"Breaking the Great Australian Silence"

[Steve James]

Well, sorry, but the water everywhere was cleaner before "civilized" people took over. Of course, you've corrupted the term "modern" and "civilized" to apply only to colonizing countries --like those that cut off the hands of those they colonized if they [edit] refused to work for them.

Besides, turn off your electricity and I'll bet that you're (i.e., your "modern" man) is more primitive than any so-called "primitive" people that exist today. Anyway, fwiw, homo sapiens sapiens is a species. All members (since all time) have just as much brains as any member today.

I wouldn't argue that colonization wrecked the world. That's beyond my pay grade. I'd say that the Europeans screwed over non-Europeans almost as much as they've screwed each. In fact, that was what colonialism was/is. People who had no land, and often little more in terms of civilization, were able to "discover" places and peoples they could exploit. Yep, Indians did it to Indians; Africans to Africans; Asians to Asians, no doubt. So, I guess you'd say that Germany should have won WW2 because they could have civilized Poland and Czechoslovakia. India was much more civilized than England anyway. Nobody'd suggest that the British would be better off under Indian rule. (Though, if the situations were reversed, that's probably what the Indians would say).

[Darth Rock&Roll]

so what are you saying? Let's de-industrialize and go back to tallow light and mountain streams?

Colonial times have been gone for quite a while. I don't accept the sins of my..great great grandfather.

As a Canadian, I am not laboured by American slavery guilt either.

I don't buy the whole "we were better off without" argument. It's an empty argument.
Point is, conquerors conquered and the conquered were assimilated, enslaved, employed or raised up.

There is no turning back the wheel and there is still the point(s) that:

Africans practiced enslavement themselves and quite often collected and sold other africans to europeans.
The entire world practiced slavery and who were the first nation to abolish it?
Who still practices it now?(hint: there are almost 2 billion people in some form of direct or indentured slavery on earth right now)

North and South American native peoples practiced slavery even after it was abolished in Europe. They practiced it before as well.

Turn off my electricity? Do you not think me capable of maintaining my manners, ethics and morals because I lack modern amenities? That premise is absurd Steve, I'm surprised you even wrote it. And yes, we are one species, with huge tracts of ourselves that are yet to rise up and be civilized, ethical, morally upright or even educated in reality.

The greatest genocides of the 20th century took place in Africa with Africans killing Africans.
These tribal genocides and tribal warfare and killings still take place today.

The greatest contributors to pollution and the death of the planet right now are Asians.

Specifically China and India. who do not practice correct pollution controls, have very little in the way of environmental regulators etc.
these are two of the oldest civilizations on the planet that are doing the worst job of taking care of mother earth. how shall the rest of us fair over the next centuries to come?

As for Indians of the East, well, under the Raj they became more british than the british and if you look at what they kept of that civilization it was rule of law, secular humanist government, judiciary, trained military for defense etc etc. they pretty much absorbed lots of good things from the british and were one of only a very few who negotiated or reasoned their way to their own sovereignity as a nation.

[Steve James]

so what are you saying? Let's de-industrialize and go back to tallow light and mountain streams?

Colonial times have been gone for quite a while. I don't accept the sins of my..great great grandfather.

Can't address everything. But, no, I don't think in terms of de-industrialization. I'm more of the "colonizers could only done what they did with the help of the colonized (or enslaved). So, ya see, I consider the contributions of "primitive" peoples to be just as central to "civilization" today. Easy example would be to look at the quality of water, air, food, living conditions in London in 1900. Industrialization, by itself, is not civilization. And, it doesn't happen because people are civilized. As I said, the Natives here and every single African society you can name had "civilization" before colonization. In many cases, they were more "civilized" --in our modern sense-- than those who colonized them. The myth of the primitive is just that.

Bullshit. Colonial times are not "gone." There's oil in Iraq and Iran, and the civilized (oops, I mean the peoples who don't have it) are doing everything in their power to get it, not short of military intervention. If your argument about the value of civilization were valid in any sense, then the people in Africa would be better off than the people in Europe. After all, how many gold and diamond mines are there in England and France, again? I fergit.

