The Ideal Indian

I have written about the Indian for scientific magazines all my life and I have never seen one, I would like to learn about their life and logic.    -"Indian scholar" in 1905 conversation with Edward Curtis

Sacajawea- unknown sculptor. Wonder what Edward Curtis would've thought- or any American Indian for that matter. Photo: © S. Banos

"The advent of the White man was a pleasant episode in the lives of these savage people," one of the first chroniclers of Seattle said. "Their arms opened to receive them as superior beings, and the lands they possessed were freely offered for their acceptance."

... by 1900, the tribes owned less than 2% of the land they once possessed.

The First 9/11

One of the major differences one can draw between Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and Henry Kissinger and the CIA, is that bin Laden first warned the US of dire consequences to come should they not withdraw their troops from his native country. Kissinger (or Nixon) gave no such warning- nor was any transgression against the US ever made by Salvador Allende's Chile.

We installed and supported a terrorist who killed thousands of his own people, and decades later attacked yet another country whose leader, interestingly enough, we first supported, and then tired of- all before we decided to kill hundreds of thousands of that country's men, women and children, for no reason whatsoever.

And yet to this day, we continue to call others "TERRORISTS" without shame, without hesitation, without the slightest pretense of self awareness...

China Must Be Held Accountable!

11,417 Sharks Are Killed Per Hour.

The Chinese government must be called on its wanton, en masse torture and slaughter of sharks (not even gonna get into how their penchant for ivory is practically guaranteeing the extinction of elephants- within out lifetime). And it has to happen NOW! 

And Steven Speilberg, who delighted in demonizing these animals, should be leading the charge with a few of his multi-millions in trying to save the very animals that made his name, fame and fortune before they're wiped from the face of earth...

  

The Act Of Killing

There’s many ghosts here, because many people were killed here … They died unnatural deaths. They arrived perfectly healthy. When they got here they were beaten up and died … Dragged around ... And dumped ... At first we beat them to death. But there was too much blood. There was so much blood here ... So when we cleaned it up, it smelled awful. To avoid the blood, I used this system. Can I show you ...?

I first heard of this film on Colin Pantall's blog, but I honestly couldn't make heads or tails of it- it just sounded so freakin' bizarre! And you get a good sense of that, and a good deal more, from this interview with its director. This has got to be one of the most fascinating, revealing, and imaginative (and that's just for starters) documentaries of all freakin' time... yes, that man is smiling- while assuming the position in which hundreds (thousands?) of victims were killed, at the same exact place they were killed.

The Greatest Single Threat to Humanity

September 23, 1979

When I scanned the above negative this weekend, I only knew that it was taken sometime in the latter '70s on what I thought was a previous Earth Day. A little cursory research however revealed it was taken on the date above- and I must say I'm somewhat gobsmacked to discover exactly what I was doing for 1/500 of a second some thirty three years ago when I was all of twenty four years old. Actually, it was an anti-nuke concert/rally (in response to Three Mile Island) celebrated on undeveloped landfill, around what is currently called Nelson A. Rockefeller Park west of Tribeca in NYC.

I was going to comment on the current ecological mess our planet is in, particularly what mass media is not reporting about the BP gulf area fiasco, that is certainly scary enough- until I read the article below which almost makes our current overall ecological peril seem like the proverbial cakewalk. This is the other shoe waiting to drop, dangling over all our heads and making the Sword of Damocles seem like an inoffensive pin prick. Basically, we're talking about the end of the world as we know it, not in song, not metaphorically, but in actual lives lost, unless we're able to do something about it (which we have not been able to thus far)- and there's a 98% chance of this sword falling within... 3 years!

If you ever bother to read anything via this damn blog- make sure this is it:

"It is important for the public to understand that reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site have generated some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet.

Many of our readers might find it difficult to appreciate the actual meaning of the figure, yet we can grasp what 85 times more Cesium-137 than the Chernobyl would mean. It would destroy the world environment and our civilization."

What Have We Learned?

Not a thing, not one thing, not one goddamn thing.  After all, it's the same sorry lesson we were supposed to have learned from Viet Nam, where we wasted so much time, money, and oh yes- lives. And we continue to prove just how utterly clueless we have become (and now relish being) as we threaten to take on Iran, after the 800 BILLION DOLLAR DEBACLE known as Iraq (while in the very process of losing yet another war in Afghanistan).

We've methodically killed hundreds of thousands, maimed countless thousands more, thrown away hundreds of billions, wrecked economies worldwide, poisoned and defiled environments for generations to come- and yet we clamor for more...

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Vile Beyond Imagining- 73 Million...

I had no idea, no idea that such an atrocity was being inflicted on numbers this vast. Not to mention the multitude that have been hunted and slaughtered for sport, fun and "vengeance" ever since the fictional movie blockbuster some thirty plus years ago...

The Future Imperfect

Sometime this mid to latter century, your children's children will ask their parents whatever happened to these magnificent animals, when all that's left are hordes of jellyfish floating in a toxic soup of oxygen depleted water, man made chemicals and islands of wandering plastic waste. They'll somehow find the time to ask the way kids inevitably do- whenever there's a break from the recurrent global conflicts over potable water and arable lands.

And someone will have to tell them that no one cared enough about them or any other living thing (with the exception of their own venal selves)- so we knowingly continued to pollute, over fish, and enthusiastically convert two thirds of the world's surface area into the largest open air sewer known to humankind. Someone will have to tell them, that yes, the signs were both abundant and evident that our largest life source was in obvious, imminent danger and yet we continued to abuse it unabated, somehow maniacally setting aside the obvious conclusion that it would ultimately endanger our own survival.

Someone will have to answer them, but it won't be me, and it won't be you. And with that reassurance we'll continue to mine every last remaining gasp of fossil fuel no matter the environmental cost, we'll continue to vote for every policy that benefits wanton, short term economic growth, and we'll most happily continue to deny that we have reached that point of no return where the earth itself can no longer rebound, forgive or maintain us...   (BoingBoing)

Robert Lyons- Intimate Revelations

I recently had occasion to listen to Robert Lyons speak and was most taken by his Intimate Enemy photo essay on the Rwandan genocide. They're stark, striking portraits, and I liked his approach of not immediately identifying killer from survivor (certainly proved me wrong- repeatedly), further expanding the "banality of evil" viewpoint (although, in this case, it is also not without its own inherent, unintended consequence).*

But it does cause one to stop, think and ponder on the insanity that betook this nation, an insanity that throughout the latter century (and well into this one) has well proven to lurk within each and everyone of us regardless of race, creed, color or sex.

*...this line-up and mug-shot exercise may also serve to reaffirm the racist stereotype that any Black person could be a threat.

Worse Than War

Worse Than War

I've never much been one of those that readily accepts the mass hysteria concept. That is, everyone somehow perceives some extraordinary (or mundane) occurrence at the same time, experiences said phenomena in a mutually inclusive manner, then uniformly acts out en masse. It seems too easy an answer, too convenient an excuse.

How does one get various people from all walks of life to act out in the uniform and yet extraordinarily inhumane behavior characterized by genocide? Perhaps we are doomed to repeat such barbaric atrocity because it is, in fact, very much part of our human condition- innate human behavior as real and characteristic of we humans as the urge to procreate or nurture our young. I don't know. Or perhaps it is just part of the inherent danger of a homogeneous upbringing, where we are brought up more similarly than we realize- characterized by a dearth of diversity, a narrowness of education, a predilection toward group think. That much I can readily believe in...