COLLECTIVE MADNESS
“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Anybody here recognize themselves in the below article? Bobal? Boba?
ReplyDelete"The Big Hate
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By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 11, 2009
Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.
But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.
There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.
Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.
And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.
Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).
But let’s not neglect the print news media. In the Bush years, The Washington Times became an important media player because it was widely regarded as the Bush administration’s house organ. Earlier this week, the newspaper saw fit to run an opinion piece declaring that President Obama “not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself,” and that in any case he has “aligned himself” with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.
And then there’s Rush Limbaugh. His rants today aren’t very different from his rants in 1993. But he occupies a different position in the scheme of things. Remember, during the Bush years Mr. Limbaugh became very much a political insider. Indeed, according to a recent Gallup survey, 10 percent of Republicans now consider him the “main person who speaks for the Republican Party today,” putting him in a three-way tie with Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich. So when Mr. Limbaugh peddles conspiracy theories — suggesting, for example, that fears over swine flu were being hyped “to get people to respond to government orders” — that’s a case of the conservative media establishment joining hands with the lunatic fringe.
It’s not surprising, then, that politicians are doing the same thing. The R.N.C. says that “the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals.” And when Jon Voight, the actor, told the audience at a Republican fund-raiser this week that the president is a “false prophet” and that “we and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, thanked him, saying that he “really enjoyed” the remarks.
Credit where credit is due. Some figures in the conservative media have refused to go along with the big hate — people like Fox’s Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge, who debunked the attacks on that Homeland Security report two months ago. But this doesn’t change the broad picture, which is that supposedly respectable news organizations and political figures are giving aid and comfort to dangerous extremism.
ReplyDeleteWhat will the consequences be? Nobody knows, of course, although the analysts at Homeland Security fretted that things may turn out even worse than in the 1990s — that thanks, in part, to the election of an African-American president, “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years.”
And that’s a threat to take seriously. Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/opinion/12krugman.html?_r=1
Those two gals in the background were SO Rude!
ReplyDeleteThe whole time Mr. Frank was speaking, they were talking about how funny it is to visualize Barney sucking an HIV infected penis.
Gross.
Anyone have any idea what Ash and Krugman are raving about?
ReplyDeleteThat's a match made in Heaven,
for sure.
Tinfoil for the Asshats, Mates!
ReplyDeletedesert rat said...
ReplyDelete-
" The funny thing, bob, when you argue that the US is no empire, is my thinking of the number of Czars that exist in the Federal Government.
Czar, a Russian adaptation of the Latin word for supreme leader, Ceasar. Now incorporated and fully integrated into the lexicon of governing America.
From the days of Nixon, and the Drug Czars. Then the Education Czar, Bill Bennett. On to the current Car Czar, a fellow that proudly claims to know nothing, about cars.
Forty years of leadership by Czars, here in the United States, but no, there is no Empire, not when words have no meaning.
Bro D-Day made the point the other day, it is exemplary of where the United States is, realisticly.
America, land of the Czars."
---
Obama's got 20 in 5 months.
Russia had only 17 in all it's Tsarsist years.
Catherine the Great did give better head. tho, than Barry's 20 could in total.
ReplyDeleteDesert Rat said...
ReplyDelete"While I disagree with Buchanan's assessment of US history as anti-American, some of it is deplorable. Those claims against US are all true, all of the negatives that Buchanan presents us with:
... of genocide against the Indians, of slavery and segregation, of robbing Mexicans of their land and of disrespecting our Latin neighbors.
Rather than discounting the reality of it, as Buchanan does, I think that factoring foreign perceptions of continental and international historical realities into the present whirled situation is vital to success.
Which Mr Bush failed to do and which President Obama is attempting to remedy. He seeing it as an error not to be in discussions with adversaries prior to conflict with them."
---
bobal said...
This might be right for you, Rat.
6 Bedroom Villa in Varmland, Sweden---/
Check it out. At least, you won't be squatting on somebody else's land!
Fri Jun 12, 03:12:00 AM EDT
bobal said...
Relocate Rat, you won't be feeling that unconscious guilt any longer.
That guilt you want to transfer to others, in classic psychoanalytic fashion.
It will be good for you.
Fri Jun 12, 03:17:00 AM EDT
bobal said...
A whole new LIFE, clean, pure, transcendental.
Fri Jun 12, 03:18:00 AM EDT
bobal said...
As for me, I'd rather live in some Phoenix suburb, hypocrite that I am, where I can count on the water, and heat, than some Mexican barrio, and Rat would too, rather than live up to his ideals, cause he choses to live in Phoenix, and not live up to his ideals.
