Hmm

The advertisements today are too much. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind ad-funded business. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. Business makes the world go ’round, makes modern life possible. What I’m talking about are those that won’t let me close the ad when the close icon shows up and forces me to watch the entire thing. Seconds do add up. Minutes to hours. I don’t know how much of my life I’ve wasted on commercials, other than too much.

New drive to privatize Indian reservations has much in common with past efforts to steal Native land

While its advocates say protections would be built in, previous efforts—the allotment system begun near the end of the Indian wars, and the termination of reservations and tribes from 1953 to 1964—show how such promises supposedly designed to help Indians were a snare and delusion quickly taken advantage of by non-Indians eager to grab Native land and devour its resources. This outcome was not an unintended byproduct of well-meaning reformers. It was the inevitable consequence of laws that Indians were not asked their opinions of in advance.

The 21st-century privatization scheme makes it imperative to revisit past such efforts.

In fact, 2017 marks the 130th anniversary of President Grover Cleveland’s signing of the Dawes Act. That single piece of legislation had a more devastating impact on Native Americans than anything other than the century-long Indian wars themselves. And it was initiated by people who claimed, and some who actually believed, that they had Indians’ best interests at heart.

…

It was all part of forced assimilation, a profoundly racist policy dedicated to “killing the Indian to save the man” in the notorious terminology of Captain Richard Pratt, founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. The school was designed along prison lines. There, and at dozens of militaristic boarding schools across the nation, Indian children—many forcibly taken from their parents—had their names changed, their hair cut, their languages forbidden, their culture and customs denigrated, and their tribal ties destroyed, only to be sneered at by the dominant society when they actually tried to adopt white ways once they left the schools.

There is a name for this: cultural genocide. This isn’t just ancient history. Modern American Indians, whether they live on reservations, on private agricultural land, or in urban centers, still suffer from the consequences of these policies.

Before the Dawes Act and follow-up acts were effectively repealed after 47 years by the Indian Reorganization Act, 90 million acres had been wrenched from communally-owned Indian lands held in trust by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, leaving just one-third of what the tribes had held in 1886, the year Geronimo (Goyaałé), the Chiricahua Apache, surrendered and was shipped off to prison.

Named after Sen. Henry L. Dawes, who headed the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs at the time, the law was the culmination of practices toward Indians that had begun within a decade of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth in 1620. Boiled down to their essence, those policies said to Indians: Get out of our way, or else. However, getting out of the way often wasn’t enough to prevent the “or else.”

…

The intent was assimilation. Killing the Indian and saving the man meant turning Indians into farmers of acreage they held individually, altering gender roles, shattering kinship connections, breaking up communal land and tribal government, and, ultimately, wiping out reservations altogether. Officials thought this would be better for everyone as Indians adopted norms of the dominant culture. It would certainly prove valuable for transferring prime real estate out of Native hands.

The allotted land was meant to be held in federal trust for 25 years, after which ownership and citizenship would go to Indians still working their allotment. To take full possession of any land, a woman had to be officially married. All inherited land passed through the male head of household. This broke the custom of the many tribes with matrilineal heritages.

The “surplus” land, that is, what was left after allotments, was flung open to white settlement and ownership. This was the provision’s most likable quality for congressmen and businessmen who would just have soon have slaughtered or starved every Indian still alive. Half the Great Sioux Reservation was sold to outsiders after Native allotments were distributed.

…

The dispossession was wildly successful. Partly as a consequence of the act, by 1900 the American Indian population had fallen to its lowest point in U.S. history, about 237,000.

The allotment period was ended under President Franklin Roosevelt in 1934. But within a few years, a new effort was begun to create additional “surplus” land for non-Indian settlement: Termination.

Starting in 1940, moves were made by several states to take over jurisdiction of the reservations within their boundaries, and in 1953, the federal government enacted a law that immediately terminated the Flathead, Klamath, Menominee, Potawatomi, and Turtle Mountain Chippewa, as well as all tribes in the states of California, New York, Florida, and Texas. In the process, 109 tribes were terminated, and 1.4 million acres of Indian land were added to the 90 million acres taken under Dawes and other allotment acts.

In 1968, however, President Johnson proposed ending the termination acts, a move formally declared by President Nixon and followed until 1988 when Congress rescinded the House resolution that had begun federal termination. Eventually, the majority of the terminated tribes were restored, along with some of their land. But 11 tribes continue to fight for restoration of tribal sovereignty and their land.

