maybe we need to mention more names
and it'll work

I supported/support the Iraq war because they were removing a tyrant. They don't seem to have done a very good job of it though.

how many people do you have to kill to remove a tyrant?
how come other tyrants are still ok? if you're going to get rid of tyrants better do a good job and get rid of all od them, including the tyrants removing tyrants.

even better, Garcia-Marquez with Marx! (or was that what you meant ;) )





but Lurker, how could you support removing a tyrant by means of authoritarian tyranny?

what is relevant is that we went in and "overthrew" a leader of a sovereign nation without any real reason, regardless of whether he is tyrannical or not.

If, say, China decided that Obama was "tyrannical" would any excuse justify the chinese invading our country to remove our leader?

I say NO.


Our country is going to shit so fast...

Your country. lol.

hence "removing a tyrant by means of authoritarian tyranny?"

Rob, your a smart man, how could our country be going to shit so fast? That implies it was worth something in the first place! You have to be somewhere good, to fall from grace and become something bad. If the damned thing was bad from the beginning, where is this shit that we are going? I think we were already in some pretty deep shit since the 1490s

to claim that the USA was all bad from the beginning is to paint with a very very wide brush. Of course there were and are issues. nothing is perfect and the USA is a work in progress, and the founders knew this, which is why there were methods for alteringa nd correcting the constituion built right into it.
Most of the genocidal killing of native peoples happened as a result of the SPANISH, blame the catholics for that shit man.
as far as the slave trade, com-plicit in the slave trade were the hundreds if not thousands of tribal leaders in africa who captured their enemies and sold them to white sailors. slavery in africa was a long-practiced state for millenia before the USA came around. It still exisst in many parts of the motherland, outright slavery.
Remember, the hebrews were as a whole race, enslaved by the egyptians, in africa.

The USA is a country that promotes relatively rapid change within itself, compared to other nations before it. Thank mario for the French dupe-king who aided the american revolutionaries.

As I said, they didn't do very good job.


Yeah maybe other tyrants would have been better choices but then Saddam was weak and tyrannical.

I don't think it was "authoritarian tyranny". Iraq is developing a democracy now.

what a democratic thing to do.

that is not true.. The British were as genocidal and horrifying in their treatment of Indians as the Spanish, in fact worse! The spanish eventually mellowed out and settled for assimilation, the Brits well they never stopped fighting, and we as Americans inherited their fight, well into the 1890s my brother! Jesus that is a long time to be killing innocent people in cold blood, from the Pequot Wars in the early 1600s to the turn of the 20th century! I say that is not painting with a wide brush.. I'd say that is just plain bad history and bad blood for america.

and slavery, blaiming the victim is a cop-out.. Of course Africans were selling their own brothers to the slave trade, but who were they selling them too? Who built up such an inhuman demand for labor? And you should know that in African the institution of slavery was far less brutal and dehumanizing as it was in the Americas, slaves in Africa were considered part of the family/household and even achieved status and power, where as in the Americas, a nigger is nigger slave or free.

Again, this is not an attack on you Rob, I really like you, but I must stand firm against your position. America was doomed from the very beginning, and the Constitution only makes it worse, because how could you say some bullshit like "All men are created equal" and forget to add the asterisk * (africans and indians not included as men)

The US Constitution is the biggest crock of shit I ever read, especially because it was, is and will never be implemented, it is strictly rhetorical.

i dont think he was blaming you for slavery or anything.
basically just saying it has always been shit.

Firstly excuses aren't justifications by definition. And surely if that did happen you would think it was unjustified, because Obama isn't tyrannical.

well i think i numbers the spanish have killed more natives than anyone else in the world, sorry brits.

the definition of tyrannical.
you might not think he is, but to a lot of people america is tyrannical.
are you really trying to say the us did not support any tyrannical fascist dictatorship? because.
and are you trying to say that it was done in the name of democracy? if so, you got a lot of places to invade and a lot of people to kill.

the spanish have killed more people, if you count the mass genocides in the america,s the disease they brought to the Inca empire, the inquisition, the crusades in the motherland, the spanish armada, etc etc.

those fuckers were worse than the germans and the japanese put together!!!!!

not just the inca people, pretty much all the native people in latin america.

the same thing could be said for the Holy Bible, as a document which is great in theory, but which has been put in practice by humans in a most horrible way.

ahh, but the inca had those fly big titty shorties....


;)

uh i wanna stay for this

no my friend, that was disease, which though brought by the Spanish, was a natural disaster, not a genocide.

And apples for oranges aside, how do the guilt of one person exonerate the guilt of another? So what if the Spanish killed Indians? Does that somehow justify the Americans pursuing a viscous policy of OPEN GENOCIDE AND EXTERPITATION across the country from 1600s to the 1890s? So what if Africans sold their own brethren into slavery. Does that vindicate the Europeans and Americans for their EVIL participation and exponential expansion of that bullshit?

