SQUACKEE wrote:Do we deserve to be wiped off the face of the Earth and if not, why not?
Just wait till 12/21/12 and let it happen naturally!
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Out having a taco . . .
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Once again I am going to argue. You guys are speaking strictly from the vantage point of the American experience, even more narrow, the experience of American ethnic minorities such as blacks and Indians. This sort of thing has been happening all around the world, sometime with ethnic background, sometimes racial, sometimes religious, but most ot the time it was socio-economic. In USA, the Civil war ended involuntary servitude. In central Europe, it pretty much existed almost to the time of WWI. They were not called slaves, but serfs. A landlord could still kill a serf, practically with impunity. They still had to work for the lord 1/10th of the time, the Church 1/9th. They were totally economically dependent. Post WWI industrialization started creating a small urban middle class, but a decade later came the Great Depression. That was also a world-wide phenomenon that may have been lost on the Americans.
As I said earlier, and as Obama said in his speech on race last year, Wright is wrong when he says this country hasn't made progress, though it might not be fast enough for him. But Wright is a product of his time, and last year my mother said that folks would be shocked if they realized how many Blacks over the age of 60 feel the same way Wright does. Generally speaking, I would say that all people deserve the same right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But I also believe that all citizens of a nation are collectively responsible for the actions of their government outside its borders. The citizens of Hiroshima didn't deserve to be nuked and citizens of Dresden didn't deserve to be firebombed, but they were responsible for the actions of their respective governments. Terrorism is the price of imperialism and interventionism, and it's up to the citizens of a country to decide if they're willing to pay the price for having meddling and aggressive governments. Do you have any idea how many military bases we have in countries all over the world in foreign countries? Did you know that we spend more money on our military than all of the other nations of the world combined? When Wright talked about "the chickens coming home to roost", he was quoting Ambassador Edward Peck who talked about 9/11 being the manifestation of what the CIA calls "blowback" on FOX News. But I guess it was asking too much for the Obama haters to put Wright's comments in context when they posted the videos all over the place. Here's that entire Wright passage from that sound bite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ I think you might get a different impression of the man after watching this. Did you happen to notice who posted that video? Trinity United Church sells DVD's of it's sermon, but after FOX News bought them and selectively edited 15 years worth of sermons into inflammatory sound bites, they were forced to post the entire passages from each of those sound bites on youtube so that folks could see Wright in context. Obviously, the entire passages didn't get nearly the TV air time of the original sound bites that were edited from them. Last edited by jazzcyclist on Mon Oct 26, 2009 1:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
He didn't say we deserved it. He provided examples of why it shouldn’t come as a surprise that others look to do harm to our country. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/t ... -post.html
Pego, there's no doubt that your knowledge of world history is much broader than mine, but I do realize that bigotry and oppression of humans by other humans began thousands of years ago for all sorts of reasons. However, I was only addressing a very narrow form of bigotry based on skin color which I believe is relatively new. I'm not saying that older forms of bigotry aren't just as oppressive. Do you agree that assessment?
We hardly ever disagree over socio-political issues, so this is no exception. College football, of course, is an entirely different matter  .
SQUACKEE, do you believe in what the CIA calls blowback? Or do you believe that someone gave Osama bin Laden a copy of the Bill of Rights one day and he flipped out?
I always laugh at the way a thread morphs into other areas. Wasn't this thread about NASCAR and Taco Bell??? More importantly, it shows that there can be a cordial and informative discussion on a "Third Rail" issue.
So I take it that your answer to my first question is no. I think W really did this country a disservice after 9/11 when he said, "they hate us for our freedom". To their credit, Europeans don't tolerate that kind of of nationalistic Orwellian nonsense from their politicians. When the Prime Minister of Spain tried to blame the Madrid bombings on the Basques instead of his Iraq adventure that 94% of Spaniards opposed, he paid the price at the polls three days later when the people of Spain kicked him out of office. In a poll taken a few days after the London bombings, 85% of the British people connected the bombings to their military presence in Iraq. Of course, the British and the Spanish only learned the lessons of imperialism the hard way after centuries of world-wide pillage and plunder, but I hope it doesn't take us as long as it took them.
