When U.S. military officials chose the code name Geronimo for Osama Bin Laden-- and then bulletined his death as Geronimo EKIA (Enemy Killed in Action)-- they unwittingly cast a harsh historical light on the United States, its ally Israel, and both states’ deplorable treatment of their indigenous populations.
Although Uncle Sam patriots glorify a distorted past that never was, in truth the U.S. was founded on a massive campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing that annihilated most Native Americans and corralled the relatively few survivors into intolerable reservations. Stripped of their land base and way of life, American Indians today endure further devastation as greedy corporations encroach onto their small remaining territories to mine uranium and other resources, often exposing the populations to cancerous pollution.
Both the U.S. and the modern state of Israel were founded on an ideology of a promised land for a chosen people, and to hell with the natives. Israel’s policy of dismembering Palestinian communities, demolishing their homes, stealing their land, and packing them into fragmented urban islands echoes the U.S. treatment of its indigenous peoples.
In January 2007, when then-Secretary of State Condolezza Rice paid a visit to the Hawara movement barrier (checkpoint) near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, Palestinians dressed up in Native American costumes to protest the U.S. role in funding and arming their immiseration. The protesters held aloft signs that said, “Is this our reservation?” and “The Indian wars are not over Mrs. Rice… We are still here, too!” and "The roadblocks are ruining the Palestinian's lives."
Bush's laughable explanation for 9/11 - "they attacked us because they hate our freedom" - evades the truth of blowback. According to a 2008 audiotape, one of Bin Laden’s primary motivations for the brutal September 11th, 2001 attack was the U.S. role in funding Israel’s theft of Palestinian land. Bin Laden’s murderous methods to express his grievances were despicable. That said, I suspect that those who misguidedly mourn Bin Laden do so for his temerity in opposing U.S./Israeli bullying.
Geronimo was a highly revered Apache warrior who resisted the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Native Americans. The U.S. government labeled him a terrorist. The real perpetrators of terror, those who ordered and carried out the destruction of indigenous societies, were never condemned in such terms. Apache and Native leaders castigate the Bin Laden analogy, which is part and parcel of a U.S. tradition of both calling its enemies indigenous names (translation: all Indians are enemies and vice versa), and appropriating Native culture in militaristic, imperial ways (ex., Apache helicopters, Tomahawk missiles).
It is telling that the U.S. chose Geronimo as Bin Laden's moniker. At an unconscious level, perhaps U.S. officials realized that just like the famous Native American warrior, Bin Laden had a valid bone to pick with Western imperialism.
U.S. conquest and subjugation of its native population is an especially sordid chapter in the history of this settler-colonial nation, disturbingly similar to Israel’s recent history. It’s time for the U.S. to finally get on the right side of history, and change its foreign policy from bankrolling Israel’s confiscation of Palestinian land to funding and promoting Israeli-Palestinian equality and reconciliation.
Thank you for this post. It echoes comments I made some days ago. I would argue one point however– Is there such thing as a right side to history? It seems to me that in spite of the general correctness of tone that is exhibited here, it is belayed by the reductionist idea that history does indeed have a “right” side. Consider that justifications of violence are often written by the side that has won, and is thereby “right.” The obvious example in US history being that they were “right” in using atomic weapons against the Japanese because in the long run it saved lives. This ignores the rather complicated realpolitik that was involved in the decision, namely that the possibility of a prolonged conventional war in the Pacific would further draw the Soviet Union into the Pacific theatre. The only “right” side to history is the one that encompasses as many “sides” as possible. And while applaud the sentiment here I would equally caution against sanctimony. It is, dare I say, “wrong” when used by any “side.”
“The right side of history” is an expression that can be interpreted in different ways. I use it here in the way that Martin Luther King said, “The moral arc of the Universe is long, but it it bends toward justice.” There is such as a thing as The Truth (capital T), and Right and Wrong.
Funding ethnic cleansing, conquest, and colonization – U.S. current foreign policy – is Wrong. Nothing subjective about it. Gandhi would have said the same.
Funding equality is Right. That is what we should be doing.
It’s hard for most people to care about what happens to some thugs who mugged them in the street. The anger and fear of the victim’s moment is tasken for a ride over immediate justice to encompass the families of the thugs, even if they were innocent, or at least oblivious of what they were catering. Politicans take the kicked unwilling football and run with it for selfish reasons. Beware of any blanket statements, any any generalizations, because they hide the very devil in the details of their good or opportunistic intent. Especially beware of those who write legislation to “fix” any problem brought up by anecdote, and always look at not only incident trends, but other forces intentionally or unintentionally enabling them. That said. I don’t think those who unwittingly named the operation to kill BL “Geronimo” had the faintest clue of the huge negative they were implying in the context of real American history–which the whole world knows by now. Way up there, in the influential halls of our government, lots of little kids run around playing cowboys and indians; like all kids they are pop romantics. The young Hitler so romanticized the feisty noble savage too, but only because he recognized courage and bravery in the abstraction, not because he recognized the right of all people to dignity.
It just gets worse. At least Hitler fought in the trenches. Now we have Dick Cheney et al. Somebody should take away their crayons instead of giving them vicarious guns.
I would say this German judge, unlike the current chancellor, provides an example of how to get to the ‘right side of history’:
Updated 07.05.2011 12:10:12 UTC
“A judge in Hamburg labor court filed a criminal complaint against Chancellor Angela Merkel for endorsing a criminal act for saying that she was glad Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed.
“Berlıner Kurier” daily quoted Heinz Uthmann as saying that he is a citizen who respects laws and as a judge he has taken oath to do so and as defining Merkel’s statements as inappropriate and dishonorable.
The judge said that these statements made by Merkel who is the daughter of a reverend are surprising, hurt human dignity and are far from all values such as mercy and principles of a state of law.
He accuses Merkel of violating article no 140 in the German penal code that includes approval of felony or awarding it among crimes.
The daily said that Merkel may face 3 years prison sentence if the criminal complaint is accepted or she is found guilty at the end of the trial.”
Longer version:
link to spiegel.de
well, as israel and many power plays contend “might makes right”. i say “might makes reality”, but reality is very fluid. but we generally regard “right” as “moral” and even “humane” when discussing the “right side of history”. so in this sense, there is a “right” side of history. when a power structure, or people, are on the “wrong” side, this should not be used against the people writ large. but it should mean we do not shy away from recalling the fairly objective history, or, when it is ongoing, bringing the power structure to account, and limit their abuses.
in israel i often got the odd argument “look what you did to the indians”… this argument is so small-minded, and even self-defeating. my responses to this includes:
1) that was hundreds of years ago, but still, i think it was morally wrong. it is a sad history of colonial abuses. how is it even relevant? is this just redirection?
2) i had no role in it, as my parents are recent polish-jewish, and scottish-irish immigrants. but that is a moot point, for even if i descended from the mayflower, it is simply sad history, i have no role in personally. i would, i hope, not be actively involved in such were i to live in that period of time.
3) [if we were just discussing the abuse and dispossession of palestinians] why did you cite a worse, and very clear example of ethnic cleansing? you do realize that you simultaneously are denying that there is much of an issue, or ANY issue, yet then tacitly are acknowledging an issue, by citing the ethnic cleansing of native americans.
it is such an odd and intellectually dishonest argument, i am amazed so many israelis bring it up. i did find that in israel the ability to speak rationally or productively was effectively nonexistent. minus <5% of the people i talked to.
anonymouscomments, did you ever ask Israelis if they realized, too, that
Hitler himself, and Goering, for one, in his defense at Nuremberg, justified Nazi
POV by reference to what the US did to the native Americans in the 19th Century? And such analogous state action by international consensus was no longer acceptable? If so, what was their answer? And to the point “might makes right” was no longer acceptable?
“that was hundreds of years ago….”
well, not quite that long ago. The longest war in American history (so far) ended after some 25 yrs with the ‘Battle’ (according to the Americans) or ‘Massacre’ (according to the Indians) at Wounded Knee in 1890 .
“This was total war – here’s a typical U.S. Army order during the Indian Wars: ‘Proceed south in the direction of the Antelope Hills, thence toward the Washita River, the supposed winter seat of the hostile tribes; to destroy their villages and ponies, to kill or hang all warriors, and bring back all women and children’ General William Tecumseh Sherman – who commanded the Indian Wars from 1866 o 1884 – ordered his troops: ‘During an assault the soldiers cannot pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age,’ They did not, and through the decades the Indian dead included uncounted thousands of mothers, children, and elderly, some killed merely for sport, their private parts sliced off and used to make priced wallets or to decorate hats, their scalps and their genitals displayed as trophies.
Theodore Rossevelt, then a U.S. civil service commissioner, visited South Dakota three years after the Wounded Knee Massacre. he wrote that the U.S. government had treated the Indians ‘with great justice and fairness.’”
What else happened around 1890?
Hitler was born (1889) in Austria-Hungary, a multi-ethnic empire with some 12 official languages, and including the countries he invaded/occupied (Czechoslovakia and a part of Poland)
Did I mention the first World Zionist Congress in Basel? Herzl? Return to Palestine? Just a few yrs later
Then there was the war in the Philippines. Concentration camps and mass murder. The vultures were too fat to fly away from feeding on Filipino corpses, yet Theodore Roosevelt’s reputation as a great American president didn’t suffer from such atrocities. Most moral army in the world, again. Aryan civilization triumphing over barbarians. And what threat did the Filipinos pose to the US? Right, as non-Aryans they weren’t ready for democracy and freedom, despite ample evidence to the contrary. US textbooks claim a few hundred thousand civilian casualties, the Filipinos 2 million. Who cares. Remember the Holocaust. 6 million. Firm.
Source: James Bradley, The Imperial Cruise (2009)
“it is such an odd and intellectually dishonest argument, i am amazed so many israelis bring it up.”
I’m not.
Bravo, Matthew Taylor! Those of us who criticize Zionism and the Jewish state (and rightly so) need to acknowledge America’s shameful past as well. Of course, we study history to learn from it, not to emulate past crimes. Likewise, current imperial actions are as reprehensible as anything that the Zionists are currently doing. None of this makes any of it right or defensible. So let the opposition to US/Israel policy and actions continue, acknowledging a shameful past while working for a better future.
Keith: “Likewise, current imperial actions are as reprehensible as anything that the Zionists are currently doing.”
More Apologist talking points! Golly, I would like to kill this one. There is no equivalence, moral or otherwise. The U.S. imperialists are not “currently” engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide anywhere; the Israelis are.
True, our government does aid the Israelis in their ghastly enterprise, but that is ONLY because of the accursed power of the Zionist Lobby over all we do in that part of the world. Remove the Lobby from the halls of government and the “current imperialist actions” you complain of would immediately begin to shrivel drastically. We could be free again! (If not for Wall Street.)
THOMPSON- “More Apologist talking points!”
Perhaps you need to get your head out of Middle Eastern sand and look around. Why don’t you run your comment by the folks in Iraq and Afghanistan and see if they concur. Also, you should be aware that neo-liberal globalization is resulting in an estimated 10 million extra deaths per year, not a trivial amount. Since I said “current,” I won’t review the history of US imperialism which is absolutely appalling. What Israel has done, and is currently doing is reprehensible. What the empire is doing is even worse, and includes support for Israeli atrocities. If anyone is an apologist it is you. An apologist of the worst kind, an apologist for empire.
While I’m at it, let me make a point that desperately needs saying. Hey, all of you patriotic, America first idiots, the American Republic and the American Empire are mutually exclusive. As in Rome, the rise of the American Empire signaled the death of the Republic. If you really loved the American Republic, you would staunchly oppose the American Empire. So there!
Keith, I do not read Mr. Rutherford’s comments as any defense of US Empire — or its sense of Empire.
Yes, Empire self-destroys all Republics and States. Any sane American does oppose this. It is our Plutocracy and the interests of the few who run the US Plutocracy and corrupt Congress that feed actions of Empire and the inevitable demise.
Maybe the Swiss have it right. It is not a Nation, but a Confederation of separate Cantons. Some are so different from others in culture and language, but it works. The Confederation exists for common administration and protection.
Keith to Thomson: “If anyone is an apologist it is you. An apologist of the worst kind, an apologist for empire.”
I have no idea how you formed your ideas about my political views, but from your comments above I can tell you they are mis-formed. In a nutshell, I am anti-imperialist (unless you want to insist that the formation of the 50 States into a Union was imperialism that I should now condemn – then ho-hum and to bed you go), anti-militaristic, against neoliberal capitalism in the American flavor, etc. I’m even against crime! It would be accurate to say that, somewhat like Chomsky, I am a libertarian socialist, with “socialist” being shorthand for European-style social democracy. So, you see, you jumped where there was nowhere to land.
My complaint against you and M. Taylor was not that you condemn empire and its evil consequences (I do that, too, daily, just not here at this time), but that you appear to be motivated by a desire to use certain aspects of America’s history and recent foreign policy to deflect or soften criticism of Israel, very much in the manner of those I refer to as Apologists for Israel. (I am very familiar with that tactic.) If this characterization misrepresents you, then you should at least be aware that the arguments you use are part and parcel of standard Israeli/Lobby hasbara directed at American audiences.
Finally, while I anti-imperialist, etc,, I am NOT anti-American.
I do agree, Keith, that the IL influence should not be a scape goat for non-Zionist partners in the American Empire. Exploitation of foreign natural resources, cheap labor, war as big business, etc. Control of access to oil and its distribution, and influence on its pricing, as well as the notion of Israel as a cop on the beat for Uncle Sam’s enterprise are significant factors–it’s obvious by now that Uncle Sam has viewed the Palestinians and their land as expendable since JFK died. There’s nothing that justifies the difference between Uncle Sam’s humanitarian rhetoric and Uncle Sam’s actual incessant predatory deeds. Israel is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and so is Uncle Sam, e.g., Chaney, Bush Jr., and Obama is carrying on this tradition. In essence, they know if you want cheap gas at the pump, somebody has to pay for it. And by coincidence, if you want Greater Israel, somebody has to pay for it. Hand and glove. The USSR fell, so the bugaboo now is, ultimately, a more democratic Arabia, the Arab Spring following belatedly behind Persia, not because Iran is effectively democratic today, but because Iran is independent from Uncle Sam (& EU) influence. In order to best exploit someone as an asset, you must have power, or at least great economic influence over them.
” but that you appear to be motivated by a desire to use certain aspects of America’s history and recent foreign policy to deflect or soften criticism of Israel, very much in the manner of those I refer to as Apologists for Israel.”
This is bizarre. Chomsky and Finkelstein have both made the comparison that Matthew Taylor and Keith and VR and others (like me) have made. It’s a commonplace observation–settler colonial states have a lot in common. They usually concoct some reason why the settlers have more right to the land they steal than the people already living there.
It’s true that in recent years some Zionists have taken US history as an excuse for Israeli behavior–Benny Morris was the first one I noticed doing this in 2004. It’s illogical–it’s like defending one theft and murder because someone else committed a theft and a murder, but I don’t expect defenders of theft to be logical. But it starts to get weird when self-proclaimed libertarian socialists claim that a comparison of one settler state to another is somehow a whitewash of the second.
Ellen, yes re the Swiss, but they do survive economically by being a cash laundry; considering who stows their cash there, would you say Switzerland is as beign as the local laundromat on the decrepid shopping strip nearest you? Well, yeah, it’s more effective than what the Nazis did when they stored all that gold and treasure in caves–US grunts discovered that. No grunt from anywhere can break into the Swiss “cave.” That’s because it’s a paper cave underwritten by the soverign governments of the world. Coocoo clocks really are not the rage these days, nor are Swiss troops armed with battle axes or pikes, in their strioped balloon pants at the Vatican.
Donald to Thomson: “This is bizarre.”
I take your point. If Keith and Matthew are offended when I suggest that they sound just like some hasbara types on this subject, then I should say “excuse me” and be contrite.
But for me there are some problems with their language. As I have tried to explain elsewhere in this thread, the religion-loaded words “promised” and “chosen” explain next to nothing about the course of American history, with the notable exception of the initial landing and brief tenure of the Pilgrim Fathers (Puritans) in Massachusetts Bay Colony. The arguments presented here to the contrary are spurious, and they provocatively invite comparisons with the Zionist enterprise in Israel. But I won’t belabor that more here.
I mentioned Chomsky as a suitable reference for my own political views because I knew that most people at this site are familiar with him. But like J. Blankfort, and unlike VR and some others here, I part with Chomsky wrt Israel and the American Zionist Lobby. My relevant training is as an economist, which Chomsky is not, so some of his pronouncements on int’l trade and development sometimes have struck me as off-key or uninformed.
THOMPSON- “In a nutshell, I am anti-imperialist … , anti-militaristic, against neoliberal capitalism in the American flavor, etc.”
Well TR, you have a curious way of showing it. What did I say? “Likewise, current imperial actions are as reprehensible as anything that the Zionists are currently doing. None of this makes any of it right or defensible. So let the opposition to US/Israel policy and actions continue, acknowledging a shameful past while working for a better future.”
Your response? “More Apologist talking points! Golly, I would like to kill this one. There is no equivalence, moral or otherwise. The U.S. imperialists are not “currently” engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide anywhere; the Israelis are. …Remove the Lobby from the halls of government and the “current imperialist actions” you complain of would immediately begin to shrivel drastically. We could be free again!”
Wow! There is no moral equivalency between the crimes of empire and the crimes of Israel, the empire apparently a lesser evil, and even to suggest that empire is in the same league as Israel (much less, worse) is to be an apologist for Israel. Also, current imperial depredations are so tainted by Zionist influence, that should the lobby disappear we could return to our basic goodness. We could be free again! Lets see if I got this straight. The empire is not as bad as Israel, and the Zionists made us do it anyway. Well TR, if that isn’t an apologia, the word has no meaning.
To review. I say that the US empire and the Jewish state of Israel are both gross human rights violators, hence, both should be opposed. You say that my even-handed approach is in reality an attempt “to deflect or soften criticism of Israel,” because the empire is morally superior to Israel (no current ethnic cleansing), and that the Zionists are significantly to blame for imperial actions in any event. Let the readers decide who is the apologist and who isn’t!
Citizen
You sure have a totally wrong picture of the Swiss Federation.
On the banking I agree with you, there should be international laws forcing them to stop taking millions from despots, however, that would brin tears into the eyes of thousands of US citizens.
Let´s not forget, the swiss have the big drugs/medicine industry, the finest watches costing up to $250,000 each, fine chemical industry, huge food companies (Nestle´), fine mechanics and not to forget the millions of well healed tourist who leave billions of frankli there.
Loosing part of the banking would put a dent on their country, but they still would be in a better shape then we in the US are.
In essence, they know if you want cheap gas at the pump, somebody has to pay for it.
Except that war push the price of oil up, not down, and that is a boon to the oil industry, and to capitalist elites in general.
George Bush Sr. had to go Saudi Arabia and implored the Saudis to curb production because the price of oil was too low. At least that is one problem US capitalism is not likely to face again soon. Who says the war in Iraq was a failure?
Well, they survived as a Confederation long before the modern banking industry established itself. And the bank secrecy laws (long since dead) were established during the 30′s and in response to the Fascists Government to the north to protect Jewish families from cities of Frankfurt and Vienna — in a rushed Parliamentary move after a family Patriarch was executed. Those secrecy laws passed then to protect the innocent became a market ploy in the 50′s. That is now over.
I do not know about all this Swiss cave stuff.
There is greater secrecy now in Tel Aviv or Cyprus than Zürich.
Keith to Thomson: “Let the readers decide who is the apologist and who isn’t!”
Sorry, Keith, but anyway you twist it I am not an apologist for, or defender of, the American Empire. And if you want to deny being an apologist for the Israeli extermination project, I’ll accept that on good faith.
“The U.S. imperialists are not “currently” engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide anywhere; the Israelis are.
True, our government does aid the Israelis in their ghastly enterprise, but that is ONLY because of the accursed power of the Zionist Lobby over all we do in that part of the world. Remove the Lobby from the halls of government and the “current imperialist actions” you complain of would immediately begin to shrivel drastically.
Thomson, what about the other lobby that is responsible for the violent quashing of the non-violent demonstrations in Bahrain, the arming of the Libyans to split the country and the ongoing massive media disinformation campaign to overthrow the Syrian regime? Will the Zionist lobby be behind the the fundamentalists taking half of Egypt’s legislature in 6 months or be behind the Lebanese Sunni-Shia war that could start when the UN Tribunal comes down on Hizbullah and the Syrians next month? Blaming all of the US’ imperialistic actions on the Zionists is passing the buck.
Walid, more like not recognizing it’s a shared buck that should not be passed on.
My theory was that “we” enjoy bashing and humiliation of the lesser people, and from this perspective, doing it directly is incredibly expensive. Giving money to Israel and enjoying the effects vicariously gives us fun for a very small fraction of the cost. I suspect that this vicarious enjoyment is a large part of the attraction for “Christian Zionist” position.
At least, this was before we started to do it directly. Now it is expensive and no fun at all.
Walid to Thomson: “Blaming all of the US’ imperialistic actions on the Zionists is passing the buck.”
I’ve never said that Zionists control everything that goes on in the world. Only those things that are judged to impact, directly or indirectly, the interests of Israel – and even there they don’t always succeed fully, all the time. Nobody’s perfect.
Oh gawd…here we go again.
“Both the U.S. and the modern state of Israel were founded on an ideology of a promised land for a chosen people, and to hell with the natives’.
Enough with the bullshit already. Yes, we did genocide the natives.
You can’t say enough bad things about what we did to the Indians to suit me. I totally agree –so have at it.
But leave off the idiotic tripe about the US being founded on the premise of the “promised land for a chosen people.”
It’s utter bullshit. Enough of us on here who actually know about the original immigrants to America and are students of history have demolished that bit of propaganda time after time.
Not so far-fetched, really. The Pilgrim/Puritans were obsessed with ideas and imagery from the Hebrew Bible.
Remember that famous quote from Gov. Winthrop about “building a City upon a hill”? The analogy was to Mount Zion. There is lots more.
Jeff Klein: “The Pilgrim/Puritans were obsessed with ideas and imagery from the Hebrew Bible. Remember that famous quote from Gov. Winthrop about ‘building a City upon a hill’? The analogy was to Mount Zion.”
Jeff, I think it might be useful if I take your error here as a cautionary example of misinterpretation of Protestant metaphor. Winthrop’s “City upon a Hill” doesn’t allude to Mt. Zion.
From Winthrop’s sermon to the Puritans, “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630):
“Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god ….”
According to standard Protestant interpretation, then and now, “a City upon a Hill” is a phrase from the parable of Salt and Light in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (the core instruction of Protestant belief). In Matthew 5:14, he tells his followers, “Ye are the light unto the world. A city that is set upon a hill cannot be hid.”
Where did the author of the Book of Matthew get the phrase, “City upon a Hill”? One interpretation is that it might come from the beginning of Isaiah 2, where there is discussion of building a city on a mountain for the Lord (no mention of Light). This interpretation is not generally accepted by scholars. There seems to be no Biblical basis for connecting the phrase to Mount Zion, to the Book of Isaiah or to Psalms, or to the Old Testament at all.
John Winthrop would have drawn the phrase from the Sermon on the Mount, and would not have been aware of any allusion to the Old Testament, if there were one.
But Winthrop, as a Puritan, would have been subject to another powerful theological influence. The Puritans were essentially Calvinists with grievances against the established Church of England, which had remained too “Catholic” for them. John Calvin had been strongly influenced by Bishop Augustine of Hippo (a theologian of such sway that he is generally considered to be the Founding Father of the Roman Catholic Church), most importantly because Augustine had been a staunch defender of the doctrine of absolute predestination.
Augustine’s magnum opus was “The City of God” (“De Civitate Dei”), easily the most influential theological work in Christianity outside the Bible itself, written to rally the depressed faithful shortly after the year 410 when the heathen Visigoths had sacked the City of Rome, looked upon throughout the Western Roman Empire as the earthly City of God.
Augustine said the City of God had now become a spiritual one, not an earthly place. In his long discourse, his main objective was to treat of the proper relationship between the faithful and God (whose reputation had declined with the sacking of the Holy City), and also the relationship between true believers and the rest of humanity. Now these were exactly Jesus’ themes, treated much more pithily, in the Sermon on the Mount – especially in the parable of Salt and Light, from which come the phrases “City upon a Hill” and “Ye are the light unto the world” (see above).
