Posted on 10/08/2012 1:56:28 PM PDT by drewh
President Obama marked Columbus Day by issuing a proclamation that reflects on the tragic burdens tribal communities bore in the years that followed the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus.
When the explorers laid anchor in the Bahamas, they met indigenous peoples who had inhabited the Western hemisphere for millennia, Obama wrote. As we reflect on the tragic burdens tribal communities bore in the years that followed, let us commemorate the many contributions they have made to the American experience, and let us continue to strengthen the ties that bind us today.
He called on Americans to recall the courage of Columbus, while celebrating our heritage as a people born of many histories and traditions.
Following is the complete proclamation of what President Obama called that fateful October day in 1492.
Following is the complete proclamation of what President Obama called that fateful October day in 1492.
Todd is the author of Dispatches From Bitter America endorsed by Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity. Click here to get your copy.
COLUMBUS DAY, 2012
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
(Excerpt) Read more at radio.foxnews.com ...
My family came and worked for slave wages in filthy sweatshops and treacherous quarries. They didn't drop in and sign up for welfare. And they loved this country.
I invite everyone who deplores the settling of this country by Europeans to leave and go back where their ancestors came from. They won't do it.
Why are some in America so hell-bent on punishing Americans today for the perceived sins of their fathers. Financial debt, or imprisonment for crimes, cannot by law be passed down from father to son, yet we are supposed to pay reparations for things that happened before our time.
PROUD TO BE ITALIAN-AMERICAN, happy Columbus Day!
Self-pity is so unattractive...
Some of the very early English settlers (at least in Massachusetts) had the dream of evangelizing the natives, and were even writing grammars the way the Spanish missionaries were doing, but realpolitik very soon got in the way of that. Once the English Crown took over the settlement efforts, the evangelization aspect disappeared.
But you have to look at the tumultous religious history of England to understand why. Spain, on the other hand, had evangelization as one of its primary goals, it had only one church, for better or for worse, and it was actually the private expeditions that were the worst in their treatment of the Indians.
On the whole, however, it’s not a matter of good or bad treatment. There was plenty of that on either the Spanish or the English sides. What I was talking about was the overall goal - and oddly enough, that’s one of the problems of Latin America. The Spanish didn’t consciously wipe out the Indian populations, and the result was that they were left with a large non-European population which, in its day, was being very slowly brought into the European-American cultural mold. The thing that really set them back, however, was the rise of the left, which has used the “idigenist movement” and the native populations of Latin America to advance its agenda throughout the continent (even though, of course, most of the leaders are of upper-middle-class European origin!).
This POSPOTUS needs gone so bad I'm thinking of paying a visit to the White House.....(like I'll be given admittance, I do have a valid ID, but I only need it to attend a Mr and Misses event, not to vote.)
FMCDH(BITS)
Libs aren’t happy people. They must hate what is good and despise what is right. Only then, can they stick their chins in the air and feel proud of themselves.
Have we made mistakes thought history? Yes. Do we dwell on it? No. Shall me move on? Yes! All this self-hatred and pandering makes us all weak!
So wait...let me get this straight.
On the day set aside to celebrate Christopher Columbus, the President instead decided to talk about the plights of the natives?
Doesn’t ANYONE advise him about how these things will sound to the public?
Regarding Spanish treatment of the Indians as compared to English treatment, depends on how you ascribe motive to the hanta virus ~ recurring plagues occurred in the 1500s and 1600s, and by 1648 had so weakened the Indians throughout the Americas that Europeans had the upper hand.
One of the best things to happen was the arrival of the domestic pig, domestic cattle, domestic chicken, domestic ducks, and HORSES. Within half a century of the first landing of the first horses in the New World the only great city on the plains in North America, Cahokia, was dissipated with virtually every tribe in that vast complex having ridden off to somewhere else with more buffalo, better climate, or just fewer competitors or enemies. Wide ranging Spanish explorers and precious metals hunters figured out how to create the Comanche Indians ~ the one group you really gotta' read about. Often overlooked because of their raiding parties and slave raids, they became incredibly Europeanized in short order ~ they were still raising cain long after the Republic of Texas was formed.
Something frequently overlooked is that Columbus arrived in the Caribbean islands on the heels of Indians from the mainland arriving and killing off all the males. There was a reason the ladies were friendly to Columbus' men ~ they needed friends in high places Fur Shur. This was a pattern repeated all over the Americas with Europeans leveraging themselves into positions of authority simply by allying themselves with existing Indian societies.
Sometimes that didn't work out ~ Champlain screwed things up for a couple of centuries when it came to French dealings with the Iroquois.
I hate Obama.
I think that Obama and his team have no idea of the importance of the saying,
“When you find yourself in a hole, first stop digging.”
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