Indigenous day huh? Well not a bad idea, but we’re not replacing Columbus day with it. ID is a fine open idea to honor the original inhabitants of this, the greatest country in the World, The United States of America. Additionally the idea of bringing people together is a good idea as well.

The concept of airing a short film about the “Wrongful Occupation of Hawaii” doesn’t fit well into your “lets all get together” aura though. Unless the intention is to stir up animosity and anger.

I agree that ID is a good idea, I suggest that boxes of tissue be handed out as well for all of the blubbering and ‘gimme-gimmes’ attitude that any “minority” tends to preach. Equality is what they ask for, but when it comes down to it they want extra handouts so they can be “more equal.” But in the real world that logic doesn’t cut it.

Giving one minority group a federal holiday does not solve their problems. Look at most reservations today: the unemployment rates are much higher than the nonreservation population. People live in third-world conditions and with third-world expectations in the United States? Well as long as we dedicate a holiday, it makes it all better! Obama should declare tomorrow “Economy Day” since it will make things better apparently.

But in all seriousness, holidays do nothing to create awareness and initiate change within our culture- they only inspire us to buy greeting cards.

As I understand it, replacing Columbus Day is critical. We want to call attention to the crimes Columbus and other invading Europeans committed against indigenous peoples.

I’m proud to go to work on “Columbus Day.” A holiday for the phony founder of America? What a joke. When he landed somewhere in Central America he thought he was in India. We are not only rewarding someone for cruelty and murder of the indigenous population, we are rewarding incompetence. I am pretty sure that he would have been a stellar UNM hire though.

It’s so great this idea has been put forth — makes the most sense to me. About time we denounced the horrible ungliness of colonialism and slavery — genocide both — that this country is founded on. Personally, I give my black and native american sisters and brothers great thanks and love for their understanding that I’m just a descendant of the white anglos who have done all these horrors to the world — it wasn’t up to me, but I will certainly stand up and acknowledge it was wrong. The sins of our fathers are visited upon us. Let us make ammends, make peace, and make the world safe and healthy again. Great creator bless us all. :) And I say thank you to the American Indians for your healing and teachings, and for sharing. I am so sorry it has to come at such a price to your people.

Interesting how the Indians have done nothing other than embraced Western culture; modern medicine, education, higher standard of living…then they turn around and spit on those who have provided it to them.

COLUMBUS DAY IS FOR LOVERS

It’s Columbus Day! The 37th holiest day of the year. The day we celebrate the much hallowed voyage of Christopher Columbus who sailed the ocean blue in 1492, to Discover America.

Fu*k Columbus! “Discovered” America? You can’t wander into someone’s backyard and start discovering sh*t. I remember as a child, I tried to “discover” some apples from the tree in Mrs. Johnson’s back yard. After Mrs. Johson told my mom, I discovered an ass beating that American historians still talk about to this day. They should put that shit on a calendar!

Chris was looking for India and instead found what is known today as America, and just started calling the people there, Indians. You don’t go out on a blind date with Stephanie, show up at the wrong house, take out Shirley instead and keep calling her Stephanie all night. “Please stop calling me Stephanie, and how did you get into my house?” “Shut up Stephanie! I discovered this blind date and I’ll call you whatever I please! Now, do you want to drive to the movies in the Nina, the Pinta or the Ford Taurus?”

For centuries, cultures knew the earth was round, so I don’t know where that came from. Only thing Columbus really proved is that he didn’t know his head from his ass and he was pretty darn good at genocide. “Ewwww gross Indians are icky. Let’s totally kill em and take their land and stuff. Won’t that be sooo awesome?”

So on October 12th, I will commemorate Columbus Day the same way I do every year. By making a bunch of wrong turns and giving some Native Americans smallpox.

Happy Holidays Everybody!

love chris davis

@Damien- you are so uninformed. Been watching those hollywood movies, huh? Racist!!!

Columbus was not even trying to discover america. He abused the long gone natives of Cuba and was in it for the $$$. There is no reason to celebrate this “holiday”.

