Geronimo

kenny olav

"As to the future state, the teachings of our tribe were not specific, that is, we had no definite idea of our relations and surroundings in after life. We believed that there is a life after this one, but no one ever told me as to what part of man lived after death ... We held that the discharge of one's duty would make his future life more pleasant, but whether that future life was worse than this life or better, we did not know, and no one was able to tell us. We hoped that in the future life, family and tribal relations would be resumed. In a way we believed this, but we did not know it."

Said Geronimo in 1905, four years before his death at the age of 79. A true war hero, he fought bravely for the freedom of his people in their natural homeland and evaded capture from 1858 to 1886.

Shameful that the U.S. military would use his name as their code name for Osama bin Laden, who cowardly hid in a mansion after directing terrorist attacks against innocent men women and children... a man who fought a holy war, on behalf of an oppressive form of an already oppressive religion, who proclaimed righteous certainty in what is naturally unknown. A war of oppression depends on such certainty in its warriors. A war for freedom requires nothing but the will to be free.

kenny olav

Well, Geronimo may have killed some innocent people too, for all I know.

But still.

arthurdent

someone's always going to get their panties in a wad about something

:roll:

kenny olav

arthurdent wrote:

someone's always going to get their panties in a wad about something

:roll:

yeah, what's the big deal? it's only war, death, destruction...

CH156378

arthurdent wrote:

someone's always going to get their panties in a wad about something

:roll:

+1

kenny olav

CH156378 wrote:

arthurdent wrote:

someone's always going to get their panties in a wad about something

:roll:

+1

This use of 'Geronimo' as a code name is nothing to be offended by?

Tell that to a Native American tribe, if you don't care what I think.

Byrnzie

arthurdent wrote:

someone's always going to get their panties in a wad about something

:roll:

Sorry, was your three-day hard-on over the killing of a bunch of Arabs softened by a dose of intelligence?

CH156378

kenny olav wrote:

CH156378 wrote:

arthurdent wrote:

someone's always going to get their panties in a wad about something

:roll:

+1

This use of 'Geronimo' as a code name is nothing to be offended by?

Tell that to a Native American tribe, if you don't care what I think.

they can be offended. i understand why they might be. i'm not.

Byrnzie

kenny olav wrote:

This use of 'Geronimo' as a code name is nothing to be offended by?

Tell that to a Native American tribe, if you don't care what I think.

Unfortunately, white Americans have been appropriating and abusing Native American names and symbols for years. So nothing new here.

kenny olav

Byrnzie wrote:

kenny olav wrote:

This use of 'Geronimo' as a code name is nothing to be offended by?

Tell that to a Native American tribe, if you don't care what I think.

Unfortunately, white Americans have been appropriating and abusing Native American names and symbols for years. So nothing new here.

True enough, though the Cleveland Indians thing does seem a bit less offensive than the Osama thing.

But if people don't care about things being offensive to others unless they are personally offended, I guess that's just the kind of world we'll have to accept.

*loosens panties*

dimitrispearljam

for sure Geronimo wasnt a terrorist and he fight for his land
if CIA want to give a symbolic name better idea was Charles Manson

LloydXmas

Outrage over this so called Geronimo code name is ridiculous. Really who gives a shit what they called it. They got the job done.

gimmesometruth27

yeah why would they soil the name of a great native american warrior and leader by using that name as codename for the most reviled man in the world? why not call him something worthy of bin laden, like "douchebag".....then again, douchebag is probably code name for any number of our potential enemies...

CH156378

well i just grounded my kids for a month. they were yelling "Geronimo" as they jumped into the pool. i mean how insensitive!

BinauralJam

dimitrispearljam wrote:

for sure Geronimo wasnt a terrorist and he fight for his land
if CIA want to give a symbolic name better idea was Charles Manson

I like this analogy

brianlux

Thank you for pointing this out, kenny olav. Americans Indians (ok to say that- ask Sherman Alexie) get screwed once again. Still no respect. What a shameful aspect of our history- and it still goes on.

Digital Twilight

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -bin-laden

_

arthurdent wrote:

someone's always going to get their panties in a wad about something

:roll:

Yeah, um... I think their "panties are in a wad" over 500 years of continuing oppression, all the current dismissal of said oppression while their people suffer & we say they have it made, the lack of acknowledgement that they contribute more to military efforts than any other racial group... PLUS the military they support using the symbolism of their most respected war hero, who is a symbol of all Native peoples, to represent the most hated man in the world. Your panties should be in a wad too.

