Everything about Columbus day resonates with the zeitgeist of the American empire that exists at present. Columbus was about torture, rape, theft, slavery, and genocide just so that a few elites in a distant place could get richer. That’s the prevalent theme throughout the course of this little experiment in Americanism. 
Really, Columbus day is my favorite day to rip on trash American values because it embodies everything about what it means to be American. First of all the entire premise of celebrating Columbus day is emblematic of America by taking a person who behaved horrifically in their life and venerating them by rewriting/dismissing history. This is done over and over again throughout the lore of America. The men commonly known as the founding fathers have a similar disdainful past but the American populace hasn’t caught up yet with the idea this thing has always been a racket. Always thinking it was just those people a really long time ago that had terribly exploitative values.
The American populace cannot accept their society and culture are built on lies that are still very much alive and well today. The veneration of bullshit icons continues to be the bane of all reason. Support the troops, salute the flag, honor your president, pretend this system is legitimate democracy and not just oppression thrust upon us. However the lie told that Columbus was an innocent brave explorer has officially fallen apart now that the largest city in the nation bearing his namesake Columbus, Ohio, has now decided to forego celebrating the event. The genocidal slaver is out of the bag.
So the American people just need to play some catch up through history to see that this line of thinking based in dominance and ownership by elites via the venture of imperialism has never stopped. The men and their motivations in 1776 are just the same for the most part, but the founding fathers are venerated by enshrouding them in high minded ideas of the enlightenment, unfortunately it’s in name only, as they immediately took up the task of killing Native Americans after ridding themselves of the English.
Because what the founding fathers and their financial backers actually represented was more of the same exploitation. They were about the Enlightenment movement like Columbus was about exploration. The truth is these were both were invested in the ideas of profiteering through violent expanse of empire.
Columbus started the genocide and removal of indigenous people to steal all the land, and America saw fit to finish it out. To find what Christopher Columbus did as abhorrent we should first take a hard look in the mirror by what we are supporting today and what America did to get where they are. If you are still in favor of the democrat or republican parties then you are still pro-empire. Pro-murder. Pro the same shit that Columbus did back then which continues now in the middle east, Africa, Asia, & Central/South America – both directly and indirectly via proxy military and economic forces.
The mainstream doesn’t make a big fuss about the harm we cause now because it’s normalized, and thus we seem a little too proud about how brave we are to stand against the idea of a bullshit icon from five hundred years ago. That’s American courage for you.
Still the same since 1492.
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