anniversary of the government crackdown as his wife noted that Walz “wanted to have a date he’ll always remember,” according(ARCHIVE.COM) to the Wall Street Journal. The couple honeymooned in China.
Walz visited China by his own estimation “about 30 times” over the next decade as he sponsored summer trips for students. He was even a visiting fellow at a Chinese university. Shad was one of those students who traveled with Walz throughout China. But he says Walz was not just captivated by the geography of the country; he loved the ideology.
“There was no doubt he was a true believer,” Shad said. “I’ve been trying to tell people this for 30 years. Nobody wanted to listen. “At night, we’d go out, we’d walk the street fairs. We’d be buying souvenirs and Tim was always buying the Little Red Book. He said he gave them as gifts … I saw him buy at least a dozen on the trip,” he said, referring to the book of quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, the Chinese dictator who ruled China and killed tens of millions of people from 1949 till his death in 1976.
“It would be like [being] in Germany and buying copies of Mein Kampf,” Shad told Alpha News. “If there was any doubt about what I’m saying just look at the policies enacted by his administration like the country’s worst abortion law, anti-free speech, the riots,” Shad noted. “He’s a Maoist to the core and should not be underestimated.”
Shad drew attention to the similarities between the messaging of Walz and Kamala Harris—including phrases like “the politics of joy” and “unburdened by what has been”—and the propaganda materials used by Mao. “People need to have their eyes wide open,” Shad said. “The snitch hotline in Minnesota is straight out of CCP. Tim Walz is a very bright guy. None of this by accident.” …..
Wow… great stuff! I had no idea on some of it. Also, I ALWAYS noted the Black Panthers were a black nationalist cult. NO MORE. They are strictly a Maoist movement/cult.
Trevor Loudon joins the podcast to talk about Kamala Harris’s Marxist roots, how she ascended to the vice-presidency, and what she plans to do to America.
As Moonbat Tracker writes: “These outrageous and toxic books teach kids that the United States is an institutionally racist system filled with “bloodsucking capitalists” and Anglos who “rape Hispanic culture.”
Here are a couple of quotes from the books in which the lady recites:
“Hard drugs and drug culture is an invention of the gringo because he has no culture.”
“We have to destroy capitalism and we have to help 5/6 of the world to destroy capitalism in order to equal all peoples’ lives.
“The Declaration of Independence states that we the people have the right to revolution… the right to overrule the government…”
“Any country based on capitalism is based on greed…”
Police finally showed up to throw out the pro-Hamas protesters who had invaded and occupied a building at Columbia University. This was after the protesters demanded concessions from Columbia, including free food deliveries.
As a way of supporting Matt’s monologue, here is one of my favorite quotes from Milton Friedman:
Industrial progress, mechanical improvement, all of the great wonders of the modern era have meant little to the wealthy. The rich in ancient Greece would have benefited hardly at all from modern plumbing — running servants replaced running water. Television and radio — the patricians of Rome could enjoy the leading musicians and actors in their home, could have the leading artists as domestic retainers. Ready-to-wear clothing, supermarkets — all these and many other modern developments would have added little to their life. They would have welcomed the improvements in transportation and in medicine, but for the rest, the great achievements of western capitalism have rebounded primarily to the benefit of the ordinary person. These achievements have made available to the masses conveniences and amenities that were previously the exclusive prerogative of the rich and powerful.
I had to pot this gal, as, you hear someone say there are classes like 18th century lesbian French poetry at higher education/ivory league universities. But this girl is a professor teaching what? (pic linked):
She is a paid instructor & PhD candidate at Columbia studying “theories of the imagination & poetry as interpreted through a Marxian lens”
This was part of what she asked for:
TWITCHY goes on to note in humorous fashion, the rest of the story:
Just like “Queers for Palestine,” it seems odd that there are so many alleged feminists who support Hamas and cheer on Iran’s missile strike on Israel. We’ve seen this woman before, pleading for food for the protesters occupying Hamilton Hall at Columbia, but wait until you see the degree you’ll be paying off when Joe Biden forgives her student loans.
