Daily US History

Figure 4 reports results from a linear model regressing indicators of political engagement on measures of direct exposure and family‐only exposure to incarceration with fixed effects for preevacuation residential locations and generational identifiers. We also control for age and gender. (The full specification is provided in app. C.) The figure shows that those who were incarcerated are about 13% of a scale point (±9% of a scale point)¹¹ less likely to report an interest in American politics than those who were not, a statistically significant difference.

These patterns are similar among Japanese Americans who themselves were not incarcerated but who had family that were. These individuals are about 18% of a scale point (±9% of a scale point) less likely to express interest in politics. These estimates correspond to a movement of approximately 3% and 4% along a three‐point scale, respectively. For both distrust and political advice, estimates are in the expected direction, but there is considerable uncertainty.

Additionally, those who had direct exposure to incarceration are about 11% of a scale point (±11% of a scale point) more likely to support a “peaceful and orderly” leadership approach during detainment than one employing protest and dissent, relative to others. Among those who were not incarcerated themselves but had family who were, this difference is approximately 19% of a scale point (±11% of a scale point). These two estimates reflect a 3% and 6% movement across a three‐point scale, respectively.

Consistent with intergenerational transmission, coefficient estimates for both detainment status measures are strikingly similar across outcomes. Formal tests of differences between the two never reach conventional levels of statistical significance (table 7).

[…]

We would suspect, in accordance with the literature on ethnic targeting (Lupu and Peisakhin 2017) and carceral contact in the United States (Weaver and Lerman 2010), that longer interments would more strongly demobilize and depress civic engagement. After all, shorter detainments may have little effect, but longer detainments may expose prisoners to more intragroup conflict, perhaps souring them on future engagement (Weaver and Lerman 2010).

To analyze this, we subset the data to only those with direct experience with incarceration. We again control for age, gender, and generational cohort. Those incarcerated for longer periods had greater attenuation in political engagement, shown in figure 5. (The full specification is provided in app. sec. C.2.)

An additional year of being incarcerated is associated with approximately 1.4% of a scale point decrease in political interest (±2.6% of a scale point, so narrowly insignificant), a 4.2 percentage point increase in distrust (±2.2 percentage points), a 3.4 percentage point decrease in the likelihood of being sought out for political advice (±1.6 percentage points), and 4.3% of a scale point (±3.4% of a scale point) increase in supporting a peaceful and orderly leadership approach during the detainment process.

To put this into context, those who were incarcerated for four years or more (6% of the incarcerated sample) are approximately 4% of a scale point less likely to report an interest in American politics than those who were incarcerated for less than one year (12% of the incarcerated subsample).

Moreover, they are approximately 17 percentage points more likely to express distrust in government, 14 percentage points less likely to be sought out for political advice, and 17% of a scale point more likely to support a peaceful and orderly leadership strategy. This corresponds to a movement of about 6% across the three‐point scale.

Quoting John Corrigan in Early American Studies: First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America, pages 68–70:

New England thinking about elimination of the [tribes] from the land in the seventeenth century drew upon the Amalek narrative in casting [Native Americans] as evil and the English colonial warriors who battled them as martyrs or prophets.

So, for example, the New England Confederation, in typical fashion, declared war on the Narragansett tribe in 1675 by observing of the “Narrohigansetts and their confederates”: “So Sathan may combine and stir up many of his instruments” in the same way that “Amalek and the Philistines did confederate against Israel.”^44^

At other key moments in the English conquest of the northeastern tribes, sermons and speeches focused on the battlefield leadership of specific persons, much in the same way that English rhetoricians had placed figures such as the Duke of Marlborough at the center of their narratives.

During the [long] eighteenth century, as filiopietistic New England chroniclers were canonizing the heroes of the first generation and bestowing laurels upon the heads of contemporary defenders of the New England way, they also commended [militant colonists] in eulogies and remembrances. Their memories of such persons were of Moses‐like or Joshua‐like heroes who prevailed over evil Amalekites.

And in cases where colonial soldiers died in battle against Native Americans, they were celebrated as martyrs, and in a few instances even though the circumstances of their sacrifice did not immediately suggest heroism, or even competence, in the face of the enemy.

Thus in relating details of the “fight at Piggwacket” in 1725, Thomas Symmes sermonized that Captain John Lovewell, who lost his life, the battle, and a majority of his force bounty‐hunting [Native] scalps, resembled Joshua, Moses’s “Renowned general, in his wars with the Aborigines of Canaan,” the Amalekites.^45^

Just how far the colonial imagination had come in picturing the collective future of Native Americans as empty of promise, as already on course to be blotted out, is redolent in Symmes’s preaching. Offered by Symmes as “a very Celebratory Elegy,” the sermon is grounded in a trust that extermination of the [tribes] was only a matter of time.^46^

That was the faith likewise of Captain Samuel Appleton, who wrote to a friend regarding his rôle as commander of the colonial forces arrayed against the Narragansett tribe in 1675: “By the prayers of God’s people, our Israel in his time may prevail over this cursed Amalek; against whom I believe the Lord will have war forever until he have destroyed him.”^47^

Some nineteenth‐century American writers, looking back on the colonial period, wrote forthrightly about New Englanders’ belief that Native Americans were Amalekites deserving of utter annihilation. In so doing, they read back into the colonial period a nineteenth‐century story about conflict between [Native Americans] and whites as a far‐reaching crusade informed by a cosmic view of good versus evil. That story had its roots in colonial America, but was amplified and refined during the first part of the nineteenth century.

