I'm not sure how Bill O'Reilly ever began to fancy himself an historian. Maybe he spent enough time with David Barton to think "well, hell, if this idiot can do it. . ."
At any rate, Bill decided to weigh in on the controversy over celebrating Columbus Day.
Bill O'Reilly: Killing Columbus and never learning your history
Oh, something tells me that title is going to turn out to be pretty ironic!
In Los Angeles County, the holiday of Columbus Day will soon vanish. The Board of Supervisors has replaced it with "Indigenous People's Day."
The reason: Christopher Columbus was "oppressive."
Kind of like the traffic in LA.
Ahahaha! Good one, Bill. Having to sit in traffic is totally like having your hands cut off because some asshole Spanish pirate isn't happy with the ammount of gold you brought him! Hahahaha go to hell.
The hate-Columbus movement is led by a woman named Sheila Kuehl, who once upon a time played Zelda Gilroy in the classic 1960s sitcom Dobie Gillis. It is hard to imagine Zelda, Dobie and their pal Maynard G. Krebs protesting the great explorer back then but, hey, who knows?
Yeah, I don't think anyone is "leading" the "hate Columbus" "movement."
It's like saying someone is leading the "hate Charles Manson movement," or the "hate Harvey Weinstein movement" or the "hate Bill O'Reilly movement." But, putting that aside, what the fuck kind of pop-culture joke are you trying to make about Dovie Gillis and Maynard G. Krebs? You do know a joke has to be funny, right? I know you've spent a lot of time with Dennis Miller, but you can't just toss out a pop-culture reference and act like you're doing comedy. That's his bit.
One thing is for sure, the wave of political correctness that has taken root in America is way beyond "oppressive," but that's another column for another time.
Yeah, I mean, it's getting to where you can't even tell your employees how much you'd like to rub a falafel over their naked bodies without getting into some kind of trouble!
Right now we have to deal with places like Los Angeles County, New York City, Denver and Albuquerque, N.M., disrespecting old Chris and, by extension, many Italian-Americans who celebrate Columbus Day as an ethnic holiday because the explorer was born in Genoa in 1451.
Oh, well in that case, let's all celebrate Hitler! To disrespect Hitler is to disrespect, by extension, many German-Americans!
And let's have a day for Meyer Lansky and Louis Buchalter. If we don't respect these two murderous thugs, we're not respecting the many Jewish-Americans who. . . well you get the point.
For those who admire Christopher Columbus there is a feeling that the PC nitwits know little about him, and that is most likely the case
And a happy opposite day to you too, Mr. O'Reilly!
First of all, "Indigenous People's Day" might sound good on the campus of U.C. Berkeley, but it may be troublesome. Yes, some native tribes were enlightened societies but many were not. After inter-indigenous battles, torture and enslavement were often on the menu for the losers.
Oh my God! Thank the great good lord that that sort of thing didn't happen in enlightened Western European societies!
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(or doesn't still!)
And then there is Columbus himself. I am almost certain that the L.A. Board of Supervisors do not know that Chris never set foot on what is now mainland USA. Nope, the closest Columbus got was Cuba.
EVERYONE KNOWS THAT!
In fact, that's often one of the reasons given for why we shouldn't have Columbus Day
Jeezus, there is nothing worse than a dumb guy getting all smug because he thinks he's smarter than everyone else. It's like when George W. Said something about "people who dis-assemble," then added "that means they don't tell the truth!" Like he was the only one in the room who knows what the word meant, even though he was the one getting it completely wrong. Arrgh! So aggravating!
For the record, Columbus made four voyages across the Atlantic between 1492 and 1504. He was looking for a route to Asia so he could buy spices at a discount or something.
We all know why Columbus sailed. We also all know that he got it wrong, landed in the Caribbean, and thought he was in Indonesia. What a hero!
But Chris kept running into various Caribbean islands, also the formidable obstacles of South and Central America. There was no passage to the Far East, only an endless drifting around.
Now let's all have a fucking parade to celebrate Endless Drifting Around Day!!!
Along the way, Columbus ran into some Indian tribes, most notably the Caribes. They did not like Chris and his malodorous European crews. Strife broke out and some bad stuff went down on both sides.
Seriously? "Both sides?" You're seriously going to trot out "both sides?"
Okay, you're a pretend historian, let's look at the actual historical record.
Here's an entry from Chritopher Columbus's own diary:
This is from a book Columbus wrote about his voyages:They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… . They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… . They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.
