[Tainari88]

@Steve_American I have read the arguments you presented and the arguments from One Degree and Albert. I will try to get to the point as quickly as possible. If you agree with my point of view or not? It is not important to me.

Multiculturalism is not a figment of someone's political imagination. It is a reality for the vast majority of urban cities and in many cases rural communities in the world. Not just Europe, or the USA. Part of the issue has to do with displacement of people, from their traditional homelands. Being forced to move due to circumstances. For Native peoples in the USA, the Trail of Tears that ended in Oklahoma is a good example. The Karen ethnic group winding up in Burma, the Palestinians in Australia, and in Jordan, and many other places. Turkish immigrants in Germany, Portuguese workers in many different nations of Europe. Greeks due to a bad economy wind up working outside of Greece and sending money back to their relatives in Athens or rural towns in Greece.

My point is that the reasons for this mass displacement of peoples from their traditional lands is nothing new or recent. The USA has a long history of accepting people from all over the world as immigrants. Especially from nations they had gone to war with previously, like the Vietnamese, and others. The Mexicans and their culture have lived within the Southwestern states for a long time, before the Mayflower hit Plymouth Rock Steve.

Capitalism is not interested in selling products or controlling geopolitically just small parts of the globe. The way capitalism is structured it must expand to all possible markets and it must have control or try to control every kind of territory: Deserts, Mountains, Plains, Forests, Tropics, Oceans, islands, every kind of known land base that has a resource they need for a specific reason. Those reasons vary from making metals, fuels for transport, food for agriculture, etc. You get my point. There are people living in those places they have an interest in. Those people, may not share their same interests or their same needs to use the land and the resources under their feet in the same way as the people living there do. Governments have always come into conflict of the rights of specific ethnic groups, traditional groups that lived there for a long time, or newer settlers who were told the land was theirs because it is not of interest to the capitalists or the government anymore. Whatever the cited reasons, due to many factors that are about this word Steve. POWER. Let me repeat. POWER. That is the word none of you arguing against Pants is dealing with.

Have you considered Steve_American, that the reason Europe has gotten 'invaded' recently by the people from Islamic nations, African nations, and many other nations....are because those origin nations have been colonized by European governments and or political and economic interests in the past? Why would Islamic people want to move to England? Because they want to 'change' English culture? Let us stick to England. There are Pakistanis and Hindis and Tamils, etc in England living there mostly due to the relationship England had or the UK had with India. They wanted to control Indian tea, goods and trade routes and they ruled India from afar as a colonial possession for a long time. In these 'relationships' interactions grew and became harder to disentangle with time.

Negotiations had to happen. You can't just invade a territory and take their resources and not have to talk to anyone and say, "English is the only culture in this land." That usually creates war and disaffection. So diplomats and politicians are sent in to negotiate terms with them. The rulers of that land who are native culturally or endemic to that land base.

The people back in England living English lives and not having to negotiate with other cultures because they are in their own culture....then see a bunch of foreigners showing up in greater numbers. Why? They ask themselves? Because the ones in higher power positions are making decisions about what needs to happen to control territories outside of the English natives lands. That is when it gets messy Steve. You got the needs of capitalism/elites/politicians all making decisions to control resources and the ones living in the native land of UK, USA, whatever insert country here___________, and suddenly they are faced with people who are immigrants with a different cultural background, different values and different religious traditions and they find it threatening, intimidating, they don't like the idea of sharing land, resources, power or anything with the newcomers.

Why?Let us be honest. People are not stupid Steve---they know who is the majority and dominant cultural group and who is not. If the people protesting the change are honest with themselves they don't like different people from them. They fear change. They fear becoming an ethnic minority in their own land. They feel powerful being the dominant culture and the threat of the numbers of the newcomers makes them feel their ways are being attacked. Their cultural traditions are being threatened. But instead of analyzing why and who and when and where all these changes are happening? Who has enough power to change the status quo? And why they do it? They blame the immigrants themselves. Never questioning if the immigrants do it out of desperation, or lack of options and or fleeing certain intolerable conditions. All the dominant group think about is their own needs. Their own way of life. Which they value a lot. As they should. All groups with love of land, nation and family value their homes.

But they don't seem to understand that many many people have to live together under the economic, social, and political leadership they have in place. If the leadership are pushing multiculturalism and neoliberal economics and that the working people, regular middle class and lower class folks who can't afford to live in exclusive enclaves of protection from the 'invading' immigrants....they need to know who is making these decisions? It is not the immigrants who think their culture is better than the new society's they are forced into by circumstances. It is the people approving the visas because they are wheeling and dealing with the powerful over some important resource or geopolitical situation they need to control. The fallout are the displaced.

If that is too much for you to process that fights for POWER and control over many countries' resources and people and labor and territory is too much for you to accept? There is no more discussion.

