America

[Flying_Monkey]

I guess the 'absolute tit' in question doesn't mind if I come and take his house then, after all he has only been there a relatively short time...

I used to live in the States. I met many wonderful people, but I have also never encountered such utter ignorance about the rest of the world. It is such a seductively wealthy place where the rest of the world just doesn't seem to exist if you're in the right place, but an utterly pittiless and unforgiving place if you are not. In DC, where I was, there were gunfights and hopeless poverty a few blocks from the houses of the richest Senators and these worlds did not overlap or even register on the other at all.

 

[Abitrary]

In DC, where I was, there were gunfights and hopeless poverty a few blocks from the houses of the richest Senators and these worlds did not overlap or even register on the other at all.

A couple of kids playing top trumps on a street corner doesn't equal social breakdown my friend.

 

[redcogs]

There are no native Americans. Everyone knows that humans originated in Africa. The Americas were populated 12,000 years ago by people from elsewhere. All Americans come from the old world. It is just a matter of when they arrived. Given the time that humans have been on the planet, all human activity in the Americas is very,very recent and no group has any real claim to the place.

The current archeological record indeed confirms that all humanity originated in Africa, which must be quite troubling to noxious white supremacists. Of course, in the last analysis, we are all human beings, and, as individuals, we only borrow our patch of territory for the short time that we are alive.

i suggest, that under such circumstances all humans have a moral, political, and economic obligation to seek to peacefully and co-operatively co-exist with one another regardless of our origins - which seems to be a very different perspective from your vulgar justification of the imperialistic genocide perpetrated by Europeans against the native Americans.

 

[Yellow Fang]

What like the Native Americans did when they killed the even more native American Aborigines who were living there before, in South America at least?

 

[snorri]

I think this is it.

Oh, that one thank you ColinJ.

 

[redcogs]

What like the Native Americans did when they killed the even more native American Aborigines who were living there before, in South America at least?

i would be interested to learn which "even more native Aborigines" were subjected to genocidal imperialist expansion Yellow Fang?

 

[rich p]

i would be interested to learn which "even more native Aborigines" were subjected to genocidal imperialist expansion Yellow Fang?

Are you one of those people who feel we have to issue a public national apology for the sins of our forefathers or do we have to beat ourselves with birch twigs?

I suspect the native americans were equally cruel to their neighbouring tribes over territory, food etc but I think you have to live in the present and try to make today and the future work better.

 

[Yellow Fang]

There was a documentary on the telly that argued that, in South America at least, Aborigine people similar to the Australian Aborigines, descendants of East African sailors who had been blown out to sea, were living, and that they were wiped out by invaders from the north. IIRC, it showed cave paintings with red-skinned men battling black-skinned men. The DNA tested some natives from Sierra Del Fuego, an island at the southern most tip of South America, and confirmed the genetic link.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Tierra del Fuego... and it remains at present simply a theory.

In any case, previous attacks and genocides do not justify later ones, and the fact that one people have displaced another does not create some kind of moral precedent - otherwise you would have to accept that Al-Qaeda had every right to destroy the WTC etc. (or would have every right to invade and rule the USA or Britain if they could) and I dont think you want to do that, do you? That's the problem with historical revisionism or attempts to justify the world as it is from the one that was - it leaves with a very tricky problem of moral relativism...

 

[redcogs]

Are you one of those people who feel we have to issue a public national apology for the sins of our forefathers or do we have to beat ourselves with birch twigs?

I suspect the native americans were equally cruel to their neighbouring tribes over territory, food etc but I think you have to live in the present and try to make today and the future work better.

Not particularly. Such matters are best dealt with on a case by case basis in any event, rather than on some blanket principle of each apologising for each or every past crime.

So, as an example, i'm quite happy that the 'peace and reconcilliation' initiative occurred, which involved recognition of past crimes against humanity in South Africa, as a means of attempting to forge a better future for all.

Equally, it sometimes can be appropriate to apologise for past outrages. i'm thinking the holocaust, where i could see few reasons why the German state shouldn't want to apologise on behalf of Germany for the revolting actions of the nazis.

But, its a very complicated area, involving timing and sober judgement, and perhaps shouldn't be subject to hard rules.

On the matter of inter tribal warfare among the native American peoples, of course cruelty was frequently involved on all sides. i suppose the essential difference was that European involvement starting with Columbus became one of long term imperialist policy resulting in the genocide of many tribes for economic and political objectives.

i couldn't support such a policy any more than i could support current American imperialism in the middle east.

 

[redcogs]

There was a documentary on the telly that argued that, in South America at least, Aborigine people similar to the Australian Aborigines, descendants of East African sailors who had been blown out to sea, were living, and that they were wiped out by invaders from the north. IIRC, it showed cave paintings with red-skinned men battling black-skinned men. The DNA tested some natives from Sierra Del Fuego, an island at the southern most tip of South America, and confirmed the genetic link.

Thanks YellowFang. i didn't see the program. i'm happy to accept Flying Monkey's view on it, which confirms my understanding; ie, that scholars have spent lifetimes attempting to prove that native Americans were the descendants of this or that seafaring peoples from elsewhere, when what we actually know is that various ice ages(and their periodic retreats) enabled people from east Asia to cross the landbridges to Alaska and beyond.

Its a deeply fascinating subject area i think.

 

[domtyler]

I guess the 'absolute tit' in question doesn't mind if I come and take his house then, after all he has only been there a relatively short time...

I used to live in the States. I met many wonderful people, but I have also never encountered such utter ignorance about the rest of the world. It is such a seductively wealthy place where the rest of the world just doesn't seem to exist if you're in the right place, but an utterly pittiless and unforgiving place if you are not. In DC, where I was, there were gunfights and hopeless poverty a few blocks from the houses of the richest Senators and these worlds did not overlap or even register on the other at all.

Something doesn't add up here. How do you manage to square the appearance of being one of the most widely travelled people on this forum, clearly you have many thousands of long haul air miles under your belt, with your position as one the most ardent and outspoken critics of air travel?

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Something doesn't add up here. How do you manage to square the appearance of being one of the most widely travelled people on this forum, clearly you have many thousands of long haul air miles under your belt, with your position as one the most ardent and outspoken critics of air travel?

This thread isn't about me. If you want to pursue a private vendetta, do it somewhere else please. Back to the subject...

 

[rich p]

. i suppose the essential difference was that European involvement starting with Columbus became one of long term imperialist policy resulting in the genocide of many tribes for economic and political objectives.

i couldn't support such a policy any more than i could support current American imperialism in the middle east.

I don't think any of us would support it now but something that happened 400-500 years ago can hardly be construed as a policy or have I misunderstood you?

 

[domtyler]

This thread isn't about me. If you want to pursue a private vendetta, do it somewhere else please.

Well, as you have asked so nicely I will indeed do as you say*.
















*As opposed to doing as you do.