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| The Last of the Clan Thomas Faed Source |
Well, your Old AF Sarge always gets a little wrapped around the axle around this time of year. Especially since a group of guilt-ridden white people in some places decided to change the name to Indigenous Peoples Day, or something to that effect.
Those folks in the painting? Yup, indigenous, to Scotland. If I still lived in Scotland, I'd be indigenous. But I don't, so I'm not.
White people guilt also got the name of where I lived changed, from Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, to just Rhode Island. Plantation, according to Merriam Webster, means ...
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No doubt the same folks who were up in arms about the word "plantation" were also the ones who gave us the Washington Commanders and the Cleveland Guardians. I do know a couple of First Peoples type people who preferred the old names for those teams. (First Peoples is a Canadian thing, far more accurate really, what some call "indigenous" didn't actually evolve here, but they did get here first, so First Peoples makes sense on some levels.)
Don't get me started on the word "Indian." Yes, Columbus thought he'd found India, hence that word (indiano or indiana in Italian, indio or india in Spanish, not sure what it would be in Hebrew or Yiddish, if Columbus was actually Jewish. Just kidding, you can look that up, Google Translate has the word in both Hebrew and Yiddish, but I think it means Indian from the subcontinent, not from the New World. Google was not all that clear on that).
All that aside, I remember AIM, the American Indian Movement, native peoples up in arms over the screwing they received from the European settlers of these lands. Well okay, the descendants of the people who got screwed over by the ancestors of modern day settler/colonists.
So here's something to keep in mind, ever since Cain slew Abel, people have been f**king over other people. It seems to be something in our blood, in our DNA if you will. If we don't have something, and can take it easily from someone else, we do. The Americas were not a bunch of peaceful, nature-loving, groovy people just chilling before the Europeans arrived. No, they were like people everywhere, fighting wars, taking stuff from their neighbors and despising the "different from us." (That being one tribe hating another, like the Sioux versus the Crow, or the English against the French. That goes way back.)
Imagine what might happen if we make contact with an intelligent, space-faring species someday. They might wait until we're space-faring, or they might not. Who knows what (if anything) is going on "out there."
Maybe some species from another place is driving others off their worlds and onto other worlds. If they're technologically more advanced and are anything like us, be worried, they're going to take our shit, man, trust me.
Besides which, after the Bering Land Bridge people arrived, the Norsemen were next. Columbus was third, at best.
Why should he get a holiday at all?
Just curious.
As always, YMMV.
/rant
Author's Note: One of my nephews did some digging around in Ancestry.com, seemed to have discovered an "Indian Princess" in the family tree. I wrote about that here. I rather have my doubts about that "finding" as his research completely missed an actual person in the family tree, the one for whom my father was named. This fellow. So I won't be claiming any indigenous cred for this continent any time soon. I'll leave that to the Elizabeth Warrens of the world.
My calendar still uses "Columbus Day USA".........he must of had a pretty good PR firm at one time...... :)
ReplyDeleteIndeed.
DeleteI ask the Perpetually Offended Obnoxious People, "What laws did the Europeans break? Plexe cite the statutes and state the issuing authority." Also point out that the early European settlers seem to have followed the same laws as the Indians did - "I"m tougher than you, so I'm taking what I want."
ReplyDeleteI'll grant that they were well and truly forincated by the US government, "OH! We didn't know that there was (fill in mineral) there, so we'll just change the treaty."
Any more on forms that request "Race/Ethnicity" I've taken to checking "Other" and, if able, writing in Celto-Slavic. HEY! If Asian and Pacific Islanders get 87 choices, and there are 18 categories for Latin/Hispanic (which, ironically don't include Spanish, Portugee [Every Portagee I know says Portagee, not Portuguese], Italian, French or Romanian), I get to "identify" as Celto-Slavic representing my heritage. I also complain as obnoxiously as I can that there is no National Slavic Heritage Month, and how RAAAACist is is that Slavic Peoples are ignored and dismissed in this o, so racist nation.
https://forums.sassnet.com/uploads/monthly_2024_10/5q12pt.jpg.ba15dabd372f528ed2f9563ca7fb115d.jpg
When commanded to enter a "race" on a form in Basic Training (49 years ago), I entered "Other." Was told that I had to state what sort of "Other," I entered "Celt." Training Instructor was unhappy, I told him what that meant. He accepted that as a real thing. I didn't put "Celtic" as I didn't want to confuse anyone not from New England.
