Tag Archives: Christopher Columbus

Point of View Columns

Another Long Weekend in the Life of America

October 9, 2020

7,607,848–212,789 (number of confirmed COVID-19 cases – the number of dead Americans at the beginning of the day

Much of the news of today centers around the foiled plot by white militant militia members to kidnap and kill Michigan Governor Gretchen Witmer. The central grievance of these misguided miscreants? She wanted the citizens of Michigan to wear masks in the middle of a pandemic.

And so, in this crazed climate created by the Instigator in Chief, some very committed militia members who have been mesmerized by Trump’s multiple dog whistles figured that it would be a good idea to kidnap and kill Governor Witmer, in the process inspiring other militia groups to take over state governments around the country. After all, Mr. Good People on Both Sides had provided a veneer of presidential acceptance that heretofore had never existed.

So with the tacit (certainly not spoken) approval of Trump, these good Michiganders did a third rate imitation of ISIS right down to learning how to make IED’s with shrapnel covers. They also staked out Governor Witmer’s summer home and by the accounts of the indictment were not too far from carrying out their infernal plan which, if consummated, would have killed not only Governor Witmer, members of her family and almost certainly multiple members of the law enforcement.

Fortunately for Governor Witmer – and the nation – the FBI and Michigan state law enforcement units were able to apprehend these clown criminals before they could commit their evil deeds. It turns out that they liked to communicate via the secure communication tool of Facebook.

While Governor Witmer received messages of support and commiseration from leaders of both political parties, why are we not surprised by the fact that Trump responded by tweeting that she had been a terrible governor. Which in Trumpspeak means that she deserved whatever could have happened to her.

It makes the blood run cold to realize that there is a very real possibility that this very damaged human being could be President of the United States for another four years.

Clearly this country stands on the precipice of an existential disaster.

 October 10, 2020

7,669, 411-213,837 (number of confirmed COVID-19 cases – the number of dead Americans at the beginning of the day

Today we learned that months ago the CDC was prepared to issue national guidelines that would mandate that masks be worn by passengers on all public transportation throughout the United States. However, members of the Team Trump intervened and prevented that mandate from going out the rationale being that states and localities should determine the best protocols for their respective public transportation systems.

Considering that the VOVID-19 is a national threat it certainly would make sense for there to be a national policy, particularly with what is now considered the most effective means of preventing the spread of the virus. Serious public health officials are unanimous in stating that the wearing of masks, social distancing and frequent hand washing are the most effective means. This is not a strategy that could be different in Georgia as opposed to Wyoming as opposed to New York. Like the virus, science does not operate on a state by state basis.

This story provides further proof that Trump and his minions are literally and actually responsible for the death of many thousands of Americans who could have been saved but for the politicizing of the response to the pandemic. Rather than looking through a lifesaving lens, Trump has only his myopic reelection vision to the exclusion of logic, common sense or care for the well-being of human beings.

And just to keep things interesting Trump has organized another super spreader event at the White House, another campaign rally with 2,000 people who will probably have a dozen masks between them. Doing his best Juan Peron imitation Trump will speak from the Truman balcony (which probably has poor Harry spinning in his grave every time his name is mentioned in connection with the Clown and President).

What is also interesting is that there is no evidence that these rallies are helping Trump’s campaign or his reelection efforts. The people in attendance are already supporters and certainly are not further motivated by a rally where Trump will say the same things that he has been saying since 2005. Indeed, reports indicate that many people in Trump Nation just want to see their Fearless Leader in the flesh and typically leave long before Trump finishes his rantathon.

But the rallies feed his inner megalomaniac. The rallies address his need for reaffirmation that he is an Important Man instead of being a poor excuse for a human being.

In a very real way it is all very sad…. sad for the nation and actually, very sad for Trump.

October 11, 2020

7,755, 527-214,735 (number of confirmed COVID-19 cases – the number of dead Americans at the beginning of the day

The Hatch Act says, among other things, that federal facilities are not too be used for political events. The last time anyone checked, the White House is a federal facility, owned and maintained by the United States government.

Yet, yesterday Trump hosted a totally partisan “rally” at the White House attended by Blacks and Latinos for Trump. Of course the U.S. Justice Department should be looking into this total misuse of federal resources but, of course, the Justice Department is headed by William Barr, Trump’s toothless lap dog, so there is no chance that there will be any examination/investigation by the Justice Department. And in what is one more sign that Trump is debasing the core institutional values of the American governmental system, there really has not been an outpouring of outrage and criticism at the brazen act of lawlessness. In the Age of Trump lawlessness is the New Norm.

