The American Holocaust



 In 1976, Pulitzer prize-winning author and WWII historian John Toland wrote:

 

“Hitler’s concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America’s extermination – by starvation and uneven combat – of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity.”

 

Over the past 237 years, the United States government has had some very interesting names for it's Indian "Civilization" Policy...Indian Removal, Liquidation, Extermination, Assimilation, Friends of the Indian, Reorganization, Self-Determination, Reservations...(not to mention the hundreds of broken treaties) were/ are "policies" that amount to nothing less than an American Holocaust. 

It was/ is not only a genocide...it was/ is multiple genocides of hundreds of Nations, millions of Native Americans, hundreds of distinct cultures, languages, and tribal identities, the confiscation of billions of acres of land, etc.

Some (idiots) would say that we need to move on...the ends justify the means...ultimately good and progress came from this bad...that was a long time ago...why should I care...

One social commentator said that...

"anyone who didn't celebrate the annihilation of the native peoples of the Americas was self-hating, ridiculous, ignorant, and sinister." People who regard critically the genocide that was carried out in America's past are simply reactionary and that...

 

"atrocities happen to be the way history is made"

 

 and "to complain about[atrocities] is as empty as complaint about climatic, geological, or tectonic shift"....such violence is worth glorifying since it more often than not has been for the long-term betterment of humankind - as in the United States today, where the extermination of the Native Americans - the American Indians - has brought about a nearly boundless epoch of opportunity and innovation."
 

 

I choose not to forget or sugarcoat the atrocities of yesterday and today. Will we ever get serious and begin to repair the wreckage of Westward Expansion and the tragic neglect of today's "invisible man"?  When will we be able to say that love, respect, justice, and mercy happen to be the way history is made?!?

 

"Let us put our minds together and
 see what life we can make for our children."
                                         -Sitting Bull

Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/sittingbul172388.html#YhIP08wJ3jfRKy7o.99

Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/sittingbul172388.html#YhIP08wJ3jfRKy7o.99

Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/sittingbul172388.html#YhIP08wJ3jfRKy7o.99