PURE PARODY. Everything below about the Columbus Land Coalition, its officers, members, merchandise, and “beneficiaries” is invented for satirical purposes in the tradition of The Babylon Bee. Quotations attributed to real publications are reproduced accurately from the sources cited at the end; every other quotation is fictional and spoken by fictional people.
Finders Keepers Since 1492: A Modest Proposal for Columbus Day
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The Columbus Land Coalition says it is simply “accepting the land acknowledgment”
that progressives have been reading aloud at the start of every Zoom call since 2019.
A Confession Is Not a Confession Until Somebody Collects
SCOTTSDALE, AZ — For years, America’s most conscientious citizens have opened their podcasts, faculty senates, yoga classes, and wedding receptions with a solemn declaration: We are standing on stolen land. They say it with feeling. They say it with a slight downward tilt of the chin. They say it with the quiet, steady confidence of people who are absolutely certain nobody will ever take them up on it.
This Columbus Day, somebody is taking them up on it.
Meet the Columbus Land Coalition (CLC), a newly incorporated 501(c)(3) nonprofit headquartered in a strip-mall suite between a vape shop and a tax preparer, whose mission statement fits on a single bumper sticker: “You Said It Was Stolen. We Believed You.”
“We are, first and foremost, good listeners,” said CLC founder and Executive Director Rutherford “Ford” Pemberton III, a retired homeowners’ association president who once fined a neighbor $40 for an unauthorized garden gnome. “For half a decade, an entire political class has been publicly admitting to possession of stolen property. In any other context, that’s called a confession. Where I come from, when someone confesses, you don’t nod respectfully and hand them a kombucha. You process the paperwork.”
The Coalition’s founding theory is elegant in its simplicity. If the land is stolen, then the people currently sitting on it possess stolen goods. If they know it’s stolen — and they announce it constantly, often with a slide deck — then they have no moral claim to keep it. And if they have no moral claim to keep it, then the only remaining question is who gets it next.
“And that,” Pemberton said, tapping a laminated organizational chart, “is where we come in.”
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Why Columbus? Because His Land Record Is Spotless
Critics have asked why an organization dedicated to land reclamation would name itself after the single most canceled man in the Western Hemisphere. The CLC’s answer is, frankly, devastating.
“Christopher Columbus never set foot on any land that is currently part of the continental United States,” explained CLC Director of Historical Research Darla Vane-Whitaker, a former community college adjunct who now describes herself as “post-tenure, pre-employment.” “He landed in the Bahamas. He poked around Cuba and Hispaniola. He never filed a homestead claim in Ohio. Of every major figure in American history, he is the only one with a perfectly clean land-acquisition record inside our borders. We checked. We checked twice.”
Vane-Whitaker’s department, which consists of Vane-Whitaker and a used library card, then made what the Coalition calls “the discovery that changed everything.”
The Research Department Opens a History Book
“The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was signed by Andrew Jackson,” Vane-Whitaker said, holding up a photocopy as though it were the Dead Sea Scrolls. “Andrew Jackson founded the Democratic Party. I want everyone to sit with that for a moment. The party that now opens its state conventions with a land acknowledgment was founded by the man who signed the eviction notice. That isn’t a land acknowledgment. That’s a signed affidavit.”
Asked whether this line of reasoning was perhaps a bit glib about one of the darkest chapters in American history, Vane-Whitaker grew serious. “The chapter is dark. That’s precisely the point. What’s glib is reciting it as a warm-up act before the keynote and then driving home to a four-bedroom Craftsman in Berkeley. We are simply asking the people who keep bringing it up to follow their own logic all the way to the title company.”
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The Mission: Exaggerated, Audacious, and Fully Tax-Deductible
According to its glossy 14-page prospectus, printed on paper the Coalition insists was harvested from “ethically reclaimed timberland,” the CLC operates through four program pillars.
Pillar One: Operation Acknowledgment Accepted
CLC volunteers, known internally as “Receivers,” attend public events that open with a land acknowledgment. When the speaker finishes, a Receiver stands, applauds warmly, and presents a pre-filled quitclaim deed along with a bouquet of grocery-store carnations.
