Do you two always carpool to work together? Where one of you is, there is the other. When you two speak I hear a dominant tone with an echo, and there is no doubt which is which.
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The War of the Rebellion is precipitated by the coming of the railroads and the opening of new territories. A railroad lawyer is elected president whose first action is to set in motion the Transcontinental Railway which will force the events you describe above.
The War of the Rebellion is fought and won by railroad men.
When the war is over the Railroad Men elect The Great Captain president of the Union for which he fought. Grant commissions Sherman and Sheridan to pave the way for the rail's expansion into the West to open the markets for what is to come. And the rails build a net that allows access to every corner of this great land.
This is the event you bemoan above. Maybe reading the entire book, rather than wikiing a fact and coating it in bile in order to weaponize it, pays off in the long run?
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Ok, so the railways had to be built, for some reason.
Cool, let's grant you that divine commandment.
Now, how do any of the choices I highlighted follow from that? Why does the genocide of the natives follow, and why does it follow that the government actively encourages and participates in this, rather than prevents it?
Cool, let's grant you that divine commandment.
Now, how do any of the choices I highlighted follow from that? Why does the genocide of the natives follow, and why does it follow that the government actively encourages and participates in this, rather than prevents it?
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If I might be so bold as to interpose with a layman's perspective, is the thrust of the argument being forward here not the idea that the empires of the West were bad, because empires in general had been bad before? We look back with the benefit of hindsight on the events of a hundred or two hundred years and recoil - but for the people of the time, such acts might have been seen as considerably more frequent and mundane. Further, if I am reading this right, I believing what is seen as the unique saving grace of Western empire building is the notion that it bequeathed the modern world; one where unlike the centuries upon centuries of empires which have preceded them. Namely, a world where things like individual rights, personal liberty, peace and prosperity, etc, are seen as ideals which ought to be aspired to by all, notwithstanding the fact that reality often falls short.
Now that's my impression of the argument, by all means correct me if I am getting it wrong.
Now that's my impression of the argument, by all means correct me if I am getting it wrong.
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Well my original argument was that it is utter foolishness to not regard the USA as an imperialist power, as the very expansion that made it cover from sea to shining sea was an imperialist, colonialist land-grab.
Then we had some tangents and diversions, and I came back to challenge the assumption that this was some sort of natural outcome that the USA could have done nothing to mitigate, let alone prevent.
Which is, of course, not true. Treating the West as a release valve for tensions in the East, or to quote the meme as "free real estate" was an active choice. To wit, even the direct neighbours of the USA managed to be less horrific to their native populations, though Canada only marginally. Even the oft-maligned spanish colonisation somehow ended up with a much, much, much higher population of natives, despite quite a lot of immigration to Latin America too.
That Western colonisation, and especially USA colonisation and imperialism bequeathed the modern world onto the people it colonised is an absurd claim, and is the go-to for imperial appologia. Imperialism didn't give individual liberty, peace and prosperity to the colonies, it was engaged in actively suppressing them. (Nor were such ideas foreign to the colonial subjects, but baby steps).
Furthermore, the USA is especially badly equipped to somehow give individual rights to its colonial possessions, when it didn't even have those within itself for a good chunk of its population, either de jure or de facto. Florida wasnt invaded to give people liberty and prosperity, it was done to take it away from people (Seminoles, free blacks, etc).
Then we had some tangents and diversions, and I came back to challenge the assumption that this was some sort of natural outcome that the USA could have done nothing to mitigate, let alone prevent.
Which is, of course, not true. Treating the West as a release valve for tensions in the East, or to quote the meme as "free real estate" was an active choice. To wit, even the direct neighbours of the USA managed to be less horrific to their native populations, though Canada only marginally. Even the oft-maligned spanish colonisation somehow ended up with a much, much, much higher population of natives, despite quite a lot of immigration to Latin America too.
That Western colonisation, and especially USA colonisation and imperialism bequeathed the modern world onto the people it colonised is an absurd claim, and is the go-to for imperial appologia. Imperialism didn't give individual liberty, peace and prosperity to the colonies, it was engaged in actively suppressing them. (Nor were such ideas foreign to the colonial subjects, but baby steps).
Furthermore, the USA is especially badly equipped to somehow give individual rights to its colonial possessions, when it didn't even have those within itself for a good chunk of its population, either de jure or de facto. Florida wasnt invaded to give people liberty and prosperity, it was done to take it away from people (Seminoles, free blacks, etc).