And in a show of truly blatant disrespect for a man who has spent a lifetime earning international respect, the Trump campaign aired a video featuring Dr. Anthony Fauci speaking about the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic in a positive way. The Trump campaign spliced that comment into a campaign ad making it seem that Fauci was praising Trump which was simply not the case.

Clearly the Trump campaign is the true reflection of its candidate using anybody and anything for his benefit regardless of truth, validity or relevance.

October 12, 2020

7,763, 371-214,776 (number of confirmed COVID-19 cases – the number of dead Americans at the beginning of the day)

For over a century this day had been known as Columbus Day. It was a day initially meant to honor Italian heritage at a time when Italian Americans were subject to especially harsh discrimination (including a lynching of Italians in New Orleans in the latter part of the 19th century).

This was a particularly benign holiday and an occasion for many to have a day off from work or school. But as the myth of American history transitioned to the truth of American history, it became clear that Christopher Columbus was the advance guard of European genocide, slavery and violent colonization and that Columbus himself enslaved, tortured, killed and robbed the indigenous people that he encountered during his first voyages to the so-called New World.

Today, many people are beginning to refer to this day as Indigenous People’s Day, using it as an occasion to remember that there were tens of millions of indigenous people in what is now North and South America before the appearance of Europeans. And in remembering their existence it becomes possible to also remembering the devastation of their civilizations as part of the Original Sin of America.

The day also begins with the confirmation hearings pertaining to the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. While it is clear that her confirmation is a fait accompli if there ever was one, it does offer the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee an opportunity to lay bare the naked determination of the Republicans to stack the Supreme Court with an iron clad 6-3 super conservative majority for at least the next decade if not more.

Judge Barrett’s opening statement contained the expected platitudes about being committed to fairness and impartiality. But she also stated that she believes that the Supreme Court should apply the law as written and not try to inject policy into judicial decisions. Of course, on the planet on which Judge Barrett lives, banning abortion, gutting the Voting Rights Act and eliminating the Affordable Care Act are not policy decisions, but merely the application of the law. The fact that important policies are affected are, Judge Coney would have us believe, is merely incidental.

And there is no truth to rumor that Judge Coney also has a bridge in Brooklyn that she would like to sell.

As the hearing goes forward it turns out that the future of the right wing of the right wing reimagined Supreme Court will encompass the obliteration or invalidation of accepted policies and principles including the right of a woman to choose, the right of consenting adults to use contraceptives, civil rights laws to protect Black Americans, the remaining protections of the already gutted Voting Rights Act, affirmative action in the workplace and in academia and the right of consenting adults of the same gender to love and marry.

And that is just a warmup.

The title of a Billie Holiday song comes to mind, “Detour Ahead”.

Detour indeed.

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Point of View Columns

Time to End Columbus Day

Columbus Day celebrations have taken place in the United States for over a century. The original celebration took place in response to the lynching of Italian immigrants in New Orleans and was seen as a kind of a national mea culpa as well as a way to affirm the citizenship. Parenthetically, one might ask how many black people need to be lynched and killed by police before the citizenship of black Americans will be affirmed – but we digress.

It is not clear why Christopher Columbus was chosen as the focus of celebration by our Italian American brothers and sisters. At the latter part of the 19th century other subjects of pride were widely known – men such as Giuseppe Garibaldi, thought to be the father of modern Italy, or Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor and pioneer of wireless transmission or the legendary opera composer Giuseppe Verdi.

Instead, Christopher Columbus was chosen, a man around whom a myth would literally be invented. This is a myth that serves to mask the race-based conquest and genocide that is the true legacy of all residents of the Western Hemisphere. This is a myth that serves to distract from the crimes against humanity that haunt all of this to this very day.

Consider the breathtaking scope of the lies and untruths that surround the Christopher Columbus myth. First and foremost, there is no logic, except a racist perversion of the facts that Columbus “discovered” America. How is it possible to discover a land where tens of millions of people had been living for thousands of years? Only a Eurocentric white supremacist vision of history could sustain the logic that Columbus “discovered” anything in the Western Hemisphere.