Multiculturalism is an excuse many liberals use to say that the reason the newcomers are here is because they are looking for a better life. Which many are. But the real reason many immigrants have to leave is because their home cultures, nations and peoples are no longer viable to live in. Due to war, high unemployment, lack of law and justice available, loss of health of the environment, the land is damaged or toxic, etc. There was a tragic event like tornadoes, earthquakes, etc. Something occurred.

You have a choice. To either tolerate people or to make it hard for them to co-exist. It is your choice. The variation in culture is reality. Not fiction. If variation did not exist we as a human species would not be able to live. All you have to do is study your own family. Is there variation? Of hair color, eyes, temperaments, weight, height, and genetic characteristics. Yes there is. So is all of humanity. Focus in on what disturbs you about the culture that you find repugnant. Is it because of bias? Lack of information? Emotional knee jerk reactions? What are the facts?

I find most people who are hostile to my culture and my people usually do it out of ignorance, arrogance, or indifference. And none of those reasons are scientific or valid in reality. But it colors their decisions.

[Drlee]

Giant wall of text. People talking in circles.

A couple of quick points.

I wish we would not use Quebec as an example. Quebec is to Canada as Germany is to the EU. For all intent and purpose, an autonomous region to those who would use the term "European culture".

Another example would be Native Americans. I am not interested in them specifically but rather what we refer to the rest of the people as. Do we use the term "European Americans" to describe that culture? That would not be correct. After a few hundred years of existence do we use the term "American" do describe the culture in the US? If not I could make a very good case for asking why not. After all "American" culture has more dramatically changed the cultural landscape of the world in the last 100 years than any other.

@POD

You are using your usual tactics here but I fear that in this case they are not serving you well. You may believe that you are carrying the day with your drive-by questioning but as you are making no argument at all, you are looking simply annoying. Do try to take a position and argue it for a change.

@one Degree

Perhaps because the term is used to deliberately mislead people into believing something is possible that is not as I have pointed out. ‘Multicultural’, as used in politics, indicates different cultural groups can live under the same laws and still pursue their individual cultures equally.

I agree that this is a loaded political term and that it is frequently used to mislead on both sides. I would agree with the entire statement if you would drop the term "equally". This may be the prevailing belief on the right but it is not on the left. On the left they would speak of accommodation. They would ask if laws could be crafted to protect the acceptable cultural expression of all of a societies people. Laws necessarily limit certain forms of expression and not only those of the minority. For example, in the US we are a mostly Christian nation yet our anti discrimination laws limit some forms of Christian expression in the marketplace. Since that is true for the majority then minority cultures attempting to carve out their distinctiveness in the US should expect that to be true for them. To use an almost absurd example, we do not allow wife-beating in the US though one could easily argue that it is an acceptable practice under certain religious belief systems.

We do allow child marriage in great numbers in the US and some immigrants coming to the country would find that abhorrent. Yet their children would have the same ability to be married at a very young age in the US as a natively born child. Accommodation comes when we allow the immigrant to teach their child that it is unacceptable to marry young as long as they do not violate US law and attempt to prevent it within that law.

This is not true. At best, they are subcultures that will eventually lose their identity to the majority culture identified by the law of the land.

You and I are old men One Degree. We ought to be pointing out to the young people here that the culture we knew when we were children was very different than the one that prevails in the US now. We can both think of profound cultural changes that have taken place; some we like and some we do not like. For example I am appalled at the filth that is allowed to be sold to children under the guise of "music" and "gaming". That is a real cultural change and not one I find for the better. Same sex marriage is another. I am a libertarian conservative (crypto if you prefer) so I favor it. It is not the law of the land but when you and I were kids homosexuality was a felony.

Your pretense that people can live a life that is not possible makes the term devious in political discussion. It is simply another attempt to convince people idealism is reality simply by using the right words.

If you choose to look to the things that are allowed by those speaking of multiculturalism then this is correct. On the other hand if you are speaking of those things that are prohibited by society in general (or just consensus government if you prefer) then it is not true.

Since the subtext of this discussion is that of inculcating Mexican or Muslim cultures into the US then the real question is "how much cultural outrage do we allow them to express and how do we allow them to express it". For example, if a Mexican-Catholic is outraged by abortion which is tightly controlled and sometimes criminal in their country though these immigrants are allowed to express their outrage verbally but not to act to prevent a woman from having one. A Muslim is allowed to teach his/her daughter Islamic modesty but not to force her to adopt it beyond childhood.

[Pants-of-dog]

@POD

You are using your usual tactics here but I fear that in this case they are not serving you well. You may believe that you are carrying the day with your drive-by questioning but as you are making no argument at all, you are looking simply annoying. Do try to take a position and argue it for a change.

My argument is that multiculturalism has many definitions.

Please note that I am being accused of trying to mislead people by pretending there is only one definition.

If you are annoyed by this, imagine how I feel.

