I like this video because the people learned how to use something already existing to create the power we need to live without using more fossil fuels. I also think there is a lesson here where if the land might someday make you dead with little to no warring, you maybe shouldn’t live there. Oh, and Thanks to Ten Bears for the video. Hugs. Scottie
“Manifest Destiny,” “annexation,” and “settlements” represent different terms with similar meanings: unethical and immoral robbery of other people’s land.
Green Line concrete wall separating Israel and Palestine. Security wall also known as West Bank Barrier.Photo: Shutterstock
On December 23, 2016, the 15-member United Nations Security Council took a highly controversial step by voting 14-0 (Resolution 2334) to condemn Israel’s construction of so-called “settlements” on the occupied West Bank taken after the 1967 War with its Arab neighbors.
The UN Resolution stated that Israeli settlements constitute “a flagrant violation under international law” and said that all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, must “immediately and completely cease.”
We must not use the past to justify surrendering to the supposed impossibilities posed by seemingly irreconcilable and intractable differences.
The United States chose to abstain, but throughout his presidency, Barack Obama had voiced the long-standing official policy of his country by designating Israeli settlements as a major impediment in any hoped-for two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then President-elect Donald Trump, on the other hand, blasted the United Nations’ vote. Trump’s proposed U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a far-right-wing lawyer, did not support a “two-state solution,” but did support Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the “settlement” program, and Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank.
When in office, Trump unilaterally declared that the Golan Heights is a literal part of Israel. Trump’s unilateral movement of the U.S. embassy to the contested city of Jerusalem increased already inflamed tensions. He unilaterally pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal, and Trump’s obvious support for and collusion with Netanyahu was intended to sway the Israeli election in Netanyahu’s favor.
Though declared illegal under international law, approximately 570,000 Israelis live in the more than 130 so-called “settlements” (a.k.a. stolen land) since the 1967 War. Approximately 475,000 Palestinians live in the West Bank and 230,000 in East Jerusalem.
Many see Israel’s “settlement” policy on the occupied West Bank in the same light as Russia’s illegal incursion into Eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, which likewise threaten political and military stability in the area and further endanger world peace.
Historian Joel Spring refers to this “cultural genocide,” as “the attempt to destroy other cultures” through forced acquiescence and assimilation to majority rule and standards. This cultural genocide works through the process of “deculturalization,” which Spring describes as “the educational process of destroying a people’s culture and replacing it with a new culture.”
An example of “cultural genocide” and “deculturalization” is evident in the case of Christian European American domination over Native Americans, whom European Americans viewed as “uncivilized,” “godless heathens,” “barbarians,” and “devil worshipers.”
White Christian European Americans deculturalized indigenous peoples through many means: confiscation of land, forced relocation, undermining of their languages, cultures, and identities, forced conversion to Christianity, and the establishment of Christian day schools and off-reservation boarding schools far away from their people.
The expansion of the republic and movement west was, in part, justified by overriding philosophical underpinnings since the American Revolution. Called “Manifest Destiny,” it was based on the belief that God intended the United States to extend its holdings and its power across the wide continent of North America over indigenous peoples from East Coast to West. The doctrine of “manifest destiny” embraced a belief in American Anglo-Saxon superiority.
“This continent,” a congressman declared, “was intended by Providence as a vast theatre on which to work out the grand experiment of Republican government, under the auspices of the Anglo-Saxon race.”
A mid-19th century missionary wrote: “As tribes and nationals the Indians must perish and live only as men, [and should] fall in with Christian civilization that is destined to cover the earth.”
Throughout the Alaska territory, Christian missionaries, including Presbyterians, Catholics, and Moravians, vied to win converts. Simultaneously, the United States government issued laws barring Alaskan Indian ceremonies regarded as “pagan” and contrary to the spread of Christianity.
During the early years of the new republic, with its increasing population and desire for land, political leaders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson advocated that Native American lands should be obtained through treaties and purchases.
