[QatzelOk]

The Cherokee were so successful, that they had to be contained.

"...Those thirty years (1808-1838) saw the Cherokee Nation remake itself in the image of Western Civilization. It built a new capital dubbed New Chota in honor of the old mother town. It codified its laws, adopted a constitution, and in wealth, literacy, and good order came to surpass the frontier society thirsting for its land..."
The author is saying that the Cherokee reached a higher level of human development than the USA in the early 1800s - the Andrew Jackson years.

"By 1825, most of the (Cherokee) adults were literate...a higher proportion than most "civilized" nations of that day, including the United States..."

"..it was the Cherokee's very success that doomed them. Indians were not expected to succeed, least of all on the white man's turf."

- "Stolen Continents" Ronald Wright, p. 213 - 215

So they got smart, organized, developed, literate, wealthy... What happens next?


The Trail of Containment

[JohnRawls]

Somehow... is called "colonialism."

By ganging up on the rest of the world, NATO has managed to steal all the resources of the majority of the world's people so that a handful of mercs (Westerners) can drive large vehicles that consume five earth's worth of resources.

I guess when European nations started being defeated by anti-colonial forces in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, it was time to form a larger gang with "the cousins of my brothers..." Anything not to live in harmony with nature and the rest of the world's human population.

"WE ARE SPECIAL! Contain those for'n varmints!"

(By the way, even food that is in a container can spoil)

So am I colonised or not Qatz? Are the Baltic States imperialists or victims of colonial rule right now, please clarify?

[ingliz]

@JohnRawls

I'd say you are a victim-in-waiting. What I mean is having chosen a side, you are trapped. This is all very well until you want to make policy independently - A policy that runs counter to your master's - and then it's another Maidan, and you are openly a puppet state.

Of course, non-alignment was not an option, given your geographic location and the US obsession with Russia. But, even so, it's silly to pretend you are free to do as you please (See Greece and Italy), and you should at least recognise that.

[Rich]

@JohnRawls

I'd say you are a victim-in-waiting. What I mean is having chosen a side, you are trapped. This is all very well until you want to make policy independently - A policy that runs counter to your master's - and then it's another Maidan, and you are openly a puppet state.

Isn't it strange that Estonia's so intent on becoming a bankrupt shithole like Finland, when it could enjoy the freedom and prosperity of Crimea or the Donbas. If not them why doesn't Estonia learn from the Steppe Tiger, Transnistria, a place the smart money says could be the next Singapore.

[ingliz]

a bankrupt shithole like Finland

Finland is not a NATO member; Estonia is.

NATO policy is US policy.

[late]

Isn't it strange that Estonia's so intent on becoming a bankrupt shithole like Finland, when it could enjoy the freedom and prosperity of Crimea or the Donbas. If not them why doesn't Estonia learn from the Steppe Tiger, Transnistria, a place the smart money says could be the next Singapore.

Income in Finland is about TEN times that of the Donbas and Crimea. We don't get good numbers from Russia, but that's close.

Freedom in Crimea? Putin has killed off the opposition.

[QatzelOk]

I'd say you are a victim-in-waiting. What I mean is having chosen a side, you are trapped. This is all very well until you want to make policy independently - A policy that runs counter to your master's - and then it's another Maidan, and you are openly a puppet state.

Of course, non-alignment was not an option, given your geographic location and the US obsession with Russia. But, even so, it's silly to pretend you are free to do as you please (See Greece and Italy), and you should at least recognise that.

child gangsters are primarily recruited for PR purposes or 'optics'

In a world where the biggest most powerful nations... work to limit and sabotage the development of other nations, and of other social and economic models.... small nations (like Estonia or Canada) are occasionally forced to bandwagon with bullies.

This often leads to their death as cultures. The British were notorious in North America for befriending First Nation 'allies' and then throwing them away as soon as their strategic importance was gone.

The case of the Iroquois Confederacy is a case in point. They called George Washington 'the town destroyer' because, as the only long-term alliance that Britain had, they suddenly became a liability when the USA decided to take all the land. Iroquois sovereignty (language, culture, urbanism, traditions, foreign policy) is pretty well gone, though the Iroquois fought valiantly for Britain (against other First Nations) for hundreds of years. They were swept away like all the others.

A disposable ally, used to contain another nation, and then discarded into the basket of containment itself.

How many small cultures and nations have been destroyed by Containment? Will yours be next?

Was American culture itself destroyed to 'contain' its own population? Witch hunts, KKK, Jim Crowe, TV propaganda, suburban isolation, automobile mandatory financial precarity, .... How many of these were mainly used to contain the USA population itself?

HOBBLING

1. To cause to limp : make lame : cripple
2. To fasten together the legs of (an animal, such as a horse) to prevent straying: fetter
3. To place under handicap: hamper, impede

Foot-binding is a form of hobbling - a means to contain your wife

[QatzelOk]

Neptotism is another form of containment.

By throwing out the CVs of people who are not related to your own personal identity group, you are hobbling all other groups and ensuring that they fall between the cracks.

If all you care about is yourself and your own identity group, this is what you do. Chuck those CVs into the trash, and lie about it later - explaining that you had to do a triage because of the huge volume of applicants.

In reality, there was just your daughter and three others. (Your daughter got the job. Now she's the Secretary of State)

[late]

George Kennan, an American foreign service officer, is credited for inventing the use of the word "containment" in describing the necessity of keeping Russia down:

Down???

First, we had to find a way to deal with Russian aggression. We were developing a postwar order built around trade. Not only did we have no plan, at first we had no idea how to handle the machinations of Stalin, who was psychotic.

