The Only Good Indian ...

Between the rain, sleet and snow and the lack of sunshine in this most dreary of months it becomes almost inevitable that we drift towards the mental comfort of escapism we call television.

Occasionally it's more than just entertainment, sometimes it's a rare moment for reflection. We'll tell ourselves that anyway.

I watched "The Only Good Indian." A take off title from the words of General Philip Sheridan in 1869. You may have seen it, it's not new. Nothing is really new under the sun and the movie shows that history always repeats. A little over one hundred years ago the 'final solution' to the 'Indian problem' was almost complete. Manifest destiny, our god given right and removal of the 'savages' from 'our land' were the excuses for genocide and theft. Sounds familiar.

Zionism and manifest destiny are blood brothers. Both were and still are supported wholeheartedly by some who call themselves Christian and by those who want big profits and don't mind stealing.

The reservations of old are now seen in the concentration camp of Gaza. Restrict movement, slowly starve the inhabitants and erase the history. It works if the guns are bigger, the killings more brutal and the renegades give up.

After the Indian wars were over, the 'savage's' children who were left living had to be re-educated. Forced and coerced into schools to make them just like us.  Not much different than today's 'education' from birth whose only motivation is to keep us in line, become good workers for the rich and love the reservation so much we don't want to leave. Re-education reservations for 'mental' reasons may become an even more growing industry lest we all become a Jared Loughner, or so we're being told.

Ghettos are reservations, suburbia is too. Walled, fenced, policed. We become dependent. The corporate and banker reservations entice us and trap us into a lifetime of servitude. The military reservations take our youth through deceptions and turn them into world 'warriors' still evoking the illusion of honor and freedom.  Don't step off the high dollar religion reservation either, that would be heresy. We can walk away any time we please or so we think but just try it. Not easy is it?

The eradication of millions of Native Americans happened long before we were born and we share no guilt in it but we do share responsibility for what's going on today.Warriors most of us are not.

So why should I be any different. I think I'll just sit back and take in another movie.

Here's one I haven't seen .....

"The Only Good Goy" ...... I wonder what it's all about .....