DeleteWhat most people don't know is that the FedGov actually supported the various tribes against 'white' incursions until the tribes just got too friggin stupid to deal honestly with. Like the whole 'stolen lands' thingy, while at the same time saying 'no one owns the land.' And the lands in question being stolen from one tribe to another to another to another.
DeleteKinda like... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVqQosyOpg4 Probably one of the most succinct summations of the whole issue.
And then there's "I am the great leader of XXX tribe" while at the same time "All men are fee, if they want to do I have no control...
The issues are so very complex with lots of screwing being done by all sides.
Me? I prefer a culture steeped in the rich history of The Wheel. No wheel, no me.
Gotta have the wheel, that's a deal breaker. (I've seen that clip, I'm really surprised that the Tube of You hasn't suppressed it.)
DeleteGood times create soft effeminate DO GOODERS (in their fevered minds oft enough) that begat times O' Trouble that begats some, (read MUCH) troubles later harder MEN that create good times.
ReplyDeleteEven after Rome fell those that DO go on to DO and Build.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Robert A. Heinlein
But it always sucked to be a slave with chains forced upon you OR willing accepted for FREE Shit aka GimeDats.
“It is difficult to free people from the chains they revere.”
― Voltaire
Sheeple DO LOVE their chains so lightly on them.
You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.
Robert A. Heinlein
Apparently even in Heinlein's time Trump Disorder Syndrome or its similar was around.
The mentally ill have ever been with us.
DeleteYes, but the life of the "Village Idiot" used to be harsh, short and brutal. Often starved to death if not safe to use as mere mule work
DeleteToday it's celebrated, promoted, DEI'd (or deified perhaps) and they BREED like rats.
We get what we tolerate. I have an older farmhouse and anti-rat work is always ongoing to keep them reduced to a minor annoyance. Red squirrels the wire chewers the same.
True, we encourage them to reproduce in this day and age.
DeleteLBJ and his lot are to blame for the incentive for blacks to breed out of wedlock. Ironic that the baby-killing advocates ( my market is flooded with "We can't let him go to Congress" because he'll outlaw abortion -a lie) when so many of the babies killed are black.
DeleteNow the real danger are the mohammedans we've imported who are outbreeding every other group. I see more and more women in my area wearing slave scarves.
Boat Guy
We, like Britain before us, are being overrun. It is intentional and the politicians responsible don't care.
DeleteI'd heard or read (getting to the frosty head phase and things run together) that Columbus said something like "gente en Dios" describing the "natives". That's been quite a while back, hence the fuzzy memory. When I studied Japanese (long years ago), there were some tonal similarities to the conversations I heard in the four corners region. I figured our "Indians" were from Asia. Maybe a land bridge or a good boat. Everyone is a refugee from somewhere. And like Joe said, "I can, so I will". It has ever been thus. Nothing new under the sun. I like the idea of "Other". We all fit there.
ReplyDeleteSeems like everyone is running from something.
DeleteBeg to differ gents; there are refugees and there are invaders. We have far more of the latter crossing our border being portrayed as the former.
DeleteBG
Harkening back to my "Immigrants" post. When they are unaccompanied military-age males, they're invaders, not refugees.
DeleteThe oldest grave in 'The New World' is one of a caucasian female. Not semi-mongolian east asian.
DeleteSo we 'whites' were here first. Before being killed off, enslaved and bred out of existence.
If you want to play the 'We are first so it's ours' game...
