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(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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For fucks sake... 1st off, whether or not this qualifies as a "meme", it doesn't fit the accepted norm of what most people expect to see when they click on "memes"
Secondly, and this may sting a little, but peace as we know it is a relatively new thing in world history. I've seen a multitude of other comments here proclaiming all those other genocides were okay because they were thousands of years ago. It's that "in my lifetime" mentality that just fucking grinds my gears. Through thousands of years of history, one genocide is cherry picked and held up as the worst ever, and the citizens who"benefitted" from it are supposed to pick up the tab? My ancestors weren't Spanish or English, and my family has been here for about 130 years having come from Germany in 1890. How much of the tab am I supposed to pick up?
Fact of the matter is, the only constant in human history is war. We're in a (relatively) peaceful era now, and that's taking into account Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Palestine, and probably another 20 or 30 wars I'm not up to speed on because I'm American and our media doesn't seem to actually inform us on world events from countries we don't buy shit from.
Human history is not really a constant war, but that is how Americans have been taught history: as a sequence of wars.
What's relatively new are the concept of mass conscription, economic warfare, and total war. The ability to enact war and destruction on a global and constant level is new. The brief cessations in conflict aren't peace, you're right, but it is also a newer concept that we are constantly in a forever war.
While I mostly agree, I never said constant war, but where I will disagree in a sense is, the prospect of total annihilation would have been a factor millennia ago had the technology been there. Pick your era, the Romans, the various Chinese dynasties, the English, etc... if they had the means, they would have likely used it, having zero regard for the impact it would have later, mostly due to a poor understanding of the technology. I do believe, at least between "the big three", meaning the US, Russia and China, nuclear war is an extremely potent deterrent to all out war. It's the "kids who want to be in the club" that worry me, everyone from NK to Israel. It sucks, but the atomic cat is out of the bag in a world we're all forced to live in, and the polarization of politics and other bullshit only work to drive that wedge deeper and push us closer to... bad shit.
Sure. I get what you mean: greek antiquity has records on the decision to exterminate an entire island of people. The capacity is absolutely there.
But I think a better perspective here is human history is one full of technological and social advances that resolve and prevent conflict. Even, yes, that unbagged atomic cat. It can be power for civilian use or it can be a bomb to burn their shadows into the concrete. War is when the actual prize of humanity: civility, breaks down.
I agree with your points, and yes it's a better perspective, however, that's not the world we're living in. There are some who are hell bent on wiping out continents of people due to any number of reasons ranging from beliefs to the exploitation of natural resources merely for financial gain. I really wish we did live in a world where the word "nuclear" invoked thoughts of clean(er), abundant and cheaper energy vs it invoking dread at the prospect of total annihilation.
Where did anyone say it was okay because it was longer ago? Please point me to it, because I read the entire thread and did not see this once.
The genocide of native new worlders is historically unprecedented and that is fact. I highly doubt that genocides on the same scale, magnitude and horror are commonplace throughout history. I would urge you to support your claim with evidence or examples if you are going to repeat it, otherwise it is entirely baseless.
However much it takes to bring up the status of the natives to what it would have been had they not been massacred and expelled, and undo the propping up of Western civilization on their backs. If you'd like more specific examples, I'd be glad to give them to you. Just ask.
Source? That's a pretty big claim.
As I'm too stupid and it's to early for me to do these inline...
Your 1st point, here's one, had to scroll about 1/8 down the page for. Granted it doesn't explicitly say it was "okay", the point stands:
As you also wanted to be pointed to a source for genocides on the same or larger scale throughout history, allow me to search Wikipedia for you:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides
As to point 3, who exactly determines who is responsible and who will benefit from this paln to raise up America's indigenous population to their proper station? Are 1st generation immigrants from Ghana going to be required to pay up? How about Natives who's ancestry dates back to a tribe that exterminated another tribe? Surely that should also qualify as genocide?
And as to point 4, we, in the west, as I did point out I was American, are in a (relatively) peaceful time, which implies that throughout history it has not been, but I guess I need to spell it out for some people.
At the end of the day, you're not looking to be enlightened or to learn anything, your post was directed to completely discount my points, or to "troll" I will admit I was getting heated reading some of the off the wall bullshit I was seeing, but superlatives aside, I stand by everything I've posted. I apologize if you TRULY didn't know about other genocides, or if your worldview has jaded you to the point where you don't initially see posts that clearly illustrate what I said, at least in the abstract, and you took the time to go back and reread them and allow it to sink in.