Throughout history, only a handful of men have brought about such tremendous change for the world—in both negative and positive ways. The United States of America honors one of its most tremendous renegades for change with a holiday called Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Dr. King brazenly went against the traditionally held views of the time and helped push our country into a modern state of enlightenment. He is the well-deserving recipient of a day to honor his strong leadership for a cause he keenly believed in. His motives were clearly not of narcissistic root, but were in place rather for a broad, socially influential cause to rid his people of the abuses that kept his people in slavery even after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Another man upheld by The United States as somewhat of a hero, and celebrated also with his own day named in his honor is Christopher Columbus. Columbus undoubtedly changed the way our modern world now works and his influence can be felt by many of the people both in the eastern and western hemispheres. Yet many still question why he is so widely upheld—and especially why we as an American nation should not only name a day after him, but also recognize it as a day of national holiday. Columbus Day can somewhat be considered one of the United States’ national pastimes. It was celebrated in cities across America in 1792, although it wasn’t officially recognized as a holiday by the state of Colorado until 1905. This early acceptance of Columbus’ heroics contributes tremendously to the fact that we now uphold him with such esteem. One of the reasons offered as to why we celebrate the holiday is that it promotes our national pride and American patriotism. The patriotic fervor even helped Catholics who were being persecuted by Christians to help gain a stronger foothold in their American rights. These Catholic immigrants banded together under the name the Knights of Columbus, which helped to promote their assimilation into the Christian, American society—who upheld Columbus as an American hero. This helped them to gain mutual benefits comparable to others in the American society in the later 19th century—and choosing Columbus as their patron was a tremendous factor in their acceptance. In this case, and in the case of many Italian immigrants, Columbus is very much an icon and a beacon for hope. He allowed the expansion that was so badly needed for the people of Italy and Europe in general, but at the cost of Native Americans of Central America, then eventually North and South America.
In recent times, facts have come to light about Columbus and how he treated the so-called “Indians” of the New World. According to the History Channel’s page on Columbus, he not only “treated the indigenous groups they came across as obstacles to their greater mission,” for riches and land, but also enslaved them without hesitation. According to the same source, upon arriving he “ordered six of the natives to be seized, writing in his journal that he believed they would be good servants.” The page then goes on to explain how Columbus imposed his power over the people by putting down any uprisings with an iron fist and having the natives work in plantations or gold mines for his monetary benefit. He also attempted to take some of the “peaceful Taino ‘Indians’ from the island of Hispanola to Spain to be sold. Many died on route.” He directly exploited these native people of modern day Dominican Republic, but his influence was felt in years to come on both continents of the Western World. This resulted in my people, the Navajos, being placed on a reservation that is in parts of our state of Arizona. This land that was eventually given to us by the government was later bickered over with our neighboring tribe, the Hopis. It resulted in many unnecessary deaths and grudges that have lasted clear through to our modern time. A huge part of this bickering was a result of the how the government bounded the Native Americans land with borders that were not necessarily true to their roaming ways. The Navajos never really thought of land as being owned by a certain tribe or not—they probably thought that the land was there to be shared among them all.
As many of us know, his idea of finding a new trade route to the Indies was not supported by his own country of Italy, and neither by Portugal. He had to beg Spain for their support and his profiteering might have been intensified by his passion to prove those who denied him wrong and to make Spain glad they bestowed him with such an opportunity. He had a whole Old World to prove his worth to, and nothing to prove to the New World—other than that he and his men were a superior race. This mindset is what put the wheels in motion for the subsequent exploitation of the New World and the somewhat inadvertent swarm of disease that eventually engulfed the 2 continents with ghastly death. For these reasons, there are still those who consider his actions morally incorrect. This can be buttressed by the many protests that occur on Columbus Day parades, as well communities changing the name of the holiday to things such as “Indigenous People’s Day” in Berkeley, CA. “For many of us, the explicit celebration of the colonial attempt to eradicate the indigenous religions confirmed the analysis that to celebrate Columbus is to celebrate genocide and the worst excesses of religious chauvinism.” According to a Colorado writer named Sean McAllister who wrote an article on the protests being held in Denver during the early 90’s when people were attempting to have a Columbus Day parade. The facts proving that Columbus was a profiteer, who was on a one-tracked pursuit for riches, dissolves the moral reasons for his celebration. Upon discovering of Native people, he was ecstatic to proclaim that they could be exploited for their slave labor. In my opinion, the reason why he is still celebrated by our culture is that he is an excuse for those who are cutthroat profiteers to sidestep their guilt and evil, narcissistic mindsets. If Columbus got away with all of those things and still remains a glorified man, why can’t we too do awful things to gain what we desire? This is the mentality we are giving to our children and the generations after them if we still keep Columbus Day a nationally recognized holiday.

