If the government does it, they don't call it a massacre

It is typical that that the MSM describe what happened at Virginia Tech in terms of how big the massacre was.

Native Americans may disagree. Let us remember the Sand Creek massacre in 1864, where approximately 180 Cheyenne and Arapaho women and children were slaughtered by government troops.

Or Wounded Knee in 1890, where 150 Sioux were slaughtered, again by government troops.

I'm very sorry that the Sioux and Cheyenne and Arapaho were slaughtered by American Troops and that I, even now, benefit from it. What can I do to make amends?

Is there any hope? Health care for all, floor under all for food and shelter needs, some belief that people will not die of neglect, let alone state-sponsored, co-ordinated, or facilitated violence?

hundred thousand innocent Iraqi lives lost, while we bring "democracy" to their country.

It is a sin against humanity.

However I'm not sure I see your point; this guy wasn't a Native American, now was this politically motivated at all.

What do white historians and textbooks calle the Sand Creek Massacre?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

does it. Only difference is, their term for it is "solution."

Or what?

Bryant

I'm saying that there are different reasons given for massacres, but that they are still massacres.It doesn't matter if it's a Korean who acted alone, or the government. The carnage is still deplorable.

Bryant

Those massacres just "don't count". .

and not to enough of the voters, either, it seems. Not enough to make change, anyway.

Massacre At Wounded Knee, 1890
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/knee.htm

~snip~

"When the smoke cleared and the shooting stopped, approximately 300 Sioux were dead, Big Foot among them. Twenty-five soldiers lost their lives. As the remaining troopers began the grim task of removing the dead, a blizzard swept in from the North. A few days later they returned to complete the job. Scattered fighting continued, but the massacre at Wounded Knee effectively squelched the Ghost Dance movement and ended the Indian Wars."

Last night Keith asked why America takes it's Iraq war dead for granted, yet is understandably saddened by VT?

It's a good question. Victims of both are equally dead with equal dreams and equal human potentials snuffed out way too soon.

And about the 600,000 Iraqi "collaterally damaged"? Well, you have to break over half a million eggs to make an omlet, y'know?

-85% jimmy

Countdown with Keith Olbermann - transcript April 17, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18175096/

~snips~

OLBERMANN: It is an unspeakable and overwhelming tragedy, up to 30 young Americans killed violently, pointlessly, and the rest of us left with an urgent and almost helpless feeling that somebody could have done something to prevent it, and that everybody must do something to protect the next potential victims.

Yet, the same number of young Americans of approximately the same age have died in Iraq in the last 10 days. Clearly, while one might take issue with the comparison, one can not ignore the similarities. Moreover, in a practical sense, the deaths in Iraq could have been much more readily prevented, and the desire much more easily fulfilled, to protect the next potential victims there.

Our third story on the COUNTDOWN, no one questions the nation‘s grief about Virginia Tech. But have we suppressed our grief about Iraq? Today the president told the packed memorial service at Virginia Tech that this was a day of sadness for the entire nation, that, quote, people who never met you are praying for you. And, of course, he‘s right...

Unfortunately, in Iraq, it is a very ordinary experience. According to the latest Iraq Coalition casualty count figures, in just the last ten days, 32 American troops, many the same age as those Virginia Tech students, have died. And about the same number of Iraqi civilians die in shootings and bombings in and around just Baghdad every day. So it seems fair to ask the question, if the violent deaths in Virginia send the nation into shock and expressions of concern and anxiety, why is not the continuous flow of American blood in Iraq generating a similar reaction?



...read more of Olbermann's discussion on this with Richard Wolffe, chief White House correspondent for "Newsweek Magazine",
a little more than half-way down this transcript page:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18175096/


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I watched this too, and was glad that a media jockey finally had the nerve to raise that question. Also, I believe the figure has now reached one million Iraqis dead in that "collateral damage" number.

At the turn of the century, after the Spanish American war, the U.S. moved in to colonize the Philippines and a terrible guerrilla war broke out. It's sometimes called "America's first Vietnam". About 125,000 U.S. troops were sent to the Philippines to fight and subdue Philippino resistence. Nearly all of the Generals who served in that war had honed their military skills in the Indian wars on the frontier. Hundreds of thousands of Philippino civilians including women and children were herded into concentration camps, accused of being insurgent sympathizers. The estimated number of civilian deaths from that war is between 250,000 and one million. Many of these Philippino civilians died in the concentration camps, when cholera broke out.