Fri Jun 12, 03:26:00 AM EDT
bobal said...
Which pushed to its furthest shore would mean, ripping the living hearts out of some poor captive, on the upper reaches of a stepped pyramid.
Ok, it's out of my system.
Goodnight
Linear said...
"Bar Fight!"
"desert rat said..."
ReplyDeleteWell who the fuck in their right mind cares?
well, trish, Rat is more right than he is wrong as opposed to Bobal who lumbers along with his ahistorical notion that all the US does is good and kind - sort of your view as well I guess.
ReplyDeleteWhat a dumbass, adolescent argument that is,
ReplyDelete'Rat:
We took the land from the Mexicans.
We're Bad.
The Mexicans took it from the Indians, they're Good.
The Indians raped the Virgin Gaia,
They're good.
(despite their lust for human sacrifice, and Stone Age Mentality and Beastiality)
"Native Hawaiians" would be speaking Japanese, had we not "stolen" their sacred Islands...
(notwithstanding that an OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF HAWAIIANS, native, and othewise, voted FOR Statehood in the US of A, back in 1959.)
Better to ignore that and follow leftist professors, "Hawaiian Activist" ripoff artists, and the EB's own Desert Rat.
Defender of the Disloyal opposition when the people are in power, defender of the Powerful when the Marxists are calling the shots.
Don't "well, trish" me. I'm not havin' any of it.
ReplyDeleteYou and Doug can spend the day pulling Chuckie's string. I'm certainly not gonna fuck with a perfectly fine Friday (or any other day) by doing same.
No comments or opinions on Pelosi's Tuna, Trish?
ReplyDeleteHow about the Pink Tacos?
Good idea about fucking up perfectly fine days, tho.
ReplyDeleteFor once, Trish, Ash, and al-Doug all agree!
Missed it all, Doug.
ReplyDeleteDon't care.
I didn't either, until I was made aware of Pink Tacos in the proper context.
ReplyDeleteA bit of mirth for a perfectly fine day.
In the previous thread, you'll find a link to said Tacos, if you care for a few more chuckles.
The "Queen" is making perfect sense, to me.
ReplyDeleteThe Pubs gotta understand, "They fucked this deal up." They might as well shut up, and stand aside.
We had to belly up to the table, and give those motherfuckers all that money, and the next thing you know I'm reading about John Thain's "Gold-plated Toilet."
I, personally, don't care if the Dems completely tear the house down. It was "On Fire" when they got to the scene.
I used to have a visceral reaction to "Barney, and the Dems." Now, it's the Pubs that make me want to throw my computer at the TV.
yep, the nuts and bolts of Corporate Governance is worth examining and most seem to suffer under the delusion that shareholders (those that actually own the company) have the power. Take a look at how board of directors are put in place (i.e. through nominating committees that propose a slate, and only one slate, of candidates) and how difficult it is for shareholders to challenge that slate. Next take a look at the cozy relationship that exists between management, the board of directors, the nominating committee, and the compensation committee and you'll be on Franks side of this issue. It is kind of funny how we rant and rave about the power of democracy to run our country but are afraid of a semblance of it when it comes to controlling corporations. Who is management accountable to? It sure ain't the shareholders.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, "NO One, NO WHERE" has ever "Liked" Republicans. We put up with them because they're supposed to know how to make the trains run on time.
ReplyDeleteNow, it turns out, they were drunk at the switch, and in the engine, too. They ran the damned train off the tracks, and damned near all the way over the cliff.
Now, they're whining because the new owners want to cut their salaries. Fuck the Cocksuckers.
They ought to all be in jail. They're goddamned lucky they're out walking around, stealing fresh air from the rest of us.
The Pubs better wake the fuck up. They're supposed to score big in 2010; but at the rate they're going it's going to be another massacre.
The idiot fucking republicans don't have any idea how mad Ol' Rufus, and a lot of other tax-paying suckers, are at the Ken Lewis, and John Thains of the world.
For some reason, If I'm not walking around with a sign, or throwing rocks through their office windows they don't think I'm paying attention.
I've got news for them: This might be the first election since the sixties that Ol Rufus hasn't voted. Right now, I'm thinking about going fishing.
Geez, this place has gone crazy.
ReplyDeleteIt must be the moon, or something in the water.
Two things.
1. If you have proof of genocide against Native Americans, let's see it....otherwise please stop repeating the calumny.
2. I don't know who said it first but I heard an Englishman say the same thing as Krugman about the "economy not getting worse as fast."
