If The U.S. Continues To Creep Toward World War 3, Eventually It Is Going To Happen

 by Michael Snyder

After a bit of a lull for the past couple of months, the march toward war appears to be accelerating once again. On Monday the U.S. military shot down yet another Syrian aircraft, and it appears that President Trump’s patience with North Korea’s nuclear program may have run out. Unlike our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the situations in Syria and North Korea both have the potential of sparking a much wider conflict. If we end up in a war with Syria, it is very likely that we will ultimately be fighting the Russians and the Iranians as well. On the other side of the globe, a war with North Korea could also potentially draw in China. This happened in the first Korean War, and it could easily happen again. It is understandable that the Trump administration wants to be tough with both Syria and North Korea, but we need to be extremely careful about the use of military force because one wrong move could potentially spark World War 3

For the last couple of months, the Trump administration has been relying on China to put pressure on North Korea to end their nuclear weapons program. But now it appears that Trump has given up on that. On Monday, he posted the following message on his Twitter account…

While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out. At least I know China tried!

That certainly sounds quite ominous.

Is he saying that he has completely given up on a diplomatic solution?

And this tweet comes at a time when it is being reported that it looks like North Korea may be preparing for a new underground nuclear test. If North Korea goes through with another nuclear test, it is unclear at this point how the Trump administration will respond. The following comes from CNN…

The officials said it is not yet clear if the activity indicates a sixth nuclear test is imminent, but noted there is concern that North Korea could set off a test during Wednesday’s visit to Washington by top Chinese diplomats and military officials.

US officials have known that the site is ready to conduct an underground test for some time.

Two senior US officials with direct knowledge also told CNN that military options for North Korea have recently been updated, and will be presented to President Donald Trump for a decision to act if there is a nuclear test.

A military strike on North Korea would likely be completely disastrous. The North Koreans reportedly have quite a few nukes, and even if we somehow located and destroyed every single one of them before they could launch any, the North Koreans would still be able to respond with their vast stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. For much more on why a direct strike on North Korea would not end well, please see my previous articles here and here.

Meanwhile, we continue to get closer to war over in Syria as well. On Monday, yet another Syrian aircraft was shot down by the U.S. military…

A US F-15E fighter jet shot down a pro-Syrian regime drone near At Tanf, Syria, on Monday, two US officials told CNN, the third downing of a pro-regime aircraft this month.

The US-led international coalition later confirmed the incident in a statement, saying the armed drone was downed “after it displayed hostile intent and advanced on Coalition forces” that “were manning an established combat outpost to the northeast of At Tanf where they are training and advising partner ground forces in the fight against ISIS.”

If we continue to shoot down Syrian aircraft, eventually there is going to be a response. And once a conflict erupts, we could easily find ourselves engaged with the Russian military.

At this point there is absolutely no reason for us to be in Syria. ISIS forces are on their last legs, and we could easily let Russia and Iran finish them off.

By sticking around in Syria, we are playing a very dangerous game. According to Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, if we allow things to continue to escalate we could easily find ourselves involved in a full-blown regional war…

According to Fox News, this is the second time the US has shot down an Iranian drone in less than a month. It also marks the fifth time since late May the U.S. military has bombed pro-Syrian forces in southern Syria.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy described the attack as “a dangerous escalation” of tensions between the US and the main backers of the Syrian regime, Russia and Iran.

Murphy told CNN that if the US doesn’t stop the attacks, the situation could escalate into an armed conflict between the two sides, who both claim to be fighting ISIS.

We haven’t seen things this tense between the United States and Russia since the height of the Cold War. Anti-Russian hysteria in Washington is completely out of control, and the Russians are certainly not helping things either. For example, according to Fox News a Russian Su-27 came “within 5 feet” of an American recon plane over the Baltic Sea on Monday…

more…

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/if-the-u-s-continues-to-creep-toward-world-war-3-eventually-it-is-going-to-happen

WIKK WEB GURU

FEMA Is Preparing For A Solar Storm That Would Take Out The Grid

Noting that the rare, yet “high-consequence” scenario has “the potential for catastrophic impact on our nation and FEMA’s ability to respond.”

by Tyler Durden

FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration) is planning for a massive solar storm that would be so strong, it would take down the power grid.

Authored by Maco Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

According to unpublished FEMA documents obtained by Government Attic, a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) database and non-profit organization, the Department of Homeland Security agency once mapped out a disaster plan for the occurrence of another geomagnetic “super storm” like the one the occurred in 1859.

