Now Playing: Danny Schecter: News Dissector - Media Channel
Topic: Historical Stuff
George Armstrong Custer Bush made repeated references to America's core values - particularly when he responded to the Abu Ghraib scandal. And yesterday's post in this historical stuff section talked about 'Americanism' and the literal noble dream we are all fed that inside and outside this country historically we are and have always been noble and seeking the highest good of all concerned.
It's not true and our historical 'americanism' more reflects natural human nature - especially when there has seemed to be only so many pieces of the pie to divvy up among the haves.
Excerpt from Danny's blog for 5/21/07
HISTORY LESSON
Beginning on December 6, 1855, Oregon volunteers invade Washington Territory and battle the Walla Walla Tribe and their allies in a four-day running fight. Walla Walla chief Peo Peo Mox Mox is taken prisoner after approaching under a flag of truce. The volunteers will kill him the next day and carve up his body for trophies. Eight volunteers and several dozen Indians will also die in the fighting. The only important impacts of the campaign will be to turn peaceful Indians against the settlers and the U.S. government and to scatter the Walla Wallas away from their homes.
Palestinians might describe this as their NABKA. Whose 59th anniversary is being marked this month.
And then, back then there were so called peace meetings—actually designed for the invaders to get a Piece of the land, many pieces actually, of the in a May like this one more than a century ago:.
From History Link.org: Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens convenes the First Walla Walla Council with Native American tribes on May 29, 1855.
On May 29, 1855, Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens (1818-1862) convenes the First Walla Walla Council with Native American tribes of the Columbia River basin. Stevens’ orders are to extinguish the tribes’ title to lands in the territory in order to open it for settlement. Stevens offers the tribes reservations and cash and other inducements in exchange for a vast territory. Some of the tribes sign the treaty, but quickly reject its provisions.
On September 8, 1858, U.S. Army Colonel George Wright (1803-1865) orders his troops to slaughter 800 Native American horses (the herd of a Palouse chief) at Liberty Lake to deny their use by enemy tribes. Soldiers also destroy native lodges and storehouses of grain.
Almost immediately, the Yakima rejected the treaty. Six white miners were killed on the Yakima River as was Sub-Indian Agent A. J. Bolon, who had gone to investigate. The Army responded and war resulted.
May 1855, Walla Walla Council, Governor Stevens with Indians, by Gustav Sohon. Each Indian tribe that attended the Walla Walla Council had its own camp, and each day the Indian people met to discuss the proceedings of the council. Some of the Nez Perce trained by Reverend Henry Spalding kept a record of the council and the Indian discussions at night. These records have not been found. We have to rely on the council minutes kept by non-Natives to inform us of the council proceedings that took place under some limited shade where the leaders met to listen and speak. Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, 1918.114.9.39Sound familiar?—These are the wages of invasion, occupation and resistance.
I cite all this history only to show that the issues we are here to discuss-conflict and its coverage, peace and war, and the duty to illuminate issues and promote media justice has a long need and deep history in the very place…
And as we did to the Indians, so Is The US doing to the Iraqis and the Israelis to the Paletsinians. Amira Hass writes Sunday in H’aretz:
Every few weeks some international body issues a report directly linking the policy of restricted movement imposed by Israel on the occupied territories and the state of economic deterioration there. The report is often accompanied by a warning that the situation cannot persist. Last week it was the turn of the World Bank to issue a cautionary report, entitled “Movement and Access Restrictions in the West Bank: Uncertainty and Inefficiency in the Palestinian Economy.”
Dozens of international researchers and economic attaches are busy researching the Palestinians’ economic deterioration, and many more similar reports will yet be written, as long as the countries that finance them settle for words and do not take steps to halt the policy of social and economic destruction that Israel is imposing on the Palestinians. The newest report is comprehensive, but there is nothing new in it and it stresses what has been written and said for years: Israel is inflicting enormous damage on the Palestinian economy and on its private sector.
We hear so much about violence there between Palestinian groups and on and by Israel, but is this not violence too?
