• beyondtheveil said on Dec 30, 2008....

  I understand you completely and agree with your attitude, but I have these two things to comment on.
  
  When you say "What we need to make a serious attempt to do is reconcile with each other; include each other; and respect the beliefs and customs of each other", it is a utopian ideal and will never happen, largely because it never has and seems to be getting worse.
  
  But when you say "I'm left with the feeling that what the powerful want is more important than what 95% of us need", you are quoting a universal truth concerning the history of humanity.
  
  For instance, the 'people of Gaza' do not poke the sleeping bear. It is a powerful group of suicidal radicals married for eternity to to a warped belief who poke the bear.
  
  In America, its the corporate giants led by a few kept in power by corrupt, greedy, and vain politicians that bleed the people unmercifully for profit.
  
  You can see something similar it in every country in the world in my opinion. Unfortunately, I see no way out of the 'power corrupts' predicament. To alter this would require a change in the basic nature of man upon acquiring positions of power. Great leaders are rare as hen's teeth and cannot compete.
  

• diabolicdame said on Dec 30, 2008....

  I agree with this.. very much.. war is futile and most of the times is simply about  fulfiling the desires of the more powerful party. People die on both sides and mostly innocent people who had nothing to do with the conflict in the first place. Ina  fight between the terrorists and a government for example, its the common man that loses his life, limb and family rather than the so called targets. Its a darn shame that people in power fail to understand or willingly ignore the price of war. The 'you have it and I want it so I'll take it because I'm more powerful' attitude is costing the world dear.

• LtCmdrWorf1 said on Dec 30, 2008....

  Evil,
  
  
  I understand why you say what you say. You are cynical, andI'm not saying that'sa bad thing.  Consider though that we are at tipping point on so many levels that we need to try something new.  We have been doing thing the European way for about 400 years,  It's time to try a new way.  I don't have all the answers to be sure, but I know when somethings broken and needs to be fixed.  
  
  
  Idealistic though I may be, I'll bet that if people tried respecting each other and recieved respect in return we would begin to understand each other a little better.  There will always be disagreements, but they don't hace to be violet.
  
  
  Diabloic,  
  We're onthe same page you and I.  WE see the outright waste of life as shameful and unecessary.  As I said to Evil we need to find a different and better way to seal with each other.  Imagine what we could accomplish if we were to stop killing our sisters and brothers.  Peace and Long Life and Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.
  
  
  Love Worf
  

  
  

  
  

• diabolicdame said on Dec 30, 2008....

  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you as well Worf. I often think how wonderful the world could be without war. I think its a kind of self destruct button in us.. everytime we get ahead in any way, we try our best to kill each other and thus ourselves! Heres hoping the world will see more maturity and harmony in the future.

• LtCmdrWorf1 said on Dec 30, 2008....

  Diabolic,
  
  
  You know I don't belive that it's very hard for people to get along.  mental illness aside, people need to learn to control the one thing that it's within there power to control, themselves.  Peace and Long Life.
  
  
  Love Worf

• D6fer said on Dec 31, 2008....

  I think that the Palestinians have been given every olive branch in the middle east and then proceeded to beat israel with it. Let them perish. If it is a small faction of their population that is causing all of the problem, then I suggest that they extract them themselves and deal with them accordingly.
   
  I get sick of hearing about how Islam is a religion of peace.....bull.....99% of them sit on their hands and shut their mouths while the other 1% create terror, death and destruction worldwide. They are complicit.

• LtCmdrWorf1 said on Dec 31, 2008....

  D6fer,
  
  
  I understand your ire at the situation, but let us not forget that Judaism and Christianity have their skeletons as well, especially Christianity.  We, Christians,  have a cronicle of all our misdeeds.  Interesting that very few people want to take a look in that mirror.  
  
  
  Islam is a religion of peace, but just like Christianity, with which I'm most familiar, a few people with their own agndas currupted that religion for a time.  There are those of us who are determined to take it back.  Muslims should be afforded the same opportuinity.  
  
  
  I must also tell you that I'm saddened by tour response.  To ask 1% to go up against 99% is suicide.  Know though, that I have spoken with people of the Islamic faith who are just as troubled by events as you and I are.  so I would ask you not to be so hard on our Muslim sisters and brothers.  They deserve the same chance as everyone else.  Peace and Long Life
  
  
  Love Worf 

• D6fer said on Jan 01, 2009....

  We have to live in the present....not the past......I was not here for the crusades....were you?
   
