Category Archives: History

Babies For Sale: Abortion Bans Fueled by Groups That Profit From Human Trafficking

One writer in 2021 framed the danger of “pro-life” human trafficking groups as a lesson from U.S. history.

We’ve been here before, of course—most recently in the decades from 1945 to 1973, now known as the “Baby Scoop” era, when more than 1.5 million pregnant girls and women in the U.S. were sent away to maternity homes to surrender children in secret. By the 1960s, more than 200 homes for unmarried pregnant women were operating across 44 states. Parents, often counseled by religious leaders, sent their daughters away to these homes to wait out their pregnancies and relinquish their babies…

While this discription seems like a massive operation, it still stands as an understatement of the horrible system that has been destroying life globally.

Ireland, for just one example, reports that money spent by U.S. families to steal babies from mothers in a state sanctioned practice is so high as to be incalculable.

The National Archives of Ireland contain just a few snippets, but they are enough to make clear that State officials in 1950s Ireland knew the country was a centre for illegal international baby trafficking. The number of children involved can’t even be guessed at, but we can be sure they were all “illegitimate”.

Ireland was regarded as a “hunting ground”, in the words of a senior civil servant, where foreigners in search of babies could easily obtain illegitimate children from mother-and-baby homes and private nursing homes, then remove them from the State without any formalities.

There were both legal and illegal adoptions. During the 1950s up to 15 per cent of all illegitimate Irish children born in mother-and-baby homes each year were taken to the United States with the full knowledge of the State. In total more than 2,000 illegitimate children were removed from the country in this way. Most were adopted by wealthy American Catholics.

And then looking at Canada the reports seem even worse, allegedly stealing children from mothers to change identities in a destructive tragic loop of anti-abortion lobbying.

Indigenous people who were “scooped” up from their families as children during the 1960s through the 1980s and placed with non-Native families in a massive foster care program dubbed the Sixties Scoop are suing for loss of cultural heritage and family ties.

It was kidnapping, taking children as hostages, to be honest.

Sixties Scoop: ‘They just wanted to remove an Indian child into a white home’

Did you realize anti-abortion groups were behind this?

The state-run system of human trafficking even caused horrific deaths, which were covered up with secret mass graves.

Reports of such remains began in May 2021, when an Indigenous community in British Columbia announced that it had located what it said appeared to be 215 unmarked graves of former pupils at the now-closed Kamloops Indian Residential School in the province. The revelations have been seen as further proof of the brutality of a now-defunct system of education for Indigenous children that a national commission declared a form of “cultural genocide.”

The educational system included about 130 largely church-run schools set up by the Canadian government in the 19th century, and lasted until the 1990s. It took Indigenous children from their communities, sometimes by force, and barred the use of their languages and cultural practices, sometimes violently. Thousands of students are believed to have died at the schools from disease, malnutrition, neglect, accidents, fires and violence.

An apology for the anti-abortion lobby serving as a funnel into human rights abuses, including torture and death, did not materialize until 2022.

“Sadly, it took the discovery of mass graves and the realization of murder, rape, and enslavement to trigger a response from the Vatican,” the head of Canada’s Survival Network for Those Abused By Priests, known as SNAP, Brenda Brunelle said in a statement to The Daily Beast.

To be clear, the Catholic church used to support women in their right to choose and to get an abortion. What changed?

Historians point out that 150 years ago, in the wake of the Civil War end to American slavery (end to state sanctioned profits from human trafficking), power struggles erupted over controlling written speech.

The Catholic Church once allowed for abortions. Everything changed in 1873. Until the 1880s, abortions were morally acceptable and legal, with even the Catholic Church approving of the procedure before ‘quickening.’ Historians say the desire to ban the procedure had more to do with business than women’s health.

1871 and 1872 were notable because the federal government crushed the first wave of the KKK. And then…

Abortion suddenly was denounced as being “obscene,” resulting in targeted suppression of discussion about women’s bodies. This censorship was utilized in campaigns advocating for forced births, with the aim of either facilitating adoption by white families to bolster their vote numbers or enabling an early demise of unwanted children, particularly non-whites targeted by a human trafficking system orchestrated by white men.

