“From the Wilds of America”--Analyzing the Idea of “British Colonial America” in Steampunk
In particular, I liked this comment:
We would have been better off as a British colony far longer than 1776.
Why?
1. Slavery would have been abolished around 1800 instead of 1865 after 600,000 Americans lost their lives in the Civil War. God knows how many black slaves died from malnutrition, no medical care, physical abuse and outright murder by the white slave owners.
2. This is a debatable point, but I think if we were still under British rule, the genocidal toll against Native Americans would have been less severe. I really think the Crown would placed greater protections against the theft of lands and forced relocation.
The question is: is life better for an indigenous person in Canada or the United States? I would bet on Canada but I think people in this forum would argue this point.
3. We would be Canada. More civilized. National Health Care for everyone. Less hell bent on defending a militarized empire. Ice hockey would be our national sport.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete#1: "God knows how many black slaves died from malnutrition, no medical care, physical abuse and outright murder by the white slave owners."
ReplyDelete(sarcasm on) Yes, of course, because when slavery ended in the South, all these problems ended for blacks in the South. No murder(the Klan never existed, right?), and all blacks instantly had the same economic status as whites. (sarcasm off).
#2: This point is indeed highly debatable, considering the acts of genocide perpetrated elsewhere in the British Empire (i.e. the Tasmanians). Racial arrogance and genocide were attitudes and policies that the "Americans" inherited from "the Crown", and were not something the "Americans" created on their own.
#3. So it all boils down to a desire for a bad government health-care monopoly and a love of hockey? And one can't help but notice the Chomskyesque reference to an empire that does not exist anymore.
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As for there being a major difference in how the US and Canada treated the "First Nations", I figured I'd check one example of cultural intolerance that was applied to a Native culture that was found in both the US and Canada. I knew that the US government outlawed the "potlatch" in the Pacific Northwest. I just now looked it up, and it turns out that the Canadian government also outlawed it.
Next, I wondered about the "Indian boarding schools". I know about this being a US problem. What about Canada? It turns out that Canada has had this problem as well.
"We would have been better off as a British colony far longer than 1776."
ReplyDeleteYes because british colonialism has such a positive history. *Sarcasm off.* Can we all take up a collection to buy this guy history lessons?
"outright murder by the white slave owners."
How interesting he left out Indian and Black slave owners or the countless british atrocities.
"This is a debatable point, but I think if we were still under British rule, the genocidal toll against Native Americans would have been less severe."
Is that a joke? Does that idiot actually know anything about history? The british government wrote the book on genocide; the people who carried out the Indian genocide were newbs at it. I'd say that the Indian genocide would have been far worse under the british government.
"I really think the Crown would placed greater protections against the theft of lands and forced relocation."
Hahahaha! That's hilarious, oh wait he's serious that makes it even more funny. One look at how the aborigines (they were hunted for sport) or Canadian Indians were treated shows us that wouldn't have the been case.
"The question is: is life better for an indigenous person in Canada or the United States? I would bet on Canada but I think people in this forum would argue this point."
The Canadian Indian genocide says otherwise also I wonder if Rob is aware that this guy is basically trivializing the Canadian Indian genocide to the point of denying it.
"We would be Canada. More civilized."
I love it how he doesn't mention the genocide against Canadian Indians.
"National Health Care for everyone.'
I guess this guy we should forget about the Canadian Indian genocide because of their health care policy.
"Less hell bent on defending a militarized empire."
The sheer hypocrisy of this statement is amazing, if the US is an 'empire' then so is the UK, oh but that's anti-American bigots like this jackass will only bash America.
Also this is a very pro-british, revisionist and anti-American article, the author apparently thinks that the British establishment were saints and could do no wrong when in fact their legacy is one of genocide, oppression, slavery and just plain misery, the fact that the author glosses over that puts him in the same category as a holocaust denier. (Considering that British totalitarianism, the boer camps for example influenced Hitler I'd say that's a good comparison.) If you want to see what British colonialism leads to just look at the northern Irish troubles the result of policies that the author of that bigoted piece of spew seems to admire and of course Rob being the moron he is agrees with him.
ReplyDelete"and were not something the "Americans" created on their own."
Also it could be said that American culture has been more charitable than British culture. For example American charity and efforts saved countless Armenians (an article I posted previously mentioned how only an American embassy took in Armenians).
Stephen said "Yes because british colonialism has such a positive history"
ReplyDeleteThis is one place where your Irish patriotism is well placed. Even is perhaps a loyal subject of the Crown.
"...it could be said that American culture has been more charitable than British culture. For example ....Armenians"
But I did point out that this was the same era of massive genocide by American forces in the Philipines.
"This is one place where your Irish patriotism is well placed."
