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Technorati"Gold is most excellent; gold constitutes treasure; and he who has it does all he wants in the world, and can even lift souls up to Paradise."
-- Christopher Columbus, 1503 letter to the king and queen of Spain.
"Christopher Columbus not only opened the door to a New World, but also set an example for us all by showing what monumental feats can be accomplished through perseverance and faith."
--George H.W. Bush, 1989 speech
If you fly over the country of Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, the island on which Columbus landed, it looks like somebody took a blowtorch and burned away anything green. Even the ocean around the port capital of Port au Prince is choked for miles with the brown of human sewage and eroded topsoil. From the air, it looks like a lava flow spilling out into the sea.
The history of this small island is, in many ways, a microcosm for what's happening in the whole world.
When Columbus first landed on Hispaniola in 1492, virtually the entire island was covered by lush forest. The Taino "Indians" who loved there had an apparently idyllic life prior to Columbus, from the reports left to us by literate members of Columbus's crew such as Miguel Cuneo.
When Columbus and his crew arrived on their second visit to Hispaniola, however, they took captive about two thousand local villagers who had come out to greet them. Cuneo wrote: "When our caravels... where to leave for Spain, we gathered...one thousand six hundred male and female persons of those Indians, and these we embarked in our caravels on February 17, 1495...For those who remained, we let it be known (to the Spaniards who manned the island's fort) in the vicinity that anyone who wanted to take some of them could do so, to the amount desired, which was done."
Cuneo further notes that he himself took a beautiful teenage Carib girl as his personal slave, a gift from Columbus himself, but that when he attempted to have sex with her, she "resisted with all her strength." So, in his own words, he "thrashed her mercilessly and raped her."
While Columbus once referred to the Taino Indians as cannibals, a story made up by Columbus - which is to this day still taught in some US schools - to help justify his slaughter and enslavement of these people. He wrote to the Spanish monarchs in 1493: "It is possible, with the name of the Holy Trinity, to sell all the slaves which it is possible to sell...Here there are so many of these slaves, and also brazilwood, that although they are living things they are as good as gold..."
Columbus and his men also used the Taino as sex slaves: it was a common reward for Columbus' men for him to present them with local women to rape. As he began exporting Taino as slaves to other parts of the world, the sex-slave trade became an important part of the business, as Columbus wrote to a friend in 1500: "A hundred castellanoes (a Spanish coin) are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten (years old) are now in demand."
However, the Taino turned out not to be particularly good workers in the plantations that the Spaniards and later the French established on
Hispaniola: they resented their lands and children being taken, and attempted to fight back against the invaders. Since the Taino where obviously standing in the way of Spain's progress, Columbus sought to impose discipline on them. For even a minor offense, an Indian's nose or ear was cut off, se he could go back to his village to impress the people with the brutality the Spanish were capable of. Columbus attacked them with dogs, skewered them with pikes, and shot them.
Eventually, life for the Taino became so unbearable that, as Pedro de Cordoba wrote to King Ferdinand in a 1517 letter, "As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they endured, the Indians choose and have chosen suicide. Occasionally a hundred have committed mass suicide. The women, exhausted by labor, have shunned conception and childbirth... Many, when pregnant, have taken something to abort and have aborted. Others after delivery have killed their children with their own hands, so as not to leave them in such oppressive slavery."
Eventually, Columbus and later his brother Bartholomew Columbus who he left in charge of the island, simply resorted to wiping out the Taino altogether. Prior to Columbus' arrival, some scholars place the population of Haiti/Hispaniola (now at 16
million) at around 1.5 to 3 million people. By 1496, it was down to 1.1 million, according to a census done by Bartholomew Columbus. By 1516, the indigenous population was 12,000, and according to Las Casas (who were there) by 1542 fewer than 200 natives were alive. By 1555, every single one was dead.
This wasn't just the story of Hispaniola; the same has been done to indigenous peoples worldwide. Slavery, apartheid, and the entire concept of conservative Darwinian Economics, have been used to justify continued suffering by masses of human beings.
Dr. Jack Forbes, Professor of Native American Studies at the University of California at Davis and author of the brilliant book "Columbus and Other Cannibals," uses the Native American word wétiko (pronounced WET-ee-ko) to describe the collection of beliefs that would produce behavior like that of Columbus. Wétiko literally means "cannibal," and Forbes uses it quite intentionally to describe these standards of culture: we "eat" (consume) other humans by destroying them, destroying their lands, taking their natural resources, and consuming their life-force by enslaving them either physically or economically. The story of Columbus and the Taino is just one example.
We live in a culture that includes the principle that if somebody else has something we need, and they won't give it to us, and we have the means to kill them to get it, it's not unreasonable to go get it, using whatever force we need to.
In the United States, the first "Indian war" in New England was the "Pequot War of 1636," in which colonists surrounded the largest of the Pequot villages, set it afire as the sun began to rise, and then performed their duty: they shot everybody-men, women, children, and the elderly-who tried to escape. As Puritan colonist William Bradford described the scene: "It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they [the colonists] gave praise therof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully..."
The Narragansetts, up to that point "friends" of the colonists, were so shocked by this example of European-style warfare that they refused further alliances with the whites. Captain John Underhill ridiculed the Narragansetts for their unwillingness to engage in genocide, saying Narragansett wars with other tribes were "more for pastime, than to conquer and subdue enemies."
In that, Underhill was correct: the Narragansett form of war, like that of most indigenous Older Culture peoples, and almost all Native American tribes, does not have extermination of the opponent as a goal. After all, neighbors are necessary to trade with, to maintain a strong gene pool through intermarriage, and to insure cultural diversity. Most tribes wouldn't even want the lands of others, because they would have concerns about violating or entering the sacred or spirit-filled areas of the other tribes. Even the killing of "enemies" is not most often the goal of tribal "wars": It's most often to fight to some pre-determined measure of "victory" such as seizing a staff, crossing a particular line, or the first wounding or surrender of the opponent.
This wétiko type of theft and warfare is practiced daily by farmers and ranchers worldwide against wolves, coyotes, insects, animals and trees of the rainforest; and against indigenous tribes living in the jungles and rainforests. It is our way of life. It comes out of our foundational cultural notions.
So it should not surprise us that with the doubling of the world's population over the past 37 years has come an explosion of violence and brutality, and as the United States runs low on oil, we are now fighting wars in oil-rich parts of the world. It shouldn't surprise us that our churches are using violent "kill the infidels" video games to lure in children, while in parts of Africa contaminated by our culture and rich in oil (Congo) rape has become so widespread as to make the front page of yesterday's New York Times.
These are all dimensions, after all, our history, which we celebrate on Columbus Day. But if we wake up, and we help the world wake up, it need not be our future.