So, the Confederate veteran Robert Lewis Dabney, whose polemical goals were complicated, defended the honor of the South post–Civil War by raising the issue of slavery in the North, that is, “the enslaving of the Indians. The pious ‘Puritan fathers’ found it convenient to assume that they were God’s chosen Israel, and the pagans about them were Amalek and Amorites. They hence deduced their righteous title to exterminate or enslave the Indians.”^48^

[…]

Putnam’s Magazine observed in 1857 that Christians in colonial North American treated [Natives] “as the Amalekites and Canaanites had been treated by the Hebrews.” George Bancroft, in his monumental History of the United States, discerned that New Englanders assumed that they had “a right to treat the [Natives] on the footing of Canaanites or Amalekites.”

The North American Review, remarking on seventeenth‐century English encounters with [Natives] in the northeast, concluded: “Heathen they were in the eyes of the good people of Plymouth Colony, but nations of heathen, without question, as truly were the Amalekites.”

Edward Eggleston looked back in 1883 on the “scenes of savage cruelty” at Mystic in 1637, when a colonial force that had trapped Pequot women and children systematically shot and burned them, a genocide, Eggleston added, that ministers rhetorically justified through “citation of Joshua’s destruction of the Canaanites.” The Living Age likewise observed of the event, “As the Israelites slew the Amalekites, so did the Pilgrims slay the Pequot.”

Bostonian Frederick D. Huntington, who eventually became a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, commented in 1859 that the military exercises against Native Americans in New England were led by men who were “evidently of an energetic spirit and quite an Old Testament cast of mind.”^50^

(Emphasis added.)

Sectarian Christians made similar remarks about Catholics and Mormons. In fact, Corrigan traces the equation of Natives with Amalekites to sectarians equating Catholics with Amalekites.

Quoting James W. Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me, pages 158–160

Today’s textbooks show African Americans striving to better themselves. But authors still soft‐pedal the key problem during Reconstruction, white violence. The figures are astounding. The victors of the Civil War executed but one Confederate officeholder, Henry Wirz, notorious commandant of Andersonville prison, while the losers murdered hundreds of officeholders and other Unionists, white and black.^65^

In Hinds County, Mississippi, alone, whites killed an average of one African American a day, many of them servicemen, during Confederate Reconstruction—the period from 1865 to 1867 when ex‐Confederates ran the governments of most Southern states. In Louisiana in the summer and fall of 1868, white Democrats killed 1,081 persons, mostly African Americans and white Republicans.^66^

In one judicial district in North Carolina, a Republican judge counted 700 beatings and 12 murders.^67^ Moreover, violence was only the most visible component of a broader pattern of white resistance to black progress.

As good as Loewen’s book is, he didn’t say nearly enough about Imperial America’s failure to exclude the surviving Confederates from positions of power, but I still have to give him credit for introducing me to this topic:

From 1868 to 1872, state courts and Congress both enforced Section 3. The North Carolina Supreme Court barred ex‐Confederates from serving as county sheriff and state solicitor; the Louisiana Supreme Court removed a state judge. The U.S. Senate refused to seat Zebulon Vance, a former congressman, wartime North Carolina governor and Confederate colonel. Congress passed a law authorizing federal prosecutors to go to court to remove oath‐breaking ex‐Confederates from public offices.

Most of this came to an end in 1872, when Congress passed the Amnesty Act. Acting on Section 3’s last line — “Congress may by a vote of two‐thirds of each House, remove such disability” — it lifted the ban on office‐holding for most ex‐Confederates. Some amnesty supporters argued that it would promote reunion and reconciliation.

It didn’t. Instead, White Southerners used fraud and violence against Black voters to win mid‐1870s elections in several states. Ex‐Confederates, elected as governors and legislators, were among those who presided over the end of Reconstruction, passed Jim Crow laws and suppressed Black Southerners’ right to vote.

Among the first ex‐Confederates elected to Congress, in 1873, was Alexander Stephens himself. The next year, he spoke out against a civil rights bill, claiming that Black Southerners did not want “social rights” — an argument that Robert Brown Elliott, a Black congressman from South Carolina, rebutted the next day. The bill become the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which promised equal access to inns, trains and theaters. Southern governors mostly ignored it until the Supreme Court struck it down in 1883.

One particular author, Stephen M. Hood (the descendant of a Confederate), put a more positive spin on this in his book Patriots Twice: Former Confederates and the Building of America after the Civil War. While he offers some notable conclusions, I suspect that his friendly and easily forgiving stance towards these surviving Confederates is going to unsettle many (but it isn’t vastly different from how easily generic anticommunists overlook the deeply serious flaws in their upper‐class heroes like George Washington, Christopher Columbus, and others either). From the book’s description:

The long and bloody American Civil War claimed the lives of more than 700,000 men. When it ended, former opponents worked to rebuild their reunified nation and moved into the future together. Many people will find that hard to believe—especially in an era witnessing the destruction or removal of Confederate monuments and the desecration of Confederate cemeteries.

[…] Stephen M. Hood identifies more than three hundred former Confederate soldiers, sailors, and government officials who reintegrated into American society and attained positions of authority and influence in the federal government, the United States military, academia, science, commerce, and industry. Their contributions had a long‐lasting and positive influence on the country we have today.

Many of the facts in Patriots Twice will surprise modern Americans. For example, ten postwar presidents appointed former Confederates to serve the reunited nation as Supreme Court justices, secretaries of the U.S. Navy, attorneys general, and a secretary of the interior. Dozens of former Southern soldiers were named U.S. ambassadors and consuls, and eight were appointed generals who commanded U.S. Army troops during the Spanish‐American War.