“We don’t heckle,” said Receiver Team Lead Brock Halvorsen, 34, a former timeshare closer. “We affirm. We say, ‘Thank you for your vulnerability. We hear you. We see you. Please initial here, here, and here.’ You would be amazed how far you can get in a room full of people who have been trained never to contradict anyone who says ‘we hear you.’”
To date, Halvorsen reports, the program has collected zero signed deeds, eleven restraining orders, and “one extremely confused city council member in Ann Arbor who asked if we were with the Bureau of Land Management.” Which brings us to the Coalition’s most persistent operational challenge.
Pillar Two: Targeting the Largest Landlord in America
The CLC’s analysts quickly noticed that individual progressives, for all their eloquence, own surprisingly little dirt. The truly enormous holdings sit with an entity that progressives tend to adore: the federal government.
The federal government now owns one-third of the land in the United States.
— Alexander Annett, The Heritage Foundation, “The Federal Government’s Poor Management of America’s Land Resources” (1999)
“One-third!” Pemberton exclaimed, pounding a folding table hard enough to topple a stack of commemorative koozies. “In Nevada it’s over eighty percent. And who’s been sitting on it, administering it, writing 900-page management plans for it, and charging ranchers a permit fee to look at it? The same folks who tell me I’m on stolen land. Buddy, you’re the biggest fence in the country.”
Even the government’s friends concede the stewardship has been, shall we say, uneven.
The problem is that the federal government doesn’t do a good job managing those properties.
— The Oklahoman Editorial Board, reprinted at lankford.senate.gov, “Federal Officials Disregard Their Land Management Failures”
“If you’re going to hold stolen goods,” said Vane-Whitaker, “the least you can do is mow them.”
Pillar Three: The Sanctuary Suburb Initiative
Under this pillar, the CLC maps every residential yard sign reading “In This House We Believe…” against county records, then prioritizes the properties whose signs include some variation of “no one is illegal on stolen land.”
“That sign is basically a listing,” Halvorsen explained. “It’s a homeowner telling you, in vinyl, on a wire stake, that they have no legitimate claim to the property it’s stuck in. We’re not reading between the lines. We’re reading the lines.”
Pillar Four: Corporate Accountability
No institution has drawn more Coalition attention than a certain beloved Vermont ice-cream company, which in July 2023 published a statement so sweeping that CLC members reportedly had it framed for the break room.
The US was founded on stolen Indigenous land.
— Ben & Jerry’s, “The US Was Founded on Stolen Indigenous Land—This July 4, Let’s Commit to Returning It” (July 2023)
“They said ‘let’s commit to returning it,’” Pemberton noted, “and they sell their pints out of a factory in Waterbury. Returning it. Their word. So we sent a very respectful letter, a box of moving supplies, and a coupon for a free scoop as a gesture of goodwill. We have not heard back. We assume they’re busy packing.”
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The Great BLM Mix-Up
If the Coalition has an Achilles’ heel, it is a three-letter acronym. America has two prominent “BLMs” — the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees roughly 245 million acres of sagebrush, scrub, and rocks, and Black Lives Matter, the activist movement. The CLC has managed to confuse them in both directions, repeatedly, and with tremendous enthusiasm.
Incident Report #1: The Portland Grazing Permit
In what internal memos call “the Portland Situation,” a CLC intern attempted to file a formal reclamation claim against “BLM” for 245 million acres and mailed it to the first BLM address that came up in a search. Three weeks later, a Portland-area activist collective received a 40-page renewal notice for a cattle grazing allotment in eastern Oregon, complete with a map, a water-rights addendum, and a stern reminder about bovine trespass.
“At first we thought it was a microaggression,” said Juniper Oakhaven-Reyes, a fictional collective organizer who, for the record, does not exist. “Then we read it more closely and realized we were legally responsible for 312 cows. We had a three-hour consensus meeting about whether the cows were comrades. Two members left. One of them now owns a ranch in Burns and is weirdly happy.”
Incident Report #2: The Elko Rally
The confusion runs the other way, too. Last spring, a dozen CLC Receivers in matching windbreakers drove six hours to a rally in Elko, Nevada, under the impression that it was a protest against federal land policy.
