This Land Is Whose Land ???

This morning I saw a woman wearing a T-shirt bearing the phrase "this land is your land" from the Woody Guthrie song:

http://youtu.be/wxiMrvDbq3s

There were a heck of a lot of people living in the Americas when Columbus arrived. Wasn't this land their land?

But the European invaders used a clever trick, the Doctrine of Discovery, to declare that the Americas were uninhabited and therefore could be claimed by Europe's sovereigns.

Later the Founders of the United States used another clever trick, the Declaration of Independence, to declare that a portion of North America was a new sovereign nation and therefore no longer belonged to the crown heads of Europe.

Note well that the Founders opened the flood gates of immigration and waged several wars, including wars of extermination against the remaining native Americans, to overrun the best lands of the rest of North American and make it theirs:

http://go.grolier.com/atlas?id=mh00122

Now the New Founders have reopened the flood gates of immigration. Why? Clearly the New Persons, corporations, wearied of having to pay good wages and benefits to their employees (which they agreed to in collective bargaining, by the way) and decided that a new wave of low wage workers was needed to kick start the American economy ... and to kick those of us who were already here to the curb.

This land is our land because our ancestors stole it. So don't feel too bad if these new immigrants appear to be stealing it from you for the benefit of bankgangsters, corporations, and their accomplices in the one percent. It's the American way.