Feel free to pick apart this post, too. Nothing is more entertaining in a meme thread than for 2 idiots, myself included, to argue about genocide.🙂
Your first quotation is not about someone excusing a genocide because it happened a long time ago. They are saying that unlike the US, the current inhabitants in those regions can be traced back to the inhabitants thousands of years ago. Which means there wasn't a major genocide or displacement of people. I am not endorsing this statement btw, I don't know enough to confirm it. But it is not a condonation of genocide. It is in fact remarking that a genocide similar to what happened in North America did not happen in those other regions.
You provided me a list of genocides on Wikipedia. None of them match the genocide against native Americans. Your link proves my point.
I didn't ask you to paraphrase or restate your point. I asked you to prove it or provide evidence. But I never expected you to be able to anyways, so don't worry about it.
Ah, the internet...
The phrase "That’s not to excuse their past behaviour (Europeans started the genocide in North America), but it’s still very different" effectively translates to "Even though this happened, this is worse".
If you bothered to look at that list, you'll note the mention of the California Genocide of 1846. Reported casualties between 9,492 and 16,094, with other estimates as high as 120,000. Absolutely fucking horrible and a black mark on American history indeed. However, there are 31 other genocides on that list that are higher in number, with three of those even happening prior to California-
Dzungam 1755, 480,000-600,000 Taino 1492, 68,000-968,000 Albigensian 1209, 200,000-1,000,000
I guess it depends on how you define "genocide", but since Wikipedia is generally using the accepted definition, I feel pretty safe in going with what they say.
And I did lay out proof, you're just too caught up in whatever ideology to see it. Feel free to rebut, down vote, cry or whatever makes you feel better, but my point was the world is a horrible place, and terrible things happen to all kinds of groups of people. The "meme" that started all this IS a cherry picked reference to people who were wronged (I'm not disputing they were wronged, but so were... insert any other group of people here). Throughout history, most civilizations are founded on the conquering of another. As horrible as that is, it's a fact. And after the fact, many of the remaining conqured are treated horribly. Also a fact.
Lay out some real numbers, cite an authoritative source (sources) and then we can talk. Until then, I hope the best for you and really wish we could get past this bickering bullshit. Life is too short, and trying to pin the sins of one's father on the current generation isn't solving shit. Work toward bettering peoples lives without having to exact revenge from people who didn't have fuck all to do with it.
close to 100 million native Americans were victims of the genocide by European settlers. EDIT: This is a link to the book "American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World" by David Sannard
Oh, I stand corrected. A link to a Google doc. Should probably submit that to the Wikipedia article I linked as clearly thier information is flawed. You win an internet today.
It's a link to a specific page of the book "American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World" By David Sannard. It's not a Google doc.
And it's written by a person, with an agenda and bias just like everyone else. Have a tough time taking anything seriously from someone affiliated with Ward Churchill.
The book is well sourced with tons of evidence. If you can invalidate their evidence, I am happy to hear. Otherwise, please drop this discussion. It's not a good look.
Citing one book by someone with a clear agenda isn't a good look either. You picked the fight, feel free to drop it at your leisure.
Source? Prove to me that this author cannot be trusted. Otherwise your claim is to be ignored, sorry.
You don't have to apologize to me. If he's someone who would collaborate with Ward Churchill, he's got a clear agenda. My source for that was looking him up on Wikipedia, as I had no clue who he was. I'm not going to do the effort of sending you a direct link to the article, so feel free to do it yourself. And grant us all the fact that someone who writes a book has an implied agenda to sell the book.
And every time you start a post with "Source?", it's a bad look.
this is what you look like saying that
Clever.
I'm going through the sourced materials in the American Holocaust book, (great title, by the way! not divisive at all!), and considering the sources, it's pretty obvious Stannard has an agenda, he's a "cultural materialist", an offshoot of cultural Marxism. But you knew that, you just didn't think I'd look 😉
Anyway, with as far as I've gotten, I can surmise the sources, the majority of them at least, point to textbooks published by "Berkley; University of California press". Seems a lot of anti-American sentiment comes out of Berkley. Just to appease my curiosity, I'm going to look deeper into this fellow, who, funny enough, cites his own works as well. That's pretty douchey
Thanks for being open minded and reading through! Even if it's through a biased eye and a bit of a snarky reply, I still appreciate it. I hope that you open up and consider the sources presented with an open mind.
I'll be looking forward to your assessment when you're done, and I'll do my best to receive it with an open mind as well.
It'll be a while before I can read further but I do intend to read all of it. In my biased opinion so far, i reads like a propaganda piece, the words seleceted in some of the passages are used to elicit a response, but maybe I'll see differently as I continue. I do have a question, when you say "genocide", are you also including open conflicts? It's my understanding of the word that it would not, but I want to make sure, especially when numbers are involved, that we're using the same metrics.
Here is an interactive map that shows current ongoing conflicts around the world.
https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker