Today, October 12, is Columbus Day. Every year it’s officially the second Monday in October; this year it falls on the exact anniversary of the Niña, Pinta and Santa María’s arrival in the Bahamas 523 years ago.
So to mark today, I’ve made a list. I’m sure to almost all Americans it would seem like a meaningless jumble of things with no connection to each other. But in fact it tells one story, the story of why October 12, 1492, is the most important date in human history — and demonstrates that you have to understand that in order for anything happening on Earth now to make sense:
- $ (i.e., the dollar sign) — and Cerro Rico, Bolivia’s “Mountain That Eats Men”
- the movies War of the Worlds and Avatar — and the movies Apocalypse Now and Day of the Jackal
- the original seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony— and the “generous offer” made by Israel to the Palestinian Authority in 2000
- Cinco de Mayo — and the investor-state dispute settlement section of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
- an abortive 2003 attempt to bring Nelson Mandela to the United Nations to oppose the invasion of Iraq — and South Koreans protesting the 2010 Israeli attack on the first Gaza flotilla
- Hitler’s October 17, 1941, discussion of the invasion of the Soviet Union — and the Washington Redskins
• • •
Confused? Here’s the explanation:
Columbus’ landfall in the Western Hemisphere was the opening of Europe’s conquest of essentially all of this planet. By 1914, 422 years later, European powers and the U.S. controlled 85 percent of the world’s land mass.
White people didn’t accomplish this by asking politely. As conservative Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington put it in 1996, “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion … but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”
In fact, European colonialism involved a level of brutality comparable in every way to that of 20th-century fascism and communism, and it started with Columbus himself. Estimates of the number of people living on the island of Hispaniola when Columbus established settlements range from 250,000 to several million. Within 30 years of his arrival, 80 to 90 percent of them were dead due to disease, war and enslavement, in what another Harvard professor cheerily called “complete genocide.” Contemporary accounts of the Spainards’ berserk cruelty really have to be read to be believed.
Formally, of course, European colonialism largely ended in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. Yet informally, it has — behind the mask of what Pope Francis recently called “new forms of colonialism” — continued with surprising success.
Thus European colonialism is the central fact of politics on earth. And precisely because of that, it is almost never part of any American discussion of politics. Anthropologists call this phenomenon “social silence” — meaning that in most human societies, the subjects that are core to how the societies function are exactly the ones that are never mentioned.
If we maintain the social silence around colonialism, our past and present will always be bewildering, like the above list. But if we break the silence, and talk about what truly matters, the confusing swirl of war and conflict can suddenly makes sense.
• • •
No one knows for certain where the dollar sign originated. But there’s suggestive evidence that it was derived from Spanish silver coins minted in the Bolivian city of Potosí: Both the right pillar and the mint mark on such coins bear a strong resemblance to the dollar sign.
This is doubly plausible because at the time the U.S. was founded, Potosí was, in the U.S. and Europe, a symbol of enormous wealth. The city grew up around Cerro Rico, a mountain from which Spain, starting in 1545, had extracted tens of thousands of tons of silver that financed its empire.
But that’s only what Potosí meant for white people. In the process of stealing Bolivia’s silver, Spain worked perhaps 8 million indigenous Bolivians and enslaved Africans to death.
Potosí was therefore the two faces of colonialism in their purest form: For the right people in the U.S. and Europe, it signified staggering riches; for everyone else, it meant theft and death on an industrial scale. Similarly, tens of millions of the indigenous population of the Americas died after the arrival of Columbus, mostly from disease, and Spain, Portugal, France and the U.K. combined with the U.S. to steal the entire hemisphere. The Atlantic slave trade killed millions of Africans and stole the freedom of tens of millions more. King Leopold II of Belgium personally owned the Congo for several decades, during which he killed perhaps 10 million Congolese in the process of stealing the nation’s rubber. In the late 19th century, droughts combined with the imposition of capitalism in India, China, Brazil, and elsewhere to starve tens of millions, even as food grown by the countries was shipped back to the imperial centers.
Thanks to our social silence, this extraordinarily ugly history is largely absent from European and American culture — and even where it exists, few recognize it. For instance, almost no one watching Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds realized the original book by H.G. Wells was an allegory for British colonialism, with the horrifying aliens standing in for the British. Nor did most Americans understand that Avatar was, according to James Cameron, about the Vietnam and Iraq wars as well as colonialism in general, with the bad guys representing white people.
When the subject is touched upon non-allegorically, the result is almost always focused on the effects of colonialism on white Americans or Europeans. Apocalypse Now was inspired by the Joseph Conrad novel Heart of Darkness, which in turn is about the Belgian colonization of the Congo. But it’s purely about what the Vietnam war does to American men. Likewise, Day of the Jackal is about the fallout of the French colonization of Algeria. But it never addresses what colonization did to Algerians. Instead, it’s about the French right wing’s refusal to accept Charles de Gaulle’s decision to withdraw from Algeria, and their attempt to assassinate him for it.
But if European colonization was so appalling that we can’t acknowledge what happened in our culture, how did the people carrying it out justify it to themselves at the time? The through line in the entire history of colonization is that we were doing this to the rest of the world for their own good.
When the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded in 1629, its original seal showed a Native American saying — this seems made up, but isn’t — “Come Over and Help Us.” Andrew Jackson, in his famous address to Congress celebrating the Indian Removal Act of 1830, spoke of “the benevolent policy of the Government … toward the red man,” which was “not only liberal, but generous.” Similarly, Teddy Roosevelt wrote “no other conquering and colonizing nation has ever treated the original savage owners of the soil with such generosity as has the United States.” Later the Vietnamese become the beneficiaries of our goodwill; as U.S. News and World Report put it in 1966, “What the United States is doing in Vietnam is the most significant example of philanthropy extended by one people to another that we have witnessed in our times.”
Thus the rest of the world didn’t have to look at the details to know what it meant in 2000 when the entire U.S. media declared Israel had made an astonishingly “generous offer” to the Palestinians at Camp David. They realized from long experience this meant that Israel was beating the crap out of them.
This belief in our own beneficence has endured even when colonialism took the form of direct armed robbery. For instance, in 1861 Mexico was near bankruptcy after the 1846 invasion by the U.S. and a subsequent civil war. When the Mexican government temporarily stopped interest payments on its foreign debts, France, one of its main creditors, decided that the Mexican people were desperate for strong leadership and invaded. While France eventually won the war and occupied Mexico for six years, the Mexican victory at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, is now celebrated every year as Cinco de Mayo.
Remarkably, the Obama administration has straightforwardly explained that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will help us jack small countries like this without the muss and fuss of war. A page about the TPP on the White House website asks, “Where did ISDS [i.e., the Investor-State Dispute Settlement part of the TPP] come from?” The answer:
Before we had investment rules and ISDS international agreements, unlawful behavior by countries that targeted foreign investors tended either to go unaddressed or escalate into conflict between countries. In fact, early in our history, the U.S. had to deploy “gunboat diplomacy,” or military intervention, to protect private American commercial interests. ISDS is a more peaceful, better way to resolve trade conflicts between countries.
And just as history would predict, commentators like New York Times columnist David Brooks consider the TPP to be a “humanitarian issue” that Congress must approve to help our brothers and sisters in the third world.
But if we’ve spent 500 years deceiving ourselves, the rest of the world understands us very well. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Nelson Mandela found the purported weapons of mass destruction justification to be preposterous — not because he believed Iraq to be peace-loving, but because of America’s hypocrisy. He told a South African audience: “If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care [about] human beings.”
In fact, while it’s never been reported anywhere, Mandela was so committed to trying to stop the Iraq war that he agreed to come to New York City and address the United Nations. (I was aware of the negotiations because I helped raise money to cover the cost of Mandela’s travel.) He planned to speak essentially as the acknowledged leader of all the countries who have suffered from European colonialism; i.e., everyone who’s not white.
The structure of the U.N. Security Council is, of course, a relic of colonialism. There are 15 members, but 10 rotate and have only one regular vote. The five permanent members include the U.K. and France for no reason except colonialism, and all five can stop anything with their veto. Mandela was going to tell the 10 rotating members: You must be the voice of the rest of the world, all of us who have no vote on what happens. It would have been a moment never seen before in history, with unpredictable consequences. Unfortunately, internal South African politics prevented it from happening.
The same anti-colonial dynamic that almost brought Mandela to the U.N. is at play whenever the U.N. votes on Israel. The near-unanimity on such votes — sometimes the U.S. and Israel versus every other country on earth — is generally seen in the U.S. as either inexplicable, or completely explicable as worldwide anti-Semitism. But what brings, say, South Koreans out to protest the 2010 Israeli attack on the first Gaza flotilla isn’t anti-Semitism, nor is it any particular history with Palestinians. It’s the near-universal history with and deep fear of the European-style colonialism carried out by Israel.
The final and most important thing to understand about colonialism is that Hitlerian fascism was not something separate from colonialism, but in a real sense its logical endpoint. My grandfather was a historian who spent his whole life writing about the Spanish conquest, and during Hitler’s rise he perceived the extremity of Nazi racism as the culmination of the colonial tendency, developed over hundreds of years, to define huge swaths of the world as subhumans who could justly be exterminated.
But don’t take my grandfather’s word for it. Hitler himself said on several occasions that part of his inspiration came from the U.S. treatment of Native Americans. These were his words on October 17, 1941, as he spoke with a small group about Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union:
We’ll take away its character of an Asiatic steppe, we’ll Europeanize it. … As for the two or three million men whom we need to accomplish this task, we’ll find them quicker than we think. They’ll come from Germany, Scandinavia, the Western countries and America. …
There’s only one duty: to Germanize this country by the immigration of Germans, and to look upon the natives as Redskins. If these people had defeated us, Heaven have mercy! But we don’t hate them. That sentiment is unknown to us. We are guided only by reason. …
All those who have the feeling for Europe can join in our work.
It’s worth reading what Hitler said carefully. He did not hope to see the Soviet Union settled purely by Germans; “all those who have the feeling for Europe,” including Americans, were welcome. He flattered himself, like many European conquerors before and after him, that his civilization was motivated purely by reason. And of course he wanted to treat those they conquered “as Redskins.”
Consider all that, and consider what it means about us that there is still a professional football team called the Washington Redskins. We know what it would mean about Germany if they had a sports team called the Berlin Kikes.
This is why I say October 12, 1492, is the most important day in history, and October 12 is the most important day of every year. We shouldn’t celebrate it. But if we want to comprehend the world — and we should, since our lives depend on it — we have to understand it.
The discussion of death by disease in this thread seems to carry the implication that the conquerors/invaders aren’t fully culpable for this unforeseen consequence, nor the immensity of this tragedy. Some refer to disease as an “accidental infection” and distinguishing it from “purposeful genocide.”
Though disease is not the same as actual murder, it is still a consequence of the invading and conquering. How much less than full culpability you wish to assign these indigenous deaths to the oppressors is somewhat of a moot point. There is certainly sufficient culpability to not dismiss it as just an unforeseen consequence that was not “intentional.” In fact, disease could be looked at as fortuitous for the invaders, for it is much easier to conquer a population of 10 million than it would be to conquer 50 million.
