3 ms·

The romanticized Indians where the victims bent, is a little old. The fact of the matter is the Indians (all distinctive cultures) where the looser in a bitter

by kls 17y ago

The romanticized Indians where the victims bent, is a little old. The fact of the matter is the Indians (all distinctive cultures) where the looser in a bitter battle between two cultures. Both where right and both where wrong. Both committed atrocities that are appealing by today's standards. The white apologist thing is just neo-trendy but true history does not support your conclusion. The fact of the matter is, for better or worse European and Asian cultures with the help at times from middle eastern cultures have bettered the human condition and history clearly supports that conclusion. The grandparent post is right, society has congealed into functional and dysfunctional land masses. I would go so far as to state that it is a gradient, where land masses like the middle east are somewhere in between. Now we can stick our head and the sand and say it is not true and continue with the standard kumbaya, everybody is a winner, Disney movie observations, that it is not the case or we can accept that either culturally, geographically, racially, nutritionally or via some other unknown, there are regions that are prone to violence, rampant corruption, less innovation and political abuse / instability. We will be none the better, until we come to that acceptance and formulate real solutions that address the real issue and not just band-aiding it with aid and dictator coddling. That just furthers the problem.

lief79 17y ago
> "Appealing" by today's standards. Amusing slip, but the sad thing is some people would agree with this statement.
- kls 17y ago
  yes that was supposed to be appalling. I will leave it as is so that your comment stands.
ytinas 17y ago
>The white apologist thing is just neo-trendy but true history does not support your conclusion. History doesn't support my conclusion? We invaded some else's land and nearly wiped them out. Now what remains are spread out on reservations, little crops of land that had no value to us. You assertion that "Both where right and both were wrong" is nonsense. If some other country invaded the US today and started having that kind of "success" would you feel the same? American citizens would just be the losers in a bitter battle between two cultures? Somehow I don't think so. >The grandparent post is right, society has congealed into functional and dysfunctional land masses. No, you and the GGP both confuse what we have now for success. We don't have "functional and dysfunctional land masses", we have the land of the empires who were always conquering and the land of those who weren't as aggressive. As is usually the case; the first one to strike wins. That doesn't mean he is better or has more potential, just that he won. We can't know what would have happened otherwise. Perhaps we've ended up in the best situation we could have, or perhaps we could have reached a much higher level of enlightenment. There is no way to know, but I find the framing of what happened as the best possible outcome (and by extension, everything that was done was correct) arrogant.
- kls 17y ago
  > We invaded some else's land and nearly wiped them out. Wow, really? I though that new land was discovered and pilgrims from the English and dutch settled it, that there was a general cohabitation period and then the whites did not like the godless heathens and the godless heathens where stealing and raping women. So the whites decided to kill the infidels and the infidels decided to kill the whites. I don't remember where the Normandy style invasion happened perhaps you could point me to that in your revisionist history books? I suggest you go back and read some simple child history books like the story of Captain John Smith and how he was ambushed and almost executed. Or of the reason that the Dunmore's War was started.
  - ytinas 17y ago
    >Wow, really? I though that new land was discovered and pilgrims from the English and dutch settled it The pilgrims "discovered" land people were already living in. Does it occur to you that the country you live in might wish to paint themselves to be victims (or even noble!) regardless of what really happened? >the godless heathens where stealing and raping women Good thing it's so black and white! It would be less convenient if awful things were happening from both sides. Then it wouldn't be so obvious which side was good and which side was evil.
    - kls 17y ago
      yes they discovered land just like the illegal Mexicans are discovering land, that affords them better opportunities. And to answer you question no I don't blame them, I would try to go somewhere that where more prosperous if I could. But just like the Indians tempers are starting to flair, it would only take a few incident to light that match and atrocities would be committed on both sides. Are the Mexicans the victims? They are the ones moving in. If the white man looses was he the peaceful victim? The reason I being up the Mexicans is because we see this occurrence happen through history and it usually ends up in a violent confrontation that both parties excite. The Indians and white settlers are no exception to the same occurrences we see in modern history. If you think the Indians where sitting around baking bread and then all of the sudden for no reason whitey started killing them then you have a very warped sense of revisionist history. Just read the story of Daniel Boone's son and how they butchered (and when I say butchered I mean butchered) him and it will give you some perspective as to why the pilgrims started to war with the Indians. I mean everyone wants to make whitey the baby killers and here we are with documented accounts of multiple occasions of Indians butchering men's entire families (even the little babies) as revenge and intimidation tactics. I we did the same to some illegal Mexicans you could be sure that they would want revenge for such atrocities. And once a populist attitude of indiference ot another race or culture has set in it is verry hard to reverse course, whch eventual leads to the total destruction of one of the two cometing cultures. Israel and the middle east is a good example of this unrepentant attitude. As ws Kosovo, this is history as usual so please don't try to rewrite it to fit you own world view. It is as it is, human nature is as it is and you just have to accept it, until you and others do you are doing everyone a disservice, as solutions need to be derived from real problems and not once idea of what the problem should have been. You are denying the Indians their history and their plight for survival by making them wimps that where just the victims.

