Rounds Doesn’t Question Actions of Wounded Knee Murderers
Published 2019-12-07 by
Cory Allen Heidelberger
Here’s another difference between Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and craven Trumpist coward Mike Rounds:
Senator Elizabeth Warren is co-sponsoring with Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley a Senate version of the “Remove the Stain” Act to strip the Medals of Honor from the butchers of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre:
“The horrifying acts of violence against hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee should be condemned, not celebrated with Medals of Honor,” Senator Warren said. “The Remove the Stain Act acknowledges a profoundly shameful event in U.S. history, and that’s why I’m joining my House colleagues in this effort to advance justice and take a step toward righting wrongs against Native peoples” [Jeffery Martin, “Warren Introduces Act to Strip Medals of Honor Awarded for Wounded Knee Massacre: ‘Horrifying Acts of Violence’,” Newsweek, 2019.11.27].
U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds said on Thursday he doesn’t support rescinding the 20 Medals of Honor awarded to U.S. soldiers for the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre.
Who am I to read history? Who am I to say shooting feeling women and children is bad?
He said he believes that what happened at Wounded Knee was a massacre, not a battle, and the criteria for awarding a Medal of Honor has more value now than it did then. At this point, “we’re now guessing” about what the individual soldiers did, he said.
“I don’t think we should, at this time, go back and decide and change the recommendations of forefathers, even if we disagree vehemently with the outcome of the incident, the massacre,” he said [Lisa Kaczke, “U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds Says He Doesn’t Support Rescinding Wounded Knee Medals,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2019.11.21].
Cross-apply everything I said in July in response to Congressman Dusty Johnson’s rejection of the House “Remove the Stain” bill to Rounds’s excuses for war crimes: there is no reason for any elected South Dakota official representing the descendants of the innocent Lakota people our army slaughtered at Wounded Knee to defend the Medals of Honor wrongly granted to those slaughterers. Senator Rounds should get over his moral failure and sign on to Warren and Merkley’s bill. Put history right, restore our nation’s crumbling honor, and rescind those medals.
At this point, “we’re now guessing” about what the individual soldiers did, he said. Excuse me? Wasn’t it well documented, at least on the Indians part which side slaughtered and which side got slaughtered. There is not a shadow of a doubt what individual soldiers did that day. Cardboard mike is an effing coward….yellow clear through,
Donald Pay
The “we are just guessing” argument is nonsense. Rounds admits it was a massacre. Whatever they did as individuals, whether they shot into the defenseless starving people or not, they were given medals for the massacre, not for “honor.” It doesn’t take any honor to gun down starving, defenseless people. It would have taken bravery and honor to stop the massacre by shooting the soldiers who were doing the killing. Rounds’ argument would apply to the guards at Auschwitz, too. We don’t know what each individual did, but we know they didn’t deserve medals for “honor.”
happy camper
Rounds is right on this one. Each side writes their own version history is wrong all the time it won’t remove any stain, what happened happened, wouldn’t it be better to learn from the broader event and greater context? I’m reminded of John Demjanjuk featured in the Netflix show The Devil Next Door (which I haven’t watched but read quite a bit on) Israel was so sure he was quilty but oops after years of imprisonment it was mistaken identity turns out Russia had been fabricating documents, then he was again charged by Germany and died there after they opened up criminalizing almost everyone who had been part of the atrocity in almost any capacity down to bookkeeper. Nothing more than disgraceful grandstanding and virtue signaling from Pocahontas oops she made a little mistake on her history too, didn’t she.
Donald Pay
Happy and I have been agreeing on DFP recently, but on this we disagree. The “both sides” argument about history is untrue. There might be different points of view and interpretations and spin of what happened, there might be some facts that are unknown, but there is one factual history, and when that history involves defenseless people who are gunned down and bleeding out and above them are other people with guns, smoking in the cold December winter, there is no way it can be interpreted honestly as “honor.”
happy camper
What happened was not honorable, but I would argue after this many years we will learn more from keeping the whole event intact. There’s no way to change it, it wouldn’t right a wrong, leave it a historical event like the Confederate statues. Last time we discussed this even African Americans did not support their removal I read a few days back only 30% of the American public support doing so, but the left goes on these tirades which only alienates them from the voting block. Go back far enough all of our ancestors have been treated in an inhuman fashion cause it’s part of human nature. That’s what we’re supposed to be learning, that it can happen anywhere and to anyone and we should dig down to try and understand why, not use them to make political points. Warren is insufferable.
Sam2
Rounds is right on this one. I find it interesting a liberal who lied about her Native American Heritage would Co-sponsor. These solider I am sure where following orders. Cory this is a waste of time and I am disappointed you even wasted time on this.
Donald Pay
Those Germans leading people to the gas chambers were “just following orders.” Disgusting that we see a lot of Nazi sympathy here. I thought that brand of coward, and the people who excuse them, were long discredited, but they pop up even here.