Look at the Columbia zoomer feminist protestors:
They crave a hijab. They long for a niqab. Their hearts desire a man to come along and whisk then away, a dashing Vizier Charming to ride off with them to his harem. pic.twitter.com/a7D9FdbnZj
It’s like Where’s Waldo trying to find a male among the Columbia occupiers. Masked college girls are just really into Hamas. pic.twitter.com/BmCeGzLsvg
Yesterday pro-Hamas protesters occupied Jackson Square in New Orleans. This was the first such occupation in the country not on a college campus. New Orleans police moved in quickly to break up the encampment. Social media documented the presence during the occupation and clearance of a number of legal “observers” from a group called the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). They were there to intercede on behalf of the folks illegally occupying a public space.
Who are these guys?
Well, it turns out that the NLG is a group with long-standing ties to the Communist Party and a history of involvement with Antifa and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. They also have ties internationally to enemies of the United States.
The NLG started back in the 1930’s. It was composed largely of members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The express goal of the CPUSA was the creation of a Communist state here in America.
By the late 1930s, most non-Communist members of the NLG quit in protest against its overtly Communist policies. One prominent member of the group who resigned, then-Assistant Secretary of State Adolf A. Berle, Jr., said on quitting.
“The National Lawyers Guild was formed in the hope that expression might be given to the liberal sentiment in the American bar. It is now obvious that the present management of the guild is not prepared to take any stand which conflicts with the Communist Party line. Under these circumstances, and in company, I think, with the most progressive lawyers, I have no further interest in it.”
Of course the Democrats think they are “saving Democracy”. In fact, Joe Biden says “Democracy is on the ballot!” As he tries to remove the #1 opposition to him from the ballot. Also, Democrats are trying more removals as well based on theories that the authors had zero intent for the use of:
….It’s only the latest effort targeting congressional candidates as Democrats seek to bar opponents as “insurrectionists” for questioning the election of President Biden.
We have become a nation of Madame Defarges — eagerly knitting names of those to be subject to arbitrary justice.
Former congressional candidate Gene Stilp, who’s previously made headlines by burning MAGA flags with swastikas outside courthouses, filed the challenge.
Using the 14th Amendment to disqualify candidates like Perry is consistent with Stilp’s signature flag-burning stunts.
But what’s chilling is how many support such efforts, including Democratic officeholders from Maine’s Secretary of State to dozens of members of Congress.
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) sought to bar 126 members of Congress under the same theory for challenging the election before Jan. 6, 2021.
Similar legislation from Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) to disqualify members got 63 co-sponsors, all Democrats, including New York Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman and Ritchie Torres and “Squad” members Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
When Maine’s secretary of state disqualified Trump, three in the state’s congressional delegation — Sens. Angus King (I) and Susan Collins (R) and Rep. Jared Golden (D) — condemned the decision. But others supported the antidemocratic action.
The grounds were virtually identical to those of Stilp. He accuses Perry of supporting challenges to Biden’s election and opposing its certification.
Of course, he ignores Democratic members who sought to block certification of Republican presidents under the very same law with no factual or legal basis.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) praised the effort then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) organized to challenge the certification of President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election.
Jan. 6 committee head Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) voted to challenge it in the House.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sought to block certification of the 2016 election result — particularly ironic since he’s a leading voice calling for Trump to be disqualified.
He insisted last week on CNN that the effort to prevent citizens from voting for Trump is the very embodiment of democracy: “If you think about it, of all of the forms of disqualification that we have, the one that disqualifies people for engaging in insurrection is the most democratic because it’s the one where people choose themselves to be disqualified.”
That is akin to treating every criminal charge as a consensual act of incarceration because the accused chose his path in life.
This is also being played out in state races.
The filing against Perry came the same day Pennsylvania Democratic state Sen. Art Haywood made public a complaint to the Senate Ethics Committee against his Republican colleague Doug Mastriano accusing him of playing a role in the plot to overturn the election.
Notably, in his effort to “hold insurrectionists accountable,” Haywood admitted he relied on the same evidence from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington that was used in the Colorado case.
“Insurrectionist” is the newest label to excuse any abuse.
During the McCarthy period, individuals were accused of being Communists or “fellow travelers.”
Now you have Stilp accusing Perry of being “supportive of insurrectionists.”
Democrats and pundits have claimed civil libertarians and journalists who have testified against the government’s growing censorship efforts are enablers of insurrectionists and even “Putin lovers.”