by kls 17y ago

lief79 17y ago

> "Appealing" by today's standards. Amusing slip, but the sad thing is some people would agree with this statement.

kls 17y ago
yes that was supposed to be appalling. I will leave it as is so that your comment stands.

ytinas 17y ago

>The white apologist thing is just neo-trendy but true history does not support your conclusion. History doesn't support my conclusion? We invaded some else's land and nearly wiped them out. Now what remains are spread out on reservations, little crops of land that had no value to us. You assertion that "Both where right and both were wrong" is nonsense. If some other country invaded the US today and started having that kind of "success" would you feel the same? American citizens would just be the losers in a bitter battle between two cultures? Somehow I don't think so. >The grandparent post is right, society has congealed into functional and dysfunctional land masses. No, you and the GGP both confuse what we have now for success. We don't have "functional and dysfunctional land masses", we have the land of the empires who were always conquering and the land of those who weren't as aggressive. As is usually the case; the first one to strike wins. That doesn't mean he is better or has more potential, just that he won. We can't know what would have happened otherwise. Perhaps we've ended up in the best situation we could have, or perhaps we could have reached a much higher level of enlightenment. There is no way to know, but I find the framing of what happened as the best possible outcome (and by extension, everything that was done was correct) arrogant.

kls 17y ago
> We invaded some else's land and nearly wiped them out. Wow, really? I though that new land was discovered and pilgrims from the English and dutch settled it, that there was a general cohabitation period and then the whites did not like the godless heathens and the godless heathens where stealing and raping women. So the whites decided to kill the infidels and the infidels decided to kill the whites. I don't remember where the Normandy style invasion happened perhaps you could point me to that in your revisionist history books? I suggest you go back and read some simple child history books like the story of Captain John Smith and how he was ambushed and almost executed. Or of the reason that the Dunmore's War was started.
- ytinas 17y ago
  >Wow, really? I though that new land was discovered and pilgrims from the English and dutch settled it The pilgrims "discovered" land people were already living in. Does it occur to you that the country you live in might wish to paint themselves to be victims (or even noble!) regardless of what really happened? >the godless heathens where stealing and raping women Good thing it's so black and white! It would be less convenient if awful things were happening from both sides. Then it wouldn't be so obvious which side was good and which side was evil.
  - kls 17y ago
    yes they discovered land just like the illegal Mexicans are discovering land, that affords them better opportunities. And to answer you question no I don't blame them, I would try to go somewhere that where more prosperous if I could. But just like the Indians tempers are starting to flair, it would only take a few incident to light that match and atrocities would be committed on both sides. Are the Mexicans the victims? They are the ones moving in. If the white man looses was he the peaceful victim? The reason I being up the Mexicans is because we see this occurrence happen through history and it usually ends up in a violent confrontation that both parties excite. The Indians and white settlers are no exception to the same occurrences we see in modern history. If you think the Indians where sitting around baking bread and then all of the sudden for no reason whitey started killing them then you have a very warped sense of revisionist history. Just read the story of Daniel Boone's son and how they butchered (and when I say butchered I mean butchered) him and it will give you some perspective as to why the pilgrims started to war with the Indians. I mean everyone wants to make whitey the baby killers and here we are with documented accounts of multiple occasions of Indians butchering men's entire families (even the little babies) as revenge and intimidation tactics. I we did the same to some illegal Mexicans you could be sure that they would want revenge for such atrocities. And once a populist attitude of indiference ot another race or culture has set in it is verry hard to reverse course, whch eventual leads to the total destruction of one of the two cometing cultures. Israel and the middle east is a good example of this unrepentant attitude. As ws Kosovo, this is history as usual so please don't try to rewrite it to fit you own world view. It is as it is, human nature is as it is and you just have to accept it, until you and others do you are doing everyone a disservice, as solutions need to be derived from real problems and not once idea of what the problem should have been. You are denying the Indians their history and their plight for survival by making them wimps that where just the victims.