I tried to stay out of this but my blood pressure is getting dangerously high. I'm with Squak. . The idea that the US is responsible for terrorism because of foreign policy is right out of the fanatical jihadists talking points. We are the most generous nation in the history of the world. Unfortunately, the "have not " nations who beg for our money as they lambast us in the UN and those we rescue from aggression have short memories and inevitably it becomes, "Yeah, but what have you done for me lately." If the US is such a terrible place, why is the rest of the world trying to get in? The US is not and has never been an imperialist nation. As to intervention, we are damned if we do and damned if we don't. True, we have troops all over the world but we are there for valid reasons and I am not aware of any place where we remain in defiance of the wishes of the legitimate government. On the contrary, they are damned glad, for security and financial reasons, to have us there. Cue Merle Haggard, "When you're running down my country, Hoss, you're walking on the fighting side of me."
Do you think American intervention in Iran has been a contributing factor in the current dysfunctional relationship between the 2 nations? Too often, we use that "damned if we do/damned if we don't" analogy based on the assumption that US interventionism is always in the form of "helping" another nation in need. Many times we were meddling. Its unfathomable to imagine Iran covertly influencing a US election, yet, we were directly involved in a coup that replaced their prime minister...and then we're surprised and offended when they, or others, want to harm Americans based on how we've "intervened". Although WE have a short term memory problem when it relates to American misbehavior, others may not.
Now you're talking like a true American nationalist. The facts say that we are the stingiest western nation in the world, not the most generous. But many Americans have the same misconception that you have.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0104-13.htm One of the reasons that Bush had problems getting the U.N. to authorize his Iraq adventure in 2003 is because three African nations, Cameroon, Guinea and Angola, who were on the Security council, received no aid from the U.S. but generous aid from France and other European countries. Now you're conflatimg U.S. foreign policy with U.S. domestic policy, which are two distinctly different things. I once heard a jihadist cleric being interviewed in Pakistan, and when asked if he would advise Muslims to leave the U.S., he said, "No, no, no. I've been to America and in America, Muslims have more freedom to practice Islam in the way that they chose than they do in most Muslim countries. It is American foreign policy that I object to." You have to be oblivious to huge parts of American history to believe that.
If you take 'imperialism' to mean what the 1960s radicals defined it as, then yes, we have been and are right now 'imperialistic'. But as far as the original (and 'best') definition, empire-building, then no, we have not sought to build our empire for many decades now (Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawai'i, etc.). "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" seems to be our motto since Korea (Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.).
Two prominent black figures have called white people the devil and described America as the worst country thats ever existed. Here's my question.
Am i unjustified in being proud of my race,(just like everyone seems to be) and proud of my country(where it is now) just like everyone else seems to be. And if i'm not justified, what other races and countries should be ashamed or as a white American i am uniquely evil?
SQUACKEE, you already know where I come down on that Farrakhan-Nation of Islam stuff. But to your main point, it's not for me to tell you what to be proud of. However, it's silly to expect that the same things that move you will also move me because our life experiences and environment growing up were so different. Personally, there are many things about my race and my country that I am proud of and many things that I am ashamed of. Having said all that, I must point out that the entire world stood in awe of the U.S. on November 5, 2008, because we had pulled off something that is scores if not centuries away for most countries. No European country has ever shown that level of tolerance and inclusiveness. The equivalent would be India electing a Muslim Prime Minister, Israel electing a Gentile Prime Minister or Iran electing a Jewish President. I don't think you have to be a supporter of Obama to have been proud of our nation on that day.
No. All the good and evil in the world exist because of us (the human race, of which people with light skin are only an insignificant variant). There is nothing to be proud of or NOT proud of. We are. That's about all you can say.