Figures like Stilp are wrong on the law but right about one thing: There are few real limits once you embrace this theory.
[….]
With the support of elected officials across the country, they can then join Stilp in moving from burning flags to torching the Constitution in a fit of exhilarating rage.
In fact, Democrats as a whole are impartial to this ridding themselves of competition. You see it in business with “crony corporatism,” you see it in the electorate (as this post notes), and the like. In yesterdays post I noted a “slightly dated” article in the ATLANTIC(see more in my first post on this 14th Amendment “witch hunt”), where David Frum said this:
Consider the scenario in which Section 3 is invoked against Trump in 2024. Although he has won the Republican nomination, Democratic secretaries of state in key states refuse to place his name on their ballots, as a person who engaged in insurrection against the United States. With Trump’s name deleted from some swing-state ballots, President Joe Biden is easily reelected.
But only kind of reelected. How in the world are Republicans likely to react to such an outcome? Will any of them regard such a victory as legitimate? The rage and chaos that would follow are beyond imagining.
And then what? If Section 3 can be reactivated in this way, then reactivated it will be. Republicans will hunt for Democrats to disqualify, and not only for president, but for any race where Democrats present someone who said or did something that can be represented as “aid and comfort” to enemies of the United States. Didn’t progressive Representative Ilhan Omar once seemingly equate al-Qaeda with the U.S. military? Do we think that her political enemies will accept that she was making only a stupid rhetorical point? Earlier this year, Tennessee Republicans tossed out of the legislature two Black Democrats for allegedly violating House rules. Might Tennessee Republicans next deem unruly Democrats “rebels” forbidden ever to run for office again?
What are red states doing in case of a successful removal of Trump from their ballots disenfranchising voters choice?
Where do the regular Democrat voter position themselves in all this? RED STATE has an article answering that:
Ever since Donald Trump came down the golden escalator in 2015, Democrats have been shrieking about how he is a “danger to democracy” and how MAGA threatens the very foundations of our republic. Listen to President Joe Biden Friday angrily rail on about how Trump wants to destroy America as we know it.
But in the real world, it appears that most Democrats don’t truly believe in democracy, or at least how it’s actually supposed to work. A new CBS News/YouGov poll shows that an astonishing 81 percent of Dems think that Trump’s name should be removed from ballots this presidential election, presumably because they think he’s guilty of violating the 14th Amendment by inciting an insurrection on J6.
[…]
[…]
The former president has neither been charged with nor convicted of insurrection, so how could they possibly think that his name should be removed? Quite simply, they want to win, and win at any cost, and they don’t care about what damage it does to our system.
The Supreme Court will decide in short order on cases in Maine and Colorado about the efforts to remove Trump’s name from the GOP primary ballot.
[….]
However, one question I don’t see is, “Why do you consider our democracy to be threatened?” Since it’s a CBS poll, you can assume that they thought everyone who felt it was threatened thought Donald J. Trump was the reason behind their concern. But the reality is, a large number of that 70 percent is likely voters like me, who consider the tyrannical current president, his corrupt, weaponized Department of Justice, and people like the 81 percent who think a presidential candidate should be taken off ballots simply because they don’t like him represent the true threats to our republic.
(DAILY CALLER) Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund gave his account of what happened during the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, in an interview with Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson.
Sund, who was present at the Capitol riot, alleged that federal agencies withheld information and warning signs of potential dangers in the days leading up to the riot. His previous interview with Carlson on his former Fox show never aired……
Ep. 15 Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund reveals what really happened on January 6th. Our Fox News interview with him never aired, so we invited him back. pic.twitter.com/opDlu4QGlp
Indians vs. Settlers – Letter from a Concerned Parent
An in-class (6th-grade) supplement from the desk of SeanG
(Updated 6/2023 and 11/2015 | Published here 7/2010 | Originally published 4/2007 | Letter written to school in 2004)
First and foremost, the reason behind this paper is not, let me repeat, is not to incite parents to call the school and complain about what our kid’s are being taught. We must keep in mind that the teachers only teach what they are told to teach. The purpose of this paper is meant as a supplement for those who wish to deepen their conversation of history with their son or daughter that reveals both sides of the historical coin.[1] I do not wish this paper to be viewed as an apologetic[2] for the atrocities that some in the name of religion or greed inflicted on the New World. We hear of these all the time, however, this truth can be twisted and misrepresented in a way that is a tool for special interest groups as well as being a means towards a political goal, which, in California, is par for the course.