[One Degree]

@Tainari88
First, the Trail of Tears is not a good example because these were the tribes most willing to assimilate into Southern White culture. Their story is better told as greed for their lands.
Second, I can fully agree with everything you said and still defend my position that multiculturalism is a lie.
You give the reasons for immigration, but this does not change what happens after they get here. They will only be able to enjoy their own culture in a decentralized America. The Democrats who tell you that multiculturalism is possible are the very same people demanding a centralized control that prevents multiculturalism. They are deceiving you. When it is the federal government that decides who must be vaccinated, what is taught in our schools, what degree of religion is allowed in our institutions, etc, then their multiculturalism is a lie. It can not exist with the government they promote.

Edit: grrr. I tried to ‘like’ your post @Drlee but a bad connection kept screwing it up. Anyway, you made good points.

[Tainari88]

@Tainari88
First, the Trail of Tears is not a good example because these were the tribes most willing to assimilate into Southern White culture. Their story is better told as greed for their lands.
Second, I can fully agree with everything you said and still defend my position that multiculturalism is a lie.
You give the reasons for immigration, but this does not change what happens after they get here. They will only be able to enjoy their own culture in a decentralized America. The Democrats who tell you that multiculturalism is possible are the very same people demanding a centralized control that prevents multiculturalism. They are deceiving you. When it is the federal government that decides who must be vaccinated, what is taught in our schools, what degree of religion is allowed in our institutions, etc, then their multiculturalism is a lie. It can not exist with the government they promote.

Edit: grrr. I tried to ‘like’ your post @Drlee but a bad connection kept screwing it up. Anyway, you made good points.

One Degree, that people like the Trail of Tears, are willing to assimilate to the Southern White Culture is laughable. People don't just decide to assimilate and drop their own culture. Human cultures are not banana peels that you shed and just toss away. Actually this point of yours pisses me off badly. Because it is about bias and a lack of understanding about what makes up people's cultural identities. It is a very complex and difficult thing to shed one's cultural identity. I would say it is soul destroying. Not only that you are risking being left outside your native culture and being rejected by the new culture you are trying to assimilate to and failing at both.

It is a very horrible thing to think that the only way you can survive socially and economically is to 'erase' all that you learned, all that you adapted to as a child and young adult, all that you spoke as a native speaker of a language that is not spoken by the vast majority of the new society. If you think that shit is easy and fun to do as an immigrant? Go and live One Degree in some nation in which you don't speak the language, you don't know the laws, the history or the religion, but that nation has POWER over if you can eat, live or find employment or be able to rent an apartment and or buy a home. Do that. For a few years, then come back here and tell me how easy it is to 'assimilate' to a new society.

Multiculturalism is used by the liberals I dislike because for them....it is all BULLSHIT. It is some person who comes to the USA and goes to English as a Second Language Classes and opens a mom and pop business and lives the American Dream. But what they fail to realize is that the immigrant communities want to live their culture. THEIR CULTURE. The one that they know, the one they find safety in, and acceptance in, and that they find meaning in their own histories, and in their own experiences. Why does anyone have to devalue their own culture and adopt a new one if the new culture has a bunch of people who don't give a damn about immigrants? It is terrible.

[One Degree]

One Degree, that people like the Trail of Tears, are willing to assimilate to the Southern White Culture is laughable. People don't just decide to assimilate and drop their own culture. Human cultures are not banana peels that you shed and just toss away. Actually this point of yours pisses me off badly. Because it is about bias and a lack of understanding about what makes up people's cultural identities. It is a very complex and difficult thing to shed one's cultural identity. I would say it is soul destroying. Not only that you are risking being left outside your native culture and being rejected by the new culture you are trying to assimilate to and failing at both.

It is a very horrible thing to think that the only way you can survive socially and economically is to 'erase' all that you learned, all that you adapted to as a child and young adult, all that you spoke as a native speaker of a language that is not spoken by the vast majority of the new society. If you think that shit is easy and fun to do as an immigrant? Go and live One Degree in some nation in which you don't speak the language, you don't know the laws, the history or the religion, but that nation has POWER over if you can eat, live or find employment or be able to rent an apartment and or buy a home. Do that. For a few years, then come back here and tell me how easy it is to 'assimilate' to a new society.

Multiculturalism is used by the liberals I dislike because for them....it is all BULLSHIT. It is some person who comes to the USA and goes to English as a Second Language Classes and opens a mom and pop business and lives the American Dream. But what they fail to realize is that the immigrant communities want to live their culture. THEIR CULTURE. The one that they know, the one they find safety in, and acceptance in, and that they find meaning in their own histories, and in their own experiences. Why does anyone have to devalue their own culture and adopt a new one if the new culture has a bunch of people who don't give a damn about immigrants? It is terrible.

The tribes involved in the Trail of Tears did assimilate and imitate White Southern culture. This is not my opinion or bias, but a historical fact. They owned plantations and they owned slaves in the same proportion as Whites. Whether this is good or bad is immaterial to me. I am a local autonomist. I believe every community has the right to pursue their own culture. My disagreement with ‘multiculturalists’ and Democrats is that it requires separate laws to work and is a lie when you promote large centralized government.

[Tainari88]

@One Degree you have a serious lack of historical context going on in your opinions. Can I point something out to you? Why did central federal control come up in American history? Find the answer.

