Happy Genocide Day

Well it's Columbus Day and everybody gets it off now, even school kids. So the kids aren't in class being indoctrinated as to what a great guy Columbus was. Well, Thom Hartman treated us to a genocidal moment this morning. When Columbus made his 2nd trip to Haiti he decided to take back slaves to Spain. He and his first mate kept a journal and they said that these slaves were as good as gold and one of them would sell for the price of a while farm. One guy got a slave who sexually resisted him so he thrashed her soundly and raped her. They said that the slaves most in demand were nine and ten year old girls. Apparently Queen Isabela said that these slaves would be a fitting tribute to the Holy Trinity or something. Of course the indiginous population was eventually completely wiped out. The culture became so dispondent that suicide was epidemic and women would abort their babies because they didn't want to bring them into such a horrible world. So much for Christian values. Queen Isabela had apparently offered Columbus a live long pension if he had found gold on his voyage. Since the indigionous population was wiped out they brought in a lot of black slaves from Africa to Haiti. But they were one of the few slave races to actually successfully rebel and form their own nation. As such the Born Again evangelists cite the Hatian nation as a nation "cursed by God". We now skip up to the time of the Pilgrims where in 1635 we entered into the Pequat wars, and there was a horrible genocide and burning bodies and people run through spears from their anus to their mouths (?) and I guess William Bradford was there, who was the same guy who first penned the phrase "Shining city on a hill" speech Reagan used so much. Anyhow he described this whole death spectical in his journal and said that it was a horrible slaughter but a sweet victory and "a fitting sacrifice undo the Lord". Now when the Naraganset tribe saw what had been done to their former rivals, the Peaquat, they turned against England. These Naragansit peoples had been the tribes the Pilgrims first met and taught the English how to farm and keep from starving and all of that. "No good deed goes unpunished". But the Naragansit turned against the English and the English apparently fired back with a threatening letter to the Naragansit leader.

Last Saturday they had a "Christian values" sumet as you all know. Mormonism was condemned as a "theological cult", because "Unlike Christianity, Mormonism had an earthly founder". Oddly they held this tribute to capitalistic greed on Yom Kippur, the most holy day in the Jewish calendar. So much for the "Judeo-Christian ethic". Yom Kippur is a day of humility and fasting when an observent Jew takes stock of his life the past year and contemplates his sin. Of course according to one speaker at the summit - -"The two greatest threats to Christian values today in America are Islam extremism and homosexuality". This is because "homosexuality is a threat to religious liberty" or something. Of course the right wing has been referring to the "dirty and unwashed masses" that are protesting Wall Street. Kane says the solution to being impoverished is not to blame the economy or Wall Street but "Just go get a job". As you will remember that Newt Gingrich declared that "The problem with the high unemployment rate could be solved if we just cut all of these people off unemployment so they would be forced to get themselves jobs". And they will say that "Roosevelt's policies didn't help unemployment because it was still at 16.9% in 1936". Interrestingly if we competed the unemployment rate the same way now as we did then, ours would be 16.1% The implication here is if THEY had adopted the Reagan method of accounting, THEIR rate would be considerably below 16.9% in 1936. They say that "governmental programs" will never lower the unemployment rate. But what was World War II is not a "Governmental program"? In a 1913 Supreme Court ruling they said that "child labor is a good thing and prohibiting it would be a violation of the "child's right to contract"". That's the sort of thing that happens when you're too much a purist.

Some of you want to know a little more about the socialogy of the Federation. Well, there are a lot of Franc-o-files in Bela Tagis IV. There were waves of immigrations to the planet and they are a sizable minority constituancy. By the way people talk about "hearing voices". Well, Joan of Arc heard the voices. Unfortunately a certain pastor with French linage was "on the wrong side of that conflict". I make light of the George Bush remark "I hear the voices". I know that remark is taken out of context. He was referring to "voices of protest against him". There is a line in the Alice Cooper song "Caught in a Dream" that goes, "If you see me with a smile on my face - - then you know I'm a mental case". If one person with odd beliefs is referred to as mentally ill- - what do they call a whole colony of people with a mental delusion? Why, a religion, of course. By the way that yellow cat Willis, was not named after my maternal grandfather's father. I didn't know that was his name then and besides I didn't name the cat. FH told me a week or so ago that the planet where George Harrison is now - - - was referred to by local Romulans as the BLANK planet, after the last name of the family that named Willis. I told FH "I don't have any recollection of that reference". Of course you know that Bela Tagis IV was "The Dune Planet" portrayed in the movie. I'm told they in fact do have giant sand worms there. However the Romulans picked up on this whole bit about "the population living underground because the surface is generally too hot for habitation". When "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" came out they likened the underground human culture to the Federation who they labeled as War Crazy and also used mental illusion to win their battles.

One of the most philosophical profound statements Bill Clinton ever made was when he once said, "you know if you're on a farm and see a tortoise stranded on the top of a fence post, you know it didn't get there by itself. This is a variation of the line "He was born on third base and thinks he hit a tripple". But the saying can work for bad as well as good. How about all of those Blacks in the south being denied work or voting rights because of a "grandfather clause" by which if your grandfather was a slave, you are disqualified. What if you are currently in an underwater mortgage because some fast talking salesman shoved some documents in front of your face and you signed them? What if you were born into poverty and are a victim of that whole "cycle of poverty" that socialogists talk about? What if some individual screwed you over one time in your life and the event has affected your future employment carrier? What if you were just plain "born on the wrong side of the fence" under Calvinist theology. According to Thom Hartman if you are economically disadvantaged- - you not only have your environment but God Himself of his own foreknowledge and sovereignty has pre-ordained you to Poverty? These are weighty issues to contend with. Here's a simple one. Suppose that according to the laws of science you have no "mass" and have to compete with people who do have "mass"? If it were a sumo wrestling match you would lose every time no matter how much you worked out. Gene Scott has said "I never take a chance except on a sure thing". How different is he from the atheist who says "OK, I'll wait till Jesus comes back to become a believer and then I'll be right out there leading the parade". Jesus did indeed make a number of statements in Matthew 25 about showing compassion to the poor, and seemed to intone that this would form a moral basis of the Last Judgement. We keep hearing about "Christian values" out of these right wing "summits" or conventions or whatever you call them. But I'll be darned if I can find any Christian values at all in tar brushing the guiltless and imputing only the highest of morally pure motives to the banksters, international corporatists, and Wall Street crooks.