Custer's America

George Armstrong Custer

          
"I challenge the annals of warfare to produce a more brilliant or successful charge of cavalry."

-George Armstrong Custer, writing in his report after he led a mounted charge of the 1st Michigan Cavalry just east of Gettysburg in which he severely damaged the Confederate army while losing 257 of his own men

The death and wanton destruction of the American Civil War produced a number of soldiers of fortune.  After the war ended and the Confederate enemy resoundingly defeated by total warfare, these men merely picked up their sabres, saddled their horses, and rented themselves out to exploit the western lands for European monied interests.  Some, like Custer, were especially driven by want of fame and fortune.  His want was different than some men who fought for merely a paycheck.  Custer wanted to parlay his "successes" into political might.  Men with exceptional appetites for greedy ambition flourished in the West during the mid to late-nineteenth century as enormous environmental crimes were supported and promoted by the U.S. Government as it confiscated the land of human beings and delivered it into the hands of the men that would become the first "cattle barons."

"You ask me if i will not be glad when the last battle is fought, as far as the country is concerned I, of course, must wish for peace, and will be glad when the war is ended, but if I answer for myself alone, I must say that I shall regret to see the war end."

-Custer 

You ask me if I will not be glad when the last battle is fought, so far as the country is concerned I, of course, must wish for peace, and will be glad when the war is ended, but if I answer for myself alone, I must say that I shall regret to see the war end.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgearms317731.html#6kWeABWJ1yfmoL2P.99

The West during the time of Custer was still wide open with free beings living on the land.  Had the destruction of America not been sealed with its inception, the United States Republic could have protected the land, the animals, and the human beings that lived on it.  Instead, the United States was compromised by corporate ownership from the first days of the "national bank."  Greed and exploitation were the motivating forces for men, as they raced from coast to coast destroying everything in their path.  Land, water, people, animals-  nothing could escape the insatiable greed of some men.   

Custer with scouts and dead bear

   Perhaps this is why a cocky dandy, and no doubt all-around ambitious asshole like Custer rose to such a high rank in the world were destruction and control is a career.  Military men destroy for a living.  Their lives are dictated to by the many wants of a world set on exploitation and rape instead of life and prosperity.  Military men can hardly be called family men as they destroy families to support their own ilk.  As a matter of occupation, military men cannot live and let live, full-time soldiers have to destroy as they live under the orders of an earthly master whose main gain is total victory over "free life."  Through violence, these masters want to dictate how life will be lived.

"There are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Cavalry."

-George Custer

America today is not unlike the ill-fated 7th Cavalry on that hot, sunny day in late June, 1876.  Moneyed  interests- greedy, power-hungry interests are leading the American people directly into a buzz saw.

Why do people follow ignorant psychopaths like Custer?

A logical person would think, since Custer clearly made so many obviously blatant  blunders during the summer campaign of 1876, that the U.S. Army and Government would want to put as much distance between Custer's legacy and future campaigns.  This is hardly the case since counties in six states bear his name.  The 85th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army is named  "The Custer Division."  Even in the 21st Century, in Fallujah, Iraq, during the town's siege by American forces, a major Forward Operating Base was named Garryowen, after the drinking song men under Custer's command played as they rode.

 Unbeknownst to most Americans, the dye is already cast.  The lot of Americans has been thrown in with leaders just as cutthroat and as idiotic as Yellow Hair.  No matter how many times patriotic Americans recall their "hammer and anvil" successes on the battlefield, their monetary prowess and stuff accumulated, no matter how many times they play Garryowen, their own defeat and destruction is assured.  America has accepted the bugle call of the megalomaniac, the tyrant, and the sadist.  Illogical reasoning due to propaganda, death and destruction, supported by greed has won the lead and the path has been chosen.

Some will continue to ride.  Others, as the Crow Indian scouts parted with Custer before his ill-fated invasion, may look elsewhere for their "fame and fortune" and just be happy with moderate prosperity.

Looking south/west from the top of "Last Stand  Hill"

                                   

Land Conquering Through "Civilization"

              
"Construction started in 1907. It was finished in 1909. The site is supposed to be located on an Indian burial ground and I believe they actually had to repel a few Indian attacks as they were building it."

- General Manager Stuart Ullman, of the fictional Overlook Hotel, from the horror film, The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick   


It has been 149 years since the Sand Creek Massacre in southeastern Colorado.  Since that time, America has built herself a massive institutions all named after the protagonists.  Not all of them were good people.  This year, Northwestern students from the Native American and Indigenous Student Alliance want to investigate the history of John Evans, the namesake of Evanston Illinois.  Evans used to be the territorial governor of Colorado during the Lincoln presidency.  He was the incumbent "governor" when the man he appointed, the Methodist Reverend and Colonel John Chivington massacred 53 unarmed men and 110 women and children at their winter camp (November 29, 1864) near the Sand Creek in Colorado (not too far from present day Eads and Chivington).  After the massacre, Evans decorated Chivington and his men for "valor against the savages."  

Dr. John Evans

 Besides abetting and rewarding mass murder, Evans was just another 19th century railroad whore politician.  His investments into the Chicago & Fort Wayne Railroad and the Chicago & Evanston Railroad not only made him wealthy, but improved his political success. Evans moved West, playing his role in stealing ancient homelands away from the Indians to build railroads and universities (University of Denver & Northwestern University).  Evans lost his position as Territorial Governor after Sand Creek, but was was treated as hero in most social circles in 19th century America.

The Denver,South Park, and
Pacific Railroad,
19th Century

Though his political career took a hit, Evans went on to be a "founding father" of the Rio Grande Railroad, the University of Denver, and Northwestern University.  Evans was seen as a pillar of the community.  Still to this day, there is a bust of his image in the Northwestern library and the Alumni House at Northwestern University bears his name.  Was he an important person in American history or a mass murderer?     

"Their village consisted of one hundred and thirty Cheyenne and with Arapaho lodges. These, with their contents, were totally destroyed. Among their effects were large supplies of flour, sugar, coffee, tea, and women's and children's clothing were found; also books and many other articles which must have been taken from captured trains or houses. One white man's scalp was found which had evidently been taken but a few days before. The Chiefs fought with unparalleled bravery, falling in front of their men. One of them charged alone against a force of two or three hundred, and fell pierced with balls far in advance of his braves."

-excerpt from an editorial from The Rocky Mountain News, 1864     

Should this situation peak the interest of modern-day Americans? 

 At the root of the conflict with the Native Indians was the issue of control of land, water, and resources.  The whites, with their churches and armies, secret societies and fraternal organizations, armed with the surveyor's level and story pole, named landmarks and rivers, and cordoned off the best tracts of land for white civilization. 

Today, the same criminals are running amok, killing off the Earth and everything that lives in it for personal profit.  Students at Northwestern should not be suprised at the fame and respect a man like Dr. John Evans is offered more than a hundred years after his death.  The lie of imperialism and civilization made itself entrenched in the fabric of all educational institutions a long time ago. 

Dr. John Evans Alumni House
Northwestern University

Ironically, soon, it seems, the government or other imperial forces will reckon with the relatives of their former comrades.  The pie is getting smaller all the time under this phony monetary system and soon the poor Americans  (the massive majority) will be in the crosshairs of the conquerors and destroyers.  Soon they will be the Indians getting invaded and run off by bloodthirst and greed.