LloydXmas

_ wrote:

arthurdent wrote:

someone's always going to get their panties in a wad about something

:roll:

Yeah, um... I think their "panties are in a wad" over 500 years of continuing oppression, all the current dismissal of said oppression while their people suffer & we say they have it made, the lack of acknowledgement that they contribute more to military efforts than any other racial group... PLUS the military they support using the symbolism of their most respected war hero, who is a symbol of all Native peoples, to represent the most hated man in the world. Your panties should be in a wad too.

I'm gonna go down to Mohegan and Foxwoods this weekend and do a survey about their Pnties being in wad. I'll let you know the results.

vitalpj10

perhaps calling him GWB would have been better?

Byrnzie

Digital Twilight wrote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/may/04/geronimo-osama-bin-laden

Encoded in Geronimo's name: enemy

The US can have an African American president but still be unconscious of its hostility to the Apache leader it persecuted

Steven Newcomb
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 4 May 2011



What the hell were they thinking?

Why would the first African American president of the United States, as US commander-in-chief, think nothing of US military forces applying the codename "Geronimo" to Osama bin Laden during the reported assault against that long-sought enemy of the United States? Apparently, having an African American president in the White House is not enough to overturn the more than 200-year American tradition of treating and thinking of Indians as enemies of the United States.

Question: did President Barack Obama point out to his military brass that such a disrespectful use of Geronimo's name was inappropriate? Probably not.

In my book Pagans in the Promised Land, I use the theory of the human mind (cognitive theory) to explain the "cognitive unconscious" of the United States. Certain ingrained traditions of thought, both conscious and unconscious, have been used for generations by US government officials. Such thinking has resulted in the development of predominantly anti-Indian US federal Indian laws and policies. The result has been laws and policies that have proven detrimental to Indian nations and peoples.

George Washington, in 1784, used the analogy "the savage as the wolf" to refer to our Indian ancestors as less-than-human "beasts". As Henry Wheaton said in his Elements of International Law, "The heathen nations of the other quarters of the globe were the lawful spoil and prey of their civilised conquerors." Thus, one of the normative American metaphors throughout the history of the United States has been "Indians are enemies". We're talking about a US tradition of dehumanisation and dominance used against our nations and peoples.

From the perspective of non-Indian colonisers, our indigenous ancestors were enemies to be uprooted from the vast extent of our traditional lands and territories and confined to "reservations" in remote areas, under UScontrol. Thus, off the reservation is a common idiom used by television journalists and commentators to refer to someone being a "renegade", with the connotation being an enemy "who chooses to live outside laws or conventions". However, it is important to keep in mind that US laws and conventions have been imposed on our nations and peoples. Someone who has gone off the reservation is considered to be an "outlaw" – which in our case is outside the bounds of imposed laws and policies of the United States.

Geronimo's life story is a direct result of the invasion of the Apache territory and attempts to subdue the free and independent Apache. After his family was massacred by Mexicans in 1851, Geronimo became a Chiricahua Apache leader who fit perfectly into the non-Indian metaphorical frame "Indians are enemies". He and a small group of fellow Apaches brilliantly eluded capture by 5,000 United States Army soldiers, 500 Indian scouts and 3,000 Mexican soldiers. The desert terrain was steep and formidable. The temperatures were extreme: intense cold and blistering heat. Geronimo and his band had very little food or water. What those Apaches accomplished is very likely one of the most amazing physical feats of stamina in the history of the human race. He finally surrendered in 1886.

In the reported stories of Osama bin Laden being killed by US military forces, Bin Laden was codenamed "Geronimo". According to a CBS News report, those who came up with that "inappropriate code name" apparently "thought of Bin Laden as a 21st-century equivalent" of Geronimo. In other words, the codename was based on an extension of the metaphor "Indians are enemies" to "Geronimo was a terrorist", thus perpetuating the US tradition of treating Indian nations and peoples as enemies.

Geronimo was fighting against the invasion of his country and the oppression of his people. He did not invade the United States. Rather, Spain, Mexico and then the United States invaded the Apache territory and the territories of hundreds of other indigenous nations. Horrific atrocities were committed against the Apache, and men such as Geronimo, whose family was massacred by Mexicans, did not hesitate to retaliate. Geronimo died a "prisoner of war" in 1909.