The federal system is about the end of the civil war One Degree. You had one group of people who did not want to deal with a serious change in the system. They wanted to break off of the union and go and become a separate legal entity. The war that followed the breach was settled. The North won. They said in no uncertain terms, you can't break off from the central system. That is the reason the feds interfered with the Southern states in the 60's who wanted to hold on to Jim Crow laws. African Americans had a right to go and vote in their states of residence. They had the right to do so. If the locals did not like it? The federal system had more authority and they enforced it.

I don't deal with the past One Degree in the sense that there is a historical moment in which a nation has to decide which path to take. We are not going back in the USA to little communities excluding groups they don't like. We are not going back to small minded people with ideas of segregation.

South Africans are all in chaos and there is crime. Some of the white ones want the old system back. Where Blacks can't vote. That stuff is over. The battle is over. You have to accept that things change.

Frankly I think if the USA continues with the current man in the White House and they can't fix what he is doing and they can't make the system work anymore for the ordinary voters? This system is over with. It will lose. It will lose to countries with long term strategies and more efficient central controls. I think you have serious flaws in your historical analysis One Degree. The centralized control was implemented long ago. It is over the battle of the states by themselves and local only controls. That stuff is over for a long time. No going back.

Why dwell on it?

[Tainari88]

@Tainari88
First, the Trail of Tears is not a good example because these were the tribes most willing to assimilate into Southern White culture. Their story is better told as greed for their lands.
Second, I can fully agree with everything you said and still defend my position that multiculturalism is a lie.
You give the reasons for immigration, but this does not change what happens after they get here. They will only be able to enjoy their own culture in a decentralized America. The Democrats who tell you that multiculturalism is possible are the very same people demanding a centralized control that prevents multiculturalism. They are deceiving you. When it is the federal government that decides who must be vaccinated, what is taught in our schools, what degree of religion is allowed in our institutions, etc, then their multiculturalism is a lie. It can not exist with the government they promote.

Edit: grrr. I tried to ‘like’ your post @Drlee but a bad connection kept screwing it up. Anyway, you made good points.

Take a look at this article One Degree. It summarizes the Trail of Tears. Basically they lied and stole and cheated their way to the land grab. They broke all the laws and agreements. LIARS. CHEATS. SQUATTERS and people who just wanted Indian land anyway they could get it. Since they were white and had the crooked politicos on their side? They won.

I find it interesting how these white thieves and low life murderers with the government's consent, have the temerity to say that other immigrants fleeing bad conditions should not be granted asylum in the USA and how the USA should not tolerate multiculturalism. That is total distortion of what Native American history is about. If one had to count how many lies and broken treatees the white settlers and their dirty Washington politicians did in their greed quest to take over all land and wipe out the cultures of Native Americans in the process? We would be here for years just reading the huge piles of bullshit agreements broken. The bottom line is that the white settlers just stole it. That is the bottom line.

And they want respect forever from who? New immigrants who came to the USA fleeing problems. They want the newcomers to respect their what? Lying filth ridden history? I won't do it. Maybe you can but I can't.
https://www.history.com/topics/native-a ... l-of-tears

Did you read the part of 'aliens' and unfamiliar culture. That is the thing.....once you say to yourself....those people are ALIEN and unfamiliar. It is ok to murder them, kill them en masse, march them without food and water and take their livelihoods, they are not us....it is ok to KILL.

That is the danger. It always is. That is the mentality behind the Third Reich, every single ethnic cleansing campaign...the Aliens. The foreign, the different. Ok to just KILL KILL KILL.

How I hate that One Degree and the people who subconsciously are always protesting that word, 'multicultural' all have the racist crap of violence deep in there in their lack of inclusion. They don't want to ACCEPT other cultures. Why? Control. Power over something critical.

I find that a really problematic mentality. I always have.

It doesn't matter who it comes from, it could be any nationality or race or creed, but the mentality is consistent as can be. Foreigners. Different. Aliens. Not us. Don't trust them. Got to exclude. Got to dehumanize. Got to oppress, kill and limit. Got to create a fight for power and we need to win. Anyway we can. Usually through violence.

For me? People start getting pissed off about more than one culture being present? It is really easy to find the cause of that 'protesting'....racist people. Haters. Period.

[Steve_American]

Take a look at this article One Degree. It summarizes the Trail of Tears. Basically they lied and stole and cheated their way to the land grab. They broke all the laws and agreements. LIARS. CHEATS. SQUATTERS and people who just wanted Indian land anyway they could get it. Since they were white and had the crooked politicos on their side? They won.

I find it interesting how these white thieves and low life murderers with the government's consent, have the temerity to say that other immigrants fleeing bad conditions should not be granted asylum in the USA and how the USA should not tolerate multiculturalism. That is total distortion of what Native American history is about. If one had to count how many lies and broken treatees the white settlers and their dirty Washington politicians did in their greed quest to take over all land and wipe out the cultures of Native Americans in the process? We would be here for years just reading the huge piles of bullshit agreements broken. The bottom line is that the white settlers just stole it. That is the bottom line.