Former Confederates were elected mayors of such unlikely cities as Los Angeles, CA, Minneapolis, MN, Ogden, UT, and Santa Fe, NM, and served as governors of the non‐Confederate states and territories of Colorado, West Virginia, Missouri, Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Alaska, and the Panama Canal Zone.

Ex‐Southern soldiers became presidents of national professional societies including the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society, to name only a few. Others paved the way in science and engineering by leading the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Geological Society of America. One former Confederate co‐founded the environmental and preservation advocacy group Sierra Club, and another intellectual and scholar was president of the Society for Classical Studies.

Former soldiers in gray founded or co‐founded many of our nation’s colleges and universities—some exclusively for women and newly freed African‐Americans. Other former Rebels served as presidents of prominent institutions, including the University of California, Berkeley, and taught at universities outside the South including Harvard, Yale, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Johns Hopkins, the University of San Francisco, and Amherst College. Several others served on the governing boards of the United States Military Academy at West Point and the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

As somebody who studies fascism regularly, I could not help but be reminded of the Western Allies’ failure to effectively defascistize the states that they occupied.

February 29 is the anniversary of publishing of The Kerner Commission Report in 1968. The previous year had seen over 150 riots, and the US president had commissioned the report to determine the causes of the riots, and what could be done to make them stop.

The media and the vast majority of white people thought that it was the fault of communist agitators or young black hooligans, as could be seen echoed in the earlier McCone Commission. The report released on today's date told a very different story. The report was an absolutely scathing indictment of the racist US society from the top down.

Instead of victim blaming, the report described police brutality, a racist justice system, unemployment, racist financial institutions, and suppression of political will. As we've seen time and time again in the US regime, a people pushed to the brink will rebel against their oppressors. Whenever this occurred, a recurring theme was that the regime would send in the military to squash the uprising and issue deadlier weapons to the police, fueling further violence and outrage. The media would then over-report the white casualties and under-report the black casualties, while blaming black agitators for the riots.

The report suggested that the solution to the problem would be to treat black people as equals, and increase the amount of opportunities available to them. Of course, this greatly upset the white populace, the president included. A mere 18% of white people believed that black people were discriminated in hiring processes.

In the end, the US president had this to say:

“The Johnson administration would not shift resources from the war in Vietnam to social reform, and Congress would not agree to tax increases. Further, state legislatures routinely blunted the local impact of federal actions.”

In other words, bombing Vietnam was more important than caring for their own people, and it's too hard anyway. Today we can still this reflected in the demographics of the US. Black people are second only to the native peoples for poverty rates. And over double the rates for white people. Riots over racial inequality are still seen today. The regime's response remains the same, although the current priority is bombing Russians and Palestinians.

December 13 is the anniversary of Operation Red Dawn in 2003. An event much celebrated in the US, this operation led to the capture of a foreign leader, where he would be tortured for 3 years, and finally executed after a show trial.

The leader of course was Saddam Hussein of Iraq. The US had invaded his country two years prior, because in the words of US President George W Bush, "He tried to kill my daddy". Those might be the only true words he ever said about the war, although whether Saddam was actually behind the assassination attempt or not is in question. It's now known that planning for the war began immediately after the attack on the World Trade Centres in New York, even though none of the attackers had links to Iraq. Eventually, he came up with some nonsense about "Weapons of Mass Destruction", which sufficiently terrified the home of the brave enough to manufacture support for the war.

So, on December 13, they finally captured him, after eight months of unrestricted war crimes in Iraq. After 3 years of "enhanced interrogation", they put him on trial without a hint of irony, for war crimes. This wasn't done in an international court of course, but on a US military base in Iraq, with US puppets overseeing the trial. The UN Human Rights Commission stated that it was a clear violation of human rights law. But of course, they ensured the results that they wanted, and executed him for killing 148 Shi'ites. Interestingly enough, this is the exact number of women killed by NATO forces in Afghanistan in the first six months of 2014. I wouldn't hold your breath on sending US President Obama to Afghanistan to face trial for war crimes.

December 12 is the anniversary of The Bombing of Piazza Fontana in 1969, killing 17 people, and wounding another 88. Although the bombing was initially pinned on Anarchists, eventually it was discovered that the fascist group Ordine Nuovo was behind the bombings. A group with links to the US.

Now, I wish to preface this by saying that US involvement in this particular incident has not yet been proven. However, it is known that Operation Gladio was a very real program ran by the CIA. During the time period in question, Italy had a powerful communist party, and the US was quite eager to prevent them from being elected. According to General Gerardo Serraville, who commanded Gladio for some time, Gladio's role during the 1970s, was to "Fill the streets, creating a situation of such tension as to require military intervention", speaking about terrorist attacks that he perpetrated during the 70s and 80s in order to generate fear of the communist party. A 2000 report from the Italian government also claimed that the CIA was at minimum aware of the attack during its planning, and failed to report or act, but also implicates them in funding various fascist terrorist groups in Italy. The BBC has a great documentary on the subject as a whole.

There's also the matter of how quickly the crime scene was cleaned up, and evidence was destroyed. The anarchist they arrested first, "accidentally" died in a fall from the fourth floor of a police station. Over the years, repeated attempts have been made to bring the truth to light. We get glimpses now and then, such as with the Gladio reveal, and some US officers have gone to trial. As I mentioned at the outset, we still have no hard proof. But it would be in keeping with state sponsored terrorism that we do know about from that time period, continuing through the 80s and beyond.

December 11 is the anniversary of The Largest Mass Execution of US Soldiers thus far, in 1917. It should be completely unsurprising that these were all black men, and their trials were conducted swiftly with no appeals allowed.

In 1917, the US military was segregated down racial lines. The racist officers had the idea that black troops were inferior to white ones, and the black units should be tasked with non-combat and menial tasks. In July of that year, one of these units was tasked with guarding white troops that were preparing to leave for the war in Europe. The local police force however, felt that it was a travesty that they were wearing military uniforms at all and could give the local black population ideas. They continuously harassed them. They would arrest them arbitrarily, beat them, and generally make life miserable.

The breaking point came on August 23 of 1917. A black soldier who by all accounts was a model soldier, was arrested, shot at, and beaten by the police. Rumours quickly circulated that he had been killed. 150 of the soldiers decided that it was time to do something, and assembled. History is unclear on what their plan was, but modern historians think that the plan was to march into Houston and protest at the police station.

But regardless of their intentions, they never even made it into the city. A large group of armed white men met them at the outskirts. A gunfight soon broke out, leaving 4 soldiers, 4 policemen, and 12 white civilians dead. The Army quickly brought charges against 110 of the black soldiers. They were put on three mass trials, represented by an officer with no legal credentials. It took less than 3 days to convict the first group. 13 were murdered on this day. The other two trials were conducted just as swiftly, resulting in death sentences for another 16 soldiers. Due to public outrage, 10 of those were spared, but in total, 22 people were hanged, and 50 were sentenced to life in prison. Eventually, due to the tireless work of the NAACP, their sentences were reduced. The last men were released from prison 21 years later, in 1938.

It wasn't until 2023 that the US military acknowledged their wrongdoing. They gave them all honourable discharges, and the convictions were overturned, perhaps because none of the men were still alive today. The US military continues to discriminate against their black troops.

December 10 is the anniversary of the signing of The Treaty of Paris in 1898. This formally ended the Spanish-American War, which had been ongoing for 6 months.

The treaty transferred control of Guam, Puerto Rico, and The Philippines from Spain to the US. It was not possible to annex Cuba in the treaty, as the war was partially justified by seeking "Cuban Freedom". However, the US would place troops there, and the following century would see much meddling in Cuba's affairs in an effort to bring it to heel. The additions of the Spanish colonies marked the first of the US conquests outside of North America. The US regime now had a significant foothold on the Pacific, which they could use to further their ambitions.

Manifest Destiny had now expanded its scope, and more colonies were added in the next decades. Eventually Cuba and the Philippines would slip away, and the US regime would move away from direct colonial administration. They've laid claim to the entirety of the Americas. Today, the US has over 800 military bases outside of its borders stretching over the globe. They dictate terms to the world, and the list of their interventions is extremely long for those who challenge their authority.

December 9 is the anniversary of the partial release of The Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA Interrogations in 2014. It detailed the extent of the CIA's crimes against its detainees during their "War on Terror" from 2001-2009.

The contents we know about are damning. It details the torture, abuse, and suffering that 119 prisoners of the CIA endured. Nearly a quarter of them were wrongfully detained. People were raped, kept awake for days, beaten, waterboarded, and even froze to death. The mental damage done to the prisoners was immense. Many of them attempted suicide, and many more suffer from debilitating mental problems as a result of their ordeal. As nearly anyone could have predicted, these "enhanced interrogation techniques" didn't provide any useful intelligence. The whole thing was a blatant act of sadism on the part of the regime's secret police, and a clear human rights violation.

"Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" were officially banned in 2009. But the crimes still continue. Guantanamo Bay still holds 30 prisoners. Nobody ever even faced charges for torturing prisoners.

December 8 is the anniversary of The First SWAT Attack in 1969. It marked the beginning of a new form of militarised police force.

SWAT is an abbreviation for Special Weapons And Tactics. The awkward sounding name is a remnant of their original name "Special Weapons Assault Team", that more accurately conveys the purpose of the unit. It was changed quite early on because it was a little too on-the-nose. The stated purpose of the team is to use military hardware and techniques to overcome heavily armed and dangerous criminals, such as terrorists or hostage takers. The product of the famously racist LA police chief Daryl Gates, who once said casual drug users "ought to be taken out and shot", the real truth behind its creation was made clear on this day.

The targets of course, were The Black Panthers, a political group composed of black socialists. The FBI had been spreading propaganda about the Black Panthers, and the police were eager to start raiding them. On this day, over 350 policemen descended upon Black Panther headquarters. There were only 13 Panthers in the building at the time, and in response to a large group of men shooting and tossing grenades at them, they fired back. Thousands of rounds were fired, and the police even brought in a tank. Several people were wounded, but amazingly enough, nobody died. At their trial, the Black Panthers successfully argued that they acted in self defence, and were acquitted of most charges.

The whole thing was a farce. They obviously didn't have much reason to raid the Panthers, much less bring in military equipment. But the fact that armed black people existed was terrifying to the whites in power. They had previously enacted gun control laws to disempower the Panthers. When that failed, their raid, resembling the rifle clubs of the previous century was the beginning of a new era.

Today, SWAT teams are employed by nearly two thirds of police departments in the country. In over 95% of cases, they are used against similar targets, rather than the dangerous criminals they are ostensibly for. The military even has a special program to provide military equipment to police departments. They still disproportionately attack black neighbourhoods.

December 7 is the anniversary of The Dos Erres Massacre in 1982. This was one of the worst atrocities of the Guatemalan genocide.

This day saw a US supported elite team within the Guatemalan military enter a village of nearly 400 people suspected of supporting leftist guerillas. Males were locked in a school, and the females were locked in a church. After a search of the village produced no communist or guerilla literature, they got to work on the people. Babies were killed first. They cracked their skulls, they threw them against trees, or down wells. They interrogated the villagers, torturing then killing them one by one. Women and girls were raped, then thrown into the well. They filled in the well with the survivors still crying.

