[Tancred]

Doesn't the behavior of the protestors here seem awfully familiar? I think there are several aspects to this: there are a lot of people who get off on protesting because it's a way to demonstrate their supposed virtue; there are people who reflexively (thoughtlessly and ignorantly) hate Western civilization; and the Columbus-bashers are likely allied with other groups who seek to weaken or destroy Western culture and civilization.

[BenLurkin]

I think your read is absolutely correct. These "protestors" are none other than the usual "Death to America" crowd.

[lsee]

indigenous people who were already here

He meant to say INDIGENT....

[clintonh8r]

Everybody's got a beef with the white man.

[breakem]

The Indians need to get another day. Their attempt to wipe out Comumbus day puts them on the side of the bad guys and will win no sympathy.

We should have left the Indians alone to kill, eat, torture, and enslave each other.

[hole_n_one]

Protesters yell at the Sons of Italy as they pass by during the Columbus Day parade in Denver, Colo., Saturday, Oct. 12, 2002. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey)

[SouthernFreebird]

Finders keepers.............losers, protest.

[livius]

A source with DPD told me that the Indian groups were basically just stooges for something called the "Black Bloc," an international group of anarchists (familiar to many of us from Genoa and the meetings there last year) who came prepared to cause major trouble.

Fortunately the Black Bloc weapons cache was found and destroyed in a raid in Denver, and the day passed with only some 70 arrests of stupid anarchists. Of course, DPD had also gone out and found other weapons - weighted and taped clubs, for example- that the anarchists had scattered along the parade route.

Go DPD!

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

".....and chanted "shame on you," saying the European settlement of America decimated native people."

I wonder how many of these native americans now drive cars, use washing machines and dishwashers, read books and write letters, watch TV or use life saving medicines or surgery? I wonder if they would prefer to have remained in their old culture without any western influence, eking out a living on the land, depending on witchdoctors and shamans to cure their illnesses, bowing and scraping to their chiefs and in the case of the Aztecs, who's dances they were performing, sacrificing family members in rituals to appease the gods.

Yes, shame on western civilization for bringing all this evil to decimate these poor people </sarcasm>

[uncbob]

Protesters ripped down barricades and chanted "shame on you," saying the European settlement of America decimated native people.

Who were living in peace and contentment and would never think of engaaging in tribal warfare

[Cat Patrol]

Those Indians ought to be glad White people showed up and civilized them.

[John Lenin]

They are just [pissed that the FBI has caught them using voter fraud in South Dakota. Screw em, they got the casinos, what more do they want ?

[oregon conservative]

The Native Americans always lived in peace with their brother tribes. War was never thought of as they foraged over the fruited plain and woods for their food. Treating their women with the utmost respect was another wonderful strength of the Native Americans. Rumors of wars among the tribes just isn't true. Or that they set wood or prairie on fire to drive game or clear the land is totally false. Stories of women being captured and kept as slaves is also untrue. The white eyes totally destroyed heaven on earth.

[ChadGore]

Sad pathetic display.

[breakem]

Columbus will continue to be one of the great pivotal characters in western and world civilization. He did what no one before him would or could do and his voyages lead to what is agruably one of the greatest ciivilizations in the world.

In a world of war and might makes right, the Indians were overrun by a superior civilization. They made war and enslaved each other. They engaged in cannibalism, torture, human sacrifice, body mutilation etc. They got their asses kicked by a stronger civilization: Europe. This sanctimonious whining about Columbus is a desparate attempt to get emotional reparations.

So let's agree there was slavery and war and disease on evryone's part and the Indians lost. Now what!