Excerpted and slightly edited from "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late," a book by Thom Hartmann which helped inspire Leonardo DiCaprio's new movie The 11th Hour. Hartmann's most recent book is Cracking The Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision. www.thomhartmann.com
80 Comments so far
Show Allfor draconis, the oversexed white asshole. what guys like you need is a two by four to the head, or a nuke up your rectum!!!!!
for draconis, the oversexed white asshole. what guys like you need is a two by four to the head, or a nuke up your rectum!!!!!
for draconis, the oversexed white asshole. what guys like you need is a two by four to the head, or a nuke up your rectum!!!!!
And how ironic that the very birthplace of Christianity has become what appears to be the cause of an impending world war.
And p.s. what is going on in occupied territories of Palestine is just a sanitized modern version of the conquering of the New World.
All this mess is just due to the nature of our biology thru evolution. The phiosophy of Christianity, as well as some other religions, was just mankinds attempt to overcome some of our more base innate tendencies. It tried, but our selfish, greedy, cruel nature sometimes wins out. Don't blame Christianity, it was just used as a tool.
This discussion is touching upon the question of whether or not patriarchy is a useful social system. Patriarchy is a top/down system that developed about 4000 years ago, according to most sources. But it is not the only social system. Our own democracy is an experiment in rounding out that straight line thinking. I think that in the simplest of terms, there are social systems that are circular and there are those that are linear. Circular systems are inclusive and sustainable whereas linear systems are exclusive and terminal. We are currently submerged in a culture that is linear (Patriarchal) and as a species, we are suffering the consequences of that thinking. However, we have choices.
Lately I have been struggling with a sense that war and brutality is perhaps hard-coded into human kind and that with the out-of-control freight train of global warming bearing down upon us, this tendency will only get worse. I look around the world and I see the rise of hateful and fearful us/them anti-immigration movements, the so-called clash of civilizations, greed and lust for power and resources and hegemony...all rather neatly encapsulated by Thom's catalytic post.
But I leave commondreams.org today with a renewed sense of hope. You all have refreshed in me some important and worthy ideas that had somehow gotten pushed to the side by the daily grind of awful news.
Thanks in particular to muggles5, Earthian, hablano, ascott and jgreyhome for their especially enlightening comments. And to most who have commented here for the civility of the discourse.
jgreyhome
When the parties involved in a transaction are unequal in economic power, the powerful will take advantage of the powerless.
Those that innovate in the capitalist economy make billions. Why are they worth that? That takes billions from others who could use money simply to survive.
Thom Hartmann is much to be admired, and his analysis of the horrible impacts of slavery and other perversions as fueled by twisted religion, politics, economics and business is heartbreakingly accurate. However, let's not lose track of a fundamental truth: religion, politics, economics, and business are all ways of looking at life--they are not life itself. No such way of life can be judged by the bad acts and actors through which it may manifest itself. Religion certainly allows us to contemplate in community the spiritual; politics allows us to live in community and make resource-allocation decisions in a rational and open way; economics illuminates the opportunity costs and values of things; and business allows us to produce and sell goods in an effective and meritocratic way which is rooted to an important degree in human nature.
For every televangelist there is a saint; for every Enron there is E-Bay; for every George Bush there is an Abraham Lincoln; for every fascistic corporatist there is a cooperative. Each of us strengthens or weakens these examples as we vote with our feet, our ballots, our wallets, and our charity.
Here in Hawaii, the holiday is known as Discoverer's Day, to hail the South Sea Islanders who sailed here from 2500 miles away, among others. By all means, let's focus on Thom's message, but without losing sight of the virtue of exploration, interchange, and mutual benefit in an atmosphere of mutual respect.
Draconius
Actually, Columbus was suprised when the Taino greeted him and his crew with friendliness, generousity and face-to-face honesty.
However, Columbus and crew thought as you do: these people are ripe for taking advantage of. And they did.
There is no true order of anything. The savage brute you describe has been released by grasping empires and, later, corporate-dominated states.
The indigenous people Columbus met were described by him as viewing war as a game.
Of course, Columbus and those that followed viewed war as a business: win, exterminate, enslave and take.
Your simplistic aside about the Katrina disaster is more about you. If anything, the disaster demonstrated the effects of global warming, the culmination of 27 years of right-wing government/corporate policies and the extremes of racial and social inequality.
The nature of man is ruthless, brutal, and barbaric. A leopard cannot change his spots no matter how hard he tries. Columbus brought civilization to the savages who were not much more than animals. As for me, I wouldn't mind having a beautiful young savage slave girl to ravish whenever i wanted. There is no enlightenment, although you liberals are good at faking it. Take away the comforts of modern life and you would quickly revert to the savage brute which lies at the core, just look at the aftermath of Katrina for proof of this. The day is fast approaching when might makes right shall be the law of the earth, and I say come quickly, for in that day the weak will serve the strong, or they will be destroyed. That is the true order of things, from ancient Egypt to the present Pax Americana which is even now being built.
Africa isn't the only place "contaminated" by the US commercial culture.
Most of the world is contaminated; this contamination, like carbon-based pollution to the natural world, is destroying the wide range cultural variety within the human family.
When living in Honduras or the Philippines, I always noticed that US TV programs, movies, pop music and fashion dominated the local urban culture.
Whatever happened to the cultural products generated from their own societies' history and geography?
It was destroyed by the pollution generated by the US's entertainment industry.
We have already "entertained ourselves to death"; as a result, the huge US entertainment industry has expanded (and is expanding) its vacuous, simple-minded and amoral drivel into the rest of the world.
If one understands the underside of this cultural imperialism, then one can start understanding why some cultural groups are so actively down on this cultural product.
As an individual, I luxuriate in the planet's cultural, social, linguistic, and genetic diversity.
However, under corporate capitalism (and its earlier manifestations), diversity is rapidly being exterminated... such as it was (as is)done to indigenous peoples worldwide.
The 16th to 19th century Europeans and their imitators exterminated nomadic and tribal peoples and they crushed the remnants of older pre-capitalist empires.
The 20th and 21st centuries started the extermination of peasant and farming life.
What is next on the extermination list?
paonialora
Your China/Tibet analogy is fallacious.
Aside from that, what would you call them? I believe 'Native American' arose from numbers of the folk themselves as a rebuke of the 'Indian' tag. The Native Americans I know are satisfied with the referent, so who am I to insist otherwise?
'Native' is not necessarily denigrating. I am a native-born American, but not a native Chicagoan. Which is or is not denigrating?
Would New World Indigens work better for you? (But, then, there was nothing new about these lands to them.) North/South/Central American Indigens? (There's that pesky 'American' again.) Indigenous Peoples of North/South/Central America? (But that's just another form of American Indigens.)