Nobody ... well, I'm not.. asking you or anybody to apologize or try to repair anything because frankly, you can't. You don't have to apologize for civilizing the Indians ... or the Aborigines. If you feel guilt. ... no, if someone can make you feel guilt, that is your own problem. If you have the right to be guiltless, that has no effect on the right of others to feel remorse or to ask for reparations. That's their issue.

If the white man had a burden that he took up, that's his problem too. Nobody asked to be carried. But, that indisputable fact of the matter is that without colonization there wouldn't be civilization (and here I mean all the luxuries like ample food, sanitation, industrialization) in Europe. They didn't export it until they had taken enough to afford building it. Loads of examples, from Britain to Belgium. Oh, here's a map of the colonial world circa 1900.

[chimerical tortoise]

YOu don't like clean fresh water supplies? You don't like infrastructure for trade, social constructs such as services of police, fire brigades, hospitals etc?

No one is getting raped. That is a tired ass line dragged out from what happened 100 years ago or more.
It's 2010, how is my country raping someone else's?

Yes, it's 2010. And Canada is actually one of, if not the, largest mineral extracting countries in Africa. Most people think that we're a harmless and peaceful nation, but our miners have been everywhere. The best mining profits come from destabilised nations (i.e. Angola) many of which have a history of destabilised governments, in contrast to nations with stable governments (i.e. pre-structural adjustment Zambia). Other global resource extraction patterns (slash and burn in Indonesia during the 80's/90's giving way to multinational plantations, all sorts of primary/secondary products, i.e. fish meal for many salmon farms) exploit just as harshly as colonialism did to satisfy many of the luxuries we enjoy. In order to substain what we have, we have to continue to rape others. If the government is stable enough to maintain control of their resources then they are destabilised.

It's funny because if you replace "Australia" or "South Africa" with "Canada" in this article it still holds very true.

All advanced civilizations absorb primitive ones and lift them up.

No, all advanced cultures wipe out primitive cultures and call themselves advanced to justify 'bringing light to the darkness'. Residential schools for First Nations children wasn't absorbing, they were an attempt to forcibly and systematically turn 'primitive' children into blank slates for 'civilisation' by taking them from families and beating their traditions out of them.

That's also been used as a pretext for invasions all over the world. Japanese expansion prior to and during WWII was based on that ideology; fat lot of good that did. The same thing is happening in Iraq. You think that Iraqis didn't have electricity prior to UN sanctions, Desert Storm etc.?

but ultimately, when weighed against the actual outcome benefits, that position is clearly wrong.

For the developed world, perhaps. But when developing nations start to catch up (as in India and China where per capita pollution is still far below the US), then it gets a little difficult to maintain. As for India, India didn't exist as a contiguous nation state until the Brits came in and demarcated lines. The post-colonial violence during the Partition, that's not exactly very peaceful, now.

The Brits used scandal - the Black Hole of Calcutta - in order to justify entering, the same as many wars are justified today. The Gulf of Tomkin was declassified as having never happened a few years back.

The whole conflation of modernity with progress works only to an extent. People have had surplus to play with since the advent of agricultural societies, which leads to different occupations etc., it's hard to polarise the world into brutish primitive man and modern sophisticate. Modernity only works if there's other parts of the world out of your sight and mind that you can crap all over. The whole idea that the world is done with colonial-type relations is bollocks.

if you look at what they kept of that civilization it was rule of law, secular humanist government, judiciary, trained military for defense etc etc. they pretty much absorbed lots of good things from the british...

That's a common arguement, that "at least they're better off with what we left them". The whole idea that the West is responsible for rule of law etc. is silly, because these have existed independently prior to 'civilisation'.

There were no Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda until the Belgians (or Brits, I forget) spun a tale about King Solomon's last lost tribe and arbitrarily made categories for colonial divide and conquer. Pakistan and India weren't nation states and the Partition didn't polarise religion until post-colonial periods. Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania were desertified because the Italians, Germans and British decided to force horticultural semi-nomads into deeded plots of land.