I do not understand the current defamation going on of Christopher Columbus in the United States.
On wikipedia he is accused of killing “millions himself”.
And in many articles he is accused of indirectly being responsible for nearly wiping out the Native American population.
What a joke. We only have to open our eyes and look around at the CURRENT evidence.
In the new world, we have the northern area, English speaking Protestants for the most part.
In the southern areas, south of Mexico, we have the Spanish and Portuguese speaking areas.
Look at the current inhabitants, their bloodline, their genetics, the Native American mix is clearly seen in the southern areas. Clearly, the indigenous peoples south of the United Stares fared better. Who wiped out whom?
Look at the U.S., how many people with Native American blood live on your street?
Consider Andrew Jackson’s infamous quote “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
The current liberal trend of defaming Christopher Columbus is bogus. Just look around, you can see the truth.
Anti-Catholicism may be at the root of the current non-sense. Regarding slavery, who is the biggest culprit? Mexico outlawed slavery long before the United States—this included Texas. And then the U.S. captures Texas and brings back slavery.
Liberals need to get history right and stop exaggerating the negative aspects of Christopher Columbus’ brave exploring; usually attributing to Columbus the evil work of some desperate people that followed him. Columbus helped bring the advances of Western Europe in most fields of human pursuit to the indigenous people.
Believe it or not, Christian ideals of how we should live are superior to constant tribe warfare and cannibalism.
Duh…

Racist?? Do you not have anymore to offer? Is that the extent of your ability to debate? How foolish. I do not see the world in terms of race, as you do. I see the world in terms of individuals, each choosing to join or associate themselves with different groups. Please consider the following:

Prior to 1492, what is now the United States was sparsely inhabited, unused, and undeveloped. The inhabitants were primarily hunter/gatherers, wandering across the land, living from hand to mouth and from day to day. There was virtually no change, no growth for thousands of years. With rare exception, life was nasty, brutish, and short: there was no wheel, no written language, no division of labor, little agriculture and scant permanent settlement; but there were endless, bloody wars. Whatever the problems it brought, the vilified Western culture also brought enormous, undreamed-of benefits, without which most of today’s Indians would be infinitely poorer or not even alive.

Columbus should be honored, for in so doing, we honor Western civilization. But the critics do not want to bestow such honor, because their real goal is to denigrate the values of Western civilization and to glorify the primitivism, mysticism, and collectivism embodied in the tribal cultures of American Indians. They decry the glorification of the West as “Eurocentrism.” We should, they claim, replace our reverence for Western civilization with multi-culturalism, which regards all cultures as morally equal. In fact, they aren’t…

Underlying the political collectivism of the anti-Columbus crowd is a racist view of human nature. They claim that one’s identity is primarily ethnic: if one thinks his ancestors were good, he will supposedly feel good about himself; if he thinks his ancestors were bad, he will supposedly feel self-loathing. But it doesn’t work; the achievements or failures of one’s ancestors are monumentally irrelevant to one’s actual worth as a person. Only the lack of a sense of self leads one to look to others to provide what passes for a sense of identity. Neither the deeds nor misdeeds of others are his own; he can take neither credit nor blame for what someone else chose to do. There are no racial achievements or racial failures, only individual achievements and individual failures. One cannot inherit moral worth or moral vice. “Self-esteem through others” is a self-contradiction.”

Columbus was the most accomplished seaman of his day, and his feat of sailing from Spain to the North American Continent is not to be discounted. It’s silly and naive to attempt to say that an Indeginous day would be a rational substitute. No one actually thinks that there were no human beings when Columbus sailed, the history books give an account of the Native Americans who inhabited the land. The fact is that the Native Americans never collectively came together, nor had the resources to with hold the land from settlers. Grow up and get over it. It’s referred to as conquering. It’s been done since time began.

I can’t beleive this farce is still going on, and what’s more some poor sad individuals want to take it out on some dead Spaniard? Baloney! And Nell, I if you feel that way you should sell all your belongings and find either an African American or Native American and give them all your money.