As I understood it, calling themselves Native Americans was an attempt by them to clearly claim their staus as the original inhabitants, (and thus indicate that the rest of us were late-comers, invaders, etc.)
The term 'Native American' is not ingrained in all our thinking, as their are still people who use the term 'American Indian' - and that includes some American Indians themselves. (Call the folk what they call themselves.)
The conquering government called them 'Indians' or 'American Indians.' You can see this in the name of the very old government department, The Bureau of Indian Affairs.
On what you base your critique I do not know; but I do know that you did not get it from any of the Native Americans/American Indians I know - and I've spoken to quite a few individuals from a number of nations. (I'm a past member of my alma mater's Native American Student Organization - and the name was chosen by its Native American founders.)
KaneJeeves - I like your comments about science and religion. Science is most definitely NOT a belief system. It is absolutely a method of study, and a very, very broad one at that. It is based upon experimention, observation, and consistency of results. Religion is a belief system based upon faith. "Faith" means one does not need proof of any kind in order to adhere to certain concepts.
Science, of course, does not kill people, nor does religion. The RESULTS of scientific accomplishments can help or damage people. In addition, religion does not in and of itself kill people. The MISPRACTICE of religion can harm, however.
As with the early invaders of the Americas, people often use religion as an excuse to perform atrocities. It's not the religion, it's the hypocrisy, quest for power and wealth, and misuse of technology that are to blame. Doing evil in the name of religion probably allows the perpetrators to justify their behavior.
Christianity in its truest form is a peaceful religion. If one reads the Bible, it's the Old Testament that is filled with violence. What Jesus taught, or is said to have taught, is exemplified in the Sermon on the Mount. The beatitudes are wonderful, and if all Christians lived by their teachings, the world would surely be a better place.
Thousands of years ago, people were using their god to justify genocide, plunder, and violence. It's the god of the Old Testament who ordered "his people" to murder everyone in certain cities, who sent floods to detroy entire civilizations, and who turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt for simply looking back - or disobedience, which seems to be the ultimate sin in the OT. I've had Christian friends tell me that rebellion is still considered to be a sin. These are sometimes the same people who believe America is the greatest country on earth and that Jesus, the most famous rebel in history, is either god himself or the son of god. Consistency is not a hallmark of religion.
It seems to me that one of the big problems with religion is that it's so inconsistent and illogical that it's hard for people to maintain their beliefs. However, if everyone believes the same thing, then it "must" be true. Therefore, the more absurd a belief system is, the harder "true believers" try to convert everyone else. As an agnostic, I couldn't care less what anyone else believes as long as their faith is not imposed on me. I'm quite satisfied to believe that "I don't know and you don't either" without having to convince anyone else. Whatever is, is, and no matter what anyone thinks or how hard they try to convert others, the nature of being is a mystery and likely to stay that way for a long, long time.
Note: none of the following is meant to minimize or excuse European/white depredations in any way.
Off the religion tack:
What the heck is 'a Native American word'? To which Native American language does it belong? This makes about as much sense as saying 'an Asian word' and far less sense than saying 'a European word.'
Further, beware anyone saying that the Native Americans were this way or that way. They were/are an extremely variable group of (more often than not unrelated and barely related) peoples.
I hate to burst your collective bubble, but Native Americans were/are just human beings, and just like human beings everywhere else, their histories comprise all sorts of barbarism. Depending upon the area, one might have found enemies being tortured and/or killed, cannibalism (e.g., in what is now Mexico), abductions, women being treated as chattel, old people being killed off - you name it. Slavery existed, but only in limited areas, as slavery is not a useful institution among nomadic peoples and/or those living at or barely above the subsistence level.
Slavery and taking over land from indigenous populations, (then killing, driving off and/or absorbing those populations) were not inventions of the white man. They existed in a wide range of places before any white man even knew those places existed. (Dispossession followed by an unknown level of absorption may have been the fate of the Neanderthals. I am only one of many who were endowed with an archaic form of molar that was found among the Neanderthals, and there are other markers that appear sporadically in modern populations.)
Personally, I find it abhorrent to take an entire 'racial stock' and treat them as somehow different than other peoples. It is just another form of dehumanization.
Think about statements like, "I would almost certainly take the word of a ___ over that of a ___," or "The mere fact that a ___ would make such a charge against a ___ is tantamount to proof of its veracity." Fill in your favorite pairs of races, ethnicities, religions, or nationalities, or use sexes, and you will readily see the dangers of setting one group apart from the rest of humanity.
I think some people here may have been overdosing on Rousseau.
I've just clicked on the link to the violent "kill the infidels" video games, and I've noted that under your country's classification system, they're earmarked M for mature (!!!) audiences! What's so mature about blowing up people for Christ's sake (and I invoke him in the proper sense of the word!).
Games like this have nothing whatsoever to do with loving one's neighbour or loving God. As such, they are a hallmark of puerility, not maturity as Jesus Christ lived and practised himself.
Think about this and the slaughter of millions of other Native Americans when Thanksgiving rolls around in about 6 weeks. I find it even more offensive "holiday" then Christmas. Its celbration is an affront to humanity.
There isn't any difference between eastern religions and western. The hindus fight the islamists and the Japanese budddhists were part of the WW2 effort. One important point is that the "Judeo-Christian" tradition is not as strong as some would claim. While Christianity contains some elements of Judism, in some ways Chistianity represents a break with Judea.
Is it possible that we could stop referring to the indigenous peoples and nations that were here before the Europeans arrived as "Native Americans"? That's like China conquering Tibet and then calling all Tibetans "Native Chinese." Calling the people of the Cherokee nation - or any conquered nation - "Natives" is denigrating and a way to make them disappear and deny them their cultural heritage and separate existence. It's one of the tricks that aggressive, conquering governments use. The phrase "native american" is so ingrained in our thinking that we don't even stop to realize how degrading it is.
But look what happened to Columbus in his later years. He was arrested, jailed, felt rejetced, had arthritis and opthalmia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus#Governorship_and_arres...
From Wikipedia, "he died of a heart attack caused by Reiter's Syndrome (also called reactive arthritis). According to his personal diaries and notes by contemporaries, the symptoms of this illness (burning pain during urination, pain and swelling of the knees, and conjunctivitis of the eyes) were clearly visible in his last three years"
And did he get peace after he died? Obviouly not. His body underwent excarnation (the flesh was removed so that only bones remained)and his remains moved about till now no one is sure where he is buried.