This was not an isolated incident. Over the course of the genocide of the Mayan people, they would wipe out over 600 villages, totalling more than 200,000 people. Eventually, the war ended, and much like My Lai, a few select men were chosen to take the fall. Of the 58 men present on that day alone, 4 men received lengthy prison terms. The US and Canada made a big show of extraditing them and declared that justice had prevailed.

But the truth of the matter is much more akin to another famous individual who received US aid. The truth is that the US knowingly provided training and funding for the Guatemalan military, through the 80s. The implication is clear that the US regime did NOT care about the ongoing genocide, but more on optics:

The point is the rather obvious one that only in time will we and the Guatemalans know whether President Lucas is correct in his conviction that repression will work once again in Guatemala. If he is right and the policy of repression is succeedinq and will result in the extermination of the guerillas, their supporters, and their sympathizers there is no need for the US to implicate itself in the repression by supplying the GOG with security assistance.

and how they would spin things after the war:

If the repression does work and the guerillas, their supporters and sympathizers are neutralized, we can in the aftermath of the repression work to restore normal relations with the successors to President Lucas.

Which appears to be exactly what they did. They upped the funding from 11 million in 1980 to 104 million to 1986, but they figured that so long as they weren't actively participating in the massacres, they could either enjoy the destruction of communism in Guatemala, or show their morality after the war by saying that they didn't support any genocide. Perhaps by offering up a few of the soldiers as scapegoats and making a big show of their extradition.

December 6 is the anniversary of The Banana Massacre in 1928. The Colombian government, at the demand of the United Fruit Company, sent in the military to break a strike that by the workers on a banana plantation owned by the United Fruit Company, resulting in thousands of deaths.

The strike was intended to force the United Fruit Company to submit to these demands:

1. Stop their practice of hiring through sub-contractors
2. Mandatory collective insurance
3. Compensation for work accidents
4. Hygienic dormitories and 6-day work weeks
5. Increase in daily pay for workers who earned less than 100 pesos per month
6. Weekly wage
7. Abolition of office stores
8. Abolition of payment through coupons rather than money
9. Improvement of hospital service

The exact involvement of the US regime in this mass murder is still debated, as is the number of casualties, as the regime still denies involvement and downplays the incident to this day. However, we do have several telegrams between officials that tell a different story. The US called the striking workers subversives (communists) as a result of their demands, and one telegram in particular strongly suggests that the US regime had threatened an invasion if the Colombian government did not put down the strike by force.

The Legation at Bogota reports that categorical orders have been given the authorities at Santa Marta to protect all American interests. The Department does not (repeat not) desire to send a warship to Santa Marta. Keep the Department informed of all developments by telegraph

This was followed by another telegram from the ambassador to the Department of State that said he had the "honor" of reporting "that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military exceeded 1000." There could be little doubt about the US regime's stance on the matter. The United Fruit Company continued to enjoy the full support of the US government continuing to commit atrocities, labour violations, and even violent coups. Today they are known as Chiquita, and are still promoting violence in South America.

December 5th is the anniversary of the true start of The California Gold Rush in 1848. On this day, the US president officially confirmed the discovery of gold in California, beginning the movement of over 300,000 new settlers to the area. This would ultimately lead to the annexation of California by the US regime, and the estimated deaths of over 120,000 native peoples in the California Genocide.

California at the time was a lawless place, having just been conquered from Mexico earlier in the year. The prospectors brought by the gold rush were initially of mixed origin, but as claims started to become more scarce, the Anglo-Americans quickly started ramping up their hostility towards races deemed inferior. By this point, manifest destiny was a commonly held view, having been officially endorsed by the president 3 years earlier. Combined with a devout belief that they were racially superior to the native people, this set the stage for mass murder in the name of racial purity. The first US Governor of California, Peter Burnett, had this to say about being "forced" to exterminate the Indians:

That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. While we cannot anticipate this result but with painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power or wisdom of man to avert.

In 1848, nearly a third of the remaining native population in the US was located in California, over 150,000 strong. Over the next 12 years, that would drop to 35,000. By 1900, it was under 16,000, and the settlers numbered over a million. The methods for their extermination were many. The first step of course was to take their land and sell it to white settlers. Left on worthless lands, survival became a struggle. Diseases spread rampantly, and food was difficult to come by. When faced with starvation, tribes would then steal cattle or other food. White settlers would then retaliate with mass murder. The regime funded death squads to hunt down and kill any Indians they could find. These were not isolated incidents. Although slavery was officially banned, an exception was made for Indians. This of course was running in parallel to the destruction of the land by invasive mining techniques, which further reduced the native tribe's ability to provide for themselves. Eventually, the regime would move on to kidnapping children and forcibly sterilising women. These policies would run well into the late 20th century.

But let's not forget that it wasn't just the native populace affected by the eugenics laws. Asian immigrants were also outcast from society and freely slaughtered. They were subject to racial taxes and immigration quotas not enforced upon white settlers. Today, discrimination is once again on the rise.

December 4 is the anniversary of the US regime seizing the assets of The Holy Land Foundation in 2001. This Palestinian-run charity was the largest Muslim charity in the United States, and its purpose was to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Palestine.

The US regime of course did not appreciate this action. They declared the charity a terrorist organisation with the claim that they were providing material support to win the hearts and minds of Palestinian people for Hamas. They provided no evidence to back their claims, and even acknowledged that all of the money went entirely towards humanitarian aid. But an Israeli intelligence officer testified that he "could smell Hamas". That was good enough for the US regime. They sentenced 5 of their directors to very length prison terms for the crime of feeding the hungry.