Many parellels with the Native Americans and Hawaiians…

Loving and giving people exploited in a changing world

Why cant’t they have a day of their own

and maybe some compassion

aloha

There are so many opinions here, all over the place, and it only proves that non-Indians really need to be educated. So many stereotypes, it’s pathetic. What are they teaching in schools these days?

It was my assumption that UNM would have more forward thinking, intelligent, open-minded students attending here, but after reading this, well, this has sadly proved me wrong. Man, where did you all come from? I thought I was back in the South.

Columbus was just some poor explorer who got lost, and later lost his ships, got stuck on an island, and was jailed on his return, but bounced around the Caribbean wreaking havoc among the native people. The vikings were here and gone – Columbus should have done that…just left and not come back.

I don’t have my hand out, and I never have. I am paying for my own education and working full-time. However, tribes are making strides to help themselves, and many have, and not just with casino money. People get educated, go back and yes, use the non-Indian’s processes to benefit their tribal members.

I believe that every human has the potential for making a positive impact in their world, regardless of their ethnicity or gender. You can use the word “race” if you will, but that word should really be left to NASCAR.

Yeah, seriously, when I come here I don’t feel like a UNM student but like I am dealing with many cranky Ferengi.

So Damian, supposing some day a spacecraft lands on your lawn and its occupants decide that you are not refined enough to go on living your life in your primitive ways and that whatever developments you have made in accordance to your environment are no match for the technological advances that they have made in accordance to THEIR environment, THEREFORE you deserve to be killed, or assimilated into their civilization, which may or may not include the exact opposite of EVERYTHING you have ever known, believed, loved or held sacred….and not only are you subjected to this treatment…..but so is your mother, your father, your KIN….supposing all this……by your logic (which believe me is NOT rooted in any factual analysis of how Indigenous people actually lived “pre-contact”) but by that fragile logic…..you would be fine with all of this…and would support the celebration of this very encounter you had with a spacecraft of “superior” beings. Yes Damian. i see it now. You are unable to understand any of this because you will never be threatened by anything “superior” to you as an individual. I’m thinking….. “egocentric”…not necessarily eurocentric….although the two tend to be indistinguishable….call me racist.

First,let’s get the fact straight,columbus was a Slave Trader for Spain. He made frequent trips to west Africa (slave trading purposes), before he got lost in the Atlantic ocean,then upon landing in what he thought was the Indies,began calling the Natives “Indians”, a term that I refute on a daily basis,so thank you for that terminology columbus. He was the first in a long line of Spaniards who committed GENOCIDE on the Native Americans.For this the hispanics and spaniards love to celebrate this on ‘columbus day’.Hispanics have to realize that they are mixed race, half Native/Spaniard, the word in spanish is ‘mestizo’.so know Ur history…

We’re all Americans. Screw you hyphen-americans. Do we need to declare war again!?

It’s the “americans” like Tyler that makes people rather be known as “hyphen-americans” (if we even want to be considered “american” at all) than the simple-minded-plain-ignorant-non-hyphenated “american”

Declare war? Tyler, both of your comments (on this article and the other) are ridiculous and ignorant. It must lonely living in the mountains in your one room shack. Weirdo!

Damian, you are so sadly misinformed that instead of feeling angry that you are spreading lies, I just feel sorry for you. “Prior to 1492, what is now the United States was sparsely inhabited, unused, and undeveloped. The inhabitants were primarily hunter/gatherers, wandering across the land, living from hand to mouth and from day to day.” Had you heard of the Mayans? The pueblo Indians? Sparsely inhabited, yeah, after the smallpox arrived and killed off at least 50% of the population. And there’s also the fact that Columbus was responsible for the extinction of the whole Arawak population on the Dominincan Republic (where he first landed, for those of you saying Cuba) and the reduction of the population of natives in surrounding islands by 90%. Sure, he paved the path for “Western Culture” to become prevalent in the Americas, but, while you might think that western culture is a benefit, I’d guess the millions of native americans who died as a result of the invasion of westerners and their germs wouldn’t agree, and neither would the millions of Africans enslaved, so that their labor could plunder the resources of the New World. So please don’t act as if Westerners did the “brutal, tribal” (basically, you are saying they were dumb) native americans a favor when they came and imposed their worldview. You are free to honor those who are willing to kill and enslave millions so that they can (in the most benevolent view of invading westerners) impose their views on as many people as possible. Just remember, that’s the same kind of person that Hitler was. I’m not saying Columbus had the same values as Hitler, but he was sure willing to kill and enslave for those values.