So, what goes around does come around. Imagine the suffering he went through in his later years. Let it be a lesson to the rest of us. Yes, we should fight the atrocities being committed, but rest assured that everyone gets their just desserts
Daniel David, i agree that followers of christ, at least quite a few of them are peaceful. but the bible is not. sure the sermon on the mount and some other passages are peaceful but what is done about all the bloodshed before it? i know the argument will be "old covenant", which i could buy, but then christians also use parts of the OT like the psalms. it's cherry picking. i am glad that people attempt to make good and to make peaceful of the mess that is that book
The religion practiced by Columbus and the business men who travel to Thailand for sex with children today is the same MONEY and POWER.
People who claim to be atheist, Christian, Muslim, and every other religion real or imagined have done all kinds of sick stuff worshiping their god of MONEY AND POWER.
Nazi doctors did sick crap and called it science and medicine. We don't blame science and medicine.
To godlessrant (10/8)
I beg to differ, and assert that followers of Christ are peaceful. It's just that there aren't many people either in or out of churches who actually adopt the teachings of Christ (Sermon on the Mount) and live by them. Most churches morph into worship of the 10 commandments and worship of their own hierarchies, and many members end up missing the point. Evidently, Columbus, too, was one of them.
Most of the real Christians aren't too enamored with their doctrines, and many of them aren't in churches at all. But when they try to really follow Christ, they're peaceful.
Great thread indeed. I'd only like to add a bit of the big picture. David Korten tells the basic story of empire well in The Great Turning. So does Riane Eisler in The Chalice and the Blade. And Lewis Mumford in The Myth of the Machine Part 1. The story is basic: humans have the capability of domination as well as cooperation. (I think our inclinations as predators and our opposing inclinations of nurturing helpless infants account for the differing biology of both capabilities.) So from about 3000 B.C. on, starting with Babylon and Egypt, in the Old World, empire and its violence, torture, conquest, domination and exploitation spread as part of cultural evolution. But this horrific pattern is not unique to Eurasia and Africa. In the New World, the Inca, the Aztecs and the Maya, three native American societies, engaged in imperial horrors. Read Conquests and Cultures by Thomas Sowell. The pattern of the long train of imperial genocides is not particularly Babylonian, or Egyptian, or European, or Christian, or Muslim, or Spanish, or Italian, or Roman, or British, or American. This pattern is human. It should always be condemned as illegal and immoral. So is the pattern of love and cooperation, democracy and progressivism a human pattern. We must implement it completely. So the key idea to derive from Thom's superb article, other discussions of genocides, and today's current horrors is this: in the context of the emerging global crisis with its converging problems and risks, our choice as a species is clear: domination-based empire and catastrophe—or cooperation-based Earth community and sustainability. Today's children, their children and all future generations await our choice. From the Athenian democracy of Cleisthenes in 507 B.C. and the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus; to the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Iroquois democracy of about 1300; to the American revolution of 1776 and the French revolution of 1789; to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the Millennial Goals of 2001, the trend of our ideals is cooperative. That is what constitutes our progressive ideals. What awaits us is to implement them. And that is the progressive story and the progressive task. It is not just a task of our generation, but is a larger task: that of our species. The moment of decision is at hand in a single century: this one.
The highest form of government Is what people hardly even realize is there.
Next is the sage who is seen, and loved, and respected.
Next down is the dictatorship that thrives on oppression and terror-
And the last is that of those who lie and end up despised and rejected.
The sage says little- and does not tie the people down;
And the people stay happy believing that what happens happens naturally.
from the TAO TE CHING
It bothers me that when looking for rape, Mr. Hartmann has to cross the ocean to Africa - our soldiers are doing it in Irag; there is a massive sex slave trade in Eastern Europe; there is a massive pedophile ring/traffic in Southeast Asia; and of course pedophiles were found throughout Southern slave holders and in the United States today. Do me a favor - I'm sick of seeing Africa show up on progressive blogs with such negative reporting and observations. If you want to list human degradation and suffering - start at home.
The wetiko thing is not just judeo-xian. It's something the Romans, among others, practised, as well - as in Delenda est Carthago. It's the raider paradigm - economic systems based on setting armies to raid neighbors and colonies for their resources and slaves. Until that marauder paradigm, which is also the basis for our own miltary, industrial and corporate structures, gets replaced with a cooperative model, the world will continue to be run by vicious gangs of armed thugs. In ancient times it was territorial pride, in the renaissance it was religion, today, we're told it's democracy or the free market. It's always been nothing more than greed, however noble-sounding the pretext. And as long as we keep reproducing and demanding more, more, more stuff, we will all be feeding that monster.
purvis, obviously you live in a blissfull, delusional world. Of course I will not commit suicide now, I have to promote my genes and my clan, and protect my clan against idiots like you.
I just finished a course - Latin America before 1815, and learned all of what the author states about Columbus' treatment of the Taino Indians. He was so abusive he eventually was sent back to Spain under arrest and in chains. It sickens me that American children are taught to revere this man. He was a pig. A despicable pig who should not have a national holiday named after him.
If most Americans came to know his true character, maybe they'd begin to question a lot of other things they've been mislead to believe...
As is so often the case with Mr. Hartmann, a great informative article opening many of our eyes to specific facts about vague feelings of doubts we carry about the greatness of Columbus.
Throughout history and especially in modern times with the ability to "sell" propaganda to us the masses, we have confused fame, wealth and power with greatness. I am reminded as to the latest attempt to canonize a average mundane man into greatness. Given enough time and money the conservatives might actually put Ronald Reagan's puss on some our rapidly devaluing money. Maybe the penny would be appropriate so we could have a worthless coinage (which Reagan's piss-down theory of economics hastened) with a worthless president gracing it's face. It becomes more and more apparent why ex-presidents and their cheerleaders put so much time and money into their presidential libraries. Such institutions are often little more then a more literate form of promotional billboard buying their historical significance.
May I compliment and second muggles 5 for his intelligent examination of the relation of religion and politics. As I have said before lets not throw the baby out with the proverbial dirty bath water. In the world of duality the dirt is necessary to give meaning and radiance to the clean. Every shell doesn't contain a pearl else pearls would only have the value of sea shells. Gold is often blacked (in traditional times) to prevent recognition by the thief. Precious metal and gems are often hidden deep in the protective bowels of the earth and cannot be found by the casual digger.... even though it is a somewhat different vain: The fruit laden tree bends low in humility.
Just a great thread. Wish I could have found so much stimulation and knowledge in
college. If such pursuit of truth was offered there we might not be in this present predicament of living in a nation where democracy has become a mere slogan.
Ok, I'm going to attempt to say something intelligent about history, religion, science, and progress...
It seems like many posts and comments on this website are animated primarily by (usually just) one of three things: horror of the past, horror of the present, and horror of the future. This seems like an abuse of the concept of time--not that we can't have it all three ways, but that if we want to do that, rationality itself suggests we remove history from the equasion and focus on our horror.