Happy, if you’ve been to the Wounded Knee site, you have right there the place where the massacre happened. It’s intact, but the people who were murdered there, they were not intact. Their families, their future children who were never born, are not intact. If you go there, you know what happened. I couldn’t spend too much time there, because it was too overwhelming. I think it would be the same at Auschwitz.
Madison, WI, had a confederate prison camp. Many of those prisoners died of various diseases and ended up in a cemetery about a mile from my home. I don’t view those soldiers as evil, but they were fighting for an evil cause. There used to be a statue honoring those confederate soldiers there, the purpose of which was not to extol the bravery of those troops, but to uphold “the lost cause” of the Confederacy. It turns out those statues folks think are to honor the bravery of Confederate soldiers were placed in the 1920s by various auxiliary groups associated with the Ku Klux Klan to celebrate the Confederacy as racial violence re-emerged.
The history of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan also is an issue in South Dakota, where, since there weren’t many blacks, Catholics became the group that was attacked. Rounds is a Catholic. There were anti-black and anti-Catholic marches all over the country, some in the Black Hills and some in Madison, WI. And the statues were meant to further that effort.
There was a big discussion about all this in Madison, WI, and the city took that statue down. No, we didn’t want to leave that evil history intact to serve as a rallying point for hate. We wanted to demolish it.
Rounds may as well be standing on the high ground with a gatling gun and mowing down those folks anew, because he lacks the guts stand on the high ground where he could confront that evil history and demolish it.
happy camper
It’s not a waste cause there can be legitimate differences in perspectives. Coincidently my Lakota friend just called so I asked his opinion. Absolutely he thinks those medals should be rescinded they killed innocent children, aunts, grandmothers, but right after he went on to say the Confederate statues should remain and it’s wrong that people can’t fly the Confederate flag. He could not explain the incongruence but this issue was raw for him and still why it may be better to let the scab heal but certainly not use it for political reasons.
Loren
Tell me again exactly what Mike Rounds knows of “honor.” EB-5/death/corruption, his buddy Joop, his state sponsored flying lesson, his declaration of support for the prez before hearing evidence… He’s even starting to look like his idol. Pack on a few more pounds, more comb-over for the bald spot, a little orange skin care and who knows how far his “honor” will take him.
mike from iowa
What is the difference between Wounded Knee and My Lai? Why wasn’t Lt William Calley not honored as a hero and given a Congressional Medal for his brave savagery in the name of the United States? Why hasn’t drumpf pardoned him?
My best guess is the aggrieved parties in both massacres have a distinctly different view of the killers and how history should remember them.
bearcreekbat
It is an interesting bit of history that the whataboutism or whataboutery in comments here, such as references to Warren’s heritage or political outlook, has its origins in Russian propaganda:
[Whataboutism] is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent’s position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument. It is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda. When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the Soviet response would often be “What about…” followed by an event in the Western world. . . . As Garry Kasparov noted, it is a word that was coined to describe the frequent use of a rhetorical diversion by Soviet apologists and dictators, who would counter charges of their oppression, “massacres, gulags, and forced deportations” by invoking American slavery, racism, lynchings, etc.
In this thread, the political views or alleged misdeeds/mistakes of either proponents or opponents have absolutely nothing to do with whether the medals of honor should be rescinded.
Instead, there seem to be three relevant arguments:
(1) It was a mistake to award the medals and the mistake should be corrected;
(2) It was a mistake to award the medals, but no useful purpose is served by correcting the mistake, or correcting it creates more harm than benefit; or
(3) It was not a mistake to award the medals (or a variation – we cannot know for sure whether it was a mistake).
As to the second argument, there seems to be no evidence, or even argument, of any actual harm that might be caused by rescinding the medals, nor any benefit by declining the requests to rescind them.
For example, I have not seen any evidence or reports that descendants of medal recipients acknowledge the mistake but still oppose rescission of the medals. Likewise, they have offered no evidence or suggestion that rescission in some way harms their families.
And, as a matter of fact, correcting the mistake does not change factual history in any way, rather, it simply adds to the evaluation of factual historical behavior.
As for the third argument, people can declare different values about whether this was actually a “massacre” or whether active participation in a “massacre” was justified under the circumstances (“only following orders”).
The idea that we don’t know for sure what happened, however, seems a clear rejection of our current understanding of the factual nature of this reported history (which, incidentally, fits comfortably into the conspiracy theory beliefs about numerous historical events).
Donald Pay
Well, I suppose, happy, that, in hindsight, had the Confederacy and the Union kept fighting, they might have been too weak and divided to get around to finishing off the Indians in the western US. It’s not as if various Indian tribes didn’t have the sophistication to understand power politics. They proved throughout history to be masters of triangulation.