And they want respect forever from who? New immigrants who came to the USA fleeing problems. They want the newcomers to respect their what? Lying filth ridden history? I won't do it. Maybe you can but I can't.
https://www.history.com/topics/native-a ... l-of-tears

Did you read the part of 'aliens' and unfamiliar culture. That is the thing.....once you say to yourself....those people are ALIEN and unfamiliar. It is ok to murder them, kill them en masse, march them without food and water and take their livelihoods, they are not us....it is ok to KILL.

That is the danger. It always is. That is the mentality behind the Third Reich, every single ethnic cleansing campaign...the Aliens. The foreign, the different. Ok to just KILL KILL KILL.

How I hate that One Degree and the people who subconsciously are always protesting that word, 'multicultural' all have the racist crap of violence deep in there in their lack of inclusion. They don't want to ACCEPT other cultures. Why? Control. Power over something critical.

I find that a really problematic mentality. I always have.

It doesn't matter who it comes from, it could be any nationality or race or creed, but the mentality is consistent as can be. Foreigners. Different. Aliens. Not us. Don't trust them. Got to exclude. Got to dehumanize. Got to oppress, kill and limit. Got to create a fight for power and we need to win. Anyway we can. Usually through violence.

For me? People start getting pissed off about more than one culture being present? It is really easy to find the cause of that 'protesting'....racist people. Haters. Period.

Tainari88, I do not accept that MY ancestors had anything to do with the Trail of Tears.
Three of 4 of my grandparents came over on a boat about 100 to 120 years ago. The 4th I'm not sure about.
But, you might say, I benefited from it. OK, I can see that.
So what? I didn't DO it.
I don't know where you are from or your family history. But, I'd bet my life that with total knowledge we would find that you benefited from evil acts and that your ancestors personally did horrible things. This is true of almost every person alive today.
You called me racist and a hater. Harsh talk.
I hate Nazis and I don't like the Japanese for WWII and other recent reasons. I don't hate Muslims. They can live their way if they stay home. So far, those who have come to America have NOT tried to live like they did in their native land. Good.
. . . I'm not at all sure that this is also true for those who have recently immigrated from an Arab nation into Europe.

Note: I'm actually more accepting than many. They want to go into Arab nations and change them to make them stop beating their wives and have just 1 wife, etc., etc., etc. They want to impose the UN's list of universal human rights on everybody, every nation. I would like every nation to on their own decide to do that, but I don't want to force them to do it.

I think it is true that European American stole all of the US from the Natives. How can anyone not agree with this?

However, that was before humanity discovered how to kill every human on earth in 1 hour. Everyone then was still pretty much playing the game of power politics. There were a few pacifist tribes, but not many. And all the non-pacifist tribes saw them as easy pickings. In games there are winners and there are losers. It looks to me as if no matter who won you, Tainari88, would call them evil and wish their descendants alive today to drop dead and go directly to the hell they deserve.

We should not try to use today morals to castigate those who lived before. It is like shooting fish in a barrel. It is easy to do (how can you miss) and they can't shoot back. By those standards some might say that even Jesus failed because he didn't teach that slavery was evil. That raping your slaves was evil. That stoning your child to death for yelling at a parent in a fit of anger was evil. One can say that times back then let people be evil. What good does it do to tear down the Washington Monument because George Washington owned slaves and whipped one or more of them?

Like I said, Americans stole all of the US from the Natives. However, were the Natives almost all trying to steal land from their neighbors? Did the Huron and Iroquois have an on going war?

Now that we have nuclear weapons we need to learn to live without war. To bad BushII didn't agree with that. Too bad Obama didn't either. To bad ISIS doesn't and even brought back slavery.

[One Degree]

@Tainari88
Those two posts were very lengthy but all they said was I was correct in the Trail of Tears being about land and then you call me a racist for proposing that decentralization is the best way to protect different cultures.
I am only proposing what a lot of people want. People of different cultures choose to live together. I see nothing wrong with that and believe we should encourage it through decentralization. The fight is not over. The Civil War was a big win for centralization but it was still just one battle in an ongoing war. It should bother you that it took war for them to gain that edge. The fact that strong supporters of centralization now want California independence shows this desire is not restricted by party or race. It is simply a human desire to have more control over our lives.

[Tainari88]

One Degree, what control over our lives? Haven't you been paying attention to how much control is happening because of capitalistic commercial needs? The reason you got people here from all over the world is mostly due to how dysfunctional a lot of nations around the globe have become. People don't naturally leave their homelands because they want to come here just for giggles. They are here because there is dysfunction. Most of it has to do with fights for power that the capitalists and international corporate cultures in this world are having. You either take on these very powerful people with enormous resources and force them into respecting rights of people in other lands....or you are STUCK with their control over your life. The issue I have with people with your political viewpoint is you continue to be stuck out of focus of who is responsible.