  The percentages I listed were the opposite....it's the 99% that do nothing while the 1% do terror......that's just my opinion.
   
  In the case of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict....I don't think analogies do it justice....very simply the palestinians that are firing rockets into Israel are trying to provoke a war....the Israelis are completely justified to take whatever military action is neccessary to make it stop.
   
  The Palestinian know full well that they are no match for Israel, so why would they provoke?
   
   

• LtCmdrWorf1 said on Jan 01, 2009....

  D6,
  
  

  With out the lesson of the past we are destined to repeat the same mistakes.  I know that's a platitude ,but that doesn't make it any less true.  I'm sorry I got you percentage assesment backwards, but would you care to hazzard a guess as to how many Christians and Jews are terrorizing people presently? The only difference that I see is Chistians and Jews hide behind the law and use it to justify terrorist actions.

  
  

  Launching missiles into Israel is wrong. Dropping 500lb bombs on Gaza is wrong.  there needs to be serious conversation in that region between all parties involved.  Here's one final analogy: would you use a shotgun to kill a mosquito?  That's what the Israelis are doing.  Peace and Long Life

  
  

  Love Worf . 

• D6fer said on Jan 02, 2009....

  If the Palestinians would stop firing rockets, then the 500 lb bombs would stop dropping....they hold their fate in their own hands.
  Are Christians and Jews purposely antagonizing anyone into a holy war? explain.
   
  Overwhelming force can be quite effective......for example: Hiroshima & Nagasaki

• LtCmdrWorf1 said on Jan 02, 2009....

  D6.
  
  
  As I said, I see both of these things as wrong.  And so you know, No war is holy although combatants may try and conveince themselve that 's what they're in, a holy war, which leads me to my next point.
  
  
  Christians have been walking all over the peoples of the Middle East for my entire lifetime.  I call it economic terrorismAnd oil companies have been at the forefromt of that type of terrorism.  
  
  
  Exculding the people who were already on the land from participating in the government that you set up on that land is terrorism, don't believe me ask some of my ancestory who met John Smith at what is now called Jamestown.  Do that and might beggin to get an idea of some of the things that have the people of the region so upset.   Genocide was the ansewr forthe natives of this country when they fought back, so I guess it's all right to use again on the dark skined people of the Middle East too.  Like you said if we can drop a nuclear bomb because it's expediant Why not just drop a few more and wipe them off the face of the planet and then we can have all the oil and all the peace we want.  Right?
  
  
  No violence is good violence.  If people don't stop shotting long enought to talk what does that say of our "Civilization?"  Peace nad Long Life
  
  
  Love Worf.  

• D6fer said on Jan 03, 2009....

  man has conquered one another from the beginning of time as we know it....whether you or I see it as right or wrong is completly irrelevant.....the indians of this country warred with each other long before the white man showed up, even enslaved other tribes.....they had no problem with it until a greater adversary showed up and gave them what they had been giving each other all along.

  As far as the people of the middle east goes.....I guess we have to decide whether they would have been better off without all of the revenue from the oil.......would they still be wandering the desert? would their populations be much smaller?  I guess ignorance is bliss right?

  The Israeli's have given the Palestinians, The Lebanese, etc, the all of the cease fires and opportunities to foster peace that they have asked for and all they have done with those opportunities is rested up and reloaded.....it is naive to not recognize this.

• D6fer said on Jan 03, 2009....

  The term Genocide did not exist before 1944....I am not sure, but I doubt that the official intention of the U.S. Government during any time in history was to completely eliminate all of the Indians, but to demoralize them into a state of non-aggression....that being said I am sure that there were those amongst the government and citizenry that were for genocide, but they were definately in the minority.

• LtCmdrWorf1 said on Jan 05, 2009....

  D6,
  
  
  I like the cut of your jib : ) Yes it was first used in a book this dude Rapheal Limpkin in his book Axis rule in Occupied Europe, but that doesn't mean therewas no genocide before that time.  Remeber the Turk's and the Armenians, which the Turk's still deny. Small pock in blanket doesnot sound like demoralization, it sound like genocie to me.  Peace and Long Life
  
  
  Love Worf 

• D6fer said on Jan 06, 2009....

  You have a point there....germ warfare....yes that was diabolical.....by chance do you know the history of that action in particlar? How often and by who? I would be interested to know the facts there.....I'll have to google that one.
   
  Thanks

• D6fer said on Jan 06, 2009....