And you have the fact that the Union destroyed the Dakota Nation even as they prosecuted the Civil War. Some of those Dakota escaped and ended up with the Lakota.
happy camper
Man’s universal inhumanity to other men is the point and why we must look broader and deeper at historical facts which prove this like Native Americans who enslaved other Native Americans, Native Americans who enslaved African Americans, Stalin’s genocide, the Armenian genocide, it’s just political expedience to point fingers at one group. I suspect my Native friend can look at the Confederate issue with emotional distance because more time has elapsed but he was the one who reminded me that Native Americans were equally harsh toward other tribes which led me to read more about the history of slavery. It crosses and mixes within all color lines white people were enslaved too if we were taught a more complete history of slavery we wouldn’t go down these rabbit holes that politicians use just so they can look righteous.
Donald Pay
Happy, the universality of human inhumanity is well-documented, but it is not political expedience to act take responsibility for your part in it. If that means you make the minimal step of stripping some people of medals that were bestowed on them for their inhumanity, It seems a small step in the direction of reconciliation. I don’t have much patience for “what-about-ism.”
The Pays have been in South Dakota since at least the civil war. One of the Pays, not a direct ancestor, but a Pay nonetheless, was wounded in the civil war, then ended up taking wagon loads of flour and other commodities from Mankota to Fort Thompson to starving Dakota on the newly formed Crow Creek Reservation. I had always thought of him as a “good guy,” trying to save the Dakota from starvation, but I read more about the history of the Dakota War, the early Crow Creek life and the machinations of the US government regarding the Dakota this fall. Needless to say, it was eye-opening, and I would have to say this member of the Pay family was certainly not the hero I was always told he was, though how much of a villain he was is questionable. He was a teenager who was trying to survive, and he took a job hauling rotten flour to starving Dakota in a corrupt scam pulled off by others, particularly the “Indian agent” in charge. Whether he participated in stealing some of the flour or not, I wonder whether people died because he didn’t blow the whistle. He just did his job and followed orders. We all can excuse ourselves now, because we just all follow orders.
Casualene
Rescind! Thanks for speaking up!
happy camper
Donald. A couple things. I had no part in it. My family wasn’t even here yet most of us were serfs back in the old country. And regarding “whataboutism” I find people like it when it proves their point otherwise they use it unfairly to dismiss relevant examples. Please read on.
There is a Wikipedia entry on White Slavery that is quite interesting. It was common before 1800 in the Barbary states. Charles Sumner wrote a book in 1853 about the history of slavery with specific discussion about white slavery called “White Slavery in the Barbary States.” Interestingly from what I have read about the book, he was writing it because he was an abolitionist who hated all forms of slavery his point to the American people they had been so upset by white slavery but what about the black slavery that was present within their own country. He was using the book to point out that hypocrisy. As a side note he mentions that blacks were enslaved in even greater numbers than whites in those Muslim countries.
It still seems to me these are ethnocentric arguments and my Native friend should probably have recognized that too but instead we keep picking scabs rather than take a step forward together. That’s how I see it. So strip the medals, fine, I don’t care about their medals. I care about understanding the mutual causes that all of humanity shares rather than a constant focus on identity politics which is not helpful imo.
So I do plan on reading the book it will take a bit of time since it’s not written in modern English. Now open source it will be interesting to see his perspective from that time period. Link follows: https://archive.org/details/whiteslaveryinba00sumnrich
leslie
Rounds has a gift for explaining away the obvious. It is what corruption is all about. In these contexts it can be termed racism. Happy has long argued race is a mere construct so the term used against conservatives is inappropriate.
Observations: similarly in Colorado pre-statehood, Soule, an officer refused to order his men to massacre Black Kettle’s Cheyennes a few decades earlier. He wasn’t honored for his courageous defiance, but was later murdered by his own military . Our Soule building at the Pennington fairgrounds honors him
now however.
The persistence of those who followed orders to murder Indians under color of law continues, to protect their reputation as righteous. Rounds does it from a leadership standpoint.
In Rapid City today our historical 501(c)3 corporation populated by well known city leaders, including local Lakota historian Brandon Sprague, is promoting the reconstructed Indian Agent McGillycudy residence as a tourism draw, claiming with very little evidence (novelists local buffalo rancher Dan O’brien Lonesome Dove’s Larry McMurtry-perhaps there is some oral history Sprague is aware of) that Crazy Horse was the agent’s bbf after he surrendered in May 1877, who was then arrested and murdered in September 1877.
The corporation also claims that Red Cloud eventually befriended the agent as well after a vicious campaign of several years to kick the agent off the Rez.
Warren didn’t lie about her Native lineage and proved it. EB5 Rounds and Sam2, just prove their own racism again and again.
Debbo
Rescinding the medals might restore a bit of the honor Cadet Bone Spurs has stolen from the US military by exonerating military criminals.
