“IT IS KNOWN”
Here’s an incredible exchange that took place on Fox’s The Five between Fox News contributor Bob Beckel and Fox ambush specialist Jesse Watters.
Watters takes exception to the characterization of what happened to the Native American people of this continent as “extermination.”
Revel in the stoopid of Mr. Watters, if you will.
BECKEL: That’s right, this is way out of their area of expertise, but I will say this again, the English, the Europeans came over and threw the Indians off their land, exterminated them, threw them into reservations…
WATTERS: Exterminated!! (crosstalk) So let me get this straight Bob. America’s Founding Fathers, they came over here, colonized America and made it the great land that we are today. You’re saying they exterminated a whole race of people?
BECKEL: I see you must have been educated in Chicago…
WATTERS: You don’t really believe that, do you?
BECKEL: … because the Founding Fathers came here a hundred years after the Pilgrims came here.
WATTERS: The colonists, Bob and all the principles that came over on the Mayflower… freedom…
BECKEL: What do you think they did with the Indians? What do you think they did with them?
WATTERS: What do you think they did with who?
BECKEL: Those Indians that occupied that land.
WATTERS: They ate corn and they had Thanksgiving.
BECKEL: Oh, I see. They all did that. I guess they had turkey, a little stuffing…
WATTERS: And they dressed (inaudible) and they wrapped themselves around blankets. Yeah. And they sang kumbaya.
I think that for anyone with an education beyond the third grade it is pretty well established fact that the European immigrants who came over in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries made a pretty good job of intentionally exterminating as many Native Americans as possible.
Followed up of course by the United States Cavalry and their largely successful attempt at finishing the job off during the 19th century.
As the title of the post says — “It is known.”
The Massacre at Wounded Knee — December 29th, 1890.
The Oglala Lakota Sioux were attempting to turn in their rifles to the U.S. Army after willingly agreeing to disarm when the army opened fire on them, killing 300 men, women and children.
February 17th, 2013 at 1:29 pm
Republicans have decided that anyone involved in the founding of the country is a saint and beyond reproach.
February 17th, 2013 at 3:38 pm
Correction: They wrapped them in smallpox contaminated blankets.
February 17th, 2013 at 3:53 pm
That our government still treats native Americans in a horrific manner is beyond shameful. South Dakota kidnaps hundreds and hundreds of Indian children from their homes every year and are rewarded financially for it. Over 50% of kids in the foster care system in SD are native but they only comprise 15% of the population.
February 17th, 2013 at 5:18 pm
Dumbassery writ large.
February 17th, 2013 at 6:58 pm
This American Life late last year had the story of the larges mass execution in U.S. history which happened, and was then forgotten by most, in Minnesota. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/479/little-war-on-the-prairie
February 17th, 2013 at 8:01 pm
I’m telling you – within a month of Rupert’s death, Windy and the kids are gonna shut that shit down.
February 18th, 2013 at 10:29 am
The treaties in Canada are different from the US, so I don’t know if you get this there: people bitching out loud about how they get screwed by not being native, because natives get every fucking thing for free.
I admit to being grossly ignorant about treaty rights, but I do know that the treaties exist, and you don’t fucking ignore them just because you don’t approve of what people are doing with their payouts and privileges.
I hear a lot of “well, if you’re a native woman, you can write your own ticket.” Unless you happen to be a native woman who disappears along certain stretches of highway, because the police don’t even do a cursory investigation, because she probably just got drunk and wandered off. And she was probably a prostitute anyway.
And don’t even get me started on the residential school system, which were only finally shut down in 1996. For fuck sake.
February 19th, 2013 at 10:12 am
When I was in grade school, the Native Americans were referred to as “savages”. Im not joking. Even as a kid, I felt thus couldn’t be correctqork . I was 9 or 10
Sad that even then, I was already too smart to work on Fox News
February 23rd, 2013 at 10:37 pm
Shamefully, it is just as bad here in Australia with our indigenous peoples still living in appalling conditions, and dying young because of grossly inadequate healthcare and sanitation standards.