[AGL] Fwd: Re: DRANT # 150: THE CHOSEN

[Frances Morey]

(Reply sent to David Rubinson.)

Frances Morey <frances_morey at yahoo.com> wrote:Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 10:30:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: Frances Morey <frances_morey at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: DRANT # 150: THE CHOSEN
To: David Rubinson <rubinson at kab.com>

Brilliant. Humbling. I haven't felt this dirty since I learned that "we" handed out smallpox contaminated blankets to the natives...
I also recall the palpable shiver I felt when touring ancient "ruins" near Mexico City and the guide showed us the "shower"--a spring had been channeled into a room where the emperor bathed. The water was flowing. Whether that was made possible by spring or pump it was all I could do not to tear off my clothes and cleanse myself. Now I know why.
The book is on it's way.
Frances

David Rubinson <rubinson at kab.com> wrote:

DRANT DAILY 
Number 150

October 12, 2005 
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Today's DRANT
---Ill-tempered, Iconoclastic, Impatient and Ideologically-unpredictable views, comments, and sources about the World, how we humans are messing it up, and how we can all DO SOMETHING about it.
For the complete, entire Megillah, please access : http://drrant.blogspot.com 
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“Whether one million or 10 million or 100 million died, 
 the pall of sorrow that engulfed the hemisphere was immeasurable. Languages, prayers, hopes, habits, and dreams&shy;entire ways of life hissed away like steam. The Spanish and the Portuguese lacked the germ theory of disease and could not explain what was happening (let alone stop it). Nor can we explain it; the ruin was too long ago and too all-encompassing. In the long run, 
 the consequential finding is not that many people died but that many people once lived. The Americas were filled with a stunningly diverse assortment of peoples who had knocked about the continents for millennia...”
Elizabeth Fenn, cited in 
1491- An article by CHARLES MANN in The Atlantic of March 2002
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/Population.html
This article, and Mann’s new book provided much of the data contained in the following. Pls see below for more information and links. Brilliant stuff.
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To honor Columbus Day, let us pause for a short moment of appropriate reverence to recall the Wondrous Gifts we White People have -- in our bottomless generosity – bestowed and continue to bestow on uncountable Godless Savages throughout history. First among these surely is Wondrous Gift #1- the gift of immeasurable Human Arrogance.
The notion that Humans are the last, ultimate, and unimprovable final step in Evolution. 
That Humans have been granted Dominion over The Earth and all of its beings and creations and inhabitants.
That every Thing on earth is Human property, and belongs to Humans to do with as they wish.
 