Concentrate on the most powerful of all groups in this world. Not on immigrants fleeing problems, Mexicans speaking Spanish and African Muslims and BULLSHIT that has no bearing on what is going on in the decision makers conference rooms. That is my point.

Blaming people who are not responsible for the mess that happens when the powerful must deal and wheel with other governments and the sellout leadership of those nations who don't give a flying damn about the plight of the poorest and the most vulnerable in their own nations. Those people are the cause of the problems of most issues with 'multiculturalism' and 'foreigners invading'. But the Right is always stupid blaming the wrong people and scapegoating the wrong group. Why? They are not anti-establishment and don't give a damn about the underclass. They never have. If you don't deal with the ones creating the issues and you just kiss their butts instead? Nothing gets better. Nothing.

[Tainari88]

Tainari88, I do not accept that MY ancestors had anything to do with the Trail of Tears.
Three of 4 of my grandparents came over on a boat about 100 to 120 years ago. The 4th I'm not sure about.
But, you might say, I benefited from it. OK, I can see that.
So what? I didn't DO it.
I don't know where you are from or your family history. But, I'd bet my life that with total knowledge we would find that you benefited from evil acts and that your ancestors personally did horrible things. This is true of almost every person alive today.
You called me racist and a hater. Harsh talk.
I hate Nazis and I don't like the Japanese for WWII and other recent reasons. I don't hate Muslims. They can live their way if they stay home. So far, those who have come to America have NOT tried to live like they did in their native land. Good.
. . . I'm not at all sure that this is also true for those who have recently immigrated from an Arab nation into Europe.

Note: I'm actually more accepting than many. They want to go into Arab nations and change them to make them stop beating their wives and have just 1 wife, etc., etc., etc. They want to impose the UN's list of universal human rights on everybody, every nation. I would like every nation to on their own decide to do that, but I don't want to force them to do it.

I think it is true that European American stole all of the US from the Natives. How can anyone not agree with this?

However, that was before humanity discovered how to kill every human on earth in 1 hour. Everyone then was still pretty much playing the game of power politics. There were a few pacifist tribes, but not many. And all the non-pacifist tribes saw them as easy pickings. In games there are winners and there are losers. It looks to me as if no matter who won you, Tainari88, would call them evil and wish their descendants alive today to drop dead and go directly to the hell they deserve.

We should not try to use today morals to castigate those who lived before. It is like shooting fish in a barrel. It is easy to do (how can you miss) and they can't shoot back. By those standards some might say that even Jesus failed because he didn't teach that slavery was evil. That raping your slaves was evil. That stoning your child to death for yelling at a parent in a fit of anger was evil. One can say that times back then let people be evil. What good does it do to tear down the Washington Monument because George Washington owned slaves and whipped one or more of them?

Like I said, Americans stole all of the US from the Natives. However, were the Natives almost all trying to steal land from their neighbors? Did the Huron and Iroquois have an on going war?

Now that we have nuclear weapons we need to learn to live without war. To bad BushII didn't agree with that. Too bad Obama didn't either. To bad ISIS doesn't and even brought back slavery.

I really despise simplistic crap in history. Human beings are complex and the issue is not the complexity with humanity--it is ignorance of history. Of other groups, of how capitalism works, it is ignorance about other cultures, and people, speaking only one human language instead of several languages, it is being narrow minded, racist, sexist, classist and arrogant in lack of knowledge. Hubris. Selfish shit. It is all there.

I expect people in my life experiences to be fairly ignorant. It costs a lot to deal with ignorant people all the time. They make these arrogant pronouncements on other cultures without any knowledge of who they are or their histories. It is all snap judgments based on corporate media spin. It is awful.

I am Puerto Rican Steve. Do you know how many times I get stopped by IGNORANT racists in this USA telling me how I am here illegally and stop speaking Spanish this is America, and dumb ass questions about eating tacos and tamales? Because Mexican culture and Puerto Rican culture are all the same in their ignorant minds? A lot of times.

Do you know how many times I have had to deal with shouting dumb people in parking lots thinking my husband was 'illegal' because Spanish and illegal are synonymous in their little minds? A lot.

Then I get other ignorants thinking I am white. Why? Because I don't look like an Aztec/Spanish mixture person they associate with Mexican people. I look 'white' to them. I am Puerto Rican for 500 plus years. My great grandmother was of Kenyan extraction. From the islands. Mixing with Tainos and Spaniards. I got African blood but look white as hell to most of these ignoramus people who proceed to denigrate Black Africans, and Indians and so on thinking.....oh, white woman who speaks perfect English...must be a true blue American white Republican. They only go by how I dress or how I sound, or look. Dumb ass people.

I dislike intensely not to use the word hate (which is a strong word) racists. And I have to be truthful Steve, the USA has a whole lot of them here. Got to face that fact. A whole lot.

[Godstud]

Racists are dirty cocksuckers, There I said it for you, @Tainari88.

I'll happily punch them in the face if given half a chance.

