Key West Lou / THANKSGIVING…..PILGRIMS TOOK FROM THE INDIANS AND THEN DESTROYED THE

Thanksgiving…..An American holiday. Family time. A happy time.

Its history an interesting story. What began with a Pilgrim/Indian banquet died 50 years later. The Pilgrims by that time referred to as Colonists destroyed the Indian nation they had sat and partied with in earlier years.

The first Thanksgiving occurred in October 1621. A three day event.

We begin with the meal. It was not as most think.

The hosts were the Pilgrims. They invited their Indian friends the Wampanoags to join them. Ninety Wampanoags attended.

The meat portion was not as today’s. Deer, not turkey. The Indians brought 5 deer.

Wildfowl was available in large amounts. Turkey was not in the forefront, though there were some running wild in the woods. The Puritans provided some fowl dishes. Primarily goose, duck and passenger pigeons. Passenger pigeons are extinct today. A few turkeys.

Primary foods provided by the Pilgrims included mussels, clams, lobsters, bass and eels. Fruit was pumpkin. Whether in pie or other form not known.

Corn was the most prevalent vegetable. There were no cranberries. Potatoes did not exist yet in the new land. It was at that time potatoes were first being shipped from South America to Europe.

To drink! Surprisingly, little beer. Even though the Pilgrims had 1 or 2 beer makers among them. Water was the drink of the day.

The fowl/birds served were stuffed with onions and herbs. There was no bread stuffing. There was no bread at the time. Puritan bread was made from maize, not flour.

Many historians believe the Pilgrims would not have survived without the help of the Wampanoags. The Indians taught them what and how to plant and how to survive the cold winters.

The kumbaya relationship did not last long. Greed entered into the picture.

As the years moved on, more and more Europeans traveled to the New World. Such meant the Pilgrims (now referred to as Colonists) had to move inland. The expansion pushed the Indians off their lands. Ceremonial and traditional lands were mutilated.

Indians were considered savages. The Colonists mandated English the language. Even for the Indians to speak.

Missionaries arrived. The move was to Christianize the heathen Indians. Change their Indian beliefs. Interesting in itself since the Puritans had originally come to the New World seeking religious freedom. That which they sought, they tried to deny the Indians.

Sounds like what happened years later in the West. The U.S. needed land for expansion. Beat the hell out of the Indians and moved them off from what originally was their land.

Another Western story. In fact, what is about to be shared is where westerners learned a way to rid themselves of some Indians.

The Colonists brought illness with them. Smallpox and diphtheria. They also played diabolical with the Indians. The Indians were provided with diseased blankets. Blankets that wiped out entire villages.

Things reached a boiling point in 1675 with the King Philip’s War which lasted till 1678.

Prior to the war, a peace treaty was entered into in 1671. By the treaty, the Indians were required to surrender all their guns.

It was agreed that Indian wrongdoers and Colonial wrongdoers were to be punished by their own people, regardless where and to whom a crime was committed. The Colonists failed to live up to the agreement. They hung Indians for every transgression regardless where committed and against whom.

The King Philip’s War almost completely destroyed the Wampanoags and other neighboring tribes.

The King Philip’s War was down and dirty. The Indians downtrodden. The War is considered by historians as the “deadliest war in Colonial American history.”

Interesting how relationships change. Interesting further how greed can be the major contributing factor.

It is said history repeats itself. Note again what happened to the Wampanoags in the 1600’s occurred again in the American west in the 1800’s and early 1900’s.

Enjoy the holiday, your family and friends, and do eat too much!

THE COURT ROOMS OF AMERICA

The court rooms of today are truly the courts of last resort.

There are three branches of government. The Executive and Legislative for various reasons are not solving our every day problems.

Which leaves the responsibility to the last branch. The Judicial branch. Unfortunately, it is dying on the vine. The dike is leaking. However, there is no place else for America to go for relief.

I have spelled out the reasons why over the past year in detail. Such is not the purpose of today’s blog.

Last week and this week certain portions of life in America have been exposed in court rooms. Things occurred which made little or no sense to me.

Take the Ahmaud Arbery death case in Georgia for example.

A black man jogging in a white neighborhood. Shot dead by a white “vigilante” driving around the white neighborhood seeking out some bad guy who had been committing house burglaries in the neighborhood.

The white man assumed the black one was the villain. Probably rationalizing…..He’s black. He has to be.

The white man wanted to question the black runner. Claimed he intended to make a “citizen’s arrest.” Arbery kept jogging. The white man shot Arbery from the car killing him.

The three men pursuing Arbery were white.

The shooter stood over Arbery’s dead body and called him “nigger.”

The judge refused to let the prosecution bring the “nigger” uttering into evidence.

Why not?

On its very face, the killing was race motivated. A white man shot a black man for no reason. Following which he called him “nigger.”

The Rittenhouse case another example of something out of the ordinary happening in a court room.

The judge forbad the prosecution from referring to the two dead men and the one wounded as “victims.”

Doesn’t make sense. Rittenhouse shot them. Were the three, especially the two dead, anything but victims?

A side note re Rittenhouse. He has become an American hero to the far right.

Yesterday, Rittenhouse and his mother met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Trump claims he was impressed with Rittenhouse saying, “Really a nice young man…..That was prosecutorial misconduct. He should not have had to suffer through a trial for that. He was going to be dead.”

Trump also stated Rittenhouse had become the “poster boy” for the right to self-defense.

How did Rittenhouse and Trump come together at Mar-a-Lago? By chance or planned?

Trump said, “He called. He wanted to know if he could come over, say hello, because he was a fan.”

I don’t buy it. The visit under the circumstances had to be arranged. By Trump or his people. People don’t just telephone a former President and say, I am a fan and in the neighborhood. Can I stop by?

Trump’s record when it comes to veracity is lacking. I would assume he was lying as to how the visit came to be.

Darrell Brooks is the SUV driver who plowed into a Christmas Parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. His driving thus far has left 6 dead and roughly forty injured. The injured include 13 children who are still hospitalized.

A week or two prior to the incident, Brooks was let out on $1,000 cash bail for a different occurrence. The incident involved among other things his running his vehicle over a person’s arm.

Brooks’ track record another reason why he should not have been let out of jail so cheaply. Makes me wonder if the judge or prosecutor were aware of his record.

Brooks’ record qualifies him as a “distinguished villain.” He is a registered sex offender. He admitted in a video that he “pimps children.” He previously had been a bail jumper. His record contained a number of violent felonies and misdemeanors as well.

The man is black. He is a Black Lives Matter follower. He is purported to be anti-white.

The Charlottesville riot civil lawsuit’s jury has returned. Seventeen counter protesters sued those who arranged for the “riot” for money damages. For injuries, etc. Damages sought compensatory and punitive.

The jury returned a verdict in excess of $25 million.

Defendants included the Unite the Right organization. The group primarily made up of white nationalist neo-nazis and Confederate sympathizers.

Individually named defendants included Richard Spence, Jason Hessler, and Christopher Cantwell. Spencer was once viewed as the leader of the alt-right in the U.S. Heller organized the event. Cantwell a vocal neo-Nazi podcaster.

An outstanding result. Twenty five million dollars impressive. One problem, however. How are the successful plaintiffs going to collect any money? Unless one or more of the “organizers” are well off financially, the judgment is worthless. Its only value is to evidence a verdict in big dollars that may dissuade others well heeled to cease and desist financing insurrectionists.

Enjoy your day!

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