Genocide and Other Matters... (1 Viewer)

[forlornhoper]

Maddadicus Mr. Forlorn between the "genocide" of your Africans and the "genocide" of our Native Americans? Sorry i missed your question, any and all genocide is disgraceful and a stain on all mankind but you seem to have little or no problem with the concept.Genocide is a disease that has plague mankind throughout history it isnt unique to Britain,America,Germany,Russia,Japan,Turkey,etc.Whatever the religious or political motives are for such policy,they are all misguided,but mans inhumanity to man has no bounds and that includes all forms of Imperialism and my Country has been responsible for more than its fair share of blood letting in the past but that does not mean modern Brits should dismiss our past to the bin,we all need to face up to the truth and learn from the past in order to not repeat it in the future.In turn can i ask you to respond to the genocide of your Native Americans?No doubt UKREB will have an opinion and look forward to his slant on Genocide,then again he may not wish to partake since he thinks me repetetive.

 

[mk26gmls]

Re: The Little Bighorn

Maddadicus Mr. Forlorn between the "genocide" of your Africans and the "genocide" of our Native Americans? Sorry i missed your question, any and all genocide is disgraceful and a stain on all mankind but you seem to have little or no problem with the concept.Genocide is a disease that has plague mankind throughout history it isnt unique to Britain,America,Germany,Russia,Japan,Turkey,etc.Whatever the religious or political motives are for such policy,they are all misguided,but mans inhumanity to man has no bounds and that includes all forms of Imperialism and my Country has been responsible for more than its fair share of blood letting in the past but that does not mean modern Brits should dismiss our past to the bin,we all need to face up to the truth and learn from the past in order to not repeat it in the future.In turn can i ask you to respond to the genocide of your Native Americans?No doubt UKREB will have an opinion and look forward to his slant on Genocide,then again he may not wish to partake since he thinks me repetetive.

Genocide is defined as the following:
The systematic and widespread extermination or attempted extermination of an entire national, racial, religious, or ethnic group.

Maybe I am a little dense, but when did the the US commit "genocide" of your Africans as you put it? I believe your term is misapplied in this case. Africans were a commodity to be bought and sold. Genocide of the African population makes no economic sense back when slavery in the United States was legal.

I also don't think the word "genocide" applies to the Native Americans either under this definition. We find what ultimately happened to them abhorrent, but I don't believe this was an attempt at extermination.

Actually, since you apparently love this term so much, the first attempt at "genocide" was actually committed by the Native Americans upon the European settlers on March 22, 1622. I highly recommend the book "Love & Hate in Jamestown" for a great look at the first Native American/European relations.
http://www.treefrogtreasures.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15148

Darrell

 

[UKReb]

Re: The Little Bighorn

Maddadicus Mr. Forlorn between the "genocide" of your Africans and the "genocide" of our Native Americans? Sorry i missed your question, any and all genocide is disgraceful and a stain on all mankind but you seem to have little or no problem with the concept.Genocide is a disease that has plague mankind throughout history it isnt unique to Britain,America,Germany,Russia,Japan,Turkey,etc.Whatever the religious or political motives are for such policy,they are all misguided,but mans inhumanity to man has no bounds and that includes all forms of Imperialism and my Country has been responsible for more than its fair share of blood letting in the past but that does not mean modern Brits should dismiss our past to the bin,we all need to face up to the truth and learn from the past in order to not repeat it in the future.In turn can i ask you to respond to the genocide of your Native Americans?No doubt UKREB will have an opinion and look forward to his slant on Genocide,then again he may not wish to partake since he thinks me repetetive.

That's right because on this particular subject you have been-continuously!

Reb

 

[maddadicus]

Re: The Little Bighorn

Maddadicus Mr. Forlorn between the "genocide" of your Africans and the "genocide" of our Native Americans? Sorry i missed your question, any and all genocide is disgraceful and a stain on all mankind but you seem to have little or no problem with the concept.Genocide is a disease that has plague mankind throughout history it isnt unique to Britain,America,Germany,Russia,Japan,Turkey,etc.Whatever the religious or political motives are for such policy,they are all misguided,but mans inhumanity to man has no bounds and that includes all forms of Imperialism and my Country has been responsible for more than its fair share of blood letting in the past but that does not mean modern Brits should dismiss our past to the bin,we all need to face up to the truth and learn from the past in order to not repeat it in the future.In turn can i ask you to respond to the genocide of your Native Americans?No doubt UKREB will have an opinion and look forward to his slant on Genocide,then again he may not wish to partake since he thinks me repetetive.