President Jefferson, in 1803, wrote a letter to then-Tennessee political leader Andrew Jackson advising him to convince Native Americans to sell their “useless” forests to the U.S. government and become farmers. Jefferson and other government leaders overlooked the fact that this style of individualized farming was contrary to Native American communitarian spiritual and cultural traditions.
Later, however, when he inhabited the White House, Jackson argued that white settlers (a pleasant term for “land thieves”) had a “right” to confiscate Native American land. Though he proposed a combination of treaties and an exchange or trade of land, he maintained that white people had a right to claim any Native American lands that were not under cultivation. Jackson recognized as the only legitimate claims for Native American lands those on which they grew crops or made other “improvements.”
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized President Jackson to confiscate Native American land east of the Mississippi River, “relocate” its former inhabitants, and exchange their former land with territory west of the River. The infamous “Trail of Tears” during Jackson’s presidency attests to the forced evacuation and redeployment of entire Native American nations during which many died of cholera, exposure to the elements, contaminated food, and other environmental hazards.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 excluded Native Americans from citizenship, considering them, paradoxically, as “domestic foreigners.” They were not accorded rights of citizenship until 1924, when Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act, though Asians continued to be denied naturalized citizenship status.
In addition, though Jackson founded the Democratic Party and brought greater popular control to government, as a farmer his wealth increased enormously through his enslavement of Africans, and he gave the lash to any who attempted escape.
I found a definition of “settler” as “a person who settles in an area, typically one with no or few previous inhabitants.” I would add an essential condition that for this person to settle, the area must not have prior claim by others who call it their home.
How could Columbus have discovered what would later be called “the Americas” when people lived on this land for an estimated 12,000 years after coming over the Bering Isthmus during a glacial age when sea levels dropped? How can one “discover” people who have been here so long? Actually, First Nation people discovered Columbus on their land!
We must interrogate (analyze) the concept of “settler,” of “discovery,” of “the New World” as distinguished from “the Old World.”
Say, for example, I own a house, and someone knocks on the door, walks in, pushes me outside, and claims: “I like your house, and I am now settling here. You get going on your way. Goodbye!” And he slammed the door in my face.
“Manifest Destiny,” “annexation,” and “settlements” represent different terms with similar meanings: unethical and immoral muggings and robbery of other people’s land. I fully support the United Nation’s courageous resolution.
Republican presidential primary candidate Nikki Haley made a massive miscalculation when she denied the reality of the civil war during a New Hampshire town hall event.
This is great. The video has such good information and facts. If hearing is not your thing, the CC is also spot on. He talks of how immigrants don’t commit as many crimes / violent crime as native citizens. He points out how a study in 18 countries showed how trickle down did not work, while the wealthy doubled their wealth during it. He points out while republicans keep you scared about harm to your kids, no kid has been killed at a drag queen brunch / story hour while due to the gun loving republican congress kids have been mowed down trying to learn how to read and kids need bulletproof backpacks. He tells how Biden democrats have brought such large economic benefits and expanded healthcare to so many and then tells how republicans voted against all of it then tried to take credit for it all. He also mentions how much the tRump kids took while working in the White House, while hunter did not work in the WH. Hugs. Scottie
The fundamentalist Christians and the maga right can not tolerate positive affirming media about LGBTQIA, independent women, or black people because it ruins their narrative. They want to push the idea that women need men to function and be whole, that blacks are lazy and less intelligent, and that the LGBTQIA are evil incarnate that will destroy everything good in the country / world and god hates them, so god will take it out on everyone if they are treated decently. They are desperate to push the 1950s social narrative that white men are good, the Christian god is the right and only god in public, and that cis straight is normal so every thing else is an abhorrent abomination. They are wrong and stuck in a regressive oppressive past, unable to let others enjoy the modern world. They are modern Amish, only they demand that everyone live like them. Without positive reinforcement the lives of LGBTQIA and minority kids are much harder, much more anxiety ridden, much more unpleasant. Kids learn to hate themselves. They learn that others hate them and are free to attack them. So they either keep hidden, missing out on great times straight cis kids are having along with a much higher risk of suicide. Hugs
Please read the quote below from the post on Ten Bear’s site. Then think of the things tRump and his supporters claim they plan to do. Hugs. Scottie
White Rose survivor Jürgen Wittenstein described what it was like to live in Hitler’s Germany: “The government – or rather, the party – controlled everything: the news media, arms, police, the armed forces, the judiciary system, communications, travel, all levels of education from kindergarten to universities, all cultural and religious institutions. Political indoctrination started at a very early age, and continued by means of the Hitler Youth with the ultimate goal of complete mind control. Children were exhorted in school to denounce even their own parents for derogatory remarks about Hitler or Nazi ideology.”