  A common reaction to this story is that it has to be folklore. Giving infected blankets to the Indians--why, that's awful! That's disgusting! That's . . . ethnic cleansing. Hmm. Maybe this story bears a closer look.

  Fact is, on at least one occasion a high-ranking European considered infecting the Indians with smallpox as a tactic of war. I'm talking about Lord Jeffrey Amherst, commander of British forces in North America during the French and Indian War (1756-'63). Amherst and a subordinate discussed, apparently seriously, sending infected blankets to hostile tribes. What's more, we've got the documents to prove it, thanks to the enterprising research of Peter d'Errico, legal studies professor at the University of Massachusetts at (fittingly) Amherst. D'Errico slogged through hundreds of reels of microfilmed correspondence looking for the smoking gun, and he found it.

  The exchange took place during Pontiac's Rebellion, which broke out after the war, in 1763. Forces led by Pontiac, a chief of the Ottawa who had been allied with the French, laid siege to the English at Fort Pitt.

  According to historian Francis Parkman, Amherst first raised the possibility of giving the Indians infected blankets in a letter to Colonel Henry Bouquet, who would lead reinforcements to Fort Pitt. No copy of this letter has come to light, but we do know that Bouquet discussed the matter in a postscript to a letter to Amherst on July 13, 1763:

  P.S. I will try to inocculate the Indians by means of Blankets that may fall in their hands, taking care however not to get the disease myself. As it is pity to oppose good men against them, I wish we could make use of the Spaniard's Method, and hunt them with English Dogs. Supported by Rangers, and some Light Horse, who would I think effectively extirpate or remove that Vermine.

  On July 16 Amherst replied, also in a postscript:

  P.S. You will Do well to try to Innoculate the Indians by means of Blanketts, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race. I should be very glad your Scheme for Hunting them Down by Dogs could take Effect, but England is at too great a Distance to think of that at present.

  On July 26 Bouquet wrote back:

  I received yesterday your Excellency's letters of 16th with their Inclosures. The signal for Indian Messengers, and all your directions will be observed.

  We don't know if Bouquet actually put the plan into effect, or if so with what result. We do know that a supply of smallpox-infected blankets was available, since the disease had broken out at Fort Pitt some weeks previously. We also know that the following spring smallpox was reported to be raging among the Indians in the vicinity.

  To modern ears, this talk about infecting the natives with smallpox, hunting them down with dogs, etc., sounds over the top. But it's easy to believe Amherst and company were serious. D'Errico provides other quotes from Amherst's correspondence that suggest he considered Native Americans subhumans who ought to be exterminated. Check out his research for yourself at www.nativeweb.org/pages/l egal/amherst/lord_jeff.html. He not only includes transcriptions but also reproduces the relevant parts of the incriminating letters.

  Souns like to me that it probably happened here....but if that is the extent of it I can't see implicating our forefathers with that kind of a charge.

• LtCmdrWorf1 said on Jan 06, 2009....

  D6
  Souns like to me that it probably happened here....but if that is the extent of it I can't see implicating our forefathers with that kind of a charge.
  
  
  I can because my family was onthe recieing end of it.  Akso, this conversation started with terrorism and that's what the forefathers did.  Chased my Native reletives off of their land; stole my African reletive to Work that land; Raped my female ancestors because they could which is why although my skin is dark i hold very little resemblance to anything African.  I am what you might call a hybrid.  So I tell people make no mistake the home of terrorism is right here in the Good ol' USA, and I remeber that when I hear people pop righteous about what this country has or has not done to other human beings here and around the world.  Peace and Long Life
  
  
  Love Worf.    

• LtCmdrWorf1 said on Jan 06, 2009....

  Oh, and you may want to read some of this too.  Peace and Long Life
  
  
  Love Worf
  
  

  NATIVE AMERICAN
  GENOCIDE

       

  TRAIL OF DEATH:after years of researching the Wicocomico Nation, it has led me to various other sources of study concerning the brutality that Native Americans suffered at the hands of the English and later the United States.These stories will not be found in our history books and if by some chance one is found in the history books, it will be written so that it would be difficult to realize it was the same story. Our children were brought up on the story of Pocohantas and how understanding the English were.

  When stories of this nature are read, many people try to make excuses for the brutality that was imposed on the Native Americans. Many readers will mention the atrocities the Native Americans imposed on the English and citizens of the United States.KEEP IN MIND THIS LAND BELONGED TO THE NATIVE AMERICANS; they reacted just as any citizen would in defense of their land and family.