The fact that the intent was to invade, conquer, oppress, or enslave certainly carries with it some responsibility for any and all consequences, whether direct or indirect, as it were. And who is to say that the populations that died of disease would not have died eventually by other means under the oppression of the conquerors? To put it most cynically: What a shame it was for all those people to die of disease before they could be enslaved, murdered, or worked to death.
Comments: BUT JON, WHAT ABOUT GENGHIS KHAN?
This is frankly a very confusing article which mixes a lot of unrelated characters as well as timelines. It would almost seem that the writer is ignorant to the current political scenario of the world we live in with only 40% of real democracies throughout same. The present day “colonialism” or better yet “slavery” that we have in the world is comparable or worst to what is being described in the article: North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Zimbawe and so on. This article is more a left versus right view of history rather than scientific analysis: we do not need more resentment breeding of people againgst people for things past.
Its a really interesting piece but I would have change “White person” with “Elitist White Person”. There is a major difference between those two species.
The Jew Schwarz has again demonstrated why he belongs with the rest of the Liberal intellectual basketcases like Bernie Sanders and Thom Hartmann – who BS profusely and INCORRECTLY about Columbs. They would make it seem like they can impress with numbers! They know “that milions died” because of the Spaniards! RUBBISH!
Shame on these quasi-intellectual trashers who can only defend their stance behind some egregious language of numbers, manipulating the dead and using the sheer numbers of dead as its own unassailable justification.
Schwarz is a liar, a classical Jewish Democrat activist who has polluted the academic life in the United States and England – resulting in generations of students whose mental picture of themselves and of the tradition they inherit is ruined. These pigs of intelligentsia are there to demoralize and destroy History in order to fake the creation of a new progressive ‘homo novus’ type ignoramus.
but this will not work.
Spoken in the truest fascist tradition!
You do not know ANYTHING about Schwarz…. and that is your loss….
Lot of presumptions, lot of falsehoods…..in your comments.
Name calling makes your comment even worse…….
Disagreeing without being very disagreeable would have been better…..
My family came to the Hudson River Valley in 1657, many in my family tree are household names. The older I get (64) the more shame and guilt I feel. I cannot right their wrongs but I do make a point of at least trying to say how sorry I am to those that have been hurt. The Natives mostly grow silent, they understand what the word burden means. The crazy thing is how few feel or know what disgrace means.
Great article. Thanks for this. I would add to this the 48-year colonization of the Philippines, which began with he Philippine-American War of 1898. Due to President William McKinley’s policy of “benevolent assimilation,” tens of thousands of Filipino combatants were killed. An astimated 1.4 million civilians (of the total population of 6 million) were killed as a result of fighting, famine, and disease.
this is way to simplistic. China has had brutal and cruel past. India has also seen wars and hostilities that rival the Europeans. Africa also has a brutal past and the slave trade would not have been nearly as big with out the involvement of Africans and Arabs. You look at any large successful empire and it has all the gory and evil trademarks of the Europeans.
European would never have been successful in the western hemisphere is without allies that were the conquered by the Aztecs of the Incas.
The whole population of the western hemisphere was was severly reduced by the accidental infection of a population with no defenses against the Flu or Small pox. The conquest didn’t really start in a large way for decades after disease had ravaged the hemisphere.
There is a thing called the Colombian exchange that talked about the exchange back and forth between the two hemispheres. It wasn’t a one way street. Britain ruled 300 million on the Indian subcontinent with 100,000 personal. It is not a simple as saying they conquered and oppressed the whole population. They did brutally suppressed some groups and co opted and rewarded others. Some winner and some losers. No less despicable but that was pretty much SOP for the whole human race for it entire “civilized” history
Indians had genocides? Wow u have indepth understanding dude. Ofcourse nothing more can be expected. Rewsrded others?.. pray can u tell me which thise groups r. May be 3000 out of 300 million people bieng treated with a bit of moderation is good enuff justification. Please study indian history before making callous comments. Indians never made war against others. Do u know how manypeople got killed india due to europeans?
Put your money where your mouth is, or leave the table.
The Brihatkathamanjari of the Kashmiri writer Kshmendra states, king Vikramaditya (Chandra Gupta II) had “unburdened the sacred earth of the Barbarians like the Sakas, Mlecchas, Kambojas, Yavanas, Tusharas, Parasikas, Hunas, etc. by annihilating these sinful Mlecchas completely”.[30][31][32]
Now I didn’t say genocide but this passage sounds like same racist crap the Europeans were involved with.
List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll
European conquest of the Americas rates #8
of the top 10 worst wars (by death toll) in history.
European countries were in only 3 of the 10
The Rig Veda describes war between tribes within India.
The Sanskirt epic “Mahabharata “contains numerous references to fighting between Indians.
Indian has fought short wars with Pakistan and China.
“European conquest of the Americas rates #8
of the top 10 worst wars (by death toll) in history.”
That’s if you’re ranking them by the lowest estimates of the number of deaths. If you rank them by mean estimates, the European conquest of the Americas is #2, behind World War II at #1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll
I looked closer at the table and you are right. The estimates of the population of the western hemisphere also vary greatly. So much so that it’s hard to imagine a population of 145 million in the 16th century could sustain that same amount of deaths over 300 years. The estimates of the percentage killed from disease only vary much less. Even using a low number like a 80 % death rate from disease over 300 years means there would only be a small population left to eliminate from purposeful genocide.I would guess the African slave trade was begun to bolster the slave work force that was continuing killed off by waves of diseases.
I would not credit the Europeans with anything but accidentally unleashing killer diseases on the indigenous peoples. At the time the Europeans had not the faintest idea of any disease process. None of that gives the Europeans a break from all the horrendous crimes they committed.
History is written by the victors.
Schwartz reminds me a lot of John Cook when he was here. Obviously misplaced, either unable or unwilling to do the job, and won’t be here for long.
Both the dollar name and symbol are derived directly from the thaler.
While it seems straight forward how the Thaler became the Daalder dollar, but the dollar symbol seems quite clearly shown on the Bolivian coin. That being said, if you can tell me where I can see evidence of you claim that that the dollar sign is also related to the original Thaler I would be keen to know. As for this article, the author only claims that it is the dollar sign which which originate in coinage create from the Bolivian silver.
Whiners. Every people, every nation, every government has used “organized violence” to get what it/they want since the dawn of time. Even the animal kingdom does it – wolf packs, ants, etc. So give me a freaking break!
The world is a better place with Western ideas than it ever was at any time in its history. The West brought democracy, equality, the rights of men, capitalism, longer life spans, control of disease, etc that EVERYONE in the world craves. (Try explaining away the mass migration currently happening in the US and Europe if you want to deny this.)
I expect Schwarz stuck his head up his nether regions to see what he could find, and this drivel is the result. Expect more of the same from him.
No doubt the original inhabitants of the new world were happy to die for all the benefits the Europeans brought to them. The mentality that it’s OK to kill and enslave others because it’s for their own good is baffling. I’m sure you sleep well at night knowing that the world is a better place because your forefathers committed such attrocities.
Actually, pre-colonial small-scale indigenous communities tended to be more peaceful, more egalitarian, more sustainable and in many ways more healthy.
Western colonialism has exerted huge efforts to prevent democracy, equality, and the upholding of human rights. It has slaughtered millions and shunted the survivors into the lowest social classes, in many instances treating them as little better than indentured labour. Indigenous peoples in “Westernised” countries typically have poor prospects and poor health, and don’t see their downfall through colonization as the fabulous gift you describe.
It’s true that some Western discoveries (such as penicillin) have positively improved many lives. But indigenous societies readily sought out and adopted the innovations that were useful to them; they didn’t need to be dominated and have these “gifts” imposed.
If Japan had won the war, they would consider the conquered, subservient Americans to be vastly better off under their imposed culture. Obviously, Japanese culture is the height of both efficiency and refinement. You see, the tyrant always likes to imagine himself as benevolent.
I don’t blame you for your ignorance; in the US you’ll be surrounded by virtually seamless propaganda. No-one’s ever told you what really goes on in the world.
Equality. . Where us equality? Can u be kind enuff to show equality in western civilization? Tell that equality exists in US or europe to all those ethnic minorities or tell that to iraq people who r being mascarred by isis and deny whst has been happening in Afghanistan or else where
democracy? are you joking?
prime example – American politics is about as anti democratic as it gets
to make matters worse they break their own laws in giving large scale (weapons of mass destruction) military aid to countries with terrible humanitarian records
The US topple whatever governments they can that will not do their will – see Honduras, Guatemala, chile, argentina, Egypt…..the establishment of the 51st state – Israel
US depravity are also pretty good at exporting religious extremism…jus look at their other ‘special relationship’ with Saudi Arabi – have you any idea the thousands of people that have just been murdered with American hardware and munitions in Yemen after the US installed government was toppled?
your conscience is far from clean woodnfish
Just because violence is a fundamental truth to life as we know it doesn’t mean we should embrace it.
Stupidity is also a fundamental truth, but it’s not something to be encouraged or sought out.
Wow Jon,
I don’t know where you’ve got your knowledge about this, but’s awesome.
There really is very few opportunities to read someone from the USA with such a deep feeling about how your country is truly perceived in the rest of the world, the third world in particular.
I think your description of colonialism is thoughtful. About the connection between nazi Germany and colonialism and extermination of indigenous peoples, I think the “lebensraum” doctrine is completely clear: indigenous people should be exterminated, exclavized or expatriated.
Thank you for this article.
While Israel’s behavior in the territories has parallels to European and American colonialism, the scope is grossly out of proportion. The occupied territories constitute land that is, for example, 2-3% the size of Vietnam. They are also about 1/2% the size of Tibet, long occupied by China, and rarely mentioned by the left anymore (I guess it was only a trendy cause for the prior generation). In approximately 70 years of conflict, the total deaths on the Palestinian side — civilian and militant combined — number in the tens of thousands — hardly on par with King Leopold’s ghastly reign over Congo (10 million), yet somehow the only contemporary “colonialist” conflict worthy of mention in the same breath. The obsession with Israel is fascinating — evidencing a media coup of sorts by the Palestinians, as well as, in some cases, latent anti-Semitism (as is made clear by some of the comments below).
Thing is King Leopold never said that he lived in a democratic country (he was a king after all); and China certainly is not a democracy. Israel on the other hand makes claims of being a democratic country when in fact what we see there reminds me no less of the apartheid in South Africa.
Oh I see, hypocrisy is the main concern. A supremely moral stance.
Apartheid Israel would collapse without our multi-billion dollar annual subsidy.
Americans purchase the weapons used to slaughter Palestinians.
and you have the balls to toss out “latent anti-Semitism”. Hasbara often?
Do you mean Americans sell, rather than purchase the weapons Israel uses? Or are you referring to the fact that America purchases these weapons from American manufacturers and then basically give them to Israel?
