Monday, October 31, 2011

Halloween Horrors from American History

When people think of horrors rising from the grave at Halloween, if they think about American history the best they can come up with is usually Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. That just shows how well-built our mental defenses are against true horror.

Perhaps tonight some unlucky people will see the ghost of John Woods. His older brother had been conscripted into the Tennessee militia in the war of 1812. For reasons unknown John, who was just 17, took his brother's place in Andrew Jackson's army in February, 1814. They had been fighting Indians, and none too victoriously. "He made the mistake of arguing with the Officer of the Day outside of the General's tent. Jackson stepped outside and ordered: "Shoot him." Two days later, on March 14th, at 10 A.M. John Woods was shot dead by his fellow soldiers at Jackson's command. The General now believed he was ready to fight the Red Sticks again, with less insubordination from his underlings." [from Andrew Jackson Fights the Red Sticks]

John Woods was hardly the only victim of Andrew Jackson, a slaver who went on to create the Democratic Party and use it to make himself President, but let's make this a variety horror show. There were, of course, the natives. If every murdered American Indian showed up on Halloween, it would be a sight. Practically every major figure in American history up to the Civil War was an Indian killer of some magnitude. George Washington killed Indians, as did Thomas Jefferson, as did hordes of forgotten European colonizers. The rapid accumulation of wealth and establishment of a ruling class in the United States was largely accomplished by the murder of Indians and theft of their lands.

Ghosts of dead slaves, too, could put together quite a Halloween ball. Many died horrible deaths while in chains in Africa or on the ships that brought them across the Atlantic. In America the life expectancy, and living conditions, of slaves working at cotton or tobacco culture was nothing to sing songs to Jesus for the blessings of Christianity about. Again, the same names pop out of our history books, slavers George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson not being particularly noted for their cruelty, but rather as the political frontmen for the owners of larger lots of expendable human workforce. Of course, even after the Civil War, the Democratic Party made sure that life for African Americans was halloween everyday in the former slave states.

White people, don't despair. Not all of our ancestors were Indian killers and racists. In fact, most white people who arrived in the colonies before the American Revolution came over as indentured servants, and their ghosts, in their millions, could tell some tales. While indentured slavery was for a period of time, usually 7 years, and many survived and went free, most were worked and starved to death by the end of their term, that being more profitable than turning free a healthy, well fed human being.

I cannot neglect to mention the foreign wars. There are too many ghosts and spooks to mention them all here, even in lumps, so a few must represent all. The Philippines War, an addendum to the Spanish American War, was carried on with the same principles of an Indian extermination campaign. No one knows how many Filipino freedom fighters and civilians died under the cheery tutelage of Theodore Roosevelt and crew, but rough estimates range from a low of about one-half million to a high of two million. The U.S. war to occupy Korea and the Vietnam War are worth an all-saints mention.

If you are looking for glow-in the dark zombies, perhaps you would enjoy the resurrection of the only large bodies of people killed by atomic weapons, the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The average American, who deserves to be haunted into an early grave, simply repeats the charming meme, "it saved lives of American soldiers." That the rules of war have always said it is not okay to kill civilians to save your own soldiers seems lost on people. That Science, which should be a beacon of light, was bent to this unholy purpose, makes it all the more criminal. President Harry Truman, the leader of the Democratic Party, made the decision to drop the bomb. The Democratic Party is the only party in history that has dropped atomic weapons on human beings. Had America lost World War II, or had a fair and impartial system of international justice been created, the Democratic Party would have been permanently banned, just like the National Socialist German Workers Party was.

For me, the horror is walking out into a world where a bunch of Democratic Party zombies grope about in continual denial of the reality of what their party has done, and what they have embraced by joining it. How many more people will die violent deaths at Democrats' hands before its reign of terror fades into history?

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