MDMD terrorism on American soil

[Doug Millison]

Given Pynchon's attention to the genocide of Native Americans in M&D, some
of you might even find this relevant to a reading of that novel...


ZNet Commentary
Some Folks Never Felt Safe: The Truth Behind National Unity October 08, 2001
By Tim Wise

[...] One such fault line emerged this past week, when Officer Stephen
Roach, of the Cincinnati Police Department was acquitted on all charges
stemming from his April shooting of Timothy Thomas: the 15th young black
man killed by police there in the last few years.


[...] Were such things extraordinarily rare, one might be inclined to chalk
them up to aberration. But in fact, it is all too common for people of
color to be on the receiving end of police brutality, even to the point of
death.  [...] For those who are used to feeling safe and secure, the events
of this past month will no doubt have had a particularly jarring effect.
But for others, terrorism from abroad may only feel like a more extreme
manifestation of everyday life.

Amid the horror of September 11, many a voice has been raised to exclaim
that "now, we Americans finally know what it's like" to be the targets of
someone else's hatred. Of course, were it not for the resurgent
hyper-nationalism that has characterized the past few weeks perhaps we
might have noticed that some Americans have long understood what it means
to be targeted for who they are. To be terrorized, attacked, even killed.
All the "we're all in this together" blather aside, there are millions of
Americans who never felt safe. Never felt secure. Never assumed that their
citizenship protected them from anything, for indeed it never has.

For far too many people of color, poor folks of all colors, and gays and
lesbians, there was no sense of security to shatter. No feeling of
invincibility to which Osama bin Laden could even theoretically lay waste.
For these Americans, the possibility of being the victims of targeted
violence or institutional neglect is all too real, and those they have
learned to fear are anything but foreign. [...]

Of course, a nation that is proud of its selective memory--only remembering
the parts of our past that flatter us while studiously avoiding mention of
the rest--won't be able to see any of this. A nation whose dominant
majority never heard of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921--which really wasn't a
riot so much as a white orgy of violence against the city's prosperous
black business community--will naturally think terrorism on American soil
is a recent phenomenon. A nation whose dominant majority has no idea what
happened in Rosewood, Florida, and that has forgotten the lynching parties,
known as "Negro Barbecues" that were a common occurrence in the South not
so long ago, will naturally be stunned at the barbarity of the Arab or the
Muslim "fanatic." That white-on-black race riots were a common thread
linking North, South, East and West for most of the first fifty years of
the twentieth century, ultimately costing hundreds of lives and destroying
millions of dollars worth of property, remains unspoken--presumably
So too the terroristic enterprise whose actions led to the founding and
building of the United States in the first place: namely, the marauding
bands of cavalry, assorted soldiers and so-called pioneers who instigated
vicious and depraved attacks on Indian peoples. And this they did, not only
so they could take their land, but also so as to break down their
resistance, instill fear in their hearts and minds, and force them to
retreat against the advance of our collective vision. Pretty much the
textbook definition of terrorism, truth be told.

I'm thinking here of Captain William Tucker, who in the 1600's, took his
soldiers to negotiate a peace treaty with the Powhatans, after which he
persuaded them to drink a toast with poisoned wine. Two hundred died
immediately and his soldiers killed fifty more, bringing back heads as
souveniers.

And I'm thinking of Thomas Jefferson, who 153 years later, unsatisfied with
the pace at which Indians were cooperating by dying, would write: "nothing
will reduce those wretches so soon as pushing the war into the heart of
their country. But I would not stop there. I would never cease pursuing
them with war while one remained on the face of the Earth."

And I'm thinking of Andrew Jackson, who supervised the mutilation of over
800 Indian corpses after the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, at which time his
men cut off noses and sliced strips of flesh from the bodies for use as
bridle reins.

Or perhaps the Third Colorado Volunteer Cavalry, which massacred Cheyenne
and Arapaho noncombatants at Sand Creek, and then scalped the dead, severed
testicles for use as tobacco pouches, and paraded in the streets of Denver
with severed female genitals stretched over their hats.

Yes, terrorism on American soil is anything but new. [...]



Doug Millison - Writer/Editor/Web Editorial Consultant
millison at online-journalist.com
www.Online-Journalist.com