I love this story told by Rush Limbaugh on what is the real meaning and lessons of the first Thanksgiving. Every year I print it out and put it in my pocket. I wait until our Thanksgiving dinner, and when grace has been said and when a break comes in the feeding-frenzy I mean feasting, I share with everybody the wisdom below.
. . . by Rush Limbaugh
As told in his book 'See I Told You So' Chapter Six: "Dead White Guys or What Your History Books Never Told You," on page 70 Rush explains that the REAL story of the First Thanksgiving is the lesson of the abject failure of Collectivism or Socialism and the triumph of Free Market Capitalism.
The original contract the Pilgrims entered into with merchant-sponsors in London called for everything produced to go into a common store and for every member of the community to be entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belonged to the community as well. This is the essence of Socialism. What happened with this early experiment? Their leader William Bradford writes:
"For the young men that were able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children, without recompense. The strong, or men of parts, had no more division of food, clothes, etc. then he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labor, and food, clothes, etc. with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignant and disrespect unto them. And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc. they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could man husbands brook it."
Bradford goes on:
"The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years… that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing — as if they were wiser than God," Bradford wrote. "For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense… that was thought injustice."
So what did Bradford’s community try next? They harnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the capitalistic principle of private property. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result?
"This had very good success," wrote Bradford, "for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been . . ."
In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves. So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians. The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London. And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the "Great Puritan Migration."
Now, other than on this program every year, have you heard this story before? Is this lesson being taught to your kids today -- and if it isn't, why not? Can you think of a more important lesson one could derive from the pilgrim experience?
So in essence there was, thanks to the Indians, because they taught us how to skin beavers and how to plant corn when we arrived, but the real Thanksgiving was thanking the Lord for guidance and plenty -- and once they reformed their system and got rid of the communal bottle and started what was essentially free market capitalism, they produced more than they could possibly consume, and they invited the Indians to dinner, and voila, we got Thanksgiving, and that's what it was: inviting the Indians to dinner and giving thanks for all the plenty is the true story of Thanksgiving.
The last two-thirds of this story simply are not told.
Now, I was just talking about the plenty of this country and how I'm awed by it. You can go to places where there are famines, and we usually get the story, "Well, look it, there are deserts, well, look it, Africa, I mean there's no water and nothing but sand and so forth."
It's not the answer, folks. Those people don't have a prayer because they have no incentive. They live under tyrannical dictatorships and governments.
The problem with the world is not too few resources. The problem with the world is an insufficient distribution of capitalism.
*************************************************************************************
"May God bless our families health, table and stores with venison and good spirits!"
- Deacon of Doom, Thanksgiving 2009
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. God bless,
- Sean Linnane
Showing posts with label Indians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indians. Show all posts
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
BATTLE OF THE GREASY GRASS . . .
. . . also known as The Battle of Little Bighorn, or Custer’s Last Stand.
June 25, 1876 marks the date in history when the Lakota Souix and Northern Cheyenne defended their way of life against the US Seventh Cavalry at the Little Bighorn River near what is now Crow Agency, Montana. General George Armstrong Custer and 267 soldiers and civilians were wiped out to a man by a force of approximately 2000 braves of the Lakota and Cheyenne Nations, led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.
SITTING BULL. No known photograph or drawing of Crazy Horse exists - he was very sensitive about the issue of having "his soul captured".
George Armstrong Custer was a vain, arrogant man.
Famous for his fearlessness in the Civil War, his courage had a dark side. In battle, he gambled recklessly with his men's lives, and he was capable of great cruelty. In 1868, Custer had attacked a peaceful Cheyenne village and slaughtered most of its inhabitants. He later claimed to have killed 103 warriors, but most of the dead were women, children, and old men. This was not the only atrocity committed by US soldiers during the course of the Indian wars, unfortunately.
Custer’s courage, combined with keen political instinct, resulted in his promotion to Brigadier General, at 23 the youngest in the Union Army. Reverted to his regular Army rank of Captain after the war, Custer finagled assignment as Lieutenant Colonel of the newly created U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment. A plea by his patron General Philip Sheridan resulted in an appointment as Brevet Major General. The marker where Custer is believed to have fallen at Little Bighorn battlefield indicates the confusing status of his rank: “BVT. MAJ. GEN. LT. COL.”
It has been estimated that in the overall battle the warriors outnumbered Custer’s 7th Cavalry forces by as many as nine to one. By almost all accounts, within less than an hour Custer's force was completely annihilated. Interviews with the Indian survivors of the battle indicate that the Custer fight lasted less than one-half hour.
My personal fascination with the Battle of the Greasy Grass stems from an event where myself and my entire Operational Detachment Alpha were made honorary members of the Lakota Souix, during a funeral for one of our own in Milwaukee, in 2001. The ritual involved a Four Winds ceremony, after which I was told “they don’t do that for the tourists”.