But it's not everything that horrifies us; only the things about which we have detailed, reliable information. We sense that being horrified by everything familiar leaves us a bit unbalanced, so we claim to be smitten by things we do not and can not know anything about.
Our horror of the past keeps us grinding our teeth about evil religion; when this horror is dominant, we adopt a comfortable assumption of progress and a hope for the unbounded potential of reason. When horror of the future becomes too intense, however, we turn away, and take refuge in a personalized spirituality, loosed on principle from any institutional or historical claim on us. If we can't stomach that, there's always raw paranoia.
We're preoccupied with shame, blame, and horror--we may as well be Christians!
Columbus: a bad man, to be sure. Roman Catholicism: not for me. But the Roman Empire all bad? Really?
People, let's heal our relationship to the past. I don't want to live in a world without religion any more than I want to live in a world without art--and I mean art in its historical continuity, not art as some flatulent avant-garde amusement to relieve the tension of our oppressive and necessary reckoning with the past.
We may able to change things without mastering the past, but I think it's unlikely we will change them to our liking.
I'm preaching to myself; I'm horrified too. But is that why I'm a leftist? Nah. I'm a leftist because conservatism is stupid, because we're all in this together, and because I'm thinking we can do better.
From Hispanola to Darfur, there is a terrible trail of cruelty running through human history.
Columbus and the Conquistadors are especially offensive because they were so pious about it.
Greed is the root of all evil, and greed is just an expression of fear. When you do not believe that God will provide, you start to take more than you need... soon you are pawn in an empire clashing with other empires.
What did Columbus fear, that drove him to such inhumanity?
"The central tie in everything you mention is Rome. Think about that for a while."
About that...there is a video game out called Rome: Total War where you capture cities with the roman legions and are given the following options about what to do with the people:
Occupy Settlement
Enslave Settlement
Exterminate Settlement
It just so happens the third option is the most economical in the game, followed by the second, whereas in the first the people can revolt.
I think Rome pretty much set the standard for today's empires.
christianity is NOT a peaceful religion. Take one good read thru the bible, the old testament is an account of one slaughter after another, with revelations being the final orgy of violence and judgement. i know there are peaceful christians but how anyone can still be surprised that there's so much elements of violence within it, well that amazes me. the belief that it's a peaceful religion just simply isn't true.
muggles5,you bring to light a valid point.justice and peace is something most humans desire and is not as voliatile as religion or politics,that is the reason democracy opted for separation of church and state and it is still a good idea.
KaneJeeves: you so little understand faith, and you know me less. I never said anything about doubting the claims of science in either of my posts. You're talking to a stereotype of a religious person who lives in your head, not to me. And that's exactly what I was getting at.
You speak of word games. These are truly word games YOU are dealing in, certainly not anything akin to science. Why would I need to let go of a steering wheel to demonstrate faith? You see, faith is in the invisible, the intangible, or else it is not faith. I'm not concerned with you sharing my beliefs. But what you fail to notice is that the insults are all going one way here. I never put down science, I merely pointed out that it is a human creation, not an abstraction.
Yes, I am grateful for medicine. Like the prosthesis that allows my son to walk. (But you thought this was an abstraction for me, I take it. Your particular brand of anger has not been mitigated by your trust in science.)
But I also know that medicine almost killed my sister, because she was not allowed to seek any alternatives to kidney-destroying drugs in dealing with her mental distress. No, she was forced by the state to take drugs which nearly killed her. And it is the alliance of science with corporations and the state which give the lie to notions of "impartial method." Just as it is the alliance of religion with the state and with rapacious capitalism that gives the lie to notions of "higher purpose."
You want to have it all one way. You want to assert a purity of science, a science which has no responsibility for outcomes, but you lay anything done in the name of religion at the feet of every religious person. Are thalidomide, the bomb, toxic waste, the fault of every scientist? Of course not, that's a ludicrous proposition, and you would recognize it as such. I'm not a "post-modernist," as someone above implied. I am simply a person.
The diatribes back and forth between a tiny minority of Christians who have vicious notions of morality, and a tiny minority of secular progressives who harbor hatred for religious people, these exchanges are distractions. I intended not to continue the fight, but to point back, as I've said again and again in these forums, towards the concerns for justice and peace which leftists of all cosmologies ought to share. It is only this generation of progressives who have found it impossible to bridge these divides on a a state and national level, and it is for precisley this reason that we are unable to achieve critical mass in politics and movement building.
"...It shouldn't surprise us that our churches are using violent "kill the infidels" video games to lure in children..."
My partner thinks that I am paranoid, but I DO BELIEVE that they really are planning on killing us
From the out of print book, "He Walked the Americas" by L. Taylor Hansen, these are some excerpts. A Christ like beardeed white man was said to have travelled the Americas bringing a message of peace. Believe what you like about him.
"He repeated the warnings given at Tula against the deeds of the sacraficers, and foretold the invasion of White man. ...the suits of shining metal, the rods which make noise and kill at a distance."
"Once I had great hope for these people, for I saw them kneel and kiss the sweet earth, and I saw the shadow of the great cross which they carried with them. Yea, I had great faith in these people. Now I must warn you against them."
"They have but one love and that is for weapons. Ever more horrible are these weapons, until they reach for the one which is ultimate."
"For five full cycles of the Dawn star (Venus), the rule of the warring strangers will go on to greater and greater orgies of destruction."
"Their path will lead to the last destruction. Know that the end will come in five full cycles."
That is some of the excerpts I could have included.
I found out that the cycle of the Dawn star is 104 years. Five cycles is 520 years. 1492 + 520 = 2012.
This book was published in 1963 - many years before the Mayan callendar was decoded.
Didn't you guys see Apocalypto? The Europeans saved those funny-talking dudes.
Muggles - By "science is running the show", do you mean like when a father's life is extended by an artifical heart (the product of scientific work) so he can be with his family that much longer? Or any of a thousand medicines that make life better for people? Or the treatments a child takes to battle the cancer the creator has intelligently designed into her small body? Is that what you mean?
And speaking of Faith...I'll indulge your word games. I would argue that hardly any religious person has any TRUE faith in their god, whereas they Do in fact have faith in science. For example, everytime they drive over a bridge, they show their faith in science and engineering. Everytime they start their car in fact. And so on. On the other hand, how many would let go of the steering wheel while speeding down the highway, and rely on faith in their god to keep them safe? I'll bet none.
muggles,
"But in reality, science, like religion, is a tool in the hands of institutional and individual actors. There's nothing impartial about the CHOICE of questions scientists choose to investigate. There's nothing impartial about the goals governments and corporations have for the use of information gleaned from experiment"
The postmodernist view gets us in the same bind that Kant left philosophy in; it's a prelude to reaction, not a solution. Reproached with using junk science to support Exxon, the reactionary post-modernist responds that the science reporting vast climate & environmental changes is just as biased. The neocons are difficult to combat because they use this new form of intellectual nihilism to oppose progress. And it IS intellectual nihilism, not legitimate criticism, and it's primary aim is to abolish the very concept of human advancement.
all of life is based on hard science and i do not see this as being in conflict with a 'creator'i see it as,affirmation...