The other topics are irrelevant to this one particular case. The US military does not reward cheap butchery.
Debbo
Oh, and Marion is a weenie who’s never had a courageous moment in his life.
bearcreekbat
Donald, your comment about reading a book about the Dakota War peaked my interest. This summer I read the book recommended by Cory here on DFP a fews months ago, “Beneath the Same Stars: A Novel of the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War,” by Phyllis Cole-Dai. It contained a lot of factual information about the times and that particular war. Ms. Cole-Dai based the novel on actual letters written by the protagonist, Sarah Wakefield, along with additional historical research about that war. Is that perchance the book you are referring to?
If not, I would be very interested in reading the book that you read. Can you share it’s name. If you would rather not post it publicly Cory has my email address. Thanks!
jerry
China says that EB5 Rounds and the rest of the racists, are full of ____. China has now turned America’s indignation of China’s treatment of the Uighurs right back to Chubby and EB5 Rounds. Sometimes it takes and outsider to shine the light on hypocrisy.
” The two-century long American history is tainted with the blood and tears of native Indians, who were originally master of the continent,” Hua told reporters. “However, starting from the 19th century, the U.S. Army occupied millions of square kilometers of land and grabbed countless natural resources by expelling and slaughtering native Indians through the Westward Expansion.”
“Apart from that, the U.S. also conducts forced assimilation of Native Americans, killing, expelling and persecuting them and denying them their due civil rights,” she added. “Today, they only account for 2.09 percent of the total U.S. population. They are facing numerous difficulties, including backward infrastructure in reservations, shortage of water and electricity, lack of Internet access, unemployment, poverty, diseases and poor living conditions. In front of all these shocking facts, can the U.S. politicians feign ignorance? Where is their conscience?”
It’s pretty astounding. EB5 Rounds could do the right thing and show China how righteous he is by taking those medals for murder away… Tomorrow, this shady skin tag will sit in the Amen corner as if it were all nothing.
“Tomorrow, this shady skin tag will sit in the Amen corner as if it were all nothing.”
Whew! Brutal, but true, and not as brutal as the slaughter Marion condones.
cibvet
I’m sure Rounds checked with “bone spurs” and found out that murder and torture are now pardonable actions in military ranks. Apparently, one has to “volunteer to campaign” for the trumpsters, but its definitely not quid pro quo.
mike from iowa
When doofus drumpf hears the word continent, he claims his ejaculation about flushing toilets is completely exonerated.
You seem to have an excuse for not doing anything involving inhumanity to man. First, your family immigrated after certain atrocities were committed, so that’s your excuse about not caring about the medals bestowed on murderers. Before that you pedaled the standard universality of inhumanity argument. You seem to think that let’s you off the hook. I think just the opposite. Human inhumanity is, indeed, universal, which is why, since you are living in the land stolen from others after mass murderer and attempted genocide, you are responsible, if for nothing less than trying to right the wrong.
My own view is that inhumanity is universal, and, even if I and my family didn’t commit specific inhumane acts, I need to stand up to make whatever inhumanity there is less inhumane and less universal. You seem to want an excuse not to care about any of it. That, to me, is the definition of inhumanity. Your and others’ lack of caring is why inhumanity is universal.
Donald Pay
Bear,
The name of the nonfiction study of what happened to the Dakota after the Dakota War is “Dakota In Exile,” by Linda Clemmons, University of Iowa Press. It was published April 2019. This book focuses mostly on the period of time after the war, when families were split up and sent different places. The struggles of families to reunite reminds one of the present Trump administration policies on the Southern Border. But, according to happy camper, inhumanity is universal, so why care about THAT, either. In fact, splitting up families is as American as Nazi policies, because American inhumanity toward Indians was where the Nazis got many of their policies from.
bearcreekbat
Thanks Donald. That book is now added to my reading list!
I lived in Mankato for a time in the late 1960’s and recall the public monument at the location of the mass hanging of Natives after the Dakota War ended. It seemed to be considered some sort of celebratory shrine at the time, but it always turned my stomach as I passed the monument on my way to school and work.
Many leaders were also embarrassed by the monument. A movement to remove it began in the 1950’s and took until 1971 to finally get rid of that “eyesore.”
The arguments against rescinding the medals awarded for the Wounded Knee slaughter are most likely repeats of similar arguments against the removal of the mass hanging monument. Perhaps these arguments will be rejected once again.
grudznick
Perhaps not pertinent to the “discussion” at hand, on which grudznick does not weigh into, but Mr. bat your enlightened comments made me recall that Brevet General Custer’s wife, a reasonable individual by most counts despite the inevitable out-of-state name-calling by certain geriatric juveniles, name was “Libbie.”
Custer’s wife was a Libbie.
Just something to chew on.