The theological connection between Jesus’ “City upon a Hill” and Augustine’s “City of God” was an article of faith throughout Medieval Catholicism and was carried forward to John Calvin, among others, and to the Puritans. It informed John Winthrop in his sermon to the faithful embarked for Massachusetts Bay colony, 1630.
There was no connection to the Old Testament.
It is a bizarre claim that Augustinian Christianity had “no connection” to the old testament. What are you? A neo-Marcionite? The core of Augustinian Christianity is the Pauline idea of supercession which make Christians “Vera Israel,” the true (and hence chosen) people of Israel. This is based on interpreting the Hebrew Bible in allegorical fashion. The Shining city on the Hill is the City of God, which is “the true meaning” of Mount Zion and of the prophecy that Israel will be a “light unto the the nations,” that would fill the world with the word of God from Jerusalem.
American, where’s your evidence that my statement about promised land for a chosen people is wrong? I remember hearing lectures at UC Berkeley saying this, from credible professors. In any case, although the phrasing is slightly different, “Manifest Destiny” is quite similar tonally and in the actual content of the prophetic vision.
What can you point to fact-wise to back up your rebuttal?
Matthew Taylor,
For starters, the USA was founded in the 18th century. Manifest Destiny is 19th century. Manifest Destiny was not a founding principle at all, no matter what your credible professors maintained or coughed up from their bowels. It’s main purpose was to justify taking the west and southwest away from the Mexicans, which they finally succeeded in doing circa 1853. They had to come up with some reason to get American parents to part with their sons in war, so they slapped a high-minded, quasi-religious face on the argument.
(And there is no comparison between the founding of the US and Israel. The US used Britain and France for its models. Israel used pre-capitalist Eastern European countries with no history of the practice of law, and was basically a socialist haven until the late 60s.)
(And there is no comparison between the founding of the US and Israel. The US used Britain and France for its models. Israel used pre-capitalist Eastern European countries with no history of the practice of law, and was basically a socialist haven until the late 60s.)
Have you read Israeli historian Zev Sternell’s work on the myth of Israeli socialism?
link to amazon.com
Sternhell argues convincingly that the so-called Labor Zionists never intended for the kibbutz to be more than a small fraction of the Israeli Jewish economy. The Polish and, a decade later, the German bourgeois Jews, who built Tel Aviv and the other cities had no intention of becoming socialists.
The kibbutz was fantastic PR for Israel. It was the poster child of the State of Israel. But the State of Israel was no socialist haven for Arab or Jew.
MRW- “Israel …was basically a socialist haven until the late 60s.”
Dream on, MRW, dream on. From start to finish, Israel pursued a form of “Nationalist Socialism,” which can best be described as blood and soil nationalism camouflaged by a socialist vocabulary. See “The Founding Myths of Israel,” by Zeev Sternhell.
MRW, a slight correction: The Mexican Cession as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican-American War, occurred in 1848, not 1853.
I did not mention the M-A War in my long discussion below of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny because, although it was certainly used to “justify” the war, the concept had preceded that war by at least a decade and was not originated by or because of the war, nor specifically by the annexation of my state of Texas in 1845. As I tried to explain, Manifest Destiny was simply a recognition of an ongoing geo-economic reality.
The main point, of course, is that it had little or nothing to do with putative religious or quasi-religious notions of “promised” or “chosen”, those favorite ploys of Israel’s Apologists.
A significant factor in Uncle Sam’s (comparatively tepid, compared to the last 40 years) support of Israel, I’m guessing up to the 67 War, was Sam’s fear of USSR in the ME. And part of the prompting was Sam’s fear that (earlier) Israel would go communist.
OK.
Exactly MRW.
People who keep using this analogy are ignorant of history and/or fall for some current zio or religious fanatic meme about our “Founding” and start using in their arguments because they know no better or have a religious or zio agenda.
The “manifest destiny’ was as you say a creation of the 1800′s for US expansion into the west for enrichment. It was not an idea or the reasoning of the original “Founding” or Founders or Settlers.
George Washingotn had come and gone long before the term manifest destiny appeared.
“Chosen people” appears no where in our original “founding”
All the promoters of Americans seeing themselves as ‘chosen people’ use one thing for their argument– the Puritans statement that immigrating to America was their “covenant with God” to claim that as the reason it makes the “founding” of America the same as the reason for Israel’s creation. In particular, every zio promotion of America’s founding being the same as Israel’s, is based on this ‘covenant with God’ by the Puritians and assorted quotes by Whitley and other Puritian preachers and adherents.
In the first document of the “Founding”, the Declaration of Independence, there is no reference to anything remotely religious except the mention of “divine providence”, meaning that they hope by God’s grace their efforts would succeed. If you are an atheist divine providence simply means “by good luck” or hope we are lucky in this.
Using a small group of religious fanatics like the Puritans, who were not representative of the majority of settlers is where this false history and meme comes from.
First, they weren’t the original settlers, didn’t even arrive until 1620 , 13 years after the establishment of Jamestown in 1607, 33 years after the first failed attempt at a colony by England and Sir Walter Raleigh at Roanoke Island.
Anyone who can read the three ‘Founding” documents…the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation and the Constitution and come away saying that America was “FOUNDED’ on ‘manifest destiny’ and the idea of ‘chosen people’ is seriously handicapped.
This current “revision” of American history is nothing but the long standing efforts of the US religious fanatics and the more recent efforts of Israeli zios to project a narrative into history that suits their agendas.
Matthew Taylor,
Read this: Immigration — and the Curse of the Black Legend
The curse of the black legend op-ed is by Tony Horwitz and describes the background to manifest destiny (which he mentions towards the end), and what it really was in aid of.
Most Americans’ idea of history comes from the movies…and obviously from the comments you see here on MW, so do Israelis as well.
The majority of this country was Spanish until 1803, when Spain gave the land now known as the Louisiana Purchase back to the French so they could sell it to Jefferson. The Spanish King wanted to bury Britain, so he gave back the land he won in a mid-1700s treaty with France. Napoleon needed dough to fight the British. Jefferson had the dough. That’s how all that went down, no matter what John Wayne and Director Ford tell you.
Everyone, I find, in this country got their history of it from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne, a poet and a novelist. It was mostly bullshit and they made up (northern) heroes on the fly. Paul Revere’s great ride, for real? From Boston to Cambridge. 20 miles.
Hi MRW,
I agree with you about how we come to “know” history.
As the poet said: All history is BS.
But, as a modern rancher who has spent years in the saddle and on Pony Express re-enactments, 20 miles in those days was probably no cakewalk. Trails, paths, dirt roads, mud, etc. Didn’t some of it happen at night, too? Horses are also prone to sudden reactions…and I swear, hostage to their own imaginations. Even my best cuttin’ horse, 24 years old now, can suddenly turn into a tornado and about all I can do is hold on till old Ralph gets it out of his system. So, based on experience (and some scars to prove it) I’m willing to cut the legend a little slack.
This is my first comment as a new member and am very pleased at the level of discourse. Hope you all don’t mind if I talked about my horse for a bit. He’s taught me a lot about life.
Boston and Cambridge are separated by the Charles River and are only one single mile apart!!!!
Heck so you the Cigargod from the Huffington Post?!
Well, there you go, Theo. It was only a mile. ;-)
Hey CigarGod, think about the guy who really did ride from Boston to Philly. What’s that? 300, 400 miles. That’s some serious crotch burn.
If so, do stick around. Always appreciated your comments on HuffPo. Have a cigar!
Good post, Matthew, and my reading of US history is the same as yours. The Puritans thought of themselves as chosen and of course the 19th century Manifest Destiny trope is the same idea.
What’s funny (in the bizarre sense) is that in the last several years you’ll find Zionists defending Israel on the grounds that the US did the same thing on a larger scale. Benny Morris might be the first one I noticed doing this (in his 2004 interview where he endorsed ethnic cleansing when a “superior” culture does it.) Previously the only people I ever saw making this analogy were people like Finkelstein and Chomsky, making essentially the same points you were making. But for some Zionists apparently the fact that the US did it is some sort of defense.
Donald,
“The Puritans thought of themselves as chosen and of course the 19th century Manifest Destiny trope is the same idea”
You’re mixing apples and oranges. The Puritans may have thought of themselves as chosen, but it was a religious thing. Manifest destiny was a nationalistic and political thing designed to rally people behind getting the Spanish and Mexican land they didn’t have yet (CA, TX AZ, NV, etc), and occurred 150-200 years later. Read Horwitz’s op-ed that I link to above. Besides being informative, it’s entertaining.
“You’re mixing apples and oranges. The Puritans may have thought of themselves as chosen, but it was a religious thing. Manifest destiny was a nationalistic and political thing designed to rally people behind getting the Spanish and Mexican land they didn’t have yet ”
So you think that because an idea is “religious” there can’t be something self-serving and greedy behind it?
I’m not denying that there are differences between one historical event and another–I’m pointing out the rather commonplace notion that when one group of people steal another people’s land, they usually couch their motives in some high-falutin’ terminology and try to make it seem noble and inevitable and just. Americans did this in the 19th century and the Puritans did this in the 17th century and Zionists did it in the 20th.
Donald, all right.
By the by, Donald, how do the Jews who created Shearith Israel, the first synagogue in New York, in 1654 and which still exists fit into this narrative?
“By the by, Donald, how do the Jews who created Shearith Israel, the first synagogue in New York, in 1654 and which still exists fit into this narrative?”
I don’t know. What’s your point? Do you know something about this synagogue? But my guess is that once a colony is founded, other people move in, taking its existence for granted and not caring whether its founding was just. People tend to be like that.
On your larger point (assuming there is one) I don’t know what role some Jews might have played in the long history of stealing land from Indians–I know there were Jewish Confederates (quite prominent ones like Judah Benjamin) so obviously much later in history some Jews were willing to take their place alongside Wasps (when the Wasps allowed it) in oppressing other groups. But this is what humans are like.
You made the statement and the claim…YOU back it up.
I want to see an actual quote or writing or document from the 1600′s by the original settlers and leaders that calls the new immigrants ‘the chosen people” and America the promised land and declares our manifest destiny.
Go on….find it…I’ll wait.
Or call your old professor and ask him where he got it from.
Mathew Taylor: “… my statement about promised land for a chosen people is wrong? I remember hearing lectures at UC Berkeley saying this, from credible professors.”
Oh wow, how impressed can I get? As a regular viewer of UCTV, I can just imagine how many Apologists for Israel there must be on the UC Berkeley faculties.
Yes, after the Great Awakening in the early 19th C many religious Americans did invent the idea that Americans were a people “chosen” not only by history but by G$d himself. But the idea of “promised” land was invented by the original Puritan coreligionists of Massachusetts and Rhode Island colonies, and it was pretty much limited to that terrain. By the time they had arrived, some of my own ancestors were already in Virginia colony, and there seems to have been no concept of “promised” in their view of their struggles. Later in the history of my many ancestors in the Middle Appalachian region of the Continent, I am not aware that the fiery preachers of the Great Awakening tried to make hay with the “promised land” excuse for their countrymen’s depredations.
The idea of Manifest Destiny is not, as you suggest, closely related to the (weak) concept of “promised” and the (somewhat stronger) concept of “chosen.” It comes not from a notion of natural or God-given rights of a “people.” (An American “people” was itself a weak concept in the colonial and ante-bellum periods.) Rather, the doctrine of Manifest Destiny came from recognition of some significant geographical facts about the continent in which Americans in the early 19th C found themselves, along with several historical accidents. I refer mainly to the extraordinary length and breadth of the reaches of the navigable Mississippi River system into the Continent, the Great Lakes system and its practical proximity to the harbor of NYC, the vast expanse of arable/grazable plains between the Appalachians and the Rockies, the iron ores of the Midwest, the black soils of East Texas so valuable for growing cotton, the rich supply of western timbers for the high masts and hulls of the clipper ships, the contiguity of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, the costs and risks of the passage of Cape Horn by clipper ships plying Yankee trade with the Far East, the accidents of the La. Purchase, “Seward’s Folly”, the Ca. Gold Rush, and Texans’ desire to become an independent country in 1836.
The point is that the doctrine of Manifest Destiny did not provide the impetus for western expansion across the Continent. And no “chosen” or “promised” gobbledeegook is required or relevant in explaining the exploitation. The people on the land looked out and saw a vast (largely undefended) Continent before them, and they responded with need and greed. Manifest Destiny is a creation from the pens of writers trying to make sense of what they saw happening, without plan, before their eyes.
Mathew Taylor, I can’t tell you how many times I have seen your “chosen” and “promised” argument applied to American “history”, for many deceitful purposes, by hasbara purveyors on the talkbacks of Israeli newspapers. Could someone please carry off the Apologists for Israel?
(You cannot top me in lamenting the fate of the indigenous peoples and the pristine natural environment that existed here before the Europeans came.)
THOMPSON R- You seem to have a curious hang up. Whenever someone criticizes empire, you equate that as an apologist for Israel. Is that correct? You feel that Israel and the Zionists have diverted empire from its noble mission of carrying the white man’s burden? A simple body count should suffice to clear up who the major terrorist and human rights violator of the last half of the 20th century was. Your imperial apologetics revolt me. And no, I am not an apologist for Israeli crimes. Unlike you, I oppose all crimes!
Keith, that is a lot of projection and misreading of T. R’s post. What is the hang up? Is it intentional? Or are you misreading it? Or are you talking to yourself?
He called out the current Hasbara line of twisting and distorting the US Colonial Expansion of the 17th – 19th century with Zionist language and motivations. This is a new lie being purveyed about — even by the Israeli ambassador to the US.
TR is calling it out. US Colonialism — in all phases –was motivated by pure Colonial commercial interests. An existing people were destroyed in this endeavor.
Keith: “Your imperial apologetics revolt me …. Unlike you, I oppose all crimes!”
Please see my note following your two diatribes further up. I hope I responded there to all your questions and accusations.
There is something I regret about this thread. It seems to me that the main argument may largely have divided Jews on one side and non-Jews on the other (with Donald being a known exception). If that is true, I certainly did not want it that way, and if my impression is wrong then a non-specific denial, from someone who knows better than I, would help set my mind at ease about that point. Additionally, the unnecessary venom is to be deplored (including a couple of my remarks).
If I understand you correctly, there is a difference between material conditions and ideology. “Manifest Destiny” is the result of material conditions, the existence of land and resources for the taking and the interest of people in taking them. The puritan ideas of “the chosen people” arriving in Cna’an was just an idea. Some people believed it, but it did not cause the expansion.
In contrast, if I understand you, in Palestine, there was a land to be taken, and there were people who wanted land. But these factor are secondary. Rather, the ideology of “a chosen people” determined the course of history, as Jews took the land, not because the land was easy to take and they wanted it, but because of their religious ideology.
In other words, The history of the US colonization is materialist, whereas the history of the colonization of Palestine is idealist.
That’s a bizarre way of looking at history. Surely, the method of history is not dependent on where you stand. Or perhaps it does?
I particularly liked that:
By the time they had arrived, some of my own ancestors were already in Virginia colony, and there seems to have been no concept of “promised” in their view of their struggles.
Now I don’t know how well you are informed of what went in the mind of your “ancestors” 300 years ago. But I still remember when my ancestors brought me to Israel. It was in my lifetime. And I can assure you that no concept of “promised land” or “chosen people” was ever mentioned in my house when I grew up or play any role in their decisions to live in Israel. They came to Israel because of antisemitism and for economic opportunities. If I were to draw the conclusion from this that ideology didn’t matter to Zionism I’d be an idiot.
Evildoer, you have sort-of correctly interpreted much of my meaning concerning American history. But my comments, I think, weren’t intended to apply to Israel. No offense intended, but I regard the U.S. and Israel as very different places which would require different approaches to historical analysis. Maybe it would please you to know, however, that I think America and Israel are both quite materialistic societies, in spite of all the religion.
I channel my ancestors on a regular basis. They say that they feel they never got chosen and never got what they were promised.
A materialistic society is a society were people value material things. A materialist analysis is an analysis that gives primacy to the conditions of existence, economic, social, etc., over the self-ascribed motivations of the agents in explaining events. One can have a materialist analysis of a non materialistic society. Indeed one should, because the fact that the people of the European Middle Ages, for example, valued salvation more than they valued improving the productivity of their land doesn’t mean that their actions and their thoughts were not shaped by the economic and social conditions prevailing.
As a matter of fact, early militant Zionist society was extremely idealistic, and personal enrichment was frowned upon. That hardly makes that society unsuitable to materialist analysis. The gist of a materialist analysis is not to say that Zionists were greedy, but that their worldview, including their ideologies, the way they used the Bible, how they transformed the ideas that they received from various traditions, including Volkish nationalism, Judaism, Protestantism, orientalism, etc. were a response to the specific social, economic, political, intellectual conditions that prevailed for them in Europe at the time, rather than a kind of independent volition that existed in and of itself.
And the same is true of the settlers of the American West (and the Eastern establishment that benefited from the expansion even more than the settlers.)
That the two societies are different in some ways (and not different in other ways) has no bearings on this.
While I obviously agree that it is destructive and corrosive non-sense to suggest that the history of the colonization of America is materialist while the history of the colonization of Palestine is idealist, is there some sense in which going after right-wing trolls — anyone who thinks comparing Israeli colonization rhetoric to American colonization rhetoric lets Israel off easy cannot be serious; it is in the latter and not the former that genocide has gone far further — is an easy target?
I see central movement organs propagating a basically idealist narrative non-stop (George Mitchell being called a Zionist, for example, or the notion that the entire history of the conflict can simply be explained by a one-word epithet, Zionism) to the point where a critical apparatus to explain why history happened is totally non-existent and is presumed to not matter.
And from there- we find the downward slippery-slope to the kind of idealist, then cultural essentialist, and then nativist commentary. The idealist analysis on both left and right of the lobby thesis is another example. I actually see this as a capitulation to Zionist thinking, which forges hegemony out of a transcendent race-purpose. One can understand why race-thinking has prevailed amongst the narratives of the victims, but there also must come a point when we should be trying to do better, too. So while the symptom — manifested in for example “Thomson Rutherford’s” commentary — should be addressed, there are larger targets, and they receive passes non-stop.
maybe it is the scary thought that people’s decisions are based on religious beliefs that are open to different interpretations that is the truly challenging aspect of all this… the idea of the ‘chosen’ people must be a popular theme in many religious cultures, but where is the proof it was a a comment directed at a particular race – ie, a racist view) verses the idea it was about a spiritual viewpoint that transcends different racial profiles??? i suppose i am trying to open up the idea that much of this bullshit about the chosen people is based off a narrow interpretation that is far removed from the spiritual intuition behind it…
of course both the us and israel’s history demonstrate how far removed these same folks were from a spiritual viewpoint in their attitude towards those folks they opted to murder or get rid of.. funny thing how so many of the holy books have something to say about taking other peoples life’s and how nonreligious it really is..
american i disagree….. i do not think most immigrants realized the flow which was occurring, despite the fact that power players advocated for it (with manifest destiny, and colonial condescension). i think the same even goes for israelis….. their leaders clearly have set up an undeniable flow where ethnic cleansing occurred, and is being continued, under revisionist zionism, and religious “justification”. but the majority of israelis are oddly ignorant of much of the history (and they use some odd logic, generally based on security, to explain away sooooo much). nor does the majority even seek expansion, in their “heads”… they simply want security, and some think provocative expansion is needed (based on the BS line that the 1967 borders are “indefensible”). however, the lack of a clear majority public will or advocacy for expansion in israel, in no way diminishes the REALITY of it. and of course, over time, more and more are coming into line and not only supporting territorial expansion, but even an ethnic cleansing of arab-israelis. this trend freaks me out. such is history, and the way political and media elites usher along the craziest things man does….
anonymouscomments, a glaring aspect of what you say here is Israel’s determination to keep the IDF in the WB; if nothing else, because it is a militarily strategic area for Israel’s defense. Generally, anyway they look at it, I think most Israelis want to have, instinctively, by old military battle analogy, the high point in the field of anticipated battle. Hence, how could any Israeli political leader expect, by extended analogy, to OK
a full-fledged Palestinian sovereign state? That’s why the 2-state solution never has been really on the peace table. And the 1-state solution brings up the fear of demographic take over with equal rights and vote. The Israeli fear of losing control, the same fear that fired the KKK, and Jim Crow. The rise of Obama in the USA, and the Arab Spring
in the ME, together signal that arc of justice MLK talked about, but MLK’s vision of the future overlooked what Truman said about human nature in private when the Zionists kept knocking on his oval office door to get his support, essentially, the underdog, given power, always becomes the uberhund; in other words, the kind is dead, long live the king. (soft version)
anonymouscomments,,
That’s not what I am commenting on.
My sole point was that the claim that America and Israel were both “Founded” for the same reason and on same beliefs of ‘promised land, manifest destiny and chosen people’ is false.
It wasn’t.
And I have cited evidence to point out this wasn’t true.
Anyone who wants to prove it to their own satisfaction and delve into it more needs to actually study history and the statements and documents and writings AT THE TIME OF AMERICA’S FOUNDING.
There are always ‘revisions” to history by those seeking a new idea or new gimmick to promote some agenda or just to get attention or sell books by ‘discovering’ some new twist or great ‘new’ theory. Most of these efforts are laughable and only succeed because a lot of people are truely ignorant of their own history AS IT HAPPENED AND WAS and instead of real history they base it on Hollywood or read popular books, and if whatever interperation or idea it puts forth appeals to them them they accept it as true…..even though it isn’t or is only someone’s “interperation” of what something meant. If we had a nickle for every version of history that isn’t factual history but just someone’s opinion and interperation of some event or word we could pay off the national debt.
Just a cursory examination of the “promised land for a chosen people” premise shows it to be absolutely true. I wonder why you, American, believe this to be debunked and ridiculous.
It is more than obvious (and well-documented) that there has been a fascinating circularity in the inspirations for righteous colonization and ethnic cleansing: biblical Judaism holds that the Land of Israel was given to the Jews by divine decree which they had to seize for themselves through decimating the existing communities of indigenous people (Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, et al.); in turn, American settlers & founders drew upon biblical history of ‘choseness’ and redemption in their Manifest Destiny doctrine; subsequently, Zionist founders regarded American colonial-settler history (in addition to the obvious biblical connection) as an inspiration and legitimization for their own ethnic cleansing project.
Here are just a few examples:
In his essay, ‘The Right to Expel: The Bible and Ethnic Cleansing’ (included in Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return, ed. Naseer Aruri; London: Pluto, 2001), Reverend Michael Prior notes:
The excellent scholarship of Professor Steven Salaita is instructive. He describes the American ideology of Manifest Destiny as the process of “wresting Edenic land from savages in the name of prophesy and progress,” and (as but one example) reveals this lovely statement from Founding Father John Adams: “The Indians are as bigoted to their religion as the Mohametans [sic] are to their Koran.” As such, Salaita explains, “[t]he goal of America followed logically,” and again quotes Adams: “Apathy, barbarism, and heathenism must give way to energy, civilization, and Christianity.”
Salaita has also pointed to the connections made by Uri Avnery in his 2001 article “AMERICA! AMERICA! or: The Height of Chutzpah” regarding “the identification of the Zionist enterprise with the foundations of America”:
Caroline Gleason, in her examination of the 17th Century writing of Mary Rowlandson (wife of a Massachusetts Bay Colony minister and who “belie[ved] that the Puritans were the chosen people of God”), provides the following contextual history:
Furthermore, Roy H. May, Jr., drawing from the anthology “God’s New Israel: Religious Interpretations of American Destiny” (ed. Conrad Cherry, 1971), notes:
So, uh, how about that bullshit?
Nima – Thanks for the reminders.
You could add to the list the 17th century Puritan Sir Henry Finch. His followers found their own Jerusalem in Salem.
Genesis 13-20 was useful theological justification for decimating the natives.
This and more from “Allies for Armageddon” p. 40
NimaShirazi,
Thank you so much for this insightful, well referenced, brilliantly stated contribution. I knew I had accurate history on this but didn’t have the references at hand. Thanks for bringing it to the conversation.
Matthew
This has been a very informative exchange. I must say Nima has the last word at this point — he provides some impressive support to Mathew’s claims. American, MRW and Rutherford have some serious work to do if they want to maintain their earlier positions. I say serious work because at this point if they simply engage in rhetorical and assertive responses they will undermine their credibility. Why you may ask? Because those are the rules of academic and intellectual debate.