Hello Arawak,

I am not spreading lies. I understand your point of view. It is historical fact that America was not some sort of peaceful paradise prior to Columbus. However, Columbus day has a much deeper, richer, meaning than just a man whom came to the Americas to spread disease.

On one level, Columbus Day honors the explorer himself, for his many virtues. Columbus was a man of independent mind, who steadfastly pursued his bold plan for a westward voyage to the Indies despite powerful opposition—a man of courage, who set sail upon a trackless ocean with no assurance that he would ever reach land—a man of pride, who sought recognition and reward for his achievements.

We need not evade or excuse Columbus’s flaws—his religious zealotry, his enslavement and oppression of natives—to recognize that he made history by finding new territory for a civilization that would soon show mankind how to overcome forever the age-old scourges of slavery, war, and forced religious conversion.

On a deeper level, therefore, Columbus Day celebrates the rational core of Western civilization, which flourished in the New World like a potbound plant liberated from its confining shell, demonstrating to the world what greatness is possible to man at his best.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose philosophers and mathematicians, men such as Aristotle, Archimedes, and Euclid, displaced otherworldly mysticism by discovering the laws of logic and mathematical relationships, demonstrating to mankind that the universe is knowable and predictable.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose scientists, men such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, banished primitive superstitions by discovering natural laws through the scientific method, expanding the reach of man’s scrutiny to the farthest galaxy and the tiniest atom.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose political geniuses, men such as John Locke and the Founding Fathers, showed how bloody tribal warfare and religious strife can be supplanted by constitutional republics devoted to protecting life, liberty, property, and the selfish pursuit of individual happiness.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose entrepreneurs, men such as Rockefeller, Ford, and Gates, transformed an inhospitable wilderness populated by frightened savages into a wealthy nation of self-confident producers served by highways, power plants, computers, and thousands of other life-enhancing products.

On Columbus Day, in sum, we celebrate Western civilization with the utter certainty that it is good according to an objective standard: man’s life.

And you are an individual, free to choose your own destiny. You are not bound by your heritage, or by the flaws of your ancestory, as I am not either. We are Americans, we have a history together, people with Native American backgrounds has contributed to this Western Civilization—lets celebrate its greatness together.

Holy Crap Damian! Think it will hurt much when you fall off your high horse? The misconceptions presented in your argument is exactly why Columbus Day is total BS.

“a man of pride, who sought recognition and reward for his achievements.” Umm… yeah he was arrested and condemned as a criminal once he returned to Spain. Not even people back then thought killing off almost a whole population after mistakenly landing on an island in the Caribbean.

“by finding new territory for a civilization that would soon show mankind how to overcome forever the age-old scourges of slavery, war, and forced religious conversion”…Seriously? When did mankind overcome slavery, war, and forced religious conversion? That crap flourished once Columbus arrived. It still exists today.

The civilizations that had flourished for thousands of years before Columbus’ arrival had advanced philosophies and worldviews similar to those that modern Western scientists are only now “discovering” in disciplines like quantum physics. Philosophers before Galileo thought the universe revolved around the Earth but Indigenous people had long known the Earth orbited around the Sun.

“transformed an inhospitable wilderness populated by frightened savages into a wealthy nation of self-confident producers served by highways, power plants, computers, and thousands of other life-enhancing products.” Are you freakin kidding me? “Frightened” “Savages” The “wilderness” was not hospitable. Indigenous people had lived with the land for time immemorial. How do you think we survived all those years? These highways, power plants, and other life-enhancing technological products are what is killing nature, which is and will certainly lead to the demise of vast human populations.

Columbus Day promotes the misconception to hide the dark truths of united states history in order to have a false justification for the past and continued oppression of Indigenous people. You are flawed by the flaws of your ancestors if you continue to deny and promote the wrongs of the past. It may be the past but you still benefit genocide and oppression of Indigenous peoples while we continue to fight the effects of it.

If I were you, I would not want to be a proud American based on an inaccurate or biased history. If you want to be a proud American based on something real, show your strength, compassion, and evolution as a human being by reconciling the ignorant beliefs promoted not just by Columbus Day, but by dominant Western society, and truly acknowledge other peoples at the same level you see yourself. The united states cannot be something great until it is based on something real.