What George F Kennan invented was the Cold War. He saw it as primarily economic barrier to limit the parasitism. Russia was stealing our technology and then using it to undermine other countries.

What you can't seem to grasp is that Russia was every bit as nasty as we were. But where we were building a relatively peaceful international order by helping our former enemies rebuild, Stalin was only interested in power. One of the aspects of this history you have missed is that countries that could throw the Soviets out, often did.

[ThirdTerm]

I found a good article on George Kennan, the “father of containment,” in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, which I read regularly at a local library. Kennan argued that the United States should "contain" Soviet expansionism but should not use force to remove the communist regime. Kennan and the Long Telegram served as the foundation for American Cold War policy and containment theory, by which the long peace was kept between the superpowers. The United States and the Soviet Union managed to get through more than four decades of Cold War without actually going to war with each other. Biden is playing a dangerous game in Ukraine by sending arms to the occupied country.

The Ghosts of Kennan
Lessons From the Start of a Cold War
By Fredrik Logevall
January/February 2023

We all read him, those of us who did graduate work in U.S. diplomatic history in the late 1980s and early 1990s. For although there were other important figures in modern U.S. foreign relations, only one was George Kennan, the “father of containment,” who later became an astute critic of U.S. policy as well as a prize-winning historian. We dissected Kennan’s famous “Long Telegram” of February 1946, his “X” article in these pages from the following year, and his lengthy and unvarnished report on Latin America from March 1950. We devoured his slim but influential 1951 book, American Diplomacy... https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/ ... s-cold-war

[Potemkin]

Income in Finland is about TEN times that of the Donbas and Crimea. We don't get good numbers from Russia, but that's close.

Freedom in Crimea? Putin has killed off the opposition.

Americans and irony just don't get along with each other, do they...?

[QatzelOk]

Down??? First, we had to find a way to deal with Russian aggression.

Yes, and nepotism is about dealing with the aspirations of "suckers and losers," right?

...Stalin, who was psychotic.

Foreign leaders are often portratyed as psychotic... in order to explain why no diplomacy is taking place.

...Russia was stealing our technology and then using it to undermine other countries.

The Capitalist countries were forced to "imitate" Russia by pretending to be helping other nations develop and de-colonialize. But after 1992, it was right back to raw colonizing in Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, etc.

The United States and the Soviet Union managed to get through more than four decades of Cold War without actually going to war with each other.

Yes, both superpowers were able to "test" their weapons and strategies on other nations who lost millions of people and received lots of contaminants like depleted uranium and napalm. Perhaps it would have been better for the world and its people if they had both destroyed one another?

Nepotism has the same rules as containment: "All others are scum, and we need to bring them down so that we can dominate."

[late]

The Capitalist countries were forced to "imitate" Russia by pretending to be helping other nations develop and de-colonialize. But after 1992, it was right back to raw colonizing in Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, etc.

So....

Exactly how many American colonists are in the former Yugoslavia, Libya Syria??

Oh wait, it's none.

Example: the fighting in the former Yugoslavia was spreading, and NATO didn't want it to spread into NATO. It was also more feud than war. The fighters weren't fighting each other, they'd sneak into a village and slaughter a bunch of civilians, and then run away. That sort of thing can go on for centuries.

Reality is complicated, and sometimes your choice is between awful and worse than awful.

If you lost the chip on your shoulder, and spent some time learning, you'd quickly come to know that.

[QatzelOk]

Exactly how many American colonists are in the former Yugoslavia, Libya Syria??

**Killing other nation's hopes and dreams** is all about having more stuff (including prestige) than others... through violence. Colonization is just one of the many means to this end.

Tanya Harding wasn't trying to colonize Nancy Kerrigan. Her husband was simply trying to create a "win" for his wife by destroyng the best figure skater in America.

Colonization is a good strategy for getting rid of your underclass (if you hate social programs and equality).

[late]

Colonization is just one of the many means...

Ahh, so it wasn't colonization.

[QatzelOk]

Ahh, so it wasn't colonization.

This thread is about CONTAINMENT, which is not the same tactic as colonization.

**Hobbling someone** is containment.

**Tying them to a machine and whipping them** is colonization.

[late]

This thread is about CONTAINMENT, which is not the same tactic as colonization.

It's also about sloppiness.

[Beren]

Biden is playing a dangerous game in Ukraine by sending arms to the occupied country.

It was Putin playing a dangerous game by gambling in Ukraine that way. Only hypocrites pretend to naively believe that the US reaction to Putin's failing military gamble in Ukraine isn't an absolutely expectable knee-jerk reaction or geopolitical consequence, it's like he actually asked for it.

[QatzelOk]

It's also about sloppiness.

Looks like you've found a germ to eradicate.

Do you consider "argument" just another context for expressing your cultural superiority against a world of sloppy ideas?

Are you trying to "contain" this thread with pedantry?

It was Putin playing a dangerous game by gambling in Ukraine that way.

You mean he played a dangerous game by NOT invading Ukraine in 2014 and kicking out the Americans and their terrorists?

I might agree with you, but one would have to know the situation in Russia better to make a call about *what Putin should or should not have done* in order to prevent yet another hobbling of Asia by NATO.

(Or were you defending containment by insulting the leader of one of those "backyard countries" that we get rich by hobbling? And if so, aren't you from Germany, a country that was incredibly hobbled in the 20th Century?)

[Patrickov]

Considering who is opening this post, about what, and how containment is done in these days, I will say those did the containment to Cherokees were being kind.

Cherokees didn't deserve this, but the OP, alongside the side he's with (i.e. Russia and China, and whoever anti-West), do.