07/01 Open Thread: The Holy Feast of the Genocidal Imperialist SOB Junipero Serra

~~ Junipero Serra Statue at Mission San Juan Capistrano

Junípero Serra was born in Spain in 1713, educated by the Franciscans, and eventually became a priest, missionary and inquisitor of the Franciscan order as well as a colonist of the conquistador, "we'll take whatever we damn well please", ilk even though not a military man. He was sent as a missionary to the land that would become Mexico. Once there, he discerned a crying need for a local representative of the Spanish Inquisition to keep everybody in line, The Inquisition brass immediately appointed him as inquisitor in situ, both where he was then situated as well as anywhere else in "New Spain" where we was doing missionary work unless there was a regular representative of the Spanish Inquisition already on site. In effect, wherever he went, given the state of affairs at that time.

After a stint in Central Mexico and another in Baja, Serra was unleashed on Alta California with the specific mission of committing cultural genocide on the indigenous population there. This he and his successors carried out quite well. Beyond that, they also did a good job on total genocide, directly and indirectly killing great numbers of the indigenous peoples. They came, they baptized, and they buried. Every bit of this is very much Serra's doing, even what occurred after his death. Famous Notorious for founding the first 8 missions of the California mission system, he created the spirit, soul and behavior of ALL of the missions. His was appointed to be the Grand Panjandrum, head honcho and Great Poobah of the mission system. It was up to him to establish the rules, regulations, practices, procedures, habits, behaviors and culture of the individual missions and the whole mission system, and he did so, Anything and everything dome by some random later padre was by the book, His Book, and thus, it was, in its entirety, his mission system.

Soldiers went out captured and delivered Indians to the missions. They were forbidden to leave, and that prohibition was enforced by the soldiers. Escapees were severely punished upon capture. Contact with those outside the mission was prevented in order to facilitate the erasure of their culture. Families were broken up and kept apart for the same reason. The mission Indians were, in fact, enslaved and served as a labor force for the mission. The women were, at the time, the only women in California, and were housed in dormitories, where they were constantly and repeatedly raped by the soldiers. The sanitary conditions in the dormitories were abhorrent. Diseases would tear through the dormitories like nobody's business. The death toll was enormous. The Ohlone population (local to the Greater San Francisco Bay Area) dropped from around 30,000 to around 100. There were essentially no Indians left along the coast and something like 150,000 died under Serra's mission system.

The important thing to remember here is that those Indians who escaped this particular brand of enslavement were heathens, doomed to remain outside of god's glory for perpetuity. Those who died and were buried within the mission system, however, were all baptized. This is very important, very special and downright glorious, at least to one particular sect, if not several, of the world's religionists. Accordingly, Junipero Serra was, in time, canonized, and today is his feast day, so party hearty.

On July 1, 1968, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was signed. Why is a mystery. Faith, hope, trust, gullibility? The alleged purposes of the treaty were to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to foster the peaceful use of nuclear technology as well as to bring about nuclear disarmament followed by total disarmament. Specifically, nuke weapons states wouldn't transfer nukes or nuke weapon tech to any non nuke weapons state. Non nuke weapons states wouldn't acquire any nuke weapons or nuke weapon tech. Everybody has a right to peaceful nuke tech and everybody will cooperate in developing and spreading it. Everybody will work in good faith to achieve nuke disarmament and total non-nuke disarmament. Oh, you betcha.

More likely than not, the purpose was to give the nuclear powers a monopoly on nuclear weapons, condemning non-nuclear states to subservience and fear. The reality was that at least 2 of the nuclear states did help some non-nuclear states acquire peaceful nuke technology. But, the US also declared that it would make sure certain countries never got any kind of nuke tech, peaceful or otherwise, and actively worked to that end, As near as I can tell, no nuclear power ever seriously pursued nuclear disarmament. Of course, outright complete disarmament was never even considered by anybody either. Whatta surprise. I mean, 1968, disarmament, really? Bwahahaha.

In addition, it seems that one NATO state sort of spread some nukes around to some other NATO states, but that's not really a surprise either. Some non-nuke weapon states acquired them, too, so the only goal that was remotely met was the transfer of peaceful nuke tech to some non-nuke states, all of whom putatively gave up their right to the only deterrent that might work as to invasion or attack by certain nuke weapon states. Of course, I'm a cynic, I would never shake hands with a known pick-pocket or enter into any kind treaty with either of at least two of the nuke weapons states, let alone both of them.

On this day in history:

1523 - Johann Esch and Heinrich Voes were burned at the stake by the Catholic church for wrong thinking

1690 - The Battle of the Boyne

1766 - Francois-Jean de la Barre was tortured and beheaded for not saluting a Catholic procession

1770 - Lexell's Comet passed closer to earth than any other ever has

1819 - The discovery of the Great Comet of 1819

1858 - Joint reading of Darwin and Wallace's papers to the Linnean Society of London.