In 1491, few Americans had imagined this.
In 1491, most Americans (not all, but most), largely shared the notion that all of Earth’s beings co-existed, each with a place in the Universe, each infused with the timeless Spirit of our Creation. 
In 1491, most Americans had no idea that anything on Earth could actually be owned, or that any parcel of Earth could be claimed as exclusive personal property.
Well what can one expect from half naked Heathens ?
By Divinely Inspired good fortune, White People were able to come to America, first in small numbers and then in droves, to enlighten and elevate the ignorant masses.
In 1491, Copernicus was a College Freshman, and as far as White People were concerned, the Sun still revolved around the Earth.
In 1491 Tenochtitlan, a city then bigger than Paris, had been an immense thriving modern city for centuries, and the Mayans had built Chichen Itza before Jesus was a glimmer in his daddy’s eye. 
In 1491 the Reformation was just beginning to take hold, and people were still buying Indulgences from their friendly neighborhood Priest. 
In 1491 there were millions of Indigenous People in the Americas, who had developed writing, reading, astronomy, medicine, advanced mathematics, and bio chemistry.
By 1491, Muhammad II had taken Constantinople for Islam (1453), and the Ottoman Empire had taken most of Europe. 
Except in Spain, where the Moors were finally defeated, and where The Spanish Inquisition became a booming business, and the auto da fe the much preferred means of transportation, which also allowed Us to get in some excellent practice on Jews and Moors before We left for America.
Which brings us to Wondrous Gift #2-
WE are The Chosen. With it’s concomitant corollary- 
You are either with Us or against Us. (hello hello ?)
You’re against Us ?  Well, since God chose Us and not You, You dead bro.  
Not my fault. Its God’s will, uhhh sorry.
Yes yes, we Chosens brought this Wondrous Gift #2 with us to America too.
God gave us the Earth, and everything on it. God also helps us to show  how very very chosen we are by how much stuff we are able to accumulate.  Best of all&shy;GOLD.
And where da Gold ?
Over there-  in India. (Wellll, close enough, just make a sharp right at the end of Chile.)
Since We are the Chosen, and You ain’t, You work for Us.
Oh, we also have a few guns, God’s everlasting gift to Chosen People everywhere, so shut up and get to work.
Now we White Folks had a hell of a plan here.
Make the locals show us where the gold is. Then make them dig it up for us, then help us drag it back home, and We make the big bucks.
It woulda all worked fine, except for Wondrous Gift #3-
Disease.
Now imagine a few hundred men on tiny ships for three months or so. 
Filthy beyond imagining, starving, unwashed and totally unaware of any glimmer of hygiene. The ships actually reflected much of what life was like at home. 
Whew. Disgusting. (Just in passing, The Aztecs shocked The Conquistadores because they bathed so much.)
Well, when We struggled ashore, We brought some lovely germs with Us.
Germs, of course, to which the Indigenous People had never been exposed. 
Lovely things like Smallpox, Typhus, Influenza, Diptheria, Measles.
Mmmmmmmmmm.
We WP knew a little about epidemiology- since We had been through a plague or three, but in 1491, when a Native American got sick, his family and friends and Shaman gathered to his bedside.
If just one arriving guest clambering through the surf brought the flu, it was death by the hundreds of thousands for the Americans.
And don’t forget- we White Folks sure do looooove our bacon and eggs.
So sure enough, when some of us arrived, we brought Pigs.
Yes, Pigs. The Incas had never seen a pig much less eaten one.
We couldn’t do without that pork. 
Pigs are if anything, durable. 
When disease had destroyed most Americans, (estimates vary from 60 - 95%) and a hell of a lot of the Invaders, the pigs did just fine, and multiplied like, umm,  pigs-- continuing to spread pox and other disease everywhere they wandered. Vengeance was theirs, for sure.
The estimates of how many Indigenous People lived in all of America in 1491 vary widely, but let’s take a low-middle view. 25 million.
When Columbus landed first in what he humbly called Hispaniola, historians have uncovered data that indicates there were minimally 10 million in the neighborhood.
We have here what I call The Palestine Principle, closely connected to what in scholarly circles is called The Pristine Myth.
When White People come to a place and see only Brown people, they don’t count them as Humans. So, the BP don’t really exist, and they are damn sure not too Chosen, and so, they kinda disappear.
Like they weren’t there.  
And when racist Archaeologists go back later to count - they can’t see the Brown folks too well in the dark.
That’s where the myths come from that in 1948 Palestine was empty desert, until the Jews arrived with water and fertilizer.
Or similarly - that Hispaniola or New Jersey or Arizona or Marajo in the Amazon, were empty sparsely populated wastelands. 
We count. They don’t. 
So, White Peoples’ diseases decimated millions of Americans.
Florida, Massachusetts, Peru, Mexico.  Everywhere.
In our pursuit of El Dorado, enormous evolved brilliant civilizations – just gone. 
And what, after all did We take – what at last in the end did we gain ?
Some gold to finance the Spanish Empire ? or The British ?  Well, ya know how long those lasted.
Just think of what we could have taken-  
The profound wisdom of those we murdered, the accumulated knowledge we incinerated of the vast civilizations we destroyed.
Idiots that We are, We took the gold, and destroyed the wisdom.
Wisdom about how to measure and predict the heavens, how to grow totally sustainable crops and manage forests and plains in harmony with Nature, mathematics still unimagined, and evolved concepts of communal life and governance by consensus still unequaled by any of us.
The wisdom we destroyed, and We grabbed the gold--- 
Which leads us to Iraq, AIDS, Katrina, Avian Flu, GMOs, DU, Intelligent Design. 
For We have never stopped waging and continue to wage, the same ruinous venal destructive deadly war -- against present day Americans and against the world-- as we did 500 years ago.
 

..to be continued tomorrow in DRANT # 151.
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A great deal of the inspiration and information for this DRANT came from:
 
1491 : New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
By Charles Mann
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/140004006X/103-9077762-6675023?v=glance&n=283155&v=glance 
and from:
 
1491- An article by CHARLES MANN in The Atlantic of March 2002 
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/Population.html
 
I cannot urge you too strongly to access these, read them, and send them along to anyone still human enough to get the point.
DR 
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DRANT    http://drrant.blogspot.com · POB 411197 · San Francisco · CA · 94141 1197
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