“The obsession with Israel” is not Jon Schwarz’s alone; US politics in general is so utterly obsessed with Israel that Israel gets billions a year and its lobbyists have a veritable chokehold over US policy. The entire Middle East is also obsessed with Israel because of its military power, its religious-radical eccentricity and its unapologetic extreme aggression. Israel is important because it’s one of the most dangerously destabilising elements in world politics after the USA.
Israel is also important because it is the one and only ally that the US can completely depend on no matter what the circumstance, in the Middle East. Many ME countries will work with the US on a number of things, but Israel really serves as proxy (albeit entirely politically independent) state in the Middle East. Thus it serves as both a projection of US military power, and an actor that can do things in the region while allowing the US to maintain plausible deniability as to their role in any Israeli action.
Surely Israel is not more “dangerously destabilizing” than ISIS (which has already, in a few short years, taken over territory many times the size of Israel and the territories combined), or the Syrian government (which is currently barrel bombing its own population in a war that has, in a few years, killed multiple times the number of people killed in the entire history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), or Iran (whose “religious-radical eccentricity” is certainly at least equal to whatever Israel is in your mind, if you ever read what the Ayatollah actually says, same going for Hamas, which Iran supports (try reading the Hamas charter)), not to mention Russia with its frequent cross-border conflicts and wars in Chechnya and Ukraine, and I could go on. Nonetheless, it is correct that the US contributes about 20% of Israel’s military budget, and if you don’t think it should, I’m not going to argue with you. I was only suggesting that in the context of this article about the evils of colonialism, some perspective might be needed.
how ironic that you mention ISIS Josh
there was no sunni vs shia conflict before the US/ UK invasion of Iraq
ISIS is a direct result of the violent oppression and subjugation inflicted on the Iraqi people by US/ UK colonialist interest
in a similar fashion Kevin Fries is entirely correct – ‘Israel really serves as proxy ‘ (for the US)
in the words of Max Blumenthal ‘Israel actions in Gaza are the west’s most violent reflection of itself’
I’m aware of how much the US is at fault for the rise of ISIS; however, your description is simplistic. Iraq was ruled for decades by an oppressive Sunni dictatorship, and the Shia did indeed resent this. It is absurd to say there was “no sunni vs shia conflict” before the invasion. There was a conflict held in forced check by a brutal dictatorship. Of course, had the US not invaded (a decision I was strongly against), it might have been held in check a while longer. Moreover, once we made the poor decision to invade, we made many other avoidable mistakes that contributed to the current Sunni-Shia conflict in Iraq becoming as bad as it is.
Max Blumenthal is not someone I take very seriously, for example, he makes gotcha videos by getting drunk racists to say outrageous things. I’m not saying the racism he shows isn’t real, but he portrays things in a very one-sided way. You could get the same kind of racist quotes out of people in any country in the world if you looked in the right places.
Thank you Jon. An intuitive read.
What of Columbus’ Jewish ancestry? Or the mostly Jewish crew which even had Hebrew translators??
I’m not sure why I’m bothering to respond to this, but there is little evidence for Columbus having been Jewish, let alone most of his crew. Moreover, there would be no reason to have “Hebrew translators” for any Jews in the crew, who all would have spoken the language of their native countries. You may be getting confused by the fact that Columbus had an interpreter aboard, Luis de Torres, who was born Jewish and knew Hebrew; however he did not specifically use his Hebrew in Columbus’s voyage. It is believed that it is possible that there were other people of Jewish backgrounds in the crew, but there is no evidence that they were “mostly Jewish.”
So what about Asia and Africa? Europe didn’t control them and they are massive. You left out that it was England doing much if the occupation and of course it was Cromwell that let j ews back into the nation after Longshanks expelled them. They soon took over England and the Govt and the imperial conquests began
(spelled with a capital ‘$’)
Between England and France, just about every part of Africa and Asia have been invaded or occupied at one time or another. There are only 22 countries that England has never invaded: Andorra, Belarus, Bolivia, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Guatemala, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mali, Marchall Islands, Monaco, Mongolia, Paraguay, Sao Tome & Principe, Sweden, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Vatican City.. In Africa, at various times, France has occupied Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, Ivory Coast, Benin, Sudan, Guinea, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Volta, Togoland, Nigeria, Gambia, Chad, the Central African Republic, Congo, Cameroon, Madagascar, Mauritius, Djibouti, Mayotte, Seychelles, and Comoros. In Asia, the French have occupied Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Taiwan, Turkey, the Philippines, China, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Asia and Africa were quite thoroughly controlled by Europeans.
What about the Opium wars between the British Navy and Imperial China. China was forced to accept an English protectorate situated within it’s borders, “lease” Hong Kong to England for a century, and was forced to allow Britain to import opium into China (at a time where China was dealing with an epidemic of opium addiction and had outlawed it’s importation) so that the British could exchange opium, which it cheaply produced in India, for tea. This process allowed Britain cheap access to Chinese tea, while at the same time depriving China of foreign dollars and instead increasing the importation of a drug which was creating huge social problems within it’s society. Sort of like if Peru forced the US to accept shipment of cocaine for supplies of technology, oil, food, and whatever else it might want, instead of paying actual dollar.
Jon, you nailed it. Thank you for this.
Great read, this inspired me to search for Bartolome de las Casas 500 year old book “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (Spanish: Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias).” What a shocking read that turned out to be. The amount of cruelty that people are capable of is very alarming. Hard to imagine that I am no different than those people. Just like the perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide interviewed in the masterful documentary “The Act of Killing,” contemporary Americans are able to justify the excesses of cruelty they’ve participated in based on some warped patriotic exceptionalism that I can’t comprehend. As if we are saving the world by destroying it. I hope more people are capable of understanding the truths you’ve written here! Feel free to dig through the truths that Friar de las Casas recorded all those years ago. Sad to think this mentatlity is likely to dominate world politics throughout my lifetime. I guess some things we humans can’t change.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~twod/latam-s2010/read/las_casasb2032120321-8.pdf
And my own article about holding people accountable for the MSF hospital airstrike, which is extremely unlikely given the histories we are discussing. Cheers!
http://tysongibb.net/?p=175
Are the schools still ‘teaching’ the students this was the result of “an accident?” That Columbus somehow sailed the wrong way, or was blown off course or even the old divine intervention, trick?
“Cracked Magazine” displays more actual history in one issue than most schools do yearly..
Excellent article! Reading some comments I believe that people repeat what they were thought at school or read in the NYT and had never been in Africa or the ME as to understand the extent of the anti colonial and anti western feelings. To change these feelings can’t help the chronic racism and Islamophobia demonstrated in the everyday life in the US and Europe, and neither can’t help the devastating destruction initiated by the illegal invasion of Iraq. Under this light is possible to understand a curious article in the AP where it is described how Putin is seen as big hero and leader in some countries in the ME, and posters are sold in markets and kiosks. Actually didn’t surprise me very much because Russia did support many of the anti colonial movements in Africa, and ME. Quoting a film: one thing is the “official history” and quite another the memory of the people. The fact that this memory is alive can be demonstrated for example from the recent petition of Jamaica to Cameron for reparations for slavery. It is not the first case. I wonder whether in 50 years time Middle East countries will be asking for reparations after the illegal invasions.
Violence has been the lot of humanity for thousands of years, just that now it has expanded and become more vicious and more importantly, through technology, right smack in our collective faces.
Violence is not limited nor particular to any western societies. It is the lot of humanity as a whole and as long as we don’t come to terms with it as a species, not only would we be doomed but all that exist on this planet.
Violence is not limited to human on human conflicts, but it has extended itself to earth’s other creatures and the environment we all share. Climate change and all its derivatives is the result of our violence which is the expression of our selfishness and greed. One can go deep into investigating the origins of this behavior.
To put it simply, fear is the precursor of violence searching for safety. This is the current lot of humanity. If we don’t take the time to observe and comprehend our behavior as human beings, how can we ever exit the cycle of violence and suffering?
Insanity! Repeating the same thing [Violence] over and over will not resolve any issue but deepen the sense of suffering, resentment and retaliation. A never ending cycle of violence.
Humanity is faced with challenges that require the overhaul of our violence dominated consciousness.
I live in China, and the history here is also filled with violence and ethnic cleansings. I tend to agree that the West is not unique when it comes to the use of violence (although perhaps the degree to which it is deployed and advocated is higher than other places). I hope more people can do their own investigations on the origins of this behavior, with the goal of understanding the roots of violence that exist in each of our brains. I know that I never want to participate personally in the cycle of violence, although I guess it is unavoidable to be a part of it. History is the autobiography of a mad man.
Robin Grille in “Parenting for a Peaceful World” presents research that correlates how young children are reared with how that generation of children then comport themselves when they grow up — their tendency to wage wars and allow atrocities. He talks at some length about the Chinese Cultural Revolution, as well as various European countries in the context of the Second World War.
Non-violence towards children is presumably not the only piece to this puzzle, but it may be an important part.
violence!
Violence only begets violence!
Columbus initiated Spain’s colonization of Mexico and South America, which sadly, was one of the crueler chapters in human history. The US, although it didn’t exist at the time, tried its best to counter these injustices. Eventually it prevailed in the Spanish-American war, and was able to capture Puerto Rico and much of Mexico; so justice ultimately prevailed.
By 1937, Spain was just a shadow of its former imperial self, and no longer up to the task of shouldering the blame for its imperialistic excesses. So the United States selflessly declared Columbus Day to be a federal holiday, and has been the scapegoat for the actions of Columbus ever since.
So I would argue this is just a case of the US being too good natured and taking responsibility for someone else’s sins.
You are absolutely NUTS!. The USA is not too good-natured, my friend. Since the expansion westward by “Puritans”, the colonialists have been defiling both the land and the indigenous people NON_STOP. And the Spanish did the same on the west coast of North America.
The nascent US government/cavalry did their level best to steal the land from First Nations and destroy their culture. The Spanish did it in the name of God (and the Pope recently made one of the more serious offenders – Padre Serra- a Saint! Now if that ain’t cognitive dissonance.
If it wasn’t for the germs (small pox), I think the First Nations would have probably repelled the colonial ingrates. Such is luck.
Gio, Benito Mussolini here is just a troll writing in the voice of Mussolini himself, ie, saying things that a corrupt, evil person would say and believe. Either that or just another brainwashed idiot incapable of independent thought…
Somebody has to speak up for evil people. We are universally condemned and told we should be tortured and then executed. Even if we are lucky enough to survive, we know that death is inevitable and we are then condemned to spend eternity tormented in hell.
Life has been bearable only because we form a majority. But the demographics are changing and I shudder to think of what will happen if virtuous people get the upper hand.
I can’t help you much with the ‘eternity tormented in hell’ benitoe … but you can take solace in the proposition Donald Trump is going to ‘Make America Great Again!’
(we’ll settle for good)
Its called satire.
noun: satire
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
Duce, as he is known by the regulars, is a treasure.
and the native tribes did the same things to each other for centuries before colonists got here. Unfortunately, it was human nature back then.
… and now.
The US should be responsible for its own sins, but Columbus Day was instituted because Franklin Roosevelt wished to pander to the Italian American vote. This might not be the noblest of motives, but it doesn’t merit Americans continuing to beat themselves up about the shortcomings of Columbus.
When Columbus arrived at the Canary Islands he asked an old farmer for directions to the New World. The farmer scratched his head, pointing in one direction, then another. Finally, he stared blankly at the traveler and said, ‘I guess you just can’t get there from here.’
You are aware that the US also waged war on Mexico, and has never intervened in Mexican affairs with the altruistic aim of helping the Mexican people. You do realize that large parts of South Western US were once parts of Mexico, and that the US did not free Mexicans from Mexico because they were trying to help them
I totally missed that Benito was writing satire, and not his genuine beliefs. It is a sad state of affairs when one persons well written satire is indistinguishable from commonly held beliefs too often expressed by wackos in comments section all over the internet
My apologies for being to ready to accept satire as genuine, I need to increase my satire detection settings to 83%
Mr. Schwarz
The year 1492 represents the world’s Nakba. While the mission statement at the Intercept is much simpler (and totally deceptive), this article really sums up the mission statement in a much more elegant and forthright manner. The Intercept focuses on 20th and 21st century western imperialism specifically opposing all US policies (and to a lesser extent, Israel). However, the foundation for the political philosophy of the radical left is colonialism – the forced spreading of European culture to native people throughout the world. Colonialism forms the basis for the anger of the far left and a convenient explanation for all of the world’s ills today. Native people (everywhere) were subjected to disease, genocide and humiliation. You summed it up perfectly with these sentences which, in effect, blame white man for the wars, killing and (even) starvation – and just about all things bad in the world today (like capitalism, inequality, the Israel lobby (Jewish power) , Hillary Clinton and Stephen Harper). Although not included in your article, this obviously applies to environmental disasters (global warming, the loss of rain forest, over fishing and on and on and on and on). White man bad, all others good:
“…..in fact it tells one story, the story of why October 12, 1492, is the most important date in human history — and demonstrates that you have to understand that in order for anything happening on Earth now to make sense….”
“…….If we maintain the social silence around colonialism, our past and present will always be bewildering, like the above list. But if we break the silence, and talk about what truly matters, the confusing swirl of war and conflict can suddenly makes sense……”
What could be simpler to interpret? Colonialism is the root of all conflict in the world today. The year, 1492, represents the world’s Nakba. Every war – and it matters little where – results from colonialism i.e., white people. Didn’t Greenwald sum up what it means to be white perfectly?
“….I’m most certainly not suggesting that anyone who supports Awlaki’s killing is driven by racism or anti-Muslim bigotry. I am suggesting that the belief that Muslims are somehow less American, or even less human, is widespread [by white people]….” my addition
And didn’t Bin Laden sum it up just as well?
“…….The American [white] people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq. These tax dollars are given to Israel for it to continue to attack us and penetrate our lands. So the American [white] people are the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones who oversee the expenditure of these monies in the way they wish, through their elected [white] candidates……” my additions
This applies not just to Muslims, but all people of color – victims to racism and bigotry introduced by the west.
Finally how could the world’s Nakba be explained without invoking the atrocities of the Jewish people in Palestine? This is the classic far left view of the world – anti Israel and anti-American. Nothing drives the radical left batty like these two countries (it doesn’t matter that Islam spread by the sword well into Europe and southeast Asia and obviously throughout the greater Middle East). Sure the Israelis could have made a fairer offer to the Palestinians in 2000, but the Palestinians are the ones that instigated the second Intifada which resulted in the death of 5500 people on that offer of peace. Of course, that is all the fault of colonialism – and so the Palestinians get a free pass naturally – as any victim should.
For ever and ever, if you are non white, you are responsible for absolutely nothing in the world of the fringe left – like terrorist attacks, female genital mutilation, treating minorities as second class citizens, the death penalty for homosexuality, misogyny, authoritarian rule etc. None of that is your fault. It’s white man’s burden. We taught you every thing you never should have learned.
Very good article worth plenty of future citations.
Wow!!! Your comment indicates that you’re a very smart person. Very. However, if I were your friend, I would have told you, in order to understand who we (humans) got here, if you’re interested of course, you need to study colonialism, wars, and power of coercion and military might. Your comment is just a rhetorical response to the article. It is a shame that your smartness does not translate into wisdom and most probably for you, it does not matter how much we [in the US and Western Europe] destroy the rest of the world and by ourselves by default. Just be a happy white man if that feels comfortable to you. After all comfort is promise of US to the white man.
The article makes the point that though formal colonialism has mostly ended, imperialism never did. Too many forget this, and think therefore that dominating Africa, Asia and South America ceased to be the organizing principle of the European and North American elites who control politics. There is nothing in the article stating that white people are responsible for all the world’s ills.
Why 1492? Why not 632 when Mohammed ordered the attack on the Persian Empire and began the 1400 plus year attack on the rest of humanity that continues today? Why not 1206 when Genghis Khan defeated other Mongol tribes and began his military conquests? Whatever violence Europeans have done in their colonial exercises, pales in comparison to the creation of the Islamic Empires and the Mongol Empire and the tens of millions killed.
And the Europeans did not kill tens, twentys, hundreds of millions of people? All colonizing, empire seeking, and aggressive civilizations have been responsible for countless number of people. Different groups at different times have been more responsible than others. However, we, (speaking as a Westerner) need only deal with the failures of the civilization I belong to. It is not up to me (or us) to accept responsibility for the crimes of other civilizations. And it is up to us to recognize the role our peoples played in the more recent (past five hundred years) of aggression and colonization. The Mongolian people should look at what their people did in 1206, the same as the Muslims starting in 632. However, our empire building continues to this day, which it is why it is we that must face up to what is being done in our name.
The White Man’s Burden
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden
Racism: Insecure white men’s fear that women’s predisposed attraction for darker-skinned men will render them alone in a drained gene pool.
Racism: the acknowledgment of scientific evidence that some races are far less intelligent than others.
What you wrote has no basis in reality.
The battle for the beginning. Would it be Europeans? Would it be Asians? Would it be Africans? Would it be Americans? It was Europeans. The Muslim Turks invaded part of Europe. The Mongolians invaded part of Europe. The Americans were still invading each other.
I have news for you “Columbus Day” is not the most important day for the majority of the people of the world. MOST people around the world do not know what “Columbus Day” is. For people who do not live in the U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day
I think you also mentioned Adolf Hitler, but you misquoted him he called the United States OF America, a nation of gangsters and mongoloids. Not meaning East Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and so on but old-fashioned meaning mongrels. Today it is an unacceptable word so the word Down Syndrome, is used instead.
Colonisation of the world in the early days would have happened even if Europeans did not exist. It is not colonisation of the past that matters it is colonisation at the present that matters. There is no excuse for colonisation in the modern world we now have the capabilities to feed ourselves and we do not need to stamp on other people to take from them for our own survival. You have written something without even understanding who you are writing to or even understanding the world around you.
“Christopher Columbus Day is the most important day of every year”. No it is not the majority of the world do not even know of this “Christopher Columbus Day”.
You are playing your violin to the wrong audience because you don’t understand who your audience are. If you need to play the violin for the past could you not make it somewhere near the present 1930s the 1920s the 1900s. And I don’t think writing in the English language would be writing to the correct audience. ALSO you do realise that you are a beneficiary of the past. No Europeans in the Americas then no you.
the past was a rush for dominance for survival because nobody knew any better. This is now.. So what is your story about? Is it news? a delayed story? A very delayed story.
Lol, the level of intellectual dishonesty and cherrypicking of facts here is off the charts. I’ll make just a few points to re-frame this dialog soundly.
– 90% or more indigenous Americans died of diseases that were killing Europeans too. Note the early line in this guys agitprop, combining the death toll of disease with enslavement. Conveniently, he doesn’t highlight that Europeans didn’t understand the nature of diseases and did not do this intentionally. This is a hugely important fact and one that simply does not get enough coverage by biased blabbermouths. For some very interesting POV on this, read up on Jamestown and how many Europeans died of disease there as well.
– Empire was the way of the world across all civilizations at the time, including in the Americas. Cortez, for example, never could have been successful if it were not for other groups/semi-states that hated Montezuma’s brutal rule. Ditto for various indian tribes throughout North America. The taking of territory by force was the way of the world. Violence between states/tribes was common and in no way was the unique to Europeans or white peoples. You folks really have to get this.
– What was and is unique throughout all of human history is the European enlightenment which gave way to liberty and after the bloody 30 year war to modern statecraft which seeks to minimize our slaughter of each other. The entire idea of human sovereignty and the legitimacy of peoples arises in the west. It still doesn’t exist in large parts of the world.
Anyone seriously interested in the Americas before and after Columbus should read Char’es Mann’s 1491 and 1493, which brings together a ton of science and data the explains how the Americas came to be what they are today. Instead of demonizing the West, and reading garbage by biased rabblerousers, you get a very clear and unbiased account of what actually happened before during and after European arrival on these shores. You will come away laughing at dingbats like this guy.
Wow. Stopped to actually read all the other comments. Ew. NEVER doing that again. ‘scusa…have to go shower…
John Schwarz,
As usual you have your facts wrong concerning the french. THE FRENCH LOST THE WAR against the Mexicans and that is a fact. Where do you get the propaganda facts,,,,,from rothschild’s israel?
Mayflower Compact:
In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc.
Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.
In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620
Thank you! You have researched and found the facts that I have always believed were there but unavailable to us “common folk.”
Not only Columbus Day but Thanksgiving, the day that “we” invited the “savages” to break bread and pray to our white god with us, then after that we couldn’t kill them fast enough to take their land and/or enslave them.
Your article has given me hope, at the age of 75, that maybe, just maybe, some eyes are being opened to the truth. Not the glorified garbage that has been and is still being taught in our schools.
Keep up your great work
Yeah,more divisive impossible historical correction crap.
Change history and you and I most probably would not exist.
Yes,man is capable of evil.But evil is happening by US and our master Zion every freaking day,and that is the only thing we have any chance of changing,in this most pre modern and OT crazy retribution cycle championed by the poison ivy league of poopie cockie.
The arguments expressed in the piece, especially the finger pointing to Spain is the clear consequence of the author been educated on the Black Legend of the history of the conquest by Spain. I know; I was educated on the Golden Legend, which praises the conquest and colonization of the Americas by Spain as a labor of love for the benefit of Christ and Christendom. If we stick to those two sophomoric visions of history, we might as well abandon all hope of understanding it. History is not only complex and full of contradictions, it is usually written by the victor, and reinterpreted by those who have political points to gain defending one side or another. But there are more than two sides to every story, and the history of America is no exception. The black legend was mostly sponsored and propagated by Britain and France, crude rivals of the Spanish empire. The golden legend was sponsored and written about mainly by the Catholic Church. The British and the French (the Dutch too) frantically and enviously worked hard for over a century to replace Spain with their own empires and get all the gold the Spaniards had amassed. And they finally succeeded by defeating Spain by the force of the arms. The Spanish empire succumbed to its own incompetence in the early 19th century. Since then the Anglo-Saxon version of history has been the dominant narrative. In this I agree with Huntington wholeheartedly: The Europeans conquered the world not by the force of ideas but the force of developing better weapons than their rivals. And that has not changed, obviously.
One very telling point in any history related by some one educated in the black legend is the fact that when they refer to the decimation of the indigenous population in the Americas they intentionally either forget to mention disease or give it passing importance, compared to the direct killings by the conquistadors. The indigenous depopulation especially of North America was the unintended consequence of smallpox and measles the Europeans brought and infected the natives who lacked natural defenses against the illnesses and so were quickly and massively, by the millions, killed by the pandemic. It is disingenuous not to clarify this. In fact it would be difficult for a few Spaniards to kill as many millions of natives as they are accused of.
But my beef is not to argue in favor of Spain, which by the way was the only empire who had contemporaneous critics of its actions like Bartolomé de las Casas (b. in 1484). He was officially appointed as “Protector of the Indians”. If you can cite a single one British or French appointed thus, I’ll eat my hat. Las Casas spent most of his life trying to convince the Spanish crown to adopt more humane policies of colonization. He won some and lost some. And he is the person to “read to believe the berserk cruelty of the Spaniards” to paraphrase Jon Schwarz. My problem with the piece is the idea of making the 12 of October 1492 the “most important day of human history” because it somehow marks the historical beginning of the atrocities committed by man, namely genocide, slavery, crimes against nature, etc.
In 1095 the Crusades started in earnest. Millions perished in battle, hunger, or disease; and every atrocity the imagination can conceive disgraced the warriors of the Cross. Gibbon says of the Crusaders that “in the dire necessity of famine, they sometimes roasted and devoured the flesh of their infant or adult captives.” Cannibalism was also resorted to at the siege of Marra. One chronicler dryly says there is nothing surprising in the matter, and wonders that they sometimes ate dogs in preference to Saracens.
Besides these there are multiple episodes in the history of humanity that could easily replace 1492 as the year when all depravity started. My personal favorite is 1095. But This would ignore so much slavery, extermination, genocide, ethnic cleansing that has characterized the history of the West, practically since the Cro-Magnons, our direct ancestors exterminated their only competition in Europe, the Neanderthals, some 35,000 years ago. That would be a good date to declare it the most important year of all years.
Today is about Italian-American heritage. We picked Columbus to celebrate because he is a famous Italian explorer. It could have easily been Amerigo Vespucci day (Italian explorer who is also America’s namesake). Without us none of you would be eating pizza. Everyone just needs to chill out.
I’m an Italian and embarrassed by this holiday being about my heritage. Of course, Mussolini wasn’t exactly a sweetheart, nor was La Cosa Nostra, nor Giuliani.
My vote is for Sacco and Vanzetti, or any of the Italian American immigrants who inspired syndicalism and anarchism.
As an American Indian, I commend you for seeing the long view consequences. As for the Berlin team, they’d likely be very strong players, if they were Jewish, as would the Washington team, were it manned entirely by the likes of Jim Thorpe.
This year, Oct. 11 was more important. That was the day Obama pronounced Hillary Clinton not guilty of violating national-security laws.
Piscataway doesn’t roll off the tongue until you hear a Redman say it.
If you want to know who had the reddest skins, this tribe was recorded as being a LOT darker than the western tribes pressing the diminishing Piscataway into the DC swamps. Maybe it was their diet? Their descendants are recorded as being born in the town of Piscataway under the Redman sir name for many years after “Independence.”
Their harriers were under pressure to find a new sustainable food source, too. Having harried the south so well, we had more tribes on the run stumbling over another to get to safety than you could shake off with a stick, Syria. Thus the Piscataway simply dwindled away under pressure to give it up for the away teams.
Most of our ancestors came here because there wasn’t enough to eat where they were. And if there was, some nutjob would threaten your family if you didn’t convert to the New Duke’s belief system. So I seriously get all the points made here, but humanity is the cradle and crucible of civilization, not some stupid skin tone. For every white fright story, I got another gory to match it, off color of course!
Guess who Kriemhild’s bringing to dinner… Attila and his bloody son, Hun!
And what about Genghis Khan conquest of Asia, the Roman Empire, the Arab conquest of the north of Africa?
All empires and wars are based on the dehumanisation of the enemy. No different to what Europeans did.
It’s still fucked up. We shouldn’t marginalize injustices because there are more injustices.
It’s still messed up. We shouldn’t marginalize an injustice because there are more injustices.
“. . . the culmination of the colonial tendency . . . to define huge swaths of the world as subhumans who could justly be exterminated”
An excellent article, and I have to agree with this statement. By the way, you might consider watching these back to back some time :
“Pol Pot — The journey to the killing fields” and “The decent one” (see the links below). Both of these guys started out, it would seem, as fairly decent, and likable people . . .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0078z1m http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05t2h9x
History is made by such men. Consider Genghis Khan, as brutal a conqueror as you’ll ever find in the annals of history. GK and his successors, like Timur, killed a much larger percentage of the global population than Hitler and Stalin put together. And that’s even if you discount things like spreading the Black Plague. Of course in Mongolia he’s a national hero, the international airport is named after him. Even in the West he is benefiting from a cuddly revisionist history. Surely if GK can celebrated centuries later, then Columbus can as well.
All this is true, yes. But there is another truth, that gives some degree of amelioration to that one:
Before land was sighted on October 12, 1492, the sailors were already celebrating Columbus Day.
According to tradition, after the Crucifixion the apostle James had come to the remotest edge of the Roman Empire, the city of Zaragoza. It is said that the Virgin Mary, who yet lived, appeared to him in a vision and gave him a pillar of jasper to found his church. The Fiestas del Pilar, celebrated October 12, became a Spanish tradition, and the site was the object of pilgrimage long before Columbus sailed. It was a symbol of encouragement of people to spread the teachings of Christianity throughout the world.
Now there is no lack of evidence for harsh treatment of natives by Christians, even by a certain saint proclaimed by Francis last month, it is true. But have you ever seen a greenstone coffer with the skull of an infant sacrificed to Tlaloc, a stone knife still in its eye? The world has seen worse religions; and many believe that Christianity has the right to be a better religion than some made it.
As cruelly as the “Indians” were treated, we should not neglect that they eagerly warred among themselves. They were not a monolith of victims, but a combination of victim and oppressor from before the ships ever landed. When they died, as many as 90% died from diseases that the Europeans quite honestly didn’t expect to be spreading — that leaves room for Holocausts worth of harm, but it also leaves room for some people like Bartolome de las Casas who tried to do the right thing and became pioneers of a new concept of human rights.
So yes, Columbus pioneered a slave colony of nearly unparalleled cruelty, and we should strip the name away from him. But let’s give it back to the Pillar, or to those who believed in it, and try to take from it some inspiration.
“As cruelly as the “Indians” were treated, we should not neglect that they eagerly warred among themselves. They were not a monolith of victims, but a combination of victim and oppressor from before the ships ever landed. When they died, as many as 90% died from diseases that the Europeans quite honestly didn’t expect to be spreading — that leaves room for Holocausts worth of harm, but it also leaves room for some people like Bartolome de las Casas who tried to do the right thing and became pioneers of a new concept of human rights.”
No, that doesn’t work, we killed them and no historical whitewashing is going to gloss over that fact. The moral thing to do, regardless of the behaviour of the people Columbus enslaved and murdered (ABSOLUTE FACT, do not try to deny this) would be to leave. Not to give them diseases and take their lands, to leave and go back to Europe because you don’t belong there. Property rights are hypocritical when those espousing them just steal others property. Hilarious. You, sir (if that’s what you are) are probably a white supremacist piece of shit who deserves have their family tortured and killed.
“who deserves have their family tortured and killed” – lmao…and you’re claiming moral high ground? I think you’d have made an excellent conquistador.
There is a moral in there for you… indeed, do “property rights” forever restrict each race to its own continent, each nation to its plot, each family to its own fated speck, large or small or nonexistent as it may be? Or do we admit that no man created the Earth and no man has a right to exclude all others?
The “Libertarian” answer is that a ship wrecks amid the sea. Six wash aboard an island and make a compact, and claim the land as theirs. When the next six wash to the beach, they stave them off with spears, saying this land is ours, you must move further on in the trackless ocean. But it is not my answer.
Schwarz is only about 20 years behind folks like Chomsky, and has a slightly different take than John Oliver‘s, but it’s still good to be reminded about this.
Now, how did “Canada” end up inventing a “Thanksgiving day” that falls on the same day?
Columbus Day was never really about Columbus. Italian American Catholics wanted to counter anti-Catholic bigotry by celebrating the contributions of Italians to the country. The obvious poster boy was the man who “discovered” America. St. Patrick’s Day is more about the Irish in general than St. Patrick in particular. Columbus Day is no different.
It’s been seventeen years since Columbus, Ohio had a Columbus Day parade. That’s a damn shame. What’s next? Will Columbus be forced to change the name of the city?
Here’s a potential solution to the problem.
1. Rename Columbus Day “Italian Heritage Day” or something similar.
2. Make Native American Day a national holiday. Celebrate Native American Day on the fourth Friday in September or on August 9th (International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples) but not on the second Monday in October.
Thank you for this non-partial article. Kudos
What we have here is another a do-gooder.
*everybody wants to rule the world … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foJ-Fs6DWZM
“But don’t take my grandfather’s word for it.”
Don’t worry, we won’t.
I live in Los Angeles and occasionally will be driving south on Pacific Coast Highway through Santa Monica.
If one chooses to take the 10 Freeway quickly there is a HUGE sign that says “Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway”.
Every time I see that sign the hair stands up on the back of my neck and my palms get sweaty and a wave of nausea engulfs me.
It’s Indigenous Peoples Day in Seattle.
Funny how they aren’t celebrating … ingrates!
http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/2015/10/11/olympias-first-indigenous-peoples-day/73776958/
Part of the problem in the US is extreme apathy, and no accurate history in the schools. The apathy is/has been a part of US attitudes at least since WWII as no one wanted another large scale conflict. When the ‘Nam war was going, most of the WASP’s over 30 didn’t care what the US was doing in SE Asia. Only when young people didn’t want to participate and the violence was on the nightly news did they take notice. Now the violence is scrubbed and only sanitized scenes are allowed on the news. Forget war protests the govt will just shoot you to stop the protests; remember Kent St. So the American people are shown essentially what the govt wants to be public, bought and paid for by corporate sponsors to look after business interests. So now, Oct 12 2015 is a day to live in infamy by all American natives but celebrated by all the descendants of European settlers. Will this schism ever be addressed properly by this nation, or at least acknowledged by all Americans. Only when this issue truly comes from out behind imperialist attitudes can this nation be a great nation. I’m just afraid it won’t happen any time soon.
It is also significantly the moment the mighty power of medieval Islam was broken. The Ottoman Mulsims thought they now owned world trade, controlling the old Silk Road all the way from China to the great entrepot that is Constantinople, conquered in 1453, but less than 40 years later the Med became a local backwater and the Silk Road meaningless.
Islam may say that their God gave them oil, but Christians will say their God gave them the World. But we are not alone in our destruction. History is littered with horror and war and enslavement in the name of claiming the spoils for the victor. Islamic conquests around the Med forced Europeans to look elsewhere for trade and we never looked back.
What is wrong now is the USA’s blatant attempt at total global domination through exploitation of its control over telecommunications and banking, coupled to its strategic destabilising alliances, powerful military and spying network, and incredible technological superiority to its main adversaries.
But I speak a warning: a small megalomaniacal elite CANNOT dominate 7 BILLION souls, but 7 billion souls CAN destroy a small and hated elite. Ed Snowden alone hit these people so hard they want to burn his soul forever. They cannot win and they are insane to think they can. Depending on who gets to write it, this time will go down as America’s most shameful and I sincerely hope there are not further horrors to dwarf this insanity.
Some of us white people have suffered from colonialism – Hitler did not invade “the kikes”, we are called Slavs and we are the predominant ethnic group of Europe. People forget that. It is where the word “slave” comes from and most white folk tend to forget that, too. The Russians and Poles and peoples of the Balkans know only too well the horrors of both European and Muslim invasion and war.
I live in Thailand. They have never been a colony, and the people are very happy about this. They just successfully removed a corrupt regime without any bloodshed. The world should look to them and others like them more maybe, instead of thinking we all live in bamboo huts. Bangkok now makes more cars than Detroit…
They don’t have to ‘beat’ 7 billion souls — they just have to terrify those people sufficiently to recognize that they’ll lose something — anything. People are remarkably loss-averse, especially when it comes to loved ones and creature comforts. Beyond that, they wind up beaten down and without the resources to fight. Especially in a ‘warfighter’ arena that is mostly automated and doesn’t even involve much in the way of risk to those striking down the proletariat.
Not advocating insurrection or uprisings. Just saying I believe you are being remarkably simplistic. I’d also mention that without ‘white people’, Thailand would crash — it depends too much on its tourism and tech exportation industries. And most countries are averse to loss of what enables them to function and keep their people alive.
Now I wish I had some Thai street food, though. Nice comments.
T.V., it cuts both ways. Thailand makes stuff for White Folk now because globalised corporations owned by a small elite do not want to pay White Folk wages, and White Folk don’t want to pay the high price for stuff other White Folk make. So White Folk end up WITHOUT JOBS. And Thailand ends up selling IT stuff and cars to China and South America, who are earning the salaries White Folk used to.
The US only accounts for 10% of Thailand’s exports, and about the same for its investment. Europe and America are half-a-billion people, the same as ASEAN alone, and a fraction of India and China. Most of Thailand’s cars are for the ASEAN market.
You are unfortunately epitomising what this article is about: White Folk-centricity and self-importance must end because your dominance IS OVER. Hence your government’s game play to perform a global coup d’etat, and my point is amply demonstrated by how hard they were hit by people like Bin Laden and Snowden. The world does not want American bullying any more, and so your government is taking your tax dollars and your big businesses are yanking your chains to behave whilst taking their infrastructure elsewhere. The American people are getting ar$SSe-f**ked by EVERYONE.
And I live in a tourist resort and most of the tourists are now Asians, Chinese, Muslim Arabs and Indians – NOT Americans. Sorry mate, you are very badly informed. Blame your media for that.
Speaking as someone also not in America, but who has had quite a lot of experience with expats from all places across the globe, you sound as though you are a convert to the place you live. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing, but it does tend to blind people to the weaknesses of the places they live in, and exacerbate in one’s mind the things they dislike in other places.
Don’t assume you know who posts anything on here. Dangerous assumptions. Ditto the media they believe.
That said if you live in a tourist resort then you’re probably romanticising the heck out of Thailand, but I won’t assume you are doing so.
As to street food, I wouldn’t call it the great equaliser, but I will say that most countries that haven’t been taken over by chain corporatism also have vibrant smaller business communities, especially when it comes to food. Asia just happens to do it better than a lot of places — in part because it uses real ingredients (which are cheaper there – but take time to prepare) and not processed foods.
Not going anywhere with this, really — and no interest in becoming a regular here. Just sort of wanted to say it’s awkward to make assumptions about strangers on the internet (and I won’t make any about your stated lineage, in turn; none of my business).
Also, terror does not work, because there comes a breaking point where the abuse of power by the terroriser becomes worse than the danger of retaliation. It is only Americans that are loss-averse and apathetic. Here in Thailand, ONE MILLION people just marched on Bangkok to demand the military to oust the government of former PM Thaksin’s sister and proxy, Ying Luk, at considerable risk, I would say close to civil war if they had met resistance. As half a Brit, we have a fine tradition of getting killed in the name of resisting our governments. And as half a Galician Pole, we just have a fine tradition of getting oppressed and killed and rising again and we have removed both the Nazis and the Soviets from our backs in recent history. Americans are pampered and lazy and elitist and racist and ignorant of the wider world. Hence your current dilemma.
“we have removed both the Nazis and the Soviets …”
pretty sure the British and Americans had something to do with defeating the nazis.
British and Americans faced 10 German divisions. The Soviets faced hundreds.
Sorry, this got in my craw, too: “It is only Americans that are loss-averse and apathetic.’
That has to be the furthest thing from the truth and is a dangerous assumption — especially when it comes to the first part. All of humanity is loss-averse. If it weren’t, this would be a very different world. I fail to see what anybody’s lineage has to do with their courage or anything else.
The Street Food you would like to eat for me epitomises the difference between the West and Everywhere Else. I will explain why: Thailand has only about 0.9% unemployment. There are no Unemployment Benefits like Europe, so people get off their arses and do what they can to earn a crust – usually selling stuff like street food. There are no major corporations killing off small businesses. There are far fewer large employers hiring-and-firing at will, or relocating to somewhere where labour is cheaper. And because there is a lot more street food, people meet each other more out in the street, where they get along and gossip about news. So there is NO mass media lying to them, just friends telling them the truth. No one cares about Freedom of the Press because no one thinks a stupid newspaper will save them (sorry, The Intercept, you are included). And so, because people get along and talk to each other, when they decide to KICK OUT a corrupt regime, they all get together and do it. And because they all eat together for cheap, they save a lot of money and they eat very good food so they stay fitter and healthier and happier. And because there are lots more small businesses, there is a lot less tax money going to megalomaniacal politicians who spend it on nuclear weapons, a huge military, an oppresive police force, state security, hateful foreign policy, drone programs and a spying system aimed at enslaving the world.
Street food could save the world. Seriously.
If you require street food to assemble into a community, the world is in trouble.
We don’t REQUIRE street food to assemble into a community, we are a community because we meet and converse and take affirmative action together, rather than sit at home staring at a TV hoping someone in the media or government will make the changes we desperately need out of the kindness of their hearts. YOUR world is in trouble, our world is doing okay, thanks. You spend half a TRILLION every year on a military you do not need. You bailed out your banks because they spent YOUR money on bad investments so they could pocket commissions and then YOU PAID AGAIN for them to be saved. You have paid for a spying program that will enslave YOU, not us. It is YOUR politicians that are manipulating, robbing and lying to YOU, whilst you cannot even agree that your next political leader comes from a bunch of lunatics. We are just eating nice food and getting along and kicking out our corrupt governments when they rip us off. The world IS in trouble, and America IS the cause.
Street food epitomises what American Capitalism should be about – highly competitive markets creating jobs and driving up standards whilst driving down prices. You cannot sell bad street food, people will not buy it and they will be reluctant to try anything new you do in the future. The consumers are informed and discerning and so the providers must make delicious food at a good price or again, they will fail. Instead, America has the opposite – a kind of horrible quasi-communist state run by maor corporations. Imagine a company called NoodleSoft come and dominate the marketplace. All the small street vendors are driven out of business by a government of politicians taking payments not to enforce monopoly laws and awarding generous public contracts. NoodleSoft make MSG-ridden crap and protects itself with copyright patents on Stir-Fried Noodles, Fried Rice and Pad Thai, even though their products are poor and they didn’t even properly invent these things, just patented a version and then used their friends in government to bring the power of law against their rivals. Now a bunch of similarly dominant companies run the show – one for street food, one for foot massages, one for tourist tat, and another for hookers. Now I want to be the CEO of Harlots Incorporated, anyone who wants poontang has to do what I say or its Born Again Virgin time…
Best comment so far!!!
Genocide is an ideology that exists as a tenet of all Abrahamic religions. In fact it is part of their core. Wherever the message of Abraham goes, so too goes the message that genocide is okay (sometimes).
The Israelites were justified by God in slaying tens of thousands of Canaanite peoples. In fact they were commanded to do it–and when their leaders varied from this commandment they were disenfranchised. Similar genocidal events happened within the Israelite tradition over and over again–gaining them the everlasting antagonism of native populations where they claimed land.
The fact that adherents of these traditions should seek to undertake their own actions in similarity should be no surprise. It is a cruel irony of history that the very book that conquers use to subjugate native people, the bible, is the primary vehicle which carries this message, and justifies it.
It matters not whether the faith is Islam, Christianity, or Judiasm, all of these religions contain within them the message that to murder non-adherents is acceptable. This message is taught to small children who naively believe it and grow up replicating this tradition.
I live in a Buddhist country where violence towards and killing of any living thing are held as profoundly wrong and it informs the morality of the population and provides a deep rooted and profound level of respect for other people. If you push them, they will fight back, but they do not look over their borders and see lesser people in need of “civilzing”. The perceptible arrogance of many fellow westerners here is shocking to me, especially considering many of them are not exactly models of morality or civility.
Islam has words for “holy warrior” and “holy war” that are as old as the faith itself and that most other religions, incluing Christianity (“Crusader” is a later term), do not. Its success was born from war – first Mohammad’s conquest of Mecca and then the explosion out of Arabia all the way eastwards to China and westwards to France. I think people who play this asspect down at the moment are being somewhat apologistic for them. Christianity was born more of martyrdom and suffering and overcoming persecution – there were 300 years of such until it became the state religion of Rome and then plenty more as the missionaries expanded its reach into the Germanic and the Slavic regions. The first “holy wars” were not until 1,000 years after Christ and were much more politically motivated, being initiated by the Byzantines to help against Seljuk attacks, with Jerusalem having been in Saracen hands for nearly 400 years. But when the Conquistadores encountered the religions of the Aztecs and Mayans and were horrified, they became far more inclined towards religious justification of their actions – really, a reversal of what had happened against the Saracens, which were called religious, but were really political.
Judaism is tiny in comparison and is more shaped I believe by its diaspora and return to statehood and then recent backing by the US than by its original small global significance.
Buddhism was adapted and changed in medieval Japan and became highly politicised and had some very violent sects – such as the Ikko-Ikki – that were based originally on Chinese teachings such as Pure Land, but these really go against everything the religion stands for.
I think all except an extremist few believe that murder of infidels is acceptable, and none truly believe it, but instead enjoy the terror it provokes in its targets. I believe we are in a time similar to the German Wars of Religion, but instead of Lutherists vs the Papists, we have left-leaning and essentially peaceful secularists / agnostics who want to lessen the power of governments, religions and corporations vs those entities. These leaches survive only on our purchases and taxes, our apathy and fear, and our disunity and tribalism – remove those hindrances and they will fail and fall.