Nobody, nowhere has ever liked Democrats.
ReplyDeleteNobody, nowhere has ever liked smart-mouthed, high and mighty expats.
Nobody, nowhere has ever liked foul-mouthed, foul-minded louts.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you rufus. The Republicans finally exposed themselves as incompetent Democrats. I don't see any fresh 'small-government' faces on the horizon to give any hope. Liberals like Krugman think that demographics have changed and conservative values don't sell anymore. I don't believe that. I think they will if we can find anyone who has them, combined with a bit of integrity. Until then, it's going to be Hope for Change. What a choice, the stupid party vs. the party of sleaze.
ReplyDeleteI live in Massachusetts with a clean conscience. The land was purchased from the owners in the early 1600's and the deeds are still on file.
Nobody, nowhere has ever liked foul-mouthed, foul-minded louts.
ReplyDeleteI save a lot on Christmas Cards, that way. Or, put another way, "Blow me."
The Cherokee part of me is damned glad the Europeans showed up. I imagine them damned teepees got cold as hell in the wintertime. And, the mosquitos were probably "miserable" during the summer.
If we do get out of this recession it's going to be a pitifully anemic squirt. They thought the last one was a "jobless" recovery. Wait till they see this one.
You're not the one I was referring to. I was thinking of that fellow with the perverted sense of humor who, of late, acts for all the world like a dirty old man in the advanced stages of venereal disease.
ReplyDeleteGeez, this place has gone crazy.
ReplyDeleteIt must be the moon, or something in the water.
And, whatever it is going around, I think I've caught it.
Maybe I need a nap...
I went to the grocery store and returned with a scrawny, flea-ridden puppy somebody'd left tied to a tree. Wasn't planning on that. But what could I do? It smelled the roasted chicken in one of my bags and suddenly we were long lost pals.
ReplyDeleteI do like my own, personal Republican, BTW. Very much. I think everyone oughta have one.
dougo, you make the good and bad moral judgements, on the history. I do not make any such judgements, but acknowledge the reality of the history.
ReplyDeleteThe Trail of Tears, whit, was genocide, against the Indians, by the US Government of Andrew Jackson. Then if we go through the later incidents, post Civil War, there are many incidents that together weave a pretty convincing case for genocide.
The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
General Philip Sheridan, 1868 U.S. Union Army ...
Iran election rivals both declare victory.
ReplyDeleteInterest in the election has increased markedly in recent weeks
The two main candidates in Iran's presidential election have claimed victory, after extended voting as huge numbers of people turned out to vote.
In the Winter Campaign of 1868–69 he attacked the Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Comanche tribes in their winter quarters, taking their supplies and livestock and killing those who resisted, driving the rest back into their reservations. By promoting in Congressional testimony the hunting and slaughter of the vast herds of American Bison on the Great Plains and by other means, Sheridan helped deprive the Indians of their primary source of food.[41] Professional hunters, trespassing on Indian land, killed over 4 million bison by 1874. When the Texas legislature considered outlawing bison poaching on tribal lands, Sheridan personally testified against it in Austin, Texas. He suggested that the legislature should give each of the hunters a medal, engraved with a dead buffalo on one side and a discouraged-looking Indian on the other.[42] This strategy continued until the Indians honored their treaties. Sheridan's department conducted the Red River War, the Ute War, and the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, which resulted in the death of a trusted subordinate, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer. The Indian raids subsided during the 1870s and were almost over by the early 1880s, as Sheridan became the commanding general of the U.S. Army.[43]
ReplyDeleteThere is an anecdote told concerning Sheridan during his campaign against the Indians. Comanche Chief Tosawi, or Silver Knife, reputedly told Sheridan in 1869, "Me Tosawi. Me good Indian," to which Sheridan is said to have replied, "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead."[44] This was then misquoted as "The only good Indian is a dead Indian". Sheridan later denied he had made the statement to Tosawi. Earlier that year, on May 28, Rep. James M. Cavanaugh said in the House, "I have never seen in my life a good Indian ... except when I have seen a dead Indian." That remark may have been mistakenly attributed to Sheridan.
Sheridan's Ride
ReplyDeleteby Thomas Buchanan Read
Up from the South, at break dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste to the chieftain's door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.
And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon's bar;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold,
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
With Sheridan twenty miles away.
But there is a road from Winchester town,
A good, broad highway leading down:
And there, through the flush of the morning light,
A steed as black as the steeds of night
Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight;
As if he knew the terrible need,
He stretched away with his utmost speed.
Hills rose and fell, but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.
Still sprang from those swift hoofs, thundering south,
The dust like smoke from the cannon's mouth,
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster,
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster.
The heart of the steed and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls;
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.
Under his spurning feet, the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind;
And the steed, like a barque fed with furnace ire,
Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire;
But, lo! he is nearing his heart's desire;
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.
The first that the general saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops;
What was to be done? what to do?--a glance told him both.
Then striking his spurs with a terrible oath,
He dashed down the line, 'mid a storm of huzzas,
And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because
The sight of the master compelled it to pause.
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray;
By the flash of his eye, and his red nostril's play,
He seemed to the whole great army to say:
"I have brought you Sheridan all the way
From Winchester down to save the day."
Hurrah! hurrah for Sheridan!
Hurrah! hurrah for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high
Under the dome of the Union sky,
The American soldier's Temple of Fame,
There, with the glorious general's name,
Be it said, in letters both bold and bright:
"Here is the steed that saved the day
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,
From Winchester--twenty miles away!"
I do know a couple of Indians that will not use the $20 dollar bill, because Andy Jackson's portrait is upon it.
ReplyDeleteThey hold no doubts, after 180 years, that the Trail of Tears was genocide.
From the JPost, an interesting examination of the Israeli position, or the lack of one.
ReplyDeleteWHERE SHOULD we begin? As but one example, let's begin with some of the questions that the West Bank raises: Are we ever willing to give up the West Bank? For a moment, let's set aside the obvious security issue and the devastating consequences if Kassam rockets start flying from the West Bank as well. Let's assume for a minute (a wild assumption, I admit) that the Palestinians decide that it really is time to move on, to abandon terror and accept a division of the land. Are we willing?
I believe that we don't know anymore. Our unwillingness to state our position is not a reflection of dishonesty or of hiding. It's simply a result of the fact that we have for so long seen no possibility of progress on the Palestinian front that we've stopped asking ourselves what we would do if we could.
So let's be honest: What would we do?
When some of us speak about not making any change until the Palestinians have built a genuinely democratic infrastructure (bottom-up, we call it), are we serious? Or do we simply assume that they'll never accomplish that under present circumstances, so what we're effectively doing is announcing, though not with the "honesty" that Obama is rightly calling for, that we plan to stay, no matter what?
ReplyDeleteIF WE PLAN to stay, which could well be defensible, let's be honest about the endgame. What do we plan for the Palestinian population there? The status quo forever? Are we going to make them citizens, and thus further erode Israel's fragile Jewish majority? Are we going to give them some sort of citizenship that involves full civic rights but not the right to vote on matters that determine the nature of the state? Is that the democracy we seek? Do we have any alternative? Or are we planning to move the Palestinians to some other location (a plan which didn't work very well with India and Pakistan, but which worked flawlessly in Cyprus)?
But if, alternatively, we do plan to leave the West Bank, what would we do if it turned into Hamastan, as happened in Gaza? We had no contingency plan for Gaza, and the results have been devastating. Will we make the same mistake again? And if we could solve the security issue, will we force all the Jews on the West Bank to leave? Or will we insist on their right to continue living there, even if under Palestinian rule?
Genocide? You can make a case for ethnic cleansing, that is relocating people but genocide is a strong and inappropriate word used in this context to inflame.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, I will point out:
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
— The Declaration of Independence
If you want to documented allegations of genocide there it is, practiced by the ones you claim as the victims. "Undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions." So, it didn't matter to the red man, young, old, infirmed, male, or female. It didn't matter, they were marked for death by the red man, the true merciless savage. So, if in the course of this conflict (remember, it was hundreds of years ago) atrocities undoutedly occurred why are only the Palestinians, the red men, given a pass?
Usually this kind of propaganda is spewed by the Amerika hating left.
They hold no doubts, after 180 years, that the Trail of Tears was genocide.
ReplyDeleteApparently, they have a problem moving on. Their people started some "stuff" and couldn't finish it. They were lucky at the time, that they were marched off to Oklahoma. I'm sure that Ol Hickory was perfectly capable of finishing every one off in place but that didn't happen did it? They were marched off to reservations unlike the Jews who were shipped off to the gas chambers of the concentration camps.
The Sioux were originally a lower Mississippi people, so I have read.
ReplyDeleteThey got pushed north.
Then, they got pushed out onto the plains.