[One Degree]

One Degree, what control over our lives? Haven't you been paying attention to how much control is happening because of capitalistic commercial needs? The reason you got people here from all over the world is mostly due to how dysfunctional a lot of nations around the globe have become. People don't naturally leave their homelands because they want to come here just for giggles. They are here because there is dysfunction. Most of it has to do with fights for power that the capitalists and international corporate cultures in this world are having. You either take on these very powerful people with enormous resources and force them into respecting rights of people in other lands....or you are STUCK with their control over your life. The issue I have with people with your political viewpoint is you continue to be stuck out of focus of who is responsible.

Concentrate on the most powerful of all groups in this world. Not on immigrants fleeing problems, Mexicans speaking Spanish and African Muslims and BULLSHIT that has no bearing on what is going on in the decision makers conference rooms. That is my point.

Blaming people who are not responsible for the mess that happens when the powerful must deal and wheel with other governments and the sellout leadership of those nations who don't give a flying damn about the plight of the poorest and the most vulnerable in their own nations. Those people are the cause of the problems of most issues with 'multiculturalism' and 'foreigners invading'. But the Right is always stupid blaming the wrong people and scapegoating the wrong group. Why? They are not anti-establishment and don't give a damn about the underclass. They never have. If you don't deal with the ones creating the issues and you just kiss their butts instead? Nothing gets better. Nothing.

The best way, imo, to defeat the powerful is to decentralize and forbid outside ownership. Centralization and globalism plays right into their hands. You seem so preoccupied by racism that you fail to see others may simply be offering different solutions to the same problems. This is exactly why those who encourage centralization and globalization use racism as a scapegoat. Centralization is incompatible with cultural autonomy yet you pursue it because they yell racism a lot. You admit the powerful are the problem but you still blame racists. Your view is a contradiction imo. and the global elite love your unintentional support.

@Godstud seems to have totally lost it. Bad trip?

[Godstud]

No, I am simply tired of racist cunts, for once. If you don't like it, go take a long walk off a short pier. If you, for some reason, count yourself amongst racist assholes, then you are the one with the problem, aren't you? If so, I hope your life is short, and miserable. You deserve it.

[Drlee]

I think it is true that European American stole all of the US from the Natives. How can anyone not agree with this?

I disagree with this.

If you had said that European Settlers mistreated Native Americans sometimes, or even frequently, I would agree. But stealing the US from them? Not so much.

First of all the lot of Native Americans was inevitable. Their culture was largely doomed anyway. Clearly contact between Europeans and Native Americans was inevitable at some point. Can you even imagine a world today where the entire North American continent was some protectorate of stone and early copper age people? I can't. So it was inevitable that Native American culture, to the extent that it might survive at all, would be pulled into what for them was "the future".

Image some alien race arriving here is a highly technically advance spaceship. What are their choices?

They could fly away unobserved. But let's assume that we had something that they wanted....call it....copper. Flying away is unlikely. So the minute they interact with us at all they have profoundly changed our society. Think only of the effect on science of knowing with certainty that faster than light travel is possible. Only that would change our science forever. Even if they didn't share the technology. But now assume that this advanced race of beings wants our copper. Are they to trade for it? Trade what? Technology? If so our society is changed forever.

Suppose they choose not to trade for it but rather to simply take it. Would we fight back? Then what? What would the inevitable conclusion to a war between a very advanced technology and us be? Never mind the Independence Day scenario. Just this advanced technology protecting its supply lines and territorial claims could be devastating to us. Then add to this that this race brings disease to which we have no immunity and no methodology for affecting a cure.

I refuse to try to justify massacres but I could certainly make a very logical case for asserting that it is somewhat of a miracle that Native American culture exists today at all and even more surprising that our forefathers were kind enough to cede vast parts of the country to Native Americans at all. Certainly they possessed the means and motive to eliminate this inconvenience from the continent once and for all.

But they were Christians, many of them. They fashioned themselves people with a set of moral constraints to what is merely profitable and convenient. So they took great pains to see that Native American culture and even limited indigenous government survived. And they do so to this day.

But within limits. The same moral compass that brought them to save this annoying hindrance to continental hegemony imposed limits on what the remaining Native Americans could do. Plural marriage, for example, was banned. Inter-tribal warfare, long a feature of Native American culture was stopped. Human sacrifice, child abandonment and other such naughtiness would not be tolerated if encountered.

A more important distinction would be to start by admitting that there was no monolithic Native American culture in the first place. There were a widely varied collection of distinct nations. The modern notion of the Native American, socialist, environmentalist, free-range organic worshiper of some Great Spirit is hokum made up largely by Hollywood.

So here is a weird assertion that will set POD among others into a foaming rage. When it comes to the people of the United States and the remnants of pre-contact Native American culture this example of multiculturalism has worked better than could have logically been expected.

[Pants-of-dog]

I disagree with this.

If you had said that European Settlers mistreated Native Americans sometimes, or even frequently, I would agree. But stealing the US from them? Not so much.

According to indigenous law, yes, the land was stolen.