Dichterfreund, well put. It's not the religion, or the science, it's the desire to control other people which is evil. 666 is not the mark of a demon, it's two-thirds: Me plus this other force wins over some other person.
As for the assertion that sceince is impartial method, not belief system: a lot of things are impartial in theory, like democracy for example. But in reality, science, like religion, is a tool in the hands of institutional and individual actors. There's nothing impartial about the CHOICE of questions scientists choose to investigate. There's nothing impartial about the goals governments and corporations have for the use of information gleaned from experiment. If our socially coniditioned uses of science are separable from a Platonic ideal of Science, then equally are our socially conditioned uses of religion separable from an ideal Religion. It's not apples and oranges. They are both (more overlapping than either faction cares to admit) ways of apprehending and filtering reality. The culture and the individual make choices about how to make use of these methods.
More broadly, many have made the point which bears repeating: brutality is a feature of almost all human cultures. Instead of seeking a deterministic explanation for our own depravity, we should instead be asking why some few groups and individuals have avoided cruelty as a way of life. "They are nice" will not be sufficient.
It is troubling to note the naivete of the defenders of science here. I don't see that science needs much defending, as it is more or less running the show in logistical and material terms. What is disturbing is the... well, there is no better word... "faith" that people whose lives are allied with institutional science have in its priorities and its assumptions. Surely the results speak for themselves. Science hasn't solved our problems, it has mostly made them worse. Religion has an equally bad track record. That does not make either way of thinking wrong, it means there's a problem that neither is dealing with.
The beginning of the colonial period in the new world began as the period of Eastern domination of Western Europe was closing. Columbus and Isabel were two years old when Constantinople fell, and nearing what was old age when the long re-conquest of Spain was completed. For them, this was indigenous resistance to foreign occupation. It would be another 80 years until the Battle of Lepanto, which established the last four centuries of European supremacy & largely concluded with the European auto-destruction in 1914-1945 & the de-colonial period. The re-evaluation of the begnning marks the conclusion of a half-millenium.
The rightwing decries the crimes that mark the decline of European supremacy, while it lauds those that began it; the non-revolutionary left, while decrying the former, somehow believes that the new period will be inaugurated without the same extensive violence.
kelmer October 8th, 2007 4:57 pm
Science is a belief system.
If you do an experiment 100 times you have faith that the same results will occur on the 101th try,
__________________
You sound a little confused kelmer; even your logic proves science IS a methodolgy, that's why you perform the same experiment for the 101st time!? Get it now? Not knowing the type of scientists you socialize with, the concept of experiments for the purpose of re-enforcing "faith" (in the expected results) is quite alien to me and some other scientist I know!
kelmer October 8th, 2007 4:53 pm
Its a bit incomplete to just blame Judeo Christianity.
Asians have been quite brutal and they are declared atheists
__________________
This sounds quite the perception-fulfillment broad brush; exactly which Asians are declared atheists??
the french huegonot was the first to try to settle florida and 'christianize'the indigenous dweller.the huegonot used principles very akin to democracy in its compelling nature.but as we all know know,a freak hurricane(a lilithwind)shipwrecked the goodtiming liberal french and the 'evil'genociding spanish,won-no contest.beheading every single frenchmen,with the exception of four french musicians,the conquistidors kept alive for the sake of some entertainment for a rowsing good party.i blame the saint"augustine"for putting it into their heads that even genocide was acceptable,if it succeeded in converting the heathens.since the spanish were fasciststyled catholic chistians,they never read the words of jesus,for themselves.EVIL was allowed to prevail because the spanish were into nation building and at the time,it seemed a 'good idea'anyway,my point is,columbus was no different,he was familiar with the notion of the city of god and believed in genocide.his holiday is a celebration of GENOCIDE !!
"Science is a belief system.
If you do an experiment 100 times you have faith that the same results will occur on the 101th try,"
Science is a system which eliminates belief in favor of evidence. Faith, on the other hand, incorporates failure into its system. It's much more like baseball, where a successful hitter fails seven out of ten times. A person of faith does not believe that God is not listening or isn't faithful simply because he or she doesn't receive the gift asked for or the response expected, because they don't believe that God is an impersonal thing who is subject to the manipulations of finite beings. In science, the scientist and the subject stand on equal ground; in faith, there is no such equality, since the faithful can put no constraints on the divinity they believe in.
Science and faith are both goods when the individual places him or herself at the service of others, rather in command of them, and both are bad when people decide to reduce others to instruments of their own will.
abbywood--check out the excellent "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen for a comprehensive overview of ther European invasion of the Western Hemisphere, and then American history through the Iran-Contra affair as taught in American schools. The author make the point that the primary sources have always been available--like the journals, letters, and reports of Columbus and his contemporaries--and have been deliberately ignored by history textbook writers. The author dedicates his book to all the middle and high school teachers who teach the truth.
Also for unflinching, exhaustive, detailed accounts of the genocide of the native peoples of the Western Hemisphere, Ward Churchill's (AIM member and professor at U.of Colorado) "A Little Matter of Genocide" is a must read.
I find it offensive that we celebrate Columbus Day. First of all, we're not even sure he "discovered" America. It is said that several other Europeans have made it here before; Columbus just took the credit. And second, proclaiming that he "discovered America" is offensive to the millions of people who had been living here for thousands of years before his arrival. I think there are plenty of other historical figures that we'd be better off honoring than Columbus.
Do you think we should celebrate Columbus? http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=661
Science is a belief system.
If you do an experiment 100 times you have faith that the same results will occur on the 101th try,
plus it is founded in the religious sytem of secularism--which is a religion. Secularists just dont like to face the fact that their belief in reality is also non absolute.
Of all the great cultures around the globe, the white Western culture is closest to its barbarian past. The Europe of 1492 is perfectly captured in this passage from Ronald Wright's *Stolen Continents*:
"European secular government was a tangle of decayed feudal loyalties and personal ambition. The last proper roads had been built by the Romans more than a thousand years before. The rapidly growing cities were unplanned, ramshackle, without sanitation, seething with poverty and disease. If famine struck a region, the state was quite unable to provide relief. Life expectancy oscillated between the high teens and low thirties, lower than in the most deprived nations of today. The achievements of Europe were technological, not social. It had the best ships, the best steel, the best guns; it also had conditions desperate enough to make its people want to leave and use these things to plunder others."