Debbo
BCB, the sad occasion is still remembered, but in a realistic sense. It’s admitted now that the hanging wasn’t much about guilt, but mostly about retaliation against any Indian people. It’s an important day in Mankato with ceremonies and activities attended by a wide variety of people.
marvin kammerer
i hear nothing in these conversations about vietnam’s oliver north or silent john,number 2 man in the senate who waits behind the senate master, waiting for orders ! our native people deserve better.
mike from iowa
Custer was a blowhard with an over-inflated sense of self similar to drumpf and Grudzilla and he was of the wingnut persuasion. His Missus called him Autie, short for stoopid white man.
On the subject of medals, why didn’t Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse et al receive Congressional medals for the fine job of generalship in the only truly pitched battle between Indians and Cavalry, which the Indians won?
Roger Cornelius
My Anglo Saxon friend hasn’t returned by my call so I have reserved comment until I have had an opportunity to talk with him.
grudznick
Mr. C, now that I have another of Mike’s goats, I’ll call you back shortly. After I finish eating another scrawny Iowa goat.
jerry
Wounded Knee, 129 years ago today. Killing does not only mean jobs. Take a few minutes to remember this great American tragedy. EB5 Rounds is a fraud.
At this point, “we’re now guessing” about what the individual soldiers did, he said. Excuse me? Wasn’t it well documented, at least on the Indians part which side slaughtered and which side got slaughtered. There is not a shadow of a doubt what individual soldiers did that day. Cardboard mike is an effing coward….yellow clear through,
The “we are just guessing” argument is nonsense. Rounds admits it was a massacre. Whatever they did as individuals, whether they shot into the defenseless starving people or not, they were given medals for the massacre, not for “honor.” It doesn’t take any honor to gun down starving, defenseless people. It would have taken bravery and honor to stop the massacre by shooting the soldiers who were doing the killing. Rounds’ argument would apply to the guards at Auschwitz, too. We don’t know what each individual did, but we know they didn’t deserve medals for “honor.”
Rounds is right on this one. Each side writes their own version history is wrong all the time it won’t remove any stain, what happened happened, wouldn’t it be better to learn from the broader event and greater context? I’m reminded of John Demjanjuk featured in the Netflix show The Devil Next Door (which I haven’t watched but read quite a bit on) Israel was so sure he was quilty but oops after years of imprisonment it was mistaken identity turns out Russia had been fabricating documents, then he was again charged by Germany and died there after they opened up criminalizing almost everyone who had been part of the atrocity in almost any capacity down to bookkeeper. Nothing more than disgraceful grandstanding and virtue signaling from Pocahontas oops she made a little mistake on her history too, didn’t she.
Happy and I have been agreeing on DFP recently, but on this we disagree. The “both sides” argument about history is untrue. There might be different points of view and interpretations and spin of what happened, there might be some facts that are unknown, but there is one factual history, and when that history involves defenseless people who are gunned down and bleeding out and above them are other people with guns, smoking in the cold December winter, there is no way it can be interpreted honestly as “honor.”
What happened was not honorable, but I would argue after this many years we will learn more from keeping the whole event intact. There’s no way to change it, it wouldn’t right a wrong, leave it a historical event like the Confederate statues. Last time we discussed this even African Americans did not support their removal I read a few days back only 30% of the American public support doing so, but the left goes on these tirades which only alienates them from the voting block. Go back far enough all of our ancestors have been treated in an inhuman fashion cause it’s part of human nature. That’s what we’re supposed to be learning, that it can happen anywhere and to anyone and we should dig down to try and understand why, not use them to make political points. Warren is insufferable.
Rounds is right on this one. I find it interesting a liberal who lied about her Native American Heritage would Co-sponsor. These solider I am sure where following orders. Cory this is a waste of time and I am disappointed you even wasted time on this.
Those Germans leading people to the gas chambers were “just following orders.” Disgusting that we see a lot of Nazi sympathy here. I thought that brand of coward, and the people who excuse them, were long discredited, but they pop up even here.
Happy, if you’ve been to the Wounded Knee site, you have right there the place where the massacre happened. It’s intact, but the people who were murdered there, they were not intact. Their families, their future children who were never born, are not intact. If you go there, you know what happened. I couldn’t spend too much time there, because it was too overwhelming. I think it would be the same at Auschwitz.
Madison, WI, had a confederate prison camp. Many of those prisoners died of various diseases and ended up in a cemetery about a mile from my home. I don’t view those soldiers as evil, but they were fighting for an evil cause. There used to be a statue honoring those confederate soldiers there, the purpose of which was not to extol the bravery of those troops, but to uphold “the lost cause” of the Confederacy. It turns out those statues folks think are to honor the bravery of Confederate soldiers were placed in the 1920s by various auxiliary groups associated with the Ku Klux Klan to celebrate the Confederacy as racial violence re-emerged.