Around here, the Nez Perce were continually 'at war' with the Shoshone, and the Blackfoot.
None of these folks were exactly 'noble savages.'
They were more or less like we Vikings, always fucking each other over.
I think, taken all in all, civilization, meaning a law court, and a Constitution, is something of an improvement.
While I love and respect my Native American brethern, I think we are all better off for having some lawyers, and a court that means something.
The reason we don't hear much about the slaughter of the Native
Americans to one another is cause they didn't write it down.
Rat should make up his moral mind, and get back to Sweden, as, in his world, he is a Settler, an ethnic cleanser, an interloper, there in Phoenix, Arizona.
Most of the Indians I've known, whit, were some varient of Apache, that were cowboys or horsemen. Competitive ropers, horse traders and trainers.
ReplyDeleteI have known some Navajo, but not nearly as many, though of the same cowboy culture.
Very patriotic guys, loyal as hell to the United States, but not afraid of her seeing her warts.
The story of Kit Carson and the Navajo, not so well known as the Trail of Tears.
The Long Walk
In 1863, American forces, under famed scout Kit Carson, entered Navajo territory. They were there to punish the Navajo for their continuing raids. With the Navajo's ability to hide themselves in their canyons, the expedition's most effective tool became fire. Carson's people burned the crops and the homes of the Navajos whenever they could find them. This had a drastic effect in this arid region.
During this campaign, the army had captured about 6,000 Navajos. Along with about 2,000 other Indians under their control, they would eventually be marched 300 miles from eastern Arizona to a "resettlement" camp in New Mexico. The army called the camp Bosque Redondo. The Navajos called their forced march "The Long Walk."
Of the 8,000 Indians that began the trek well over 3,000 died before they even reached their destination, according to the Indians accounts.
Over a third of the population lost before the transit phase was complete.
The Perfect Place For Rat--
ReplyDelete-/
If he moves there, and gives his place in Phoenix back to those he stole it from, then I will begin to take his arguments more seriously.
Right there on the sea coast, Rat.
ReplyDeleteReturn to your roots.
On the lake rather, not seacoast.
ReplyDeletePlace looks darn attractive to me.
Wish I could afford it.
That's the place for you, Rat.
Then you can spout off all o'er the world, beat your own drum about your o so pure moral purity.
So?
ReplyDeleteThis was happening at the about the same time
Sherman's March to the Sea followed his successful Atlanta Campaign of May to September 1864. He and U.S. Army commander, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, believed that the Civil War would end only if the Confederacy's strategic, economic, and psychological capacity for warfare were decisively broken. Sherman therefore applied the principles of scorched earth: he ordered his troops to burn crops, kill livestock, consume supplies, and destroy civilian infrastructure along their path. This policy is often considered a component strategy of total war. The recent re-election of President Abraham Lincoln ensured that short-term political pressure would not be applied to restrain these tactics.Wikipedia.
There is a difference between seeing your girl friend's warts and taking out full page ads telling the whirled about them.
ReplyDeleteHow would you come to that moralistic conclusion, based upon the history, bob?
ReplyDeleteI do not deny any of the benefits of the conquest, you deny there was a conquest.
The two positions complimentary, ffrom my perspective. I am not arguing the outcome was evil, just that the historic accuracy of the US expansion is not free of human mis-behaviours.
Why does the truth of US history scare you so?
Is your position in life built upon such a false foundation that a realistic telling of the historic tale rocks it?
Where your denial of American history becomes as grotesquely comical as Abracadabra's speechs featuring his bobastic Holocaust denials.
How does denying the realities leading up to the Mexican War and the importance of the signing of Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and Mexican Cession advance US interests, today? Especially when dealing with Mexico?
The Mexican War, the Treaty terms and Cession that followed were intergral to the concept of Manifest Destiny and the continental nature of the United States, to deny its' importance, foolish.
I wish I could post it, but there is a really beautiful Navajo sand painting in one of my books by Joseph Campbell.
ReplyDeleteIt is about the good pollen path, and the footsteps go up the corn stalk through the seven levels, exactly like in Hindu myth.
How, o how, did this idea get to the Navajo?
Was it by cultural diffusion? Or is this representative of something very deep in the human mind? A question Campbell asks.
His answer---I'm not sure.
I think a little of both, as he was tracking diffusion of ideas. But, at the same time, recognized a base line in the human psyche.
It was a different era.