  When Indians came in contact with the Europeans ( Spanish,French,English) it was a disaster for the Indians in the form of out right slaughter, or through diseases which the Indians were not immune to. I believe that is sufficient enough to make the Indians wary of the Europeans.

  When the English arrived to settle Jamestown, Chief Powhatan fed and kept the English alive, however after a short time it was evident the intent of the English was to steal the land in any manner possible.

  MILITARY CAMPAIGN AGAINST POWHATAN

  During the summer of 1610 in Jamestown, the Governor, Thomas West De la Warr had directed Powhatan to return several runaway Englishman. It appears Powhatan did not respond in a satisfactory manner. De la Warr felt this was sufficient reason to conduct a military campaign against Powhatan. George Percy, brother to the Earl of Northumberland and De la Warr's second in command headed up the military action against Powhatan. The following is Percy's description of the actions that took place;

  Drawing my soldiers into battle, placing a Captain or Lieutenant at every file, we marched towards the Indian Town...and then we fell upon them, put some fifteen or sixteen to the sword and almost the rest to flight...My Lieutenant brought with him the Queen and her children and one Indian prisoner for which I taxed him because he had spared them. His answer was that having them now in custody I might do with them what I pleased. Upon the same I caused the Indians head to be cut off, then disperesed my files, appointing my soldiers to burn their houses and to cut down their corn growing about the town. With the Indians dead or disperesed, their village destroyed, and their food supplies laid to waste, Percy sent out another raiding party to the the same to another Indian Town and then marched to his boats with the Queen and her children in tow. There, however his soldiers "did begin to murmur because the Queen and her children were spared." This seemed a reasonable complaint to Percy, so he called a council together and "it was agreed upon to putt the children to death THE WHICH WAS EFFECTED BY THROWING THEM OVERBOARD, SHOOTING OUT THEIR BRAINS IN THE WATER." Upon his return to Jamestown, however, Percy was informed that Governor De la Warr was unhappy with him because he had not yet killed the Queen. Advised by his chief Lieutenant that it would be best to burn her alive, Perry instead decided to end his day of "so much bloodshed" with a final act of mercy:instead of burning her, he had the queen quickly killed by stabbing her to death.

  JAMESTOWN LEGISLATION AGAINST THE INDIANS

  In 1623, the Jamestown Colonists passed legislation that indicated their hostility toward the Indians. The following acts are those that deal with the Indians.
     Act 23: " that every dwelling house shall be pallizaded in for defence against the Indians.
     Act 24: "that no man go or send abroad without a sufficient party well armed.
     Act 25: "that men go not towork in the ground with out their arms (and a centenell upon them).
     Act 26: "that the inhabitants go not aboard ships or upon any other occasions in such numbers, as thereby to weaken and endanger the plantations.
     Act 27: "that the commander of every plantation take care that there be sufficient powder and ammunition within the plantation under his command and their pieces fixt and their arms complete.
     Act 29: "that no commander of any plantation do either him-selfe or suffer others to spend powder unnecessarily in drinking or entertainments.
     Act 32:"that at the beginning of July next the inhabitants of every corporation shall fall upon their adjoining savages, as we did last year, those that shall be hurt upon services, to be cured at the public charge; in case any to be lamed to be maintained by the country according to his person and quality.

  Finally in 1655 the legislatures first act for that session was to pass an Act in the Indians favor. The Assembly admitted they were harsh on the Indians and they had attacked the white man to protect their land and way of life. The first Act: for every eight wolves heads the Indian brought in, the Great Man would receive a cow. The second Act: if the Indian families would bring in their children to live with a white family, the children would be educated and civilized and not be used as slaves. The third Act: it addressed the Indians land in that he could not bargin away his land to an Englishman without the permission of the Assembly, and his land was protected from unfair seizure.

  Based on the treatment the English inflicted on the Powhatans when they arrived in 1608,the colonists, after the Revolutionary War continued the same methods that had served the English so well as indicated in the following stories as the United States moved west.

  SAND CREEK MASSACRE (SE COLORADO).

  In 1864 Col Chivington ( a former clergyman that had political ambitions) was appointed the territorial military commander in Colorado. After some isolated incidents with the Indians, Chivington sent out detachments to burn and destroy Indian villages, the Cheyenne, Arapahos, Sioux, Kiowa's, and Comanches's struck back. this give Chivington the opportunity that he was looking for, to launch a full scale attack on the Indians.