Columbus is a myth, Ha Ha Geee gaaa hhhee hhaaaa packachukaa. What a laugh I got out of your baloney boy. I was wondering how long it’s been since you sobered up or stopped eating that bad ol peyote’ bud. Yes the native americans certainly discovered quantum physics, and knew all about the solar system and how it worked. Gaa haa hee hhhaa haw haw. Man that’s a good one!

Now on the other hand, were the Native Americans badly treated and conquered and much of their lands taken away? Yes, and it was not right. I agree totally. Is it all over but the crying- yes it is. So you may as well stop drudging up silly stuff like “we should cancel Columbus day”. Why don’t you do something useful like help out one of the tribal councils?

That has nothing whatsoever to do with Columbus being a great sailor, he was from Italy, and was hired by the Spanish. He’s the greatest seaman of his time without a doubt. There’s nothing to be gained, restored, realized or disproven about Columbus day. Don’t get so hung up on the fact that their were people already living on the north american continent- it matters not at all.

Well, after reading the Lobo opinion, from the web..
I guess White people have to believe THEY come from somewhere OR someplace, eh?
Sure Columbus was a great explorer, no doubt about that..
My guess is that Columbus was a TYRANT of some sort, just like all White explorer’s who came to this country in search of riches.. And for people like Jean-Luc Picard, “they” just don’t seem to gasp that concept that HIS very ignorance of what the Navajo, Apache and the Pueblo have endured over the past couple centuries..GENOCIDE, POVERTY, DISEASE and a promise of a better tomorrow..:P
Yeah, right..just the way I want my grandchildren to grow up in..
I feel that UNM, implement a Native cultural studies the first semester of the Freshman year, just to INFORM those who have COME here to study..It seems that there where NO Indians where they come from, YES?
So, just because there are THOSE who don’t respect Indian people and THEIR cultural beliefs and OUR assimilation attempts to “join” the so called Main Stream of Society, should at least RESEARCH what they are posting, rather than SHOOTING off about a PEOPLE, Non-Indians really don’t know anything about or care to.
YES?
Interesting topic…
bbl

Hey slowhike… keep reading your government-issued history books. I’m sure you’ll get far in life with the narrow-minded crap you learn and exhibit.

Do you demean Indigenous knowledge because you know everything about the world and everything you know is the one and only true way of looking at things?

I’ve seen your ignorant comments in several forums for years and it’s pretty pathetic. What? Is this the only way you can get people to hear your worthless opinions? Your comments will do nothing to keep the petition/requests to replace Columbus Day from happening. So if you really don’t want this to happen, get off your lazy butt and challenge it. I’d like to see how many people will step up and follow despite being labeled shallow racist idiots that you are and will continue to be unless you actually decide to really learn what other cultures have to offer. Otherwise, I feel sorry for you for missing out on the beauty of all the other types of knowledge out in the world.

It seems like a silly argument to be having what with the current crop of knucklehead in the executive and legislative branches of our country’s govt. drunkenly spending this and future generations into perpetual debt and bending over and grabbing the ankles for every two bit tyrant at large, but hey I’ll bite.

Some of you seem to be under the mistaken impression that this land was a garden of eden prior to ol’ chris. Explain why so many tribes have real hatred against some of their brethren? navajos don’t particularly care for peublos and vice verse. Hell some pueblos have it in for other pueblos. lakotas and crows aren’t best buds either. Hell, I don’t think anyone really likes crows.I know a present situation where a tribe is having to vote on how much percentage of tribal blood is required to receive tribal benefits, etc. No it isn’t outright warfare, but ill feelings about past events definitely exist. Go figure.

My point is, if changing a holiday name will finally and completely unite these tribes, hey, it might just be worth it. I say have at it, though I would not support it. And maybe these folks can finally get on with lives and stop KVETCHING about the past and move and fulfill their lives.

Celebrating Columbus Day has become naughty. Political correctness insists Columbus’ arrival in America ushered in a genocidal calamity. Such p.c. celebrants of ”diversity” should consider that the Columbus voyage actually generated some of the most multicultural societies in history.

But any honor for Columbus’s epic trek across the Atlantic entails some appreciation for Western Civilization, which is taboo for the Left. The Religious Left is no exception. Jim Wallis’ Sojourners office evidently diligently worked on Columbus Day, unlike most of the nation’s capital, lest anyone think they were honoring the Columbus calamity.