As I have stated before, if one has a thought or comment about Bighorn battle strategy or battle statistics, I am interested. Present day social/ political generalizations applied to any battle of the past will always make my eyes glaze over and I generally dismiss them out of hand..Michael

 

[lancer]

Re: The Little Bighorn

To apply present day politics or morals to the past, to history, is an exercise in futility. It makes the study of history pointless. Learning from history is the object, so applying the view of present day "civilization" defeats the whole purpose. Evolution is essential. "Then bad, Now good" is useless. -- lancer

 

[Spitfrnd]

Re: The Little Bighorn

To apply present day politics or morals to the past, to history, is an exercise in futility. It makes the study of history pointless. Learning from history is the object, so applying the view of present day "civilization" defeats the whole purpose. Evolution is essential. "Then bad, Now good" is useless. -- lancer

Well we are repeating this cycle again. As I have noted before, I must respectfully reject that notion. We need to learn many things from history; morality is not one of them. The slaughter of the innocent has never been considered moral, not matter how otherwise justified. Politics is rather the practice of the expedient and has little to do with morality.

 

[maddadicus]

Re: The Little Bighorn

Well we are repeating this cycle again. As I have noted before, I must respectfully reject that notion. We need to learn many things from history; morality is not one of them. The slaughter of the innocent has never been considered moral, not matter how otherwise justified. Politics is rather the practice of the expedient and has little to do with morality.

If it was OK, back in time to kill Zulus or Indians or whomever, because all sides truly believed that they could never live peaceably with the other, then their various conflict meets the moral standard of that point in history. There were no CNN reporters embedded with Custer nor Chelmsford with an instant, in our bedroom visual of the killings. There were no spot polls to the settlers' households asking whether they approved of the wars or not. A famous U.S. general said the only good indian was a dead indian and guess what? 99% of the U.S. population at that time would have agreed with him. Does not make it right today, but very understandable then. I am not sure why today, we think ourselves to be so much morally superior to judge events that volumes of past written history books would justify. History will always be a snapshot of what has already happened and cannot be changed. But today, we want to take that snapshot, crop it, recolor it, add stuff to it ,to make it a totally different picture. I am not sure that we have the right to fabricate. Some certainly claim the will to do so..Michael

 

[forlornhoper]

Re: The Little Bighorn

Mk26gmls,dont think you read my post correctly ,I did not state that america carried out Genocide against Africans,i was answering a question that was put to me directly by one of your countrymen in respect to Britains imperial policy towards Africans, as to whether you are Dense,i could not possibly give you an intelligent answer to that question since i dont personally know you . As to your definition of Genocide ,I think that perfectly describes the fate of the Native American Indian at the hands of white europeans.It seems that some American contributors forget that the Native American Indian was living in America long ,long before the white man came to conquer and covet all that he viewed and what was done then to the Native American cannot be justified in modern day America surely ,and to say the first attempt at Genocide was perpetrated by the Native Americans is frankly absurd,when their country was being invaded by greedy disease ridden foreigners,i think you need to re read your history Genocide goes way back in the history of the human race, The Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage is an example of Genocide in antiquity,i think that came before 1622.

 

[Spitfrnd]

Re: The Little Bighorn

If it was OK, back in time to kill Zulus or Indians or whomever, because all sides truly believed that they could never live peaceably with the other, then their various conflict meets the moral standard of that point in history. There were no CNN reporters embedded with Custer nor Chelmsford with an instant, in our bedroom visual of the killings. There were no spot polls to the settlers' households asking whether they approved of the wars or not. A famous U.S. general said the only good indian was a dead indian and guess what? 99% of the U.S. population at that time would have agreed with him. Does not make it right today, but very understandable then. I am not sure why today, we think ourselves to be so much morally superior to judge events that volumes of past written history books would justify. History will always be a snapshot of what has already happened and cannot be changed. But today, we want to take that snapshot, crop it, recolor it, add stuff to it ,to make it a totally different picture. I am not sure that we have the right to fabricate. Some certainly claim the will to do so..Michael

I am afraid there is a vital distinction between the popular and the moral. The notion that the only good indian was a dead one was actually not that universally accepted by contemporary populations but that is really not the point. A democratic "mob" can be just as immoral as a single soldier. Few for example would say the sins of the French revolution were moral by any standard of that time, yet they were indeed popular. Sadly history is replete with leaders who did not appreciate that simple truth. That is hardly fabricating history but rather appreciating it for what is was. The ends really do not justify the means, except in the most extraordinary threats of peril. One of the most dangerous things to fail to appreciate about history is its mistakes in judgment and the failure to follow a moral course is frequently one of those mistakes.

