Greeley Trib story. Someone has pro-gun billboards around greeley.

[HBARleatherneck]

http://www.greeleytribune.com/news/6259970-113/native-american-billboard-rights

Uses the US governments murder of Native Americans to show that the government will not in fact take care of us. (at least thats how I see it)

you have to pay to read the entire story.


Pro-gun rights billboard depicting American Indians sparks outrage
Two Greeley billboards on which images of Native Americans are used to make a pro-gun rights argument are causing a stir with some residents, who say the subject matter of the image is “offensive” and “insensitive.” The billboards — one on the northbound side of U.S. 85 near 18th Street, the other on the westbound side of U.S. 34 near 95th Avenue — show three men dressed in traditional Native American attire and the words “Turn in your arms. The government will take care of you.” Matt Wells, an account executive with Lamar Advertising, which owns the billboards, said a …

[bryjcom]

Thats awesome billboard. I'm gonna have to take a trip just to see those. I had a discussion this weekend with my mother about how governments have killed around 200 million of their own citizens in the 20th century and she said, "Yeah, well the U.S hasn't done any of that".

Didn't even think of the natives in the 19th century.

[blacklabel]

I've noticed the one on 34. I like it personally. As for the Trib getting my money so I can read the story, hah no.

[TS12000]

Every Native American I've ever remembered meeting has been prreettty progun

[funkymonkey1111]

Thats awesome billboard. I'm gonna have to take a trip just to see those. I had a discussion this weekend with my mother about how governments have killed around 200 million of their own citizens in the 20th century and she said, "Yeah, well the U.S hasn't done any of that".

Didn't even think of the natives in the 19th century.

easy to not think about it when the people are marginalized. why do you think obongo paints gun owners as out-of-touch kooks?

[rockhound]

Really, i seem to remember. Ruby ridge, and waco, the govt will certainly kill you if you dont comply to their ideals, anyoe who doesnt know the story of ruby ridge should do some reading, after the govt killing family members the dangerous criminals were cleared of all charges

[blacklabel]

This is rich... a Boulder Weekly opinion piece on the billboards.


What’s wrong with this picture?
By Joel Dyer

Two pro-gun-rights billboards have recently gone up in Greeley and they’re causing quite a stir, as in you can read about them in The Washington Post kind of stir. But why have a couple of political signs sparked so much controversy and who is paying for them?

As for the latter, we don’t know. The people responsible for the billboards, replicated above, asked Lamar Advertising, the Denver company that owns and leases the billboards, to keep their identities secret.

This may sound a little paranoid (bingo, wink wink, nudge nudge), but you have to remember that these billboards are in Marilyn Musgrave, Ken Buck and Cory Gardner country, which means that the people responsible for the billboards are likely hyper-conservative white folks with arsenals of weapons in their basements who are convinced that the federal government is coming for them any day now because they are God-fearing gun owners who understand that the Second Amendment of the Constitution was written by a divine hand that looks nothing like the hand of that Obama fellow from Kenya.

Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that one or more of the tea-partying politicos I just mentioned had chipped in a couple of bucks themselves to get this gun message out before the federal boogeyman gets his gun-owner concentration camps built.

So is my profile of the secretive billboard creators pure speculation? Yep, but I like to think of it as an educated guess by someone who has spent years in the company of people arming themselves in preparation for that inevitable Red Dawn-esque showdown with the federal government, or U.N., or whoever. I’ll happily correct myself if and when those responsible for the signs come forward and prove me wrong.

As for the controversy over the content of the signs, that depends on whom you’re talking to.

I asked aboriginal writer and activist Abiyomi Kofi about the billboard and received a 2,300-word response via email that read in part, “To be brutally frank with you, I am so disturbed by this advert that it is difficult for me to discuss this issue objectively, and I won’t even try. Chiefly because it is achingly clear to me and any other sentient indigenous person, (especially those of us involved in the anti-mascot struggle) that the neoconservative geniuses behind this abominable banner are utterly oblivious to their own denied sense of racial entitlement, as well as their historical status as colonialist trespassers and the material beneficiaries of Euro-American anti-indigenous murder. In short, these folks are apparently either too stupid or too choked up with dreams of Aryan Americana supremacy insecurities to comprehend the exhaustively contradictory nature of this billboard’s argument against government gun controls.” You can read the rest of Kofi’s reply at http://tinyurl.com/c9oxghh.

But not everyone in the Native American community has a problem with the sign.

When I asked Ward Churchill, author, political activist and professor of ethnic studies at CU for 17 years — until he was illegally fired for exercising his right to free speech — what he thought, he sent me an email that read simply, “Can’t see anything to disagree with, Joel. On the contrary, [the billboard] is exactly on point.”

It’s an interesting perspective I can’t argue with. Churchill has been researching and writing on the historical mistreatment of Native Americans and other disenfranchised folks for years. If you take the billboard from a strictly Native American perspective or, for that matter, the perspective of nearly any other disenfranchised peoples, then it really could make sense.

That’s why knowing who paid for and authorized the sign makes a big difference. If the billboard has been put up by Native Americans as a reminder of atrocities that have occurred when they have attempted to cooperate with the U.S. government, tragedies ranging from the Trail of Tears to the massacres at Sand Creek and the Washita River to the murders at Wounded Knee (twice) and the government’s deadly moves on the Pine Ridge Reservation, including its actions in the 1970s, then the billboard could, in fact, be delivering a powerful message.

But if the sign is being paid for by political conservatives who believe that God has given them the right to own unregistered assault rifles, then I have to say that using the images of Native Americans is a really stupid idea.