ReplyDelete"According to the report of Secretary of War Stanton, the number of Federal prisoners who died in Confederate prisons is 22,576, and according to the same authority the number of Confederate prisoners who died in Northern prisons is 26,436. According to the report of Surgeon-General Barnes the number of Confederates held in Northern prisons during the war was 220,000, and the number of Federal prisoners held in Confederate prisons was 270,000."
"It is to be observed that in all of the calculations of mortality made by the writers of these articles the figures relate to Andersonville, which was acknowledged the most unhealthy of any of our prisons, and yet the mortality rate will compare favorably with that of Alton, Ill., which was 509,4 annually per thousand."
Andersonville Prison Camp
Andersonville
ReplyDeleteAnd there are many, whit, who consider Uncle Billy to be a War Criminal, for his actions during his "March to the Sea".
ReplyDeleteThere were some tales that I've heard, that judged by today's standard, would place the Union Army in non-compliance with the Geneva Accords.
Though the macro-strategy did destroy the enemies will to fight on.
Devestated the civilians resolve.
Which, if had been done to the Palistinians, might have resulted in peace in the middle east. But no, the all-knowing UN deigned to saddle Israel with the label of occupier and subsidized another form of merciless savage in the infamous refugee camps.
ReplyDeleteI don't deny a conquest, at all.
ReplyDeleteIt is what it was.
I think there have been 'some' benefits from it to all.
Particularily the getting rid of the human sacrifice on the stepped pyramids.
Up this way, folks seem to be getting along pretty well, taken all in all.
If I kill an Indian, I go to jail.
If an Indian kills me, he goes to jail.
I repeat, when Lewis and Clark came back from the Pacific, they saw humpsillippts, or whatever his name was, recently returned from a trip to the south, with a necklace of human scalps around his neck.
We at least have put an end to this, if only temporarily.
The Shoshone never did write a history of the affair, not having writing. They might well have had a lot to say, charging the Nez Perce with overbearing imperialism.
I also wish I could post a really beautiful image of a rock carving that a friend had. He called it "Fight"--and it was taken somewhere up on the Snake, and depicted two homonids, one with a rock in his hand, the other a club, just about to go at it.
'Twas the 'state of nature' here, make no mistake.
That's true, whit, it was a different time. But wi"o" and now bob want to declare a moral equivilency, 'tween US and Israel.
ReplyDeleteThe taking of lands from others. Which is fine by me, if we judge US behaviours accurately.
In that other time.
When the moral equivilency to the Jim Crow south is applied to israel, though, the howls are heard.
allen making the arguement that the Arabs living under these Jim Crow conditions are better off than their Gaza dwelling cousins.
Which is not to be denied, I'd venture to guess. But which begs the issue of equality, as measured by the standards of this time.
You know that Jim Crow business is used as propaganda against Israel but the same propagandists never mention the racism and religious intolerance practiced by the people surrounding tiny Israel.
ReplyDeleteStudy the destruction of Afrikaner South Africa by the forces of the international community.
ReplyDeleteThere are lessons there that the Israeli should heed. As the last Israeli PM implored.
The Afrikaners not able to claim "anti-semetic" causes to their woes, but their nuke stockpile did them no good, at all, regardless.
Here's the deal.
ReplyDeleteNo man can keep all the laws. We all have dirty hands and we all like to point out that someone else's hands are dirtier.
So, what do you do?
The taking of lands from others.--
ReplyDelete-/
But I have posted plenty of links showing that the dispute is more complicated than in Rat's depiction.
So has WiO.
So would Mat, if he were here.
But Rat continues to insist the Israelis are all at fault.
When Rat moves back to Sweden, then I will begin to take him more seriously.
That's the Mitchell Report opinion, whit. So the propaganda, if that is what is, emenates from US or is at least verified as factual, by US.
ReplyDeleteMr Mitchell leads Team Obamamerica on Mission 'Levant Peace', his policy position on Jim Crow represents that of the US.
From that perception reality is shaped.
Rufus touted Bush and his Socialism the whole time he flushed the GOP down the toilet.
ReplyDeleteNow he jumps ship.
Whit suddenly becomes the moral overseer of blogging.
The circular firing squad is arming up.
No, bob, not that the Israelis are "ALL" at fault, but that the solution lies with the Israeli, because of their preponderance of power.
ReplyDeleteThey have created the status que.
Read that JPost piece, it hits the nail on the head. The Israeli have to decide what their position is, then honestly represent it.
Or a solution will be forced upon them. Watch and see, it is unfolding as we speak. Following the South African model, plain as day. As Mr Olmert said it would, to Israel's disadvantage to be sure, and it is happening now.
Not just because I say it, either.