1862 - The Russian State Library was founded

1863 - The Battle of Gettysburg started

1867 - The British North America Act of 1867 more or less created Canada

1870 - The United States Department of "Justice" came into being

1874 - The Sholes and Glidden typewriter went on sale, first commercial typewriter

1879 - The first edition of The Watchtower was published

1881 - The first international phone call was made, New Brunswick to Maine

1885 - Leopold II of Belgium created the "Congo Free State"

1898 - The Battle of San Juan Hill

1916 - The first day of the Battle of the Somme

1922 - The Great Railroad Strike of 1922

1931 - Wiley Post and Harold Gatty circumnavigated the globe in a fixed-wing aircraft

1935 - Cops and Mounties ambushed strikers taking part in the On-to-Ottawa Trek.

1946 – The first postwar nuclear weapon test, Crossroads Able, nuked Bikini Atoll

1958 - Flooding of the Saint Lawrence Seaway started

1960 - Somalia became independent

1960 - Ghana became a republic

1962 - Rwanda and Burundi gained independence

1967 - The EU was formally created

1968 – The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was signed

1968 - The CIA's rape, torture, and war crimes project, aka "Phoenix Program" was established

1968 - The UAW broke off from the AFL-CIO

1976 - Portugal granted autonomy to Madeira

1979 - Sony introduced the Walkman.

1991 - The Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved, ending NATO's original purpose *

1997 - China took over Hong Kong

2002 - The ICC was established to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. unless done by the US or its client states.

2020 – The United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement replaced NAFTA.

* NATO, by then unrelated to anybody's defense, not only wasn't disbanded, but continues to expand

Some people who were born on this day:

Nothing is necessitated whose opposite is possible.

~~ Gottfried Leibniz

1586 - Claudio Saracini, lute player and composer
1646 - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, philosopher and mathematician
1725 – Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, general in commnd of some of the French troops sent to assist General Washington at Yorktown
1742 – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, physicist, discovered Lichtenberg figures
1804 - George Sand, author and playwright
1818 – Ignaz Semmelweis, physician and obstetrician
1822 – Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, poet and activist
1850 - Florence Earle Coates, poet
1869 - William Strunk Jr., author and educator, also Strunk of Strunk & White
1872 - Louis Bleriot, pilot and engineer
1899 - Thomas A. Dorsey, pianist and composer
1906 - Jean Dieudonne, mathematician
1912 - David Brower, environmentalist, Sierra Club Foundation founder
1912 - Sally Kirkland, journalist and editor
1915 - Willie Dixon, singer, songwriter, bass player, guitarist, and producer
1915 – Nguyễn Văn Linh, politician, revolutionary, Vietnamese Gorbachev
1921 - Michalina Wislocka, gynecologist and sexologist
1928 - Bobby Day, singer, songwriter, pianist, and producer
1935 - James Cotton, singer, songwriter and harmonica player
1939 - Delaney Bramlett, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1941 - Myron Scholes, economist and bullshitter *
1941 - Twyla Tharp, dancer and choreographer
1945 - Debbie Harry, singer, sonwriter, actress, Blondie
1949 – John Farnham, singer and songwriter
1951 - Anne Feeney, singer, songwriter and activist
1951 - Victor Willis, singer, songwriter, pianist, and actor. Village person
1952 - Dan Aykroyd, actor, numbah one Chips fan
1961 - Michelle Wright, singer, songwriter, and guitarist

* The first well known case of the application of the laws governing the behavior of molecules in a gas to economics; if we all agree to use this value, who cares how we got it.

Some people who died on this day:

When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty........ but
when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is
wrong.

~~ R. Buckminster Fuller

(I'm personally not so sure that ol' Bucky ever got a good look at his Dymaxion Car.
)

1860 – Charles Goodyear, chemist and engineer
1884 - Allan Pinkerton, detective, spy, "abolitionist"*, mercenary and anti-labor thug
1896 - Harriet Beecher Stowe, author and abolitionist
1912 – Harriet Quimby, pilot and screenwriter
1925 – Erik Satie, pianist and composer
1983 - Buckminster Fuller, architect, designer, inventor, futurist and systems analyst
1995 - Wolfman Jack, you know, Wolfman Jack, the DJ
1999 – Sola Sierra, human rights activist
2003 - Herbie Mann, flute and sax player
2005 - Renaldo Benson, singer and songwriter (Four Tops)
2005 - Luther Vandross, singer, songwriter and producer
2012 – Ossie Hibbert, keyboard player and producer

* Acted in support of abolitionists in US but actively worked to suppress them in Spanish Cuba.

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

International Reggae Day
Madeira Day
National Ginger Snap Day
Second Half of the year Day

Today's Tunes

The Watchtower

Madeira Day

Reggae Day

Thomas A. Dorsey

Willie Dixon

Bobby Day

James Cotton

Delaney Bramlett

Debbie Harry

Victor Willis

Dan Aykroyd

Michelle Wright

Erik Satie

Herbie Mann

Renaldo Benson

Ossie Hibbert

I won't be here when this posts

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. So what's on your mind?

Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

Open Thread, Junipero Serra, Willie Dixon, Delaney Bramlett, Bobby Day, James Cotton, Dan Akroyd, Erik Satie