“The flyer said ‘BLM Rally, Bring Signs,’” Halvorsen recalled. “So we brought signs. Mine said ‘GIVE US BACK OUR GRAZING RIGHTS.’ It turned out to be an entirely different kind of rally. To everyone’s enormous credit, people were very gracious about it. One woman gave me a bottle of water and told me she, too, had strong feelings about the Bureau. We ended up talking for an hour about federal permitting delays. Honestly, it was the most productive bipartisan conversation I’ve had in years.”
The Coalition has since adopted a strict new protocol requiring all volunteers to confirm, before deploying, whether the BLM in question has (a) a logo with a mountain on it or (b) a logo with a fist on it. “If it has a mountain,” the training manual reads, “bring a clipboard. If it has a fist, bring an apology and maybe some granola bars.”
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Merchandise: Because No Movement Survives Without a Gift Shop
Every serious modern cause needs a revenue stream, and the CLC’s online store has reportedly outperformed its actual land acquisitions by a margin of infinity to zero. The Coalition gleefully borrows from a long American tradition of public-lands novelty gear — the outdoor-shop stickers that relabel federal agencies as the “U.S. Department of Dirt and Rocks” and the “Bureau of Who Left the Gate Open?” — and pushes it several exits further down the highway.
Best Sellers This Quarter
- “LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT ACCEPTED” — a heather-gray tee with a cartoon rubber stamp. Available in sizes S through XXL and “Deed-Holder Relaxed Fit.”
- “FINDERS KEEPERS SINCE 1492” — a trucker hat whose fine print reads, “Technically he found the Bahamas.”
- The “Bureau of Land I’m Taking Back” window decal — an official-looking circular seal featuring a bald eagle clutching a clipboard in one talon and a tape measure in the other.
- “U.S. DEPARTMENT OF YOU SAID IT, NOT ME” — a bumper sticker, best applied to a vehicle parked at a Whole Foods.
- “BLM: Bring Lawn Mowers” — a limited-edition tote released after the Elko incident, with proceeds going to “federal grass-height awareness.”
- The Stolen Land Acknowledgment Doormat — reads “WIPE YOUR FEET. TECHNICALLY IT’S NOT MINE EITHER.”
“The decal is our top seller,” said merchandise director Kayleigh Strand. “We had to add a tiny line of print at the bottom that says ‘Not an actual federal agency’ after a gentleman in Moab tried to use it to get into a national park for free. In fairness, it almost worked. The ranger said it looked more official than his.”
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Testimonials From the Reclaimed
The CLC is eager to emphasize that its work produces real, measurable emotional outcomes — chiefly among the people it attempts to relieve of property. The following testimonials appear in the Coalition’s annual report under the heading “Voices of Release.” Every one of these people is made up.
Sage Willow-Brennan, Brooklyn, New York
“I read a land acknowledgment before every Zoom, including my dentist appointments. When the Coalition showed up at my studio apartment with a deed and a carnation, I panicked, because I rent. Then I realized I’d spent four years apologizing for land I don’t even own. My landlord owns it. He lives in Boca. I gave them his address. For the first time in years, I feel lighter. I think the word is ‘accountability,’ but for someone else.”
Professor Emeritus Alden Thistlewood, Amherst, Massachusetts
“I have taught a seminar titled ‘Unsettling the Settler’ for twenty-two years. When the Receivers arrived at my lake house, I explained that my land acknowledgment was intended metaphorically. The young man nodded and asked which parts of the lake were metaphorical. I could not answer. I have since revised the syllabus.”
Wade Callister, Rancher, Lander County, Nevada
“These people came out to my place wanting to know if I was ready to give back the land. I told them, son, I lease it. From the government. Which owns most of the county. They got real quiet, then asked where the government lives. I pointed east. Said keep going till you hit a building with a lot of columns. Nice kids. Left me a hat.”
Marigold Featherstone-Vance, Artisanal Gelato Entrepreneur, Burlington, Vermont
“We printed ‘Decolonize Dessert’ on our napkins. The Coalition sent us a certified letter asking for a closing date. We have since switched to plain napkins.”
