Elizabeth Warren has introduced a bill to revoke Medals of Honor from U.S. soldiers who slaughtered hundreds of Native American women and children in the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. Several Native tribes and descendants of the victims support the bill.https://t.co/YPoei0lYcU
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 27, 2019
This didn't start with EW. It started in the House, last spring, and the conversation started decades before. Then in 2001 the Congress of American Indians asked for this to happen. https://t.co/1lG3805kpf
— paulaptb (@paulaptlb) November 28, 2019
We can’t change history, but we can (sometimes) stop lying about it. Per the Washington Post:
… On Wednesday, two Senate Democrats unveiled legislation to strip the Medals of Honor from the American soldiers who participated in the Wounded Knee massacre. The bill, known as the Remove the Stain Act, was announced Wednesday by Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.), and serves as the Senate equivalent of a House bill introduced this year.
In a statement, Warren said the bill was “a step toward righting wrongs against Native peoples.”…
The Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers at Wounded Knee have long been criticized as unjustified decorations for a lopsided massacre where little fighting occurred, and where evidence has pointed to many U.S. soldiers wounded by their own men rather than by Lakota Indians…
As the Medal of Honor gradually evolved to become the nation’s most rare and distinguished military award, Native Americans have fought to have them rescinded for participants in the massacre. In 2001, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe passed a resolution requesting the U.S. government revoke the medals. The National Congress of American Indians has issued resolutions dating back to 1997 that make the same request.
Later, in 2019, the NCAI issued another resolution that supported the House bill introduced by Reps. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), Denny Heck (D-Wash.) and Paul Cook (R-Calif.)…
Upon unveiling the new House legislation in June, Haaland said she hoped that it “shows the continued work and strength of the Native American people who have fought for over a century for the United States to acknowledge the genocide of our people that has taken place on this soil,” Stars and Stripes reported.
“We have a responsibility to tell the true story of the horrific Wounded Knee Massacre,” Merkley said in a statement on Wednesday. “We cannot whitewash or minimize the dark chapters of our history, but instead must remember, reflect on, and work to rectify them. The massacre of innocents could not be farther from heroism, and I hope this bill helps set the record straight.”
The great grandchildren of the victims are very much alive, and very much aware of this. So for the federal government to be willing to tell the truth would be huge.
— paulaptb (@paulaptlb) November 27, 2019
Wounded Knee was a massacre of hundreds of defenseless Native men, women, and children at the hands of U.S. soldiers. We must take steps to address this horrific injustice. Today, I am proud to join my colleagues on a bill to revoke Medals of Honor awarded for Wounded Knee.
— Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) November 28, 2019
On The Road – otmar – Zell am See
schrodingers_cat
I am not sure that revoking medals of honor to dead people is a good idea. When Rajiv Gandhi gave India’s highest civilian medal of honor to a dead person he opened a Pandora’s box and now the Bharat Ratna has become just another political football.
pinacacci
I highly recommend Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. There is much there that is not general knowledge.
WereBear
Ideally, we learn, we grow, and we try to fix what is broken.
This applies to gatherings of people as well as individual people.
Imagine, if you would, a group of women trying to get healthcare from Planned Parenthood who were massacred by an Air Force plane flown by a tRump supporter. And instead of cashiering him, tRump pardoned him and gave him our nation’s highest award.
joel hanes
@pinacacci:
Seconded, and all the upvotes.
If I were emperor, every American schoolchild would read that book in their senior year of high school.
And Aldo Leopold’s _Sand_County_Almanac_ as a junior.
Nicole
@schrodingers_cat: There’s precedent for revoking it (911 times, though none recently), and it’s also been awarded posthumously (including to Teddy Roosevelt). As it’s a military award it’s limited in who is even eligible (which is why Mary Edwards Walker and Buffalo Bill Cody had theirs rescinded- they did some pretty dangerous work for the military during the Civil War, but did it as civilians). I think it’d be hard to turn it into much of a political football, seeing as how recipients have to have officially served in the military.
I think yes, it’s a symbolic gesture as the recipients are long gone, but an important one, as it means we, as a nation, acknowledge that there was nothing valorous in what those men did to women and children.
NotMax
@pinacacci
Yes. With a side order of Son of the Morning Star.
Chris Johnson
More evidence that the forces of evil are attacking Elizabeth Warren as hard as they possibly can, months and months before primary elections. Let’s remember this when it’s time to go out and canvass and work and vote.
Kirk Spencer
Pardon my sarcasm, but are any of the Confederate soldiers still alive? If not, what is the point of objecting to civil redecoration by removing various statues?