The history of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan also is an issue in South Dakota, where, since there weren’t many blacks, Catholics became the group that was attacked. Rounds is a Catholic. There were anti-black and anti-Catholic marches all over the country, some in the Black Hills and some in Madison, WI. And the statues were meant to further that effort.
There was a big discussion about all this in Madison, WI, and the city took that statue down. No, we didn’t want to leave that evil history intact to serve as a rallying point for hate. We wanted to demolish it.
Rounds may as well be standing on the high ground with a gatling gun and mowing down those folks anew, because he lacks the guts stand on the high ground where he could confront that evil history and demolish it.
It’s not a waste cause there can be legitimate differences in perspectives. Coincidently my Lakota friend just called so I asked his opinion. Absolutely he thinks those medals should be rescinded they killed innocent children, aunts, grandmothers, but right after he went on to say the Confederate statues should remain and it’s wrong that people can’t fly the Confederate flag. He could not explain the incongruence but this issue was raw for him and still why it may be better to let the scab heal but certainly not use it for political reasons.
Tell me again exactly what Mike Rounds knows of “honor.” EB-5/death/corruption, his buddy Joop, his state sponsored flying lesson, his declaration of support for the prez before hearing evidence… He’s even starting to look like his idol. Pack on a few more pounds, more comb-over for the bald spot, a little orange skin care and who knows how far his “honor” will take him.
What is the difference between Wounded Knee and My Lai? Why wasn’t Lt William Calley not honored as a hero and given a Congressional Medal for his brave savagery in the name of the United States? Why hasn’t drumpf pardoned him?
My best guess is the aggrieved parties in both massacres have a distinctly different view of the killers and how history should remember them.
It is an interesting bit of history that the whataboutism or whataboutery in comments here, such as references to Warren’s heritage or political outlook, has its origins in Russian propaganda:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
In this thread, the political views or alleged misdeeds/mistakes of either proponents or opponents have absolutely nothing to do with whether the medals of honor should be rescinded.
Instead, there seem to be three relevant arguments:
(1) It was a mistake to award the medals and the mistake should be corrected;
(2) It was a mistake to award the medals, but no useful purpose is served by correcting the mistake, or correcting it creates more harm than benefit; or
(3) It was not a mistake to award the medals (or a variation – we cannot know for sure whether it was a mistake).
As to the second argument, there seems to be no evidence, or even argument, of any actual harm that might be caused by rescinding the medals, nor any benefit by declining the requests to rescind them.
For example, I have not seen any evidence or reports that descendants of medal recipients acknowledge the mistake but still oppose rescission of the medals. Likewise, they have offered no evidence or suggestion that rescission in some way harms their families.
And, as a matter of fact, correcting the mistake does not change factual history in any way, rather, it simply adds to the evaluation of factual historical behavior.
As for the third argument, people can declare different values about whether this was actually a “massacre” or whether active participation in a “massacre” was justified under the circumstances (“only following orders”).
The idea that we don’t know for sure what happened, however, seems a clear rejection of our current understanding of the factual nature of this reported history (which, incidentally, fits comfortably into the conspiracy theory beliefs about numerous historical events).
Well, I suppose, happy, that, in hindsight, had the Confederacy and the Union kept fighting, they might have been too weak and divided to get around to finishing off the Indians in the western US. It’s not as if various Indian tribes didn’t have the sophistication to understand power politics. They proved throughout history to be masters of triangulation.
And you have the fact that the Union destroyed the Dakota Nation even as they prosecuted the Civil War. Some of those Dakota escaped and ended up with the Lakota.
Man’s universal inhumanity to other men is the point and why we must look broader and deeper at historical facts which prove this like Native Americans who enslaved other Native Americans, Native Americans who enslaved African Americans, Stalin’s genocide, the Armenian genocide, it’s just political expedience to point fingers at one group. I suspect my Native friend can look at the Confederate issue with emotional distance because more time has elapsed but he was the one who reminded me that Native Americans were equally harsh toward other tribes which led me to read more about the history of slavery. It crosses and mixes within all color lines white people were enslaved too if we were taught a more complete history of slavery we wouldn’t go down these rabbit holes that politicians use just so they can look righteous.
Happy, the universality of human inhumanity is well-documented, but it is not political expedience to act take responsibility for your part in it. If that means you make the minimal step of stripping some people of medals that were bestowed on them for their inhumanity, It seems a small step in the direction of reconciliation. I don’t have much patience for “what-about-ism.”
The Pays have been in South Dakota since at least the civil war. One of the Pays, not a direct ancestor, but a Pay nonetheless, was wounded in the civil war, then ended up taking wagon loads of flour and other commodities from Mankota to Fort Thompson to starving Dakota on the newly formed Crow Creek Reservation. I had always thought of him as a “good guy,” trying to save the Dakota from starvation, but I read more about the history of the Dakota War, the early Crow Creek life and the machinations of the US government regarding the Dakota this fall. Needless to say, it was eye-opening, and I would have to say this member of the Pay family was certainly not the hero I was always told he was, though how much of a villain he was is questionable. He was a teenager who was trying to survive, and he took a job hauling rotten flour to starving Dakota in a corrupt scam pulled off by others, particularly the “Indian agent” in charge. Whether he participated in stealing some of the flour or not, I wonder whether people died because he didn’t blow the whistle. He just did his job and followed orders. We all can excuse ourselves now, because we just all follow orders.
