No, I Don't Celebrate Columbus Day, and Neither Should You

Why in this day and age are we still celebrating Columbus Day? Why aren't we celebrating Chief Joseph Day, or Indigenous People's Day or even fucking Dances With Wolves Day?

Christopher Columbus was a conscienceless mass-murdering, misanthropic and greedy bastard, as were his "men". Well, if you were lucky you were murdered by them. If not you were raped, enslaved, maimed, tortured, then murdered. Columbus himself wrote that his men favored 9 and 10 year old girls as sex slaves. And he didn't see anything wrong with that. He either ordered or condoned some of the most barbarously cruel tortures and genocides that set the tone for the 'policy' towards the whole of the Americas, and yet we read nothing about the actual facts in our history books. And as everyone today is well aware, he didn't 'discover' anything, he was fucking lost and ran into us and mistakenly thought he had found India. Fucktard! I have read several accounts, including portions of Columbus' own account, and especially the account of his contemporary eye-witness Bartolomew de las Casas' "A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies...", who called for Columbus' punishment for his inhumane atrocities. But Columbus was so effective at lining the pockets of the King and Queen of Spain that they turned blind eyes and deaf ears to reports of native babies heads being dashed upon rocks in front of their mothers, of native peoples limbs being severed for not working fast enough, of native people being decapitated and disemboweled for sport. The native people were told that they (the Spaniards) were acting in the name of God. But their God was apparently gold and silver and gemstones. Their God was cruelty and greed. Human beings would commit mass suicide rather than be caught by Columbus and his men. The Spaniard's sadism knew no bounds, and their greed was their justification for their behavior. If you ask me, anyone who is descended from anyone who made their fortune off the backs of the enslaved and murdered Native Americans should be forced to hand their money over to the remaining few. Oh, I know it will never happen. I know "it's not their fault." But they are still profiting from blood money obtained illegally and immorally many years ago, and native people are still largely living in poverty. Not all native people, but a larger percentage in this country than the general population.

Other people say, "Well, it happened a really long time ago. You guys should be over it by now." Really? How do you get over cultural and literal genocide? Would you say that to a Jewish person who survived the Holocaust? Not unless you wanted your ass kicked. And rightly so. So why do you say that to, or think that about us? Seriously, how do we get over that shit? There is such a thing as group consciousness and the Native American group conscience has been systematically raped, tortured, maimed & murdered for over 500 years. It burns a hole in your psyche which is then passed on from generation to generation. It takes a lot of heart to get over that, and that is if circumstances are in your favor. Which they decidedly are not in this case.

After the Holocaust, the Jewish people wanted to establish a homeland where they could be free and feel safe. I don't blame them, who would? But they have used foreign aid, power and might to displace and wage war on people who were already living where they wanted to be. They say they were there first as a way of justifying their actions. The other side says the same thing to justify theirs, and it's really so complicated and messy and maybe no one even knows the truth of who was there first. The people who live there now weren't responsible for the original Jewish ouster and diaspora, but they are being made to pay. But everyone knows the truth of who was here first. We were. There's no denying it. So why isn't the same aid, power and might being brought to bear on Native American's behalf? The U.S. government goes all over the world defending people who are oppressed and trying to set them free (more or less...), but won't settle it's debts to Native America. So yeah, I'm still pissed.

JEEZUS! Already What A Day...

OK, so I had therapy this morning. I gits my mental health (and medical/dental!) needs covered at the Muckleshoot Reservation (I LOVE those guys) because of this whole Native Reciprocity thing, (if a member of a tribe lives in another tribe's county, that tribe covers you, which doesn't suck. In this case only on Wednesdays, but still). Normally I pretty much cry through the whole hour, but today I only cried through half of it! Progress. And this was AFTER my car wreck!!! I was going to drop something off at my friend Liz's house before going to therapy and I was driving along on an arterial, or a thoroughfare or whatever the hell street it is that DOESN'T have stop signs, bounded by cross streets that DO have stop signs, and I get the "There's a spider crawling up my leg!!!!" feeling, glance down for literally 1 second, and boom! There's a guy in the intersection who didn't see me (I didn't even have my cloaking device turned on) and I T-Bone him!!!! SHIT! FUCK! CRAP! Now normally this would have just pissed me off. But last March I was a passenger in a car that was rear-ended by some young hot-head, and me and the driver of the car are still being treated for our injuries. So I'm painfully aware of how much damage a vehicle can inflict on a human being. My car (The Dark Angel. Yes I name my cars. Don't you?) is much bigger and stronger than his (well it IS American!) and even though I had the right-of-way all I could think was "Oh my God, I hurt someone with my car!!!" I have a little bit of extra soreness in my left side of my neck and left shoulder, but nothing too much more than the usual chronic pain I've been dealing with for the last year. What really really really pisses me off, besides the fact that this poor dude didn't look where he was going, is that I get the "There's a spider crawling up my leg!!!" feeling periodically ever since last year's wreck. I am unreasonably afraid of spiders (well if being afraid of something that skitters and crawls and creeps and bites and is ugly & has 8 legs isn't reasonable, I don't know what is) and they all know it-I remind them periodically so they will stay out of my sight so I don't have to kill them. But my reptile brain takes over for just a second before my rational mind can say, "You're in your car and there's no spider crawling up your leg." I doubt if I could have stopped completely before hitting that poor fella, but maybe I could have. Maybe 1 second is all it would have taken for me to avoid the accident. The guy said he wasn't hurt but you never know. My car has a bent license plate and some paint transfer. His looked totaled. But if I was never hit last year I wouldn't have these damn phantom spiders periodically crawling up my leg and spewing mayhem all over the place.

So I start my new job tomorrow. Just a little stressful, but nothing an OFW hasn't handled before. I sent an email out to all my friends to inform them I got a job so they can stop taking up collections for me (just kidding. I didn't tell them to stop) and one of my gentlemen friends said, "Pole dancing, I hope." Honey, that ship has sailed. Besides, OFW's don't pole dance, that sounds a little too much like exercise. Everyone else posted something like, "Details please!" Really? How boring is another person's job? I mean if I was going to work for the C.I.A., or going to be George Clooney's right-hand gal-Friday in Darfur, or host E News Daily or something, I could see the interest. It's just a job, people. Something they have to pay people to do, like most jobs. I'm grateful to have it and it sounds like it's right up my alley, but honestly I don't know how to make it sound even remotely interesting to another carbon-based life form. If something funny or interesting happens, I'll blog about it. Promise. 'K?

Well, I'm feeling hungry and uninspired so I'm gonna go eat something and maybe even take a nap! I never nap, but it seems like a good idea today...