Policies directed at state control over women’s political agency were deceptively branded as “anti-obscenity” measures in order to justify eroding privacy, even regarding the most intimate thoughts and experiences.

Consequently, the right to privacy re-emerged as a vital element in the 1960s discourse on reproductive rights, especially given the inherently repressive and degrading nature of the pro-life movement that carried a sordid history of buying, killing and burying children.

If this all sounds familiar, that might be because Elon Musk, known for his outspoken ignorant views on population growth and birth rates, is no stranger to being on the wrong side of history while provoking this exact controversy.

He literally says more babies must be generated as quickly as possible to prevent dangerous population decline, while warning non-white population growth is a threat … to voting.

It’s worth noting that his grandfather fled Canada after being convicted as a national security risk, highlighting their connections to misogynist extremism, including present-day associations with Nazism. Musk’s resulting regressive stance on reproductive rights, as highlighted by the U.S. Government in December 2023, appears to be driven by his racist ideology and the aim of shaping power through a population that aligns with twisted notions of forced births and racial purity, as discussed in a recent interview.

Musk, who himself is a father to nine children, has long shared his ideas of procreation and population decline posing a threat to civilisation. Last year, the billionaire tweeted that “population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilisation than global warming.” In July 2022, Musk echoed a similar sentiment about declining birth rates after news broke that he secretly fathered secret twins with Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis. “Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far,” he tweeted, making light of the reports. “I hope you have big families and congrats to those who already do!”

Related: 2019 Acting Attorney General assassinated by U.S. slave traders.

History and Mystery of the Wampus Cat

Source: “Myths of the Cherokee” by James Mooney, 1902

No, I’m not talking about cat-a-wampus.

…a noun from 1843, as a name for an imaginary hobgoblin or fright, perhaps from influence of catamount… 1660s as a shortening of cat-o’-mountain (1610s), from cat of the mountain (mid-15c.), a name aplied to various large wild cats of the Old World. From 1794 in reference to the lynx, puma, or cougar of the United States and Canada.

And regardless of 1917 dialect notes trying to confuse things even further, I’m talking about the legend of the Wampus Cat, allegedly from the Cherokee Nation.

Cherokee culture is rich and diverse, and interpretations of their legends may vary among different individuals and communities within the Cherokee Nation.

Among the Cherokee people, one finds striking examples of the high status afforded to women in their society. The legend of Running Deer illustrates the strength, courage and vital roles Cherokee women embodied.

Let me begin by clarifying that Running Deer should not be confused with the spiritual figure Nunnehi, or Deer Woman. Some have mistakenly conflated names and legends in America, perhaps due to oversimplified depictions in mid-20th century popular culture. We must be careful not to allow such misconceptions to proliferate.

The story tells of how the malicious spirit Ew’ah, embodying madness and despair, threatened the well being of the Cherokee community. Running Deer arose as the champion to confront this dark force, driven by her desire to protect her people, including her husband who had fallen under Ew’ah’s torment. Her quest transcended mere vengeance – it highlighted the equal standing of Cherokee women as leaders, hunters and guardians alongside men.

Descending from a lineage of powerful female spirit-talkers, Running Deer harnessed not just physical fortitude, but the ancestral wisdom and fierceness symbolized by the mountain cat. She crafted a panther mask, invoking that wild spirit energy as she purposefully entered Ew’ah’s dark realm. In an epic battle echoing through the ancient forests, Running Deer’s cunning and bravery overcame the spirit’s maddening influence, until Ew’ah was vanquished by his own unhinged rage.

Through this heroic victory, Running Deer exemplified the steadfast spirit embodied by Cherokee women. As both spirit-talker and protector of the home, her essence became eternally intertwined with the legendary Wampus cat – a prowling guardian fending off threats to Cherokee lands. Her transformation into this symbolic form represented an integration of her civilized and primal aspects required to face such daunting challenges.

For the Cherokee, this legend celebrates the multifaceted strengths and wisdom that women contributed to the tribe’s survival – nurturing life forces as vital as successful hunting. Her tale has been passed down over generations as a source of empowerment and balance between the civilized and the untamed.

As historians, we must appreciate how such narratives, when interpreted through a systemic perspective, reveal profound truths about a culture’s values and societal organization. The Wampus cat illuminates the revered position of Cherokee women as respected equals to men in both spiritual and physical realms.