Welcome to civilization!
We're primarily discussing Western events, so I've emphasized Christianity. By Church is meant...take your pick. Roman Catholic comes to mind, esp in the middle ages. So, hablano, yes in general it's the religious mindset I'm refering to, whether Moonie, Muslim, Christian or Roman Empire.
Muggles5 - comparing "religous vs scientific" - you're mixing apples and oranges. Science isn't a belief system, it's a method, or a tool, that can be used by athiest and theist alike.
Its a bit incomplete to just blame Judeo Christianity.
Asians have been quite brutal and they are declared atheists.
The Makah whaling tribe kept human slaves.
There was a South American tribe that used to force the tusks of boars to grow in spirals so they can use them as ceremonial masks--though it was painful for the boars.
A Peruvian tribe has an annual ritual of sewing a bird to the back of an ox.
There was a New Guinea tribe(documented in the film Hearts of Darkness) that would insert a reed stick into the hearts of live pigs and watch them convulse to death,
Human depravity is a human trait--not a strictly religious one.
Religion is just the vehicle used to defend it, but its not the cause.
"We live in a culture that includes the principle that if somebody else has something we need, and they won't give it to us, and we have the means to kill them to get it, it's not unreasonable to go get it, using whatever force we need to."
**They just awarded a nobel prize for medicine to men who tormented and brutalized mice through genetic engineering--another form of rape.
As Tolstoy said--we will always have wars as long as we have slaughterhouses.
You cant put out the fire if you keep pouring kerosene in it.
The scary thing is that for the majority of the American Population, social justice is far less important (and less fun) than getting new stuff. And we don't realize the "new stuff" we get cheap is usually off the backs of near slave labor reinforced by ethnic cleansing and rape.
Very sad.
To gandhi
Yes. And you've said it well!
I urge the reader to go back up 3 posts and read gandhi's post.
He gets it!
One more thing, I really wish someone would make a movie of the Howard Zinn version Christ-ofer Columbus. But to do the story justice they would have a hard time getting an "R" rating.
Thom didn't say it was J-C at the root of the problem, but religion is a big part of it. Along with the Judeo-Christian we must add Islam. Seems that all those religions based on "The Good Book" (part I, at least) are so very good at persecution and if God says unbelievers don't count and can be killed (as is so often shown to be the only way to go in said 'Good book').
I don't know enough about the eastern religions, from what I've seen those seem to allow for other beliefs, but at the same time seem to result in making people more malleable to manipulators. But all of us who belong to the consumer culture are the root of the problem. Go back and read Thom's book "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight". The younger culture (YC) that we are a part of began before Christianity*, but that doesn't mean it's in our genes. If it were, the last of the "Older Cultures" (OC) would have passed away long ago. But since it is "culture" and not genes, it's a learned way of life. Just like YC is learned. The indigenous people that the Mass Murderer found in the Caribbean were OC, as were most of the peoples of the new world. The problem with OC is that whenever YC and OC meet, OC is defeated. OC stands no chance against YC, OC has no tools to deal with YC, it's a completely alien way of life. That doesn't mean that we can't learn from OC – in fact if we want to survive as a species we will have to.
It's like we're all on a plane that's flying straight towards the Himalaya's in white out conditions and our instruments are turned off. Will we hit the mountains or run out of gas?
*I don't remember if it was it Thom's book, but the Cain and Able story is YC being victorious over OC. We are all Cain's children after all.
Columbus Day like Thanksgiving Day is a special day of celebration in the US. When seen in the background these two "SPECIAL DAYS" represent a culture of genocide, slavery, occupation of "others" land and plunder.
- We also see two contrasting cultures: the culture of the native peoples, which was (is) welcoming and feeding the GUEST, and the western culture, which was (is) based on "chopping the hand (and head) that fed them", and occupying the land of the HOST. The irony is that the former is portrayed as barbarians and latter civilized and the LIGHT OF THE WORLD???????????
-The National Council of Churches summed up Columbus best by issuing this statement, among other similar statements, in 1990: "For the indigenous people of the Caribbean islands, Christopher Columbus' invasion marked the beginning of slavery and their eventual genocide."
"Columbus: a hero? Yes, for Slavery, Colonization, Genocide, Racism, Religious Fanaticism, and Human and Environmental Exploitation. Yet the US (and the West) do not only condone Christopher Columbus, it honors his life by celebrating and observing a holiday in his name. On second thought though, slavery and genocide are as American as apple pie."
Doesn't this culture of Columbus still continue in the US??? Iraq, Somalia, Congo, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Haiti, Chile, Philippines...... are the MONUMENTS OF THE CULTURE OF THE US AND THE WEST BASED ON THE COLUMBUS CULTURE.
-Let me leave this question for thought on this COLUMBUS DAY: who is civilized? And who is barbarian? Who lived out better human values? Who manifested canibalism?
hablano:
The central tie in everything you mention is Rome. Think about that for a while.
Also, seeing this as a "left or right" issue is bogus.
Criticizing the left seems ridiculous in the context of Thom's article.
For anyone who didn't already know about Columbus or any of the other oppressors in our history you should definitely read A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn:
http://tinyurl.com/237qqy
This should be required reading in every middle & high school in America. It also seems G. H. W. Bush needs a history lesson. Our heros of elementary school were rapists and murderers. What a wonderful country.
So the rape and pillaging of modern day Iraq is nothing new, the people in power have always resorted to the lowest form of life to achieve their goals, whether they are simply self-gratification or world domination. It will never change until either they annihilate humanity or the earth itself does. Happy Columbus Day...
Kane Jeeves: Great idea! Let's blame it on the Christian church! But wait...Islam believed in manifest destiny too...they were probably influenced by Christianity! Or maybe religion is a bad, bad thing. But what about the Roman Empire--clearly their manifest-destiny-inspired brutality can be traced to their fanatical paganism!
So many seem so adamant that Christianity, or religion except the good ones with no history, or anything but 200-proof atheism, is the disease. Those of us with an appreciation for religion wish it were as powerful as you think.
And the phrase "as implemented by the church"...what church? The church agrees on nothing.
arjenboatsma
"No matter how loudly one clan (christianity, for instance)proclaims how great they are, ultimately they all have to obey the genetic coding, honed over millions of years of evolution, that we want to spread our genes, protect our offspring, protect our clan, with any means necessary."
I have never heard a better recipe for self-annihilation and the probable annihilation of all life forms on the planet put so concisely. I suggest you commit suicide now.
In this-case (and many), the Church. Similar stains, of course, apply to Muslims and Jews (historic and Modern); so, too, the pagan Hun/Mongol-Hordes who treated Christians/Muslims alike to similar.