Back then, the sun flung a giant plume of magnetized plasma out into space. The coronal mass ejection (CME), the sibling of a massive solar flare, traveled the 93 million miles between the Sun and Earth in only 17.6 hours. Today, it’s known as the Carrington Event and is remembered by the largest geomagnetic storm in the history of recorded space weather.

No other storm has matched it in speed or magnitude. When the shock wave of accelerated particles arrived on September 1, 1859, the disturbances to Earth’s magnetosphere were so great that telegraph communications across Europe and North America went on the fritz. Sparks leaped from the telegraph infrastructure, and machinery was so inundated with electric currents that operators were able to transmit messages while disconnected from battery power. Compasses even wiggled, and brilliant auroras were reportedly seen as far south as the Caribbean.

But that doesn’t mean the ill-equipped government isn’t preparing for the inevitability, in fact, they are. Despite our superior ability to predict these events, the stakes are exponentially higher in a modern, hyper-connected world.  FEMA predicts that a geomagnetic storm of this intensity would be “a catastrophe in slow motion.” Space weather events happen all the time, and many are harmless. For example, an event causing radio blackouts, solar radiation storms, and geomagnetic storms would be abnormal, yet the ripple effects on the power grid and communications would severely limit FEMA’s ability to respond to a nationwide crisis.

Within 20 minutes of the CME’s occurrence, FEMA estimates that 15 percent of the satellite fleet would be lost due to solar panel damage.

Solar radiation from the incoming storm would add “3-5 years worth of exposure” to the panels, degrading older satellites to the point of inoperability.

Low orbiting satellites, such as Iridium and Globalstar, may be less affected. Cellular service would be disrupted, and a loss of GPS capabilities could complicate FEMA operations.

–Motherboard

Should a storm of this magnitude hit, there wouldn’t be much the government can do. And of course, this would be the perfect opportunity to round up the masses for a trip to a FEMA camp. Individuals would need to band together to help get things back online, but it would all take time.  Those in heavily populated regions would be hit the hardest and evacuation of over 100 million people would be impossible, and even if it was, there would be no unaffected region to send the evacuees – other than the FEMA camps.

Prepare yourself, because the mere fact that this government document exists could mean that there is something we don’t know.

 

 http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-22/fema-preparing-solar-storm-would-take-out-grid

WIKK WEB GURU

How the Diamond Industry Scammed Us Into Spending Two Months’ Salary on an Engagement Ring

by John McDermott

I was recently shocked to learn one of my friends spent two months’ salary (“three months, post-tax”) on a diamond engagement ring for his fiancée. Not that the practice is unusual. It’s the cultural norm, especially among our immediate group of friends, all of whom threw down (at least) two months’ salary on a rock for their fiancées/wives.

But I was surprised about this friend in particular. I’ve always known him to be a defiant anti-conformist. He spent the better part of our college years railing about “The Man” and consumer culture, and openly wondering whether our perceived reality was really just a computer simulation. Not the type of guy who worries about keeping up with the Joneses.

Yet even he succumbed to convention and engaged in our culture’s most fraudulent “tradition.”

I don’t use fraudulent ironically here. I mean the engagement ring ritual is literally fabricated. It was invented in the 1940s as part of a marketing campaign by De Beers to sell diamonds to America’s emerging middle class, and it’s rooted in some of the most shameful elements of human history, including colonialism, misogyny and crass consumerism.

But the engagement ring not only persists today, it thrives. There it is, staring at us in the face every time we open Instagram or Facebook:

https://melmagazine.com/media/5b27aa3c9ca6a071e45c02d8719c6216?postId=209138aac5f8

 

Even today—with fewer young people getting married, and their economic futures never more uncertain—the engagement ring and its corresponding two-months’ salary rule remain among the most cherished and steadfast of cultural practices.

“There have been customs of ring-giving in Western cultures for centuries,” says Moira Weigel, author of Labor of Love, a book about the history of dating and courtship. Shakespeare makes frequent reference to rings as a symbol for love and marriage in his plays. In As You Like It, he writes, “Springtime, the only pretty ring time,” an apparent reference to spring fever, and the romance that fills the air as the world thaws from winter.

“But the specific custom of giving a diamond ring is more recent,” Weigel continues. Specifically, it dates back to colonial Britain and first entered the public consciousness in 1840, when Queen Victoria received an emerald engagement ring in the shape of a serpent.

