Lee Diamond – Boy ! Were We Duped
Some of us spent our youth
Believing In good guys and bad guysCowboys were the good guys
And the Indians were the bad guys!l
The Lone Ranger.
Gene Autry
Annie Oakly
Buffalo Bill
These were our heroes
Tonto was a sidekick
Maybe an “Uncle Tom”
But he was on our side
Our scout who knew
The Indian ways
The good guys slaughtered the bad
By the uncounted millions
The Cowboys hardly died
The Indians were defeated , as they should
Have been because they were in the way
Of our “manifest destiny”
We won!
We defeated them
We conquered their lands
And it was god’s will
That we remove the primitives, the natives
To reservations!ll
Ghettos
Isolation from sophisticated English speaking colonists
And settled on the very land of the defeated.l
And so it is! Expansion
Settlement
Enclosed population
Reservations, poverty
Alcohol to drown sorrow
And Americans avoid thinking
About the morality of the war against the Indians
About the reprehensible “manifest destiny”
About the massacre of Native Americans
For their own expansion as a new nation.
And we celebrate the 4th of July
With picnics and fireworks
And we celebrate thanksgiving
With a holiday turkey
And a football Game
And we we hide the lie that you taught
In the movies and history books
By blaming others
Others who don’t lie…who really have rights
To their land
But who still struggle to be as free
As you America
Let’s make a deal America
Allow us to be free of those
Who would destroy us
We won’t blockade you
If you don’t blockade us.
And let’s block the blockers
And while we’re at it
Remember the prophet
Who said
Nation shall not lift up sword
Against Nation
Neither shall they learn war anymore