Or a solution will be forced upon them. Watch and see, it is unfolding as we speak. Following the South African model, plain as day.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt about that.
Your perception skews reality for you, Rat.
ReplyDeleteYou insist, against most of the evidence, that the Jews are the bad guys.
When in fact, they are the more enlightened folks in the mid-east.
They do not stone their women to death for some faux charge or other.
They do not seek to impose their outlook on everybody else.
They do wish to live in peace--finally!--in their own little piece of land.
They are very creative, and have made a desert bloom, in truth.
They are just like we are, or as we should become, rising from our worst moments.
They have given the world great literature--and, admitedly, some really off base nonsense, think Marx--and Freud too, in my view--but they are argumentative, in the good sense, they don't seek to impose. They talk about it all, being unmercifull to one another, intellectually speaking.
They are good folk.
They have given us a truly great book, the likes of which the world had not seen before.
All this is lost on Rat. Who should go to Sweden, to preserve his moral purity.
Fuck Sweden and the Swedes.
ReplyDeleteThe only one I know wants to leave there. Because it truly sucks to be a Swede and reside in Sweden.
No, bob, I'm an American, a citizen of the United States, true red, white and blue.
Served in the Army of the Republic, took an oath to support and defend the Constitution, unlike yourself.
ah, got you.
ReplyDeletead hominem
The last resort of a scoundral, in argumentation.
I do appreciate your service. It is a lack on my resume, as they call it.
But I have contributed in other ways.
You may qualify as a sunshine patriot, but you weren't even a summertime soldier, bob.
ReplyDeleteNever made the effort to defend your rights or the rights of others, but depended upon others to do it, in your stead.
Never took it upon yourself to free the oppressed.
So fuck you, too.
More moral equivalency, from bobal.
ReplyDeleteActually, my dad defended many a Native American, in our courts here.
ReplyDeleteAnd we helped build hospitals, my brother went to medical school, grandpaps put everyone through the university, and, we've had a couple in the militiary too.
I farmed, kept the old place going, have been a decent citizen.
I don't think being in the military is the beginning or end of things, though I do appreciate those who have.
In regards the Levant, currently, one has to decide a series of questions:
ReplyDeleteWhich side controls the situation?
Which side is oppressed and which is the oppressor?
The US Government has made those decisions. So the next step ...
de oppresso liber.
It is the American way.
The cause I traveled the whirled in support of.
One of my early memories is dad taking me to court with him, and having me sit and listen, when he was defending a Nez Perce, who had beat the crap out of his girl friend.
ReplyDeleteHe fought for the Nez Perce guy, as best he could, the facts being all against him, saying basically he's never been in trouble before, pleading,pleading, because that is what you are taught to do in law school.
He got him off with some probation, but I remember him telling him, "If you do it again, you will be in jail, and no one can help you at that point."
Without the coming of the law, there would have been no hearing at all.
Just rock art, depicting one man with a stone, another with a club.
Like another lawyer friend had it titled--"FIGHT!"
Well, let us say, for instance, that my friend LinearThinker has a good lookin' broad, over there by the fishing hole.
ReplyDeleteAnd, let us say, that al-bob, being young and strong, and frisky, having gotten a wink from said Lady, decides to make 'a move.'
And let us say that LinearThinker opposes such move by al-bob.
What happens then?
As has certainly happened many times in the past.
I point you to the world's poetry to make my point.
Is al-bob, due to his urge of nature, justified in clubbing to death, if he can do it, LinearThinker?
And what if LinearThinker don't like the idea?
And determines in his own mind that al-bob, by damn by the spirits, ain't going to get away with this?
Then we have rock art, called "FIGHT"
A better way is to let it all wash out in the local District Court.
So, no, I'm not ashamed of what my ancestors fought for, in their own way.
allen "Jim Crow"
ReplyDeleteGive me a break!
The Israeli government does not murder its "Arab" citizens for selling land to their fellows. Your Palestinian innocents do.
Have you ever bothered to consult any authority on Israel other than "Pat"?
allen and more "Jim Crow"
ReplyDeleteYes, those poor Arab-Israelis, trapped behind the Matza Curtain.
"Mr. Netanyahu, tear down that wall!"
Four hours' worth of string-pulling.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the definition of insanity?
Looks like, on the US-Israeli front, the political relationship may be a dead dog headed downstream after all. Netanyahu isn't going to budge; and neither is the admin. The latter will have expected it; so something else has to be put into motion.
Otherwise Mitchell's left out there hanging, doing dick, and the admin runs out of steam on a policy push it chose to give top billing.
ReplyDeleteSo then, on Sunday when Bibi does not bite the bullet, the Israeli will have declared themselves "Nuts".
ReplyDeleteOne assumes that Team Obamamerica has a Plan B, in the works.
Expecting that Bibi will tell US to piss up a stick.
That's just the beginning of the show, certainly not the end.
a dead dog headed downstream--
ReplyDelete-/
heh, that is a nice turn of phrase, got some alliteration,( around the rock the ragged rascal ran) and the image sticks in the mind.
In re "dead dog": It's a somewhat famous description of the direction of French foreign policy between the Wars, made in answer to a journalist by the French Foreign Minister himself.
ReplyDelete1. If you have proof of genocide against Native Americans, let's see it....otherwise please stop repeating the calumny.--
ReplyDelete-/
As expected of history, it's a long and varied story, not reducible to sound bites or phrases.
Out here for instance, I am very good friends with a group of farmers going back to the beginning of white settlement. One of their number, right from the first, was a Presbyterian missionary at Lapwai. While there was this kind of out reach here, it's also true that the Native Americans had to adopt some new ways. For instance, for the first time ever, the concept of real ownership of land raised its troubling head. And they owned land too. Farming was a new thing then, and not life depending on the salmon runs, and a little buffalo hunting in Montana. And, the Law. Thou shalt not kill, and get away with it. The whole story of the relationship between whites and reds, not to mention reds and reds, just is not boiled down to a phrase or a sound bite, and anyone who tries to do that is just obfiscating a whole interesting and amazing topic.
My dad's lifelong full time partner, for instance, was a Jew from Canada, married to a Sioux, from Canada as well, dad a Swede, married to an English/German, whose ancestry here went back to before the Declaration of Independence, there in Virginia.
This is the stuff of life, not a thirty second sound bite.
I think it's been shown many Native Americans died of disease from the Old World, against which they had no natural immunity, for instance.
It happened.
The thing we need to do now is make it better, and go forward together.
Our Nez Perce newscaster recently married a Native American NASA astronaut, for instance.
Go, America!
Well, let us say, for instance, that my friend LinearThinker has a good lookin' broad, over there by the fishing hole.
ReplyDeleteFull tellin' of the tale would reveal I had a pair of sisters over there who were flat wearin' me out. Along comes my old friend bob, and we all decide to make love, not war.
And, let me add, when Lola Clyde, by name, the daughter of said missionary, on whose farm I roamed and roamed, when I was a kid, with a single shot shotgun, when she died, it was the biggest funeral ever, and the Nez Perce turned out en masse, too. Everyone loved that good woman.
ReplyDeleteThings are not reducible to sound bites.
and we all decide to make love, not war.--
ReplyDelete-/
heh, I remeber one time, slogging up the upper reaches of the St. Maries river, backpack on back, flyrod in hand, sweat on the brow, coming around a turn in the stream, and coming upon a party of youthful Idahoans, there in a meadow, Naked as Jaybirds, all eight or ten of them, male and female, soaking up some rays.
What they had been doing before, or after, my intrusion, I can't testify.
One of their number, right from the first, was a Presbyterian missionary at Lapwai.--
ReplyDelete-/
And this is a neutral statement. Not necessarily implying a religious imperialism.
It's just the way things were.
We did bring the idea, Thou Shalt Not Kill, and get away with it.
And that really was something new.
I'm the guy that has brought up "Black Elk Speaks", for instance.
Saying that spirituality is spirituality, coming from the mind, from the body, from, finally, gravity itself, and the way things are. But coming from the top down, teleology.
"The gentle finger of the Lord pulls up the laggards."
Walt Whitman
Whit suddenly becomes the moral overseer of blogging.
ReplyDeleteThe circular firing squad is arming up.
Nah. Whit's just acting like an adult. Somebody's gotta do it.
Trish just sniffed and pretended she didn't hear(as I recall), like she's probably done many times when someone ripped one in a staff meeting or an ambassador's tea. An art she no doubt learned in church at an early age.
Trish:
ReplyDeleteWell who the fuck in their right mind cares?
Not the first time my memory has failed me. As for the rest, false but accurate?
Overall, for a thread that opens with two Ash comments quoting Krugman, this one has had a rather pleasant ending.
ReplyDeleteYou may take partial credit for that, Doug.
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I knew bob's Swedish Villa ploy would be turned down by rat. That six bedroom squat only had a measly two car garage.
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ReplyDelete