The problem with America, is that UNLIKE Europeans we are unwilling to take responsibility and own up to our history. ALL Americans are guilty of this, ALL of AMERICA is built upon this, why not call it as it is? Why hide the truth behind excuses and good intentions? We are not all bad people simply because our ancestors fucked up, but we WILL BECOME and continue to be bad people if we do not own up to their mistakes, honestly, respectfully, sincerely..

ah shit, i was about to stand up and shout WE'RE NUMBER ONE! out the window at the aeroplanes flying overhead.

it doesnt
i thought i asked you to stop calling me my friend
dont start that shit about europeans taking responsibility
total bullshit

people fucked people over
they do
and they will

I hate this idea that people around today are responsible for what governments did in the past. As far as reparations for slavery go the best thing we can do is support the continent where the original crime was committed.

there was disease
and genocide too
everyone knows.

no people personally arent responsible for it.
of course not.

id just avoid whining too much about the eventual immigrant managing to try a better life from a country that has been exploited for wealth.

Knox, i liked your music that youve posted, but when it comes to stuff like this you have nothing worthwhile to say.

i mean, its the idea that slavery and exploitation and colonialism have ended thats strangely misguided. they probably thought to themselves at the time they had nothing to do with it too.

or maybe you dont like what im trying to say.

which is

a lot of people say... oh these countries, they were in bad positions before but they had plenty of time to develop and we no longer have anything to do with it.

when you could just say

oh my ancestors really fucked them over.

The responsibility is not necessarily financial, it should be spiritual, intellectual. If Rob can honestly sit down and argue with me about the good intentions of the Founding Fathers and that America is build on good principles, despite 400 years of blood shed and injustice to the contrary, then we are not taking responsibility. We are the descendents of this mess, this mess is our herritage, we can't simply forget about it or ignore because it is unpleasant. We must deal with it, or it carries on as ever, festering, until it errupts again and again, and brothers and sisters, there is a lot of residual violence, racism, and poverty festering and errupting across America as a DIRECT result of the past mistakes..

This is why we must openly address these issues of our history, and make the necessary ammends in our hearts and minds, acknowledging the truth, without having to flinch and through out a bunch of excuses, cop-outs, and stuttering "buts" into the mix.

colonialism hasn't ended, it just changed.

so, of course you are not responsible for what people did in the past
but you are partially responsible for what they do now
powerless, but still.

I told you get over it already and stop being an asshole about it. The more you fuck with me, the more I will be genuinely nice to you, especially because you don't like it ;)

The problem is i dont understand what youre trying to say.

ill have a guess
African nations were poor at the time of the slave trade, but since then theyve been free to develop their societies without interference from "us" so that lack of progress is not our responsibility.
You dont think thats the case, you think the legacy of slavery is still felt

Frankly that took alot more work to try and decipher than it should.

I fully agree my man. Me and most of my fellow hispanics blame it all on "white folks."

hahahah

being Puertro Rican, from an island that was controlled by spain since it's discovery on Columbus' second trip to the New World, and controlled by the USA since the spanish american war of the late 19th century, I feel I am fairly unbiased in my unabashed admiration for the US Constitution. What I LOATHE is that too much of what currently passes for "giovernment" in the USA is clandestine, top secret bullshit, almost none of it held up to accountability of the Constitution.
The CIA, Military, FBI, Homeland Security, etc etc. There are over 11 different extra-legal intellgence and covert operations departments which were NOT set up by the constitution, and which are allowed to run unchecked, with their financing one giant ? because they are not required to report anything to congress due to alleged "national security concerns."

It is this mass exploitation that needs to be curtailed, not the actual constitution. It is these fucks that run proxy wars, that uphold tyrants who allow US corporations to do cheap business in their countries but opress their people, who allow covert pharmaceutical testing on Puerto Ricans, who allow the use of an inhabited island (Vieques) for navy and air force weapons testing, leaving the island covered with over 60 years of ordinance leaking caustic radioactive cancerous materials.

because Puerto Rico is not a State, and designated a Commonwealth, the 7000 or so inhabitants of Vieques are told by the US government that they cannot sue the US giovernment, . what a catch 22. If the Puerto Rico were a state, the Constitution could be used to fight these fucks, but it is not. this is the reason that most of the US illegal, unconstitutional activity is done in other countries from panama, to iraq, to mexico, since they can always claim the constitution does not apply in other "sovereign" nations.

the Constitution is so scary to these bastards that they ahve worked for decades to find every fucking loophole by which they will not be held up to it;'s harsh glare.

Now i think you know how i feel about the "spiritual"
My family is all Irish, my grandfather was imprisoned by the english in the 40s and he nearly starved to death, so i think i can claim such an historical injustice has befallen myself. The race issues in the US are something i just dont have any direct experience of, and youre right of course that history matters. However you cant convince a person like me with that kind of arguement. The fact we have to help Africa, Haiti, and other places is a lesson that stands on its own, and though historical context helps explain why they are where they are, these needs can be justified on their own terms.

im trying to say colonialism still exists and the world is still divided by a minority exploiting and the majority being exploited, its quite obvious.

and of course, it takes time and resources to develop, so even if it was true that they were allowed to develop without interference (they are not), its still quite recent.

their current stage of development is a direct consequence of past actions.

clearly he's arguing that the constitution is good and i would agree with him. just because it's about the rights of free men and it was written by slaveholders doesn't make it any less relevant. i like most of your posts and that wouldn't change if i found out you were a hypocrite. the arrangement of words is important despite who wrote them.