This is my John Galt speaking cartoon

[Jim]

Hi,

I made an animated cartoon, it was a fun project for a Sunday night with nothing else to do.

This is John Galt speaking!

[kandrathe]

I have so many mixed feelings about it! The setting, the speech, the ending. Well, played.

[Jim]

I have so many mixed feelings about it! The setting, the speech, the ending. Well, played.

Hi,

It's my first cartoon, I think Galt's speech is 8 minutes in real time, I'm limited to 2 minutes & the really good stuff since it is the free account.

I'm open to suggestions.

Atlas Shrugged the movie opens April 15th hehe Tax day.

The Movie

[kandrathe]

I have so many mixed feelings about it! The setting, the speech, the ending. Well, played.

Hi,

It's my first cartoon, I think Galt's speech is 8 minutes in real time, I'm limited to 2 minutes & the really good stuff since it is the free account.

I'm open to suggestions.

Atlas Shrugged the movie opens April 15th hehe Tax day.

The Movie

I'm glad they didn't cram it into one confusing movie. As it is, we'll see how much of the message comes through.

Anyway, regarding Mt. Rushmore... I'm one of those rare American patriots who believe the "just" thing to do is to return it to the Lakota, and allow them to scrape the faces of their oppressors from it if they so wish. It's really a quadruple whammy of an insult, 1) taken from them in violation of treaty due to the discovery of gold, 2) an area sacred to them, 3) defaced with the images of the the conqueror's hero's, and 4) carved by a white supremacist and active member of the KKK.

It would be sad to lose such a beloved national monument, but it represents to me everything that was/is wrong with our treatment of native Americans.

[--Pete]

Hi,

It would be sad to lose such a beloved national monument, but it represents to me everything that was/is wrong with our treatment of native Americans.

I've mixed feelings. While I agree with what you say, I also have a love for history and culture. If previous generations had eradicated everything that came before that they disagreed with, our culture would be much poorer. No Flavian amphitheater, no Ruins on the Acropolis, and so on. There has been enough destruction, IMO.

Not too long ago, the Kingdome in Seattle was demolished. It was about 25 years old. I remember thinking, at the time, that there probably aren't going to be many tourists going to Seattle two millenia hence to see its ruins and contemplate its social and cultural significance.

Those that don't study history may be doomed to repeat it, but those that destroy it doom us all to live only in the present.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Hi,

It would be sad to lose such a beloved national monument, but it represents to me everything that was/is wrong with our treatment of native Americans.

I've mixed feelings. While I agree with what you say, I also have a love for history and culture. If previous generations had eradicated everything that came before that they disagreed with, our culture would be much poorer. No Flavian amphitheater, no Ruins on the Acropolis, and so on. There has been enough destruction, IMO.

Not too long ago, the Kingdome in Seattle was demolished. It was about 25 years old. I remember thinking, at the time, that there probably aren't going to be many tourists going to Seattle two millenia hence to see its ruins and contemplate its social and cultural significance.

Those that don't study history may be doomed to repeat it, but those that destroy it doom us all to live only in the present.

--Pete

Yeah, I agree with you on the historical part. Were this enveloped in a heavily populated suburb of Rapid City (if there is one ), then I'd say the harms of displacement outweigh the recompense of justice. My hope would be that the rightful owners, the Lakota, who are mostly also patriotic Americans, would honor us with their forgiveness and perhaps choose to benefit from it as an attraction. It's taken some 70 years to make amends with the Japanese Americans who were imprisoned violating their Constitutional rights during WWII. 125 years is getting towards that "let bygones be bygones", but this is not the reconquest of Iberia either. It has only been in recent generations where the Lakota have amassed enough "power" to challenge the status quo. Perhaps a compromise would be to return the land with the stipulation that the carvings be preserved, and available to be viewed by the public. But, I'd guess it would be in a way like returning a church to the owners, with the understanding that the discotheque room remain open.

But, it immediately reminded me of the site conflicts in Asia and the Mediterranean. "Upon the ruins, of the ruins, of the ruins, we modified your structure to honor our variant of the same deity." I was deeply saddened by the destruction of those Buddha's by the Taliban. Or, another example would be the Giza Sphinx, before the heavily eroded original was modified some 4500 years ago. Or even the outright, destruction defacement and theft of antiquities by successive waves of tourists and conquerors. Such as... Babylon or Baghdad.

[eppie]

Such as... Babylon or Baghdad.

