Explaining America?????

Each day I am amazed by this thing called the Internet. Don’t forget, I’m a card-carrying Geezer, and we are still unable to explain (or use) most modern gadgets. Hell, some of us consider tying our shoes high technology.

I sit here in my small office in far-off Montana and visit with friends all over. I can chat with people I have never met, and with close pals and relatives. I hold the entire thing in awe.

One new friend, Ann, writes from Brisbane, Australia, about the Mary Big Day interview. She wrote of her respect for the American Indian traditions, and asks if Fox News gives an honest version of life in America.

How do I answer her?

How do defend what this country did to the Indian population? How can I explain that far too many Indians still live here in misery and abject poverty? First we killed the majority of them, then we just swept the remainder under the carpet and forgot them. In studying the history of my wonderful Montana I came to realize that most of the old Indian way came to an end right here.  We chased them and shot them, including their women, children and elderly, and most of the great leaders were crushed in Montana. Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph and the rest of the Indian leaders were killed or captured in Montana. After being massacred for decades they had finally gathered the largest Indian “Army” ever assembled and fought back at the Little Big Horn, and for daring to kill Custer and the troops who were attacking them, our army set out to make damn sure they never won another battle — and they didn’t.

The only western group to survive the destruction were the Crow people, and that’s because their leader, Chief Plenty Coups,  convinced them that they could never stop the white flood into their country,  so they’d better learn to be friends instead of enemies. When driving through Indian reservations up here the only one that doesn’t bring shame and tears is the Crow nation.

When  I look east from my house I see the beautiful Crazy Mountains. How the hell did they get such a name? It seems that, in his effort to befriend the American soldiers,  Plenty Coups was trying to explain the magic of this small mountain formation. He tried to explain that his people often went high into these mountains to seek a vision to help them solve a problem. In trying to make the soldiers understand about visions he pointed to his head — and the soldiers instantly assumed that he was talking about insanity, and that’s how the Crazies got that name.

I wonder if Hitler used our Indian-blueprint when he set out to destroy Jews.  How can we point our finger at any of the world’s bad guys after what we did to the native Americans and the black people kidnapped and brought here as our slaves? But that was long ago, right? Tell that to the 530 women and children murdered by the modern American army at My Lai in Vietnam, or the folks humiliated, tortured and killed in Iraq.

Now, how do I explain Fox News and the Tea Party?

We finally elected a black man as our president, but only because he was half-white, handsome, and brilliant. Most the majority of us listened to him and realized that if we turned our back on this young man simply because he had black blood, we could never hold our heads up again. But that election was enough to make the scum of American  politics rise to the top of a swampy pond.

America has never gotten over our Civil War. The Yanks won that war, but then turned it right back to the Rebels and let them return to their old bigoted ways. Just look at how the South fought against all civil rights laws right here during our lifetime. They swore that “The South Shall Rise Again,” and it sure as hell did.  If Barack Obama had had to count on Southern votes he’d still be living in Chicago.  Richard Nixon learned how to turn those southern fears of integration into Republican votes, and when Lyndon Johnson signed the voting rights laws he said, “I have just lost the South for generations.” He was right.

The people of the Confederacy are the backbone of both Fox News and the Tea Party.  They’re the “God, Guns and Gays” wing of our country. Most of them might shun the intials KKK, but too many of them would be comfortable wearing the hoods of old.  Behind their demands to “Get My Country Back” is the fact that the country they are talking about is that old country, where oddly-colored people kept their place, and there would never, never,  never be a “Nigra” family living in the White House.  Of course, they’re not all racists. Some are just scared silly by what’s going on in the “new” country. What’s to fear? We’re near the bottom in industrial-country voter turnout; last in health care; last in education of our children; first in murder rates, youth pregnancy, abortion and divorce. We have trillions in deficits we can never pay off; we’re beset by staggering income disparities; we have destroyed our manufacturing base; we’re the world’s leading polluter, and the greediest consumer of fossil fuels. We have 40 million living in poverty, and a new permanent underclass trapped in a  unemployment rate of 17 percent, all the while we’re engaged in  two very, very expensive imperialist wars, while being robbed by Wall Street bankers.  The great majority of those problems were caused by the Republicans, and the ding bats want to got back for more! No wonder some of them have lost their heads.

America has always had an over-supply of political nuts, but now, thanks to Fox News and talk radio, they have a frightening powerful outlet .

Dear Ann — I hope I haven’t ruined a good day.

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