Thanks!
And just to add that the distinction between nationalist/secular ideas and religious ideas misses the point. Secularization was not a process of replacing religious ideas with new, non religious ideas. It was a process by which religious ideas were transformed and became secular versions of themselves. This is true of the big ideas, such as socialism, nationalism, the nation, etc. It was true of “manifest destiny” which was a secularization of “the shining city on a hill”. but is a much larger application.
Just an tiny example of how secularization works in practice, the prime literary expression of colonialism, “The White Man’s burden” was coined by Kipling in a poem. The burden in question is the suffering and death of the soldiers of empire, who bear the burden so that the benefits of Western civilization accrue to the “half-devil and half-child” natives.
The poem has one direct Biblical allusion: the complaints of the natives who refuse to accept the benefits of civilization are like the complaints of the Hebrews to Moses:
Why brought he us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?
Moses, however, is also typologically a precursor to Christ. And the fundamental image of the poem is christological. The Burden (Cross) is carried out through a painful series of hardships (Via Dolorosa) until death, by the imperial soldiers (Christ), in order to bring the good news of Western Civilization (Salvation) to the uncivilized (heathen) natives.
Or, the Burden (Law) is carried out through a painful series of hardships (40 years in the desert) until death, by the imperial soldiers (Moses), in order to bring the good news of Western Civilization (Liberation) to the uncivilized (stiff necked) natives (Hebrews).
There is no escape from the Bible.
Secularization was not a process of replacing religious ideas with new, non religious ideas. It was a process by which religious ideas were transformed and became secular versions of themselves.
Nicely put!
Evildoer, more like there is no escape from the (inadvertent, or not) honesty of the bible, which displays in full array the tendency of human beings to do dasterdly deeds in the name of G-D, including the extermination of peoples, cities, etc, to enjoy the pleasures afforded here on earth at someone else’s expense, whether they be Gentile or Jewish. The New Testament argues against this, intends to supplant this form of human thinking, but few given birth after these books about past human history and the spirit of them, were made available, as “inspired by G-D and then God, have read literally what is said there, although, ironically (let’s have none of that), care to look at the full negative application of same to successive human life across the globe–all in the name of pure righteous justice. Islam is like an afterthought, yet it uses the same means to employ things are on its side. I say, a pox on all three religions because the proof is in the paramount pudding. Now, let’s move on to Buddhism and its variants–has that thought process given us lots of good life for the humans on the planet? No. How about Hindu beliefs? No. Untouchable, eh? And we need not argue that secular ideologies have been a net evil, eh? So, what’s next?
Citizen, I think that as a simplistic reading of both testaments. To begin with, Jesus says, “I come to bring not peace but the sword.” And, by and large, his followers kept his word, far more effectively than anything related in the old Book.
Second, the basis of Christian theology is the idea that events in the old testament are symbolic of events in the new testament. So reading the new as the opposite of the old is a secularized interpretation that is insensitive to the history of biblical interpretation.
Third, a “pox of all three religions” would have made sense if the history of secularism were better. But it isn’t. Just as Christianity claimed to improve over Judaism and yet the crimes committed in the name of Christ made all the blood shed in the Hebrew Bible pale, so secular ideologies claimed to improve upon Christianity and yet have already committed crimes that make all the bloody history of Christianity pale in comparison.
It seems that as far as Europe/US is concerned, every new dispensation is bloodier than the previous one. So as they say, when you’re in a hole, stop digging. What we need is not a new dispensation, but tracing our steps back, carefully, to figure out what went wrong. This is what I mean by saying there is no escape from the Bible.
…..”"insensitive to the history of biblical interpretation.”"
that’s quite a statement… i thought jesus replaced the idea of an eye for an eye with a thought process very different…the idea to ‘resist not evil’ may not be something many folks follow, but it runs directly counter to the ideas of the old testament as i see it…
“I come to bring not peace but the sword.” is bringing or creating a division in the old way of thinking and in a new way of thinking… now folks can take everything literally as is generally the approach so many take with the bible.. i don’t know how to address that..
NimaShirazi: “Just a cursory examination of the ‘promised land for a chosen people’ premise shows it to be absolutely true.”
This is false. Not absolutely false, but essentially false because it is a very small part of a big picture and explains little.
I’ve taken a look at your website, so I’m not going to suggest that you are an Apologist for Israel. Other than that, I don’t know anything about you.
Therefore, with no intent to belittle your ideas, I would advise you that a little more than a “cursory examination” of the following topics might help alleviate some of your misconceptions: (1) the economic history of the U.S., (2) the history of Protestantism in America, and (3) the development of American Protestant theology. This might allow you better to “contextualize” some of the quotes you have provided above.
Really, though, your material demonstrates little other than the facts that (a) Protestant religion (represented particularly by the King James Version of the Old Testament) has been alive and well in some segments of the diverse American population throughout our history, and (b) there is a cottage industry of authors wanting to draw close parallels between America and “Israel”.
I would like further to clarify my objections to your thesis, but unfortunately have no more time at present. You are to be commended, though, for a nice try.
(Full disclosure: I was raised in a Southern Baptist fundamentalist tradition, was taught a lot about Protestant theology, and know more about it than I want to.)
Tr, knowing all you know, as you described, would you say Jimmy Carter is a good example of Southern Baptist fundy tradition? How about Truman? (Wasnt’ he a Baptist? Or not?) And Hagee? (Not sure if he’s Baptist in essence).
Thomson,
Your comment, though smug, provides absolutely no refutation of what I wrote. So, thanks.
If you think that I (or Matthew Taylor, for that matter, though I should really let him speak for himself) mean to suggest that the founding ideology and subsequent history of America, including ethnic cleansing, genocide, Westward expansion, railroad track laying, slave labor economy, and everything else is solely based on the “chosen people” concept, you are mistaken. I have not argued that this concept is the only inspiration for the American project. It is but one aspect of a fascinating and bloody narrative.
But to argue that it is a false notion, dishonestly presented to “make a point,” that’s where you are wrong. In fact, you yourself state that it is not false, but only part of the story. Yes, absolutely. We agree. Just as Zionist ideology does not derive only from the “chosen people” narrative, neither does the notion of American exceptionalism. It is merely one – easily demonstrable – factor. I’m glad to see we concur on this point.
There is plenty of evidence validating the reciprocal nature of American mythology (both in its original settler-colonial form and its later 18th & 19th Century expansion) and Judaic Zionist mythology (both in its original biblical form and its modern, ethno-nationalist version). To dismiss this as “essentially false” is foolish and disingenuous.
Incidentally, my use of the term “cursory examination” was to demonstrate that one doesn’t even need to dig deeper than what I’ve presented to see the parallels, not (as you seem to have read it) that further documentation and evidence is lacking or unavailable or that a researcher would be unable or incapable of going deeper into the issue.
Hilton Oberzinger’s American Palestine is a good read on the subject – though, admittedly, it only addresses the 19th Century example of “Holy Land mania.” Still, the influence of biblical mythologies on North America’s settlement was not invented in the 19th Century; rather, it was inherited.
Also, I have no “thesis” on this subject that you need to take time to object to. I merely shared some information that backs up one of Mr. Taylor’s claims after he was challenged. I have no horse in this race, so to carry this further would be silly, in my opinion.
Oh, one last thing, thank you for not suggesting I am an “Apologist for Israel.” That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all week.
Now, let’s all close our laptops and be nice to some mothers for the rest of the day. And don’t worry, Israel will still really suck when we get back.
Cheers.
Citizen, my personal interest in religion died years ago, so I have not tried to discern the particular beliefs of any of the chaps you mentioned. Carter is a good observant Southern Baptist who still teaches Sunday School, whether hard-shell or soft-shell I know not.
Hagee is a kooky evangelical millennialist (of which several types developed in American Protestantism). Of course he considers himself a fundamentalist; how could he not? I’m sorry I can’t be more specific. I’ve never been able to listen fully to Hagee preaching because I find him revolting. The man makes my skin crawl,
Nice try Mr. Rutherford, but the reasons why the quotes were given (above) is that they are the leaders of the communities. Indeed, we are told that the first comings of the lot from the beginning to the “promised land” were religious. However, not merely religious but of a certain strain – Calvinists (Puritans), who had the particular view of “chosen” ingrained in the psyche. One over a period time can construe what they like from their “choseness,” and “providence” as Jonathan Flavel spoke of (paraphrase) not even the dust from the soles of our shoes can fly without divine design.
Now, the animus toward the indigenous can and probably was mixed, but since the beginning of time the elite have used religion as a chief motivator to drive people to war and various atrocities. See the animus in the very documents of founding about the “savages,” curiously placed next to “all men are created equal” – leaving one with the question of what were the indigenous? I am afraid if I start to take your arguments apart Mr. Rutherford, both historically and theologically there would not be much defense left to speak of – do you want me to do this? It would tell me one of two things, that either you are the recipient of the tripe taught in both schools and seminaries today regarding US history, or you cannot face the truth.
The Church not only lent its voice and blessings, its theological underpinnings to the process of genocide, but its very institutions. Most of the “re-educations” schools for the indigenous were provided gladly by the Church, to exorcize the “demons” from the besieged population. Their children were sent to boarding schools isolating them from their parents, with the co-operation and blessing of some churches. Those who did not agree to the terms were torn from their parents arms.
In these re-education camps children were forbidden to speak in their language, to speak of their culture, and were told that their parents worshiped demons. Originally the program was run by an appointed penologist (prison official) by the name of Pratt. He was, of course, the man used in the prison system who tortured and broke the leaders of the Indians with great success – they were mentally turned to protoplasm by his methodologies. Yes, this is the type of man they put in charge over the children re-education program. They were also forcefully catechized and were taught the bare essentials of reading, writing, and math – just enough to get them low menial jobs.
The children who resisted, refused to co-operate, were tortured – some were chained to walls and posts for 30 days or more – they were forced in some instance to eat their own vomit – needles were used to pierce their tongues (as punishment for speaking out), and the horror list goes on. Many died in the wilderness trying to escape.
When they initially arrived at the schools they were stripped of their clothing, their hair was cut, and they were sprayed with DDT, and forcefully washed with lye assuming they were naturally filthy because of the dark color of their skin. When they were done with their half day of forced re-education they were put to hard labor till late at night, to pay for the salaries of the teachers and the facilities used to re-educate them. This was done to five generations, over 50% of the existing race (til the 1980′s).
As another example, because South Africa is used many times as a comparison to both Israel and the US take note who was the religious body behind the white population – the Reformed Church, Dutch, who carried the same theological proclivities with them. In fact men who were both ministers and congregants were banished who did not hold to the tenets of Apartheid.
The most curious aspect of your argument is that it does not see the two thousand year plus history of the Church (in its many flavors) that has been used as the religious focal point of untold atrocities all over the world. I have said as much previously in my writings, and no doubt will find occasion again to do so (as in this instance). That one would bifurcate the Church from its history of servile support to empire, indeed, cling to the very spirit and drive of imperialism and its twin colonialism, which was actually the tool (Roman Empire) that slew its claimed savior is quite beyond my ability to comprehend –
AMERICA’S IMPERIAL CHURCH OF EMPIRE
However I would be less than honest if I did not say this mental affliction of avoiding the elite use of religion is not suffered by the most intelligent at times. As an example, I sat down and listened to Alister McGrath and Christopher Hitchens go at each over for an hour about the bane of religion and in all that time neither of them even touched on the elite use of religion. It dd not even enter the debate, and both were horrified that I addressed them with the issue after the debate (which respectively posited the problem of religion in the nature of man or what it taught). So let me say that my treatment of this does not mean to call anyone “dumb,” just well propagandized.
Rather – However I would be less than honest if I did not say this mental affliction of avoiding the elite use of religion IS suffered by the most intelligent at times. The Link –
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS DEBATES ALISTER MCGRATH
Nima,
I did argue, too smugly, that your notion is essentially false (i.e., deficient), but not “dishonestly presented”. True, I did not refute your main point. But I think it is also true that you did not prove your point with citations of preacher-talk, of a kind already quite familiar to me. None of the material you presented is surprising because it follows quite naturally from the heavy reliance Protestant theologies placed on Old Testament myths. But myths didn’t move the American masses across the continent.
But you are right; this is where we should leave it. The differences in our arguments seem mainly to be a matter of emphasis. In considering the exploitation of the American continent, you place greater weight on quasi-religious mythologies than I am willing to do, given my off-the-cuff analysis from the standpoint of an economist.
Cheers to you also!
Exactly Rutherford…you are correct.
Thank you TR. Succinct.
NimaShirazi wrote:
“If you think that I (or Matthew Taylor, for that matter, though I should really let him speak for himself) mean to suggest that the founding ideology and subsequent history of America, including ethnic cleansing, genocide, Westward expansion, railroad track laying, slave labor economy, and everything else is solely based on the “chosen people” concept, you are mistaken. I have not argued that this concept is the only inspiration for the American project. It is but one aspect of a fascinating and bloody narrative”
Exactly. And a very important analogy between the U.S. and Israel for the purposes of the central arguments of my post.
Matthew: “Exactly. And a very important analogy between the U.S. and Israel for the purposes of the central arguments of my post.”
Wow, Matthew. If I understand that correctly, the central arguments of your post are for the purpose of drawing very important analogies between the U.S. and Israel. Tell me again, why would you be so interested in doing that?
You see, that’s why I have objected to your post and why I have worked hard to argue against your arguments, which I consider to be largely without merit anyway.
Again with the Puritians?
So you think the Puritians “founded” America?
See my comments above.
Your ‘cursory examination ” is exactly that cursory.
ROTFLMAO.
Let’s do look at your grab bag of examples:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In his essay, ‘The Right to Expel: The Bible and Ethnic Cleansing’ (included in Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return, ed. Naseer Aruri; London: Pluto, 2001), Reverend Michael Prior notes:
“Many Puritan preachers referred to the Native Americans as Amalekites and Canaanites, who, if they refused to be converted, were worthy of annihilation. Thus Cotton Mather, author of Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), delivered a sermon in Boston in September 1689, charging the members of the armed forces in New England to consider themselves to be Israel in the wilderness, confronted by Amalek: pure Israel was obliged to ‘cast out [the Indians] as dirt in the streets’ and ‘eliminate and exterminate them.’”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Again your doing the Puritans thing and quoting preachers as if all colonist believed as the Puritans did.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>The excellent scholarship of Professor Steven Salaita is instructive. He describes the American ideology of Manifest Destiny as the process of “wresting Edenic land from savages in the name of prophesy and progress,” and (as but one example) reveals this lovely statement from Founding Father John Adams: “The Indians are as bigoted to their religion as the Mohametans [sic] are to their Koran.” As such, Salaita explains, “[t]he goal of America followed logically,” and again quotes Adams: “Apathy, barbarism, and heathenism must give way to energy, civilization, and Christianity.”
Salaita has also pointed to the connections made by Uri Avnery in his 2001 article “AMERICA! AMERICA! or: The Height of Chutzpah” regarding “the identification of the Zionist enterprise with the foundations of America”:
“The Puritans who founded American society believed in the Bible, knew Hebrew, bore Biblical names, saw themselves as the ‘New Israel’, called their country the ‘New Canaan’, justified the annihilation of the Natives with the Biblical injunction against Amalek. The Zionist ‘pioneers’ resemble the white settlers in America, the bad Palestinians are a new version of the ‘Bad Injuns.’”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Once again basing it on the Puritans..and you screwed the pooch with quoting Adams. Adams left the Congregationalist church and privately rejected organized religion except that he saw it as a useful tool to keeping “social order” in the new country and he religions only in the social sense of church going. So to say his reference to the Indians had much of anything to do with ‘chosen people’ of God or manifest destiny shows you and our source haven’t studied Adams.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Caroline Gleason, in her examination of the 17th Century writing of Mary Rowlandson (wife of a Massachusetts Bay Colony minister and who “belie[ved] that the Puritans were the chosen people of God”), provides the following contextual history:
The founding Puritans based their concept of divine providence on a special covenant with God. John Winthrop, in “A Modell of Christian Charity,” expressed the belief that the Puritans were the chosen people of God. In 1630, when Winthrop spoke to Puritan colonists sailing to the New World on the ship Arbelia, he referred to God as “Our God” and to the Puritans as “his oune people.” He reminded his fellow colonists: “We are entered into Covenant with Him. … wee shall be as a citty upon a hill. The eies of all people are uppon us.” Winthrop believed that the Puritans had a duty to fulfill their covenant with God by serving as an example of an ideal Christian community to the world. In return, God would protect his chosen people. In “God’s Promise to His Plantations,” John Cotton, one of Winthrop’s contemporaries, explained that “what hee [God] hath planted he will maintain … his owne plantation shall prosper, & flourish.” Cotton urged Puritans to “Have speciall care that you have had the ordinances [of God] planted amongst you,” because “As soon as God’s ordinances cease, yor security ceaseth likewise.” Cotton warned his fellow Puritans that breaking the covenant with God would result in a loss of his protection for his chosen.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Again, again, again with the Puritans and ministers and religious as the voice for all the settlers.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Furthermore, Roy H. May, Jr., drawing from the anthology “God’s New Israel: Religious Interpretations of American Destiny” (ed. Conrad Cherry, 1971), notes:
Promised Land imagery figured prominently in shaping English colonial thought. The pilgrims identified themselves with the ancient Hebrews. They viewed the New World as the New Canaan. They were God’s chosen people headed for the Promised Land. Other colonists believed they, too, had been divinely called. The settlers in Virginia were, John Rolf said, “a peculiar people, marked and chosen by the finger of God.”
This self-image of being God’s Chosen People called to establish the New Israel became an integral theme in America’s self-interpretation. During the revolutionary period, it emerged with new force. “We cannot but acknowledge that God hath graciously patronized our cause and taken us under his special care, as he did his ancient covenant people,” Samuel Langdon preached at Concord, New Hampshire in 1788. George Washington was the “American Joshua,” and “Never was the possession of arms used with more glory, or in a better cause, since the days of Joshua, the son of Nun,” Ezra Stiles urged in Connecticut in 1783. In 1776, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson wanted Promised Land images for the new nation’s Great Seal. Franklin proposed Moses dividing the Red (Reed) Sea with Pharaoh’s army being overwhelmed by the closing waters. Jefferson urged a representation of the Israelites being led in the wilderness by the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. Later, in his second inaugural address (1805), Jefferson again recalled the Promised Land. “I shall need…the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessities and comforts of life.”
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John Rolf said that about the BRITISH…LOL…he was saying that BRITISH settlers, emphasise on BRITISH, part of the BRITISH idea of their own superior talents in the colonies.
Gads….you should do your research before using this stuff you pick up from sites like these that cherry pick some statement but don’t reveal the entire meaning or explain what it was really about.
Jefferson urged a representation of the Israelites being led in the wilderness by the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. …
http://www.christianforums.com › … › Traditional Adventists
John Rolf said, “a peculiar people, marked and chosen by the finger of God.”
link to gbgm-umc.org
Everything you have here is a collection of quotes of by Puritans, minister, the religious and etc.. You can find thousands of articles of this pop history stuff, mainly by evangelicals, zios and other assorted religious fanatics..as you just done.
Do you even understand or have even done the research into official records to know that 55% of the original settlers were Episcopalian (Church of England) adherents? And that the Puritans had revolted against and renounced the Church of England
and were much less in number than Episcopalians—and yet you try to say this minority that had one colony they semi controlled out of thirteen colonies somehow were responsible for Founding America and that their beliefs were what this country was established on despite the majority.
Bizarre, just bizarre..
To say America was FOUNDED on the Puritans and religious beliefs or religious groups is like saying the recent Egyptian revolution was because of the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ instead a popular revolt by the majority against economic inequality and political repression.
People like you and Taylor grab on to some small part of something and because of whatever your agenda or personal gripe is, you blow it up to into some false “Center Piece” for your argument or theories.
You both really need to read some real factual history. If you want to understand the primary motivating forces for immigration to America, why they cam, what they thought ,not just the religious fringe babble cock, start with the facts as recorded at the time as they were happening in the words of those involved.
This would be a good start but I know I am wasting my time…people like you are going to cling to whatever suits their agenda or personal preferences despite what the facts say.
link to pickeringchatto.com
The English Empire in America, 1602–1658:
Beyond Jamestown
Oh, also, what is “the religious fringe babble cock”? Did you mean “babble” or “poppycock” or both?
Or, possibly, you know an intimate detail about Ted Haggard that only Mike Jones can corroborate.
Either way, I like the term and will try to use it often from now on, especially in any future squirmish we might have over your subsequent refudiations.
Thanks.
Just as one small example of your argument American, is your display of ignorance regarding Episcopalian doctrine –
“And that the Puritans had revolted against and renounced the Church of England and were much less in number than Episcopalians—and yet you try to say this minority that had one colony they semi controlled out of thirteen colonies somehow were responsible for Founding America and that their beliefs were what this country was established on despite the majority.”
Episcopalians at the time were the English Calvinistic root, the Puritans did not deviate from foundational doctrine is which was Calvinistic but the form of government. So there is no basic break in the foundational doctrinal tenets of Puritanism or Episcopalians. Now I could go on, let me know if you would like me to elaborate.
See the Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, The Forty-Two Articles, Book of Common Prayer. Try studying a bit about Thomas Cranmer, etc. Get back to me later.
I can’t make much sense out of your reply.
But I did click on your site and now knowing your background and Iranian origins I see why you are for any meme that makes Big Satan like little Satan……even though it’s inaccurate and not something a experienced or mature or serious debater would do .
Your real area of concern is Iran vr. the US and Israel…and your resentment of the US threats to Iran because of Israel….and because of that you did an amateur thing and scooped up some crapology history to link USA to ISR.
If after seeing the display you made here, were I now to listen to anything you said on Iran I would have to be careful about your objectivity and truthfulness on that also and wonder if you are so sloppy about US history and willing to use such ridiculous sources–if you might not be just as sloppy on your statements on Iran.
I understand you are a musician and etc. but you need to learn not to co-mingle fact and fiction because of your own “emotional” leanings or personal issue , and attach them to an entirely different subject.
BTW…Babble cock is southern slang. Closely related to “Sillybub”, which was a early American-English settler concoction of every kind of wine available thrown into one punch bowl on top of assorted fruits…sort of like the sources you presented here where you claim one peach fruit tossed in the mix made the punch ‘peach’ punch…despite all the other fruits in the punch.
LOL
Also, for a last quote, just so there is a voice outside of mine –
“When we come to study the influence of Calvinism as a political force in the history of the United States we come to one of the brightest pages of all Calvinistic history. Calvinism came to America in the Mayflower, and Bancroft, the greatest of American historians, pronounces the Pilgrim Fathers “Calvinists in their faith according to the straightest system.”1 John Endicott, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; John Winthrop, the second governor of that Colony; Thomas Hooker, the founder of Connecticut; John Davenport, the founder of the New Haven Colony; and Roger Williams, the founder of the Rhode Island Colony, were all Calvinists. William Penn was a disciple of the Huguenots. It is estimated that of the 3,000,000 Americans at the time of the American Revolution, 900,000 were of Scotch or Scotch-Irish origin, 600,000 were Puritan English, and 400,000 were German or Dutch Reformed. In addition to this the Episcopalians had a Calvinistic confession in their Thirty-nine Articles; and many French Huguenots also had come to this western world. Thus we see that about two-thirds of the colonial population had been trained in the school of Calvin.”
CALVINISM IN AMERICA
Just for your general information.
OMG…
I just love you religious fruitcakes…you use a source that is a Calvinist writing about the glories of the Calvinist founding of America to support your claim that Puritans and Episcopalians were the same with Calvinist thrown in?
Why do I feel like I have mistakenly walked in on a reunion of incest descendants in this conversation?
Oh well, let us go with the official logs of religious affiliations in the early colonist.
Religious Affiliation of U.S. Founding Fathers and America
Episcopalian/Anglican 88 …54%
Presbyterian 30 ….18.6%
Congregationalist 27 …..16.8%
Quaker 7 4….3%
Dutch Reformed/German Reformed 6 3….7%
Lutheran 5 3….1%
Catholic 3 1…..9%
Huguenot 3 1….9%
Unitarian 3 1….9%
Methodist 2 1….2%
Calvinist 1 0…..6%
TOTAL 204
link to adherents.com
And the differences between the Episcopalians, which were Anglican then, and the Puritans and the Calvinist…and as you can see, considered separate from Episcopalian.