And finally we have some 'political discussion' going on again! I would almost disagree with you just for the sake of making this thread a real long one, but I won't because I agree with you.

I have never been to Mount Rushmore, but maybe an idea is to leave it as it is, but explain the story of the Dakota's (in the visitors center or so), so that people understand the tragedy behind it and learn.

[NuurAbSaal]

... so that people understand the tragedy behind it and learn.

If only they would .

take care
Tarabulus

[Jim]

... so that people understand the tragedy behind it and learn.

If only they would .
take care
Tarabulus

Hi,

The story about the Genocide of Native Americans began at Plymouth Rock when white settlers started to massacre the Native Americans.
GO HERE: The American Thanksgiving: Rejoicing In Genocide And White Supremacy.

At the same time the U.S. Army was freeing the Slaves in the East, the same U.S. Army in the Midwest was preforming Genocide of Native Americans, sad but true.

January 1, 1863 -- Emancipation Proclamation.
In an effort to placate the slave-holding border states, Lincoln resisted the demands of radical Republicans for complete abolition. Yet some Union generals, such as General B. F. Butler, declared slaves escaping to their lines "contraband of war," not to be returned to their masters. Other generals decreed that the slaves of men rebelling against the Union were to be considered free.

January 29, 1863, Bear River Massacre
Colonel Patrick Connor leads a regiment killing at least 200 Indian men, women and children near Preston, Idaho.

Massacre and actions of U.S. soldiers
As the Shoshone used tomahawks and bows and arrows for defense, the soldiers appeared to lose control. After killing most of the men, they raped and assaulted the women, and killed many of the children.
In some cases, soldiers held the feet of infants by the heel and "beat their brains out on any hard substance they could find." Women who resisted the soldiers were shot and killed. One local resident, Alexander Stalker, noted that many soldiers pulled out their pistols and shot several Shoshone at point blank range. The soldiers burned the Shoshone dwellings and supplies; they killed anyone they found in the shelters.
Col. Connor and the California Volunteers were treated as heroes when they arrived at Fort Douglas.

[kandrathe]

The story about the Genocide of Native Americans began at Plymouth Rock when white settlers started to massacre the Native Americans.

I'd only caution that we are seeing it through the fish-eye lens of history. Genocide is a modern word, and so for the people who lived at that time the "savages" were treated like other mammal threats, and mostly not considered even as human beings.

Even into the mid 1800's the mythology of race superiority dominated the world, and American psyche. I've mentioned before; even the 1904 World's fair in St. Louis, Missouri had a "Progress of Man" exhibit with "cages" for the primitive native peoples from the US, and recently acquired territories like Guam, and the Philippines. Frankly, Europe was not much better in the 1915 to 1950 period with "genocides" by the Turks, Nazi's, Stalin, and in various colonies as they slipped from European control.

Our 21st century sensibilities on the value of each human life, and our evolving "color blindness" and tolerance for differences make what was considered "normal" in the past into atrocities. It does not excuse the wrong-headed thinking, but it assuages my moral umbrage to remember to view history in the context of the ignorance of the period, rather than merely with the enlightened viewpoint we've grown up to now.

And, for eppie;

What is the difference between early colonial preemptive raiding parties to prevent attack by savages, and the systematic bombing of Libya to ensure the flow of oil to Europe, and possibly prevent Qaddafi supporters from sponsoring state terrorism in the future? Are we still killing women and children? Maybe it's acceptable if we aren't doing it up close, and if we aren't exactly targeting them with our big precision bombs (if you consider a 20 meter lethality radius to be precise).

1870 - President Grant's philosophy of assimilation or extermination

But, it shocks me sometimes to think that this type of thinking was prevalent in my own parents and grandparents time. Hence, why compulsory free education again becomes the mightiest weapon against these tides of ignorance. Even as a libertarian I'd concede that without a better informed and educated electorate we'll eventually lose the Republic, if we haven't already.

[--Pete]

Hi,

A common fault in these types of discussions is to hold people of the past accountable to our present morality and fault them for their failure to live up to a moral code that they never ascribed to. And to compare moral codes is, ultimately, a foolish thing. Most moral codes are a mixture of superstition, prejudice, and pragmatism.

Human failures are funny things; the more remote, the more clearly seen. We have no problem seeing the evils committed throughout history and the wrongdoings of distant rulers. But we seem be blind to much of our own evils and wrongdoings.