 

[eborris]

Re: The Little Bighorn

In any case, I don't think it was genocide. It was definetly a clash of cultures that caused armed conflicts and attrocities on both sides. I believe they set up resevations to put a buffer between the two warring cultures through relocation. Granted the relocation wasn't what the indians wanted nor were they placed in the best of locations

 

[mk26gmls]

Re: The Little Bighorn

Mk26gmls,dont think you read my post correctly ,I did not state that america carried out Genocide against Africans,i was answering a question that was put to me directly by one of your countrymen in respect to Britains imperial policy towards Africans, as to whether you are Dense,i could not possibly give you an intelligent answer to that question since i dont personally know you . As to your definition of Genocide ,I think that perfectly describes the fate of the Native American Indian at the hands of white europeans.It seems that some American contributors forget that the Native American Indian was living in America long ,long before the white man came to conquer and covet all that he viewed and what was done then to the Native American cannot be justified in modern day America surely ,and to say the first attempt at Genocide was perpetrated by the Native Americans is frankly absurd,when their country was being invaded by greedy disease ridden foreigners,i think you need to re read your history Genocide goes way back in the history of the human race, The Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage is an example of Genocide in antiquity,i think that came before 1622.

"as to whether you are Dense,i could not possibly give you an intelligent answer to that question since i dont personally know you"
That was actually pretty funny.

"what was done then to the Native American cannot be justified in modern day America"
I surely am not justifying what happened to the Native American, but does that make it genocide? Not by the common use of that word today. Not everything horrible that happens to a group of people is genocide. It was a land grab.

"to say the first attempt at Genocide was perpetrated by the Native Americans is frankly absurd"
Actually the first attempt at genocide in North America between the Europeans and the Native Americans was committed by the Indians. That is a fact. There is no discussion here. March 16, 1622 was the day the Indians attempted to kill all of the colonists. They came pretty close to succeeding. Ultimately, it was a bad move because the Virginia Company set out to exterminate the Natives after this event. That didn't last long with the King England revoking the charter of the Virginia Company soon afterward.

"when their country was being invaded by greedy disease ridden foreigners"
The way you wrote that it sounds like to me that genocide might be OK if the Native Americans did it on those greedy disease ridden foreigners? I thought you said that genocide was always wrong?

 

[jazzeum]

Re: The Little Bighorn

The more I read this thread, the more I think of the first part of eborris' signature, "when the going gets weird...."

 

[maddadicus]

Re: The Little Bighorn

The more I read this thread, the more I think of the first part of eborris' signature, "when the going gets weird...."

Not my fault. When I started this thread, I just wanted to find out if aliens really killed Custer.REALLY!Michael

 

[forlornhoper]

Re: The Little Bighorn

MK26gmls, how can you possibly confuse the Native Indian defence of their country in 1622 with your own quoted definition of Genocide,have you forgotten that Europeans were invading another races country,why do you continually ignore this fact.As far as your land grab theory goes,that excuse of yours in no way justifies the millions of native indians that perished for your so called land grab.History has condemned what was done to the Native Americans by European whites and like germany it should become unlawful in america to deny the Native American Holocaust.

 

[mk26gmls]

Re: The Little Bighorn

MK26gmls, how can you possibly confuse the Native Indian defence of their country in 1622 with your own quoted definition of Genocide,have you forgotten that Europeans were invading another races country,why do you continually ignore this fact.As far as your land grab theory goes,that excuse of yours in no way justifies the millions of native indians that perished for your so called land grab.History has condemned what was done to the Native Americans by European whites and like germany it should become unlawful in america to deny the Native American Holocaust.

How are the Native Americans any different than any other group of people that have been displaced in history? This has been happening roughly 10,000 years. I don't know why you think I believe what happened to the Native Americans was OK. It wasn't, but it wasn't genocide.

I believe the root of your belief is something along the lines of "Native American = good, European settler = bad". Am I correct?

Also, to actually compare what the Nazis did to the Jews to the Native American experience is beyond belief to me. If you actually believe that, then this conversation is pretty much over.