I was somewhat troubled when I was going over my child’s in class social studies notes and homework. His notes were gleaned from an in class video[3]and discussion (the social studies book[4] does a decent job at staying neutral on the subject, so this critique deals primarily with the in class discussion and video). Below (fig. 1) is an exact reproduction of my son’s notes (cannot reproduce for this posting).
At first glance, to some, this may sound standard, and some may even believe that the European man was this horrible, and that the Native-American is angelic and at “one with nature.” This assumption that one is indoctrinated with needs a critical look however. And afterwords, you, the parent, can decide what is relevant to discuss with your kids, as I have done.
The first two columns on the Native-American and Explorers side will take some time to deal with. The Native-American certainly did believe that the land was a gift from their Creator[5]; however, the litany of tribal elders in the video speaking of the land as not being “owned” is merely semantics. Most tribes did – I repeat – did fight for territorial rights and hunting grounds. Some tribes, after depleting an area of its natural resources[6] (dealt with more in-depth later) would pack up and move, only to battle for more resources elsewhere. They may not have set up picket fences, but they sure did act as if this land was theirs. The video also portrayed contradictory statements by the elders of the various tribes, in one quote it was said that the Native-American did not own the land, and in another, we are told that the Comanche owned 600 million acres.
This comparison of the Native-Americans respecting nature so much that they thought it immoral to “own land,” (column #2) compared with the column to its right mentioning that the explorers “own[ed] humans,” is another play on words. Not only a play on words, but devoid of important information that could balance the times in which these two peoples tried to co-exist. The video makes it seem like slavery was the invention of the European settler, and only he was vile enough to practice such. The video showcased Native-Americans expressing their distaste for the white-man[7] in a virulent manner. For example (and bear in mind this quote – directly from the video – can be applied to this entire thesis):
“The white-man has always had the philosophy that they are thee dominant race. That it is their manifest destiny to take over the world, so to speak. Indians did not accept this idea. They were here as stewards of the land. They were here to take care of it while they were here, but they never owned it.”[8] (Emphasis added)
The video is conveniently silent on the matter of Native-Americans owning slaves, and not only that, but treating them horribly (e.g., separating other Native-American couples and forcefully taking the women as wives [rape], murder, etc). Choctaws, Chicasaws, Cherokee, Creeks and Seminoles[9] are just a few examples of tribes that owned slaves. To be fair, the social studies book did mention that the Aztecs, at least, owned slaves (p. 67).
There were, to be sure, peaceful tribes in the pre-Columbian America, like the Hopis of the Southwest and the Slaves (not to be confused with slaves) of sub-artic Canada. Most Native-American tribes, however, were familiar, long before Columbus, with the kinds of wickedness that had beclouded European (and the Asian and African continents) history for centuries: aggression, warfare, torture, persecution, bigotry, slavery, and tyranny,[10] just to name a few. This isn’t pointing fingers; it is merely a comment on the nature of man. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., comments,
“Cruelty and destruction are not the monopoly of any single continent or race or culture.”[11]
Not only did they own slaves prior to the European settlers coming to the New World, when West Africans were introduced to the Americas, the Native-Americans even took (acquired in raids, trading, or simply bought) them as slaves. Yes, you heard me; Native-Americans owned other Indians and Blacks as slaves, even some Whites after raids. The Seminoles were somewhat tolerant, and in the nineteenth century an Afro-Indian community, via intermarriage, in the state of Florida was generated (a gorgeous mix by the way, Seminole/African-American).
KEY: So we see that the Native-Americans, contrary to my child’s in-class video, did believe in “owning” people… pre-Columbus and post-Columbus. (Native Americans had enslaved each other for millennia!)
…when the Europeans took over the American West just in time to save the Hopi Indians from genocide at the hands of the Navajo (a fact that explains why maps of Arizona show the Hopi reservation as a tiny dot in the middle of the vast Navajo reservation).