Furthermore, a full-blooded Lakota I served with once shared with me that there were several white survivors of the Little Bighorn engagement. He claimed they fought on the Indian side. When you think about it, this makes absolute sense; by 1876 whites had been interacting with the Plains Indians for over one hundred years. There were bound to be scores of trappers and mountain men, Civil War deserters and other adventurers who’d “gone native”. What would you do if one day a bunch of soldiers in blue uniforms showed up and burned your village, killed your women and children? I know what I’d do: I’d go to war against the US Army.
At the onset of the engagement, Custer divided his troops into two groups, one led by Colonel George W. Yates. Meanwhile, Crazy Horse's warriors charged in from another direction. Custer's men were now surrounded. The braves pounded the trapped bluecoats with bullets and arrows.
Most contemporary depictions of this battle depict Custer in a heroic light. I consider these depictions wanton propaganda, and as such have chosen not to display them here. The soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry were terrified, apparently, firing wildly and sometimes hitting each other. They also shot their horses in an effort to set up barricades.
Two Moons, a Cheyenne chief, later said, "We circled around them, swirling like water 'round a stone." In less than an hour, the battle was over. "It took about as long as it takes for a hungry man to eat his dinner," Two Moons observed. There is evidence that some of the soldiers committed suicide rather than face torture and mutilation at the hands of their Indian foes.
A Bitter Victory
The Indians won the battle, but they somehow sensed it signaled the beginning of the end of the war. Furious after Custer’s humiliating defeat, U.S. officials stopped negotiating with the Indians and simply took away most of the land promised to them. Army troops hunted down the Sioux and forced them onto ever-shrinking reservations. After surrendering, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse both were murdered.
June 25, 1876 marks the date in history when the Lakota Souix and Northern Cheyenne defended their way of life against the US Seventh Cavalry at the Little Bighorn River near what is now Crow Agency, Montana. General George Armstrong Custer and 267 soldiers and civilians were wiped out to a man by a force of approximately 2000 braves of the Lakota and Cheyenne Nations, led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.
SITTING BULL. No known photograph or drawing of Crazy Horse exists - he was very sensitive about the issue of having "his soul captured". George Armstrong Custer was a vain, arrogant man.
Famous for his fearlessness in the Civil War, his courage had a dark side. In battle, he gambled recklessly with his men's lives, and he was capable of great cruelty. In 1868, Custer had attacked a peaceful Cheyenne village and slaughtered most of its inhabitants. He later claimed to have killed 103 warriors, but most of the dead were women, children, and old men. This was not the only atrocity committed by US soldiers during the course of the Indian wars, unfortunately.
Custer’s courage, combined with keen political instinct, resulted in his promotion to Brigadier General, at 23 the youngest in the Union Army. Reverted to his regular Army rank of Captain after the war, Custer finagled assignment as Lieutenant Colonel of the newly created U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment. A plea by his patron General Philip Sheridan resulted in an appointment as Brevet Major General. The marker where Custer is believed to have fallen at Little Bighorn battlefield indicates the confusing status of his rank: “BVT. MAJ. GEN. LT. COL.”
It has been estimated that in the overall battle the warriors outnumbered Custer’s 7th Cavalry forces by as many as nine to one. By almost all accounts, within less than an hour Custer's force was completely annihilated. Interviews with the Indian survivors of the battle indicate that the Custer fight lasted less than one-half hour. My personal fascination with the Battle of the Greasy Grass stems from an event where myself and my entire Operational Detachment Alpha were made honorary members of the Lakota Souix, during a funeral for one of our own in Milwaukee, in 2001. The ritual involved a Four Winds ceremony, after which I was told “they don’t do that for the tourists”.
Furthermore, a full-blooded Lakota I served with once shared with me that there were several white survivors of the Little Bighorn engagement. He claimed they fought on the Indian side. When you think about it, this makes absolute sense; by 1876 whites had been interacting with the Plains Indians for over one hundred years. There were bound to be scores of trappers and mountain men, Civil War deserters and other adventurers who’d “gone native”. What would you do if one day a bunch of soldiers in blue uniforms showed up and burned your village, killed your women and children? I know what I’d do: I’d go to war against the US Army.
At the onset of the engagement, Custer divided his troops into two groups, one led by Colonel George W. Yates. Meanwhile, Crazy Horse's warriors charged in from another direction. Custer's men were now surrounded. The braves pounded the trapped bluecoats with bullets and arrows.
Most contemporary depictions of this battle depict Custer in a heroic light. I consider these depictions wanton propaganda, and as such have chosen not to display them here. The soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry were terrified, apparently, firing wildly and sometimes hitting each other. They also shot their horses in an effort to set up barricades.
Two Moons, a Cheyenne chief, later said, "We circled around them, swirling like water 'round a stone." In less than an hour, the battle was over. "It took about as long as it takes for a hungry man to eat his dinner," Two Moons observed. There is evidence that some of the soldiers committed suicide rather than face torture and mutilation at the hands of their Indian foes.A Bitter Victory
The Indians won the battle, but they somehow sensed it signaled the beginning of the end of the war. Furious after Custer’s humiliating defeat, U.S. officials stopped negotiating with the Indians and simply took away most of the land promised to them. Army troops hunted down the Sioux and forced them onto ever-shrinking reservations. After surrendering, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse both were murdered.
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