If one wishes to put a fig leaf on this non-myth and state that he was the first European to arrive in the Western Hemisphere —- that would be untrue as well. Historians agree that the Viking settlements in what is now Newfoundland predate the arrival of Columbus by several centuries.

And then, there is the larger issue as to what is being celebrated. The arrival of Columbus was the vanguard of a virtual deluge of European invasion of the Western Hemisphere bringing disease, death and cultural annihilation to the indigenous people. Celebrating Columbus means celebrating the beginning of genocide so vast and so profound that it is literally beyond calculation – there are no more Arawaks, or Tainos, or Aztecs or Incas or Caribs, the list is sadly endless – thanks to the invasion begun by Columbus.

And let us not forget that Columbus was also the vanguard of the most massive slave empire in the history of the planet. Beginning in 1492, Europeans who not satisfied with conquering and killing and stealing the land of the indigenous people began the African slave trade which devastated the African continent and established a race-based society and mindset that has lasted to this very day.

So when it comes to Christopher Columbus, there really is nothing to celebrate. Again, if the day is to be about the celebration of Italian heritage, there are many candidates, any of whom have a more glorious legacy and have left a more honorable heritage than Columbus.

Sad to say, there will be many who will wish to cling to this myth, just as they cling to the myth that the leaders of the slaveholding Confederacy were good and honorable men. Just as there are those who will cling to the myth that Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were honorable men even though they owned and bought and sold human being during their entire adult lives.

There is no way to change the past. There is no way to forget the past. There is no way to forgive the past. But there should be no way that we should countenance the celebration of myths and fairy tales that disguise and mythologize the past. Participation in the desecration of the memory of the victims is also a great crime – but one that can be corrected.

It is time to end Columbus Day.

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Point of View Columns

Columbus, Football and Genocide

Columbus Day is being celebrated throughout these United States. It is a celebration that reveals absolute and intentional ignorance of basic history. It is a celebration that honors the dishonorable, the horrific and the indelible. It is a time when collectively Americans choose to put on blinders and ignore the simple fact that this country, indeed modern “civilization” in the Western Hemisphere, is built on the blood soaked soil and bones of the indigenous people along with the shattered remains of their African comrades in pain. Just like the National Football League.

One would think that it would be unnecessary in the second decade of the twenty first century to once again point out that Christopher Columbus didn’t “discover” America. There were millions of indigenous people who had inhabited the so-called New World for thousands of years. There were towns and villages and cities and empires with achievements in astronomy, mathematics and engineering that rivaled and in some cases surpassed the best that Europe had to offer.

Columbus wasn’t even the first European to set foot in the Western Hemisphere. The Vikings beat Columbus to the historical punch establishing settlements in New Foundland almost half a millennium earlier. But Columbus Day has a much greater meaning than the abandoned Viking settlements in what is now Canada.

But Christopher Columbus brought with him greed, avarice and an implacable hunger for gold and riches which, with the blessings of the Catholic Church, opened an era of rape, genocide and treachery which resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of indigenous people throughout the hemisphere. Taking the concept of white supremacy to its most awful extreme, Christopher Columbus and the Europeans who followed him, felt justified in killing men, women and children without remorse. They considered the right to enslave others to be part of their white Christian birthright and they established societies which, to this day, carry the virus of sanctioned racism. And we know all too well that this virus manifests itself in daily society.

The question becomes, knowing these rather obvious facts, why does anyone choose to celebrate the legacy of a murderer who was the harbinger of genocide and the first to seize the opportunity to destroy, demolish and obliterate societies and civilizations? It must be that it is more comfortable for too many to celebrate undeniable falsehoods than come to grips with the uncomfortable truth.

Which brings to mind the National Football League which still abides by its Washington team being called the “Redskins”, an odious term that was never acceptable, and is more horrific in its usage the more that history has been revealed to us. Nevertheless, the NFL and CBS and NBC and Fox and ABC and other sports news outlets refer to “Redskins” even though it is impossible to consider sports teams with names like the “New York Niggers” or the “Boston Kikes” or the “Chicago Wops” being acceptable. Referring to the indigenous people as mascots is akin to building a communal toilet on what remains of their tradition and history.

There is no calculus which could reduce the concept of “reparations” to dollars and cents. But it would be helpful to stop celebrating lies and continuing horrific myths while the ghosts of the dead continue to seek recognition, if not the redress they so richly deserve.

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