Rescind! Thanks for speaking up!
Donald. A couple things. I had no part in it. My family wasn’t even here yet most of us were serfs back in the old country. And regarding “whataboutism” I find people like it when it proves their point otherwise they use it unfairly to dismiss relevant examples. Please read on.
There is a Wikipedia entry on White Slavery that is quite interesting. It was common before 1800 in the Barbary states. Charles Sumner wrote a book in 1853 about the history of slavery with specific discussion about white slavery called “White Slavery in the Barbary States.” Interestingly from what I have read about the book, he was writing it because he was an abolitionist who hated all forms of slavery his point to the American people they had been so upset by white slavery but what about the black slavery that was present within their own country. He was using the book to point out that hypocrisy. As a side note he mentions that blacks were enslaved in even greater numbers than whites in those Muslim countries.
It still seems to me these are ethnocentric arguments and my Native friend should probably have recognized that too but instead we keep picking scabs rather than take a step forward together. That’s how I see it. So strip the medals, fine, I don’t care about their medals. I care about understanding the mutual causes that all of humanity shares rather than a constant focus on identity politics which is not helpful imo.
So I do plan on reading the book it will take a bit of time since it’s not written in modern English. Now open source it will be interesting to see his perspective from that time period. Link follows: https://archive.org/details/whiteslaveryinba00sumnrich
Rounds has a gift for explaining away the obvious. It is what corruption is all about. In these contexts it can be termed racism. Happy has long argued race is a mere construct so the term used against conservatives is inappropriate.
Observations: similarly in Colorado pre-statehood, Soule, an officer refused to order his men to massacre Black Kettle’s Cheyennes a few decades earlier. He wasn’t honored for his courageous defiance, but was later murdered by his own military . Our Soule building at the Pennington fairgrounds honors him
now however.
The persistence of those who followed orders to murder Indians under color of law continues, to protect their reputation as righteous. Rounds does it from a leadership standpoint.
In Rapid City today our historical 501(c)3 corporation populated by well known city leaders, including local Lakota historian Brandon Sprague, is promoting the reconstructed Indian Agent McGillycudy residence as a tourism draw, claiming with very little evidence (novelists local buffalo rancher Dan O’brien Lonesome Dove’s Larry McMurtry-perhaps there is some oral history Sprague is aware of) that Crazy Horse was the agent’s bbf after he surrendered in May 1877, who was then arrested and murdered in September 1877.
The corporation also claims that Red Cloud eventually befriended the agent as well after a vicious campaign of several years to kick the agent off the Rez.
Let’s not forget what trolls have done to this blog. Grdz, Sarge, Pearson, Ryan, Happy, Anne and other suspects ect extending threads into irrelevancy. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/russia-troll-2020-election-interference-twitter-916482/
Warren didn’t lie about her Native lineage and proved it. EB5 Rounds and Sam2, just prove their own racism again and again.
Rescinding the medals might restore a bit of the honor Cadet Bone Spurs has stolen from the US military by exonerating military criminals.
The other topics are irrelevant to this one particular case. The US military does not reward cheap butchery.
Oh, and Marion is a weenie who’s never had a courageous moment in his life.
Donald, your comment about reading a book about the Dakota War peaked my interest. This summer I read the book recommended by Cory here on DFP a fews months ago, “Beneath the Same Stars: A Novel of the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War,” by Phyllis Cole-Dai. It contained a lot of factual information about the times and that particular war. Ms. Cole-Dai based the novel on actual letters written by the protagonist, Sarah Wakefield, along with additional historical research about that war. Is that perchance the book you are referring to?
If not, I would be very interested in reading the book that you read. Can you share it’s name. If you would rather not post it publicly Cory has my email address. Thanks!
China says that EB5 Rounds and the rest of the racists, are full of ____. China has now turned America’s indignation of China’s treatment of the Uighurs right back to Chubby and EB5 Rounds. Sometimes it takes and outsider to shine the light on hypocrisy.
” The two-century long American history is tainted with the blood and tears of native Indians, who were originally master of the continent,” Hua told reporters. “However, starting from the 19th century, the U.S. Army occupied millions of square kilometers of land and grabbed countless natural resources by expelling and slaughtering native Indians through the Westward Expansion.”
