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The Great California Genocide

March 31, 2015 by Staff
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Originally published on August 15, 2008

What do you think of when someone says “California”? Beaches? Sunshine? Hollywood?

How about the largest act of genocide in American history?

“The idea, strange as it may appear, never occurred to them (the Indians) that they were suffering for the great cause of civilization, which, in the natural course of things, must exterminate Indians.”
– Special Agent J. Ross Browne, Indian Affairs

California was one of the last areas of the New World to be colonized.

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Genocide in California’s History

July 6, 2020 by Source

Junipero Serra1Originally published on August 15, 2008

by gjohnsit / DailyKos / August 14, 2008

What do you think of when someone says “California”? Beaches? Sunshine? Hollywood?

How about the largest act of genocide in American history?

“The idea, strange as it may appear, never occurred to them (the Indians) that they were suffering for the great cause of civilization, which, in the natural course of things, must exterminate Indians.”
– Special Agent J. Ross Browne, Indian Affairs

California was one of the last areas of the New World to be colonized. It wasn’t until 1769 that the first mission, Mission San Diego de Alcalá, was built.

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The Greatest Generation? Not Who You Think

December 23, 2007 by Staff

By Jim Smith They stopped a war, ended racial segregation, set off an explosion of creativity in arts and music, and changed the world. The World War II generation? Think again. It was the much maligned generation of the 60s that did all this,and more. While we respect the generation of our fathers and grandfathers, […]

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Chula Vista’s Discovery Park to Be Renamed Kumeyaay Park

November 22, 2022 by Frank Gormlie

Three weeks ago, the Chula Vista City Council did something very cool and very historic. On November 2, they unanimously approved the renaming of Discovery Park in the Rancho del Rey Community to Kumeyaay Park of Chula Vista. They said the designation recognizes the Kumeyaay people, who are native to the region with 13 reservations.

A Christopher Columbus statue stood in the park for 30 years but was removed and placed in storage two years ago after repeatedly being targeted by somebody who obviously wasn’t down with the forefather of the genocide of America’s indigenous peoples being displayed in the park.

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May 4, 1970: Kent State Murders 50 Years Ago Today – ‘The Day the World Turned Upside Down’

May 4, 2020 by Frank Gormlie

Fifty years ago exactly, on May 4, 1970, was the day the world turned upside down for an entire American generation of young people. It was the day National Guardsmen on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio aimed their M1 rifles at crowds of unarmed demonstrating college students and fired.

15 students were hit by bullets – four of them died either instantly or within minutes and eleven were wounded, one so badly he was maimed for life.

This day, then, stands out – as Pearl Harbor did for an earlier generation, as 9-11 did for a later generation. It was one thing to protest the Cambodian invasion and the war in Vietnam, it was quite another to be shot to death by American soldiers on an American college campus for protesting the wars.

The date May 4, 1970 will forever be associated with the murders of four young people.

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Luisa Moreno: A Proud San Diego Troublemaker

October 4, 2019 by Staff

By Brett Warnke

In a 1991 article John Celardo writes, “Luisa Moreno sensed the local uneasiness created by [World War II], particularly in San Diego. Housing was in short supply, rations became a nuisance, transportation became a problem, and racial conflicts in the Navy and around San Diego became more intense.”

Luisa Moreno was born and died in Guatemala but spent the 1940s and 1950s as one of San Diego’s tireless and brave local labor organizers. She challenged the bogus tranquility of our quiet little paradise in the sun. She understood the divisions and attempted to forge friendships across the city but, like most greats, she had all the right enemies.

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Leading Civil Rights Lawyer: 20 Ways Trump Is Copying Hitler’s Early Rhetoric and Policies

August 21, 2019 by Source

By Steven Rosenfeld / August 13, 2019

A new book by one of the nation’s foremost civil liberties lawyers powerfully describes how America’s constitutional checks and balances are being pushed to the brink by a president who is consciously following Adolf Hitler’s extremist propaganda and policy template from the early 1930s—when the Nazis took power in Germany.

In When at Times the Mob Is Swayed: A Citizen’s Guide to Defending Our Republic, Burt Neuborne mostly focuses on how America’s constitutional foundation in 2019—an unrepresentative Congress, the Electoral College and a right-wing Supreme Court majority—is not positioned to withstand Trump’s extreme polarization and GOP power grabs.

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News From Ocean Beach and Point Loma – August 2018

August 10, 2018 by Frank Gormlie

Latest Fundraising Numbers in District 2 Race Between Lorie Zapf and Jen Campbell

Here are the latest fundraising data for D2 campaigns: Lorie Zapf and Jen Campbell

Will OB Get Some of Faulconer’s Bike Racks?

Burglars in White Mercedes-Benz Raid OB Garage
An OB man says he was home when

Sea Turtle Returns to Ocean After Rehab at SeaWorld
This is what SeaWorld is good for
County Mental Hospital on Rosecrans Less than 60% at Capacity. Why?

Patients at Point Loma Convalescent Hospital Without Air Conditioning

Is San Diego Working to Fix 100-Year Old Pipes? History of Breaks Over Last 6 Years

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An OBcean’s 2018 Summer Notebook of Teachers, Labor and Travels Across America

July 18, 2018 by Source

By Brett Warnke

As I’m a San Diego teacher and active in my union, in the summer of 2016 I attended a National Education Association (NEA) conference in D.C.

Now two years later, on our heels from a crushing blow to unions by the Supreme Court, I returned to the NEA convention, but this time in the Minneapolis Convention Center.

Teachers are a strange sort in high numbers. Most in attendance are rule-obsessed, earnest, scrupulous, and many enjoy the melodious tones of their own voices.

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Why Does the Colorado River Need to Sue for Its Right to Exist?

September 29, 2017 by Source

View of Dead Horse Point, Colorado River

By Will Falk / San Diego Free Press

On Tuesday, September 26, the Colorado River will sue the State of Colorado in a first-in-the-nation lawsuit requesting that the United States District Court in Denver recognize the river’s rights of nature. These rights include the rights to exist, flourish, regenerate, and naturally evolve. To enforce these rights, the Colorado River will also request that the court grant the river “personhood” and standing to sue in American courts.

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Vatican Approves Serra as Saint Despite Opposition by Native Peoples

May 7, 2015 by Frank Gormlie
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Despite long and continued opposition by native peoples in California, the Vatican is making it official that Junipero Serra will be declared a saint.

Serra of course is the friar that began California’s string of missions, beginning with the one in San Diego.

The process to canonize Serra has taken decades but the current Pope Francis has personally given his weight to the effort, which some call “steamrolling” or “fast-tracking” the process, and now it all seems certain.

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Junipero Serra: Canonizing the Colonizers

January 29, 2015 by Source

By Eric Loomis/ Lawyers, Guns & Money (LGM)

Junípero_Serra_-_MallorcaPope Francis has decided to make Junipero Serra a saint. Serra was a Franciscan in California who founded many of the California missions in the 18th century, effectively making him an agent of colonization as well as a converter of Native Americans to Catholicism.

Building these missions meant forced labor from Native Americans while the conversion process obviously demonstrated a lack of respect for indigenous cultures as well as the compulsion of these conversions. Physical abuse of Native Americans was common, with many recorded beatings and whippings. A lot of indigenous people in California are very upset about the choice to canonize Serra.

Serra is far from the only Catholic saint involved in the colonization process. In Colombia earlier this month, I visited the church dedicated to Pedro Claver, a priest who converted slaves. Being Latin America, his remains are proudly displayed on the church altar.

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