Mike in NC
Stable genius would veto this bill only because he detests Native Americans and all other non-white people.
patrick II
All of this Medal of Honour Political Correctness will certainly piss off some people, and may not add a single vote. I am proud of them for doing this.
Amir Khalid
Given that the acts for which these medals were awarded are a lasting stain on the US military’s honour and there was no valour involved (indeed, quite the opposite), it seems to me only right to rescind the medals.
@schrodingers_cat:
That these medals were ever awarded for an act of genocide is a continuing disgrace to the American republic. I think rescinding them is appropriate and necessary.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike in NC: And apparently adores war crimes. If this draft-dodging coward perceives this as a slap in his face, well, good. His face needs to have the orange pancake slapped off.
It’s not like Donald has the slightest clue about honor, as he is at best a cur when it comes to these things.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Amen, Amir. It is a stain on the honor of the US Military. As Anne notes, the Medal of Honor was once handed out like Bronze Stars to officers and senior NCOs in a war zone; a participation medal. It’s become a much more significant decoration than that.
smintheus
“Are any of these soldiers alive? If not, what is the point of this?”
I don’t remember questions about who is still alive from the Armenian genocide when Congress passed a bill condemning it. The point of being honest about disgraceful historical events is being honest.
AJ
OT but just wanted to express deep gratitude for BJ.
This place helps me stay a bit more sane as I navigate living with depression personally and a violent, gas-lighting, white supremecist ruling party in the Senate and WH.
Holiday love to all of you. ??
Kraux Pas
For all the crap Warren gets for her ancestry claims, I see her doing a lot more than other politicians with her national profile to advance their cause.
It’s almost like people can recognize when they do something problematoc and even be prompted by it to do good things.
Wapiti
@Villago Delenda Est: Echoing this, the standards for lots of medals change over time.
For example, my grandfather was awarded a Silver Star in WWI. At some point I worked with an Army historians and I asked them how I could find the citation which would describe the events behind the medal. The historian explained that in some units in WWI, Silver Stars were handed out with Purple Hearts; if you got wounded, you got both medals.
MomSense
@Kraux Pas:
One could make a case that Joe Biden as point person for the Obama Admin on protecting Native American women explicitly in the re-upping of the VAMA is a bigger fucking deal.
I guess Im pretty sick of people erasing all the advocacy that others have been doing for decades before EW got in the mix. Glad she’s involved now, but no she doesn’t do more than others.
Kraux Pas
@MomSense:
I didn’t say she’s doing more, just helping these issues get more attention. I’m not trying to erase what others are doing, the erasure has been an ongoing project for centuries.
Side note, unless there’s a provision you can point out that Biden advocated for targeted specifically at these communities; what you described was incidental, albeit still a big fucking deal.
MomSense
@Kraux Pas:
For the first time, the VAMA let tribal courts prosecute non native domestic abusers. Biden was a tiger promoter – it was a make or break provision for Obama admin. It’s also the first provision Republicans want to do away with.
Amir Khalid
@MomSense:
Is EW claiming to be a prime mover in this? If it’s the culmination of decades of debate and pressure, it’s hard to see how she could or would make such a claim.
marv
Here’s a portion of the editorial that appeared in the Aberdeen SD newspaper six days after the event. It was written by…L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz:
“The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.”
I happen to have spent quite a bit of time on Pine Ridge the past dozen years or so. Once I met a young man at the mass gravesite who described himself as a survivor (two or three generations removed) of Wounded Knee. He described to me the placement of the Hotchkiss guns (early Gatling guns as I understands it) on the surrounding hills, and so forth. I think revoking the Medals of Honor would mean a lot to people there.
As A Matter of Fact, Bob IS My Uncle
@Villago Delenda Est: The MOH today is awarded to soldiers who did something that was almost certainly going to (and in many cases did) get them killed, in order to save comrades or accomplish their mission.
Killing women and children doesn’t fit that bill.
Kraux Pas
@MomSense: Point taken. But I still hope you understand where I’m coming from, that native issues garner minimal media attention and Warren’s efforts to help with that should be welcomed.
MomSense
@Amir Khalid:
No. I was responding to a commenter’s statement.
Jay
@MomSense:
Aaaaaaaand Whoosh,……..
despite being one of many, many, many people nursing this Bill through Congress over years and years, Pocahauntas is singled out front and center for what will become another resentment brick in the Culture Wars, by the MSM,……
but it’s great to see the Russian Judges still leading so called Democrats around by the nose,…..
MomSense
@Kraux Pas:
Of course it is welcome. Better late than never.
MomSense
@Jay:
i don’t even know WTF you are saying.
Jay
Jay
@MomSense:
a Culture War bill that many over the years have worked on, gets to a vote,
( you know what the Culture War is, right? Yes or No?)