  On November 29, 1864, Chivington deployed his command, about seven hundred solders with howitzers around Black Kettle's village on Sand Creek. Black Kettle was under the impression that he was at peace with the Americans; he ran up the American Flag and assured his people that all was well. the troops opened fire and charged. The Indians scattered in all directions. Chivington had made it clear that he wanted no prisoners, hie policy was "to kill and scalp all, little and big". Nits make lice he was fond of saying. Interpreter John Smith later testified: they were scalped, their brains knocked out; the men used their knives, ripped open women, clubbed little children, knocked them in the head with their guns, beat their brains out, mutilated their bodies in every sense of the word. Two hundred Cheyenne's, two thirds of them women and children perished. Nine chiefs died, however Chief Black Kettle escaped.( Only to be murdered later by Custer.)

  WOUNDED KNEE

  About a week prior to the slaughter at Wounded Knee, L.Frank Baum, editor of South Dakota's Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer newspaper advocated the extermination of all America's Indians. Quote; The nobility of the Redskin is extinquished and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The whites by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians.(WHY NOT ANNIHILATION?)Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced, better they should die than live the miserable wretches that they are. Unquote.L. FRANK BAUM LATER BECOMES FAMOUS AS THE AUTHOR OF:

  "THE WIZARD OF OZ."

  An Indian named American Horse, who had been friendly to the American troops for years gave this narrative of the slaughter at Wounded Knee; "they turned their guns, Hotchkiss guns upon the women who were in the lodges standing there under a flag of truce, and of course as soon as they were fired upon they fled...There was a women with an infant in her arms who was killed as she almost touched the flag of truce, and the women and children of course were strewn all along the circular village untill they were dispatched. Right near the flag of truce a mother was shot down with her infant; the child not knowing that it's mother was dead was still nursing, and that especially was a very sad sight.The women as they were fleeing with their babies were killed together, shot right through, and the women who were heavy with child were also killed...After most of them had been killed a cry was made that all those who were not killed or wounded should come forth and they would be safe. Little boys who were not wounded came out of their places of refuge, and as soon as they came in sight, a number of soldiers surrounded them and butchered them there... Of course it would have been alright if only the men were killed; we would feel almost grateful for it. But the fact of the killing of the women and more especially of the of the young boys and girls who are to go to make up the future of the Indian people, is the saddest part of the whole affair and we feel it very sorely." Unquote"

  Shortly after the massacre, Baum stated his approval, in the "Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer's paper stating that; we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up and wipe these untamed and untameable creatures from the face of the earth.

  NEW ENGLAND COLONY

  On May 26th 1635 in Connecticut, Captain John Mason with his Massachusetts-Connecticut force of ninty men and eighty Mohegans and 500 Narragansett Indians planned to attack the Pequot with the intent to completly wipe the town out. Mason and his militia struck in the predawn. Mason instructed his men to not take any prisoners. When the Mohegans and Narragansett found out about the no prisoner order they refused to participate and left. Thus left to his own devices, Mason ordered his miltiamen to set fire to the entire town, burning alive as many as 900 "women, children, and helpless old men. Those who tried to escape the blaze were cut down with swords and axes. As Plymouth Governor William Bradford later described the scene, paraphrasing Mason's own exultant account:
  

  "It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacriface, and they gave the praise thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands and give them so speedy a victory over so pround and insulting an enemy.

  The new England Colony made the Virginia Colonists look like a group of saints. Indians normally fought out of revenge, to steal women or slaves, but very seldom slaughtered women and children and old men for land.

  What has been disclosed on this site is only the tip of the iceberg, broken treaties and promises are part of the Native Americans everyday vocabulary.

  I'm sure some folks that read this page will feel uncomfortable, however that was not the intent. If we forget the past, it will make a circle and repeat it's self. It's also important for people to know the truth not only one side, but both. I believe a reader will now understand why the Native American feels strongly about their reservations and treaties with the government. In some parts of the country the Native American did not have voting privilages as late as the 1960s, so for them the past is not in the 1800s, but just a few short years ago.

  The Native American is not looking for sympathy, but justice; if any one wants to keep informed of Native American problems, you can go on the internet www.indiancountry.com it's a well written paper. Also any comments or questions may be addressed to eagleman@theriver.com

  References: Stannard, David E. "American Holocaust" 1992 Oxford University Press Inc. 

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