The very notion that the West 'trained military for defense' is absurd. The West maintains its economy in no small part through the arms trade, has since slavery and continues to this day. That means investing in conflict, that means having little foreign escapades to field test new weaponry. It means cutting off people from their electricity, their resources, disrupting their regular life, completely arbitrarily and very noticably. The most long-standing idea of a defensive military is ironically probably well exampled by the Chinese.

What the author does is he questions the faulty ideas of progress (as opposed to process), freedom, moral justification for small wars, and the economic fucking-over that we do and lie about, fucking many over and silencing them, to keep the standard we have today.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

so, do you think Canada went in there, shot the place up and is now stealing those minerals?

Do you think there are no contracts to carry out operations? Do you think Africans go unemployed or are those mines only employing Canadians?
How exactly are they practicing some sort of oppression as you are inferring?

What kind of world do you think we live in? Some of the propositions and suppositions you make discard reality as far as I can see.

What do you propose as a solution as opposed to pointing out what you think is a problem, which many do not agree with or believe in the least.
I certainly don't agree with your view tortoise. IN my opinion you are latching onto the PC guilt thing that is in my opinion utter nonsense.

Shit happens, wars happen and EVERYBODY makes war on each other and themselves.
Yes, we could reduce wars, yes we could be more fair and egalitarian in our dealings.

But who established democracies? Who abolished slavery? Who stopped the conquering hordes scenario that finally ended with WW2?

There are entirely different angles of approach. I think the one posed i the article is wrong in essence overall. That's my view, what can I say.

White people had ancestors that lived off the land too and I think when we are working in a bubble we fail to see the big picture.

[GrahamB]

We all know that there’s no fucking way in the world we should have microwave ovens and refrigerators and TV sets and everything else at the prices we’re paying for them. There’s no way we get all this stuff and everything is done fair and square and everyone gets treated right. No way. And don’t be confused — what we’re talking about here is our way of life. Our standard of living. You want to “fix things in China,” well, it’s gonna cost you. Because everything you own, it’s all done on the backs of millions of poor people whose lives are so awful you can’t even begin to imagine them, people who will do anything to get a life that is a tiny bit better than the shitty one they were born into, people who get exploited and treated like shit and, in the worst of all cases, pay with their lives.

You know that, and I know that. Okay? Let’s just be honest here. Just for a fucking minute, let’s all be honest.

http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/07/im-rea ... uldnt.html

[Steve James]

But who established democracies? Who abolished slavery? Who stopped the conquering hordes scenario that finally ended with WW2?

Well, I think your defensiveness (i.e., as a White Canadian) sort of confuses your argument. For example, "who invented slavery in Canada?" Or, "who were the conquering hordes the started WW2?" Can't really get into "democracy" either, 'cause it ain't like the Greeks didn't have slavery, too. So, democracy is more of an idea/l that people pat themselves on the back for pretending to adhere to. But, if everything post-colonial is good, what's up with your signature line?

[Darth Rock&Roll]

There never was slavery in Canada. Canada was operative in helping slaves escape from the USA.
Also, I am being matter of fact as opposed to defensive. What is there to defend? I'm pointing out that the argument presented in the article is flawed.
I believe it to be coming from erroneous intention and misplaced guilt.

The conquering hordes is thematic to all war. There is no longer a conquering horde modality to war. Wars are limited and focused.
WW2 was an all out land grab by Germany and japan that was repelled by their opponents. Italy threw in with them and lost although they didn't make any territorial gains like the scope of those of Germany or Japan. Germany and Russia were key in Starting WW2. Russia wiped out some 20,000 officers and key military people just prior to the german Invasion of Poland as a conquering horde bent on getting land.

Greeks invented the "idea" of democracy, but modern implementation and versions of it is definitely a western european thing and is nothing like the greek demos as described by Plato's Republic. Whittling down monarchies into constitutional monarchic democracies took time. Literally centuries of forming into what we have now and even now it is changing. For instance, representative democracy is what is going on now in industrialized nations.

Post colonialism has allowed many countries to come into modernity with some strengths they would not have had without it.