--Pete

[Jim]

Hi,

A common fault in these types of discussions is to hold people of the past accountable to our present morality and fault them for their failure to live up to a moral code that they never ascribed to. And to compare moral codes is, ultimately, a foolish thing. Most moral codes are a mixture of superstition, prejudice, and pragmatism.

Human failures are funny things; the more remote, the more clearly seen. We have no problem seeing the evils committed throughout history and the wrongdoings of distant rulers. But we seem be blind to much of our own evils and wrongdoings.

--Pete

Hi,

Your thoughts about holding people Today accountable for the Past? I personally do not want to be held accountable.

John Wayne's opinion of Native Americans. September 4, 2005 5:55 AM The interview is reprinted in The Playboy Intervew (Wideview Books, c1981).
Here is the text of one answer about the Indians:

In an interview with Playboy magazine published on May 1, 1971, Wayne made several controversial remarks about race and class in the United States. The interview became a hot topic and many stores had trouble keeping the issue in stock.

He noted that, as someone living in the 20th century, he was not responsible for the way people who lived one hundred years before him had treated Native Americans, stating:
I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them if that's what you're asking. Our so called stealing of this country was just a question of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

Look, I'm sure there have been inequalities. If those inequalities are presently affecting any of the Indians now alive, they have a right to a court hearing. But what happened 100 years ago in our country can't be blamed on us today.

I'm quite sure that the concept of a Government-run reservation... seems to be what the socialists are working for now — to have everyone cared for from cradle to grave.

What happened between their forefathers and our forefathers is so far back -- right, wrong or indifferent -- that I don't see why we owe them anything. I don't know why the government should give them something that it wouldn't give me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne

From a John Galt cartoon to a discussion about Native American genocide is a subject that should not get lost in a cartoon thread should we start a new Post?

[kandrathe]

Hi,

A common fault in these types of discussions is to hold people of the past accountable to our present morality and fault them for their failure to live up to a moral code that they never ascribed to. And to compare moral codes is, ultimately, a foolish thing. Most moral codes are a mixture of superstition, prejudice, and pragmatism.

Human failures are funny things; the more remote, the more clearly seen. We have no problem seeing the evils committed throughout history and the wrongdoings of distant rulers. But we seem be blind to much of our own evils and wrongdoings.

--Pete

Hi,

Your thoughts about holding people Today accountable for the Past? I personally do not want to be held accountable.

John Wayne's opinion of Native Americans. September 4, 2005 5:55 AM The interview is reprinted in The Playboy Intervew (Wideview Books, c1981).
Here is the text of one answer about the Indians:

In an interview with Playboy magazine published on May 1, 1971, Wayne made several controversial remarks about race and class in the United States. The interview became a hot topic and many stores had trouble keeping the issue in stock.

He noted that, as someone living in the 20th century, he was not responsible for the way people who lived one hundred years before him had treated Native Americans, stating:
I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them if that's what you're asking. Our so called stealing of this country was just a question of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

Look, I'm sure there have been inequalities. If those inequalities are presently affecting any of the Indians now alive, they have a right to a court hearing. But what happened 100 years ago in our country can't be blamed on us today.

I'm quite sure that the concept of a Government-run reservation... seems to be what the socialists are working for now — to have everyone cared for from cradle to grave.

What happened between their forefathers and our forefathers is so far back -- right, wrong or indifferent -- that I don't see why we owe them anything. I don't know why the government should give them something that it wouldn't give me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne

From a John Galt cartoon to a discussion about Native American genocide is a subject that should not get lost in a cartoon thread should we start a new Post?

John Wayne was wrong. :-)

He should have lived on the Pine Ridge Reservation for a few months before making that comment. It is exactly what John Galt feared would happen everywhere if the "control freaks" who run our socialist government had their ways with us. {notice how I re-railed there! }



They don't own their homes, so why should they invest in them. There are few jobs, so they line up for their handouts as an act of survival. If we cared about them at all, we'd figure out a path to independence, rather than continue to perpetuate over a century of dependency. If we cared, we'd help this tribe of a scant ~25,000 Americans figure out how to break their cycle of poverty and death.