“Apart from that, the U.S. also conducts forced assimilation of Native Americans, killing, expelling and persecuting them and denying them their due civil rights,” she added. “Today, they only account for 2.09 percent of the total U.S. population. They are facing numerous difficulties, including backward infrastructure in reservations, shortage of water and electricity, lack of Internet access, unemployment, poverty, diseases and poor living conditions. In front of all these shocking facts, can the U.S. politicians feign ignorance? Where is their conscience?”
It’s pretty astounding. EB5 Rounds could do the right thing and show China how righteous he is by taking those medals for murder away… Tomorrow, this shady skin tag will sit in the Amen corner as if it were all nothing.
Sorry, here is the link https://www.newsweek.com/china-human-rights-us-blood-indians-1475606
“Tomorrow, this shady skin tag will sit in the Amen corner as if it were all nothing.”
Whew! Brutal, but true, and not as brutal as the slaughter Marion condones.
I’m sure Rounds checked with “bone spurs” and found out that murder and torture are now pardonable actions in military ranks. Apparently, one has to “volunteer to campaign” for the trumpsters, but its definitely not quid pro quo.
When doofus drumpf hears the word continent, he claims his ejaculation about flushing toilets is completely exonerated.
This might not belong here, but…..https://www.rawstory.com/2019/12/trump-brought-along-convicted-war-criminals-to-secretive-florida-fundraiser-report/
Happy,
You seem to have an excuse for not doing anything involving inhumanity to man. First, your family immigrated after certain atrocities were committed, so that’s your excuse about not caring about the medals bestowed on murderers. Before that you pedaled the standard universality of inhumanity argument. You seem to think that let’s you off the hook. I think just the opposite. Human inhumanity is, indeed, universal, which is why, since you are living in the land stolen from others after mass murderer and attempted genocide, you are responsible, if for nothing less than trying to right the wrong.
My own view is that inhumanity is universal, and, even if I and my family didn’t commit specific inhumane acts, I need to stand up to make whatever inhumanity there is less inhumane and less universal. You seem to want an excuse not to care about any of it. That, to me, is the definition of inhumanity. Your and others’ lack of caring is why inhumanity is universal.
Bear,
The name of the nonfiction study of what happened to the Dakota after the Dakota War is “Dakota In Exile,” by Linda Clemmons, University of Iowa Press. It was published April 2019. This book focuses mostly on the period of time after the war, when families were split up and sent different places. The struggles of families to reunite reminds one of the present Trump administration policies on the Southern Border. But, according to happy camper, inhumanity is universal, so why care about THAT, either. In fact, splitting up families is as American as Nazi policies, because American inhumanity toward Indians was where the Nazis got many of their policies from.
Thanks Donald. That book is now added to my reading list!
I lived in Mankato for a time in the late 1960’s and recall the public monument at the location of the mass hanging of Natives after the Dakota War ended. It seemed to be considered some sort of celebratory shrine at the time, but it always turned my stomach as I passed the monument on my way to school and work.
Many leaders were also embarrassed by the monument. A movement to remove it began in the 1950’s and took until 1971 to finally get rid of that “eyesore.”
https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2017/08/mankato-1971-minnesotas-own-monument-removal-experience/
The arguments against rescinding the medals awarded for the Wounded Knee slaughter are most likely repeats of similar arguments against the removal of the mass hanging monument. Perhaps these arguments will be rejected once again.
Perhaps not pertinent to the “discussion” at hand, on which grudznick does not weigh into, but Mr. bat your enlightened comments made me recall that Brevet General Custer’s wife, a reasonable individual by most counts despite the inevitable out-of-state name-calling by certain geriatric juveniles, name was “Libbie.”
Custer’s wife was a Libbie.
Just something to chew on.
BCB, the sad occasion is still remembered, but in a realistic sense. It’s admitted now that the hanging wasn’t much about guilt, but mostly about retaliation against any Indian people. It’s an important day in Mankato with ceremonies and activities attended by a wide variety of people.
i hear nothing in these conversations about vietnam’s oliver north or silent john,number 2 man in the senate who waits behind the senate master, waiting for orders ! our native people deserve better.
Custer was a blowhard with an over-inflated sense of self similar to drumpf and Grudzilla and he was of the wingnut persuasion. His Missus called him Autie, short for stoopid white man.
On the subject of medals, why didn’t Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse et al receive Congressional medals for the fine job of generalship in the only truly pitched battle between Indians and Cavalry, which the Indians won?
My Anglo Saxon friend hasn’t returned by my call so I have reserved comment until I have had an opportunity to talk with him.
Mr. C, now that I have another of Mike’s goats, I’ll call you back shortly. After I finish eating another scrawny Iowa goat.
Wounded Knee, 129 years ago today. Killing does not only mean jobs. Take a few minutes to remember this great American tragedy. EB5 Rounds is a fraud.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=uxsK7rO-AyA&feature=emb_title
“The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present” – by DAVID TREUER
*from President Obama’s suggested reading list 2019