I'm not saying there weren't things that occurred that were wrong. Of course there were. Humans were involved lol! But the end result is better!
What would be the alternative in the here and now?

The principal in this argument is to be in the present and move forward. Revisiting the sins of our fathers is a useless exercise if there is not some clearly defined road that comes out of it.

Apologies and cash payments are made all the time these days. But what is the end result of those? A little money for the ancestors of someone who was done a wrong. A feel good moment for a politician?

I don't understand what you guys are presenting as an alternative. Shall we all wallow in self hate for mistakes people made 100+ years ago?
I don't think so. I think we should move on, move up and grow in our understanding as we do so. What is done is done and we must deal with what we have now. Not what is gone and done with. This guy isn't saying anything new. This guy isn't saying anything revelatory. This guy isn't offering up any sort of solution to any of the issues he is talking about.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

As for my signature, what about it? Do you not agree that this is true? It is pertaining to the Military Industrial complex in the USA and how Americans must beware it's rise to power.

Well Americans didn't pay attention and now the US military industrial complex is the most powerful lobby group in Washington, in 99% of all congressional districts there is a factory or a production centre for some part or piece of the US military. They are firmly entrenched in American society.

America has one of the most terrifying and powerful war machines on the planet and in fact the nation itself is dependent on war to function.

So, as a black American, how can you argue against my signature line which is not only true, but implicates you as someone who is first in line to do something about it. What do you do?

I can tell you that as a Canadian, we are more than capable of creating such a military machine. We can have Nukes and ICBMs too! And Nuke subs if we want them or even battlefield tactical nukes. Why is it that we don't?

Because we don't have that violence in our culture whereas USA does.

[Steve James]

There never was slavery in Canada. Canada was operative in helping slaves escape from the USA.
Also, I am being matter of fact as opposed to defensive.

As to "defensive", ... "methinks the man doth protest too much." If there's nothing to defend, then I wouldn't think you'd care what the guy in the article said. As to being "matter of fact," you are confusing your perspective/opinion with "fact." Just as you said in the beginning that you disagreed with the guy's perspective, which we can agree he takes as "fact." Anyway, that's irrelevant to what you seem to be arguing.

Re: slavery in Canada, you asked "who abolished slavery?" That was confusing because I thought you were coming from a Canadian perspective. Yet, you later wrote "White people had ancestors that lived off the land too..." So, it does seem that you're conflating White with Canadian with colonizers with enslavers... as in "who abolished slavery" then "Canada never had slavery." Then there was your point about "hordes" and WW2. Well, the hordes were White people, except in Asia, no? Or, were those White people different from Canadians?

I didn't know the stuff about Canadians and international mining. But, it's still the "miners get the ore, natives get the hole." Actually, mining operations (in Africa) are generally small islands of wealth within seas of poverty. It affects the water, air and the way people live. Africans write about it all the time. Hmm, did you know that the Somali pirates originally formed to try to stop the pollution from the tankers that went through their sea lanes. They wanted reparations, and their "government" couldn't get it. Of course, pirates (even the Drakes and Raleighs) eventually get greedy and do what they do for profit, not patriotism.

Btw, nobody's knocking Canada. You got nukes and Mike Meyers, and we're all better for it.

[Steve James]

As for my signature, what about it? Do you not agree that this is true? It is pertaining to the Military Industrial complex in the USA and how Americans must beware it's rise to power.

The content of the signature seems more like the article than the content of the post it follows.

[meeks]

Btw, nobody's knocking Canada. You got nukes and Mike Meyers, and we're all better for it.

are you sure about that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

In Darth's defense, I don't think he's being defensive at all. I think he's simply trying to re-iterate from different angles the fact that he doesn't fully agree with what the guy in the article said. Being called out on a few points doesn't make it defensive.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

There never was slavery in Canada. Canada was operative in helping slaves escape from the USA.
Also, I am being matter of fact as opposed to defensive.