The problem with genocide is that it belongs to everyone & no one. Genocides take place all over the globe on a consistent basis, in every corner of each continent. To the marvel of people who produce news and historians who teach all over the worls, no one really ever seems to notice. So if you ever happen to actually notice, you are in a segment of humanity who sees above and below the registers of a certain social information spectrum. It’s kind of a lonely peak. When a culture gives a pass to commit mass killing & euthanasia by way of WHATEVER excuse – because there never has to be a great excuse to do genocide the tell the surviving children their lives matter. We do know the cognitive dissonance will haunt them through the seared conciences of their parents, who had to live with the misery and death, forever looking over their shoulders in paranoia that they will share the same fate.
I am a Toy Story 3 denier. I was thinking of doing an inverse-tribute to Toy Story 3, where a bunch of real neo-Nazis see the film, but then tell everyone they didn’t and that it does not even exist, life-reflecting-art-reflecting-life, rather than art-reflecting-life (I don’t think that needs an extra bit).
It was always rather ironic to me that South African apartheid regime got so much abuse from Americans, when it could be said in the South Africans’ favour that at least they did not massacre the indigenous population, but merely oppressed them rather brutally. Maybe, deep down, that is America’s real objection – unfinished work, a sign of weakness and an opening to the eventual downfall of Honky Oppression because dead men don’t form the ANC or where loud shirts, act jolly and charm the pants off everyone after 27 years in prison.
Hi Jon,
I don’t think you can arbitrarily segregate “ideas, values, religion” from the European application of genocide in the world. These were integral parts of their virulent recipe. It was much more than Guns, Germs, and Steel. It is simply not realistic to ignore the role of colonial religious schemes, for example (the clergy fare well in Las Casas’ accounts, and many later ones). The impossible labor requirements placed on native populations by the religious arm of Spanish colonialism was just as destructive of indigenous populations and just as genocidal as any other part of the Spanish system. Any objective reading of the history and especially the causes of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 (New Mexico) –in which the Pueblos were able to eject the Spanish from the upper Rio Grande valley for over a decade–will illustrate this.
Another book to read for those interested–
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Century_of_Dishonor
A Century of Dishonor http://www.amazon.com/Century-Dishonor-Classic-Expos%C3%A9-Americans/dp/048642698X
I agree on the Cultural Silence notion and note that today we frequently use the Sci-Fi genre to say things publicly that can’t be said otherwise. Another good example would be “District 9″, a neat Sci-Fi movie that speaks to South African apartheid–but today can be compared directly to Israel/Palestine issue and more specifically Gaza.
Ausgezeichnet.
Great fregging read and beautifully written good sir.
Hitler was actually the flower of Euro-Christianity. His failure to impose White dominion over the world marked the beginning of the end of Abrahamic religious influence and the dominance of European culture in word affairs. America’s Empire, the successor to Hitler’s White supremacist visions, has also failed, for the same reasons.
Unfortunately for them, their grasp of power depends on their ability to control access to information. Only they can interpret their religious texts. Only they can write and interpret Law. Only they are able to talk to White Jesus. Wrong.
By purging all elements that were not White, male, christian and educated, the ruling class of America has gone full Hapsburg. With a Bourbon chaser. They are so isolated, they can’t see beyond their noses. They are so inbred, they are parasitic.
This is not a viable strategy for in a web based world. As you can see from the American political meltdown, it ends in suicidal extinction.
We need to finally reject the notion of White male superiority. They aren’t that special.
Love the Bourbon shot. Southern Italy thanks you, too. Teresa and Anita Garibaldli say HAY from Montevideo!
Omg, my daughter is a political science major at OSU, and she says the exact same thing!!!!!
Who were the financiers? Were they the same ones that financed the construction of the Royal Navy under Elizabeth the First?
I wish I could distribute this article to every single American.
The claim that non-Westerners better understand the usefulness of organized violence lacks empirical support. Consider the proxy war between Russia and the US in Syria. Western powers using weaker countries as a battleground to avoid directly harming each other is in the best colonialist tradition. Superiority in applying organized violence often consists of using your opponents’ own violence against them. So it’s a bit unfair to imply the West has lost its touch.
Generally, citizens in western countries are well aware of the dynamics at play but simply choose to profess ignorance. This is a form of plausible deniability – not an act of forgetfulness. If you doubt this, tell someone that the creation of the US was an act of organized violence. Very few will say, “thanks, for reminding me, I’d forgotten”. The West, in fact, continues to maintain superiority in applying organized violence – as comparing the size of nuclear arsenals will quickly confirm.
Of course, once you prevail by means of organized violence, your ideas, values and religion are then imposed on the defeated population, thus proving the superiority of your own culture. But no one should confuse cause with effect.
Those who feel that celebrating organized violence, effective though it may be, puts a damper on Columbus Day, can choose instead to celebrate his persistence and fearlessness in travelling into the unknown.
I challenge your white man claim and suggest it’s all in the tech department. Whoever holds the key to the armory…
We used to postulate about the Mammoth and how he went by by. The first to conquer this continent were from Asia. Is man simply the first invasive species? Get back to us, Watson!!
The Asian influx centuries ago did not “conquer” North America…they had to learn how to live here.
From my own observations, I think they were just following the food truck. Once it ran out of Woolyburgers, they had to figure out how to eat at home.
You seem pretty homocentric in the massacre department. I don’t make such distinctions about extinctions.
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion … but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”
And that’s why organized violence is “noble” and why disorganized violence is “terrorism”
……and the “colon’ in colonialism is Spanish for Columbus.
You give Columbus too much credit. A Roman ‘colonia’ was an outpost established in conquered territory to secure it.
I’ve wondered about the etymology of “colony”, especially its relation to “colon”. Then it occurred to me, the colon extracts nutrients from food and a colony extracts resources from a territory.
Meanwhile, 80 yrs after the formation of the United States, someone finally figured out the truth.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/spooner/NoTreason/
Therein lies the real reason children are indoctrinated by “pledging allegiance” to the flag and State for which it stands. Taxpayers of the future. Otherwise known as rubes.
Your Gpa will likely grin if not take a reveling spin to learn I made certain my students learned their history of Mexico from Bernal Diaz. It was once a third of our estate, for relative sake. Then off to the library where they figured out for themselves they were just reading spin on his old work. Nothing like a feasting on the limbs of one’s enemies to get the boys to fall for history. I had the girls sold on Malinche, talk about your Cinderella story with a wicked kickback, Tabasco!
Dude, why explain it? Make Watson figure it out and get back to you. That’s how I do GCHQ.
Weird, I fell over Jackel looking into the CIA’s crying towel yesterday, how they let an upstart Roman rag beat them at the counter-intel game so now everyone thinks they tried to kill De Gaulle. We were just juking the aviation contracts, Jack. And for that, they will hate us evermore. Sacre Bleu!
While I agree that Columbus Day is significant, it’s only the marker of a new phase of something far older. Empire resulting from mineral slavery goes back to the Bronze Age. Athens had its silver mines in Laurion, worked with slave labor. Rome fought the Punic Wars to secure mines in Spain and gave us “damnatio ad metalla”, condemnation to the mines, a trope that still occurs today in fiction. There is certainly a unique flavor to the post-Columbian period of European colonialism, but it’s not characterized by violence for gain; that’s far older.
Brilliant analysis–excellent presentation! Deserves to be distributed as widely as possible.
Great article Jon.
The flaw in this article is that it suggests the the history of the US is one long uninterrupted extension of British colonialism. The truth is more complicated. The American Revolution was an anti-colonial uprising, in fact, the first of its kind. Alexander Hamilton wanted to abolish slavery. John Quincy Adams wrote the Monroe Doctrine as a warning against further rapacity by the European powers in South America. Abraham Lincoln supported Benito Juarez in his battle against the European puppet Maximiliano. FDR warned Churchill that the US would dismantle colonialism after WWII.
It is true that since the death of FDR, the US has essentially reverted to being part of the now-privatized British Empire. That cause me considerable anguish. But the good aspects of American history should not be forgotten. The battle between good and evil in American policy has been raging ever since the Declaration of Independence, and I am not willing to concede defeat just yet, despite the horrors of the Bush/Obama years.
Uh, no, you have always been evil, it’s hilarious to say that anyone from the US is an innocent and good person. They all deserve to be killed and it is moral to kill white americans.
Just what a fascist would say…who swings the other way. I know where we can laugh at a white boy who is taken in chains to Babylon only to liberate himself and return to Germany a SelfFreedMan. That’s the Nazi spec story. Herman is now Jesus, but since he’s not a loser, he beats the Romans at their own gaming stations and begins his eternal conquest. Skip the sacrifice.
This is a group of murals in a 1935 church we missed in Saarland made from the foundation of Hitler’s formative fears. Yup, they even specified how to lay out the alter. To the left with a side of His Struggle. Seriously, we should have taken it out just for those headcracking Freedom Bells.
This hitlarity is only under a thick coat of paint, so I KNOW some sicko publisher would LOVE to fund the revealing survey, Barclays. Or maybe a Kickstart would do. Who whats to make fun of Hitler’s BS Babylonian? Think of a young Chuck Norris with a wicked page boy. Chop, chop.
It is not moral to kill, period!
Chalk message at Bernie Sanders rally this past weekend — CU Boulder:
http://imgur.com/XpKtlA3
Does anybody care? Naive Americans are ignoring this problem at their own peril.
Yes. But we need documents, proof, an inside whistleblower. Hang in there.
Yes, empire building imperialism is a nasty piece of work. Throughout history Nations from Egypt, to Greece, to Roman, to China and many others have seen empires and modern Western civilization empires that have not been kind in conquest. Too often the question is do you want to fight your way to and go out on the top rather than the bottom of the scrapheap of history? A stark outlook for losers and winners destined to later be losers, the world needs a better model. We have worked up the scale of carnage from thousands to millions and if we keep up the pace mankind’s next atrocity or calamity could be billions. What is the better plan how must we change and where do we find the will and the way? It is an ancient question that has never seen an answer.
And I imagine most/many have claimed enlightenment and beneficence in bringing “civilization” or “democracy” to indigenous areas, as the US claims. “For their own good,” as the author pointed out.
I guess the big question is, can we evolve to a cooperative, rather than a competitive, global society? Can an invasive species, as someone above labeled humans, become a symbiotic species? Human cultures have been both; sadly it seems that the competitive, invasive groups generally wipe out the cooperative, symbiotic groups. Which is why I think so many people are fine with nationalism and nationalist violence – the ancient collective fear and feeling that it’s better to be, or support, the biggest bully than to be invaded and wiped out.
It is going to take some evolution, perhaps spiritual – or at least a critical mass deciding to agree on it – to collectively place human rights above the archetypal fear of invasion, occupation, and destruction.
The global elite exploit this fear in their respective countries which gives them freedom to continue pillaging, raping, and killing w/the justification that doing this to others prevents their country from experiencing the same.
Yes, our leaders and other leaders seem to always want to grasp a wolf by the ears, even if the wolf is no threat to us until we grasp him. Once seized a wolf is a real handful not much chance to turn lose or see a better way. The meek do not inherit much presently.