Resistance to the new potential for another brand of termination has yet to gather steam, but if the Trump regime decides to move ahead with the privatization scheme, that resistance will rise. And this time around, thanks to organizations that didn’t exist in the past like the Native American Rights Fund, the American Indian Movement, Idle No More, as well as young tribal leaders and Native attorneys and their non-Indian allies in and out of Congress, advocates of this latest rip-off shouldn’t expect an easy path to their goals.

Emphasis added. The world is watching. #Native #America #theresistance

Week 45

Then Alabama State Rep. Ed Henry, Donald Trump’s Alabama campaign co-chairman, asked if there were any pictures.

That’s it.  I’m out.

Hey, Trump voters: I don’t give a f*** what Bernie or anyone else says about your needs, anxieties, or economic troubles.

When you can justify the rape or assault of children, I’m f****** done with you.

You pedophile-loving, sexual-assault defending, Bible-thumping, Putin-worshipping, evil, authoritarian racist losers can all drown for all I care. (Or, what would be more likely, shoot each other up.) If these are the values of the so-called “heartland”, than f*** the heartland.

You embrace hatred of your fellow man, yet promote lust for someone’s else’s child. Then you have the sick audacity to say you promote “family values”.   You don’t need economic help–you need psychological help.  The only people worse than you are the GOP silent enablers who excuse every monstrous thing because speaking out might mean they won’t get to kick a poor person in the teeth anymore.

via Now that you’ve tried to justify child molestation, we’re done reaching out to you.

Rock ‘N’ Roll All Nite: The One Night I Wasn’t A Kitty

I wrote this piece, and posted it, to my private Facebook profile on Feb. 1st, 2016.

Writing about family is tough for me. I’m never sure what’s really gonna come out. Sharing it is difficult, but I think I’m ready now.

I’ve had some memorable concerts. This one’s up there with Voodoo Lounge in ’94.

Rock ‘n’ roll.

~ ~ ~

We had KISS tickets. I think T worked her concert mojo and won the ticket seller’s lottery because she had come out with four seats not only in the same section, but RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER. That’s rare.

It was done. We needed to prepare. We headed for the joke/magic shop.

The old dude behind the counter was rather awesome. While I was browsing the rubber chickens, Whoopee cushions, dirty dice, and playing cards, the others were picking out various makeup containers in shades of silver and black. The silver glitter was an afterthought from the old man. He got us. Like attracts like. We took our loot and headed home.

Hungry but too excited to eat. We painted our faces and dressed in our blackest finery. I wore my silver sequin tube top and black vinyl pants. If I had a tail, I don’t remember it. Erik wore the Demon face, Marci had the Starchild, T and I were both Ace. If I’d been a little more sure of my skills, I’d have worn the Cat makeup. No time for regret! But… regret.

Sunset. Time to roll. We filed out to the hoopti, garnering strange looks from the nieghborhood kids. They knew we were odd, but they hadn’t known just how much. They still don’t.

Flying through the darkened streets, tunes blasting, we arrived at the parking garage more or less in character; a state of mind that crystallized when T found herself on the wrong floor. First she was next to us waiting for the elevator, then somehow we were up, and she was one floor below. “Goddammit, Ace!” Then we went down and she was up. I’m still not sure how she pulled that trick off–hell, there was only one elevator on that side.

We were on the right track. Rock n roll, baby.

After extricating ourselves from the garage with much laughter, we head into the venue. Our silver makeup glinted in the light. My sequins made me feel like a disco ball. We bought one concert tee forever known after as “The KISS shirt”. I did a quick change on the escalator. The disco ball was feeling vulnerable showing so much skin.

We find our section and show our tickets to the usher. They call another usher over. They look at the tix again and murmur amongst themselves, casting quick glances at us. They say, “This way,” and we follow. Up, down, up, round and through half a stadium and some parted curtains into… box seats. The swanky seats the rich snots usually sit in. We sit. We look around. We see a sea of Aces and Peters and helluva lot of Genes and Pauls. They look good. We look better. The old man’s brainstorm on the silver glitter was genius.

The Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ was playing low throughout the place. It was five minutes in before I even registered it. The crowd was getting rowdy. T and I started waving at everyone, cheering them. The crowd got rowdier. The song got louder. We waved more.

And then… “Yeeeeaaaahhhhh! Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”

The crowd goes wild!

And then the lights went down.

Showtime. The smoke. The boots. The codpiece. My eyes. Dat bass. The shattered mirror guitar. The sunburst. The swagger and the blood, the synchronized guitar and headbang. Ace’s perpetual slur. The spectacle, indeed. It was everything that had been promised, and it was good.

It was only after we sat sprawled, exhausted, into our seats that we looked up and saw the video cameras filming the crowd, us included.

That was a good night. Hope you enjoyed the view, boys. You’ll never get that again.