As to "defensive", ... "methinks the man doth protest too much." If there's nothing to defend, then I wouldn't think you'd care what the guy in the article said. As to being "matter of fact," you are confusing your perspective/opinion with "fact." Just as you said in the beginning that you disagreed with the guy's perspective, which we can agree he takes as "fact." Anyway, that's irrelevant to what you seem to be arguing.

I am arguing that the article in question is empty and false in it's premise overall. I don't agree with it. Most simply.

Re: slavery in Canada, you asked "who abolished slavery?" That was confusing because I thought you were coming from a Canadian perspective. Yet, you later wrote "White people had ancestors that lived off the land too..." So, it does seem that you're conflating White with Canadian with colonizers with enslavers... as in "who abolished slavery" then "Canada never had slavery." Then there was your point about "hordes" and WW2. Well, the hordes were White people, except in Asia, no? Or, were those White people different from Canadians?

I don't understand why you would mix all this up? You are cherry picking things out of context and making a mashup.

Who abolished slavery? First? Britain. In context to this argument and that article, A "white" nation. At the time, Canada was part of Britain, but nevertheless had no slaves within it's borders even prior to that. The only slavery practiced in Canada was by it's native peoples.

You are confusing what I said about WW2. The form of warfare up to WW2 was land expansion. The form of warfare now is controlling rogue nation states. All nations participated in WW2. It wasn't just a european war, everyone was effected and affected by it.

I didn't know the stuff about Canadians and international mining. But, it's still the "miners get the ore, natives get the hole." Actually, mining operations (in Africa) are generally small islands of wealth within seas of poverty. It affects the water, air and the way people live. Africans write about it all the time. Hmm, did you know that the Somali pirates originally formed to try to stop the pollution from the tankers that went through their sea lanes. They wanted reparations, and their "government" couldn't get it. Of course, pirates (even the Drakes and Raleighs) eventually get greedy and do what they do for profit, not patriotism.

The land and mines are negotiated with African peoples. Work is done by African peoples. I would suppose that those who cannot work at the mines because there is no need for them as employees due to the rosters being full would have a heyday with it. BUt why not go and start a national mine? Why do they not do that? Why do these nations that are so hard done by not have the ways and means of properly negotiating? NO one is oppressing and every nation is working within the laws of the nation they are working in? So, given that it is business, what is the point of whining about seas of povertyy that would be there if the mine existed or not? As for somalia, I call bullshit. That is a made up excuse after the fact. Did you know that the USMC was formed to combat north african pirates? Somalia has been putting out pirates all along. Bullshit they are trying to stop pollution, they are fucking criminals period not activists. At least Elizabeths privateers went after bonafide enemies and declared themselves as pirates! Raliegh was a pirate yes he was! But somalis are acivists? How the hell do you draw that comparison? NO one cloaks british privateering and piracy from when it occured 100's of years ago, but what about somali criminal scum that do it today? Would you snot say that is totally backwards and uncivilized and even plain criminal intention? It's apples and oranges. You can excuse the criminals today by referring to criminals of 400 years ago. lol

Btw, nobody's knocking Canada. You got nukes and Mike Meyers, and we're all better for it.

We have much more than that, but thanks for relegating us to these two things.

I think the whole concept of white guilt, apologizing politicians, raging about the colonial era in 2010 and the rest of it is just so much shit.
People gotta get off their asses and do the work required to make their own life better and their nations better if that is their desire.
If they can't do that, then don't blame the deeds of someone centuries ago.

I'm not defending anyone. I am saying that the pretense is bullshit and having a bleeding heart about it is bullshit and actually harms progress.

let it go, we all know that way back we were all animals and we killed each other with prejudice. We still do. IN advanced nations, make your voice heard, in nations where you have nothing, do what you can to make yourself upright.

blame games are silly and stupid and achieve exactly nothing but further animosity.

Maybe my sig should read "I am sick of liberal bleeding heart whining because it does not actively solve problems and just adds to them"

[Steve James]

let it go

Why tell me? You're disagreeing with another White guy, right? But, hey, "Let it go."

[Darth Rock&Roll]

Steve, my original comment was that I didn't agree with the article.

The following arguments were with you in context to my disagreement with it.

lol. Man!