It serves as a powerful symbolic model for gender equality.

Courts Block Elon Musk’s Punitive Censorship of His Critics

As if it wasn’t obvious enough to everyone in the world, the courts have ruled. Elon Musk uses his ill-gotten gains to punish speech and censor critics.

“Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation,” wrote District Judge Charles Breyer, of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, in the order’s opening lines. “Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose.”

“This case represents the latter circumstance,” Breyer continued. “This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech.”

[Elon Musk] “wishes to have it both ways,” trying to impose “punishing damages” on CCDH but without having to clear the high bar of a defamation suit.

See also: strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP).

…lawsuits meant to censor, intimidate, or silence critics by saddling them with legal defense costs until they drop their criticism.

Since taking over… Musk has allowed Nazis and the Taliban on Twitter—and even verified them. He also has done nothing to rein in antisemitic and transphobic speech on the platform. If anything, he’s one of the main sources of it.

Nazis and Taliban were welcomed, while antisemitic, racist, transphobic, mysogynist attacks were promoted via robots as if by design.

Then Elon Musk tried to censor prominent researchers who exposed the obvious hate rally.

If anything, America should (in these troubled times of Twitter and Palantir attempting extrajudicial control over society) acknowledge a significance of the 1837 murder of Lovejoy. A man was attacked by white supremacist mobs, who murdered him and destroyed his printing press, because he dared to report on their threats to democracy.

Related: Boeing is alleged to have assassinated a prominent whistleblower.

Also related: Russian leaders continue falling to their death

Trump Invokes 1868 Seymour Presidential Campaign KKK Tactics With “Bloodbath” Threat to America

The threat of a “bloodbath” if Americans don’t vote for a white supremacist is something right out of the history books. This sort of domestic terrorism as a campaign platform sounds like Horatio Seymour in 1868:

In Ohio campaign rally, Trump says there will be a “bloodbath” if he loses November election

Or as the Washington Post put it in modern context…

Notably, Seymour put up campaign ads like this one illustrating how Americans would be lynched if they dared to vote against him.

Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama, 1 Sept 1868 Tuscaloosa Independent Monitor. The KKK threatened that March 4, 1869 — first day of rule by avowed racist Horatio Seymour — would bring lynchings of white Americans (“scalawags” and “carpetbaggers”).

Indeed, in 1869 “First-Class Men” tried to torture and murder a congressman because he had voted against Seymour in the Presidential election.

Colby: On the 29th of October 1869, [the KKK] broke my door open, took me out of bed, took me to the woods and whipped me three hours or more and left me for dead. They said to me, “Do you think you will ever vote another damned Radical ticket?” I said, “If there was an election tomorrow, I would vote the Radical ticket.” They set in and whipped me a thousand licks more, with sticks and straps that had buckles on the ends of them.

It was bad, really really bad, as the author of “Klan War” explained. The “bloodbath” tactic what Trump is invoking again as a shout-out to American history:

“[The organized terror movement after Civil War] stock-in-trade was violence – intimidation and violence. People were beaten, people were flogged, people were lynched, people were shot. People’s homes were raided, they were dragged outdoors and flogged in the streets.” And, he says, the violence often included “truly horrifying sadism”.

What was Seymour’s actual campaign slogan?

After President Grant crushed the KKK political platform, it rebranded itself a Christian nationalist “America First” platform

Another political cartoon, using clever puns, attempts to make light of threats from the KKK and foreshadows its use of prohibition to criminalize Black and Catholic voters (portraying anti-racists as radicals drunk on the “bottle”).

Print by Brown & Barrett, 65 8th Ave. N.Y. [1868]. Source: Library of Congress

Far too few Americans realize that the 2024 racist “America First” campaign is literally a throw-back to the horrible KKK and a Seymour ticket all over again.

If Trump Gets Convicted, Blame Ulysses S. Grant

“America First” since the late 1800s has been a known violent nativist/racist political campaign slogan, yet it persists.

We can thank Grant (easily the best American General and President in history) for creating National Parks, the Department of Justice, Civil Rights and defeating domestic terrorists like the KKK… perhaps yet again.