Anonymous Federal Employee, Washington, D.C.
“We received the Coalition’s claim for roughly 640 million acres. It has been assigned a tracking number and placed in the queue behind several thousand other claims, a maintenance backlog, and a 1998 request to repave a parking lot in Wyoming. Estimated response time is 2071. We appreciate their patience.”
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Legal Counsel Weighs In (Sort Of)
Naturally, the Coalition has attracted the scrutiny of law enforcement. In an unusually candid 2024 press release, the FBI’s Newark field office warned the public about genuine criminals who steal property by pretending to be the owner.
It boils down to property owner impersonation.
— Special Agent Joe Cardosi, FBI Newark, “Fraudsters Are Stealing Land Out From Under Owners” (May 28, 2024)
CLC General Counsel Thaddeus Grimsby, Esq., who passed the bar on his fourth attempt and lists “vibes-based jurisprudence” as a specialty, insists the Coalition is the opposite of a fraud ring.
“Fraudsters pretend to be the owner,” Grimsby explained. “We do the reverse. We find people who loudly insist they are not the rightful owner, and we take them at their word. We are the only organization in America that never impersonates anybody. We just believe everybody. That’s not fraud. That’s active listening with a notary stamp.”
Asked whether a single quitclaim deed had ever been recorded, Grimsby paused, adjusted his tie, and said, “We are in a very exciting pre-recording phase.”
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The Serious Point Hiding Under the Silly Hat
Satire works only if there is something real underneath it, and the Coalition’s absurdities are built on a real intellectual fault line. The historical record of Indigenous land loss is not a joke, and it is not in dispute among serious historians. Grist, summarizing a 2021 study published in Science, put the numbers starkly:
The government-recognized tribal land base of today is 93 percent smaller, at roughly 165,000 square miles.
— Mark Armao, Grist, “Study: Indigenous Tribes Lost 99% of Land to Colonization” (October 28, 2021)
What the Coalition is mocking is not that history; it is the ritual that has grown up around it — a recitation that costs the speaker nothing, changes nothing, and is often delivered by institutions with no intention of surrendering an acre. Activist sites such as Indigenous Geotags rightly insist on precision: “The way these lands were illegally taken has political consequences today, so let’s be accurate.” Fine. Accuracy cuts in every direction.
Some writers argue that the frame itself is mistaken. The economist and blogger Noah Smith made the case bluntly in 2024:
The land has been stolen and re-stolen again and again.
— Noah Smith, Noahpinion, “No, You Are Not on Indigenous Land” (November 30, 2024)
Historian Jeff Fynn-Paul has gone further, arguing that “there is not a single country on Earth which did not displace natives,” while a February 2026 essay in Capitalism Magazine insisted on a different word altogether:
This wasn’t theft. It was a conquest—bilateral, bloody, and ultimately decisive.
— Chip J, Capitalism Magazine, “Why America’s Land Isn’t Stolen” (February 9, 2026)
Others, like historian Claudio Saunt writing in Aeon, maintain that “it is high time for non-Native Americans to come to terms with the fact that the US is built on someone else’s land.” Reasonable people will keep arguing about which word fits. The Coalition’s contribution to that debate is simply to point out that the loudest voices on one side never seem to act as if they believe their own words. A person who truly believed he was holding stolen property would not read a statement about it before brunch. He would call a lawyer, or a tribal council, or at the very least a moving company.
“We’re not saying the history doesn’t matter,” Pemberton said, in the closest thing to a sober moment he allowed all afternoon. “We’re saying that if it matters as much as they say it does, the acknowledgment shouldn’t be the whole show. Either it’s stolen, and you give it back, or it’s more complicated than a two-sentence script. You don’t get to keep the house and the moral high ground. Pick one. We’ll take whichever one you put down.”
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Columbus Day Plans and a Look Ahead
For its inaugural Columbus Day observance, the CLC has planned a full slate of festivities, including a ceremonial “Receiving of the First Deed” (pending the actual receipt of a first deed); a flotilla of three rented pontoon boats on Tempe Town Lake, christened the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Monica Rent-Controlled; and a children’s coloring contest titled “Draw Your Favorite Property Line.”