I remember reading about that. A cursory search revealed nothing. Surprise, surprise.
DeleteWe need to keep in mind when trying to find out was "is", is that Google is not above changing anything to get to it's goals...or leaving something out if it works better for what Google wants.
ReplyDeleteThe land bridge theory ... they have found 23,000 yo human footprint fossils in New Mexico(?) which puts people here way before the land bridge theory.
Google, Wikipedia, Microsoft, none of them want the truth to be anything other than what they want it to be.
DeleteThe land bridge itself isn't really a theory, the idea that perhaps people came over it is, finding those footprints doesn't debunk that theory, merely provides other options. We all know how curious we humans are, wouldn't surprise me that some group managed to make their way to New Mexico (near Alamogordo) well before the land bridge folks (if they actually existed). Also the land bridge theory has an earliest date of 26,000 years ago. Which would pre-date the footprints.
Lots of actual science out there which is making things clearer as to human beings in the Americas. Another interesting article is https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dna-12000-year-old-skeleton-helps-answer-question-who-were-first-americans-180951469/.
Will we ever know what really happened back then? I doubt it.
Funny you should mention it, but many moons ago I was taught that both Columbus and his first mate, as well as the captain of one of the smaller boats, were able to write in Hebrew.
ReplyDeleteThen again, wasn't it around that time that the King of Spain was trying to rid himself of those pesky Joos?
It was indeed in that time frame.
DeleteI've never been to Spain!
DeleteWe weren't blaming you, Joe.
DeleteOr were we?
A Catholic knowing and writing in Hebrew was not uncommon at that time, as a lot of scholarly books were written in said Hebrew. According to the 'first person' reports on Columbus, he was a well-read and well-rounded man. Who spoke and read Italian, Spanish, some Portuguese, Latin and Hebrew and possibly whatever languages of the Ottoman Empire.
DeleteIf he was born Jewish, he was converted to Christianity and was serious about being a Christian. How do we know this? Because the recently flush Spanish Royal Court would never allow a 'secret Jew' (one hiding as a Christian, which was the real reason for the Spanish Inquisition, to find practicing Jews and practicing muslims who said they were Catholic) to lead an expedition funded by the Spanish Court right after the finish of the Reconquista.
Yes, this "DNA says he was Jewish" thing bugs me. Given all of the anti-Semitism around (which seems to be all the rage on college campuses where we used to send our kids to learn but now it's indoctrination) I can see some sort of tie-in with that.
DeleteSo now the "indigenous" can blame the Jews?
I look at all the anti-Semitism today, especially the colleges and I think back to what the Nazi's claim to fame was/is ....
DeleteI know, it worries me.
DeleteWhich is why Eisenhower ordered the Army to document the ever-living-snot in written form including first person testimony from all sides, still photography and motion picture.
DeleteMy 8th grade Math Teacher was one of the Army photographers. One day one kid was doing the whole Holocaust denial thingy and he got silent. He brought his private slide collection the next day, showed us photos he kept. And then took a leave-of-absence.
As to 'Jewish DNA,' so? According to DNA most of us of European decent are 'Mongolian' in some part. The Christianization of western European Jews had been going on since way before the 1st Crusade. Especially when a lot of Jews sided with the muslims and various caliphates over Christians. Like in Italy, where Columbus was born, supposedly. The regional Jews supported Islamist mercenaries against the Normans, and lost, and supported insurrections against the Italo-Normans, and lost. So many of the surviving Jews converted and many stayed converted though many were secret Jews.
Holocaust deniers, bastards and scoundrels all.
DeleteI suppose if one wants to split hairs, one could say that the English practiced colonialism or imperialism on their nearest neighbors - the Irish, the Welsh, the Scots - long before they took to overseas (for those interested, research The Ulster Plantation of the last 1500's in Ireland or the Highland Clearances following the Battle of Culloden; I might recommend Richard Berleth's book The Twilight Lords (on Ireland) and John Prebble's excellent book The Highland Clearances on Scotland). But so did mostly every other nation-state for most of history in one way or another. Does not make it right, did not make it right - but it remains a historical fact.
