Obama's Inaugural address honors settlers, snubs Native Americans

In his Inaugural address, Barrack Obama gave homage to those who "Settled the West" saying they did it "for us." SETTLED THE WEST??? These words glorify those who used bloodshed and terror to force Native American people off the land so it would be open to settlement!

Those who "settled the West" ought to be remembered in the same light as those Israeli settlers who build new settlements in the West Bank of Occcupied Palestine!

Never forget-like the Israeli settlers, the settlers in the "US" West used the full force and fury of the military to take the land they wanted. Even biological weapons in the form of smallpox-infected blankets were used. This was especially infamous in the case of the distribution of smallpox blankets to the Cheyenne, in an effort to exterminate them.

Ask any Palestinian-or any Native American-what it is like to live under settlement. Ask what it is like to have your home bulldozed or burned for the benefit of the settlers on the hill.

Hopefully these words were an accident created by a careless speechwriter. Barrack Obama was adopted into a Crow family last May during his outreach to Native Americans. Obama's Inaugural address honors settlers, snubs Native AmericansWe will know for sure when we see his policies on protection of Native American lands-and especially sacred sites-from destruction in the name of things like oil, gas, coal, and uranium mining.

Here is the context of the offending words Obama's speech. The offending words are capitalized in the third paragraph:

"Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and SETTLED THE WEST; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn. Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction."

Mr Obama, You can do better than that-yes we can!"