At sunset, members will gather to read the Coalition’s own version of a land acknowledgment, which Pemberton read aloud for this reporter with evident pride:
“We acknowledge that we are standing on land currently administered by a federal agency that cannot fully account for it, beside a house owned by a man who says it isn’t his, near a bumper sticker that agrees with him. We honor his honesty. We await his signature.”
Looking further ahead, the Coalition hopes to expand into new markets. A pilot program in Martha’s Vineyard is in development. A proposed “Eminent Domain Day” was quietly shelved after a member pointed out that eminent domain is, technically, the government’s thing, “and we don’t want to encourage them.”
As this reporter packed up to leave, a CLC Receiver hurried over with a clipboard.
“Before you go,” he said brightly, “did you open your last article with a land acknowledgment?”
This reporter said that he had not.
“Oh,” the Receiver said, visibly deflated, lowering the clipboard. “Then I guess you get to keep your house.”
Which may be the most honest real-estate advice anyone in America has offered in years.
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NOTE:
The Columbus Land Coalition does not exist. Please do not mail it a deed, a cow, or a grazing permit. No actual Receivers, gelato entrepreneurs, Portland collectives, or Nevada ranchers were harmed in the making of this parody, because none of them are real.
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SOURCES CITED
Annett, Alexander. “The Federal Government’s Poor Management of America’s Land Resources.” The Heritage Foundation, May 17, 1999. https://www.heritage.org/environment/report/the-federal-governments-poor-management-americas-land-resources
Armao, Mark. “Study: Indigenous Tribes Lost 99% of Land to Colonization.” Grist, October 28, 2021. https://grist.org/accountability/indigenous-land-loss-forced-people-into-land-with-higher-climate-risks/
Ben & Jerry’s. “The US Was Founded on Stolen Indigenous Land—This July 4, Let’s Commit to Returning It.” July 2023. https://www.benjerry.com/whats-new/2023/07/stolen-indigenous-land
Brooks, Brad. “The Land Transfer Movement’s Great Public Lands Hoax.” High Country News, June 2, 2016. https://www.hcn.org/articles/the-land-transfer-movements-great-public-lands-hoax/
Chip J. “Why America’s Land Isn’t Stolen.” Capitalism Magazine, February 9, 2026. https://capitalismmagazine.com/2026/02/why-americas-land-isnt-stolen/
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Newark Field Office. “Fraudsters Are Stealing Land Out From Under Owners.” May 28, 2024. https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/newark/news/fraudsters-are-stealing-land-out-from-under-owners
Fynn-Paul, Jeff. “The Myth of the ‘Stolen Country.’” History Reclaimed, August 12, 2021. https://historyreclaimed.co.uk/the-myth-of-the-stolen-country/
Indigenous Geotags. “Frequent Questions.” https://www.indigenousgeotags.com/frequentquestions
Saunt, Claudio. “How Were 1.5 Billion Acres of Land So Rapidly Stolen?” Aeon, January 7, 2015. https://aeon.co/essays/how-were-1-5-billion-acres-of-land-so-rapidly-stolen
Science. “Native Tribes Have Lost 99% of Their Land in the United States.” October 2021. https://www.science.org/content/article/native-tribes-have-lost-99-their-land-united-states
Smith, Noah. “No, You Are Not on Indigenous Land.” Noahpinion, November 30, 2024. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/no-you-are-not-on-indigenous-land
The Free Press. “No, You Are Not on Indigenous Land.” https://www.thefp.com/p/no-you-are-not-on-indigenous-land
The Oklahoman Editorial Board. “Federal Officials Disregard Their Land Management Failures.” Reprinted at the office of U.S. Senator James Lankford. https://www.lankford.senate.gov/op-eds/the-oklahoman-editorial-board-federal-officials-disregard-their-land-management-failures/
Parody prepared for The Righteous Cause · novus2.com/righteouscause.
Drafted with research assistance from Claude (Anthropic); editorial authority rests with the author.