Anglicans-
The Church of England sprung from the English Reformation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Like Roman Catholicism, it kept its hierarchy of bishops and priests, but like Calvinism it held that the Holy Scripture was the final authority on spiritual matters, not popes or any clergy. Anglicans also believed that the church could err in its teachings (also unlike Roman Catholicism). It was considered a middle way between Roman Catholicism and Reformed Churches.
Anglicans were a major force in parts of New York, Pennsylvania, the mid-Atlantic states and in the southern states, especially Virginia. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe were all raised Anglican.
Calvinists –
The Calvinists included Puritans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists and other reformed churches. Essentially, Calvinists did not believe that true Christianity should retain a pope or official bishops. Pastors could serve in the capacity of minor church authorities. The also believed that salvation was entirely through God and that humans were sinners and that there was nothing they could do to change that.
Much of New England was Calvinist in some capacity throughout the 18th-Century. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams grew up in Calvinist homes although both would renounce that form of Christianity in later years (Franklin by the age of 15, and Adams as an adult).
link to earlyamericanhistory.net
The only thing the Calvinist in America had in common with the Episcopalians was the holy scripture which was common to almost every religion. Calvinist were considered close to Puritans –not the Episcopalians, which were closer to the Roman Catholic since Queen Elizabeth.
Now we could go back Queen Elizabeth and the blip of Calvinist that failed but that has nothing to do with the religious makeup of the colonist and the original argument that America was Founded on chosen people ad nauseum.
Now if you want to cite any sources for your claim that aren’t religious followers writing favorable and mythical narrative about their religion in America and the colonist and our founding give them to me. Until then I will stick with the official recordings of the time….not the religious fanatics and the theology can of worms. I don’t consider anything written by a particular religious member regarding his religion’s place in early America to be the most accurate or creditable sources and they end up contridicting each other.
Um, American? The Thirty Nine articles include one that endorses predestination. The Anglicans were always split amongst themselves, some closer to the Catholic Church and others closer to the Calvinists insofar as doctrine is concerned.
Anyway, all this misses the point. White people in America (with some notable exceptions like the Quakers and Roger Williams) saw Native Americans as obstacles to be moved, rather the way the Zionists have usually seen Palestinians (again with exceptions like Judah Magnes). The details of how they justified this (whether with religious terminology or some notion of the glorious future our republic was destined to have) varies in different times and places.
“The only thing the Calvinist in America had in common with the Episcopalians was the holy scripture which was common to almost every religion. Calvinist were considered close to Puritans –not the Episcopalians, which were closer to the Roman Catholic since Queen Elizabeth.”
Well I tell you what American (outside of calling me a religious fruitcake, I am an atheist) anyone who wishes to read the documentation of the time can do so, and there is no doctrinal difference between the early Episcopalians and the Puritans foundational, soteriologically. Anyone can read it for themselves, they do not need your wild and unfounded verbal gesticulations. I will say this short of quoting the articles verbatim here, it is not the venue – you have no idea what you are talking about, and you seem to be serving a political agenda which denies the early activity in America which would expose it for what it essentially was at the time.
Donald, he (American) does not want to know specifics, but would rather dither with non-verifiable statistics regrading populations, etc. He keep quoting other spurious sources that do not even know the doctrinal makeup of creeds and confessions, etc.
I guess there is some sort of satisfaction in calling someone a religious fanatic rather than facing hard facts, however you have seen my posts for quite sometime now and are aware that I am not exactly what one would call religious…lol However, for those who fear the exposure of these early American conditions because of some political bias or whatever reasoning have found their worst nightmare in what I post because I know and have read their materials and use them.
For those who wish to obscure root causes of the settler colonial nightmare, I am no friend – and never will be. Too bad that so many wish to hide original causes because we can never get to the remedies with such hubris (that is, pretending to know what they are talking about).
“Article XVII: Of Predestination and Election
Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God’s purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through Grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God’s mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.
As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal Salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: So, for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God’s Predestination, is a most dangerous downfal, whereby the Devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation.
Furthermore, we must receive God’s promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture: and, in our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God.”
And so proceeding from this men of this persuasion see themselves as invincible and able to call out who belongs to whatever deity and who is not. Too bad for the indigenous on the receiving end of such doctrines deliberation in their activities – supposedly lead by the providence of the almighty.
However, whether it be Rome or the Reformation there has been one constant, and that is the servile use of their ways and doctrines to chain men to obey the “powers that be” because they are “ordained by god.” So atrocities did not stop with Rome, they went on with the Peasants slaughter under Luther, who also believed that retarded children were demon possessed and that spirits flew through the woods at night. Or Calvin who killed Servitus over doctrinal dispute, down to the destruction of peoples who did not belong to the chosen. The denial of such despicable history is no wonder that the elite use of religion continues to this day, while men still deny it.
The following reply was originally written last night (before the “babble cock” one), but was never posted. Thankfully, it’s been recovered (thanks Phil!), so I am reposting it below.
I will address your latest response as a direct reply to that comment, instead of adding it here.
*****
American,
I find your reply to what I’ve written very weird and, at times, extremely dishonest.
When did I ever argue that Puritans “were responsible for Founding America and that their beliefs were what this country was established on despite the majority,” as you claim I have? I’m really curious as to where I wrote that, since it appears to be the reason you are freaking out over what I’ve contributed here. “Bizarre,” indeed.
The point made is a simple one: The Chosen People in a Promised Land concept was but one aspect of the American settler-colonial mindset and ideology. I have already stated clearly that I do not believe this to be the only guiding principle of North America’s early settlers and have not seen any evidence on this thread of anyone arguing that point.
I see now (reviewing your initial comment that lead to my first reply) that your issue is not actually about the “Chosen People” argument, but rather about its application as the “Founding” mythology of the United States. I was addressing the former, you seem to be hot and bothered about the second. In this case, I will agree with you: the political founding of the United States of America was not solely – or even primarily, in my view – influenced or motivated by a righteous religiosity of “choseness.” I have never, nor would ever, argue that point as it is fundamentally untrue.
The Founding Fathers’ deep distrust of and disinterest in organized religion is well-known and well-documented (Chapter 2 of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion is one place to find a bunch of good stuff). No one has disputed this here and there is no need for you to point it out. I’m also aware of John Adams’ feelings about religion – we all know his famous quote, “This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it” – but that does not negate his use of religious imagery to promote his particular nationalist – and anti-indigenous – agenda.
The issue here is the exploitation of mythologies. No one mythology has a monopoly on American or Israeli founding ideologies. No one has argued as such here, yet you have spent considerable time attempting to debunk things no one has actually written.
Religious imagery in the European settlement of North America, just like the Zionist immigration and colonization of Palestine, was used by believers and non-believers both to motivate and indoctrinate certain susceptible portions of their targeted populations. This is indisputable. But again, before you freak out, I will stress that religious sentiment was only one aspect of the motivating mythologies used to entice both immigration and to justify the settlers’ subsequent subjugation of and domination over of the indigenous populations of the colonized land.
For example, Zionist heavyweight Theodor Herzl was not a religious person whatsoever and is said to have spoken of Judaism with “mocking cynicism.” Herzl himself wrote in 1896′s Der Judenstaat, “I consider the Jewish question neither a social nor a religious one, even though it sometimes takes these and other forms.”
Nevertheless, he was aware of the appeal of religious ideology to certain elements of the Jewish community – elements he was interested in courting to his particular political agenda.
When considering both Argentina and Palestine as the location of a possible future Jewish state, Herzl didn’t seem to care either way. Still, after noting to positive features of Argentina, he turned his attention to Palestine, writing:
David Ben Gurion, also a secular fellow, appealed to biblical Judaism constantly. As Dr. Avi Becker, former secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress and professor at the School of Government and Policy at Tel Aviv University, notes, “[some] leaders of the Zionist Labor movement and founding fathers of the state, such as Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, are perfect examples of secular promoters of the chosenness concept.” He continues:
No one would argue that every single adherent or promoter of Zionism was a religious Jew who believed whole-heartedly in – or was solely motivated by – the concept of Jewish “choseness.” Nevertheless, it is an indisputably vital aspect of the Zionist narrative, regardless of how many Zionists endorsed that particular justification for the subsequent ethnic cleansing of Palestine which led to the founding of the state of Israel and has continued ever since.
Please note that these “founding mythologies” of Israel were created and propagated decades before the actual founding of the state and drew upon centuries of religious doctrine for inspiration.
In one of your previous snarky comments, you write that “[i]n the first document of the ‘Founding’, the Declaration of Independence, there is no reference to anything remotely religious except the mention of ‘divine providence’…”
You then use this fact to try and prove your point that the concept of “choseness” was irrelevant to the “founding” of the United States and add that to claim “a small group of religious fanatics like the Puritans, who were not representative of the majority of settlers” could be responsible for the founding ideology of a “chosen people” is to misrepresent history and present a false narrative of actual founding inspiration.
Yet, you fail to point out that the Declaration of the Establishment of State of Israel, Israel’s own founding document makes no mention of “choseness” either. Rather it begins, “Eretz-Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people” and, as such, shaped “their spiritual, religious and political identity.”
Consequently, would you argue that the concept of “choseness” is therefore not one of the founding Zionist ideologies of Israel, just because it’s not explicitly mentioned in Israel’s founding document? I doubt you would.
Do you think that, just because the Founding Fathers of Israel omitted this from their Declaration of Independence, it thusly makes that particular mythology less valid as one of the numerous justifications Zionists have long used to colonize Palestine? Don’t messianic Jewish settlers who continue to illegally colonize the West Bank today use this justification (among others) as well? Do these settlers represent or speak for a majority of Israelis? No, they don’t. However, this “small group of religious fanatics” (as you described – and dismissed – the Puritans) are not irrelevant to the Zionist ethnonational project; their inspirational ideology is but one piece of the Zionist puzzle.
One more thing:
You refer to “people like me” and my “agenda,” “personal gripe,” “personal preferences.” What do you know about me? What agenda, gripes and preferences do you think I have? When have I ever argued that the “choseness” concept is a “Center Piece” of anything? For what purpose would I aim to promote something that’s not true? What – in your opinion – is the real intention of “people like me” and, uh, who are those people?
I hope that, in the future, before writing nonsense like this, you take a breath and swallow your immediate inclination to be presumptuous. Instead of lobbing sad invective at targets that don’t warrant such disdain, think about what purpose will be served by making such unfounded accusations.
Just a thought. Not that I expect people like you to care.
American,
I find it hilarious that after looking at the newest post on my website – and clearly not familiarizing yourself with much more of my writing – you think you know what my motivations are and think you have identified some sort of agenda at work. Beyond simply grasping at straws to – for some odd reason – try to discredit me or cast aspersions on my analysis, you have chosen to erect strawmen.
You claim that, due to your “now knowing my background and Iranian origins,” I therefore eagerly endorse “any meme that makes Big Satan like little Satan.” To say this is a silly generalization based upon what you appear to believe is the homogeny and monolith of Iranian discourse would be too generous. It’s downright absurd, offensive, and embarrassing.
You think that, by skimming over my website, you know anything about my “background” or “origins”? Wow. Do tell, American, do tell. I guarantee you don’t know what you think you know.
As you yourself wrote, this is not only “inaccurate,” but also “not something a[n] experienced or mature or serious debater would do.” In this case, American, I concur.
What “emotional” leanings or personal issues do you think I have? Your assumptions are incredible and seem to be based on your incorrect and stubborn perception that I have some stake in noting the religious aspects of American colonialism and how they, in turn, centuries later, related to the Zionist conquest of Palestine. It is still strange that you are disputing this.
(Again, the religious issue is only one aspect of the narrative, not the entire story – please stop trying to pretend that anyone has argued as such.)
Whether or not you trust my analysis on Iran or anything else is immaterial to me as your approval is wholly inconsequential. Your patronizing attitude and incessant (and totally unnecessary) condescension throughout this entire discussion, however, is a different matter. There has been no reason for it and, as a result, you revealed yourself as a petty and highly irritable interlocutor.
As such, even if you chose to respond to this comment of mine, I will most likely be done with this discussion as I am no longer interested in engaging you in what should be a fact-based conservation (even debate) about historical issues. Instead, you have consistently relied on a weird tactic of attempting to ascribe imagined personal “gripes” to my (and others) perspective which is both uninteresting and dishonest. It’s also become increasingly boring.
And now I’m really bored.
NimaShirazi,
I don’t have time to do anything in-depth. I have to work and get to bed. A couple of points. . . .
Which , of course, bibical and Israeli archeologists have found to be completely untrue, or to be charitable: after a century of digging, they can find no evidence of it.
The actual Roy H. May, Jr quotes comes from May’s book Joshua and the Promised Land. That he draws on another book is immaterial. May is a United Methodist missionary serving in Costa Rica through the General Board of Global Ministries. His website is here, and his selection of quotes serves his religious purpose. The book he quotes from, however, draws other conclusions in its editorial comments.
The quotes he pinched are an amalgam of writings, again, to make his religious point if you check out his website:
• John Winthrop (Governor of Massachusetss 1630);
• Alexander Whitaker (clergyman and theologian 1585-1616)
• John Rolfe (correct spelling, husband of Pocohantas)
• Samuel Langdon (American Congregational clergyman and educator, 1788 one year after the framing of the Constitution in 1787)
• Ezra Stiles (Minister/Lawyer/Yale College president, 1783, five years after the framing of the Constitution in 1787)
Points:
• These were sermons or speeches.
• All of their statements were made while the majority of the land that now makes up the entire United States of America was owned by Spain (other chunks by France and Britain). Until 1803, the major part of the actual US then only extended to the Mississippi, with some northern chunks and Louisiana still belonging to France or the French of Upper Canada because the border wasn’t tightened yet.
• The earlier guys/quotes were talking about getting rid of the Indians in Massaschusetts and Virginia, the 13 colonies. (Thomas Jefferson’s second Inaugural address was delivered after 1803 and after the Louisiana Purchase in December, 1803.)
• The book May pinched stuff from, God’s New Israel: Religious Interpretations of American Destiny, has some far more interesting stuff in it than May used. Use Amazon and read pages 26 and 27 for starters. “Religion was by no means the only, or even dominant, motive for the settlement of most of the colonies.” [John Rolfe, Pocohantas’ husband, introduced the tobacco leaf as a crop.] Further down, the author (editor) explains that the Puritans considered themselves “English settlers on an English errand,” not arrivistes here to start a new country. They figured they were “covenanted with God by their pledge to erect a Christian society,” and give a big nah-nah-nah to England, who hadn’t let them introduce their brand of Protestant Reformation over there. They wanted New England to show Old England how it was done, according to the editor.
• You’ll notice as a final act of irony the Founding Fathers had the good sense to separate church and state, keep these good shepherds and their biblical shit sequestered from public policy and laws no matter what their preachers said on Sunday or in Assembly as their raison d’etre.
Finally,
The Great Seal of the United States was created by John Hanson, the first President of the United States. When George Washington was inaugurated in 1789—he changed the term to four years when he moved from Fraunces Tavern in Wall Street and saw what his French architect had created for him in DC—Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson squealed that they couldn’t proceed without “the presence of the Great Seal of the United States created by our first President, John Hanson.” His words. Jefferson had a 1789 resolution to Congress passed that said no president could be inaugurated without it.
And ToivoS,
I’m not here for academic debate, so I don’t follow those rules. Sometimes I dig deep, other times I don’t. Many of us just don’t have the time. I’ve been commenting (not debating, commenting) on this blog since its inception.
MRW, you Israel-critics need to look beyond what you want to see and to hear in terms of your own agenda. The world is much broader and deeper as your selective research and reading of sources may suggest you, and – for instance – the conclusions about the archeological evidence of the Bible can not only rely on a provocative article of a single Israeli scholar (even if I its well-known that it is a tactic that you often use to please your preconceptions….). I would suggest a more differentiate approach to the topic:
link to time.com
Anyway, apart from this sterile controversy – very similar to that carried by anti-Semites about the alleged non-existence of the Jewish people, possibly with the help of a nice theory, given as bait by some shrewd Israeli professor looking for fame – there is no country in the world that is not based on mythical foundations. And Israel (and the Jewish people) has at least very good ones ;-)
We’re getting a lecture on historical accuracy from a zealot who thinks it’s his God-given right to strip Palestinians of their property and make Jews-only country clubs over the entire Holy Land. That’s rich.
Despite endless digging, there has been no archeological evidence found to support the old biblical testament story. That story is what is sterile. And the Palestinians have a wider claim to being a people with biblical blood roots than the Jews living in Israel (Palestine) today.
“carried by anti-Semites about the alleged non-existence of the Jewish people,”
Anti-Semites do not deny that Jews exist.
Whether the Jews are a “people” depends on what is meant by a “people”. Under what definitions of a “people” is it Anti-Semitic to deny that Jews are a “people”, and why is it Anti-Semitic?
(If “the Jewish people” means that Jews are something like a race, this is something that the classical Anti-Semites seem to affirm!)
Knock it off. Ze’ev Herzog’s article was written four years after the 1995 Times article. Herzog is the archeologist, not the Times journalist. His bio (you think he’s lying? Write him. Here’s his email address:
His books and articles are here.
Here is a little broader treatment in regard to archeology, but not exhaustive, I will have to quote it because I am getting massive hits at this time on my site –
Today I am approaching a subject that by no means is new, but is being used to a greater degree to justify actions which are detrimental to mankind. It is not limited to one religious group, and yet at the same time can produce disastrous results, death and destruction in the name of a “god(s)” whoever it might be. Of course, there are many who do things in the name of some god who are just plain cynical, and those who attach to atrocious acts a tenuous “faith” at best. We will not be dealing with scientific method as much as the appropriation of either valid science or invalid science for questionable purposes, for less than humane purposes – or, the popularization of science for the benefit of any specific group and the detriment of another.
Because of the the sheer volume of such activity, some stamping their “beliefs” with so-called empirical science and justifying atrocities, I will limit the post to certain activities, at best take a cursory look at other examples for comparison, and by no means will I exhaust the topic. When men do bad things they always must attribute such to a higher purpose, this to enlist other men and also attempt to escape condemnation.
From the so-called “science” of yesteryear which tried to say that some men were inferior, and therefore needed to be controlled, shaped and molded, in order to become an “advanced people” – colonialism. To the misappropriation of valid science, evolution to social Darwinism as a further excuse to “tame the world.” Men who take advantage of and exploit racism trying to tie it to saying certain people are inferior, the entire curve from tribalism which is supposed to be inadequate to statism (fascism, what have you) which is smothering. A thin veiling mask of natural selection to cover up blatant domination and exploitation.
The substitution of technology for culture, which merely is a shift from anthropocentric society to artificial objects. The same technology in the hands of a few so that even though humanity may benefit from the technological advance, it is used merely to enrich the few. An equal race between things which may indeed benefit mankind with ways in which to kill more people faster. Virtually any science, valid or invalid can be used inappropriately.
Sometimes we think we have advanced, but men find new ways to oppress one another, and just keep recycling old ways. Take the Israel/Palestinian conflict as an example – here a nation uses the science of archeology. It has been shoved into the spotlight recently by a tenure dispute, with pressure brought from the outside. A Professor at Columbia’s Bernard College, Nadia Abu El-Haj the assistant professor of anthropology gets accosted for stating the obvious – the misappropriation of archeology to fuel an illegal occupation of the Palestinians.
One must ask with all candor, do the Zionists claim ownership through some archaeological digs during the tearing down of Palestinian homes or afterwords? This attempt to “reclaim” some ancient footprint while removing the current one of the Palestinians. So, let’s look for a moment at a hypothetical – even if there are ancient Israeli artifacts found on Palestinian land how does this automatically translate into the Palestinians being ethnically cleansed and a Zionist population replacing them? In short hand, it does not.
Israel Finkelstein, professor of archeology at the University of Tel Aviv says Biblical archeology has been popular in Israel since the nation’s founding in 1948. As Jews poured into Israel from all over Europe following the Holocaust, the “national hobby” helped newcomers build a sense of belonging. “There was a need to give something to the immigrants, to the melting pot,” says Finkelstein. “Something to connect them to the ground, to history, to some sort of legacy.”
Yet – “In Israel, biblical archeology was used to justify illegal settlement policy,” says Hamdan Taha, director general of the Palestinian Authority’s department for antiquities and cultural heritage. “Land was confiscated in the name of God and archeology. It’s still going on with the construction of bypass roads and the building of the separation wall inside the Palestinian land.”
The archaeologists sought out Old Testament sites and renamed places according to biblical tradition, in effect “recasting the landscape of the West Bank” in biblical terms, says Columbia University anthropologist Nadia Abu el-Haj, author of Facts on the Ground, a history of Israeli archeology. Those terms, she says, “the [West Bank] settlers now pick up.”
In 2005, Ariel Sharon said the tomb justified the Israeli presence in the West Bank. “No other people has a monument like the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where Abraham and Sarah are buried,” he told the Israeli journalist Ari Shavit. “Therefore, under any agreement [on the West Bank], Jews will live in Hebron.”
Other contested sites include Joseph’s tomb in Nablus and Rachel’s tomb in Bethlehem. “It’s not real archeology,” Finkelstein says. “It’s based on later traditions.”
However, it is not only Palestinians that question what is taking place: In 1999, Ze’ev Herzog, a Tel Aviv University colleague of Finkelstein’s, convulsed the Israeli public with an article in the weekend magazine of the newspaper Ha’aretz asserting that archaeologists had shown definitively that the biblical narrative of the Israelites’ origins was not factual. Outraged letters poured into the newspaper; politicians weighed in; conferences were organized so the distressed public could quiz the archaeologists. But once the issues were addressed, feelings cooled. However, that does not mean that the same process is not taking place, using the archaeological spade as an excuse or a justification for criminal acts.
So the West and Israel constantly try to mold the vision, particularly in the United States, of the “biblical” holy land – and archeology has been used as such – to crystallize for “Christians” in the West that Israeli’s and the holy land setting are the only two things that belong together – Palestinians are merely shrugged off as interlopers. This is important because the place where the most support for Israel is found is among fundamentalist Christians (outside of other Zionist Jews), and the United States is where Israel gets it’s biggest check.
In fact, “biblical” archeology is used as a way to silence Palestinian history. It is a “nationalist archeology,” that builds that bridge to an intrusive and brutal occupation, connecting the supposed ancient past with the colonial enterprise.
Sociologist Michael Feige of Ben-Gurion University, “but people don’t give it that much thought.” He adds that Israel’s shifting priorities may account for the less impassioned view. “In the 1950s, there was a collective anxiety: What are we doing here? How do we justify it? The very essence of Israeli identity depended on the biblical, historical narrative.” Of course, this was just after the Nakba (1948), that brutal and murderous ethnic cleansing which dispossessed over 750,000 Palestinians. The biblical concept being used by the Zionists has politically spread from the Likud party, to labor, and from right wing extremists to so-called liberals.
Ben-Nun and others in the settlers’ movement emphatically agree with the views of Adam Zertal and other biblical literalists. At the settlement of Elon Moreh, on a hill above Nablus, a sign quotes Jeremiah 31:5: “Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria.” Menachem Brody, who emigrated from Maine to Israel 28 years ago and raised a family there, runs archeology tours supporting the literal interpretation of the Old Testament. On one such tour, passing through numerous army checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, he traced the Way of the Patriarchs, the road traveled by Abraham according to Genesis. Later, Brody stood in his own vineyard, which he planted to fulfill the Jeremiah prophecy, and said of Zertal’s discovery: “It’s the find of the century. Before, it was just a pile of stones, and it was only when we came to live here that somebody found it.”
This is hardly “objective” scholarship in the context of it’s use. Anyone, with a modicum of sense can see what is happening, and how archeology is being used as a tool of domination – a justification, preying upon people with arcane biblical texts. We have a patent problem here, lets get real folks. For those who want to argue, lets stop pontificating about scientific activity lifting it from the “context on the ground.” We need to understand that scholars like Nadia Abu El-Haj would not receive such resistance if she did not know what she was talking about, and that by far we need to counterbalance the propaganda of a media machine here in the United States that wishes to bury the Palestinians and exalt the brutal and murderous occupying forces, all in the name of the biblical archaeological spade, and will use any means at their disposal – even if it means skewing science.