Writing What Scares You | The Huffington Post

When you can dig deep to uncover that stinging level of honesty, people will relate to your authenticity. So stop being scared and write the hard stuff. Fiction or nonfiction, it doesn’t matter.

Accept now, before you even start, that some people will hate it. Then again, some will love it. Write for the lovers.

Strip yourself naked, bare your soul, and be brave.

Source: Writing What Scares You | The Huffington Post

We Can Shut Our Eyes to the Horror in Front of Us, but We Must Never Close Our Hands to a Kin in Need – Johanna Rosberg | TheSeeds4Life.com

What you want for yourself, is what you must try to offer to others. You might take your freedom and rights for granted – but what about theirs? What about your neighbor, or your friend, a man on the street, or the estranged child on the other side of the planet? What can you do for them that you would want them to do for you, if the roles were reversed?

Source: We Can Shut Our Eyes to the Horror in Front of Us, but We Must Never Close Our Hands to a Kin in Need – Johanna Rosberg | TheSeeds4Life.com

We’re Still Going To Call You A Racist Piece Of Shit If You Are A Racist Piece Of Shit, Hooray!

We don’t need the government to change things, and we never have. We don’t need the president to agree with us in order to call a bigot a bigot. Every battle fought in the interest of equality and fairness has been fought without the approval or interest of the government and those in charge. Sure, it’s easier with that seal of approval — and yes, a lot of the hurt and pain we are feeling right now is made so much worse because we started to think we were close to not having to fight quite as hard — but they need that more than we do. They need societal approval more than we do, because they are weak.

Take this into consideration — the absolute worst thing conservatives have ever had to go through, as a movement, was the last eight years of Barack Obama being president. Behold, how rattled they were after merely a few years of having to deal with the abject trauma of sometimes being told they were racist or sexist on Facebook! How it hurt them to have to see people say “Black Lives Matter!” How it broke their little hearts to see women as Ghostbusters! The poor dears! They could barely stand it.

All of this, to them, was so positively unbearable that they completely fell the fuck apart. Their very first test of being slightly uncomfortable, and they decided to burn it all down. They went in for the Alex Jones shit, they wore tricorner hats and cried about how they wanted their country back. Electing Trump was not a show of their collective strength but of their collective weakness in the face of adversity. We don’t fall apart, they do.

Source: We’re Still Going To Call You A Racist Piece Of Shit If You Are A Racist Piece Of Shit, Hooray!

Life is pain « Cristian Mihai

“All this pain, all this suffering…even though it almost broke me, almost turned me into the worst version I could be capable of being, in the end, all it did was make me want to save the world, made me want to spend the rest of my days improving myself and helping others too.

That’s why I write. Why I blog. I try to make sense of my suffering, and hopefully help others understand their own struggles.

. . .

The real struggle is in the choice. The real pain. In walking on the street without wishing for someone to hold your hand, in spending time by yourself without feeling bored as hell, in working your ass off every day, trying to better yourself. The pain of choosing to love yourself even though you hate what you see in the mirror. To help the broken even though some of them will try to break you as well.”

Source: Life is pain « Cristian Mihai

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“In dealing with you, I will match courtesy with courtesy, insult with insult, incompetence with incompetence. I have transmitted requisition forms to your astromechs and to your datapads; please use them, and always check your spelling. Thank you.”

-Squeaky, Wraith Squadron quartermaster

when nice people say they’re voting for trump – The Essential Kit

“Earlier this summer a friend said they were going to vote for Trump.

I turned bright red, I kid you not. Bright bright red. Even I thought it was funny. They said, ‘I take it you’re a Hillary fan,’ and I said, truthfully, that it wasn’t so much that I was pro-Hillary as I was vehemently anti-Trump. (This has changed: I’ve really had to examine my prejudices against Hillary and question how many of them were instilled by 30 years of media telling me she was evil and corrupt, but that’s another post.)

My friend said, ‘Why?’ and I said, ‘Because Trump thinks that women are things, not people, and if he’s elected President he’s going to be the person appointing at least two, up to probably five, Supreme Court justices, and every right women have will get rolled under. If you think, for example, that there are any circumstances ever under which a woman should be able to have an abortion, you should not vote for Trump.’

(I don’t know if I had the clarity of mind at that moment to actually say ‘You in fact need to vote for Clinton if you think women are people,’ because a vote for a third party in a two-party system isn’t a protest vote, it’s taking support away from whichever major party, whether you like it or not, aligns more closely with your values, hopes and expectations of your country. Which is also another post.)”

Source: when nice people say they’re voting for trump – The Essential Kit