RUDIMENTS, pt. 721
(the white man is a freaking idiot)
I've always liked certain words,
the maniacal malfeasance of the
negotiable necromancy of all
fancy. Uncle Jed comes back
from the dead!
-
One of them was Kickapoo, too.
I always thought it was made up,
a goof name from Corporal Agarn
or one of those F-Troop guys who
used to be on TV way back whenever
that was. They even had a drink, I
think, called Kickapoo Joy Juice.
It was, I suppose, a symbolic
representation of alcohol as well
by which yon white man did
besmirch ye Injun. All through
my childhood, Indians got the
worst of everything, were portrayed
mostly as tremulous idiots in some
strange love with Spirit and Place.
The land was theirs before they
were the land's. (That's a steal from
Robert Frost, but that cranky Yankee
used it to defend the White Devil
in taking over the Injun's land. In
best poetic fashion, I say, 'Ain't
that a crock.?')...
-
Actually, it got very interesting,
and quickly too, once I began
digging. American dreams have
always had some idea of the
great land, stretched out, and
mystically gifted by the creator
to the new white man as (yet
another) Promised Land, and
City On the Hill, and all that
crap. Why a creator would not
have already realized that others
already lived here, and felt just
as spiritual about their place
on their land and within their
own, broad spirituality, is
beyond me. I guess we'll just
leave that question to the boy-
banging, tax-exempt priests
and ministers of legion. The
Kickapoo nation was an
original inhabitant of the
'Midwest' area we sort of
now know of as, or call,
Illinois, Champaign County,
Urbana County, etc. The
European arrivistes invented
the idea of 'local' to distinguish
themselves from the Kickapoo
people, whose nomadism they
regarded as vagrancy. A tricky
endeavor was going on here,
in European-logic and thought
terms anyway - because these
Kickapoos were nomadic and
often on the move, the 'Pioneers'
there invoked their own rights
of property, as 'fixed' and as
'located' people. Their point
seemed to be 'If you don't stay
in one place you can't call it
yours' - which is about the
most manifest of destinies or
rationals anyway to kicking
others out of your way. Blame
God, and dig that well. Thus,
'dispossessing the natives' - in
this case the Kickapoos - was
an easy task.They'd never put
down roots, so they couldn't clam
a thing. "The irony was that the
settlers themselves were equally
mobile: They spent years on the
road as soldiers, sailors, salesmen
and missionaries. They traveled
the country with exotic menageries
and explores the circumference
of Lake Superior on snowshoes."
It had always been an unequal
squaring of forces that never
did fit - each other, or the land
over which they eventually
battled. It was all too bad, but
at least it gave me a foothold
onto some sort of real and
referential Native-American
history to grab hold of - later,
thankfully, even more broad
and localized, pointed, versions
of this found my places in
Elmira and Ithaca and the
rest of Sullivan County, as I
made my way, over those years,
through the grand old pathways
the Five Nations Iroquois
Confederation, before Sullivan
wiped it from the face of the
Earth. Now everywhere you go
there are just monuments - to
Sullivan and his campaign. Not
to the Natives and local tribes.
They've just been thrown into
the burial pits of memory,
and trampled over.
-
America was born in a recurring
bloodbath; one after the other,
the same slaughters just kept
recurring - if it wasn't millions
of bison going down, it was
millions of annoying tee-pee
dwellers who weren't any
good until, a hundred
or so years later television
found them and used them
to the hilt for hundreds of
early program cowboy and
Indian shows and movies
with Indians portrayed by
really lousy Jewish actors
done over in Indian face,
war-paint, with stupidly
Brooklyn-accented gibberish
languages and moon-struck
Nature-worshiping portrayals
of vicious savages? Angry
about something, whatever
could it have been?
-
I'm not going to lie to you or
stand here like some political
and 'correct' nitwit getting all
righteous about nothing at all;
but if I was an Indian I'd be
elated each time some cracked
up, no-good, powdered-brained
American went off and shot a
bunch of his own at school,
church, or market, or stadium
or gambling casino. I'd stand
and cheer when those planes hit.
I'd find glee and justice in Ebola
and e-coli, and in plagues and
Legionnaires Disease wherever it
hit. Extra-judicial justice is very
difficult to get, and those millions
of Indians, they've got it all due.
-
The trouble is, no one ever tells you
this stuff, nor is it in the right way
ever even suggested or brought up.
These 'Historic' arguments are always
phrased for the glorification of what
happened. All we're ever given,
tragically, as kids and as adults
too, are distorted lies and nasty
configurations of things dreamed
up by the powers that be, so as to
influence our brains and brand
loyalties - so that we consume.
Simply, and clearly, and nothing but.
Consume! For the advancement of
the notion that Progress and municipal
crime and corruption pay off, and are
right. That land and water don't matter.
That we'll never drown in our own
trash, let alone water. That the heat
and energy we generate goes with
no consequence. That a nation of
dick-dangling lawn-care freaks does
no harm to the environment or the
run-off of the nation. That plugging
people right up with chemicals and
medicines doesn't in the long run
harm and kill. That people's brains
don't rot from the crud they feed
on. That oceans and lakes aren't
affected by way too many people.
That every lame-ass nitwit in the
world, coming here and having 41
kids each, does no harm. That cars
and roadways and oils and gasoline
and soot and smog and crashes and
highway deaths do nothing negative.