“The immediate question raised here is not the use
of biblical history to validate modern political stances,
but rather the smuggling into ‘objective’ historical
inquiry of values configured by modern experience
and expectation. Such values can never be eliminated,
but surely can, and must, be understood as part of
the historical discourse, a part moreover that usually
directly shapes the nature of questions asked and of
answers presented; the reader can ignore the presence
of these values only at risk of a partial text.”
Christopher Eden
Wherever European Christians went and colonized, it was essentially “promised land for a chosen people”.
The basic ideas that…
a) Because God favors us, we’re better than everybody else and
b) We’re entitled and empowered by God to subjugate any heathen lands
… are so deeply ingrained into so-called Western culture that you really do not have to delve into the specific religious ideas of the Puritans. Even people who do not actually believe in God anymore follow these ideas.
Koshiro –
Of course, but wouldn’t you agree that the U.S. is a special case. Firstly, because it is one of a handful of colonized places where the colonizers were never forced to merge with the indigenous population and, more importantly, because the U.S.’s status as the world’s supoerpower elevates the narrative to a model for other countries, such as Israel.
>> Although Uncle Sam patriots glorify a distorted past that never was, in truth the U.S. was founded on a massive campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing that annihilated most Native Americans and corralled the relatively few survivors into intolerable reservations. Stripped of their land base and way of life, American Indians today endure further devastation as greedy corporations encroach onto their small remaining territories to mine uranium and other resources, often exposing the populations to cancerous pollution.
Yup, and it’s depressing as all hell. (I recently read “American Holocaust” by David E. Stannard. Powerful and depressing stuff. What Israel is doing is textbook.)
>> Both the U.S. and the modern state of Israel were founded on an ideology of a promised land for a chosen people, and to hell with the natives.
Fred Reed (fredoneverything.net), whose writings I admire, nailed it in this article:
Because Jews have a well-earned reputation for being intelligent, one might make the mistake of expecting them necessarily to behave intelligently. No. Brains only provide the means to be more elaborately and ornately stupid. The smart merely make more complex mistakes. Historically, horrendous misjudgements have usually been the children of good minds. When you mix acuity with fanaticism, you get an ungodly stew almost certain to end in disaster. This may be worth thinking about.
Fred Reed, a highly reputable and unbiased source, eljay? NOT.
Ah, yes, the old “Jews are intelligent, but all of them are misguided” except for the followers of Mondoweiss and lunatics like Gilad Atzmon.”
How is that the the vast majority of Jews, supposedly intelligent, don’t know the answers the way you do?
>> Fred Reed, a highly reputable and unbiased source, eljay? NOT.
Who said anything about reputable or unbiased? I said I like his stuff. Stop using Zio-supremacist “common sense” – it hasn’t work for eee, it clearly doesn’t work for you.
>> Ah, yes, the old “Jews are intelligent, but all of them are misguided” …
Who said anything about “all of them are misguided”? Geez, you’re an idiot.
>> How is that the the vast majority of Jews, supposedly intelligent, don’t know the answers the way you do?
I don’t have “the answers”. No one has “the answers”. But Jews are people just like everyone else, and there are both good and bad among them. It’s plenty obvious – and even Fred points it out – that there are plenty of Jews who realize that not everything Zionism is pure and good. I happen to agree with that. You clearly don’t.
longliveisrael, you get nowhere here by capitalizing “NOT.” Did you learn that from Dick Witty? Anybody doing “Jewish geography” finds good Jews and bad Jews who made contributions to humanity’s effort to behave itself in the interest of all humanity, or did the contrary. Some do great good, some do great harm. That’s what one finds objectively. Everybody here can list examples of each.
The Palestinian narrative. If you state a lie loud enough and often enough, it is supposedly no longer a lie. There is absolutely no equal of the genocide of the native population to the Israel/Palestine issue.
1) Jews have lived in Israel since time immemorial and there is undeniable proof to that fact
2) Anyone living in the Ottoman empire and then later the British Mandate area of Palestine, was a Palestinian. Jew, Christian, Atheist, Muslim etc. The land did not “belong” to anyone.
3) Israel was legally founded by the world community.
4) Neighbouring countries chose to go to war against the legal Jewish state. This led to the Palestinian refugee problem, compounded by their Arab/Muslim friends again in 1967 till today.
6) The Palestinian population has grown faster than the Jewish one, so much for genocide.
Of course, none of this makes any difference here, because the issue is not about the Palestinians, it’s about demonizing Israel.
have you read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine?
Have you read “Righteous Victims”?
Witty, yes, here’s a telling snippet: “By 1881, on the eve of the start of the Zionist Jewish influx, Palestine’s population was 457,000 — about 400,000 of them Muslims, 13,000 – 20,000 Jews, and 42,000 Christians (mostly Greek Orthodox). In addition, there were several thousand more Jews who were permanent residents of Palestine but not Ottoman citizens.”
And today Israel’s stance is that the non-jewish population is not entitled to the 22% of land left over after Israel’s wars of aggression to grab more land and control of ME resources, and the Israeli settlements continue to expand on that 22%.
So, Witty, what’s your point?
The point is, this is yet another situation where Witty didn’t actually bother to read the source material he’s squawking about.
The point of Righteous Victims, is that there are two valid, equally authoritative, both compelling stories.
The choice to seek to deny either one is a revision, even when stated in the name of “solidarity”.
…even though you haven’t actually read it. Right?
but their isn’t. their is a valid narrative based on fact and than the Israeli one based on lies and propaganda
No, there aren’t. The biblical story is a myth unsubstantiated by fact. Earnest professionals desperate to find the Bible stories to be true have been digging all over Israel for 100 years to no avail.
So, a book by one person who hates the fact that he is from Israel changes the facts above?
Since you penned that ridiculous article, why not respond instead of pointing to another writer?
You can’t make solid academic research go away by slinging around false accusations of “anti-Semite” or “Israel hater.”
If you can’t address the actual research that counters the crap you’re peddling, just say so.
“Jews.. time immemorial… bla bla”
Jews have lived since the 1600s in New York. But that doesn’t make New York Jewish.
Bread is 1% salt but bread is not salt. Neither is it Jewish.
The Jews as a whole did not live in Palestine. They lived in Eastern Europe and across the Middle East.
“The land did not “belong” to anyone.” This is the biggest crock of Zionist shit.
The land belonged to the people who lived on it. This is the foundation of sovereignty.
The Zionists pressganged the West into voting for their state. The nations of the third world didn’t get to vote. The establishment of the Jewish state in the Middle East was a mistake, as the last 63 years of murder and white phosphorous demonstrate.
Israel should have been founded in upstate New York. Or somewhere in Europe. The Palestinians never gassed anyone. Antisemitism was not their problem. They weren’t guilty.
Demons be demonized.
What’s so hard to understand about that?
If you have an itch do you not scratch?
“1) Jews have lived in Israel since time immemorial and there is undeniable proof to that fact”
So what. That doesn’t give other Jews the right to go and live there, to set up a Jewish state, or to drive out other people who ancestors have also lived in Palestine since time immemorial.
“2) Anyone living in the Ottoman empire and then later the British Mandate area of Palestine, was a Palestinian. Jew, Christian, Atheist, Muslim etc. The land did not “belong” to anyone.”
But all the people living there had a right to go on living there, and to be full and equal citizens of any state that was established on that territory, or in which that teritory was included.
“3) Israel was legally founded by the world community.”
Israel was illegally founded by unilateral declaration. It was offered post factum legitimacy contingent upon the fulfillment of conditions including the repatriation of the refugees. This condition has never been fulfilled.
“it’s about demonizing Israel”
Israel is evil in conception, evil in creation, and evil in conduct. All I do is point out its demonic nature.
Roha –
“That doesn’t give other Jews the right to go and live there, to set up a Jewish state ….. Israel was illegally founded by unilateral declaration.”
That’s a faux pas that borders stupidity. Never heard about the Balfour Declaration and the San Remo conference? The Partition plan – illegal?
The fact that the Arabs did not want a Jewish state in Palestine, was meant to force the cancellation of the legal rights of Jews to an independent state?
It is simply beyond any intellectual decency, this anti-Zionist revisionist endeavour to distort and obliterate factual history.
the jews don’t have a legal right to independent state. repeating that lie doesn’t make it true. self determination is based on residence of territory or by being expelled from ones territory.
“The jews don’t have a legal right to independent state. Self determination is based on residence of territory or by being expelled from ones territory.”
What kind of drugs do the Israel- and Jew-haters take on daily basis?
That’s the best rebuttal you have, huh? “uuuuuh u r a druggie.”
“Never heard about the Balfour Declaration”
A British PM favoured a “Jewish National Home”, not a state.
“and the San Remo conference?”
Likewise. And in both the JNH was conditional upon no infringment of the rights of the people already living there.
“The Partition plan – illegal?”
It had no legal force until it was accpeted by all parties. It wasn’t.
” the cancellation of the legal rights of Jews to an independent state?”
There is no such legal right.
Jonah,
Perhaps you misread those documents you cite. Here’s a salient chunk from 1939 that encompasses (because it states clearly that it does) those you reference, and contradicts your foolish statement above:
Mere facts, MRW, mere facts.
lli and jonah will not be moved by such trifles.
You could say by way of analogy, RoHa, that the hasbara bots here just print more fiat dollars. There’s no gold in them thar Zionist hills.
LLI – how do any of your six points answer the accusation of ethnic cleansing?
1) Nonsense. First of all, “time immemorial” is a term belonging to mythology, not history. Second, an Ashkenazi from Europe has no more connection to Israel than his Catholic neighbor has. Superstitions about mythic forces and imagined blood ties, that’s all.
2) Nonsense. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians owned land in Israel. They actually still do.
3) Nonsense. Israel was founded by declaring its independence.
4) Nonsense. a) The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians preceded any hostile actions by Arab states. Deir Yassin came first, then came Arab intervention. b) The Arab states intervened in territory that was not, by Israel’s own definition, Israeli.
5) There appears not to be a number 5, but judging from experience, if there was, it’d be nonsense.
6) Nonsense again. That something is not successful is not any kind of indicator that it’s not being attempted. In any case, in areas such as the Jordan valley, the Palestinian population has declined dramatically.
“5) There appears not to be a number 5, but judging from experience, if there was, it’d be nonsense.”
Great piece of induction!
How long is “time immemorial?”
No, it wasn’t. Israel created itself and said “F**k you” to anyone who objected.
Oh, boo-hoo. That great economic engine, the land of more Nobel Prize winners in the western world, the creator of the greatest military outside of the US, the only democracy in the Middle East, is being demonized. You poor baby. If you can’t stand the heat of nationhood, you should have stayed out of the kitchen.
Manifest destiny was the US ideology. Zionism is the Israeli ideology.
I just read somewhere that there were 60 million buffalo on the Great Plains before the first European contact. By 1889 there were 1000.
I love John Trudell ‘s observations on the industrial society that wiped out the one of his ancestors 7 generations ago. This is one of the best.
link to indianermusik.de
We weren´t lost and
We didn´t need any book
Then the great spirit
Met the great lie
Indians are jesus
Hanging from the cross
Hanging from the cross
In the name of their savior
Forcing on us
The trinity of the chain
Guilt sin and blame
The trinity of the chain
Guilt sin and blame
Hanging from the cross
Hanging from the cross
In the name of the mother
The child and the human spirit
Indians are jesus
Hanging from the cross
Hanging from the cross
Hanging from the cross
Hanging from the cross
Damnation or salvation
Among the
Terrorism of freedom
A civilizing process
Where the rule of law
Is the law of rule
The law is a lie
The law is a lie
Hanging from the cross
Hanging from the cross
Their ego empire
The ethnic rich
Their cruelty of class
Imitation opulence
Crumbs that look
Like cake to the masses
Cake to the masses
Hanging from the cross
Hanging from the cross
We don´t care
Who they think they are
They look like
Treaty makers to us
Making one more promise
So they´ll have
Another promise to break
Another promise to break
Hanging from the cross
Hanging from the cross
They keep asking us
What´s wrong with us
We keep saying back
What´s wrong with you
What´s wrong with you
Is what´s wrong with us
Hanging from the cross
Hanging from the cross
Indians are jesus
Hanging from the cross
Hanging from the cross
In the name of the mother
The child and the human spirit
Indians are jesus
Hanging from the cross
Hanging from the cross
Noam Chomsky has some blistering remarks on all this. He further suggests that the US military naming its weapons “apache” and “tomahawk” would be like the Nazi army naming its weapons “jew” and “gypsy.”
link to kasamaproject.org
I was going to link to Chomsky if you hadn’t, ish, though more perhaps because his analysis of the operation and its legality seems to be more logical than most.
Cole totally gets it wrong here – he seems to have changed recently.
link to juancole.com
In a way, the association of the indigenous people in mainstream culture with negative concepts/images, is shared by both Israel and the US.
The “Apache” is a machine that destroys, much like “Allahu Akbar”, “Muslim” and “Hijab” are threats (to the West).
Part of the process of dehumanization, is associating and viewing the enemy through such negative stereotypes.
Mmm, Avi, I think Geronimo, Apache, Tomahawk, are names that conjured up in the minds of those who used those labels the abstractions
of brave righteousness, brave righteous people, and a proven deadly weapon when sailed through the air. No thought, especially ironic thought, was given other than that–the main key to power is not only dehumanization of the other, but literally the blase confiscation of historical memory and its associations as it resides in the hearts and minds of the target victims. Perhaps you imply that too? All the names of military OPs and military tools, from planes, to tanks, to missiles, etc are cartoon devices, very effective ones.
The history of colonial New England is full of analogies between white English coming to Algonquin territories and the Hebrews coming to Canaan. It’s simply everywhere. See any decent history of New England: for instance, Perry Miller’s The New England Mind and Errand into the Wilderness, Alden Vaughan’s New England Frontier.
For more versions of the analogy, see the inimitable Benny Morris, Indian Killer: “Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history.”
For the other side, see Mahmoud Darwish’s “Speech of the Red Indian” in ADAM OF TWO INDIANS.
Why do you think Ariel Sharon invited Dubya out to his “ranch” in the Negev?
>> “Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history.”
Sounds a lot like eee and RW. Curious: Does Morris then paraphrase the two Zio-supremacists and state “Currently [the annihilation of the Indians] is not necessary”?
I guess Morris would say, or has said (?), that dropping the bomb on Japan, the bombs on Dresden, the general policy of bombing German city civilian populations, the “transfer” of 15 million ethnic Germans from their historical homeland’s in the East upon the heels of WW2, for further example, were cases where the overall final good justifies harsh and cruel acts committed in the course of history? Just asking.
Yes. Those are good points.
Why do you think Ariel Sharon invited Dubya out to his “ranch” in the Negev?
How ironic that the father of the state-run program of colonization on the West Bank was the owner of Israel’s only private ranch.
Self-hating neurotic Jews like longliveisrael are afraid that pointing out the obvious about Israel’s murderous racism means that the world is on to them too. Their entire lives they’ve been petrified of developing an identity outside of “jew”. They die a little bit every day. They’ve confused their already flimsy identity with Israel. If their plucky little friend is “demonized” (i.e. held accountable for its crimes against humanity) – they’re reminded how sterile their existence really is. Many of them have been rejected by pretty Jewish girls since junior high so they try and overcompensate by being Israel defenders. Textbook schlimiels.
“Their entire lives they’ve been petrified of developing an identity outside of “jew”. They die a little bit every day.”
That is the effect of clinging to these tribal “identities”. (Not just “Jew”, either.) They end up as obstacles to a full human life.
Debonnaire,
From where I sit, honest fact-based rebuttals are in order, not name-calling and personal/ad hominem attacks. It debases the movement for equality and justice when those of who are in solidarity with the human rights of the Palestinians engage in such behavior.
Matthew
That’s a great stance and all but do you have any idea how often we have to keep repeating the same facts over and over and over again? And meanwhile cads like LLI and eee and Witty call us “fascists” and “anti-Semites” and “liars” and worse?
I agree that we need facts, but honestly? Being polite when someone is shitting on you is meaningless. Ask the Gazans what cease fire earned them.
I have to say you also if not debase it, take away from it, despite what good intentions you might have, with false jingo statements and comparing yester-year with today.
Maybe you have a personal thing about what happened to the American Indians, a lot of people do, but this 2011 not 1800.
Maybe you have the Chomsky syndrome, a fixation on e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g that ever happend in the world being America’s fault.
Whatever….
The bottom line is what Israel is doing TODAY has nothing to with what Americans did in 1800.
You can say it is similar, but even that is a waste of time and totally pointless because it adds absolutely nothing to converations about stopping it.
So let me ask…..what was your point or goal in comparing early America to Israel’s I/P?
What was your point is trying to say the reason for the foundings of both countries was the same?
Is there some point there that is pertinent to I/P today?
Except to say we did it too……400 years ago.
Debonnaire, hence the popularity, more generally, with movies such as Revenge Of The Nerds? Reminds me of gnome Kissinger’s, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” He really liked those long-legged beauties hanging around him. And, just look at Hollywood.
“The history of colonial New England is full of analogies between white English coming to Algonquin territories and the Hebrews coming to Canaan.”
Francis Jennings wrote a very good book on this also–”The Invasion of America–Indians, Colonialism and the Cant of Conquest.” It was partly reading books like this that prepared me for understanding what Israel was doing.
Actually what is happening in Israel is true of all settler states, they all have the same methodologies and it is only ignorance of history (or deception) by which people argue the “unique” nature of Israel. The parallels are striking:
At a briefing at the Palestine Center in Washington, D.C., BC Editorial Board member William Fletcher, Jr. discussed the similarities and differences between Israeli-occupied Palestine and apartheid-era South Africa focusing on the logic, objectives and strategy of settler states. He also addressed the opposition to Jimmy Carter’s new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, and urged a continued mobilization around the issue of Palestine. These are excerpts from his observations. I have taken the liberty of emphasizing some salient points, although the whole speech is outstanding.
“The logic of both Israel and apartheid-era South Africa can be found in their common origins as settler states. In both cases, the settlers CREATED MYTHS, semi-religious or explicitly religious, including that GOD HAD PROVIDED THE LAND for them and that the land was unoccupied upon arrival, a very, very common theme in every settler state, whether it’s the United States, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc. In both cases, the settlers portrayed themselves to be VICTIMS against natives who were described as SEMI-BARBARIC OR INTOLERANT. Given the permanent state of siege, every settler state AGGRESSION came to be DESCRIBED as a DEFENSIVE ACT, an approach also common with the United States. By way of example, for South Africa, incursions into Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe or anywhere else always against alleged TERRORISTS were justified as alleged defensive actions.”
APARTHEID ISRAEL : TWO WALLED CITIES
The only thing missing now is the appearance of the assholes who try to deflect the early US genocidal actions and intentions by claiming it was only disease that (or for the most part) wiped out the indigenous.
Finkelstein also has a chapter (“Settlement, Not Conquest”) in his book “Image and Reality of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict” where he identifies the commonalities of the language and attitudes and methods adopted by settler colonial states, including the US and Israel. It’s bizarre seeing a couple of people in this thread who seem to think that these commonalities are fictions invented by hasbarists.
I don’t disagree with anything said so far about the early US genocidal actions and intentions, however, the numbers of native Americans and native South Americans who died simply due to exposure to Europeans
is very large. The US Cavalry carried out genocide, as the Conquistadors and their followers did too, for example, but many natives in the Americas died simply as they had no immunity to, e.g., smallpox. It’s of some relevance because the term “genocide” always includes repetition of the total deaths of the natives. It’s similar to disputing the standard 6 million figure, or the original deaths assigned to Auschwitz, which since the early days, has been lowered. The truth
is enough to make the case for genocide, which may be had even if not consciously fully intended. I guess, I’m laboring to say that I doubt each time the whites traded with the natives, giving them blankets, they had the slightest clue those blankets would kill the native traders. I doubt the Conquistadors had a clue either that they were carrying disease as a weapon. Am I wrong? As to the Shoah, even if there were no gas chambers dedicated to eterminate living jewish and gypsie souls, by herding people in a camp sans minimal daily survival needs and with everything making it probable many camp denizens would die of “natural causes” like germs, disease, lack of the survival basics, and malnutrition generally, I would still call the practice genocide by the simple device of using common sense as to health probabilities under the circumstances in the camps. Same, e.g., regarding the POW camps during the American Civil War? I guess the truth is, to make a point to the masses in order to enlist them in your cause, “keep it simple?”
You will notice that the debate over genocide (as well as other crimes of similar and lesser proportions), that is the debate initiated by apologists, is always about intention. And this is the same debate about terrorism.
1. One of the key claims of holocaust deniers literature is that Hitler was unaware of it, and that there was no planned extermination.
2. One of the key claims that you raise about the Amerindian genocide is that it wasn’t planned.
3. The millions of Africans who dies on the Passage. It wasn’t planned.
4. The Nakba. (Benni Morris) It wasn’t planned.
5. The Armenian Genocide. The Turkish claim is that “it wasn’t planned.”
6. More people died in Iraq as a result of the invasion and the sanctions regime than died in Auschwitz. But, it wasn’t the intention. The goal was to remove Saddam/prevent nuclear Armageddon. So how can you compare?
7. The difference between the IDF and Hamas? IDF doesn’t “target” civilians. It just shoots in the air, and the children jump high to catch the bullets.
Such a long history of these bumbling genocidaires, always stepping on corpses inadvertently. They just walk their walk and people drop around them, and they have no idea how it happens that so many people die in ways that just happen to serve their interests.
Why does intention matter that much? Why is the yardstick of these actions the moral purity of the oppressor’s consciousness? Why would we want to look at all these historical crimes from the perspective of the criminal consciousness? Because it is the criminals who often write those history? Because we identify with the criminal and are looking for ways to wash our hands?
Accidental is what nobody can imagine. The death of people through bombing, disease, lack of care, institutional destruction, internment and expulsion is a normal outcome of those practices, and one should never give a hoot about the state of consciousness of those responsible. What matters it what happened to the victims.
“looking at such crimes from the perspective of the criminal conciousness” & “because we identify with the criminal and are looking for ways to wash our hands”
yes, what matters is what happened to the victims
after all, one way or another, aren’t we all victims?
oh, don’t like the thought of being a victim?
too anger provoking?
too depressing?
better to pretend one is rich and powerful?
try out for american idol?
anything so as not to identify with the down and out
the ones whose plight we’re partially responsible for
for making like there’s noone there
that nothing bad is happening to them
and that if bad things are happening to them, it’s there own fault for not having what it takes to make it in a savage world
The US Cavalry carried out genocide, as the Conquistadors and their followers did too, for example, but many natives in the Americas died simply as they had no immunity to, e.g., smallpox.
Virgin Field Epidemic. 90% of North and South America depopulated from this. The disease depopulated both continents at an alarming rate.
I can’t believe this is the only mention of smallpox in this entire discussion.
I came back to this thread and found this argument about epidemics vs. genocide.
Morally speaking it’s a side issue. I for one am perfectly aware that the vast majority of Native Americans died because of disease, but many also died of genocide and ethnic cleansing, cruel treatment and so forth. It was convenient for the settlers that they died–in the case of the Spanish it was less convenient since they wanted them for slave labor, but I don’t see this as a great improvement morally. Cruelty contributed to the death rate.
It’s true that in some alternate universe one could imagine Europeans coming to America with nothing but the best and noblest intentions and there still would have been catastrophic epidemics. But they didn’t come with good intentions–they came intending to loot and steal.
Its sounds to me like a lot of people are assuming arguments that aren’t being made. I don’t think either bob nor TR nor American are seriously disputing that ethnic cleansing of American Indians, and sometimes genocide, was a significant part of European conquest of the Americas and occurred up through and beyond the founding of the US.
Bob’s point is that Taylor’s statement that the the US founding was based on the annihilation of “most Native Americans” is bad history, since the vast majority of Native Americans were killed by disease introduced from Europe that happened long before most of them had even met a white man. His response was first in a direct email to MT, so I doubt that he was trying to divert the discussion here. Far from it. One should be able to point out bad history without being accused of denial or apologetics.