Today of course, the situation isn't much better. Israel continues to label humanitarian groups as terrorists, and blocks humanitarian efforts in Gaza entirely when they get too upset with the uppity natives. To avoid appearing completely heartless, the US regime has recently promised $100 million dollars in humanitarian aid to the Palestine people. This is substantially less than the amount that another Palestinian charity was ordered to pay in another questionable court decision, not to mention the funds that were seized from the HLF.

December 3 is the anniversary of The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley University in 1964. Despite the US regime's claimed commitment to free speech, this day saw nearly 800 students arrested for opposing the US regime.

The issue at hand was that the University was cracking down on "political activity" in the University, be it on-campus or off. The political activity of course was civil rights. In the eyes of the students, the US was a racist, imperialist, and brutal regime. With University policy being that only mainstream liberal parties were allowed, and professors who were required to swear loyalty to the oppressive regime, the stage was set for conflict.

The University responded to this activism by persecuting the student leaders. The students responded by having a sit in at the University. A group of a couple thousand students occupied one of the buildings in the University. They sang songs, they watched movies, and they studied.

Eventually, the police closed off the exits to the building and arrested everyone inside. They dragged people down as many as 90 steps of marble stairs. Ultimately, after much ado, the students did win this one, and the liberal regime was forced to allow talk of civil rights on campus. Recently, an event happened where right wingers marched into government buildings and threatened to kill US politicians. Compare the actions.

December 2 is the anniversary of The Monroe Doctrine in 1823. It was an explicit threat and implicit claim to all of the Americas.

The Monroe doctrine by US President James Monroe is written in heavy legalese. But the document makes it clear that the European powers are not to colonise the Americas any longer, and any interventions would be compromising US national security. Of course, at the time the US was a relative backwater on the European stage, and was largely ignored.

But the US forged ahead. The US expanded the Monroe Doctrine to include Hawaii in 1843. This would eventually lead to Hawaii's annexation by the US. US President James Polk formally endorsed Manifest Destiny for the first time. Manifest Destiny is a US policy that acknowledged the racial superiority of white Americans, and that it was their destiny to civilise and bring light to the west.

Things would only get worse from here. The legacy of this has shown two centuries of coups, invasions, mass murders, and colonisation of the Americas from the US regime.

December 1 is the anniversary of the arrest of Rosa Parks in 1955. Her crime was refusing to move rearward in the bus to make room for white people.

Under the law, the first 10 seats were reserved for whites only. She sat in the row behind those seats on her way home from work. But as the bus filled up, the bus driver instructed her to move back in order to make room for additional white people. When she refused, the driver called the police. She was arrested, fingerprinted, and briefly imprisoned, thankfully without the customary beating.

But what the police didn't know was that the black community was waiting for such a thing to happen. Rosa Parks' character was unassailable, and her "crime" was pretty obviously made up. Nowhere in the bus laws did it state that the bus driver could arbitrarily change which seats had priority white seating. Although she lost in court, and was forced to pay a $14 fine, it did spark a whole new chapter in the fight for equality in the US.

The black community boycotted the buses, and staged large protests. It was here that Martin Luther King Jr. first achieved national fame. These protests would eventually lead to the forced desegragation of the US. Minorities still fight for equality in the US, but this day marked a turning point.

November 30 is the anniversary of The Battle of Seattle in 1999. In the largest protest that Seattle ever saw, 40,000 people protested the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and were assaulted by Seattle police.

The WTO was having a summit in Seattle to discuss the "Millenium Round", which was to discuss plans of liberalising the global south. Plans to disrupt the conference began months earlier by a wide variety of interested groups, ranging from environmentalists, people from the global south, and anarchists. On the morning of November 30, they blocked the roads leading to the convention centre. The police promptly responded with tear gas and pepper spray on the protestors. The protestors responded by throwing things back at the police (Erroneously reported by the capitalist media as molotov cocktails). The anarchists began smashing the windows of particularly heinous corporations. The protests continued for the next few days. Hundreds were arrested indiscriminately, the police ramped up their firepower to include rubber bullets and concussion grenades. The protest ultimately became one against police brutality, but the conference was ended without much being done. The protest was a success.

But perhaps the biggest success that came from the protest was that it forced the media to present the protestor's side of the argument. Why would so many groups with little in common all come together and work towards destroying the WTO? Of course the answer to that is nebulous. But the short of it is that neoliberal reforms often only benefit the rich. In the context of a global economy that the WTO is so eager to establish, the rich in this case become the "western" countries and the corporations that control them. The health of an economy can be thought of as how the money is flowing within it. A healthy economy will have currency flowing in a circle, as money is exchanged for goods and services. But the scenario where a worker with minimal tools makes a product by hand has to sell their product at market at the same price as a rich corporation breaks this cycle. The poor worker is forced to sell their product at ever lower prices, or take crippling loans to increase their own efficiency. The currency instead of circulating, starts flowing in one direction... from the poor to the rich. We often see this depicted in liberal media as the Walmart effect.

This is the scenario that the WTO created. The poor workers in this case are the global south, and the industrial factories are in the west. In order to make any profit, they are forced to sell off their natural resources at bargain basement prices, or industrialise with massive loans, no matter the cost. This often leads to child labour, disastrous environmental policies, and other exploitative methods. This is why the people of the protest were so diverse. This policy only benefits the rich, increases inequality, and costs us all dearly.

November 29 is the anniversary of The Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. This day saw the deaths of hundreds of Cheyenne and Arapaho people. Mostly women and children.