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There is no choice, only the illusion of choice. Clearer still when it is supposedly the choice of a nation and all its people with disregard for the pressures that ultimately dictate events. Trillions (because I'm too silly to think of a larger number) of pressure points that collectively move indviduals and groups alike.
Andre will disagree, he will be better able to explain details and any more and I'd have to take it to the WPK thread, so with that I intend to leave.
Andre will disagree, he will be better able to explain details and any more and I'd have to take it to the WPK thread, so with that I intend to leave.
The two systems of life are completely incompatible. Is it fair for this vast wilderness to remain empty and untamed while all those in the East and Europe who desire land of their own lack opportunity? The question is moot, this was the belief of the time and the gates were flung open wide.
On one hand, you have a very spiritual people who live in harmony with the land. Their homes are transportable and they follow the seasons and the great herds of buffalo. For centuries they travel from one beautiful spot to another which were picked out by their ancestors centuries before them. Following the seasons, they lived cyclically. Land is not a possession, the earth and all life is sacred. They have lived this way since the dawn of time and are unwilling to change for good reasons. There is great beauty in this way of life, but only a very few people can live like this.
On the other hand, according to the laws of the United States land IS a possession - and the West is a siren song calling to all of Europe to come and play and be free of the judgements of your own countries. The Federal Government legally holds title to the land and they made this investment for a reason.
To do this, you cannot have massive herds of buffalo trampling farms and blocking rail lines throwing the trains off schedule by days - they had to go. The hunting grounds of the Indian Nations are shrunk dramatically. When the buffalo go, the natives are put on the horns of a dilemma. Their hunting grounds are dramatically diminished, adn the land they were given is not always top choice. And God forbid gold is buried in the earth beneath your ancestors.
Do they cooperate with the new powers and take advantage of what they have to offer, like the Pawnee? Or do they dig in their heels and demand to live as their ancestors for millennia and like the Lakota go down swinging?
This is where the War of the Rebellion comes into play. For the prime eight years of unrestrained rail expansion U.S. Grant - the 'Great Captain' - is president. Sherman is commander of the Armies of the New Union. Sheridan is running cavalry operations in the West. The field commanders are battle hardened. These are men who are NOT afraid of blood. And if a few natives want to get in the way of the MASSIVE industrial base producing steel rails, steam locomotives, telegraph wire and keys as fast as they can, c'est la vie. These men broke the South militarily and lost their brothers in arms doing it, what are a few teepees and wigwams to them? These individuals slowing down 'progress' have to go - the veterans of the War of the Rebellion owe it to the dead that the vision of Union stretches from sea to shining sea.
What is the payoff? The greatest market economy the world has ever known built on a rail system that stretches East to West, North to South, and every direction in between. The Federal Government stretched out its hand over the continent and created the seeds of an empire using the morays of their day.
It's not fair. It simply is. Don Henley put it best, it is a very short walk from the American Dream to the American Nightmare.
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Literally what. The land was not wide and empty for anyone to take. It took the federal government over a hundred years to conquer the west. Key word conquer.
You don't need to conquer places that aren't filled with people.
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I did not go into a detailed discussion of what happened to the people there? Why, oh why, did I list the martial attributes of Grant, Sherman and Sheridan?
I know you love Herbert and are eager to be seen front and center, but maybe take a breath and read next time rather than just react?
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You dancing around an issue like genocide by using grandiose claims of progress and inevitablity is absolutely ridiculous.
Yes you detailed extensively the person's of these figures, and their bloodlust... But none of that changes the imperial intent of colonizing the west.
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For anyone who is bored, try counting the imperialist tropes in this post. It's a doozy. We even open with some Rousseau.
As for our discussion, I consider it over, as you clearly live on a different plane of existence.
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Yes. You and I live on two different planes of existence.
I believe in a concept of love and that God implanted good in all people. This world will evolve into something special when the evil within it is removed. My goal is to see the motive through the eyes of the perpetrator. History is full of killers, but within the story there is far more good than evil; and it takes two eyes to lift something up so one must learn to see both the light and the dark. I strive to do both.
You posts deal in anger and hatred - you deal in no other currency. The goal is not to understand and build up, only destroy.
