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The spinmasters are busy trying to lower expectations for tonight's debate between the two presidential candidates who were apparently selected for this exposure because they were the most boring of the lot, and therefore the least likely to threaten normal television programming.
I am fairly confident that tonight's debate will not help me decide how to vote next month, nor will it assist anyone I've talked to lately. It seem to be coming down to a choice between Harry Browne of the Libertarian Party and Ralph Nader of the Green Party, and a lively two- or three-hour televised debate would help many of us decide.
If we're going to be stuck with only two major political parties in this country, the Libertarians and the Greens are the two we need. For one thing, neither supports the idiotic and draconian War on Drugs, and until that horror is terminated, the U.S. Constitution might as well be written on toilet paper.
Alas, the authorities won't permit us to watch a stimulating presidential debate, and the one they have scheduled for this evening should rank right up there with watching nails rust. So we need to turn to something interesting, like the nearly annual controversy over the Columbus Day parade in Denver.
The two sides:
1) The Italian-American faction, which views Christopher Columbus as an exemplar of a proud ethnic heritage, and
2) The Native American bloc, which views Christopher Columbus as a slave-trader, and is thus offended by any honor given Columbus, being as he brought slavery to the Americas.
Both views seem rather specious on closer examination.
Cristoforo Colombo, as he was christened, was born in 1451 in Genoa, a city that is part of Italy today.
At the time, there was no Italy, and there wouldn't be until 1861. The peninsula and nearby islands were an assortment of sovereign entities like Tuscany, Lombardy, Sardinia, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
When Columbus learned to write, he wrote in Spanish, and when he captained ships, the ships flew the flags of Portugal and Spain.
Most historians and biographers agree that Columbus was an excellent mariner. They also agree that the accidental encounter with America was bound to happen in those days, even if Columbus had never set sail.
The technology had been developed with improved sailing ships and the magnetic compass. There was ample European interest in finding a shorter route to the spices and silks of Asia. A newly united Spain had the resources to support such expeditions. All it took was sailing west, and if Columbus hadn't landed in the Caribbean in 1492, some other captain would have done so by 1500.
The Italian peninsula has given the world Enrico Fermi, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. So it seems odd that the Spanish sailor Columbus, of all people, should be a source of ethnic pride.
As for the charge that Columbus was a slave-trader, well, so was George Washington. On that account, are we supposed to quit celebrating his birthday on Feb. 22 after removing his image from our currency and renaming the national capital?
For that matter, if we're going to purify our culture to remove the slave-traders, we've got some serious work to do on the map of Colorado.
As respected Colorado historian Virginia McConnell
Simmons explains in her new book, The Ute Indians of
Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico,
slave-trading was a
major part of the Ute economy. Captives from battles with
other peoples were hauled to the trade fair at Taos, where
the Utes sold them into slavery in exchange for horses and
hides.
Thus our place names like Shavano, Tomichi, Tabeguache, Uncompahgre, Pagosa, Yampa and Saguache all relate to slave-trading just as much as anything named after Columbus does.
Arapahoe children had just as much reason to fear being captured and sold into slavery by the Utes as Taino children had to fear being enslaved by Columbus.
But there seem to be a lot of people who want to believe that only Europeans held slaves or traded in slaves, and that somehow the peoples of the Americas were too pure and noble to indulge in an evil that is as old as history.
Such widespread ignorance probably explains a lot of things, from Columbus Day controversies to why only two presidential candidates will be debating tonight. We like matters to be simple, even when they never are.
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