The Taino are an appropriate-example today, however (and were followed by countless-others). Most people white-wash their own Historical/Current crimes against 'lesser/Others', learning/believing a history/Mythos celebratory of 'all held dear' rather than Ethical-truths. If the World would "wake up" to not repeating so-regularly such tragedy, it must begin with most of us learning how 'anyone' has the potential for such-transgressions (not just the 1940's civilized-Germans, Israeli-Jews, USSR's loyal-comrades, holy-Crusaders, or USA's Supported-Troops). The first-step to such an understanding is addressing and examining these 'road-kills' in our shared-shame (taking care not to fall into the Abyss when shocked by what is found).
My own late-life 'eye-opening' in this regard was stumbling upon:
http://www.ahealedplanet.net/columbus.htm
when trying to understand some framework to investigate what I subliminally was reacting-to and was uneasy-with, immediately after 9/11 (still seeking in that 'quest', btw). http://www.ahealedplanet.net/america.htm and http://www.ahealedplanet.net/lies.htm followed, and although I can't recommend this fellow's politics or other-judgments/activities, I shortly found his research into our 'true-History' both verifiable and horrifying. This material can't 'date', as it is the sorrier-side of our 'progress' as a civilization, and Historical, so I'd recommend it as further 'shock therapy' to begin any attempt to 'separate wheat from chaff' and to gain any context into which the Issues of today (or the future) can be properly-understood.
[I think we have to shed all pretext of 'our own intrinsic-good', compared to any Other, before we can free ourselves from dehumanizing-others in enabling social and selfish-Interests...]
The point that KaneJeeves makes above is incomplete and shows one particular bias dominating his or her ideological landscape. I could just as easily declare, say from a Radical Feminist perspective, that the problem is patriarchy. Ultimately, we'd both be right, but we'd both be incomplete in our perspective
Religion, be it Judeo-Christian or other, is merely how we justify our violence, but the origin appears to be genetic. Follow this link and see how chimpanzees display the same type of shocking violence as humans: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2004/demonicape.shtml
Therefore, the question to me becomes this: (When) will humans make a conscious choice to evolve beyond our basest instincts? From my perspective, the one difference between humans and the gods is that the concept of sovereignty is granted to the latter but fought over by the former. The Greco-Roman-Norse gods possessed all the sovereignty their respective domains accorded them, but were just as lacking in virtue as present humans. In some ways, the idea of a god taking flesh and practicing humility displays a transpersonal conceptual evolution, which is the one reason why I don't completely detest Christianity. What I find offensive and deeply troubling is the blurring of the archetypal boundaries between myth and legend on one hand, and history on the other.
www.raycarlson.com
I think Thom WAS including other religions. As a matter of fact, I don't think religion was at the center of what Thom was pointing out.
I think his point was about a corrupting influence in societies... an influence of "conservative Darwinian Economics".
I don't think man is genetically corrupt. I don't think it is our "nature" to subjugate and rape and pillage...
As Thom said;
"We live in a culture that includes the principle that if somebody else has something we need, and they won't give it to us, and we have the means to kill them to get it, it's not unreasonable to go get it, using whatever force we need to."
So it's not human religion nor is it human nature that is at the core of this corruption. It's a corrupt human society that believes "might makes right"... that we can take what ever we want, just because we want it.
So Thom maybe should have mentioned "Manifest Destiny" as a corrupt concept, but not because of Christianity or human nature.
And from manifest destiny's Pacific shore, Columbus' Caucasian heirs continued west through Hawaii, to the Phillippines, Japan, and later with a major stopover in southeast Asia. On and on, at last to circumnavigate the globe, coming to rest in the cradle of civilisation crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates. Any further west, and we're back to Europe where it all began.
Thom gives us a fine Howard Zinn-style treatment of the march of real American history. Such open talk of genocide, rape, and grandiose robbery used to be shunned as mainstream national narrative, relegated only to the marginalized left of the political spectrum.
But with the ascendancy of the neo-con militarists in the Bush administration, a strange thing has started to evolve: the far right, too, teaches "A People's History of the United States" in the mode of Zinn and Hartmann. The far right think tankers and GOP ideologues embrace the epic saga as proof that democracy and capitalism are still on the march, and that conversion of the heathen at the point of a sword has perhaps always been the inevitable, preordained lot of mankind. In Iraq, Chris Columbus has finally found the promised land right where it always was.
Maybe, just maybe, with the mythical history of American exceptionalism as some benign, peace loving, and tolerant City on the Hill being exposed by critique from both the left and from the right, there'll emerge a solid consensus that it's well past time to stop the merry-go-round.
Bill from Saginaw
Christianity, and religion in general, are used as tools by powerful people, but also as locii of resistance by the powerless. There is no unitary essence of religion, and attempts by the Inter-Left to assert one are ahistorical, anti-intellectual, and counter-productive. Anger at particular examples of the merging of religious doctrine with colonialism or militarism is not an adequate rationale for ignoring the complexity of human culture.
Why would the left, which claims to be a defender of pluralism and diversity of expression, seek to be a destroyer of belief in invisible things? When did progressivism become the home of rigid logical positivism - which, by the way, is far more clearly at the center of imperialism and genocide than religion ever was.
Eugenics was scientific, not religious. Hiroshima was a technological feat, not a religious act. The Indian genocides, while given the fig leaf of religion, were of course the product of economic and ethnic greed.
It is amazing that so many on the left adopt such a sophomoric, narrow view of religion. This posture reveals a profound ignorance of the history of resistance to power both in the United States and elsewhere. Where do MLK, Ghandhi, the Sanctuary movement, the Berrigans, the Quakers and others fit into this picture?
The role of religion in imperialism is complicated and awful, but the world has changed a great deal in the last few hundred years. Religion, especially in the US, has become such a diverse set of phenomena that these sweeping generalizations are a sign of intellectual laziness.
I suggest that progressives keep their eye on the ball: the strong suit is the set of economic justice positions which are shared by the vast majority of Americans - living wage, universal health care, restraint of predatory corporate practices, and protection of the biosphere, whose destruction disproportionately affects the poor and lower middle class. Don't get distracted by uneducated ranting about religion being a "mental illness." It's not only hateful, it's just inaccurate.
Ethnocide always accompanies ideologically sanctioned genocide.
In fact, the ethnocidal project is vastly larger than past and present forms of genocide.
Anglo/US domination of the global electronic/entertainment media, commercial music, the fashion industry and its status-driven consumer culture is efficiently exterminating the world's wide variety of dance, music, oral traditions, cosmologies, languages, and entertainment.
Of course, ethnocide replicates what is occuring in the natural and horticultural world. The genetic variety of the earth's fauna and flora are also being homogenized...into a narrow range of commercially viable food sources.
So, social darwinism op