You'll be back. You'll be angry. You'll hate something else. And your anger will take the form of words. It is the way. And nothing - NOTHING! - would please me more than for you to prove this statement wrong in the time to come.
And when you return, here I shall stand. I can do no other. I see what my eyes tell me, and my heart guides my pen.
God bless you, Herbert.
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Someday you will realise you are both wrong. The reality is that there is no God but God, and that Mohammed is his prophet.
Also Tom Brady deflated those balls
Also Tom Brady deflated those balls
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It's good old Drang Nach Westen. Nothing new under the sun.
The issue here is not that the British or the American built empires through the exploitation and massacres of millions of people. Because afterall, yes. All Empire do that. That's why the world imperialism comes from Empire afterall.
Now it's the claim of moral superiority that is nauseating. No, worse. That the imperialist pursuit itself was moral to [insert a infamous 5000 years old casus belli] the lesser. That somehow genocide/slavery/colonisation and all kinds of evil were not only inevitable, but had to be done! For the greater goods.
Imagine a world where Anglos did not go all around the world pillaging and looting! How horrible would that world be?
Funny. I remember a rather lefty and controversial historian who once said that that the only real crime of the Nazi was to do to white people what other Euro-Americans countries did to other races for centuries.
An exaggeration, surely. But perhaps not as much as I once thought.
The issue here is not that the British or the American built empires through the exploitation and massacres of millions of people. Because afterall, yes. All Empire do that. That's why the world imperialism comes from Empire afterall.
Now it's the claim of moral superiority that is nauseating. No, worse. That the imperialist pursuit itself was moral to [insert a infamous 5000 years old casus belli] the lesser. That somehow genocide/slavery/colonisation and all kinds of evil were not only inevitable, but had to be done! For the greater goods.
Imagine a world where Anglos did not go all around the world pillaging and looting! How horrible would that world be?
Funny. I remember a rather lefty and controversial historian who once said that that the only real crime of the Nazi was to do to white people what other Euro-Americans countries did to other races for centuries.
An exaggeration, surely. But perhaps not as much as I once thought.
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This statement is, to be polite, a load of manure, FYI. The plains Indians were in the middle of a lifestyle seismic shift brought by diffusion of horses from the south and firearms from the north. It is way too substantial a process to tackle in a forum post, but if you are interested in a conscise analysis, here you go.
Super TL: DR: Horse and firearms enabled much more efficient bison hunting and intertribal warfare than before and therefore changed the lifestyle of Plains Indians in an extremely radical fashion, with new equilibrium not yet reached by the time USA conquered the Plains.
Also, it is wrong to say that land was not possessed by anyone. Pastureland and hunting grounds belonged to one tribe or other and the intertribal warfare was waged pretty frequently for access to this land. It'S only logical. Ify our competing tribe exploits your pasture or hunting, then you might be in dire straits, given extremely thin edge of survival in pre-modern periods. Again, just FYI.
If I follow your argument, it seems to point to an underutilization of the great plains by Amerindians. And that therefore it was all fine and dandy for the USAians to chase them off and do something productive with the land. That is quite a callous view, my co-forumite.
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When you are condensing an argument down, liberties must be taken.
The land does not belong to anyone means no one individual but a group. Countless wars and raids are conducted to control prime hunting grounds. You have a nation made up of tribes made up of settlements. One paragraph isn't going to cover every instance.
Beyond that, I agree completely and well said.
I didn't agree with the last paragraph myself. Pretty sure you said it wasn't fair and therefore you didn't say it was fine and dandy to chase them off to do something productive with the land but just because I love you Andre doesn't mean I posses your wit
I didn't agree with the last paragraph myself. Pretty sure you said it wasn't fair and therefore you didn't say it was fine and dandy to chase them off to do something productive with the land but just because I love you Andre doesn't mean I posses your wit
When the goal is the understanding of a past thing, one has to look through the eyes of the participants and not your own. Being able to articulate their arguments using their words doesn't mean you necessarily agree with their conclusions.
One time I got a love note from Paradox because I was talking to Yak and some others on this forum and gave a Nazi answer to an question and explained their rationale tongue in cheek - and did it so well it was assumed until reviewed that I was a neo-Nazi advocating their position and I got hammered. I had no problem finding proof my intent was otherwise and others came to my defense quickly, it was gently laughed away.
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