And TR and American seem to be saying that Biblical references to a “chosen people” had no significance to the early European settlers. (Of course, the idea that early Zionism was based on religious beliefs is quite a stretch too, but that’s another point.) I’m not a scholar on early American history, but I am well aware of two facts that seem to support their points. First, most of the US Founding Fathers were either Episcopalians, Unitarians, or Deists, with the latter two not even being, strictly speaking, Christian beliefs. Second and related to this, many current day Christian Fundamentalists are going out of their way to “prove” that the Founding Fathers wanted the US to be a “Christian nation”, and this is oftimes where these attempts to correlate Biblical references with the reasons for the US’s founding and the motives of its earliest immigrants. But that is also bad history.
Very good and well put.
Tree wrote,
“many current day Christian Fundamentalists are going out of their way to “prove” that the Founding Fathers wanted the US to be a “Christian nation”, and this is oftimes where these attempts to correlate Biblical references with the reasons for the US’s founding and the motives of its earliest immigrants. But that is also bad history.”
Thanks for adding that, tree. It’s a very good point. I think it’s likely that Christian Fundamentalists are not the only writers in recent times who may have had ulterior motives in attempting to revise and even distort history wrt this subject. There’s probably a lively market for all the “promised land” and “chosen people” stuff.
America’s ethnic cleansing of Indians, without the proper context *after the fact *, helps Israel defenders to justify and relativize their ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. We should keep this clearly in mind and bring it up in debates.
America did ethnic-cleanse Indians in the 19th century, but offered Indians citizenship all along and completed that task in 1924 with the Indian Citizenship Act link to en.wikipedia.org .
Indians have been subject to discrimination which has radically lessened throughout the 20th century and the 21st. The last violence for Indian rights was nearly 40 years ago. link to en.wikipedia.org
Take a look at a central website of Indian affairs, Indian Country link to indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com, and you will see various activities in the Indian community, but no active militarism or violent protest that I can see. Those issues are very much in the past. A typical Indian is living among everyone else and living a modern life, not on a reservation.
This is important because it gives Americans proper standing to speak to Israel about ethnic cleansing. It’s critically important that Israel take the same journey as America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc, and offer the native population citizenship and equal rights.
We are forgetting the fact that US engaged in criminal activities from the very begining og its existence and it is continuing to do so. The foucs has changed. At its begining in UK , it was a religious -political movemnet aginst the majority ,it lost and it left the shore ( It is not the first in history. Moorish Spain was founded by the clan marginalized in its own land , the God-King rule was established in Cambodia,laos,and Thailand bythe fleeing expatriates Indian Brahmins-Warrior caste ,Mughal empire was founded by Babur who could not make headway in his own country and obviously the Israelites who either did same or came up with that explanation. Mone of them survived eventually. Incidently in Mughal empire David was often cited in the royal court by the sycophnats to claim legitimacy .Akbar’s genealogy included David as one of the forfathers! )
But it is not whta US has done back then but what US has been doing since then until now. The space and time are different but the savagery and the reasons underpinning those behaviors are still very much mired in the same sense of superiority and uniquness. It was based on Bible .Now it is based on the democratic principles,human rights,freedom of expressions, free trade,natioanl security,and aparently on the yearning of the suppressed peopel for the same values worldwide[ even here we hear the echo of the Pope who claimed that Latin America was yearning for the words of the Bible before the arrival of Spainsh ]). The religious utterencaes of Teddy Roosevelt or of Mc Kiney before invading other countries or the use of religio-morality rationality by Wilson or Truman or of refernece to the “values based on Judeo-Christain principles” by our current crop of media perosnnel,political leaders,academics ,or the use of religious symbols l by Reagan/Bush Jr, ,frequent referneces to religion by Aschroft,Bush Jr and current fear mongering against sham threat of Sharia by governemnt official/media/priests are the continuation of the same overt and covert use of religious images to further core interest of the reining elite. Back 200 years ago a majority bought those ideas and since then the majority have not relinquished its role in proviidng the broad base grasroot support to these activities. The differences lie in the facts that people now are allowed to question for the elites know that they can control the flow and effects of those informations.
traintosiberia, I agree. Things are changing and a lot of this has to do with any regime’s losing control of information via the internet, a significant factor in the Arab Spring, wand why it came when finally did. The US government, the Arab governments, Israel, are all using control of the information, and of course, Wikileaks is just a taste of things to come. The positive aspect is that as mass man, any “little man,” or “underground man,” any version in any country or territory, connects up with the admittedly chaotic internet and electronic social networks reaching globally, the more diffuse power will become, which is good for anyone who thinks the more truth, the better, net. This POV assumes that most humans, given all the facts, even those not favoring his or her convenience or existing privilege, will result in the most good. The contrary POV assumes that the nature of man is such, he or she “can’t handle the truth.” Hobbes therefore tended to resting his hope in what amounts to a small circle of “philosopher kings.” But the internet/electronic social network will continue to throw a wrench is such a state of affairs. Sort of like the American concept of “an informed citizenry” writ across the globe, and trickling (ever faster) down to the guy with the hoe, or herding sheep, or working at Walmart, so to speak.
The question is, will it always be only international bankers that see beyond local concerns everywhere, and is the next step to somehow extend the goal of international banking and Wall St speculation beyond their narrow goal? China will not in the longer run be able to
stop the penetration of information beyond its Chinese wall. Seems everything is up for grabs, more so than at the cusp of WW1 or WW2; and new solutions must be found that recognizes with more than rhetoric the basic rights and dignity of all humans. The new “game plan” is in the works, in a world just chock full of humans who are not needed to make material profit for those who own and control the most, with new and old leaders jockying for musical chairs. Look to Egypt for signals of the new (old?) approach, not to the US or Israel. China’s looking too because it cannot keep information from its own people forever.
Robert, I think it is imperative to broaden ones reading materials, so that you do not become captive to skewed views – propaganda. There have always been two essential camps in indigenous history, those who have been made accomplices to the conquerors and those who continue to resist. There is no hard break that one can call the new assimilated indigenous people living happily ever after as a whole, not that there has not been some better conditions but they have certainly not been universal.
In fact, killing the indigenous in other countries has always been the earmark of US imperialism and is merely the extension of colonialism, imperialism and colonialism are intimately wedded globally. It is one thing to say that the US has somewhat learned its lesson domestically, but that certainly is not the case regarding foreign policy – and that is why foreign policy today currently mirrors the past of American history. Likewise if it repeats the domestic atrocities in foreign activity it is not likely that it has learned its lesson domestically.
CENSORED NEWS
Quite frankly, nothing is “over” yet, and there is always new ways the indigenous are savaged seemingly always on the horizon. After you have committed genocide (and continue to commit genocide in less spectacular ways, but no less deadly) on the indigenous populations you cannot turn around and say “here is your citizenship” when you have and are in the process of destroying a way of life –
IT AIN’T OVER
Oh, and just in case some are not aware of it, those who live in a fantasy land and think you are eternally privileged, I have news for you – according to elite global design you are the next “Indians” –
33,000,000
(note, the above video was done in 2003)
This has brought about a noted reversal, beset with irony –
NOW YOU WANT…
VR, re: “Likewise if it repeats the domestic atrocities in foreign activity it is not likely that it has learned its lesson domestically.” So, you don’t think Obama (likely to be elected to a second term, I think) has learned said lesson domestically? If so, I agree. I don’t think he’s up to the job. He may think he will be, next term? Nothing really signals this in his conduct, as distinguished from his rhetoric. Instead, unwittingly, he will bring a soft Civil War2 to his own country, and a WW3 commencing in the ME. I don’t know what it would take to shock Obama into learning the lesson you refer to–and I certainly think the Republicans are dinosaurs, both culturally and economically. So now what?
VR,
I think that this point of view is a practical and moral mistake. Given that settler-colonialism is part of the US, Israel, and numerous other nations, there needs to be *some way* to make amends to this and bring conflict to an end. If there is nothing that the settler population can do to ever bring the conflict to an end, then there is no incentive to do anything at all.
It’s very important to recognize improvement, even as we acknowledge that racism continues. Racism is something to be always fought, but we will never succeed 100%. In the distant future, if a little white kid sees a black kid and begins to comment on it, then racism is not 100% over. And in my example, it emerges just from the observation that people are different and having opinions.
So citizenship, and the rights that it confers, including equal protection under the law, is the critical step in turning the page on the colonialist past. South Africa still has big problems today, but separate laws for separate races is not one of them. We can feel a lot better about South Africa today than we could before the end of Apartheid, even with all of today’s problems.
The US’s treatment of any Indian who dares question the system is brutal. Leonard Peltier is one example .
John Trudell’s family was murdered.
osama bin laden as the modern day equivalent of geronimo
in what world?
bin laden of twin towers infamy
geronimo
the apache legend
similarities between these two men? Only in that each happened to be a spiritual leader who’s call was for freedom from the conquistadores by way of enacting vengeance upon them – for what these foreigners had wrought upon their people
and each had his followers
his warriors
some willing to die for what they had come to believe in
meanwhile the occupiers considered him to be satan himself
back then, but no longer, since today geronimo is universally looked upon as having been a noble and heroic liberator and totally dedicated to his people. Time, somehow, washing away all the negativity that was attached to geronimo way back then
which raises the question as to, down the road a few generations, how people will look upon osama bin laden?
still as satan, with no ifs, maybes or buts?
with a variable number and degree of ifs*, maybes & buts?
like geronimo, as a near saint?
*if, for example, the cia hadn’t taught him how to be a terrorist?
Do, people, in the end, always, so to say, but their trust in some Madoff?
Is Obama just another Madoff? We know the Republicans don’t even reach that level in terms of caring for every American. We need more discussion about the relationship between US domestic affairs and US foreign policy. In fact, the average American needs to get the picture of just how much the two are related, especially in economic affairs. The IL is just one example, an example not really dependent on economic priorities? Isn’t the answer to that last question, yes? I find it hard to believe that an Israel First policy is really in the USA’s best economic interests, despite the fact I believe non-zionist American Imperialism uses Israel as a cop-on-the-block over there. Neither is said policy a global strategy plus.
Does anyone actually doubt that the foundations of U.S. history are steeped in slavery, land theft, and genocide? and the European presence in the Americas was powered by greed and greased with slavery and murder? And that the Americans have squandered their ill-gotten gain by the endless war/s since 1898?
geronimo and osama bin laden
both inspired the masses
both hunted down
geronimo captured
obl killed
both were vengeful
geronimo against those who were out to destroy the indian way of life
obl against western domination of the islamic world
and both were popular
geronimo for his leadership in the war against the colonizers
obl for the power and fervor of his religious beliefs
his call for a forced march back to almost a millenia & a half ago
geronimo, on the other hand, would feel right at home wherever there are people struggling to take back their homeland from the colonizer
Who were the Apaches fighting before the whites came? Nobility & Justice, & human dignity is not derived simply from the color of the skin of whom you are fighting, is it? There’s a deeper problem, although I admire Geronimo immensely.
Does anyone know why professor Chomsky changed his mind on 9/11?
In his 2003/2004 video entitled On Power, Dissent and Racism, Chomsky explained that al-Qa’ida was behind the 9/11 attacks.
Then in an interview conducted in early 2010 he explained that there was no evidence to support the claim that al-Qa’ida had carried out the attacks.
can someone explain the term “ethnic cleansing” that is used relative to this blog..
It is my understanding that Ethnic Cleansing is the use of force or threat of force to remove, whether by evicting, driving-out or killing members of an ethnic group from a geographic area for the purpose of maintaining the ethnic exclusivity/purity of the dominant group within that geographic area.
Hamishe_Sabz, look at what happened to the Jews & Gypsies (Roma) under the Hitler regime (1932-’45). In the contemporary West, this is seen as a no-no. And read A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans 1944-1950, by Alfred -Maurice de Zayas. This is ignored by the West.
Then apply both to the activities of Israel/US since Truman as regards the Palestinian people. For starters.
Here I must inject additional information:
So called “germans” lived in those east european countries for about 150 years or so, placed there during the occupation by the austrian emperor or the prussian king to dominate the land. During those 7-8 generations they hardly learned the local language, lived in separate communities and had mostly their own schools and either paid lower or no taxes at all.
During WWII many those “germans” joined the german army and the SS and fought against their homeland.
After the war in several countries, but not all, they were asked, are you hungarian, yugoslavian, etc. or are you german? If you say you are german, you must leave the country and go to Germany. They had the choice of staying by giving up the claim for german papers, and many did.
Can you imagine a group of people living in the USA for 150 years, saying they are not americans, hardly speak english and be faithful to their old country they left a long time ago?
Yes, we have such a group, the jews who sell their country to support Israel, spy for Israel, send huge amounts to Israel, join the israeli army.
Should they not be asked to make the same choice the germans did have to make?
“placed there during the occupation by the austrian emperor or the prussian king to dominate the land.”
Nonsense.
When talking about ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe, there are two distinct groups:
a) Germans from Silesia, Pomerania, East Prussia, the Sudetenland and some other areas where the overwhelming majority of the population had been German-speaking for centuries (far longer than 150 years) and which actually belonged to Germany (or in the case of the Sudetenland Austria, which again was considered part of Germany up and until the mid-19th century) before 1945 resp. 1914.
In these cases, it was clear-cut ethnic cleansing. Conquering armies expelled (or murdered) the natives and replaced them with settlers who had no connection whatsoever to the territories they annexed. At the end of WW2, the most terrible and bitter war ever, the Allies simply assumed for themselves the right to annex large parts of defeated Germany and expel the inhabitants. Sugarcoating this is a sign of ignorance or political indoctrination, and making claims of “150 years” or “separate communities” are flat-out nonsense when talking about these areas.
b) Ethnic Germans in Romania, Russia etc.
Of course these were not ‘placed by’ Prussian or Austrian rulers because these never exercised any power over the territories in questions (Prussian dominance over the volga, yeah right…)
Rather, they had migrated mostly at the initiative of the actual rulers of those territories (especially in the case of Russia) who sought skilled immigrants for the purpose of developing their lands. Of course, at the time this actually happened (~18th century, so also longer than 150 years) nobody cared about the ethnic/nationalist attitudes you backprojected onto this prenationalist age.
In any case, these people were also expelled, regardless of individual judgments. And they were most definitely not being given a choice in that matter, no more than Palestinians were given a choice of staying in Israel.
The Polish Piast Dunasty invited Germans into their country from the 12th through the 14th Century. Their industry was a big contribution to Polish prosperity. Generally, the German were invited during the Middle Ages by Polish rulers. The Cistercian Order christianized Pomerania; The Polish princes asked the Teutonic Order to help them rule the non-Slavic peoples, including the Pruzzens, on the Baltic Sea. German settlers moved across Central and Eastern Europe, e.g., King Ottokar 11 (d. 1278) promoted German settlements in Bohemia and Moravia. The Sudetenland dates back 700 years. The primeval Carpathian forests were cleared by the German settlers. During the Mongul overrun, the Hungarian king Bela IV brought mostly German settlers to Siebenbuergen to protect his borders, etc. And so on.
In short, to date back ethnic German settlers in Easter Europe only 150 years is absurd. The forced transfer of them after WW2 was in every sense of the word ethnic cleansing.
you have been reading books by german historians haven’t you? the poles were mistrustful of the germans and as a policy tried to keep them at a distance.
pjdude, what you say may be true but the German settlers were invited as I described, and they made contributions as I said. And I see you did not deny anything I said. Jealousy is always a factor in history.
citizen and koshiro
You may have your info from books, written by german/austrian authors, however I WAS THERE IN PERSON!!! History is written by the victors and twisted accordingly.
Hungarian king Bela invited the sachsonians to settle in Transsylvania as future hungarian citizens, but not to set up their own land. He had to send an army to restore order after they announced their own kingdom.
I was talking about Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, if you read my comment, not about the whole eastern Europe. I made a mistake with the 150 years, it should be 200 – 230!
After the turks were driven out of Hungary during 1696,( which at that time included a great part of Yugoslavia, Romania, the whole of Slovakia and a part of Austria and Ukraina), the land was devastated and the population killed.
Empress Theresa, settled tens of thousands of german immigrants strategically to build a defensive line with their settlements. They were given land, (land that did not belong to the empress), money to start and did not have to pay taxes at all. The hungarian village next door did not have these privilages. This settlements were also to control the native hungarians over the years, as they were not happy about the 400 years austrian occupation.
The rest is just like my earlier comment, my family rented to transient germans who were going to Germany, we got their stories in person. Not like you arrogant “besserwissers”.
pjdude
You are correct. A thousand years ago Brandenburg, the site of Berlin today, was a polish herzogtum! Schlesien was conquered by Friedrich the Great during the 18th century.
If those german immigrants became local citizens generations earlier, as we expect everyone in the USA, then they would not had those problems! However they stayed german, spoke german, had german schools, so they were part of that bloody enemy.
I do not call it a just revenge, however, if you consider what the german armies did during the war in those countries, expelling them was actually doing them a favour.
“however I WAS THERE IN PERSON”
who knew that one of the commenters here is 500 – 1000 yrs old and knows exactly what happened. Eyewitness to history. Just amazing.
Told you long time ago. You just wouldn’t listen.
If Zionism is illegitimate then if you are an honest person you should denounce “Americanism” as pure evil. If the establishment of the state of Israel is a mistake then the foundation of the United States is a lethal error.
When you express your racist hate to the state of Israel and to its residents (RoHa: “Israel is evil in conception, evil in creation, and evil in conduct. All I do is point out its demonic nature”. Side note – Also the Nazis claimed that Jews are demons in their nature.) you make the life of Hasbara agents easy. They can truthfully dismiss you as antisemites.
In America today, there is no law that privileges one ethnic or religious group over another. So, “Americanism” is not the same as “Zionism”, at least not at the present time. Besides, what is “Americanism” that you equate to Zionism? Do you even understand what “Americanism” means? Hint: It doesn’t mean what you think it means.
Anyway, no one here has ever made the case that the United States was not founded on the annihilation of the indigenous Native Americans.
In addition, the United States was founded in 1776, long before anything resembling International Law or Geneva Conventions, or Nuremberg Trials ever existed.
Native Americans in the US are American citizens.
By contrast, Israel continues to occupy the West Bank, the Golan Heights and besiege the Gaza Strip in contravention of International Law, the Geneva Conventions and all the decisions that came out as a result of the Nuremberg Trials.
Needless to say, Palestinians under occupation are not citizens of Israel and have no recourse when it comes to the Israeli civil court system. They simply have no access to such system as they are subject to the military court system.
So ethnically cleansing people, looting their property, demolishing their homes, stealing their water and killing them in scores is not evil or demonic?
Well, it’s good to know that you have your moral compass to guide you. Methinks it’s broken.
Hasbaratists dismiss anyone who criticizes Israel as an anti-Semite, anyway. They certainly don’t need your help or this forum’s help. But, with no sense of irony, you accuse this forum of anti-Semitism simply for pointing out Israel’s own evil actions. And as if to make a complete mockery of yourself, you opened with:
Avi, I’m sorry to inform you that you’ve just wasted your own valuable time by detailing Israel’s wrong deeds and policies.
I know all about them and I agree they should be stopped and changed.
The difference is that I do not think that the creation of Israel and its founding ideology are some kind of outstanding evil in comparison to other nations in this world, especially not in comparison to the US of A.
I would say that Israel needs to change in a way which resembles post civil rights movement USA. It seems that an outside pressure is needed for the process to start but it has to come from a place of justice for all and respect for the national aspirations of both the Palestinians and the Israelis. It would be immoral to impose a solution which endangers the physical existence OR the cultural existence of either community in the land of Israel/Palestine. A Bi-National state or a full implementation of the right of return would be a solution of this kind because it would deteriorate the region to a Yugoslavia like chaos.
Tal, yes, the manner of establishment of the state of Israel and the state of the US were evil. The methods and philsophy used to justify both in the early years were hypocritcal and lethal. Nobody’s arguing with your straw man. Why should we listen to a straw man? He doesn’t even effectively keep away the predatory birds from our moral/ethical gardens. Are you from Children Of The Corn? Tal, quick shaking hands with Nuremberg defendant Goering; the world’s sense of morality and ethics has moved on since 1945. Or do you still say Joshua is a role model? If so, please do what Goering did so he did not have to go to trial.
The establishment of Israel was not a mistake. It was a crime. So was the colonization of the US. But an honest person is obliged to do only one thing, support ending oppression wherever it is. The past needs to be remembered, but no matter how honest a person is, the dead cannot be resurrected. There are only redeemed through our actions in the present.
In the US, that means fighting for equality and against racism and all other forms of oppression, and that will require a revolution one day, because the current system of government cannot be reformed, although few people accept it. In Israel, it means ending Zionism. The only difference is that ending Zionism is easier and will take less time, inshallah, than ending the somewhat less disgusting political system in the US.
Now you are right that a couple of people here are making your Hasbara efforts easier by pretending that the US would be a wonderful place (it is, if you own property on Martha’s Vineyard,) but for a few annoying Jews.
But the good news is, no matter how much they make your Hasbara easier, the starting point is so bad that it won’t help you. Watch the people of Egypt and Syria. They are the future. You are a roadblock. There is nothing more depressing in the world than that. That you have made yourself a roadblock on the road to freedom. My deepest condolescenses. Honestly.
evildoer writes,
“Now you are right that a couple of people here are making your Hasbara efforts easier by pretending that the US would be a wonderful place (it is, if you own property on Martha’s Vineyard,) but for a few annoying Jews. ”
Evildoer, my friend, would you provide an explanation and some context for this statement? It looks like a complaint.
firstly, if evil is as evil does
through and through
israel is not only evil
(on account of perpetual war + global warming = doomsday and time running out)
it’s dangerous to the health of all living beings, including but not limited to jewish settlers in occupied palestine
whereas, the dissolution of the state of israel (not its people) will indicate that a shift is underway – from the almost exclusively me to the seriously we
here in america
everywhere else too
at last the issue of a free palestine will be center stage
what it would be like to be living in gaza?
to be a palestinian
what sort of world now
versus what sort of world
once palestine is free -
“well wadayaknow, and what a relief to learn that it wasn’t me alone with that crazy dream about a just and peaceful world”
& “who’d a thunk all it would take was for palestine to be free?”
but then,
until the last chain is broken
none of us will be free
so doesn’t it follow that only the slave can free us all?
(RoHa: “Israel is evil in conception, evil in creation, and evil in conduct. All I do is point out its demonic nature”. Side note – Also the Nazis claimed that Jews are demons in their nature.)
This may be hard for you to grasp, since Zionists are some of the worse anti-semites, but “Israel” DOES NOT EQUAL”Jews”. I’d give you points for the failed attempt but its been used by Zionists so many times before that its point value has reached null.
Too late to edit, but I wish to make it clear that I was referring to “Tal” in my comment above, who made the conflation of Jews and Israel in his slur against RoHa.
‘When you express your racist hate to the state of Israel and to its residents (RoHa: “Israel is evil in conception, evil in creation, and evil in conduct. All I do is point out its demonic nature”.’
Its much easier to trot out accusations of racism than to actually justify the inherent racism of Zionism, the evil of Israel’s creation, or the evil of Israel’s conduct.
Are you on drugs?
Wow… Great argument, MRW.
link to en.wikipedia.org
There is much in common between Israel/Palestine and North America.
It is NOT the imperial themes though. What is common is that a largely desparate group of people (to North America mostly poor – but able to fund a passage, often through a promise of indentured servitude; to Israel – mostly refugees from genocide) sought haven in lands that were largely unoccupied.
The differences are also substantive.
The majority of Indian deaths occurred early, and as a result of diseases that they had no natural resistance to.
In Israel/Palestine, the majority of Palestinian deaths occurred later, and during overt war.
For those that describe Indians as ‘assimilated’ in the US and Canada, it is only partially true. The Indians share a commonality with Jews, in the sense that their identity is not solely racially conveyed, but communally.
Anti-Indian sentiment, similar to some forms of anti-semitism, takes the form of objecting to their collective identity, their association. They can be ‘red’, so long as they don’t act ‘red’, so long as they don’t expect to self-govern as ‘red’.
The significance of Morris and others ridiculing American anti-Zionist dissenters was about the hypocrisy of ignoring the stolen land that they lived on, and only commenting on that status of others.
“It is NOT the imperial themes though. What is common is that a largely desparate group of people (to North America mostly poor – but able to fund a passage, often through a promise of indentured servitude; to Israel – mostly refugees from genocide) sought haven in lands that were largely unoccupied”
There is so much wrong here it is difficult to know where to start. I find the maps of the Ethnologue helpful in framing the question of European imperialism.
Look at all the native language families of the US.
link to ethnologue.com
English is not a North American language. Neither is Spanish.