After all, it wasn’t just the U.S. government that committed genocide on Native Americans. It was also the hundreds of thousands of white settlers, and the railroads and other industries, all armed with guns and hell-bent on taking the land and resources used by native peoples for their own.

To equate the historical genocide or current political and economic struggles of Native Americans to the potential minor inconvenience that may be experienced by mostly hyper-conservative, primarily white Americans who might someday have to register their firearms, is a grotesque and immeasurably ignorant comparison.

And just in case you are wondering, the answer is “no,” the first sign of the apocalypse is not the inability to purchase high-capacity clips for your assault rifle.

Until we know who is picking up the tab for the billboard, we won’t be able to determine exactly what’s wrong with this picture, but I suspect it is plenty.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com



http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-11089-what%E2%80%99s-wrong-with-this-picture.html

[Rucker61]

This is rich... a Boulder Weekly opinion piece on the billboards.



http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-11089-what%E2%80%99s-wrong-with-this-picture.html

Reader rating: 1 star out of 5.

[dwalker460]

That Boulder article is so full of fail I dont know where to begin, but this is particularly funny-


I asked aboriginal writer and activist Abiyomi Kofi about the billboard

Whose response was:


“To be brutally frank with you, I am so disturbed by this advert that it is difficult for me to discuss this issue objectively, and I won’t even try. Chiefly because it is achingly clear to me and any other sentient indigenous person, (especially those of us involved in the anti-mascot struggle) that the neoconservative geniuses behind this abominable banner are utterly oblivious to their own denied sense of racial entitlement, as well as their historical status as colonialist trespassers and the material beneficiaries of Euro-American anti-indigenous murder. In short, these folks are apparently either too stupid or too choked up with dreams of Aryan Americana supremacy insecurities to comprehend the exhaustively contradictory nature of this billboard’s argument against government gun controls.”

as part of

a 2,300-word response via email

Really? Rendered speechless results in a 2300 word diarrhea of the mouth diatribe on complete leftist BS? Really? Speechless? I guess Websters needs to update their definitions for the modern liberal...

[Rucker61]

Really? Rendered speechless results in a 2300 word diarrhea of the mouth diatribe on complete leftist BS? Really? Speechless? I guess Websters needs to update their definitions for the modern liberal...

I like where he points out that those involved in the anti-mascot struggle are better indigenous people than those who aren't.

[Squeeze]

I think it's a good thing to see those billboards. Especially since the recent passing of the crap legislation by our "I had to do something" governor. I like the idea of stuffing it into the faces of our Liberal, gun-hating populous who thinks; No Guns = Pure Utopia. I'd like to know who paid for the billboards so I can shake their hand. What's sad is how we've come to the point where we actually need billboards like this. We are becoming a rare breed in this once "free" state.

[Great-Kazoo]

I've heard lots of gun owners say " I don't understand how the .gov can get away with this" My reply many times has been now you know how the indians feel. The .gov has been fuking over the citizenry for centuries. You put it in laymen's terms, using a factual, validated example and the liberal mindset cannot grasp it. They are stuck hoping it was anyone but a white group. because EVEN WARD CHURCHILL an Icon of the LEFT agrees with it.

Oh well the truth hurts.

[bgouker]

The billboard is by my shop and I see both of them daily. I like them because it illustrates what is happening. No one I know has objected to it.

[hollohas]

I can't imagine why any Native American would disagree with this billboard. The ones that are mad about it get so bent out of shape about the fact that a mere image of their ancestors was used (assuming the picture is not a reproduction) that they can't see the actual point behind the image is ON THEIR SIDE. It agrees that they have suffered hardships at the hands of the government. The ONLY negative message is that our own government has a history of hurting people.

Anyone who says they disagree with this billboard's message are saying they think Native Americans have always been treated fairly by the government.

[robertcolorado2009]

What is sort of sad is that the people who paid for it feel they have to keep incognito for fear of trouble from the lib rags and other media who are the ones stirring the shit up. They seem to be the ones saying: Hey doesn't this offend you? I feel the message is perfect!

[CroiDhubh]

It's a true statement with a valid example. The left are so fucking brainwashed they don't understand what's going on. If I was anything other than a "white man", I'd be more pissed off at the left...think about it... "We're going to give you things as a black man, because as a black man, you aren't good enough, fast enough, smart enough, or decent enough to be equal to us whites, and therefore, deserve special treatment and must be given these things."

Seriously...think about it. If someone told you they are going to help you out and give you things based on your ethnicity or race in order to get you brought up to the rest of us, wouldn't you be pissed? That's saying you have a handicap based on who or what you are and not as good as the rest!

[nynco]

I would say that both sides are guilty of thinking that shooting the messenger is a valid tactic to win an argument. The Liberals here are basing their objection on the fact that they can not prove who wrote it in order to shoot the messenger.

[quondom fremd]

I've heard lots of gun owners say " I don't understand how the .gov can get away with this" My reply many times has been now you know how the indians feel. The .gov has been fuking over the citizenry for centuries. You put it in laymen's terms, using a factual, validated example and the liberal mindset cannot grasp it. They are stuck hoping it was anyone but a white group. because EVEN WARD CHURCHILL an Icon of the LEFT agrees with it.

Oh well the truth hurts.

amen.

[Aloha_Shooter]

LOL, you know it hits the leftists where it hurts when even Ward Churchill agrees with the billboard.

[Wulf202]

Just more proof they hate facts and logic

[Singlestack]

The Liberals here are basing their objection on the fact that they can not prove who wrote it in order to shoot the messenger.

Well said. The libs standard tactic these days is character assassination and personal attacks. Hard to do that when you don't know who to attack. I have a feeling Churchill's response isn't what they thought it would be...

[buckshotbarlow]

truth hurts sometimes...