PETE HEGSETH AND HIS IDIOT REVISIONISM – REWARDING MASS MURDER
Dr. Common Good
Yet again, we have to wonder. How did the United States, yes, the United States, end up with a Secretary of Defense so generally ignorant and so thoroughly steeped in a dangerous and myopic MAGA-ism?
In the latest of a litany of incidents displaying this ignorance, along with a kind of cruel, racist revanchism, Hegseth has decided that 20 soldiers who committed an infamous mass murder of Native Americans should retain their Medals of Honor; specifically, for the 1890 killing of close to 300 Lakota Sioux men, women and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. This, after legislation had been introduced in 2019 to revoke the medals and the previous Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin III, had ordered a review of whether or not the medals should be rescinded. Hegseth, in announcing this decision, said “we’re making it clear that they deserved those medals.”
Think about this. This is the United States in 2025, rewarding mass murder. The Wounded Knee massacre was preceded by years during which the US government had seized Native land, protected hunters who were killing off the buffalo herds – a staple of Lakota (and Plains Indian) existence — abrogated treaties that aimed to protect Native land from settlers, and generally proceeded to destroy the Lakota way of life. Just prior to the massacre, US cavalry troops had moved in to disarm a Lakota encampment. During the disarmament, it appears that one deaf Lakota man struggled against the soldiers and his gun went off, after which the cavalry opened fire, ultimately killing most people in the encampment, including women and children who fled the fighting and were hunted down. Some Lakota fought back, but they had largely been disarmed.
And for this, Medals of Honor? What is the “honor” that mindless Pete Hegseth is commemorating? What is the “valor”? Is this some perverse representation of the “warrior ethos” he seeks to promote? What an abject disgrace, and a slap in the face to the many soldiers who have earned Medals of Honor for true bravery and sacrifice, including, by the way, many who were Native American. Among other things, this is one more glaring example of the hollow, twisted logic of the Hegseth/MAGA “anti-woke” crusade.
Any American with an ounce of integrity, and an ounce of dignity, should repudiate this sickening act and all that it represents. And I will say this straight out: Pete Hegseth, you are no warrior. You are a sham, and like your president, all you know how to do is create cartoonish displays and ersatz rituals. You know nothing about being truly human, nothing about sacrifice, nothing about human history, and given your religious pretense, absolutely nothing about grace.