Wounded Knee 122 Years Later

[PETRUS]

“The Indians must conform to "the white man’s ways," peaceably if they will, forcibly if they must. They must adjust themselves to their environment, and conform their mode of living substantially to our civilization. This civilization may not be the best possible, but it is the best the Indians can get. They cannot escape it, and must either conform to it or be crushed by it. The tribal relations should be broken up, socialism destroyed, and the family and the autonomy of the individual substituted.”

<snip>

From Wounded Knee, where just days after the massacre a young newspaper editor named Frank Baum (later to become famous for the children’s story “The Wizard of Oz”) opined, “The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.“

<snip>

To Iraq, where Madeline Albright was asked if the deaths of ½ million children during sanctions was worth it, she replied "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it."

<snip>

To Iran where a new sanctions regime is in place and the state department claims, “The sanctions are beginning to bite,” and dozens of places in between, the wound festers...

Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/29-1

[Gman]

1. What a depressing article...

[jwirr]

2. In doing some family tree research I was reading back issues of a small Iowa newspaper of the

time and was horrified at the language and consensus on this murder. Especially since all of my grandchildren share Native blood. However if I had talked to anyone in the 60s when I was doing the research they would probably not even known what I was talking about. We love to forget our past when we are wrong.

[Jenoch]

3. I remember first hearing about

the Wounded Knee Massacre when I was a young kid in 1973 when AIM occupied the town of Wounded Knee. Of course my parents were quite interested because the brother of one of the AIM leaders used to work for my father and my mother's cousin was held captive for several days (but was eventually released unharmed). At that time, although we lived in Mnnesota, the only television programming we got was broadcast from South Dakota.