ReplyDeleteOne also notes that those most vocal about the wrongs of the past are also the loudest voices about straitjacketing any and all who do not believe as they do.
You can go back further, it wasn't just nation-states, tribes and groups of tribes practiced the exact same thing.
DeleteThose most vocal concerning the wrongs of the past are busy committing the wrongs of the now and the future. I despise fanatics of any stripe.
I should have noted the picture above is the cover painting of Preeble's book as well.
DeleteNice!
Delete(Though I have to say, it's rough reading about the Clearances.)
Columbus got his day so that federal workers would get a paid holiday on our dime....
ReplyDeleteWhich I personally have no problem with. 😁
Delete"Besides which, after the Bering Land Bridge people arrived, the Norsemen were next. Columbus was third, at best."
ReplyDeleteThere is evidence Asians traveled to the Americas. British Columbia jade in China, a Northwest tribe that speaks a Japanese dialect, bananas, etc.
Kon-Tiki made it from South America to the Polynesian islands, so there may have been bi-directional traffic a long time before the Norse, Irish monks, and ole Chris.
DeleteWSF - Did not know that, doesn't surprise me though.
DeleteRick - The Polynesians were amazing seafarers.
DeleteGood evidence that both Egyptians and Phoenicians also made contact with the future Americas, along with the Irish. And the very northern American natives also made it to the British Isles if not also Northwest Europe.
DeleteSo Columbus didn't make it here first. But he was the tip of the European exploration and conquest.
What's funny (maybe) is that the first contact Columbus had with 'native Americans' was the natives wanting to hire Columbus and all his forces to go beat up the other group of natives on Hispaniola. Everyone forgets that fact.
And the peaceful Puritan Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock fame (which, due to rising seas, is still visible at low tide...) came here as a mercenary force, not farmers, and were wanting to be hired out by the locals who wanted Europeans to kill other locals... They were expecting to be paid in food. So showing up in an area with few to no natives to hire them and in an area the previous locals had burnt out the soil of so to make farming difficult and said Pilgrims not really grokking agriculture along with the whole communism thing and showing up late in the year in the wrong spot are the reasons that the Pilgrims almost didn't survive their first winter.
If people were good with boats and had figured out the stars, then it wouldn't surprise me if we found proof of everybody and his brother visiting our shores at some point in time.
DeleteAn interesting new paper came out that, based on DNA analyses of walrus tusks in European collections, the Norse carried out extensive walrus tusk hunting or trade in the Canadian arctic west of Greenland from about 1250 - 1400 AD.
DeleteNot a surprise, makes perfect sense given their travels to this hemisphere.
DeleteRegarding the changing of names and sensitivities, you'll like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8KXYq1a5uw
ReplyDeleteGeorge Carlin is always worth a listen.
DeleteMore later, but I always like the way we try to disguise our remarks with latin. So, I lived in 4 different houses over the years in Newport, Rhode Island and Providence Latifundium. Makes it sound more elite don't it?
ReplyDeleteAnd so non-offensive, unless of course you were Carthaginian ...
DeleteCrusty Old TV Tech here. Some have postulated the Erse (Irish) made it here first, or some of my Norske kin. Hah! If the Irish, why did Columbus not find a single pub anywhere? And if the Norsk, then why no Lutefisk and Aquavit, hmmm? Obvious questions!
ReplyDeleteGood questions indeed!
DeleteWhy no 'Norse DNA' in Native Americans or long-term Norse Settlements? Because the Skraelings (Native Americans) tried lutefisk and aquavit and liquifisk (think early version of Worchester Sauce or Garum but fishier and made by digging a hole in the permafrost, dumping fish into hole and coming back a year later for the liquid bleh that's floating on the ice) and said, "NO COPULATING WAY! KILL THEM ALL!!!"
DeleteThere is that.
Delete