Jun 06 2009
There’s a reason Kevin Annett has a petition stating, “apparent refusal to investigate suspected crime sites related to the mass burials of children who died in Indian residential schools.”
http://feminismfriday.wordpres…
The child was touched without permission, during this time the assailant was holding what we can easily refer to as a “deadly weapon” given that you could hypothetically be killed by a pair of scissors. In fact, it is not a stretch to imagine this happening.
May 31 2009
I am a professional fool. A clown from a long line of clowns, going so far back into the mists of prehistory that some say the Fool was created first when Man Maker the Magician decided one fine day to create human beings…
So, just as a reminder to all that the Fool hasn’t yet given up his day-job of speaking truth to power, here’s a breakdown on the ‘official’ definition in the immortal rendering of Ambrose Bierce:
May 25 2009
In his farewell address to the nation after spending 8 years as president, in 1961 Eisenhower warns of a growing danger.
Eisenhower on the Military Industrial Complex
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
Why would a respected President, set the sights so high, for his successors, and for America, as the dawn of the Television Age, blazed its path, towards an unknown Future?
May 24 2009
In this diary, we address more directly what I’ve mostly skirted around in this New Deal series – something I’m completely unqualified to talk about. That being race relations in the South. I know it’s a cheap shot to give a diary this potentially misleading title, but I couldn’t resist. STFU stands for Southern Tenant Farmers Union, which organization this diary will come around to after some introduction.
Delta Cooperative Farm, Hillhouse, Mississippi, July 4, 1936
(Dorothea Lange for the Resettlement Administration)
STFU was an important progressive organization in its day. I’ve come across the argument that it was a key precursor to the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s. There’s probably something to that.
May 20 2009
This diary is a book review of Kees van der Pijl’s (2007) work on “foreign relations,” Nomads, Empires, States. Van der Pijl argues that the field of “foreign relations” must be rethought, and doing this will allow us to see why relations between nation-states are only one mode of foreign relations, and not necessarily the most important one in this era. Rethinking foreign relations, then, we should be able to understand why the regime of “global governance” has failed to triumph in a world without endemic warfare between nation-states.
(crossposted at Big Orange)
May 04 2009
So I know you were just sitting around wondering, “What are the origins of the modern police state?,” and maybe, “Can an effort at genocide, if sustained long enough, actually work?,” or possibly, “What would happen if a bunch of religious zealots were in a position to exercise spiritual, temporal, political, and military authority over all they survey?” Well, Pope Innocent III, the same guy who launched the Fourth Crusade, certainly asked himself these questions, and he sought to answer them through direct action.
So join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, to get a glimpse of a nobly enlightened culture as it is extinguished by the hate-filled love of the Medieval Church. We’ll also see the heretical Cathars subjected to travesties that only these people would not find barbaric…
Apr 27 2009
The truly beautiful thing about history is the way it informs on such a multitude of levels. Depending on the way one reads things, the same story can be anything from a simple, cautionary tale, to an eerily-similar depiction of current events, to a cause for awe and celebration of human achievement, to an inspiration for future generations – and all manner of interpretations in between. But, since the understanding of history is ultimately a personal thing, I’ll leave it to my fellow historiokossians to figure out how we as a community should look at the story of the Nika Riot.
Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, for a look a one of the most divisive times in the history of one of the world’s great civilizations. Now, far be it from me, a lowly historiorantologist, to claim that we as a community might see a bit of ourselves in the story – but I do confess to a hope that (if we have indeed laid waste to a third of our metaphorical city in the recent flamewars) the minds and passions here are capable of raising from the ashes our own Hagia Sofia.
Apr 18 2009
The sterilizations of indigenous women were covert means of the continuation of the extermination policy against the Indian Nations. At least three indigenous generations from 3,406 women are not in existence now as the result. The sterilizations were not unintentional or negligible. They were genocide. What would the indigenous culture and political landscape be now? One can only imagine, but the sterilizations like the relocations – were forced.
Apr 14 2009
Apologies for the tardiness of this diary. A couple weeks ago, as my husband and I were driving, a huge deer jumped right in front of our car. We were absolutely fine, aside from a little shock and damage to the car itself. So I’ve been taking care of all that fun bureaucratic stuff that goes along with filing a claim.
I was lamenting to my mother how this was impeding the progress of my Ostara diary when she pointed out that hitting that deer has everything to do with Wicca. And she’s right. The stag, or horned god, is a major figure in Wicca. He courts and mates with the Goddess in spring, is sacrificed in the fall, and reborn in the winter.
“Yes, but the stag is supposed to be sacrificed in fall, not spring!” I told her. ” And not even at Ostara, at Beltaine!”
“Well, this stag was just a little confused,” she said.
Indeed.
Apr 13 2009
Stop Land Run Re – Enactments in Oklahoma Public SchoolsWHEREAS, S.P.I.R.I.T is working for the rights of Oklahoma Indians, all American Indians, Indigenous people and the peaceful solution to all differences; and
WHEREAS, the Oklahoma History and US History does not provide the whole and true history of Oklahoma Indians or American Indians (Native Americans), and
WHEREAS, re-enacting the Land Run in public schools and in communities in Oklahoma is demeaning and humiliating to Oklahoma Indians, and
– snip –
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the undersigned and S.P.I.R.I.T, the group formed to help American Indians with matters such as these, formally requests the Oklahoma School Boards, Department of Education, Legislators and public officials to abolish the Land Run re-enactments held annually in this state.
Apr 08 2009
It’s been awhile since my last entry in my series on the New Deal. I’ve dipped into the motherlode of picture archives – the FSA pix from the Library of Congress, and got lost amongst the rich legacy therein for a time. Starting with Dorothea Lange, with some 4000 entries. This picture of hers is one of the most iconic from the period:
A picture’s worth a thousand words, right? And everyone thinks they know what this picture’s about. But consider the caption that goes with:
Migrant agricultural worker’s family. Seven hungry children. Mother aged thirty-two. Destitute in pea picker’s camp, Nipomo, California, because of the failure of the early pea crop. These people had just sold their tent in order to buy food. Of the twenty-five hundred people in this camp most of them were destitute.
Permanently changed my understanding of the picture. Throughout the diary, text in italics is direct quotes from the photographers notes
Cross-posted from Daily Kos
Mar 24 2009
Vine Deloria Jr. in God Is Red uses the self explanatory phrases, “spiritual owners of the land” and “political owners of the land.” Now, it is the “political owners of the land” who have taken tribal lands by conquest and yet distort the historical record.
Three members from the Hopi Tribe arrived to give their testimonies as show support for their neighbors, The Dine. Their presence dispelled the public relations myth that the traditional Hopi and the Dine are involved in a Range War.”