Australia
link to ethnologue.com
My favourite song about settler colonialism and imperialism is the Trader by the Beach Boys
link to youtube.com
“…sought haven in lands that were largely unoccupied.”
Lie. Palestine was not “largely unoccupied.” It was occupied, but by people who the Jews who came there did not choose view either as fully human, or such that the Jews had to respect their human right. Because nothing was going to stop the Jews’ coveting the Palestinian land.
Don’t insult the Native Americans — who had their land brutally stolen from them — by comparing them to those Jews who brutally stole the land of Palestine from the Palestinians. It’s disgusting.
*inhales*
“…..mostly refugees from genocide) sought haven in lands that were largely unoccupied.”
*passes the bong*
“The significance of Morris and others ridiculing American anti-Zionist dissenters was about the hypocrisy of ignoring the stolen land that they lived on, and only commenting on that status of others.”
You’re lying, Richard. Morris said that ethnic cleansing was justified both in the case of America and in the case of Israel. Stop lying, Richard.
The first part of your post is at best disingenuous and is more likely deliberate deception as well. The imperial theme doesn’t matter to you because you have a vested ideological interest in downplaying it. It’s there for anyone to see who reads about the history.
I’m a little weirded out by the strange arguments in this thread–some people claiming that to criticize American settler colonialism is to defend Israel. Then there is the epidemic vs genocide “argument”, though no one familiar with the evidence denies that epidemics killed most of the Native Americans without denying the genocide, ethnic cleansing, and slavery contributed to the death toll. Witty, of course, comes along and tries to whitewash settler colonialism in both the US and Israel. Well, some things never change.
Richard, give it a rest and read.
The original people that came here (US and Canada) came as traders. Cotton in the south. The Spaniards wanted furs to take up to the Vancouver Island area from whence they sailed to Russia and China, some of the better pelts came from that area. (You don’t know that China was an economic behemoth in those days because Americans are so badly educated about world history.) I read old Indian reports (they had chroniclers and historians within the tribes) of savvy Indian Chiefs giving the Spaniards a run for their money. Great stories. This happened 300 years ago, before this country was born.
Palestine was plenty occupied.
This is just an insult to any thinking person:
And this is nonsense. Indians are a race, Jews aren’t:
Indians have no desire to be assimilated. They want their reservations, the treaty money owed them, and to be left alone by the Department of Interior, and not hassled.
Richard, if you don’t want to read, look at the pretty pictures:
The highly acclaimed antique map collection, the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas.
Have you all seen the PBS series on the American Indian history: We Shall Remain?
About 3 dvd’s and it must be 12 or more hours long. Very comprehensive. No romantic notions of history are sold by this series.
As a western rancher, I thought I knew a lot about the subject. Turns out, I knew a few stories from where I live, and I ride where some of it happened. But, that is as deep as my knowlege went.
If you want to be overwhelmed by the similarities of the Isreali/Palestinian experience…from beginning to present…I highly recommend it.
I feel like I took a college course.
But CigarGod,
Did you know that the horses you ride and the cattle you tend came from Spain? Neither are indigenous to the US. Only bison are. The Spaniards brought them first to Central and South America and the mustangs moved north. Now there’s a Marlboro Man image for you.
Does the PBS series get into the Spanish origins of this country or is that still taboo?
Cigargod,
The Indians’ experience is similar to both Palestinian and Jewish/Israeli.
Similar to Palestinian in living in a place, then being forced to move (mostly by other tribes that were previously displaced).
And, similar to Jews in orienting as people primarily, tribal, and often forced to be nomadic.
I had an experience in the mid-90′s, where an Indian called the audio cooperative to object to the inclusion of a faux Indian in our library. In conversation, he asked me my name, “Richard Witty”. “How did you get that name?”, “It was given/imposed on my great-great grandfather at Ellis Island”, “I have a similar, what was your original name?”, “Noone knows.”
Other similar sympathies are around the loss of tradition when oppressed. During the holocaust, 6 million people were killed, 6 million people carrying wisdom stories, tangible traditional remedies, ways of child-rearing, ways of elder-caring.
“And, similar to Jews in orienting as people primarily, tribal, and often forced to be nomadic.”
When have Jews been nomads??
If you call living in the Ottoman Empire for 400 years being nomadic, or living in the USA since the 1500s being nomadic, then what isn’t?
MRW, Witty might walk around his yard a lot–you know, making sure no young US Marines or Army guys walk up his sidewalk to get his son to enlist? They might not know his son is now in Israel.
90% of Indians that died, died from disease. It occurred early in the immigration of mostly poor whites from Europe.
Their cultures were decimated. Only a very small number of that was intentional. Some definitely was.
Different tribes and communities established very different relationships with immigrating whites (slave blacks), some friendly and cooperative, some antagonistic and warring.
As whites incrementally moved west, tribes moved west as well. There was MORE inter-tribal military conflict than white-Indian, though there were significant and severe and oppressive conflicts and then law.
The oppression of Indians continued long after the last Indians were subjugated, in the form of forced assimilation largely.
I don’t have a lot of time to deal with this as theres a regional incident here.
Quickly
He disputes my assertion that most Native Americans were wiped out in a a massive campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Strawman. I had a problem with what I said was a “previous and current academic consensus that you completely omit from your article.”
What was said:
You can imagine my disappointment when I had some time to check your site to see Matthew Taylor’s article that attributes the annihilation of “most Native Americans” from a “a massive campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
In fact, the the corpus of accepted and mainstream work here is in agreement on how the continents were wiped out by an unintentional virgin field epidemic. This is not simply information distributed among academic circles. More popular books, like Guns, Germs, and Steel, and 1491 cover this information quite readily.
Of course, there is an academic debate over the amount killed during this virgin field epidemic. However, there is a consensus that a very large scale depopulation took place. Attributing a large scale depopulation like this to a group of people without mentioning this biological event is ignorant and racist. The ignorance comes from a lack of understanding from long held research in the subject from Amherst’s argued first use of Smallpox as a biological weapon in 1763, centuries after the depopulation occurred, and the mountain of research from Dobyns 1995 onward. The racism comes from both sides of attributing a widespread depopulation of both continents to small bands of 16th century Europeans. European firearms of this era were very crude and designed in large part to reduce the training necessary vis-a-vis archers. In fact, Spanish chroniclers often remark on the penetrating power and accuracy of Native American archers. Estimates of the population of both North and South America range in the tens of millions, and to attribute this to a small band of Europeans with crude weapons attributes a racist “Übermensch” conception to Europeans and a “Untermenschen” slur to the millions who were somehow unable to defend themselves. At large specialized societies like the Inca and the Aztecs, even a 30-50 percent depopulation rate would have devastating effects on the ability of that society to function and wage war from the high degree of specialization in their labor distribution.
Now, when this particular topic is raised, it is often commented that a caveat noting the brutal and egregious treatment of the native populations should be listed. This is true and also an academic consensus.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
He rebuts that with a lengthy remark on the importance of “an unintentional virgin field epidemic.”
The first argued recorded use of Smallpox as an intentional biological weapon was with Amherst 1763- centuries after this depopulation occurred.
Many reputable scholars argue and document, with facts, that the Natives wiped out in a a massive campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing;
As I said: “Now, when this particular topic is raised, it is often commented that a caveat noting the brutal and egregious treatment of the native populations should be listed. This is true and also an academic consensus. “
To sum up, I agreed with what you consider a rebuttal, and you failed to answer my point.
Worse, you made private correspondence public through a bad strawman, and a terrible reading of what was said. I am very offended by that.
“In fact, Spanish chroniclers often remark on the penetrating power and accuracy of Native American archers. ”
And yet Cortes consistently beat much larger Indian armies every time they met in the field. The only defeat came when they were driven out of Tenochtitlan. If those Native American archers had the effectiveness of English longbowmen a century or two earlier the Spanish wouldn’t have survived the first encounter.
Adding to my previous comment, I’ve read a bit about the Spanish conquest of Mexico and it always struck me that while there are quotes from Spanish sources saying that individual Aztec warriors could be quite impressive, on the whole the impression one gets is that Indian armies were stunningly ineffective against the Spanish. The difference wasn’t gunpowder, as the Spanish had relatively few arquebuses and they weren’t exactly the quickest-firing of weapons. The difference seems to have been steel swords on the one hand vs. a club lined with obsidian on the other. It’s true that there were massive epidemics going on, but even with all that the Indian armies were vastly superior in numbers and vastly inferior in effectiveness.
And the English archers I mentioned in the previous post had steel arrowheads.
All this was in response to the notion that it was “racist” to imagine a small number of Europeans could wipe out massive numbers of Indians. That seems overwrought. Yes, epidemics caused most of the deaths, but it’s also true that a comparatively tiny force of Spaniards (several hundred) were the most powerful military force in a land with millions of Aztecs and others. They came and destroyed the Aztec Empire and while they had help (notably from the Tlaxcalans), they had help precisely because they were the overwhelmingly powerful force in that part of the world.
“And the English archers I mentioned in the previous post had steel arrowheads.”
Technical note: Actually, a lot of them were Welsh, but they used the same methods and weapons as the English, and fought in the English armies. The kings of England had, by that time, conquered Wales.
As you note, the longbowmen formed a very formidable force.
No matter whether you buy into the theory that by far the deadliest pandemic ever to occur on the planet, occurring without any reliable sources to document it at that, was responsible for wiping out most of the American native population, it is utterly irrelevant to the topic at hand.
a) If this occurred to the scale you imply, it occurred centuries before European expansion to the west.
b) Actual genocidal practices during said expansion are very well documented.
So all you can really argue is that yes, America was founded on genocide and ethnic cleansing, but whites had an easier time of it because diseases nicely did the work for them. Big foxtrotting deal.
BG, I am unwilling to debate you in private on this topic, as it’s an utter waste of time because it contributes nothing to the conversation taking place here. That’s why I suggested the conversation move here, and that’s why I’ve moved it here. Now that it’s here, I hope others, who are more academically versed than I can and will respond to your claims.
Put another way: if someone said the Holocaust didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be the one to rebut the obviously wrong statement with academic references, as I am not a World War II scholar. But someone else would do so.
I look fwd to seeing others, who are in fact experts on this topic, rebut your apparent claim that the destruction of the Native Americans was not genocide.
I’m not sure he’s denying that it’s genocide. He is saying that disease caused the bulk of the deaths and that’s true. Some take a step further and claim “therefore it wasn’t genocide”, but I think many scholars would disagree with that. Of course it was a process that occurred over a vast area and a long period of time–in some cases it was clear genocide and in others perhaps “only” ethnic cleansing and sometimes it was slave labor which was so brutal it wiped out nearly the entire population, which I would call genocide.
Thanks. Its a misreading of my post above. I made this clear, here, in bold
He, again, failed to respond to his oversight. I expect this to happen again.
I am also, still, extremely unhappy with his move to publish a private conversation.
Now, you have a number of separate points. I’ve (as mentioned before) come off a serious event and am rather tired, so this will be brief.
Donald: Cortes consistently beat much larger…
Mexico and the Spanish conquest p124
I agree with your point on ‘steel’ (metals) as an important factor, and this with shifting alliances, the Aztec unpopularity relating to human sacrifice, and others are an issue. However, these guys were grossly and obscenely outnumbered, and if healthy, would have had a much different result. Obsidian was extremely problematic for chain mail, as it would shatter and its extremely sharp fragments would pepper the flesh of the Spaniards with razor sharp volcanic glass. These arrows could shoot through double quilting of cotton armor. “The fact is that the Spaniards owed their succeed not so much to superior arms, training, and leadership as to Aztec political factionalism and disease.”
More reading
Born to die: disease and New World conquest, 1492-1650
We are talking about a population of million people and roughly a thousand with Cortes with 1500 level weaponry.
Koshiro utterly irrelevant
If talking about a subject, and an issue of this magnitude is ignored, there is a significant problem.
Matthew Taylor
I am extremely disappointed with you moving a private conversation public. I also would like you to actually address the point. Posting for a third time
What you fail to do is to address your skipping over of this very significant event of virgin soil epidemic and the Americas. You skip addressing my point to you and try to move it elsewhere. Please address the point I made to you in private, you brought out in public, and completely avoid to address. Address the previous and current academic consensus on the unintentional virgin field epidemic of disease that you omit from your article.
From the 13th century armies which opposed others catapulted diseased animals and bodies into enemy camps, streams were fouled upstream by putting carcasses in the water. Enemy forces drove infected people into the enemy encampments, cities, etc.
To think that this was not used in the 16th and 17th century forward is ridiculous specifically because of printed references to such activity. It is known that both small pox infected blankets were used on the indigenous, as well as small pox infected people who were used in the handling of tobacco purposefully to spread the infection.
On top of this was not merely the massacres which occurred but what transpired when tribes were forced out of their regions, as well as the purposeful destruction of their crops causing malnutrition and starvation specifically after the harvesting seasons (not to mention the total destruction of bison, the purposeful stationing and ambush armies in hunting territories, etc.). Matthew Taylor inadvertently gave a partial answer in his reference to the Holocaust –
“Put another way: if someone said the Holocaust didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be the one to rebut the obviously wrong statement with academic references, as I am not a World War II scholar.”
The Holocaust is a good example, especially with the rounding up of the indigenous tribes into enclosed encampments. Someone would not argue that the Holocaust did not happen because massive numbers of people died of malnutrition, were placed in brutal forced labor, and subject to disease. Nor would one argue that someone was not a victim of the Holocaust if they chose to flee and died in the wilderness. The same applies to the genocide of the indigenous populations in the Americas, and don’t ever forget it. The genocide of the indigenous population was as intentional as the Holocaust, and more died and if you want to argue about it you are influenced by the death of white people as opposed to people of color which is a signifier of racist behavior.
Matthew, if you claimed that 60 million Jews died in the Holocaust would someone be “denying the Holocaust” if they rightly pointed out that number accepted by most reputable historians is more in line with 6 million instead?
You don’t seem to be listening to what bob actually said, but rather to what you assumed he must have said but didn’t.
Bob,
I am not an expert on Native American history, but I’ve learned enough to know that all of the factors that resulted in their decimation – including the issue you bring up, the spread of disease, along with many other factors, such as intentional and willful murder of their people, their forced relocation, killing of the Bison, etc. – cumulatively is considered both genocide and ethnic cleansing by many reputable scholars.
One small detail: I live in California, where the State paid a bounty on the head of every Native American killed by a settler. From my perspective, that’s genocide.
You want me to “Address the previous and current academic consensus on the unintentional virgin field epidemic of disease that you omit from your article.”
Here’s the thing you aren’t getting, Bob, that I keep saying again and again: I believe those who describe what happened to the Native Americans as genocide and ethnic cleansing, and I’m not interested in doing a literature review on the topic.
My view is that denial of the Genocide against Native Americans is extremely misguided.
As for your comment: “Now, when this particular topic is raised, it is often commented that a caveat noting the brutal and egregious treatment of the native populations should be listed.” Clearly, my view is that what was done to the Native Americans is far, far worse than your statement implies.
As I said previously, I am not an expert on this topic, so therefore, I will not engage with you in an in-depth debate on this topic, as you seem to want me to do.
I don’t need to be an expert on Native American history to assert that the U.S. and Europeans in general committed genocide against them; this is widely understood, and although you may have read literature that disputes this, there’s plenty of literature that supports the claim.
Furthermore, I don’t have an obligation to spend a ton of time backing this statement up, as the genocide of Native Americans is widely held viewpoint among many historians – just as the genocide of Jews in the Holocaust is a widely held viewpoint. Go debate the scholars that assert the genocide if you wish.
-Matthew
“if you claimed that 60 million Jews died”
If. However, since this analogy is totally false, it remains at “if”.
What Matthew said was that the US was founded on a massive campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing. It was.
Whether this campaign was perpetrated against a population already decreased by 30, 50, 70 or 90% by diseases in preceding centuries does not change this fact in the slightest.
Matthew … I’ve learned enough to know that all of the factors that resulted in their decimation –
……
I’m not interested in doing a literature review on the topic.
As I said previously, I am not an expert on this topic, so therefore, I will not engage with you in an in-depth debate on this topic
You’re avoiding the topic while claiming you know all the factors but staying willfully ignorant of the literature. Why would you insist on doing this? Why rudely move a private conversation here if this was the result?
tree
Matthew, if you claimed that 60 million Jews died in the Holocaust would someone be “denying the Holocaust” if they rightly pointed out that number accepted by most reputable historians is more in line with 6 million instead?
You don’t seem to be listening to what bob actually said, but rather to what you assumed he must have said but didn’t.
Thanks. Thats an issue with “VR” too, who just ignored the Amherst 1763 reference where the pox infected blankets story comes from.
Its curious to me why bringing up this major epidemiological epidemic to this discussion can cause such a reaction. Theres whole paragraphs of speculation and poor/no citations in some posts above, yet the topic that garners attention is one that is widely accepted within the academic mainstream.
What Matthew said was that the US was founded on a massive campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
No, what Matthew said was, “Although Uncle Sam patriots glorify a distorted past that never was, in truth the U.S. was founded on a massive campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing that annihilated most Native Americans and corralled the relatively few survivors into intolerable reservations.”
Its estimated that up to 90% of the Native Americans died as a result of the unintentional introduction of a disease for which they had no immunity.
It does not detract from the fact that ethnic cleansing and genocide also were committed against the remaining Native Americans.
The analogy stands.
Bob, thanks for the links about the effectiveness of Aztec weapons. I don’t find it totally convincing, because even with all of the deaths caused by epidemics, when the Spaniards met Indian armies in the field they were always badly outnumbered (unless all the sources I’ve read are wrong about this) and yet they prevailed, though it boiled down to a context of steel swords against weapons made of wood and obsidian. I’m not saying this to be argumentative–I’ve been perplexed by this (not terribly important) question ever since I was a child when I first read about the conquest of the Aztec Empire. I never quite understood why, through sheer force of numbers, a bunch of guys with the equivalent of baseball bats lined with broken glass couldn’t prevail against guys with swords (even if they were the second-best swords in the world, after the Samurai).
Though again, obviously not the most important question in the world, but the 9 year old boy in me is still wondering about it.
Excellent reply Mr. Taylor, hits the nail right on the head about possible motivations for “bob.”
“As for your comment: “Now, when this particular topic is raised, it is often commented that a caveat noting the brutal and egregious treatment of the native populations should be listed.” Clearly, my view is that what was done to the Native Americans is far, far worse than your statement implies.”
Donald Bob, thanks for the links about the effectiveness of Aztec weapons.
No problem.
Donald I’ve been perplexed by this (not terribly important) question ever since I was a child when I first read about the conquest of the Aztec Empire. I never quite understood why, through sheer force of numbers, a bunch of guys with the equivalent of baseball bats lined with broken glass couldn’t prevail against guys with swords
Think about your life. What do you actually produce to what you use. Now think what would happen to what you could use if 40% of the US were to die off in a year. Food. Water.
Now, think about the state level complexity and specialized production of the Aztecs. There is quite a bit written about the cumulative effects of this disease on state-level societies. In other words, the diseases effects on the Aztec mentioned above have a profound effect.
This is one of the dangers I mention on forgetting this large scale epidemic. When this major factor is forgotten, you simply have a tiny group of Spaniards, roughly estimated as outnumbered 1,000 to 1, and taking over a group of people with early 16th century weaponry. Without this important factor, its easy make a mistake assuming the Spanish were simply just superior enough to sort out 1,000 to 1 odds with inferior Aztecs.
Bob,
I never agreed to have a private conversation with you, period.
You emailed me. I told you I didn’t want to have a private conversation. I told you I wanted it out in public. I asked you to take it public. You refused. I took it public. Now there’s a public debate.
If you want to have a private conversation with someone, ask them first if they agree to have it private. You cannot force someone to have a private conversation when they do not want to.
If you think what I did was rude, tough. I made the right call here by taking this public. The end.
I never agreed to have a private conversation with you, period.
And I never agreed for you to make it public.
I asked you to take it public. You refused. I took it public. Now there’s a public debate.
Again, you are wrong. I answered your point in my first email by saying that I had replied in the thread. This was before I sent you anything.
If you want to have a private conversation with someone, ask them first if they agree to have it private. You cannot force someone to have a private conversation when they do not want to.
No. If you didn’t want to continue the conversation privately, the proper recourse was to cease communication, since I didn’t want it public. Read your argument against forcing someone very slowly and note the glaring inconsistency within it.
“No”
Yes. These exact same words. Quoting something else he wrote does not make this untrue. Thinking that it does, as you apparently do, shows a serious lack of reason.
“Although Uncle Sam patriots glorify a distorted past that never was, in truth the U.S. was founded on a massive campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing that annihilated most Native Americans and corralled the relatively few survivors into intolerable reservations.”
Most Native Americans never lived in territory which later became part of the U.S.
However, those among us who are capable and willing of processing information in context do realize that the Native Americans he was referring to are those who lived in the territory which the (proto-)U.S. expanded into, at the time said expansion took place. You’d have to be either ignorant or malicious or both to misunderstand this.
“The analogy stands.”
Case in point re: Ignorant and/or malicious.
However, those among us who are capable and willing of processing information in context do realize that the Native Americans he was referring to are those who lived in the territory which the (proto-)U.S. expanded into, at the time said expansion took place. You’d have to be either ignorant or malicious or both to misunderstand this.
No, you’d have to be assuming something which wasn’t said, to take your stance. Which is what my argument has been all along. I think a large part of this thread has been people jumping to the conclusion that if someone points out that most Native Americans died from an unintended introduction of disease that they are somehow denying the ethnic cleansing and genocide also involved. Jumping to false conclusions is not “processing information in context”; its an error in listening.
I’ve respected and enjoyed reading most of your posts on Mondo, but in this instance I think you are jumping to conclusions that aren’t warranted about what bob is saying, and I suspect you are letting your emotions get the better of your logic. I may be wrong, but I would never accuse you of being ignorant or malicious. I would hope you would refrain from doing the same with me.
Thanks, tree. That sums it up.
TREE- re: May 9, 2011 at 7:58 am
Permit me to alter Matthew Taylor’s phraseology ever so slightly. “Although Uncle Sam patriots glorify a distorted past that never was, in truth the U.S. was founded on a massive campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing that annihilated most of those Native Americans who had not already succumbed to the ravages of European introduced diseases, and corralled the relatively few survivors into intolerable reservations.” How is that? Still take umbrage? What follows below is a general comment not directed at you.
Final comment. I liked this post. It calls attention to the fact that the US has a history that involves many of the same things which we now justly criticize Israel for. We need to be aware of our history, acknowledge it and learn from it. Let us not deny what occurred. Hypocrisy is a weak foundation for criticism. What occurred to the American Indians is tragic, but cannot be undone. This in no way justifies Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, which is equally reprehensible, is also ongoing, and which should be resisted and stopped. Perhaps, fighting for and securing Palestinian human rights and justice could be a small gesture of atonement for what was done to the native Americans.
As for the post itself, it is unrealistic to expect eight short paragraphs to be a comprehensive history. Matthew is painting in broad strokes, and does well. As for those omissions and lack of verbal precision regarding the impact of disease on the ethnic cleansing/genocide of the native population, perhaps a 3 or 4 paragraph informational comment could have contributed to the discussion, rather than a broadside critique of a post intended to provide some historical relevance, but not provide a history lesson.
What occurred to the American Indians is tragic, but cannot be undone. This in no way justifies Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, which is equally reprehensible, is also ongoing, and which should be resisted and stopped. Perhaps, fighting for and securing Palestinian human rights and justice could be a small gesture of atonement for what was done to the native Americans.
What happened to Native-Americans cannot be fully undone. But there is a lot that can be done, and that white Americans should do, that isn’t merely symbolic atonement. This, for example, link to thevoiceoftheindigenous.wordpress.com is not taking place in Jerusalem.
Bob,
I experienced your emails as both browbeating and bullying in tone and content. You accused me in those emails, at least indirectly if not directly, of arguing a racist viewpoint. If that’s something you want to assert, I am willing to have it be debated in public where others who are more expert than I am can analyze the claims, but I’m unwilling to have that discussion in private.
Here’s the deal: when you email something like to that someone, you cannot expect them to keep the email private unless they have agreed to do so, which I did not.
Do not in the future email me anything you expect to remain private, unless I agree that it will be private. Got it? Try it out next time: *Ask* if I’m willing to keep your emails private. Don’t *assume* it will be kept private without asking first.