And
the MSM headlines, not Omar, not Pelosi, not Talib, none of the Indigenous Reps elected in 2016 and 2018, none of the other 154 Reps who put out messaging in support of the bill,
but instead, Senator Elizabeth Warren, whom the “other side” refers to as Pocahauntas,
and with a reaction so fast it must be the result of Pavlovian Conditioning, you diss Warren.
boy, do the Wingers and Media ever have you guys trained. The Russians won’t even need trolls and Bernie Bro’s anymore.
Kraux Pas
@Jay: Tlaib, Pocahontas
MomSense
@Jay:
oh fuck off. If you think my dislike of Warren has anything to do with Russian trolls you are really lost. The Russians would like nothing more than to have Warren or Sanders be our nominee.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MomSense:
I suspect they’d like to see anybody who is the most damaged goods be the nominee and they’ll try to use whatever propaganda they can leverage or make out of whole cloth to dirty them with, including Biden, perhaps especially him, since he has the most AA support among the candidates so far
Ruckus
I don’t care whose name is on the bill or what little or large credit they take for it, as long as it at least does correct the concept of why the medal was given for bullshit reasons.
Kraux Pas
@MomSense:
First of all, eww. Second, you’d think they prefer Biden, guaranteed GE loser that he is.
MomSense
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
i think the Ukraine mess is a pretty good indication that the Russians and GOP don’t want Biden to be there nominee.
We neglect to vet Warren at our peril.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MomSense:
I’m not sure what you’re implying here. Are you trying to say Warren might be a useful idiot a la Wilmer or Gabbard? I don’t agree with this at all. Warren has been a member of the Democratic Party for some time. The CFPB is her baby. Wilmer and Gabbard, for example, are carpetbaggers. Warren has done good work as a US Senator.
Kraux Pas
@MomSense: The Ukraine mess looks to me like they’re trying to encourage us to rally around our worst option by putting such nonsensical BS out there even people who loathe Biden have to call foul.
Vet them all. Please. However, snarky comments about Warren and blaming her for the state of media coverage of marginalized groups is not vetting.
Obvious Russian Troll
@MomSense: I have to point out that even you’re correct and the Russians are afraid of Biden more than the other candidates, that doesn’t mean that the Russians are right to be afraid of Biden more than the other candidates. The Russians are good at trolling and rat-fucking; that doesn’t mean they know enough about American politics to be good at selecting candidates to troll and rat-fuck.
I’d in fact argue that they’re making a mistake concentrating on Biden, as I expect his support to fall off before the primaries roll around.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Cynical Historian on you tube has been talking about this and he had an interesting point; when Wounded Knee happened the Indian Wars was still a living memory and there were a lot of people traumatized by what happened. So it might be understandable why those Medal of Honors were given out, but we moderns have no such excuse, those awards should be rescinded because massacring nearly defenseless people isn’t who we are. And yes, the 37% asshole right will crap their pants because they want to wallow in evil.
Jay
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/11/28/783066219/food-pharmacies-in-clinics-when-the-diagnosis-is-chronic-hunger
Jay
@Obvious Russian Troll:
it wasn’t the Russian IRA that claimed Obama said that too many “Democrats” were become extreme radical leftist tankies like Warren, Sanders, Bloomberg, etc,…..
it was the US MSM, and that’s not even close to what Obama actually said,
it wasn’t the Russian IRA that said that Pete Buttigieg blamed Obama for Trump’s election,
the calls are coming ftom inside the House and the ususal suckers are falling for it.
between the circular firing squad, the Koch sucking media and the ReThug troll farms, the Russian’s won’t even have to lift a finger in 2020.
Jay
WV Blondie
Did anyone else ever read “Black Elk Speaks”? It was an assignment in one of my high school history classes way back in the Dark Ages (circa 1969-70), in a very small public school in Connecticut. To this day I still remember crying at his telling of Wounded Knee. And yes, I know there’s been controversy attached to it because of the (white) co-author – whether he made changes to fit the sensibilities of his 1930s audience – but it’s still incredibly moving.
marv
@WV Blondie: I read Black Elk Speaks back in the day too. There is a more recent edition with an introduction by the late, great Lakota writer Vine Deloria that addresses the “co-authorship” question pretty well. It was the poet John Neihardt who approached Black Elk and who Black Elk pretty much chose to receive his story, as I understand it. Black Elk’s great-granddaughter, Betty Black Elk, lives on a beautiful ridge just south of Manderson, about 8 miles from Wounded Knee, where Black Elk related his great vision to Neihardt. Al least a couple years ago she still had a pretty good little restaurant out of her home there called Betty’s Kitchen.