The story starts in Colorado in June of that year. A white settler family is murdered, and Indians are assumed to be the perpetrators. Ever prone to paranoia, rumours quickly spread amongst the settlers that an Indian uprising with confederate support was brewing that would see them driven back east off of "their" land.

So the governor of Colorado puts out an order that any Indians that do not submit themselves to a fort for "protection" and supplies are to be shot on sight. He also told all the white settlers "to go in pursuit of all hostile Indians on the plains", and any organised groups would be supplied with weapons and ammunition.

In response to these declarations, Cheyenne led by Chief Black Kettle and Arapaho led by Chief Little Raven surrendered themselves to Fort Lyon. After collecting their weapons and processing them, they were told to camp at Sand Creek, where they would be under the protection of the fort.

On November 28, a group of Indian hunting militia, led by Colonel Chivington arrived in Fort Lyon. Despite protests from many of the officers there, he made up plans to attack the camp on the following day.

When the Indians saw the attack coming the following morning, they quickly ran up an American flag, and a white flag as instructed. Of course it didn't make much difference. Two officers refused to obey the attack order, but the vast majority of Chivington's army was happy to follow their orders. For the next 7 hours, they were met with little resistance, and did whatever they wanted to do with the people in the camp.

This is ordinarily where I would describe what they did. But I'm sorry, I don't think I have it in me to do that today. It's REALLY bad. If you would like to know some of the horrors that they inflicted on the Indians that day, then I encourage you to read Appendix I from the excellent book "A Century of Dishonour" by Helen Hunt Jackson in 1881. Suffice to say that when the US army re-enacted it in 1968 in My Lai Village 100 years later, they were way less creative with their infanticide.

But Chivington proudly paraded through Denver afterwards, showing off body parts and other souvenirs from his victory over the Indians. Although the events of the day proved horrifying even to white people of the day, no charges or punishments were ever delivered on Chivington or his men. Although many younger Indians were quite understandably outraged by this event and started raiding, Chief Black Kettle continued to advocate for peace, as he did not believe a war would be winnable. He was killed in The Washita River Massacre four years later.

November 28 is the anniversary of the opening of the The Ku Klux Klan Trials in 1871. Going to the extraordinary step of declaring martial law, and suspending habeas corpus for white people, the federal government began mass arrests of the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina.

The republican party at the time was abolitionist, and sought to currie favour with black voters at the end of the civil war. Voter suppresion was rampant in the south, with white people lynching black people when the election didn't go their way, with little being done by the state governments or courts. The main organising force for these racist attacks was the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) terrorist group, who had greatly ramped up their attacks after a Republican election win in 1870. Murder, rape, and beatings for black people were commonplace in South Carolina. Facing the very real prospect of losing his job, the governor asked the federal government to step in. In October of that year, US president Grant ordered the disbanding of the KKK. When they refused, the military was called in and began mass arrests of KKK members. They arrested over 1000 people.

Although many of the leaders had fled before they could be arrested, the trials actually went unexpectedly well. A year later, hundreds of convictions were made, and although sentences were light, there were over a thousand more in the works. The juries even had black people serving on them. But the attorney general was forced to resign after a disagreement with the railroad barons. The new attorney general was much less eager to prosecute the KKK, and progress ground to a halt. White Americans and Democrats were horrified by the federal government's overreach and supposed violation of constitutional rights. Evidently feeling that he had made a big enough show of doing something about the KKK, the US president granted pardons for all those convicted and clemency for those in progress. The trials were over.

The military was present for the next election to guard against the KKK as a show of face. But the very clear message sent to the KKK was that they were truly above the law. The terrorism only got worse. Less constitutionally problematic of course was taking the freedom of the natives. On this day in 1872, the Modoc War began, because a group of them had left their reservation to return to their homeland, ending with the hanging of their chief. The KKK is still active today, although suffers with membership problems, as there's a much wider variety of fascist groups to join these days.

November 27 is the anniversary of The Washita River Massacre in 1868. A day much celebrated in the US, Colonel Custer bravely launched a surprise attack on a Cheyenne camp on the move to their new reservation.

The trouble started with the Medicine Lodge Treaty in 1867, that the US regime had forced them into signing. As usual, the regime had already broken their end of the agreement. They withheld treaty payments, they were trying to prevent the Indians from hunting, and were trying to take even more land.

Of course, this would be met with armed resistance from the natives. Many young warriors were taking up raiding the invading white settlers in defiance. For the crime of resisting ethnic cleansing, the US regime decided "punishment must follow crime". They sent in Colonel George Custer.

Chief Black Kettle was a Cheyenne chief who had survived the Sand Creek massacre four years earlier, and was doing his best to avoid a repeat of that by being subservient to the invaders. He was camped in the tribe's traditional winter camp along the Washita River, flying a white flag. He had been in contact with Fort Cobb, and had explained that the raids were not done with his knowledge or consent, and was on his way to the reservation.

General Sheridan on the other hand, declared "total war", and commanded Colonel Custer to “to destroy villages and ponies, to kill or hang all warriors, and to bring back all woman and children survivors”. He was insistent that every Indian should experience the horrors of war. The Oxford English Dictionary defines terrorism:

The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

So Custer went out searching for Indians and found Black Kettle's village. He decided that the best course of action would be a sneak attack with no reconnaissance at dawn. And so he did. Black Kettle and his wife were shot in the back while attempting to escape. They killed everyone they could, then they slaughtered the band's horses, and razed their village, destroying their winter supplies. Custer took 53 women and children hostage. In his own words:

Indians contemplating a battle, either offensive or defensive, are always anxious to have their women and children removed from all danger.