Sojourners published several articles explaining the evils of Columbus Day. The most polemical was by self-professed Cherokee Randy Woodley, author of Living in Color: Embracing God’s Passion for Ethnic Diversity. Contrary to his book’s seeming theme, Woodley’s diatribe against Columbus’ discovery implies that he prefers a Western Hemisphere populated exclusively by the original tribal peoples.

“When Americans continue to celebrate Columbus Day we do damage — not just to Native America but to all Americans,” Woodley angrily insisted. “Jews will never celebrate the rise of the Third Reich. Ugandans will not likely hail the legacy of Idi Amin, Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Regime, et. al.”

So America’s primary European discoverer was no better than Hitler, Pol Pot, and Idi Amin. Happy Columbus Day indeed. At least a Sojourners article actually referenced a communist genocide. But was the ethnic Italian dispatched by the Spanish monarchy to find a path to the Orient that would evade Islamic navies really the moral equivalent of Holocaust plotters?

“As a Christian example he enacted terrible cruelties to friendly natives,” Woodley sarcastically penned. “Assuming unlawful rights of authority; robbing and subjugating whole nations of their freedom and entire capital; allowing his men to rape, murder and pillage at will; and deliberately leading the way for the genocide of millions, considered by many to be the worst demographic catastrophe in recorded history.”

Unlike the Third Reich, or other genocidalists like the Khmer Rouge and the Stalinists of the 1930’s, neither the Spanish monarchy nor its fleet every plotted the murder of millions. Woodley quotes Columbus’s journal, in which he rhapsodized about the native Caribbean peoples he first encountered: “In all the world, there is no better people nor better country. They love their neighbors as themselves, and they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are gentle and are always laughing.”

Enlightenment Europeans often idealized relatively unknown indigenous peoples for supposedly being uncorrupted by civilization. The idealization persists today, when the Left portrays non-Western peoples as only innocent victims, and the West as uniquely sinister. Columbus and most of his Spanish contemporary adventurers idealistically saw their discovery as the opportunity to spread Christian civilization and, more materialistically, to construct trade empires.

The vast majority of native peoples who died after encountering Europeans did so because they lacked immunity to European diseases. The conquests of the Spanish conquestidors throughout what became Latin America were often brutal, but no more so than the routine practices of the empires they conquered, which often resorted to human sacrifice.

Woodley’s article for Sojourners boasted that pre-European “great civilizations thrived in America with unparalleled techniques in urban planning, micro-agriculture, macro-environmental management (including ecology, xeriscape, agronomy, botany, forestry, and raised bed, naturally fertilized gardening), sustainable architecture (including passive solar heating), psychology, philosophy, religion, ethics, science, math, medicine (including brain surgery and dentistry), government, language, education, rhetoric, intercontinental economic trade, successful peacemaking, etc.”

This is all somewhat true. But the native “religion” that Woodley cites often involved cutting open the hearts of virgins, among others, upon temple altars devoted to bloodthirsty pagan deities. And while Woodley laments the supposed lack of modern interest in native cultures, is the lack of information also partly due to the absence a written language by American natives? In fact, Woodley’s penchant for diversity celebration is a product of Western Culture, and would have been largely unrecognizable to the homogenous native cultures he venerates.

“The point is not whose “stuff” is the best but rather why can’t we celebrate it all without pulling from despicable despots of the past like Columbus?” Woodley implored for Sojourners. “Euro-Americans landed in America. The accomplishments of the people who were here prior to their arrival should be celebrated and memorialized along with those who came here later.”

But the Religious Left, including Woodley, do not seem very interested in celebrating Western Culture, only its alternatives, and even its enemies, ancient and modern. The European colonizers of the Americas were simultaneously brave, cruel, creative, condescending, noble, and base. They never convened a council to plot, Eichman-style, a holocaust of native peoples.

The civilizations the Europeans conquered were themselves conquerors, wiping out rival tribes, and brutally massacring rival claimants to power. When the English first settled North America, they encountered the Powhatan Confederacy in what became Virginia. Powhatan, father of Pocahontas, had assembled his empire by annihilating or subjugating the rival tribes between the Potomac and what became North Carolina. Was Powhatan not a successful imperialist?