Remember state national guards are under the control of both the state and the DOD, and have to observe military rules. Deathsantis created his own militia, totally under the singular control of the governor of Florida. It is the governor’s private army. The republican legislature gave Deathsantis a huge amount of money from the Florida taxpayers for this, and then twice added even more millions. Normally these types of state national guards are there to help with national disasters like floods and hurricanes and are trained for that work. But the governor’s private army is training with weapons, boats, and aircraft to attack people, non-white people. Right now DeathSantis makes it seem Florida is being overrun with migrants and illegal immigrants, but remember when he needed a press stunt to fly immigrants out of state they had to go to Texas to get enough to partially fill the plane. We get most of our undocumented immigrants from Cuba, but because there is a huge republican voting group of Cubans in Florida. While DeathSantis keeps pretending to be a tough man by threatening to “flatten” the Bahamas, which is a place that has never threatened or been a threat to the US, yet he ignores that Cuba once did have Soviet bases they were going to put missiles in, and now has a Chinese spy base designed to hear US military traffic. But that is what happens when you are pretending to be a tough guy instead of being one. Oh, and did I mention you have to pass the ideological screening to be a member, which means you have to be a republican maga white supremacist Christian nationalist bigot who hates the LGBTQIA and wants kids indoctrinated with Christian hate. Oh did I mention that DeathSantis insisted that they be given arrest powers so they can arrest / detain, and remove people including those the governor thinks shouldn’t be voting. Hugs. Scottie
A select group of volunteers expected to help Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis intercept migrants at sea gathered at a Panhandle combat training facility this fall for lessons on how to use rifles and pistols, treat “massive hemorrhages” and practice “aerial gunnery.”
A $1.2 million purchase order signed in August makes clear the DeSantis administration felt it had an “immediate and emergent need for specially trained personnel” to intercept migrants traveling by boat.
A draft plan of instruction shows the vendor, Stronghold SOF Solutions, offered to recruit, vet and train volunteers at its facility in Defuniak Springs. The contract was executed without a competitive process, made possible after DeSantis declared a state emergency in January related to illegal immigration.
Read the full article. Earlier this year some members of DeSantis’s private army quit during training, saying they didn’t sign up to be part of what they feel is a militia.
You can’t charge someone with breaking a law until they have broken it. It’s more likely than not, the FBI has underground observers in the ranks. The FBI is unlikely to announce who and what they investigating.
“States have the power to create defense forces separate from the national guard, though not all of them use it. If Florida moves ahead with DeSantis’ plan to reestablish the civilian force, it would become the 23rd active state guard in the country, DeSantis’ office said in a press release, joining California, Texas and New York. These guards are little-known auxiliary forces with origins dating back to the advent of state militias in the 18th century. While states and the Department of Defense share control of the National Guard, state guards are solely in the power of a governor.
The Florida State Guard was created in 1941 during World War II as a temporary force to fill the void left behind when the Florida National Guard was deployed to assist in the US combat efforts. It was disbanded after the war ended, but the authority for a governor to establish a state defense force remained.”
The stupidity here is that it’s the migrant farm workers who are picking Florida’s oranges and winter vegetables. Go right ahead and shoot yourself in the foot … morons!
Oh they’re going to do away with child labor laws and send the little brats out to do that work. Kids don’t need education–they might get woke and start thinking for themselves and grow up to vote democrat. (sic) And what the hell? 6 year olds with machetes. What could go wrong?
Green Line concrete wall separating Israel and Palestine. Security wall also known as West Bank Barrier.Photo: Shutterstock
