{"id":404328,"date":"2021-11-25T03:05:17","date_gmt":"2021-11-25T03:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=123779"},"modified":"2021-11-25T03:05:17","modified_gmt":"2021-11-25T03:05:17","slug":"no-thanks-thanksgiving-national-day-of-sorrow-mourning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/11\/25\/no-thanks-thanksgiving-national-day-of-sorrow-mourning\/","title":{"rendered":"No thanks, Thanksgiving . . . National Day of Sorrow . . . Mourning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yep, a broken record, or to update that, another one of a million cries in the dark digital dungeon to relearn history, and unlearn the rotten past. I have been looking at the Reclaiming the Sacred<\/em> since I met Winona LaDuke decades ago. That’s a whole other story.<\/p>\n

But it doesn\u2019t matter, especially in a time of Branch Covidians and the Trump-Biden-Obama-Clinton-Bush-Carter-Nixon-Ford-LBJ Days of Wine and Roses. Full of military industrial complex disease, and forget about American Indian Movement or Joan Baez or Leonard Peltier or even that guy, Marlon Brando.<\/p>\n

Forget about the PhDs and MDs and leaders and elders alive today from the many diverse tribes of Turtle Island.<\/p>\n

Retail, and weepy, \u201cOh, cherish the time, the Thanksgiving, with family, oh cherish these holiday days with family gathered around the consumer kitchen and the fine eye for a deal tables. A day of pulling out all the paper and digital flyers to see where old Saint Nick will be going FRIDAY.”<\/p>\n

Even lowly Time Magazine<\/em><\/a>, tries to grapple with something tied to the 1863 start of Thanksgiving: \u201cWhat Thanksgiving Means Today to the Native American Tribe That Fed the Pilgrims.\u201d<\/p>\n

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I personally think that it\u2019s just another reminder of all the horrible things that this nation has done to not only us, but all native people,\u201d the Chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, 29 year-old Brian Weeden tells TIME of that \u201cfirst\u201d Thanksgiving, adding that he and his tribe feel largely forgotten. Courtesy of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is 2021, November, in Time Magazine<\/em><\/a>, the lede, as they say. We\u2019ll see what the Matt Taibbi sorts, or Carlson types, or Trump lovers, or even all those on the Blue side of racism have to say, do, and how to act on Thanksgiving. Because, alas, as the Catholic Church is begrudgingly paying out for abuse in places like France, the rest of the white organized criminal-religious enterprises will be wringing their hands, but not righting the wrongs. Disappeared Indigenous here, everywhere. That Church, in Canada, and those graves. What a tip to the genocide iceberg.<\/p>\n

Note what Brian Weeden says in the next citation:<\/p>\n

For this nation to right a lot of their wrongs, they\u2019re gonna have to own up to their racism, which they don\u2019t want to do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, the theater is set \u2014 presidential pardon for a Tom Turkey, and the homilies by Biden and Jill, the perennial kindergarten teacher who is a college faculty member (so many of them, democrats, and white women like Jill Biden are in the end, wannabe Special Ed teachers, but in the classrooms of college students!). Yeah, Kyle Rittenhouse is with Donald LLC Trump, not putting on the Black Face this time, but in the skin of their old favorite team, The Washington Redskins. White psychopath kid is being wined and dined by white psychopath geriatric. The irony, well, there is none. Kyle will get a cherished Washington pro team war bonnet. Manufactured and assembled in, well, of course, China.<\/p>\n

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The optics are amazing, and right on line for 2024, for sure. This kid (above) has a job in the Trump LLC Republican Party juggernaut. To-Be-Sure!! And, they are having a great good white ugly boy-man time. Imagine the potential for an SUV, with Trump 2024 stickers on the bumpers and Stars and Bars noose flags on the double antennae, going for a group of protestors like these:<\/p>\n

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Yet, we still have those Nazi types, pulling from their book of sayings \u2014 this in response to my op-ed in the local conservative rag acknowledging National Native American Heritage Month \u2014 at\u00a0DV<\/a><\/em>, \u201cAnother Genocide Month: Plying the Ignorance of K12, USA Lower\/Higher Ed.\u201d I\u2019ll quote this Lincoln County fellow, here:<\/p>\n

\u201cBy all means, let\u2019s teach history in its fullness of truth, as we ourselves learn and free ourselves from bias. The basic fact is, Stone Age tribes were crushed by more\u00a0<\/em>advanced\u00a0and more powerful tribes, and we\u2019re all still dealing with the outcome of the shattering of those societies.<\/em><\/p>\n

The fact is, genocide was sporadic and not generally practiced or effective. Displacement and an often cruel paternalism was the rule. The pre-Columbus Americas were not a rustic paradise<\/em>.<\/p>\n

These were societies with their own particular pluses and minuses. When we teach the revised histories now, may it be said that among Northwest tribes, at potlatch gatherings, a<\/em>\u00a0rich chief might kill one or two slaves, just to demonstrate his immense wealth? (Something like the modern clich\u00e9 of a rich businessman lighting his cigar with a $50 bill.) May we say that in the Four Corners area of the Southwest, villages raided other villages, killing and sometimes cannibalizing their victims? That the Aztec gods demanded bloody sacrifice of thousands of captives each year, and that the victims were cannibalized? That scalping existed in southwest and eastern North America before the entry of white settlers?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

That is the old canard, the old Mel Gibson fun in his Maya-land Holly-Dirt lies. Oh, just teach the youth ALL of each and every detail, no? Thank goodness we have this response to my article in the Newport News Times:<\/p>\n

I appreciated Paul Haeder\u2019s commentary (\u201cNative American Heritage Month\u201d) in the News-Times\u2019 Nov. 12 \u201cViewpoint\u201d on the Opinion page. I agree, our education system has not provided a very accurate view of Native American history in this country. In the early \u201970s, I read Vine Deloria\u2019s\u00a0Custer Died For Your Sins<\/em>. This book gave me a new historical perspective of Native American history, written by a Native American.<\/p>\n

The Oregon public school system would benefit from exposing its teachers to the history of the Siletz Tribe of Western Oregon. It is available in the book The People Are Dancing Again,<\/em>\u00a0by Charles Wilkinson. I suggest that reading parts of this history should be required reading for Oregon high school students. As Oregonians, we should have at least a basic understanding of the history of what the Native Americans experienced when westward expansion crossed the Cascade Mountains.<\/p>\n

As a resident of Lincoln County, I often read of how the Siletz Tribe gives back to this community, donating hundreds of thousand of dollars to coastal social programs. The Siletz and other tribes are writing their own history. They are alive and well, going forward, and we should celebrate that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The writer is referencing the staid short piece I did for the\u00a0News Ti<\/em>mes \u2014 “Native American Heritage Month<\/a>.” This is the caliber of the responses on both sides of the historical line. Talking about the sacred sites is important, and recovering the sacred, is the only way to bring these sites into the mindset of youth after youth. Vine:<\/p>\n