"Although Pine Ridge is the eighth-largest reservation in the United States, it is also the poorest. Unemployment on the reservation hovers between 80% and 85%, and 49% live below the federal poverty level.[2] Adolescent suicide is four times the national average. Many of the families have no electricity, telephone, running water, or sewage systems. Many families use wood stoves to heat their homes. The population on Pine Ridge has among the shortest life expectancies of any group in the Western Hemisphere: approximately 47 years for males and 52 years for females. The infant mortality rate is five times the United States national average. Reservation population was estimated at 15,000 in the 2000 census, however the number was raised to 28,787 by HUD, following a Colorado State University door-to-door study.[3] The reservation has a lot of alcoholism and poverty.[4]

As of 2011 the reservation has little economic development or industry, and no banks or discount stores exist on the reservation.[4] Despite the lack of formal employment opportunities on Pine Ridge, a considerable agricultural production is taking place on the reservation, yet only a small percentage of the tribe directly benefit from this. According to the USDA, in 2002 there was nearly $33 million in receipts from agricultural production on Pine Ridge. Less than one-third of that income went to members of the tribe.[5]"

[Jim]

Hi,

Your thoughts about holding people Today accountable for the Past? I personally do not want to be held accountable.

John Wayne's opinion of Native Americans. September 4, 2005 5:55 AM The interview is reprinted in The Playboy Intervew (Wideview Books, c1981).
Here is the text of one answer about the Indians:

I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them if that's what you're asking. Our so called stealing of this country was just a question of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

Look, I'm sure there have been inequalities. If those inequalities are presently affecting any of the Indians now alive, they have a right to a court hearing. But what happened 100 years ago in our country can't be blamed on us today.

John Wayne was wrong. :-)

He should have lived on the Pine Ridge Reservation for a few months before making that comment. It is exactly what John Galt feared would happen everywhere if the "control freaks" who run our socialist government had their ways with us. {notice how I re-railed there! }


They don't own their homes, so why should they invest in them.

NOTE: That is small garbage can size junk.

Hi,

I read this many years ago and it sickened me I Was a big John Wayne fan. Add his comments about black students, and you have a "Moron."

I don't own my mobil home either, but I do take pride in it.
There is no reason...poverty included to live & behave like "Trailer park Trash."
...
It's your Tax money that pays for my rent, Thank you.

When asked how blacks could address their perceived lack of leadership experience and the inequities of the past, Wayne replied:

It's not my judgment. The academic community has developed certain tests that determine whether the blacks are sufficiently equipped scholastically. But some blacks have tried to force the issue and enter college when they haven't passed the tests and don't have the requisite background. By going to school.

I don't know why people insist that blacks have been forbidden to go to school. They were allowed in public schools wherever I've been.

[kandrathe]

I don't own my mobil home either, but I do take pride in it.
There is no reason...poverty included to live & behave like "Trailer park Trash."

It's your Tax money that pays for my rent, Thank you.

I guess it makes some sense to me that without the incentive of ownership, improving the land or the homes on it would divert resources needed for survival. Often petty tribal politics make continuation of occupancy sometimes dubious. I tend to think of them more as refugee's who've been moved into a primitive camp. If their traditions eschew land ownership, then 100 year leases with renewal options would seem to be a logical fall back position. A person would at least know that whatever they invested would continue throughout their lifespan. Our church has a good relationship to them because we aren't "preachy". We just go to fix things, improve the conditions, build outhouses or handicapped ramps, etc. Our rules are to not talk about religion unless they ask about it, but that tends to be a Minnesota thing anyway. We don't really talk about religion or politics, unless someone is rude enough to broach the topic (followed by a sheepish apology). The exception to the rule is when politicians go door to door, then we are polite enough to nod, and smile until they leave. :-)

Also, I've noticed that some homes owned by "whites" in rural Minnesota may also have that "trailer park trash" look, since they have few neighbors to complain and everything is covered by snow for half the year.

Getting rid of the garbage also costs money, so often it's just expedient to pile it out back somewhere. When I was ten, a poor neighbor about a mile away across our back 40 acre field was forced by the township to eliminate their ad-hoc landfill. It resulted in a plague of rats, which lacking homes and food, found the closest replacement source. It took us all summer, with many lethal sessions involving carbon monoxide and shotguns to eliminate them from our farm. I still have nightmares occasionally about the 5 minute stream of big nasty rats I'd encounter in the mornings when I opened the granary door.

[LavCat]

The story about the Genocide of Native Americans began at Plymouth Rock when white settlers started to massacre the Native Americans.
GO HERE: The American Thanksgiving: Rejoicing In Genocide And White Supremacy.