Wilfred Reilly, Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2019), 35.
warfare that was common to kinship-based societies. Pueblo warfare was not, however, limited to blood feuds. Living in and near the densely populated but resource-poor Rio Grande valley, Pueblo tribes such as the Hopis, Zunis, Piros, and Tewas fought with one another to secure control of the region’s limited supply of arable land. Such economically and territorially motivated warfare led the Pueblo Indians to make their adobe towns—called pueblos—powerful defensive fortifications. They did so by building their settlements atop steep mesas, by constructing their multistory buildings around a central plaza to form sheer exterior walls, and by limiting access to the main square to a single, narrow, easily defended passageway. Navajo and Apache raiding parties consequently found the Pueblo Indians’ settlements to be tempting but formidable targets.
The significance of warfare varied tremendously among the hundreds of pre‐Columbian Native American societies, and its meanings and implications changed dramatically for all of them after European contact. Among the more densely populated Eastern Woodland cultures, warfare often served as a means of coping with grief and depopulation. Such conflict, commonly known as a “mourning war,” usually began at the behest of women who had lost a son or husband and desired the group’s male warriors to capture individuals from other groups who could replace those they had lost. Captives might help maintain a stable population or appease the grief of bereaved relatives: if the women of the tribe so demanded, captives would be ritually tortured, sometimes to death if the captive was deemed unfit for adoption into the tribe. Because the aim in warfare was to acquire captives, quick raids, as opposed to pitched battles, predominated. Warfare in Eastern Woodland cultures also allowed young males to acquire prestige or status through the demonstration of martial skill and courage. Conflicts among these groups thus stemmed as much from internal social reasons as from external relations with neighbors. Territory and commerce provided little impetus to fight.
[….]
On the Western Plains, pre‐Columbian warfare—before the introduction of horses and guns—pitted tribes against one another for control of territory and its resources, as well as for captives and honor. Indian forces marched on foot to attack rival tribes who sometimes resided in palisaded villages. Before the arrival of the horse and gun, battles could last days, and casualties could number in the hundreds; thereafter, both Plains Indian culture and the character and meaning of war changed dramatically. The horse facilitated quick, long‐distance raids to acquire goods. Warfare became more individualistic and less bloody: an opportunity for adolescent males to acquire prestige through demonstrations of courage. It became more honorable for a warrior to touch his enemy (to count “coup”) or steal his horse than to kill him.
Although the arrival of the horse may have moderated Plains warfare, its stakes remained high. Bands of Lakota Sioux moved westward from the Eastern Woodlands and waged war against Plains residents to secure access to buffalo for subsistence and trade with Euro‐Americans. Lakota Sioux populations, unlike most Indian groups, increased in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; this expansion required greater access to buffalo and thus more territory.
The column under that (#3a, and b) deals specifically with the Christian faith. Now, mind you, the video did mention that the explorers committed horrible acts against the Aztecs only after witnessing their ghastly sacrifices of other people (it didn’t mention that this included babies). After this the European explorers went about destroying those who wouldn’t become Christians – that is, rejecting their horrible religion that included human/baby sacrifice.
Although the video mentioned this in passing, it made the explorers seem worse than they were.[12] I am all for discussing the blight of Western-man and his religion, but in all fairness, this should slice both ways. From what I can tell from my child’s notes, and after viewing the video for myself, the in-class work chose “to focus on the Native Americans as the ‘victims’ because they lost their lives and culture as a result of European progress. In doing so… [it]… completely ignores a large portion of history in which both Native Americans and Europeans ‘matched atrocity for atrocity’.”[13] This is an important distinction that was made in my sons fifth-grade class, that is: a moral position was chosen and advanced, rather than history being taught as just that, history.
The last blurb in the “Explorers” side of the column (row 4, side b) reflects as well the videos hatred for the European settler, and again, the video is very sure in its quoting Native-Americans who are vehemently “anti-white-man.” We want to take over the world still, or so the video seems to say. What can you do? The last column (Row 5, side a) on the “Native-American” side mentions, “They were stewards of the land.” This is another long one, and mind you, I will list some web sites to visit for some short commentary as well.
This is similar to an old VHS video my son’s 5th grade class watched regarding American Indian and Settler relations. This video excerpt is from the video “American History for Children Video Series: Native American Life,” Narrated by Irene Bedard (Schlessinger Video Productions, 1996). Like I said, I viewed a similar VHS tape when I checked out the video in 2004 from my son’s elementary school.