For this reason I decided to locate our military camp as close as convenient to Chief Black Kettle’s Cheyenne village, knowing that the close proximity of their women and children... would operate as a powerful argument in favour of peace, when the question of peace or war came to be discussed.

The Indian Bureau called it cold-blooded butchery, and Colonel Wynkoop, their Indian Agent resigned over the incident. But the military and the public celebrated "the glorious victory" that Custer had achieved. The Cheyenne are still fighting to this day for the regime to recognise it as the massacre that it was.

November 26 is the anniversary of California's "Last" Lynching in 1932. This event was exceptional in two ways by US standards. The victims were white, and it was done with the full support of the governor of California.

The story starts on November 9. Two small time crooks by the names of Holmes and Thurmond wanted to make the big times. They kidnapped Brooke Hart, the son of the owner of the Hart Department Store of San Jose and demanded $40,000 cash.

Alex Hart, Brooke's father, immediately alerted the police. After feigning or being completely incompetent (history is unsure about this one) for a couple of days, police were able to trace the call to a payphone during what sounded like a very frustrating phone call for the kidnappers. They caught one of them. After 5 hours of interrogation, he confessed to having tossed him into San Francisco bay, and gave up his accomplice.

The people of San Jose were upset. The Harts were one of their favourite families of oligarch, and the papers ran headlines calling for the kidnappers' blood, one of whom even called for mob violence. The governor of California announced on the 23rd that he would refuse to dispatch the national guard to protect the culprits. Brooke's body was found on November 26. To nobody's surprise, the first rock was thrown at the police station where they were held. The governor cancelled his travel plans to prevent the lieutenant governor from calling the national guard.

So, the lynching commenced at 11PM, as scheduled by the thousands strong mob earlier in the day. Teargas was used, but it didn't do much. The mob broke in and hung both men, while goulishly scrounging for souveniers with which to remember their murder. They hung from a tree in a public park for nearly an hour before they were cut down, as the mob admired their handiwork.

Of course, nobody who did the lynching ever saw any punishment. The governor congratulated the lynchers, promised pardons for anyone charged, and even suggested releasing all the kidnappers and murders from prison so that they could all be lynched. He actually called San Quentin prison to see how many kidnappers were being held. Thankfully he died 8 months later of a heart attack. Although a few of the lynchers were arrested, of course no convictions ever came. Two more known lynchings have happened in California since the "last" lynching, but were largely ignored.

November 25 is the anniversary of The Dull Knife Fight in 1876. Occurring five months after the Battle of Little Bighorn, this was the first in a series of attacks to "avenge" their mass murderer, General Custer.

Cheyenne War Chief, Dull Knife was reluctant to rise up against the invading settlers. He (rightfully) felt that they could not win the war. But after the Sand Creek Massacre, he could no longer remain at peace. The US military's incessant hounding eventually came to a halt at the Battle of Little Bighorn, which was the greatest victory of native forces against their oppressors.

White settlers of course were shocked and horrified at their defeat, and demanded something be done about the Indians. So they sent in "Their greatest Indian Fighter", Ranald Mackenzie to eliminate further resistance to their will.

So, he did. He and his native collaborators first found Dull Knife's encampment. He raided them at dawn. He forced everyone to leave the village and their belongings behind. Then he burnt it all. About 200 lodges, all their winter food, and in some cases, even their clothing. He took all of their livestock, and left them with nothing. Many froze to death in the first night, including 11 babies. The general overseeing the massacre had this to say about Mackenzie:

“I can’t commend too highly Mackenzie’s brilliant achievements and the gallantry of the troops of his command. This will be a terrible blow to the hostiles, as those Cheyennes were not only their bravest warriors but have been the head and front of most all the raids and deviltry committed in this country.”

The remaining Cheyenne made their way to Crazy Horse's camp, where they spent a hard winter. They surrendered in the spring. They were moved onto a malaria infested reserve in Oklahoma without food. Half of the remaining population died in the first year on the reserve. Dull Knife led two escape attempts from the reserve. Neither of which were all that successful, but Chief Dull Knife was one of the few who managed to get away in the second escape attempt. He died in Montana, where he was born.

This act of terrorism was successful. Much of the Cheyenne people's history was destroyed along with the village on this day. It was the end of hope for the native people.

November 24 is the anniversary of the day in 1961 that the Secretary of State told the US president that the use of Agent Orange was not a war crime, and has some precedence, as the British had done it before in Malaya. I have to wonder if the same logic would have been used about gassing the Vietnamese population.

Regardless, that's close to what they were doing. Agent Orange is a particularly nasty defoliant. Before the US even started using it in Vietnam, they knew it would cause birth defects, and it was quickly discovered that it also caused many forms of cancer, as well as skin and respiratory problems. They didn't care.

The US wanted to use a strong defoliant in Vietnam for two reasons. To destroy crops, and to destroy forests to remove cover from the Viet Cong. They used it fairly indiscriminantly. They destroyed over 31,000 square kilometers of forest with 76 million liters of Agent Orange. And not just in Vietnam, but Laos and Cambodia as well. They exposed more than 4 million Vietnamese, and 2 million of their own soldiers to it. The red cross says that over a million people have health problems as a result. And that's WITH glossing over that a big part of the reason for doing this was to STARVE the Vietnamese people.

US veterans of the war were of course quite upset when they found out the chemicals they were dropping on people was also going to affect them. Numerous lawsuits have been filed. The US regime gave a pittance to their soldiers (about $100 per month for 10 years). They still deny its toxicity and deny victims of appeals. Of course they gave even less to the Vietnamese who still have to live in it.