I have no expectation of privacy around my conversations unless the other party explicitly agrees to keep it private.
I took your email public because I wanted others to have a chance to dissect it. I’m glad I did, I stand by it, and I consider this conversation with you, in all aspects, to be complete.
Good night and good luck.
Keith,
Thanks for your input, I think you understood the intent of this post quite well. I appreciate you weighing in.
I took your email public because I wanted others to have a chance to dissect it. I’m glad I did, I stand by it, and I consider this conversation with you, in all aspects, to be complete.
I do to. You dodged and failed to respond to a glaring omission on your part. Just above, you can see an example of someone failing to note the effect of disease and attributing it to the ineffectiveness of Native American armies. I’ve had a few Native Americans express their outrage to me over this issue, and how they’re disgusted of the soft racism that attributes inferiority to NA’s when the virgin soil epidemic is ignored. You can see it here and elsewhere.
You presented the discussion against my will, despite hypocritically railing against how “you cannot force someone to have a private conversation when they do not want to.” You presented it poorly in a strawman fashion, then when it appeared here, you could only try to shift the discussion to a spectre – and one that I anticipated. You were wrong again in your assumption where you overlooked how I mentioned that I replied in the thread already. These are numerous examples of your inability to read text, lack of understanding on the topic, and your gross rudeness in publishing private correspondence is deeply offensive.
Oh yes bob you are always so offended, but there is nothing more offensive than your attempt to mask genocide, its activity and intention. Nobody can read, nobody can understand poor bob, what utter bullshit. Perhaps Mr. Weiss can create another Chomsky post so you can assuage your pain by painting untrue garbage about him for a belated encore.
“Just above, you can see an example of someone failing to note the effect of disease and attributing it to the ineffectiveness of Native American armies. ”
Sigh. This is what I get for trying to be fairminded. Now I get to be Bob’s poster child for “soft racism”–beautiful. I in fact noted the effects of the epidemics, saying that they caused the bulk of the deaths and don’t question the immense harm they did to Aztec society at the precise moment Cortes comes along. I also noted that even so, by every account I’ve read, relatively small numbers of Spaniards repeatedly demonstrated that they were able to defeat far larger Indian armies on the battlefield. This doesn’t mean that Spaniards were man for man “better” fighters than the Aztecs–it probably says something about steel vs wood and stone, and battle tactics and so forth. And I also think it’s rather sad that anyone would think that a claim that the armies in Mexico in 1520 were militarily inferior to the Spanish is “racism”. I didn’t know we measured human worth by military effectiveness–even as a 9 year old boy I knew better. But whatever. This thread is getting increasingly ridiculous. Currently people who agree on 90 percent of the facts are at each other’s throats and I fully expect it to get worse.
Here is another argument bob is fond of, accusing the indigenous of cannibalism when there is none to be had – oh yes, follow these arguments on previous posts here:
THE NATIVE AMERICAN ANALOGY
“You want me to lambaste an entire region for 28 corpses that do not necessarily show signs of cannibalism, you know as well as I do that there is plenty of heated debate on this point – why are you pressing cannibalism in this context? Why are you pressing some trophy taking in a prehistoric time, because it was preeminently characteristic of the atrocious activity of the colonials (artifact human remains that you can see to this day)? Is you thrust to alleviate that these asses traveled thousands of miles to enslave and exploit people and trying to make them wholly other? What does the introduction of warfare mean? Does it wash clean what was done to the indigenous population? ”
INFERENTIAL PROOF, VS. PROOF POSITIVE
Apparently your defenders (censors) on this site want to remove any further comment that what I am saying is not a strawman argument. Very well, let me quote someone else who knows exactly what I am saying and how it is the truth (lets see if they will help you out again by censoring what is quoted) –
“As Europeans began leaving their shores in the 15th century to search for resources to feed the growing capitalist system and later, to establish markets to consume its products, they encountered indigenous peoples in practically every piece of inhabitable land on earth, including the most remote islands of the Pacific. “Cannibalism” became emblematic of “Savagery,” a justification for conquering, converting, enslaving, or killing the natives they encountered, while appropriating their resources and lands. European scholars argued over an either/or fallacy: were the indigenous peoples innately perverse and therefore, unredeemable, or were they Noble Savages who could be saved? (Arens 78). The assumption that the indigenous peoples were at a lower stage of biological, cultural, or ethical development was not often questioned. But Arens has argued that the belief that Christians had the moral right to conquer and rule because the natives were cannibals was invalid because its premise was unsupported–there has never been reliable eyewitness account of native cannibalism (181). Whether there was evidence of cannibalism or not, it was absurd to argue that European colonizers were more “civilized” than natives. As the 17th century French scholar Montaigne points out in his essay “Of Cannibals,” Christians perpetrated acts even more inhumane than cannibalism in the name of their–they tortured their victims alive:
“I think there is more barbarity in eating a man alive than in eating him dead; in tearing by tortures and the rack of body still full of feeling, in roasting a man bit by bit, in having him bitten and mangled by dogs and swines (as we have not only read but seen within fresh memory, not among ancient enemies, but among neighbors and fellow citizens, and what is worse, on the pretext of piety and religion) than in roasting and eating him after he is dead. (155)”
TRADITIONS
So follow the original post link, and treat yourselves to this further attempt, in the face of less than inconclusive proof of why it was good for the colonials to come and save the indigenous populations as argued by my opponents on this post. It will be no surprise that we run into the same cast of characters in part (bob), that we run into here. In other worlds there is a track record here to try to debase indigenous inhabitants, to inferentially excuse the force of genocide, while singing God Bless America. Read it for yourself.
NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS
thanks Donald for the last thought!
This is what I get for trying to be fairminded
Yes you were being fairminded. That should be noted first and foremost.
And I also think it’s rather sad that anyone would think that a claim that the armies in Mexico in 1520 were militarily inferior to the Spanish is “racism”.
I got a long description of that by a few guys in the Plains.
Everytime they heard something like dismissing massive imbalances to numbers, they mentioned why did people forget to mention how smallpox and disease has passed through.
Desoto. Cortes. Pizarro. etc. Disease was there.
Disease hit communities in the Americas in successive waves as well.
This thread is getting increasingly ridiculous. Currently people who agree on 90 percent of the facts are at each other’s throats and I fully expect it to get worse.
I completely agree. I never wanted this on here, and I’m wondering why the conversation is still here. That guy VR below is claiming I’m “accusing the indigenous of cannibalism when there is none to be had” when in the thread this and I think this and this? to show standard archaeological and anthropological studies that show osteological evidence for cannabalism and large scale violence. In sum, we are the same and one group doesnt have a license on evil or strength, or power. The myth of the “noble savage” is related issue of soft racism.
When it comes to accounts of early conquest, you were (and we all are) left wondering how such a small group could overtake so many with 16th century weapons. This is normal. However, look at these events and you’ll find disease playing its destructive role. I know you’ve mentioned it. Think about the correlary impact that this disease would have on complex societies. Think about the devastation you would have as an American if your society was wiped out by 40%. Is getting Milk, Gas, Eggs, Water, going to be a problem? Its not just the numbers, its also the societal collapse from a breakdown in production from a labor specialized workforce.
Donald
To put it another way, we here know that it is important that we all recognize racism and ethnocentrism in ourselves and try to root it out. None of us are truly free of it. Its exactly why I agree with the sentiment to add a caveat of the brutal and egregious treatment of the native populations when talking about disease. This is why I think this academic consensus on egregious treatment of the Native Americans needs to be mentioned when talking about the virgin field epidemic.
Its also exactly why people need to talk about this epidemic nightmare when trying to wrap their heads around how this continent was depopulated so quickly, or how such a tiny band of Spaniards could manage victory over people like the Inca or the Aztecs. Otherwise, its easy to slip into discussions of inferiority/superiority without mentioning this important bit of context. This is part of the discussion that was absent here.
Is there some point in comparing American (or others) conquest of the 1600 and 1800′s to the Israeli conquest of the 1900′s and 2o11?
As if civilized thought and societies have not advanced in between?
As if there was no Nuremberg, no UN, no Declaration of Human Rights, no universal recognition of genocides, no Geneva Accords, no Rome statutes, no condemnation of countries abuse of their people.
Except to say… look mommy, Johnny did it too..so he’s just as bad as me…or I am just as right as he was..or if he could do it so can I”.
It’s a stupid argument actually….
“As if civilized thought and societies have not advanced in between?”
Have they?
Yes, not as far or as fast as they should but definitely yes. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if it hadn’t.
Oh you mean they advanced *technologically*. Yes, sure. But I thought we meant advanced in the area of civilized thought.
American mentioned a number of examples for supposed advancement. So-called “civilized” nations, with the US at the forefront, have made a mockery out of every single one in the past and show no indication of stopping.
No, I don’t mean technologically, and neither did American. I mean that no one would be discussing genocide as an abomination if we hadn’t advanced in the area of civilized thought. As much as we have failed to always live up to our ideals, I’d much rather live in today’s world than in earlier times, particularly as a woman.
Do you really think that things have not advanced since the days of slavery, of lynchings, of the near universal belief in the superior of some men over other men and over all women?
“I mean that no one would be discussing genocide as an abomination if we hadn’t advanced in the area of civilized thought.”
Nonsense again. Just as there were people protesting genocidal policies in the 19th century, there are people standing idly by or even supporting genocidal policies right now.
American listed a number of supposed advances of civilization that supposedly happened since about WW2 (by the way, you might at least want to take that as the starting point for your supposed advances. If you are seriously trying to tell me the 20th century was more civilized than the 19th, I shall laugh at you. Loudly.) And as I already said, every single one has been made a mockery of by the oh-so-civilized Western world, not to mention others who never even maintained any pretenses about this. Heck, it really takes some chutzpah to proudly list the Rome statutes as an advancement of civilization if you have the nickname “American”.
“Do you really think that things have not advanced since the days of slavery, of lynchings, of the near universal belief in the superior of some men over other men and over all women?”
Slavery has been made economically unnecessary and essentially outsourced to poorer countries. Lynchings still happen. (Then again, lynchings are plain old murders, and these still happen anyway.) Superiority of men over other men is still very much relevant (case in point: Israel) and superiority of men over all women, while it is the one area where one can assess discernable progress, is not out of the picture either (case in point: Well, I could name any number of countries, but since I’m just a meanie-head and the ultraorthodox crowd really gets on my nerves, Israel again.)
“Is there some point in comparing American (or others) conquest of the 1600 and 1800′s to the Israeli conquest of the 1900′s and 2o11?”
Yes there is. It helps explain why there is some sympathy for Israel–Americans have a history which glorifies the idea of “civilized” settlers taking the land from native “savages” and the Israeli story is told in similar ways. Innocent people like us minding their own business (in someone else’s land) and they are attacked by “terrorists”.
Also, there’s some value in pointing out that Israel is a settler colonialist state like others before it.
“Except to say… look mommy, Johnny did it too..so he’s just as bad as me…or I am just as right as he was..or if he could do it so can I”.
It’s a stupid argument actually….”
Yeah, it would be, but that’s what some Zionists try to claim. It’s not what Matthew was doing, it’s not what Norman Finkelstein has done, and it’s not what Chomsky has claimed. What do people think has been meant all this time when some of us say Israel is a settler colonialist state? What would be the point of saying that if there hadn’t been other similar ventures earlier in history?
I think the sympathy with Israel is the opposite of that Donald.
That Americans sympathize with the underdogs, and that the settlement of Israel was not a “settler-colonial” enterprise but a survival one.
Further, that there is sympathy with the Americans that arrived in the new world, that they largely were not a “settler-colonial” enterprise, but also a poor working class survival one.
And, further, most Zionists that site the Indian experience in the US, do so not to say “look Mommy, Johnny did it too, he can do it so can I”, but to point to the hypocrisy of dissenters that willingly live on stolen land themselves, but condemn others far away.
The first time I read “A People’s History”, I interpreted ‘look how fucked up the US is’. Thankfully, Howard Zinn was not so one dimensional. For example, in siting a critique of the draft of newly arrived Irish in New York at the beginning of the Civil War, in which they mass murdered local blacks as the “reason” for the war, he also commented on the experience of the blacks being murdered.
It was not a polemic, not a rallying cry to violence or even contempt, but a description of irony, information.
>> And, further, most Zionists that site the Indian experience in the US, do so not to say “look Mommy, Johnny did it too, he can do it so can I”, but to point to the hypocrisy of dissenters that willingly live on stolen land themselves, but condemn others far away.
I admire the ability of these Zionists to point out the hypocrisy of people living on stolen land and then to coldly resume their involvement in the unjust, immoral and ON-GOING campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder. Truly, they are a brave and hardy people – even the ones who have to “hold their noses” while their co-collectivists do the dirty work.
Yes, I must say, the Zionists and the Indians have a lot in common. By the way, where exactly is the Indian “Promised Land”? You know, that area of land to which Indians from all over the world migrated, and from which they ethnically cleansed the local majority population, and upon which they established their supremacist, colonialist state of “Indian”?
I sincerely do want to know.
“Thankfully, Howard Zinn was not so one dimensional. For example, in siting a critique of the draft of newly arrived Irish in New York at the beginning of the Civil War, in which they mass murdered local blacks as the “reason” for the war, he also commented on the experience of the blacks being murdered.”
I agree with you about Zinn. But you’re not doing what Zinn did. You’re doing something else–obfuscating. (And actually, I don’t think Zinn was always free of the tendency to offer romantic one-sided lefty history, but it’s been so long since I read A People’s History I can’t give examples anymore.)
“Further, that there is sympathy with the Americans that arrived in the new world, that they largely were not a “settler-colonial” enterprise, but also a poor working class survival one.”
What you are doing here is using sympathy for one group of people to whitewash a crime committed against another. The leaders of the Puritans assumed that they had the right to settle Indian land and while the exact language used changed over the generations, that attitude is a constant from 1600 to 1900. One can sympathize with some of the white immigrants while rejecting the notion that whites had the right to steal land from Indians. You know this. And it’s typical of you–whenever you have some sort of legitimate point to make you almost always surround it with lies and BS, because the truth is never good enough to make the case you want to make.
In the fifth century there were terrible events in the part of Britain that was becoming England. I must be descended both from the Welsh, who lost out, and from the ‘Angles’, who won a new country: some of my ancestors must have regarded each other as disgustingly sub-human. These events – wouldn’t you say? – are not a warrant for conquests (‘my ancestors did it; I’ll do it too’) or revenges (‘my ancestors were dispossessed; I want it all back’) but for living together in the future with no discrimination. They are also a reminder that there are taints and crimes marking the history of very many human groups. We can’t undo all this, we should just try to make progress in the future, recognising that there are no sub-humans, therefore that there is only one human race and that racial discrimination is poison in all our veins.
I’m off for ten days to Italy. I may well find myself envying Shmuel his permanent Italian domicile. I’m visiting Ravenna and look forward to having a drink a few hundred yards from the point where Honorius Augustus, no doubt after a stiff drink to steady his nerves, signed the letter saying that Britain was no longer part of the Roman Empire – a major stage in those terrible fifth century events.
Lots of comments about the US and Israel, but I will hold my comment
down to one or two sentences. If we had stayed out of the Middle East and left them to their own devices we may not have the trouble that we have in this great nation today. Who are we to police the whole world? Who?
No Ron, don’t you know, we (the Americans) own the world. Hasn’t anyone told you this yet?
WE OWN THE WORLD
I happen to be one of the USS Liberty survivors and was the Petty Officer in Charge of the body recovery. I should hate Israel to the innermost, but instead I feel sorry for them because of their war like nauture and deceptive practices. We were once a nation that others admired and I doubt if this true now. If you want to see some real facts about things that have happened and most especially facts about the attack on the USS Liberty then I invite you to Ken Halliwell’s USS Liberty Inquiry site. Just Goggle his name or USS Liberty Inquiry and it will come up. Read the essay’s and then please comment on this site.
I really would enjoy seeing the comments.
Ron, thank you for your service. I served too. I am sure Richard Witty will jump right on your suggestion. He equated US military recruiters to pedophiles. His son is luckily whisked away to Israel. Richard, of course did not serve in the US military. But he backs our government’s Israel right or wrong policy, right to the last US soldier.
Ron, for others here:
link to uss-liberty.com
Citizen
It does my heart a lot of good to see that there are real American
citizens out there today who get my thoughts about this. I am an eyewitness and am only hoping that the survivors comments will not be destroyed, and that the effort to make us out as terriorists is brought to an end. I often ask myself how can it be that the most trusted people in the Navy could all of a sudden after forty some years of telling the truth be cast as anti-semitic or terrorists? I know now my government is not going to give me justice or even a fair investigation into the attack and my age is starting to show. If there is a place in heaven for people that loved this country to the hilt and served even after being discharged I think we shall meet there.
For those that don’t take the time to read this it is simply stated
that International Law states that Israel should have avoided a neutral ship at all costs. If they didn’t know who we were (which they did) then they not have attacked a neutral ship. They evidently don’t think the law applies to them.
Citizen thank you for your service also.
Ron, my age is starting to show too. Presently, I don’t see our government giving the American people objective facts on anything of real importance. At best our government lies by consistent omission, at worst by consistent blatant lies, especially as to our economy and the bottomless treasure trove that is “the war on terror” The last time congress declared war was after Pearl Harbor was attacked, and yet we’ve been in military actions, both overt and covert my whole life. Most Americans don’t even know both Sadddam H and OBL worked for Uncle Sam before Uncle Sam dropped them from his payroll. Or that the Shah of Iran was also a US puppet. Who knows, maybe thanks to the internet and the Arab Spring, our government might be forced into more honesty with the people it is suppose to serve? And, stretching more, maybe more Americans will learn about the USS Liberty–and about the 9/11 terrorists’ self-declared reasons why they resorted to such a tactic. In essence, formost that they hated our policy in the ME, not our life style. Maybe Glen Beck will inadvertently tell his audience that
Obama’s last tape spells out exactly why OBL fought the USA.
Not sure the Americans would get it anyway. They still don’t realize our government went into Iraq because SH had no WMD, rather than because we thought he had them.
“we may not have the trouble that we have in this great nation today.”
Which nation are you referring to?
Sorry maybe I wasn’t clear and of course was speaking of the USA.
I feel that our unwarrented wars are breaking this nation.
Thanks, Ron.
This blog makes a great deal of reference to Israel, and includes an international bunch of posters. I’m Australian, so when I say “this nation” I usually mean Australia. If I don’t make it clear that I mean Australia, the posters in Britain will be uncertain whether I mean Britain, Israel (since that is the nation we discuss most) or some other nation.
Fascinating discussion: and fascinating results. There are so many good points being made, but as usual I would like to focus on a negative (I am a negative kind of guy).
Some of the participants here have broken with the natural solidarity that was expected from them and developed a radical critique of their societies. For others, it is much easier to see the mote in the other person’s eye than the beam in one’s own. I am not going to comment of the usual Israel apologists, as they don’t matter. They are a mere nuisance. But those who are touchy about US history are another matter. This defensiveness leads to projecting on Israelis/Jews those aspects of their society that they wish to deny. A lot of that shoe fits. But that is almost incidental.
US and Israel are two settler societies. A lot is different. But a lot is not. Much of the discussion only underscores the way settler narratives dominate consciousness in the US.
1. The US was not founded on genocide because most Amerindians died of disease.
This is the Benny Morris (TM) argument, which is that Israel was founded, not on ethnic cleansing, but through a war, in which depopulation happened, “not by design”. The similarities are not in the actual events. The timespan, the period, the numbers, the methods (most of them) were different. But the apologetic argument is the same. The settlers came to take the land, and their plan to take possession required getting rid of the original inhabitants. They belligerently attacked the natives, and the result was that somehow, the natives vanished. But who can blame the settlers? They were pure at heart. God just intervened with the right serendipity.
2. Native Americans are citizens with equal rights today in the US.
This is true. It is also true that Palestinians who are left in Israel have voting rights and elected representatives in the Knesset, a fact that Israelis Hasbarists use to claim that the past is over. Again, there are differences. Native Americans have certain common rights, including the right of self-administered reservations. They enjoy constitutional rights. Palestinians in Israel have neither (although reservations are certainly imaginable in the future). But on the other hand, the Israeli political system allows political representation to Palestinians, and there are percentage wise significant areas of Israel were most resident are Palestinian, which isn’t true in the US.
But this “who is better” for the natives misses the point in both places. What matters is that settler apologists want to argue that the past is over. It isn’t in neither society. Native Americans are at the very bottom of US society. They are repressed, marginalized, and poor. Their activists are hounded by the FBI. And the government is still after their land. In 1948 Israel, Palestinians earn about three quarters of the Jewish average. This is about the same ratio as between white and African-American households in the US. (link to leftbusinessobserver.com ) What is striking is that even getting information about Native-American income is difficult. They don’t even count in most statistics. But when they are counted their average income is even below that of African-Americans.
3. Religious notions of the “chosen people” and the “promised land” were limited in scope and not a major factor in the colonization of the US.
Partially this is true. It is false to say that the religious ideas of the Puritans were the cause of the (almost total) extermination of the Amerindians. Nobody who brought up these ideas claims so. Most of the settlers who settled the US had economic goals, gold digging, land speculating, ranching, escaping famine and persecution, etc.
What is striking is that the only reason this comes up is the comparative context of denying the obvious history of Israel, in which a very similar dynamic was playing. Most of the Jewish immigration to Israel was motivated by economics or by political persecution. Only a small minority was motivated by ideology. When ideology mattered, it was not in causing events, but primarily in providing justifications for actions that originated in social conditions, as it always does, including in the US. Furthermore, Jewish religious beliefs played a small role in the medley of ideological justifications for the right to settle the land, which included, as it did in the US, the Lockian ideas that land should go to those most productive, and many other ideas that were common to colonialism. One can debate how small that role of religion was. Some would argue smaller. Others would argue larger. It is a fascinating debate. But no serious history of Zionism would claim it was dominated by “the chosen people” idea. (BTW, God is totally absent from the Israeli declaration of independence). Despite all that, Mondoweiss is home to many believers of the idea that the notion of “the chosen people” is the primary basis for Zionism. And it is primarily those who deny the relevance of religious ideas in US history that make that argument.
This is ultimately a matter for psychoanalysis. What is at stake is acting up difference. Israel, as settler society, provides a certain mirror to the US. The fact that the US is the major backer of Israel only helps to polish that mirror further. When one learns enough about what is going on in places like Gaza, the image in the mirror turns ugly, (and it really is ugly!). Hence the urge to deny that that image has anything to do with the person gazing into the mirror. Whatever it is that I see there must be somebody else. Not me. This is why the “chosen people” theory of Zionism finds so many takers.
But a movement for justice cannot be based on denial and projection. Without taking responsibility there can be no hope for a liberated future for anyone. So take a good look in that mirror. You have seen the enemy and it is you.
>> Evildoer May 9, 2011 at 4:10 am
Good post.
1. The US was not founded on genocide because most Amerindians died of disease.
No one has said this. It would be nice if people would stop erecting strawmen.
I think somebody actually did say this. To be fair, I think it may have been one of the Zionist posters. I know I saw it somewhere but I stopped paying close attention to this article a while ago. Watching Israelis tear into the US and slander us when we subsidize their little colonialist meat-grinder, and then having the Zionist Jewish Americans bobble-head to that crap like the good little turncoats they are, kind of irks me.
America’s got some nasty history, to be sure, but there are some deep cornerstones in the foundation of our country. It was painful enough to notice that they’ve been buried and paved over to make way for the American Empire that the US has devolved into. Watching Zionists take a sledgehammer to those cornerstones is a bit too much for me.
“Religious notions of the “chosen people” and the “promised land” were limited in scope and not a major factor in the colonization of the US.
Partially this is true. It is false to say that the religious ideas of the Puritans were the cause of the (almost total) extermination of the Amerindians. Nobody who brought up these ideas claims so. Most of the settlers who settled the US had economic goals, gold digging, land speculating, ranching, escaping famine and persecution, etc.”
Yes yes I am sure you are right Evildoer, except that it is much nicer to dress up what was done to the indigenous in religious garb. Don’t you think so? I mean, who wants to be known as the grubby people who mercilessly killed people for profit? Better to have a much nobler cause, have buildings named after you, and the blind respect of the propagandized masses at the time and several hundred years later.