We, of course, have all heard of the Native-Americans using every part of the buffalo, not wasting, caring for Mother Nature and the like. However, the whole story is conveniently left out.[14] The entire buffalo was only used in times of want. In times of plenty, some tribes would run entire herds of buffalo off of cliffs, killing hundreds to thousands at a time just for their tongues. Some tribes would burn entire forests killing many species and sometimes, entire herds of buffalo. A commentary[15] does well to expand on this theme:
From James Fenimore Cooper to Dances with Wolves and Disney’s Pocahontas, American Indians have been mythologized as noble beings with a “spiritual, sacred attitude towards land and animals, not a practical utilitarian one.”[16] Small children are taught that the Plains Indians never wasted any part of the buffalo. They grow up certain that the Indians lived as one with nature, and that white European settlers were the rapists who destroyed it.
In The Ecological Indian: Myth and History, Shepard Krech III, an anthropologist at Brown University, strips away the myth to show that American Indians behaved pretty much like everyone else. When times were bad they used the whole buffalo. When times were good, “whole herds” of buffalo might be killed only for their tongues or their fetuses.[17]Although American Indians adapted to their environment and were intimately familiar with it, they had no qualms about shaping it to their needs.
Indians set fires to promote the growth of grasses and make land more productive for the game and plants that they preferred. Sometimes fire was used carefully. Sometimes it was not. Along with the evidence that Indians used fire to improve habitat are abundant descriptions of carelessly started fires that destroyed all plant life and entire buffalo herds.[18]
Nor were American Indians particularly interested in conserving resources for the future. In the East, they practiced slash and burn agriculture. When soils became infertile, wood for fuel was exhausted, and game depleted, whole villages moved.[19] The Cherokee, along with the other Indians who participated in the Southern deerskin trade, helped decimate white-tailed deer populations.[20]Cherokee mythology believed that deer that were killed in a hunt were reanimated.
In all, contemporary accounts suggest that many Indians treated game as an inexhaustible resource. Despite vague hints in the historical records that some Crees may have tried to conserve beaver populations by allocating hunting territories and sparing young animals, Krech concludes that it was “market forces in combination with the Hudchild’s Bay Company policies [which actively promoted conservation]” that “led to the eventual recovery of beaver populations.”[21]
Those who blame European settlers for genocide because they introduced microbes that ravaged native populations might as well call the Mongols genocidal for creating the plague reservoirs that led to the Black Death in Europe.[22] Microbes travel with their hosts. Trade, desired by Indians as well as whites, created the pathways for disease.
Another interesting item that came up in the video was that of the “white man” bringing his diseases, as mentioned above and in the video. However, little is ever said about the normal lifespan of the Native-American, which was around 35 at the time due to the already present poor health, disease, dysentery and hygiene, or, lack thereof. The photo’s we have all seen of the Native-Americans during Civil War times are older mainly due to the introduction of medicine and hygiene by the European settler. New information in a paper written by Richard Steckel, a professor of economics and anthropology at Ohio State University, and published in the journal Science, has shown that the health of the Native-American was in drastic decline prior to the settler coming to the New World.[23]
Footnotes
[1] There is some adult material herein (e.g., descriptions of violence and the like), so edit accordingly.
[2] apologetic: “defending by speech or writing.” (Definition #2) Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, CD-ROM (1999).
[3] Schlessinger Video Productions, Indians of North America, Video Collection II; Bala Cynwyd: PA (1995); in the school library.
[4]A New Nation: Adventures in Time and Place, National Geographic Society/McGraw Hill Pub; New York: NY (2000)
[5] The video was very religiously entwined; I only wish that such positive representations of other faiths were allowed equal time in the classroom. Say, like, Christianity.
[6] e.g., game (animals), wood, healthy top-soil, ran species into extinction (like certain sea turtles and the like), etc.
[7] The distasteful manner in which the video represents and uses the term “white-man” (a quote) is quite inappropriate.
[8] Veronica Valarde Tiller – a Jicarilla Apapche. Quote from the in-class video.
[9] Dinesh D’ Souza, The End of Racism, The Free Press; New York: N.Y. (1995), p. 75.