Two attempted genocides were orchestrated in colonial Virginia. In 1622, Powhatan’s younger brother Opechancanough, after a nearly decade of peace, horrifically and nearly successfully attempted to murder every male, female and child Virginia colonist on a Friday morning. The genocide failed, thanks to the warning of a young Christian Indian boy named Chanco, but one quarter of the English were killed. Opechancanough attempted the same genocide in 1644, killing over 400, but still failing to wipe out the English.

History is full of savagery by all cultures. Christianity and Judaism understood all humanity to be fallen but endeavor to uplift and redeem through their teachings. Modern America endeavors to ascribe dignity and legal equality to a diverse population, largely thanks to its Western origins, and in ways that would have mystified pre-European tribalists. But Religious Left groups like Sojourners, preoccupied more by revolutionary and statist goals than by traditional religious doctrine, oddly and unhistorically prefer to stigmatize the West, and especially America, along with its discovers/founders.

The Sojourners staff may continue to work on Columbus Day. But diatribes like Woodley’s against Columbus are not serious.

I see no good reason to use a violent oppressor such as Columbus in order to celebrate the positive aspects of Western civilization. He has no more connection to modern pluralism than Montezuma. I wouldn’t want a day venerating Caesar, Napoleon, or Genghis Khan either. Alongside this basic principle goes the sustained subjugation of native peoples in America. Thus, rejecting Columbus and by implication European domination has current social relevance.

We can all see the impact that having Liberal Supreme Court Justices has had on the USA. Additionally Democratic presidents in the 1960s issued a couple of executive orders that weren’t intended to produce diversity cults, but certainly had that effect on our society. It will be years before the reverse discrimination administered in State Employment and Public Employment policies in states like New Mexico begin to level off into something that even approaches fairness or equality. Currently only minorities have the “right of way”.

There are always going to be individuals who insist that you “learn about our culture” even though it’s a subordinate culture and does not contribute to mainstream economically, but does carry weight in the world of the “politically correct”. Which thank goodness fewer and fewer people aspire to be these days.

The idea of liberty has continuous change built into it, because liberty and freedom are both hostile to constraint (as in government control or political correctness). Men and women seek to remove the constraint nearest them. However, when that constraint falls, another one arises which is equally bothersome. This is why the liberal agenda is in constant motion. “That Liberalism may be a tendency towards something very different from itself, is a possibility….it is a movement without and end but only a starting point with nothing definite, no goals, just away from itself. T. S. Elliot. Liberals, by destroying trraditional social habits of the people, by licensing the opinions of the most foolish, by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom it can generate it’s desparate remedy for it’s own chaos.

Liberalsim is a movement away from, it’s an impulse, not a stable agenda because it continually revises the agenda it has at any particular moment. Example: 10 years ago liberals wanted equality for minorities, currently they want victim hood, free handouts, more welfare, and now, government controlled health care.

Since these rednecks are so stuck on keeping Columbus Day, maybe the energy should be concentrated on abolishing a really useless holiday like Patriot Day.

I mean, hell, it’s already been 8 years since September 11. Americans should just get over it already and recognize the “genius” of those who made the attack. I mean, yeah over 3,000 people were killed, but we have to recognize the advancement of civilization since 9/11. Can you believe how primitive it was before 9/11 back when Congressional approval was actually needed to go to war and you couldn’t just kill people to get oil? Americans should stop acting like whining victims and just accept that the terrorists got us that day. It’s the United States’ fault for having such a primitive security system and incapable leaders who couldn’t stop it from happening. Crazy Liberals and Conservatives think that having a holiday is gonna make anything better…idiots. That won’t do anything good. If Americans want to change something, they should just get off their fat butts and make something of themselves instead of blaming the bad economy or fear of more terrorist attacks. Now all Americans want are tax cuts and bailouts. You would think with Bill Gates, all their oil companies and using over 2/3 of the world’s resources, they’d be living it up and not complaining. Sheesh! And what’s with Americans acting like everything was so peaceful and perfect before 9/11 and they all got out and waved their little flags and stood “united” but we all know that Americans were fighting amongst themselves since the inception of the country, remember the Civil War, and dang, all that animosity between Republicans and Democrats that’s been going on even now. They were already fighting amongst themselves so who cares if someone else just went in there and got the job done.