In This Season of White Christmases,

peace on earth, goodwill to men

some think of the freezing 

time

when the Long Knives stormed the camp.

They hear the screams of babies

and young children

the wails of grandmothers

and the death songs.

with Long Knives camped all

around them

and Hotchkiss guns aimed right at

them,

their hearts heavy with sorrow and

desperation,

their children crying with hunger

and cold,

the People begin to dance.

When it is over,

the cameras of the Long Knives

record

the butchered women and children

frozen stiff and grotesque in the 

bloody snow:

a little boy who had lost 

his moccasin

a woman with a little baby nursing

at her breast

"On the 100th anniversary of Wounded Knee."  By Beverly Slapin.  I tore this out of the newspaper on Dec 29th, 1990.  It's been next to me since then, pinned or taped or with a magnet.  One hundred years on 1990.  It's now Dec 29th, 2015.  125 years.

Genocide is still genocide.

I first heard John Trudell speak in a small community building in Berkeley probably early 80's.  He was the leader of the American Indian Movement from 1973-1979, and first coming onto the scene as the de facto spokesperson for the Indian Occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969. The US Government squashed that one down.  He died earlier this month so you won't be able to hear him speak in person anymore.  That's a shame because he was such a powerful person when he spoke.  I can still see and hear him from that Berkeley talk.  "There has not been one, not one, not one treaty the US Government signed with the Indians that they did not break.  Not one."

Talk about getting fucked over.

The US Government did offer an apology of sorts in 2010.  It was tacked at the end of a Defense Appropriations bill.   Made sure to say the government wasn't going to offer any monetary reparations.  Nope.  Not going to honor no treaty we signed either. 

I can't wait until we elect a Native American as President.

You can find a pretty balanced account of the massacre at Wounded Knee on the internet.  Soldiers were trying to round up the last of the peoples into a camp, take away their rifles they hunted with and make them stop dancing the Ghost Dance...that dance the Whites feared would spread throughout the different tribes.  One shot was fired within the Sioux camp and then the killing began.  Soldiers didn't care who they killed.  Tracking women with children for miles just to shoot them.  Many of the Sioux were only armed with knives, the soldiers had among other weapons four Hotchkiss guns, a gun that put out a huge "shotgun" blast every 6 seconds. 

The US Government awarded 20 Medals of Honor.  Or Dishonor as the Native Americans call it.

Today, grandchildren of the few

survivors

tell the stories, again and again

for their children and

their children's children.

They remember the blood-soaked 

snow,

in the year of someone's Lord

while others sing of white

Christmases,

peace on earth, good will to men

2016.