 

[1879fanatic]

Re: The Little Bighorn

MK26gmls, how can you possibly confuse the Native Indian defence of their country in 1622 with your own quoted definition of Genocide,have you forgotten that Europeans were invading another races country,why do you continually ignore this fact.As far as your land grab theory goes,that excuse of yours in no way justifies the millions of native indians that perished for your so called land grab.History has condemned what was done to the Native Americans by European whites and like germany it should become unlawful in america to deny the Native American Holocaust.

All the people like us are We,
And every one else is They.

 

[eborris]

Re: The Little Bighorn

Gee, if you feel that bad about their plight perhaps a trip to one of their many casinos and dropping a couple million would make you feel better. As for me, I didn't do it, nor did I have any part in their sad tale, so we learn from our mistakes and move on. There is not one thing I can do about it.

 

[Lewey Gun Vick]

Re: The Little Bighorn

MK26gmls, how can you possibly confuse the Native Indian defence of their country in 1622 with your own quoted definition of Genocide,have you forgotten that Europeans were invading another races country,why do you continually ignore this fact.As far as your land grab theory goes,that excuse of yours in no way justifies the millions of native indians that perished for your so called land grab.History has condemned what was done to the Native Americans by European whites and like germany it should become unlawful in america to deny the Native American Holocaust.

Respectfully, it is morally ireprehensible to compare what happened to the American Indians to the treachery of the totalitarian Third Reich, you go ahead and call the United States butchers, yet you fail to remember a long forgotten event, the atrocity of Fort Mims, "The children were siezed by the legs, and killed by batting their heads against the stockading. The women were scalped, andthose who were pregnant were opened while they were stillalive and the embryo infants were let out of the womb."- from the book, "America the Last Best Hope; Volume 1: From the Age of Discobery To a World at War", by Doctor William J. Bennet

How are the Native Americans any different than any other group of people that have been displaced in history? This has been happening roughly 10,000 years. I don't know why you think I believe what happened to the Native Americans was OK. It wasn't, but it wasn't genocide.

I believe the root of your belief is something along the lines of "Native American = good, European settler = bad". Am I correct?

Also, to actually compare what the Nazis did to the Jews to the Native American experience is beyond belief to me. If you actually believe that, then this conversation is pretty much over.

Dittos!

Respectfully,

Vick

 

[Louis Badolato]

Re: The Little Bighorn

Respectfully, it is morally ireprehensible to compare what happened to the American Indians to the treachery of the totalitarian Third Reich, you go ahead and call the United States butchers, yet you fail to remember a long forgotten event, the atrocity of Fort Mims, "The children were siezed by the legs, and killed by batting their heads against the stockading. The women were scalped, andthose who were pregnant were opened while they were stillalive and the embryo infants were let out of the womb."- from the book, "America the Last Best Hope; Volume 1: From the Age of Discobery To a World at War", by Doctor William J. Bennet



Dittos!

Respectfully,

Vick

I am absolutely confused by this argument. It seems to me that the Indians who perpetrated Fort Mims, the white Americans who displaced and killed off an estimated 19 million Indians and the Nazis who massacred millions of Jews, Gypsies, and other people they considered sub-human are all a bunch of mass murdering scum, no matter what their rationalization for their conduct. If there is a hell, they are all toasting there as we speak. Once you intentionally kill another human being who is not actively trying to kill you, especially a woman or child, you have reneged on your membership dues in the human race. Why are you having a prolonged argument about which group of mass murderers is the worst? Do the dead victims care if their murderer was slightly more or less terrible compared to other mass murderers? The victims are all still dead. Frankly, if I were at Fort Mims, or Wounded Knee, or the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw, I pray that I would have had the guts and the sense to turn a gun on the agressor, and sell my life as dearly as possible killing the Indians, or U.S. Cavalrymen or Nazi scum who was trying to kill those innocent women and children.

 

[marco55]

Re: The Little Bighorn

In the 1870's there was a lot of Americans who had sympathy for the indians but the vast majority were in the east.Now go back 100-200 years and I think you will find that most people in the east did NOT have sympathy for the indians.Now whether the Europeans should have been in America or not I don't think the indian was the easiest type of people to be around.They didn't sit around being in harmony with nature,they used nature for their own benefit like all other humans.They were a warrior race.As for the right of europeans to be there or not the human race has always been wanderers.If this wasn't so we would all be in that valley in east africa.Forlornhoper aren't you a descendant of German tribes who displaced the celts?It's the way of all species thoughout history.The strong replace the weak.
Mark