A major problem exemplified by this article is that people fail to realize that
365 days of each year are columbus days for the system which has
control of economics.
Another aspect of this system which is exemplified here is that the
focus is primarily on injustice among humans and it largely sees this in
terms of regional ancestry and skin color.
In fact,
these behaviors are seen in most humans’ treatment of the natural world.
The diverse forms of the environment which sustain life are yet to be seen
by the majority of people
as something more than a source of monetary gain.
In fact, how we view the diversity of the environment is merely reflected
in how we view each other.
Are you a “human resource” who has little spiritual connection to other
resources
or are you more?
The monetary riches and power of the fake USA (and most nations)
is dependent upon humans disconnecting from the environmental
diversity and abundance which took millions of years to develop
and is more and more rapidly being sucked out of existence
by the false belief in human superiority.
Tecumseh is credited with saying something like,
“Sell the land? You might as well sell the air and the great seas!”
The Jeffersonian planned project of “indian removal” killed Tecmseh.
We are such a suicidal species. We kill our mother. We poison our own drinking water. We crush our children’s spirit’s with de-evolving unspiritual messages that they are not significant people. The natives of the West can be seen as victims. That is only one role they play in this piece.
They are intercessors for the Earth. Harmonizers of themselves with the life of the planet, the winds, the waters & the animals- who are spirits just like us.
People who eat from factory farms and live from goods made from human & animal misery are not necessarily better people with better lives. They really want you to believe that though. They yell and scream like adult children about the “right” to have their meat from misery, to kill whomever they want, to have whatever they want.
The first victims of the European way of life were the Europeans, their land, their women, their children. They systematically desensitized, cut their lives off from that of what lives from the ground. They die young and then chase the ghost of their own spirit all day long in a living body. Killing others, in words and taking the life of others, so they will have company in their own death. They are never satisfied, because death is always a solitary act. So it never really works out.
So they find some kind of company in a culture that understands their bad example, dominance above respect for life in the governance of China. China is no real respecter of persons, they fry their dog or civet meat and tiger penises in gutter oil collected from a sewer drain. It’s all the same to them. Everyone needs validation, right?
In 2008 I spoke with a Persian journalist based out of Switzerland on holiday in the Bay Area and according to him, the Taliban came into existence as result of 2 Afghani Warlords fighting over a boy sex/entertainment slave. Amongst influential people in that culture it’s a ” status symbol?”
Why has nobody written anything about what is happening to boys in Afghanistan? Why has nobody written about how people of the same race do bad things to each other? Like, why and how blacks gathered up and sold fellow blacks into slavery? Why fellow blacks kill fellow blacks like no other race in America? Oh wait, it’s white European colonialism that is causing that……….. I’m so stupid?!!
You said it first…
Bullshit. Whites kill whites at about the same rate.
@ Phil Ferro
Not that I agree with your “whataboutism” assertions in each case, but so what? You don’t honestly delude yourself into believing America invaded Afghanistan to protect boys from rape do you? And since the violent crime rate among all “races” in America outstrips every “civilized” nation on earth, do you believe those nations should invade America “for its own good”?
Moreover, people write about the things (at least the one accurate assertion–that some Afghans rape boys, just like some Americans in America rape American boys) you allege all the time, so why would you think the Intercept should write about them?
The simple fact–everything Mr. Schwarz documents is a historical fact. What’s wrong with grappling with those facts and the implications of them? Do you not have the intellectual and moral fortitude to grapple with what those things mean for us as a nation? Are you afraid or too lazy to even imagine that there might be a “better way” or that somehow it is a sign of weakness to admit that as a nation and “people” we have done some horrific things to others on a mass scale in supposed preservation and perpetuation of “our way of life”? You do understand that it is precisely the “whataboutery” types like you, who stick your head in the sand about what this nation is and does, that makes it possible for this nation to continue to do it? That’s why I rarely feel responsible for the horrible shit America does to others–I try to live my life simply and conscientiously researching the origin of almost everything I buy. And when we prepare to make war on others, I march and fight against it–because I know the purported “justifications” are almost never what our leaders claim they are. That’s just propaganda for the rubes.
The death and destruction of others “way of life” is on the conscience and soul (assuming you believe in such a thing) of Americans like you. The “good Americans”. The ones that think war and economic extortion are moral means to perpetuate our “way of life” or that either are justifiable in perpetuating our “way of life”. They aren’t. I mostly pity people like you–the “whataboutery” types. Because if there is a God and/or heaven and hell, I’d be real concerned about the actions you’ve remained silent about or tried to justify, because I don’t think God is going to find your facile excuses or justifications for your “way of life” very convincing.
@rrheard-very interesting?
” Invade America for its own good?” Well, it appears it’s already happened. The current experience is not the American experience. Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald have shown that clearly.
It’s really hard to take you seriously. Your response confused me.
You question my intellectual and moral fortitude then follow that with admitting we the “people” have done some horrible things and then you follow that by claiming my head is in the sand and then you follow that by, and THIS IS THE BEST PART, ” I rarely feel responsible for what America does to others because I march and fight.”…… LOL, you question my moral fortitude?
Don’t you see how incredibly open your argument is to destroy? It’s obvious you haven’t been in 1 fight your entire life and if you have marched it was in a marching band.
How can you feel responsible when you aren’t American?
“I mostly pity people like you.” Coming from an un-American BAR ASSOC. jock-sniffing liar.
LOL! Thanks for your concern.
@ Phil Ferro
I’m not at all surprised you are confused. Cogent thought doesn’t seem to be your strong suit.
Ooooh such strong words from a guy who appears to have the intellectual horsepower of an electric can opener. As soon as you demonstrate a “lie” I’ve told in these threads, I’m happy to try and untangle the remainder your incoherent word salad for you. Until then I’ll let it stand as a shibboleth to your whataboutism (or logical fallacy of relative privation for dimbulbs like who majored in Know-Nothing Studies and Moral Bankruptcy at Liberty University). You should consider leaving the big boy/big girl discussions to those of us who don’t need a stick figure crayon diagram showing how to put on the big boy/big girl pants and stick to the ones about how humans rode dinosaurs and the art of soap bubble blowing.
@rrheard-I’m having trouble responding to you because I can’t stop laughing. I waited a day but that’s not long enough.
Since you stated that you “march and fight against war” (I paraphrased), did you burn your draft card during Vietnam? What do you think of those who did and of those who didn’t?
Obviously, you don’t have kids or spent little time with them/he/she because “the art of soap bubble blowing” was the start to many mind blowing conversations about politics, organized crime, health, high tech (here in the Silicon Valley that could be someone responsible for the device in your pocket), with parents/babysitters at the park playground. Oh, that reminds me!
A while back you referenced some law or doctrine that says something about being a parent or having kids isn’t a civil right? What was that? I think it was an obscure piece of text in some obscure place? I could be wrong but there was something you referenced that got my attention but was too busy to get clarity.
“Why has nobody written anything about what is happening to boys in Afghanistan?”
No idea, even US soldiers turn a blind eye to it, judging by recent reports. Odd that your white supremacist heroes aren’t tackling this issue — oh, wait, this is a badly constructed troll from an incredibly stupid white power asshole.
As an antidote to the idiotic celebration by Italians of Columbus (ancestry unknown), I always play Burning Spear’s immortal “Christopher Columbus” (damn blasted liar).
No doubt Columbus’ accidental arrival is pivotal to opening the floodgates that would propel Europe to hemispheric and later almost global domination. Would recommend Marimba Ani’s masterwork “Yurugu” to those seeking a conceptual framework to explain the European’s lust for conquest, control, domination, and extermination of the “other.”
Error:
“…the confusing swirl of war and conflict can suddenly makes sense.”
Nothing makes sense in the U.S. for victims of this:
FightGangStalking dot com
Victims are crazy, you say? Some, perhaps. Which is one of the reasons that it works so very well.
There’s certainly a lot of “social silence” surrounding these activities.
Great article. The scarcity economy, capitalism, racism, and probably some other isms make it all possible and inevitable.
You would think the devil paid better
Race is literally one of the stupidest ideas ever. Race is directly opposed to evolution. You cannot believe in race and evolution at the same time.
Does anyone really believe that when Jon Schwarz is sitting around talking with his “smart” friends that he actually argues that evolution doesn’t exist? Of course not. He isn’t an idiot.
Jon Schwarz will argue that race is a ‘social construct’ which means that he believes that other people believe in race. The question is–Why do other people believe in race?
Do other people believe in race because god made it so? Do other people believe in race because science teaches us race? Do other people believe in race because the idea of race is innate in humans?
Or maybe other people believe in race because race preachers–like Jon Schwarz–preach race.
So why is he preaching something he doesn’t even believe in himself?
To divide and control–and preaching lies in order to divide and control people is pretty fucked up and evil.
So how many questions will it take before Jon Schwarz runs away? I think one is enough–but let’s find out.
1) If a “black” person and a “white” person have a child, what race is their baby? Is their baby a new race or a state of racelessness? Is their baby “mixed” race?
2) Why do people believe in race?
3) Do you think evolution is true? Do you think race and evolution are compatible logically and scientifically?
That’s a good start.
Are you saying Caucasians are not white.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race
Hi tombrowns’ schooleddaze’
Speaking for myself that is exactly what I would say – people are people full stop.
What I think is what we really have is a spectrum of human beings but its kind of like the story of the blind men touching an elephant
Hi thelastnamechosen
Someone else here used the term race atheist, it’s unfortunate but predictable that others are way behind the curve on this, other than this the article is pretty good.
Where does power come from and the ability to dominate other people? That is unchanged throughout history and will remain so.
There is no value in make believe, not for any person on Earth.
If a culture is powerful it is undeniable. Do you write this article as an American who is afraid of the future?
Excepting the present American goose-steppers, where are all those powerful cultures now?
America will share their downfall, though maybe not soon enough.
WOW! What a great refresher course on HISTORY!
Thank you Jon!
And yes, for unmasking the facts hidden by “social silence”…… always learn something new from your writings!
Thank you! I’m just glad this made sense to someone besides me ;-)
Your Honor is completely understandishable, Miles. I like your style.
“great”
Yes, truly amazing.
If the fact that the hugely significant gathering of “dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters” in South Korea – something that hateful colonialists would naturally try to suppress as literally the definition of a non-historical event, but they can’t fool our Hero Historian here – is used to divine the eternal truths of both universal history and universal psychology doesn’t convince you of this, you certainly know that you are in the presence of true greatness once you realize that among the references cited in this watershed essay is the book “Atlantis and the Persian Empire” by that titan of historical research J. M. Allen, published by the veritable giant in the field “CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform”.
When history books are written centuries from now – once that vile genocidal Caucasian Fascist Zionist Columbus is subjected to the well-deserved damnatio memoriae, and Peace-loving (if sometimes human-flesh-eating, but hey, it’s their culture) Indigenous traditions are again celebrated, October 12th will be remembered as the day on which this breakthrough insight into essence of everything was published.
Too much salt, Louise, but I love what your frying to do here.