Queen Victoria made diamond rings fashionable, Weigel says, but the trend didn’t gain traction until the latter half of the 19th century, during Britain’s colonization of South Africa and the discovery of massive diamond mines in the region. That led to the creation of De Beers Consolidated Mines in 1888, which more or less operated as a cartel over the next few decades, controlling every aspect of the diamond trade.

When De Beers wasn’t busy controlling supply and giving the false impression its diamonds were scarce, it manipulated demand, convincing the American public that a diamond ring was a necessary part of the marriage process.

In 1938, De Beers hired N.W. Ayer & Son, a New York-based ad agency, “to persuade young men that diamonds (and only diamonds) were synonymous with romance, and that the measure of a man’s love (and even his personal and professional success) was directly proportional to the size and quality of the diamond he purchased,” Uri Friedman writes in The Atlantic.

Ayer’s plan included putting diamond engagement rings on famous actresses and socialites (and then tipping the press about it), and having lecturers visit high schools and indoctrinate American children about the significance of the engagement ring. It was also an Ayer copywriter who thought up the tagline, “Diamonds Are Forever,” which endures today….

more…

https://melmagazine.com/how-the-diamond-industry-scammed-us-into-spending-two-months-salary-on-an-engagement-ring-209138aac5f8

WIKK WEB GURU

TOP 7 PIECES OF MODERN DAY GEOPOLITICAL PROPAGANDA

by Makia Freeman, Contributor, Waking Times

Modern day propaganda is all around us. However, people have usually become so numb to it that they can no longer perceive it. Many people choose ignorance, complacency or apathy to deal with it. Often you can observe groups developing societal Stockholm Syndrome, where they praise they captors out of a forlorn hope that by doing so that may somehow change things or alleviate the pain.

The control system uses all of its tentacles to keep people conditioned to a more a sheeplike and unconscious state. It is the politician’s job to lie, the MSM (mainstream media’s) job to program you and Big Pharma’s job to keep you sedated with synthetic petrochemical drugs. It is a constant battle to broaden your awareness, uplift your consciousness and expand your perception in the face of these forces which seek to imprison humanity in a limited perception of Who We Are, who’s running the world, how they’re doing it and how we can change it. Propaganda does not just belong to Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. Modern day propaganda is everywhere; sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, always pervasive.

With that in mind, here is a collection of the top 7 pieces of modern day propaganda, part 1 of a series.

Modern Day Propaganda in Geopolitics

1. The Syrian War is a civil war. False. The Syrian War has never been a civil war; it’s a proxy war fought by foreign fighters with foreign aid. It has become an open secret that the US-UK-Israeli axis, along with the Saudis, have either created or are funding ISIS (or both). Evidence keeps coming to light showing that Israel is paying Syrian rebels and that ISIS gets their weaponry and Toyota trucks from the US. Many “rebels” fighting the Syrian Government of Bashar Al Assad are not even Syrian. Remember Obama’s freudian slip that “we’re training ISIL”?

2. The US is fighting ISIS in Syria. False. ISIS (aka Daesh, ISIL, IS) is the pet Frankenstein of the Anglo-American-Zionsit NWO and is a US-Israeli creation. The US has no real interest in defeating ISIS – at least not until ISIS has caused the maximum amount of chaos designed to unseat legitimate governments and facilitate regime change. The real target has always been Assad (then Iran, then Russia and China). There is copious evidence for this; 2 quick examples are the incessant mantra a few years ago that “Assad must go” (until the NWO controllers realized Assad was strong enough to defend himself and his nation) and the recent shooting down by the US Coalition of an SAA (Syrian Arab Army) jet.

3. All the refugees flowing into Europe are genuine refugees. False. Some (or many, depending on your perspective) refugees are economic migrants. They are being helped by a network of NGOs (e.g. those funded by George Soros) who have an entire system of transporting migrants from Libya to Italy for money. It’s people smuggling / human trafficking. For the background to this and further analysis, see the article Mass Migration to Europe: All in Line with the New World Order.

4. US military intervention abroad makes us safer. What a load of nonsense! When he ran for US president in 2012, Ron Paul made a point of emphasizing the concept of blowback (which the CIA had written about) in some of his speeches. UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn recently had the courage to state the obvious in Britain: “Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries, such as Libya, and terrorism here at home”. When a poorer and less militarily developed nation is picked on and attacked by a rich bully nation, the former is likely to harbor resentment and a desire to retaliate in the future. many North Koreans still hate the US for carpet bombing into oblivion after WW2. Therefore, Western foreign meddling, assassination and invasion has made America the new “Satan” and enemy #1 for many people around the world, and has become one of the motivations for attacks on England, France and Germany. Thus, the US is far more likely to be attacked than if it had not intervened.

5. Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Flat out false. While Iran may support Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran has nothing on Saudi Arabia, who funds a pervasive network of extremist Wahhabi Islam schools (madrases) worldwide. It is utterly ridiculous and beyond hypocritical that Saudi Arabia now accuses Qatar of terrorism. Israel has also been behind many so-called “Muslim” and “Arab” terror incidents. Israel and Saudi Arabia now form a dark alliance – with the assistance of the US Empire, the biggest purveyor of war (and terrorism through funding it) the world has ever known. The US Government learnt its tricks from the UK Government, both of which have been tools in the hands of the New World Order. The US alternatively backs and then disowns “terrorists” or local fighters in certain areas (e.g. Central America or the Middle East) as the NWO agenda dictates. Once a group has outlived its usefulness, the nomenclature changes from “freedom fighters / liberators” to “enemy combatants / terrorists”….

more…

About the Author

Makia Freeman is the editor of The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com (FaceBook here), writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwide conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance

**Sources embedded throughout article.

This article (Top 7 Pieces of Modern Day Geopolitical Propaganda) was originally created and published by The Freedom Articles and is re-posted here with permission. 

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2017/06/21/top-7-pieces-modern-day-geopolitical-propaganda/

WIKK WEB GURU

Were ETs involved in 911 ?

Was the attack on the US inspired by ETs?

Were the Twin Trade Towers turned to dust by super high-tech Alien ET technology?

by  Preston James

There have been reports from low to mid level insiders that ETs may have been involved in the attack on America on 9-11-01.

But no concrete smoking gun admissions with teeth or any serious credible evidence has been presented to back this up.

Such an hypothesis of ET involvement is impossible to prove at this point but there are some indications pointing in that direction at least concerning the use of advanced super high-tech weaponry needed to turn the twin towers to fine dust.

The apparent use of the realistic 3D Holographs with loud actual sounds for the two aircraft images which appeared to fly into then hitting the towers one at a time however, is a technology that we know does exist right now and can be activated from three transmission points.

One thing we do know for certain now is that pre-planted nukes were used in the Twin Trade Towers.

A great deal of accurate information has already been supplied in numerous VT articles by Gordon Duff and Jeff Smith, both who have extensive knowledge of fission and fusion fingerprints and nuclear flash pixilation effects on video cameras.

We can now say without question that nukes were deployed in the Twin Towers based on the nuclear fingerprints available from samples taken afterwards and the effects on the foundation which was turned instantly to red hot lava taking many days to cool.

But there is also extensive other non-disclosed Intel which includes the classified Able Danger investigation and the frozen grand jury in Texas concerning all this (which if ever was made public would bring down much of the DC Cabal).

We know that at a minimum there was at least three sets of pre-planted bombs used in each building. The first one detonated was in the basement and was deployed to blow out the sprinkler systems and perhaps even to weaken the structure.

This first basement device could have been a small nuke or could have been conventional high explosives.

But there had to be a second bomb in each building detonated to create the fake aircraft impact sites. This was likely a number of conventional high explosives.

We know for a fact that the passenger jets which were claimed to have hit the buildings did not because they were still flying and in service afterwards according to now released FAA documents.

Are New Yorkers keeping quiet about what they have known for 16 years?

These so-called aircraft that hit the buildings were creations of super sophisticated 3D Holograph technology.

Professor Jim Fetzer has made a strong case for this for several years.

And we know that there had to have been a very powerful third bomb set pre-planted that was some kind of nuke because of the way that the Twin Trade Towers were instantly turned to dust.

This instant conversion to dust started at the top and moved progressively downward at the normal speed of a free-falling object for each of the Twin Trade Towers. Therefore, it has always been my contention that small multiple nukes were also used in the elevator shafts about every ten stories, detonating the higher ones first and then proceeding downward at the approximate rate of a free-falling rock.

The elevator company (now out of business) which ran long term elevator maintenance projects in each building could have easily provided a cover story and the opportunity for a special ops contractor to plant micro nukes inside the elevator shafts, one about every ten stories or so.

Dr. Ed Ward proposed that Lithium 7 based nukes could have been used in the Twin Trade Towers. His work is worth looking at. I have always thought that it was the deployment of the new super high-tech miniature positron anti-matter devices. If so these are likely Alien ET supplied technology.

Tribute to 9-11 responders

 

 

Were very small positron anti-matter nukes deployed as matchbox-sized devices in the elevator shafts?