Or read Cotton Mather's Ecclesiastical History of New England. The first day of thanksgiving Mather documents that I remember was when the "army" (seven men as I recall) fired on the Indians and took their food.

But displaying body parts was not limited to Indians. The remains of Quakers put to death in Boston were publicly displayed for many years.

At the same time the U.S. Army was freeing the Slaves in the East, the same U.S. Army in the Midwest was preforming Genocide of Native Americans, sad but true.

The word genocide may be new, but the concept is not. Consider the massacre of Eskimos by Indians at Bloody Falls.


Usual disclaimers: I am a Quaker. My father's family were Cherokee.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Well, all this has taken yet another twist.

I said that we should not judge the people of the past (or even people in the present that live in societies different from our own) by our moral code of here and now. How that became a comment on the history of relationships between people and what is owed to whom for what that happened when is beyond my ken.

I would like to point out that Julius Caesar stole Tuscany from its rightful owners and gave it to his retiring legionnaires. I demand reparations, with 2 millenia of interest and an inflation adjusted price for the lands stolen from my ancestors. However, if it is found that my ancestors where the legionnaires and not the original owners of the land, then I'm willing to let bygones be bygones.

In the field of international real-estate, possession is 9 points of the law and the ability to shoot fast and straight is the other point.

--Pete

[eppie]

Hi,

A common fault in these types of discussions is to hold people of the past accountable to our present morality and fault them for their failure to live up to a moral code that they never ascribed to. And to compare moral codes is, ultimately, a foolish thing. Most moral codes are a mixture of superstition, prejudice, and pragmatism.

Human failures are funny things; the more remote, the more clearly seen. We have no problem seeing the evils committed throughout history and the wrongdoings of distant rulers. But we seem be blind to much of our own evils and wrongdoings.

--Pete

Well of course, but this isn't the whole story. In the 1940's it wasn't a common way of thinking that committing genocide was a good thing.
The same for the native americans. Columbus might have thought they were a lower form of humans, but murdering tribes of indians in the end of the 19th century is another thing.

Of course you can't hold the old romans moraly repsonsible for killing germanic tribes, but, and this is very important, you can hold people responsible for crimes that even at the day the were commited were already considered wrong by the greater community. And that is where the learning and teaching comes in. You can learn from how groups of people are swept up by some charismatic leader to commit crimes that also in that day and age were considered as horrible and wrong.

[kandrathe]

Of course you can't hold the old Romans morally responsible for killing Germanic tribes, but, and this is very important, you can hold people responsible for crimes that even at the day the were committed were already considered wrong by the greater community. And that is where the learning and teaching comes in. You can learn from how groups of people are swept up by some charismatic leader to commit crimes that also in that day and age were considered as horrible and wrong.

I think you can hold individuals responsible for the crimes they commit, and you can expect that groups of people who benefited from those crimes to understand their inherited advantage due to the injustices committed. After generations have passed, I doubt you can ever make the descendants of the victims whole again, unless it's addressing a specific thing such as stolen war booty like items in the museum of London taken from when Britain was an empire. Or, like the gold bars from melted down teeth held in Swiss banks, maybe should be donated to some worthy cause supporting the decedents of those victims.

I know that I live on land once cherished by Native Americans. But, I need to live somewhere, unless Sweden is going to take me and my family back. I think it is a step toward healing to publicly acknowledge the wrongs committed, and to be open to discussing what amends are possible. To that end, I am deeply sorry eppie, for the crimes my Viking ancestors committed across greater Europe, and I hope someday you (and greater Europe) may forgive us northmen. Whew! That's a load off my conscience.

[eppie]

I know that I live on land once cherished by Native Americans. But, I need to live somewhere,

Indeed, I have always had a positive view on immigration...people want to live in a place that gives them the best posisble quality of life....you can't blame them.

unless Sweden is going to take me and my family back.

Indeed we don't...we're full.

No you wouldn't have much issues coming here......of course you need to have a job here (or be a refugee).....but after that you can get citizenship.
One of my American friends will get Swedish citizenship.....he has been living here some 5 years or so now.

I think it is a step toward healing to publicly acknowledge the wrongs committed, and to be open to discussing what amends are possible. To that end, I am deeply sorry eppie, for the crimes my Viking ancestors committed across greater Europe, and I hope someday you (and greater Europe) may forgive us northmen. Whew! That's a load off my conscience.

You know that I don't actually know where my ancestors lived in the times of the vikings. So big chance they have never seen a viking.