Saturday, July 29, 2006

The present 'thug tactics' of the Israelis brings to mind similar atrocities 'visited' on a now extinct people , the Tainos , by Spaniards .

In 1492 , Columbus landed on an island which he and other invaders named 'Hispaniola' (now known as the Dominican Republic) . The natives , known as the Tainos , produced pottery and other ornaments using a local resource - gold . Columbus , being the first-class plunderer and pirate that he was , immediately recognised the gold for what it was and knew its value ; the native Tainos were , to their eventual detriment , a peaceful people who loved and respected the land which sustained all 600,000 of them . The Spaniards not only took whatever supplies of gold the Tainos themselves had stored , but put every native man , woman and child to work as slave labour to mine for more gold for them .

Due to their peaceful nature , the Tainos refused to fight back against their oppressor but were equally determined to end their oppression - mass suicide ensued . In the sixteen years (ie 1492-1508) after the arrival of Columbus and his thieves , 540,000 of the Tainos killed themselves by drinking the poisonous juice of the yellow yucca plant , or by hanging themselves after they had killed their own children and aborted their wives babies . Within the following nine years (ie 1508-1517) forty-nine thousand of the sixty-thousand Tainos that were still alive had killed themselves , leaving 11,000 natives on the isle , who were 'ruled over' by a 700-strong force of Spaniards .

In December 1518 , an epidemic of smallpox hit the remaining Tainos - the disease was rampant for two months until it had ran its course , leaving 8,000 natives dead . By this stage (ie early 1519 : twenty-seven years after slave-labour gold mining first began) the remaining gold was judged by the Spaniards to be not worth their time , so they left the 'surviving' natives to do as they pleased - 'all' 3,000 of them .

By 1550 - as other plunderers and pirates were beginning the plantation of Laois and Offaly on this isle - the Tainos were wiped out completely .

The so-called 'ruling elite' of the Spaniards , the Americans , the Israelis and the British , to name but a few , have consistently taught us , the 'ordinary' people , one thing , throughout history : that your way of life , your value system , your morals , are worth fighting for . The Tainos would have been described in their day , by their oppressor and their oppressor's business interests/'friends' , as " ignorant savages" : had they physically fought back they would have been labelled as "terrorists/dissidents" .

This blog , a voice in the wilderness as it may very well be , comes down firmly on the side of "ignorant savages" and "terrorists/dissidents" like the Tainos , wherever they are in this world . With no apology .

John , Sharon , 'Junior' : the '1169...' Crew .
Back on Monday , 31 July 2006 .






Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The ' 1169...' crew are back in Dublin - physically , at least , if not mentally !

The weather still feels 'holiday-ish' , deadlines remain something we left behind us in early July , but ....... in the most definite yard-stick that 'normality' is closing-in fast : the spending money has been spent !

As a 'holding-post' until such time as we properly re-organise ourselves , we re-publish a 'Letter to the Editor' of 'The Freemans Journal' newspaper , dated July 9 , 1806 , from a person who signed themselves 'Nemo' . This letter was penned three short years after Robert Emmet's insurrection had failed and gives a flavour of what 'Nemo' sensed was to come .......


' Pray Mr Freeman , are you not misinformed with regard to the Fete Champetre , which her Grace the Duchess has proposed to give in the Phoenix Park , ten or twelve days hence ?
700 NOBILITY AND GENTRY ! Ah! Be easy , Mr. Editor , you are joking , sure , clever as you suppose yourself , you will not go it that way on us . Seven hundred nobility and gentry - 700 fiddle-sticks . Why man , you might as well tell us that 700 of Napoleon's legion of Honor , with their Ladies , were to breakfast with our Viceroy , as to satyrise the IRISH Nobility and Gentry , by supposing that 700 of them could be collected in dirty Dublin , while London , with all its glories expanded to their view .

Do you think , Sir , they are so destitute of taste , so Gothic in their preferences , so Antideluvian in their habits , so vulgarly Irish in their feelings , as to show partiality to the country which contains nothing belonging to them but their DIRTY ACRES ?
Yours ,
Nemo . '


It comes as no surprise to some of us that they had their 'Yes men' then , and their 'Nemo's ' as well !
Back soon .......