Monday, November 29, 2004
Killing Custer
Probably totally by chance, I began reading Killing Custer by James Welch this Thanksgiving weekend. The book discusses the signifigance of Custer's last stand in relation to the eventual and total anihilation of the western plains Indians by the United States.
I have read and studied Native American history before, but as I sat dranking my coffee and reading Welch's book, a new word came to mind. It was genocide. I had before realized that the United States was generally responsibe for the destruction of the Indian culture, but I had never before accepted its conscious determination to do so.
Much less than two hundred years ago, there were men who truly believed the right thing to do was kill every Indian they possibly could. They didn't see them as women or children, but merely as bugs. Still today, we hold many of these men up as our heros and icons of the greatest country on earth(USA, of course!).
I am not telling you this to give you a history lesson, so I will get to my point. How different do we view the world today? It was only 120 years ago when Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were the men who had the most respect and envy of the western populus , now its the Terminator and Bill Gates.
Today the USA fights for freedom, equal rights, and sovereignty. I often find that the things that really annoy me the most in other people, are things that I personally dislike about myself. Maybe in our youth we need to come to terms with the atrocities that we have commited. Then, we can focus on the splinter in the eye of the rest of the world. Until that time, I will continue to assail all those who are lazy and messy. Beware the wrath of him who is guilty!
I have read and studied Native American history before, but as I sat dranking my coffee and reading Welch's book, a new word came to mind. It was genocide. I had before realized that the United States was generally responsibe for the destruction of the Indian culture, but I had never before accepted its conscious determination to do so.
Much less than two hundred years ago, there were men who truly believed the right thing to do was kill every Indian they possibly could. They didn't see them as women or children, but merely as bugs. Still today, we hold many of these men up as our heros and icons of the greatest country on earth(USA, of course!).
I am not telling you this to give you a history lesson, so I will get to my point. How different do we view the world today? It was only 120 years ago when Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were the men who had the most respect and envy of the western populus , now its the Terminator and Bill Gates.
Today the USA fights for freedom, equal rights, and sovereignty. I often find that the things that really annoy me the most in other people, are things that I personally dislike about myself. Maybe in our youth we need to come to terms with the atrocities that we have commited. Then, we can focus on the splinter in the eye of the rest of the world. Until that time, I will continue to assail all those who are lazy and messy. Beware the wrath of him who is guilty!
// posted by Justin @ 9:06 AM 