[10] Paul F. Boller, Jr., Not So! Popular Myths About America from Columbus to Clinton, Oxford Univ. Press; New York: NY (1995), p. 7. (This book is a fun, interestingly invigorating read! I highly recommend it)
[11] Ibid., p. 12. Quoted from: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “Was America a Mistake?,”Atlantic Monthly (September 1992), p. 22.
[12] This is a side note for those who are of the Christian faith:
The Bible does not teach the horrible practices that some have committed in its name. It is true that it’s possible that religion can produce evil, and generally when we look closer at the details it produces evil because the individual people [“Christians”] are actually living in rejection of the tenets of Christianity and a rejection of the God that they are supposed to be following. So it [religion] can produce evil, but the historical fact is that outright rejection of God and institutionalizing of atheism (non-religious practices) actually does produce evil on incredible levels. We’re talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of God. For example: the Inquisitions, Crusades, Salem Witch Trials killed about 40,000 persons combined (World Book Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Americana). A blight on Christianity? Certainty. Something wrong? Dismally wrong. A tragedy? Of course. Millions and millions of people killed? No. The numbers are tragic, but pale in comparison to the statistics of what non-religious criminals have committed); the Chinese regime of Mao Tse Tung, 60 million [+] dead (1945-1965), Stalin and Khrushchev, 66 million dead (USSR 1917-1959), Khmer Rouge (Cambodia 1975-1979) and Pol Pot, one-third of the populations dead, etc, etc. The difference here is that these non-God movements are merely living out their worldview, the struggle for power, survival of the fittest and all that, no natural law is being violated in other words (as atheists reduce everything to natural law – materialism). However, when people have misused the Christian religion for personal gain, they are in direct violation to what Christ taught, as well as Natural Law.
[13] “Shades of Truth,” by Jeff Bricker, found at: http://parallel.park.uga.edu/~tengles/102m/bricker.html (I highly recommend this paper as it will add to the reasons and logic behind the different historical “takes” on this issue. UPDATE: (these links are since gone) I was contacted by the author who has become more left-leaning in his later days and he asked me to remove this portion as he has excised all his previous works. I refused on the grounds that he must prove to me that what he said is untrue, after which I would remove his older work. “A True Story,” by Katie Patel, found at: http://parallel.park.uga.edu/~tengles/102m/pa##l.html (another high recommend.) UPDATE: Another dead end – keep in mind when I wrote this my oldest son was in sixth-grade. He is now a Marine.
[14] “The Ecological Indian: Myth and History,” by Terry L. Anderson, from the Detroit News, reviewing a book of the same name by Shepard Krech III, October 4, 1999. Can be found at:
[16] Shepard Krech III, The Ecological Indian: Myth and History, W.W. Norton & Company; New York: NY (1999), p. 22.
[17] Ibid., p. 135.
[18] Ibid., p. 119.
[19] Ibid., p. 76.
[20] Ibid., p. 171.
[21] Ibid., p. 188.
[22] For a discussion of the effect of the Mongol invasions and their effect on European epidemiology see, William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples, Doubleday; New York: NY (1977).
[23] “Health Of American Indians On Decline Before Columbus Arrived In New World,” This study involved 12,500 Indian skeletal remains from 65 different sites. Can be found at:
Are Americans living on stolen land acquired by nefarious means? Jeff Fynn-Paul, professor of economic and social history at Leiden University and author of Not Stolen: The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World, dispels this misleading and destructive myth.
Example of the BRAINWASHING in the classroom:
Shocking Excerpts from A Book Used w/Third Graders Up
…. As Moonbat Tracker writes: “These outrageous and toxic books teach kids that the United States is an institutionally racist system filled with “bloodsucking capitalists” and Anglos who “rape Hispanic culture.”
Here are a couple of quotes from the books in which the lady recites:
“Hard drugs and drug culture is an invention of the gringo because he has no culture.”
“We have to destroy capitalism and we have to help 5/6 of the world to destroy capitalism in order to equal all peoples’
“The Declaration of Independence states that we the people have the right to revolution…the right to overrule the government…”
“Any country based on capitalism is based on greed…”
Warning: There is some adult language within the video….
This is from 2011… a decade before other parents in masse, due to lockdowns, became aware of the indoctrination foisted on their children. This is a Tucson United School District (TUSD) board meeting. A parent reads from a book authorized for use from third-grade up.
