October 13, 2014

"Trafficked and robbed and triumphed home again"

This is what we should be celebrating today.



And this is the reason.


There's also this to think about.


That would be rude, to say the least. 


And then there are always asshats who are dragging their feet and missing the point. (I usually don't link to Townhall, but I couldn't resist sharing this columnist's colossal stupidity. There isn't enough cheese in Wisconsin to go along with this whine.)

This poem, found here, sums it up very well. 

"You Say, Columbus With His Argosies"

You say, Columbus with his argosies
Who rash and greedy took the screaming main
And vanished out before the hurricane
Into the sunset after merchandise,
Then under western palms with simple eyes
Trafficked and robbed and triumphed home again:
You say this is the glory of the brain
And human life no other use than this?
I then do answering say to you: The line
Of wizards and of saviours, keeping trust
In that which made them pensive and divine,
Passes before us like a cloud of dust.
What were they? Actors, ill and mad with wine,
And all their language babble and disgust.

~Trumbull Stickney

So: Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day! 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I rather think the explorers and conquistadors were heroes. They weren't perfect, but made our civilisation and their spirit is the reason we have modern medicine, technology and culture rather than sitting around smoke-filled huts dresses in furs.

All hail western civ!

Bonnie McDaniel said...

Hmmm. So you think we wouldn't have civilization without the explorers and conquistadors? That's rather insulting to Native Americans, to insinuate they would have never developed modern medicine, technology and culture all on their own, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

The Chinese didn't expand their civilisation to the whole world, neither did the native Americans or the Australian aborigines.

Science and the industrial revolution came from the West, the great crucible where Christianity mixed with Greek ideas in Europe and largely gave us the world we live in today.

The world of technology, medicine, travel and communication, Shakespeare, Socrates, Dante, Michelangelo and Mahler. Also Steve Jobs.

I really love this civilisation.

Yes we should respect other cultures, but this is MY culture.

Colombus was a hero. That's the spirit that took humans to the moon. Guts, courage and empiricism.


Bonnie McDaniel said...

Sorry, Columbus was NOT a hero. That's why I wrote the post in the first place; I don't think he should get any day to honor him, much less a national holiday, because he was pretty much a genocidal maniac.

http://books.google.com/books?id=P8V7J5qm5-YC&lpg=PP1&dq=a%20people%27s%20history%20of%20the%20united%20states%20columbus&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false

As Howard Zinn says, "The easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress is still with us."