They Natives are very gentle and do not know what evil is, nor do they kill others, nor steal, and they are without weapons and so timid that a hundred of them flee from one of our men.
And here is the writing of a Catholic Priest (you're Catholic, you have to believe him) Father Bartolome' de Las Casas:
Endless testimonies . .. prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives…. But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy…
So I don't know where the fuck you're getting this "both sides" bullshit. Also, even if in your shriveled little brain that Columbus and his men were met with violence, bear in mind that THEY WERE AN INVADING ARMY. They should have been met with force. But they weren't.
On the island of Hispaniola, present day Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Columbus did establish slavery to support various laborious enterprises. Not good. Slave labor was common at the time the world over, but that's no excuse.
Okay, there. That's it. We're done. Argument over. Columbus established slavery. That's enough. That's enough of a reason to not celebrate this man.
However, that was a minor part of the "Columbus business," as Hollywood would have put it if they were wooing him for a three-picture deal. Mostly, Columbus was a brilliant navigator who opened up the world for travel. No small achievement.
Oh, fer fuck sake! First of all, stop trying to be funny. You're not funny. You're not clever. You're not witty. Just stop.
Secondly, how brilliant a navigator was he? He sailed West from Spain and eventually ran into a land mass that he had no way of knowing was there. How is that an accomplishment? I mean, if he had found the passage to India he set out to discover, you might have an argument there, but he literally just stumbled into land that he had never intended to arrive on. You're right that it was "no small achievement," it wasn't an achievement at all.
We now live in a time where severely misguided people with little frame of reference are dictating how history should be told and what Americans have a right to see and hear. And if you disagree with them, then you, yourself, are "oppressive." And they'll cover up your statue.
That's what you're doing. You're doing it right now. You're trying to dictate how the story of Columbus should be told. You're doing the exact thing you're complaining about!
Christopher Columbus was not a villain and does not deserve the vilification the PC police are heaping upon him. Every person on the planet has done bad things, but it is the totality of a human being that should be the litmus test.
Oh my God. Are you fucking serious? "Every person has done bad things?" Are you serious? I mean, there's bad things - there's swearing in front of your mom, there's cheating at poker, there's lying to get out of jury duty - and then there's bad things like this:
"The Spaniards forced their way into Native settlements, slaughtering everyone they found there, including small children, old men, pregnant women, and even women who had just given birth. They hacked them to pieces, slicing open their bellies with their swords as though they were so many sheep herded into a pen. They even laid wagers on whether they could manage to slice a man in two at a stroke, or cut an individual?s head from his body, or disembowel him with a single blow of their axes. They grabbed suckling infants by the feet and, ripping them from their mothers breasts, dashed them headlong against the rocks."
--- Pg 15 Bartolome De las Casas
How many good things would you have to do to balance that out? It wouldn't be possible. Jesus Christ and Mother Theresa together couldn't do enough good to counter that horror.
"All those who could do so took to the hills and mountains in order to escape the clutches of these merciless and inhuman butchers, these mortal enemies of human kind trained hunting dogs to track them down. Wild dogs who would savage a Native to death as soon as look at him, tearing him to shreds and devouring his flesh as though we were a pig."
--Pg 16 Bartolome De las Casas
Oh, and if shockingly brutal violence isn't enough, there's also this:
In 1500,A hundred Castellanoes (Spanish Coin) are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general about there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from the ages 9 and 10 are now in demand, and for all ages a good price must be paid.
--Pg 102 Christopher Columbus
Yeah. Selling 9 and 10-year-old girls as sex slaves. That's your "great explorer" in action.
Amd this is how Columbus extorted gold from the native people for his own enrichment:
So, you say Columbus was "not a villain." Let's let someone who was there have the last word:"They tortured him with the strappado, put burning tallow on his belly, pinned both his legs to poles with iron hoops and his neck with another and then, with two men holding his hands, proceeded to burn the soles of his feet. From time to time, the commander would look in and repeat that they would torture him to death slowly unless he produced more Gold."--Pg 117 Bartolome De las Casas
"Such in humanities and Barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel. My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that I now tremble as I write."
--Bartolome De Las Casas
What we committed in the Indies stands out among the most unpardonable offenses ever committed against God and mankind, and this trade as one of the most unjust Evil and cruel among them.
--Pg 31 Bartolome De las Casas.