What about what the Godfather sang, "SAY IT LOUD, IM BLACK AND IM PROUD!"
What % of the people of the world have no feelings about their race, none, completely neutral, 1%, 5%. 0%????
To be alive in the 21st Century is to be proud of ethnicity (nationality, etc.), but not race. I am not 'proud' to be 'white', are you? What is Obama proud of? If anything, that he is 'mixed' and successful, which some Justices of the Peace think is impossible!
This is a very interesting discussion. btw. I'm an idiot but im not completely stoopid. I know it's not politically correct to say your proud of your white race,( The KKK comes to mind in a nano second) but this is not true for any other race. I'm i wrong? If someone in your class says they are proud of their Japanese heritage, what do you say to them?
What is to be proud about the accident of birth? How exactly has anybody contributed to the past history of his/her race/ethnicity/nationality?
This is the defintion of imperialism that I use:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/imperialism
And heritage is not race. Proud to be Asiatic? Negroid? Caucasian (sic)? That makes no sense.
Oh! In that case most 1st world countries are imperialistic! Certainly China and Japan are!
I don't think anyone would take offense if you said you were proud of your English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Belgian, or etc. . . . . heritage. But you're right, saying you're proud of the White race would ring the alarm bells. The difference is that Blacks don't have the luxury of being as specific with their motherland for reasons that are self-evident. Also, in the U.S., all of those hyphenated ethnic groups that I refered to are minority groups while the White race is a majority group. Hence, Blacks don't feel threatened by Irish-Americans on St. Patrick's Day or Italian-Americans on Columbus Day.
Good point!
Am not suggesting what should be, im asking about what is. In a perfect world the word race doesnt even exist. Again what % of the world's people have no feeling one way or the other about their race? Completely neutral. No pride, no shame, no feelings at all. 10%, 100% What do you think it is?
If you define race strictly by skin color, it's probably larger than you think.
With the advent of the Black Power movement in the 60s, many 'blacks' went from lamenting their plight to reveling in their newly empowered position. Affirmative Action certainly enhanced that by giving minorities preferential treatment in some cases. During much of American history most 'whites' thanked their lucky stars to be born in the Power Class. I think in 2009, most of that is becoming irrelevant. Meritocracy is the name of the game on many (most?) fronts and we are all, of course, better off for it.
I think if we really are an imperialistic nation than we really suck at it. With our military power we could compleletly rule 60 percent of the world. The first thing we should do is make up a reason to take over Saudi Arabia, then Canada and South America. After what we did for France in ww2 we have every right to take them over. Japan and South Korea- ours. ect ect ect.
There's no doubt that China is in the business of economic and political hegemony, but I don't know about Japan. However, Chinese hegemony over other nations is restricted to its part of the world, unlike the American hegemony which is world-wide.
Being a large capitalistic entity, that comes with the territory. I don't think anyone with the big picture of how the world works faults the USA for this or considers it 'imperialism'! It's the business of business. Without getting into a thread-killing discussion of whether our involvement in Iraq/Afghanistan constitutes Imperialism by someone's standards, the way we conduct our foreign policy is in concert with our economic impact in the world. We are neither 'overly' nor 'underly' imperialistic for out position in the world's economy.
I don't think the invasion of Afghanistan was done with economic or political hegemony in mind. Over 90% of the American people supported that war. How imperialistic could it have been if Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Cynthia McKinney all voted for it? Hell, even Louis Farrakhan spoke out in support of it at the time. Now Iraq is a different matter all togher. Does any thinking person not think that economic or political hegemony played a role in W's decision to invade Iraq? Bush himself conceded that Saddam had no role in 9/11 and even neocon Bill Kristol admitted on NPR that the war was fought for "geopolitical strategic reasons".
I said, withOUT getting into a thread-killing discussion! Because BK concedes that point, does NOT mean other conservatives do.
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