* RADIO RANT: Indians--"I Know Nothin'"

Last Sunday night (7/27/08), conservative talk-show cretin Bill Cunningham uttered his version of the conservative mantra that goes something like "Native American tribes fought other tribes; ergo Euro-colonialism/genocide was entirely justified." And of course this formulaic defense can be uttered without really knowing anything about indigenous history. Thus Cunningham's stupidity began: "The Sioux did worse [things] to the Arapaho and the Iroquois" than the U.S. did to the Indians, blah-blah-blah. I could give Cunningham ten years to find a historical battle between the "Sioux"–a Great Plains tribe–and the Northeast-woodlands Iroquois. It's the constant recitation of such half-baked non-truths by such pundits and their "dittohead" acolytes that makes the conservative discourse so infuriating.