The white man is a freaking idiot.
(the white man is a freaking idiot)
I've always liked certain words,
the maniacal malfeasance of the
negotiable necromancy of all
fancy. Uncle Jed comes back
from the dead!
-
One of them was Kickapoo, too.
I always thought it was made up,
a goof name from Corporal Agarn
or one of those F-Troop guys who
used to be on TV way back whenever
that was. They even had a drink, I
think, called Kickapoo Joy Juice.
It was, I suppose, a symbolic
representation of alcohol as well
by which yon white man did
besmirch ye Injun. All through
my childhood, Indians got the
worst of everything, were portrayed
mostly as tremulous idiots in some
strange love with Spirit and Place.
The land was theirs before they
were the land's. (That's a steal from
Robert Frost, but that cranky Yankee
used it to defend the White Devil
in taking over the Injun's land. In
best poetic fashion, I say, 'Ain't
that a crock.?')...
-
Actually, it got very interesting,
and quickly too, once I began
digging. American dreams have
always had some idea of the
great land, stretched out, and
mystically gifted by the creator
to the new white man as (yet
another) Promised Land, and
City On the Hill, and all that
crap. Why a creator would not
have already realized that others
already lived here, and felt just
as spiritual about their place
on their land and within their
own, broad spirituality, is
beyond me. I guess we'll just
leave that question to the boy-
banging, tax-exempt priests
and ministers of legion. The
Kickapoo nation was an
original inhabitant of the
'Midwest' area we sort of
now know of as, or call,
Illinois, Champaign County,
Urbana County, etc. The
European arrivistes invented
the idea of 'local' to distinguish
themselves from the Kickapoo
people, whose nomadism they
regarded as vagrancy. A tricky
endeavor was going on here,
in European-logic and thought
terms anyway - because these
Kickapoos were nomadic and
often on the move, the 'Pioneers'
there invoked their own rights
of property, as 'fixed' and as
'located' people. Their point
seemed to be 'If you don't stay
in one place you can't call it
yours' - which is about the
most manifest of destinies or
rationals anyway to kicking
others out of your way. Blame
God, and dig that well. Thus,
'dispossessing the natives' - in
this case the Kickapoos - was
an easy task.They'd never put
down roots, so they couldn't clam
a thing. "The irony was that the
settlers themselves were equally
mobile: They spent years on the
road as soldiers, sailors, salesmen
and missionaries. They traveled
the country with exotic menageries
and explores the circumference
of Lake Superior on snowshoes."
It had always been an unequal
squaring of forces that never
did fit - each other, or the land
over which they eventually
battled. It was all too bad, but
at least it gave me a foothold
onto some sort of real and
referential Native-American
history to grab hold of - later,
thankfully, even more broad
and localized, pointed, versions
of this found my places in
Elmira and Ithaca and the
rest of Sullivan County, as I
made my way, over those years,
through the grand old pathways
the Five Nations Iroquois
Confederation, before Sullivan
wiped it from the face of the
Earth. Now everywhere you go
there are just monuments - to
Sullivan and his campaign. Not
to the Natives and local tribes.
They've just been thrown into
the burial pits of memory,
and trampled over.
-
America was born in a recurring
bloodbath; one after the other,
the same slaughters just kept
recurring - if it wasn't millions
of bison going down, it was
millions of annoying tee-pee
dwellers who weren't any
good until, a hundred
or so years later television
found them and used them
to the hilt for hundreds of
early program cowboy and
Indian shows and movies
with Indians portrayed by
really lousy Jewish actors
done over in Indian face,
war-paint, with stupidly
Brooklyn-accented gibberish
languages and moon-struck
Nature-worshiping portrayals
of vicious savages? Angry
about something, whatever
could it have been?
-
I'm not going to lie to you or
stand here like some political
and 'correct' nitwit getting all
righteous about nothing at all;
but if I was an Indian I'd be
elated each time some cracked
up, no-good, powdered-brained
American went off and shot a
bunch of his own at school,
church, or market, or stadium
or gambling casino. I'd stand
and cheer when those planes hit.
I'd find glee and justice in Ebola
and e-coli, and in plagues and
Legionnaires Disease wherever it
hit. Extra-judicial justice is very
difficult to get, and those millions
of Indians, they've got it all due.
-
The trouble is, no one ever tells you
this stuff, nor is it in the right way
ever even suggested or brought up.
These 'Historic' arguments are always
phrased for the glorification of what
happened. All we're ever given,
tragically, as kids and as adults
too, are distorted lies and nasty
configurations of things dreamed
up by the powers that be, so as to
influence our brains and brand
loyalties - so that we consume.
Simply, and clearly, and nothing but.
Consume! For the advancement of
the notion that Progress and municipal
crime and corruption pay off, and are
right. That land and water don't matter.
That we'll never drown in our own
trash, let alone water. That the heat
and energy we generate goes with
no consequence. That a nation of
dick-dangling lawn-care freaks does
no harm to the environment or the
run-off of the nation. That plugging
people right up with chemicals and
medicines doesn't in the long run
harm and kill. That people's brains
don't rot from the crud they feed
on. That oceans and lakes aren't
affected by way too many people.
That every lame-ass nitwit in the
world, coming here and having 41
kids each, does no harm. That cars
and roadways and oils and gasoline
and soot and smog and crashes and
highway deaths do nothing negative.
The white man is a freaking idiot.
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