I have no idea what US law says about it, but I doubt there is any legal basis for the US owning that land.

First of all the lot of Native Americans was inevitable. Their culture was largely doomed anyway. Clearly contact between Europeans and Native Americans was inevitable at some point. Can you even imagine a world today where the entire North American continent was some protectorate of stone and early copper age people? I can't. So it was inevitable that Native American culture, to the extent that it might survive at all, would be pulled into what for them was "the future".

Are you under the impression that indigenous people would not have developed technology if they had never met Europeans?

Image some alien race arriving here is a highly technically advance spaceship. What are their choices?

They could fly away unobserved. But let's assume that we had something that they wanted....call it....copper. Flying away is unlikely. So the minute they interact with us at all they have profoundly changed our society. Think only of the effect on science of knowing with certainty that faster than light travel is possible. Only that would change our science forever. Even if they didn't share the technology. But now assume that this advanced race of beings wants our copper. Are they to trade for it? Trade what? Technology? If so our society is changed forever.

Suppose they choose not to trade for it but rather to simply take it. Would we fight back? Then what? What would the inevitable conclusion to a war between a very advanced technology and us be? Never mind the Independence Day scenario. Just this advanced technology protecting its supply lines and territorial claims could be devastating to us. Then add to this that this race brings disease to which we have no immunity and no methodology for affecting a cure.

I refuse to try to justify massacres but I could certainly make a very logical case for asserting that it is somewhat of a miracle that Native American culture exists today at all and even more surprising that our forefathers were kind enough to cede vast parts of the country to Native Americans at all. Certainly they possessed the means and motive to eliminate this inconvenience from the continent once and for all.

But they were Christians, many of them. They fashioned themselves people with a set of moral constraints to what is merely profitable and convenient. So they took great pains to see that Native American culture and even limited indigenous government survived. And they do so to this day.

You really should acquaint yourself with the history of forced conversion and other tactics used by Christian groups tomeradicate and destroy indigenous communities and cultures.

But within limits. The same moral compass that brought them to save this annoying hindrance to continental hegemony imposed limits on what the remaining Native Americans could do. Plural marriage, for example, was banned. Inter-tribal warfare, long a feature of Native American culture was stopped. Human sacrifice, child abandonment and other such naughtiness would not be tolerated if encountered.

A more important distinction would be to start by admitting that there was no monolithic Native American culture in the first place. There were a widely varied collection of distinct nations. The modern notion of the Native American, socialist, environmentalist, free-range organic worshiper of some Great Spirit is hokum made up largely by Hollywood.

The portrayal of indigenous people as polygamist, warlike, human sacrificing, and child abandoning is also hokum, but many people in the US believe it.

So here is a weird assertion that will set POD among others into a foaming rage. When it comes to the people of the United States and the remnants of pre-contact Native American culture this example of multiculturalism has worked better than could have logically been expected.

So, if I came to your land, took your land, separated you from your family, outlawed your religion, enslaved you, took away your rights, stopped you from speaking your language, and spread lies about you, you would consider this a successful example of multiculturalism?

Lol.

[Tainari88]

@One Degree I have no idea how you think I am in contradiction ? I have a bad feeling you have no idea about my political profile. International socialism.Do you know how IS people think about these issues. I am not some wishy washy liberal.Neither am I some tunnel visioned nationalist who only cares about my own group. That narrow crap is doomed.

@One Degree you better clarify about your accusations of 'contradiction'?

As for Dr. Lee whom I strangely have affection for--Senor Lee you need an education on multicultural education and North American Native American histories. That is what I grew up with.

[One Degree]

@One Degree I have no idea how you think I am in contradiction ? I have a bad feeling you have no idea about my political profile. International socialism.Do you know how IS people think about these issues. I am not some wishy washy liberal.Neither am I some tunnel visioned nationalist who only cares about my own group. That narrow crap is doomed.

@One Degree you better clarify about your accusations of 'contradiction'?

As for Dr. Lee whom I strangely have affection for--Senor Lee you need an education on multicultural education and North American Native American histories. That is what I grew up with.

I was not aware of your political association, but now I see I gave your views more consideration than I should have. I thought you actually cared about protecting different cultures. The rest of the name does not matter when it starts with ‘international’. Just another idealistic group that believes everyone should bow down to their great wisdom. They are all the same but fight one another over pretend differences.

[hartmut]

I'm not sure of your context. Recent events in Africa (tribal genocides) and in Serbia / Croatia are examples of failed Multi-Cultural regions.

Zam

Neither Ruanda nor Serbia were at this time surpassing multi-cultural and probably below average.
The conflict inflamed in Ruanda along an old class-struggle between Tutsi gentry and Hutu paria.
Regarding Serbia / Croatia you cannot see severe cultural distance between the belligerents.
In fact they are very similar. I would point in this case to aggressive nationalism, which indeed has a profound tradition in the Balkans.
I think it would be wrong to posit a problem, and then assume it could match to every occurrence.
It does not in the cases you named.

Regards,
hartmut