----- Original Message -----
From: ernest rosenthal
Sent: Monday, October 11, 2010 5:32 PM
-- quickly now; - before Columbus and i fade from cherished
memory...
[post-Columbian, but pre-PC]
er
***
Rough Draft
Cristóbal Colón
By
Rodolfo F. Acuña
Since I was a child, I have been accused of being a troublemaker, referring to
what some labeled as a big mouth. I could never let things alone. This is a
trait that has followed me into adulthood when contradictions drive me to
distraction.
My parents would urge me not to offend our guests by bringing up
topics related to politics and/or religion. My sister would not invite me to
social gatherings because I would bring up topics such as racism, police
brutality and the Vietnam Wars. I was told that I was a party pooper and would
always lay intellectual pedos (farts)-forcing people to move away.
However, it never dawned on my parents that the reason I was this
way was that they had sacrificed and given me a good Jesuit education.
Accordingly truth was always based on faith where one had to look for a
negation. You looked for an opposition and if one were true, and then the other
was necessarily false. Rene Descartes in the 17th century began a journey in
which scholasticism was questioned giving way to historical materialism.
Unfortunately, in these times fascism is attempting to not only
discredit scholasticism but it wants to take things back to a period when
negations were ignored. In today's time symbols have no historical context and
they are defined by the state or the mob.
This drives me to distraction and I have to speak out especially in
the months of October and November when the distortion of the truth build up my
intellectual gasses. During this period the state allocates holidays for Labor
Day, Columbus Day and Thanksgiving.
(The only relief is Christmas because anyone with half a brain
knows that it is delusional to believe that Santa Claus is riding around on a
sled powered by reindeers. Those with a whole brain question the historical
validity of the manger story.
Few people remember that Labor Day is promoted in September to
perpetuate the myth that an alliance between capitalists and workers made the
United States a great industrial nation. The truth is that Labor Day is
promoted by the state to draw attention away from May 1st, international Labor
Day, which was part of the workers demands for an eight-hour day and the
killing of four workers at Haymarket Square. .
Well then, why don't I like Cristóbal Colón? After all the Jews,
the Italians and the Spaniards all claim him. The Italians every year hold
Columbus Day parades throughout the country that draw thousands of people. The
Sopranos even featured a series when the mafia was upset with the Jews for
claiming their Columbus.
National Public Radio reported "A splash of political controversy
marked the start of the annual Columbus Day Parade along sunny Fifth Avenue in
Manhattan. [Carl] Paladino and his Democratic opponent [for governor], Attorney
General Andrew Cuomo, were scheduled to be among the 35,000 marchers ... with
more than 100 bands, floats and contingents" Paladino's representatives,
however, indicated he might not attend because of protests by gay activists.
The irony, the contradiction or the hypocrisy is that if German
Americans were to hold a parade honoring the birthday of Adolph Hitler
universally Americans (including me) would be in an uproar. Hitler was either a
good man or an evil man.
At the same time many in the Catholic Church want to canonize
Columbus.
In this situation the opinion of Native American scholars are
dismissed. Native Americans argue that although Columbus acted brutally toward
the Taino and other tribes. Apologists say he could not have know that he would
wipe them out. The Taino population in Haiti numbered 250,000 to a million in
1492. By 1517, there were about 14,000.
This set in motion the wiping out of millions of native people. In
Mexico and Central America alone the indigenous population fell from 25 million
to under a million in eighty years.
Apologists claim well this was not because of Columbus or Spanish
colonialism-blame it on small pox. And after all they gave them Jesus Christ
and eternal salvation.
But who enslaved the Indians and debilitated the Indian masses
through the destruction of their institutions, enslavement, exploitation and
alcoholism. Columbus shipped hundreds of Tainos to Seville in 1495, and
Spaniards brought African slaves to Columbus' colony to work the gold mines.
Indians were routinely used as slaves in silver mines throughout Mexico and the
Americas.
The myth of Thanksgiving is also distorted by the schools and the
state. No one questions the facts because no one wants to lay the proverbial
intellectual pedo. Hey it is a four day holiday. Cheap turkeys and hams and
everyone can pig out.
In early autumn of 1621, fifty-three surviving Pilgrims celebrated
a successful harvest. The natives joined the celebration and instead of
attacking the Pigrims they made peace. Indeed, the natives had helped the
Pilgrims survive the winter.
Much is made of the fact that the Pilgrims came to New England for
religious freedom. However, forgotten is they were not tolerant of others
especially the Indians many of whom were enslaved. The pilgrims thought of
themselves as the "chosen elect."
Today many Native Americans call Thanksgiving a National Day of
Mourning. In the sixties they called it the day of the pendejos (fools) for
believing the pilgrims. It was not until the Civil war that Abraham Lincoln
invented the tradition of Thanksgiving.
In Arizona today many of the so-styled minutemen and tea baggers
would call this type of corrective thinking unpatriotic. They return the
student of the truth to the worse examples of scholasticism where faith
eclipsed truth.
I don't believe that these musings will change what people want to
"believe." The truth is lonely and at time threatening. People do not want to
smell intellectual farts.
But concede this old fart one thing. Change the English version of
Columbus to Colón and then drop the accent and call him colon-it is
historically more appropriate.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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