The available public science right now says that positron “anti-matter” nukes have not yet been developed, but I believe they have and their development and deployment is protected by many layers of secrecy.

Positron nukes can be made to produce a flash of anti-matter which will implode with tremendous energy and give off a wave of instant molecular re-arrangement of up to a few hundred feet in all directions. It would allow great explosive power with a very small footprint.

It could also have turned the Twin Trade Towers to a fine dust. Some small low temperature fires caused by jet fuel could never have done this, nor could the pre-planting of even many tons of thermite or thermate either. It had to be some type of high tech nuclear device in each of the Twin Trade Towers to dustify them.

If nukes were pre-planted every ten stories or so in each of the Twin Towers they would have to have been quite small, perhaps shoe box sized or even less, maybe matchbox sized. They would have to have been remotely detonatable in sequence from the top down.

Some have claimed advanced spaced-based Tesla-type frequency weaponry was used to turn the towers to dust and that would explain the top down dustification process. This is possible but to me improbable.

We know that black X-ray Laser weapons have already been developed and tested that can shoot down aircraft. Some claim these were gained from the existing treaties and with Alien ETs and their associated technology for human exchange programs. In my view it seems doubtful that enough energy could be manifest from such weaponry in such a short time and so well focused from a high orbital location.

VT’s Fort Lee, NJ blockbuster story from the Able Danger NY team is still blacked out in US media

Normally in any major operation like 9-11-01, numerous new technologies are deployed as experiments to see how they work in real life situations, but every main function has at least one back up to protect against failure of the mission.

So my view is that it is possible that numerous super high-tech weapon systems were deployed on 9-11-01 including: convention explosives or conventional mini-nukes in the basements of the Twin Trade Towers; conventional explosives at the 3D Holograph aircraft image hit sites; and then very small, incredibly powerful, state-of-the-art micro-nukes (likely Positron anti-matter matchbox sized bombs) every ten floors in the elevator shafts.

If the now-frozen grand Jury in Texas is ever unfrozen and does its job making indictments of the high USG and foreign officials involved in 9-11-01, we will finally find out what was the now highly classified information the Able Danger team knew before 9-11-01, and what the AEC investigators learned after that terrible day when America was attacked.

In the meantime, we have the exclusive and very revealing VT Fort Lee articles by Gordon Duff on the satellite and ground Intel of the safe houses where the nukes were stored, where they were stolen from and by whom.

Was the 9-11-01 attack on America directed by an evil Alien ET group?

And has this evil Alien ET group interfaced with humanity for hundreds of years and hijacked whole governments to serve their secret agenda in an age old battle between good and evil, light and darkness?

We know that the there are good insider and Intel reports that the governments of the USA, Russian and China have consorted with Alien ET groups, made treaties and have gained high technology in exchange for use of human subjects and human genetic material…

more…

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/06/11/were-ets-involved-in-911/

WIKK WEB GURU

 

VETERAN GREEN BERET AND SPECIAL OPS SOLDIERS ADMIT U.S. TRAINS OUR ENEMIES IN SYRIA

by Isaac Davis, Staff Writer Waking Times 

The fog of war is increasingly dense and at the center of the global war of terror, Syria, the confusion over who’s who and who’s on whose side is intentionally obfuscated by the corporate media who distracts the public with nonsense while the conflict in the Middle East escalates.

On the ground, however, the truth is no longer something that can be ignored by even the finest of American soldiers who are in the awkward position of having to train foreign fighters who are obviously coordinating with our supposed enemies, ISIS and other factions of jihadists.

Eight year Army Special Operations veteran turned journalist Jack Murphy recently penned an article titled, US Special Forces sabotage White House policy gone disastrously wrong with covert ops in Syria. The thrust of this piece is that it is impossible for American forces to tell who they are training and against whom the tactics and skills they are teaching will be applied.

Murphy, quoting an unidentified Green Beret soldier:

“Nobody believes in it. You’re like, ‘Fuck this,’” a former Green Beret says of America’s covert and clandestine programs to train and arm Syrian militias. “Everyone on the ground knows they are jihadis. No one on the ground believes in this mission or this effort, and they know they are just training the next generation of jihadis, so they are sabotaging it by saying, ‘Fuck it, who cares?’”

 

“I don’t want to be responsible for Nusra guys saying they were trained by Americans,” the Green Beret added. A second Special Forces soldier commented that one Syrian militia they had trained recently crossed the border from Jordan on what had been pitched as a large-scale shaping operation that would change the course of the war. Watching the battle on a monitor while a drone flew overhead, “We literally watched them, with 30 guys in their force, run away from three or four ISIS guys.” [Source]

He goes on to explain how Syrian fighters under the guidance of U.S. forces are also working for ISIS and other combatant groups, and how this detail is being willfully overlooked or covered-up.

While the press has reported extensively on the over 100 armed groups within Syria vying for control, and the occasional report comes out about U.S. special operations troops in Syria and wasteful spending on covert action programs, the wider story about the U.S. Special Forces arming Syrian anti-ISIS forces while the CIA conducts a parallel program to arm anti-Assad regime forces has yet to be told—until now. It is a story of fraud, waste, and abuse, as well as bureaucratic infighting and a disgusting excess, which has only contributed to perpetuating the Syrian conflict.” [Source]

These statements sum up the frustration that our military personnel are experiencing in Syria, while also justifying the frustrations that an increasingly informed and concerned public have with a government who is clearly playing all sides of this conflict against the genuine interests of the American people.

Final Thoughts

As the U.S. engages the Syrian armed forces pushing us ever closer to a wider conflict with Russia, the truth about who’s who on the battlefields is being ignored and covered up by the mainstream media. In reality, the U.S. is colluding with our supposed enemies in the war-torn country, while at home terror attacks are becoming normalized. Total insanity that will lead to a major global war if unchecked.

About the Author

Isaac Davis is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com and OffgridOutpost.com Survival Tips blog. He is an outspoken advocate of liberty and of a voluntary society. He is an avid reader of history and passionate about becoming self-sufficient to break free of the control matrix. Follow him on Facebook, here.

This article (Veteran Green Beret and Special Ops Soldiers Admit U.S. Trains Our Enemies in Syria) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Isaac Davis and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2017/06/09/veteran-green-beret-special-ops-soldiers-acknowledge-u-s-trains-enemies-syria/

WIKK WEB GURU

The scalp from Sand Creek

 A rare eye-witness depiction of the Sand Creek attack by the Cheyenne warrior-artist Howling Wolf. Photo courtesy Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio. Gift of Mrs. Jacob D. Cox, 1904.

Even after museums return human remains pillaged from a massacre in 1864, can repatriation heal the wounds of history?

by Chip Colwell is editor-in-chief of SAPIENS and curator of anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. His latest book is Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture (2017). He lives in Denver, Colorado.

On the morning of 29 November 1864, nearly 700 United States soldiers charged towards a village along a gentle bend at Sand Creek, in Colorado Territory. Settled in peace for the winter, there were dozens of Cheyenne and Arapaho families there. Within hours, the soldiers killed more than 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho – mostly women, children and the elderly. Over the next day, the soldiers pillaged the dead for trophies – including ears, fingers, genitalia and scalps. These body parts were taken to Denver, where soldiers paraded them in the streets and displayed them in homes. Most of the pilfered human remains were lost to time. A handful would survive as artefacts in museums and private collections.

The Sand Creek Massacre took place more than 150 years ago. Yet, it has not yet ended. This crime of American expansionism has continued to reverberate through the generations. The original war over land and dominance has transformed into a battle over memory and emancipation. The demand for the return of ancestral human remains from museums is perhaps the most visible – and tangible – struggle for Native America’s cultural survival. Repatriation asks us to consider whether we can ever fully come to terms with the past.

In 2008, descendants of the Cheyenne and Arapaho victims gathered at the newly established Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in southeastern Colorado. At a specially designated area not far from Sand Creek, religious leaders buried the remains of six victims – one scalp from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, one scalp from the Colorado Historical Society (now History Colorado), a cranial fragment from the University of Nebraska, and three sets of remains from a private collection.

‘A Cheyenne elder told us our nations couldn’t heal and couldn’t regain our strength and we as individuals couldn’t heal,’ Suzan Shown Harjo, a leader of the repatriation movement of Cheyenne and Muskogee descent, once said, ‘until we recovered our dead relatives from these places.’

But did the return of the victims’ remains quiet the phantoms of the past? Can repatriation heal the wounds of history?

epatriation’ is derived from the Latin repatriatum, meaning something that has gone home again. In the past several decades, repatriation has become a global controversy as communities and nations struggle to reclaim their stolen heritage from museums and private collections. In the US, hundreds of Native American tribes have negotiated with some 1,000 museums and agencies over the future of more than 200,000 Native American skeletons, and 1 million grave goods and sacred objects…

more…

https://aeon.co/essays/does-returning-artefacts-help-to-heal-the-scars-of-conquest

WIKK WEB GURU