ReplyDeleteActually I'm not an (Irish) republican sympathizer, I don't care if Ireland's united, I hate republican (and loyalists) terrorists and (unlike people over here who love to moan about whites) I don't hate English people in general (although I am sick of encountering so many anti-American English people) I actually have a few long distance English friends. I do however have strong disdain for anyone who tries to make it sound as if the history of the British establishment is positive and that only America has a sorid history (this doesn't just have to do with my ethnicity but my hatred of anti-Americanism) and I have strong disdain for bullshit like monarchy, titles and other such nonsense. (FYI I'd rather call myself an American patriot, since I have no plans to move to the ROI, let's just say the Celtic tiger ain't roaring so loudly.)
"Even is perhaps a loyal subject of the Crown."
Har har har. ;)
"But I did point out that this was the same era of massive genocide by American forces in the Philipines."
Very true, however you're talking about government actions I'm mainly talking about actions taken by average citizens, the UK didn't raise millions in aid like Americans did.
How 'civilized' Canada treated Indians:
ReplyDelete"Jasper Joseph is a sixty-four year old native man from Port Hardy, British Columbia. His eyes still fill with tears when he remembers his cousins who were killed with lethal injections by staff at the Nanaimo Indian Hospital, in 1944.
"I was just eight, and theyíd shipped us down from the Anglican residential school in Alert Bay to the Nanaimo Indian Hospital, the one run by the United Church. They kept me isolated in a tiny room there for more than three years, like I was a lab rat, feeding me these pills, giving me shots that made me sick. Two of my cousins made a big fuss, screaming and fighting back all the time, so the nurses gave them shots, and they both died right away. It was done to silence them." (November 10, 2000)
Unlike post-war Germans, Canadians have yet to acknowledge, let alone repent from, the genocide that we inflicted on millions of conquered people: the aboriginal men, women and children who were deliberately exterminated by our racially supremacist churches and state.
As early as November, 1907, the Canadian press was acknowledging that the death rate within Indian residential schools exceeded 50% (aee Appendix, "Key Newspaper Articles"). And yet the reality of such a massacre has been wiped clean from public record and consciousness in Canada over the past decades. Small wonder; for that hidden history reveals a system whose aim was to destroy most native people by disease, relocation and outright murder, while "assimilating" a minority of collaborators who were trained to serve the genocidal system.
This history of purposeful genocide implicates every level of government in Canada, the RCMP, every mainline church, large corporations, and local police, doctors, and judges. The web of complicity in this killing machine was, and remains, so vast that its concealment has required an equally elaborate campaign of cover-up that has been engineered at the highest levels of power in our country; a cover-up that is continuing, especially now that eyewitnesses to murders and atrocities at the church-run native residential "schools" have come forward for the first time. For it was the residential "schools" that constituted the death camps of the Canadian Holocaust, and within their walls nearly one-half of all aboriginal children sent there by law died, or disappeared, according to the governmentís own statistics."
http://www.akha.org/content/humanrightsdocs/thecanadiangenocide.html
http://canadiangenocide.nativeweb.org/intro2.html
Since he failed to mention such 'incidents' it's obvious the hypocrite who wrote that spew doesn't give a rat's ass about Indians (like I said he's the equivalent of a holocaust denier) he just wants to bash Americans, his rant is just one of the countless examples of leftist bigotry.
(sarcasm on) Yes, of course, because when slavery ended in the South, all these problems ended for blacks in the South.
ReplyDeleteAt least they weren't slaves. You are phrasing it in a way that implies that slavery didn't matter. That's pretty appalling.
Racial arrogance and genocide were attitudes and policies that the "Americans" inherited from "the Crown"
I'd love to see the edict from George III calling for the wiping out of all Indians. Really I would.
The point, obviously, is that the British government did sometimes take treaties seriously.
Decentralization makes that impossible. If the people at the frontier want the land, they take it. There is no central authority and no rule of law.
So it all boils down to a desire for a bad government health-care monopoly
You mean a system in which poor people wait months for a free operation, as opposed to one in which poor people get no operation at all.
I am constantly amazed about how completely deluded Americans are about how healthcare works in other countries.
Since he failed to mention such 'incidents' it's obvious the hypocrite who wrote that spew doesn't give a rat's ass about Indians (like I said he's the equivalent of a holocaust denier) he just wants to bash Americans
As opposed to Stephen, who just wants to coddle America and protect it from all criticism.
By the way, the stuff you are quoting has been debunked. A submission was made to the UN and it was rejected because it was absolute crap. The Canadian schools did NOT deliberately bump off children like Auschwitz. The fact that you quote it as fact shows that you are on the exact same intellectual level as Ward Churchill. Like so many Americans, you cry and wail about "anti-American bias" and then you turn around and lie your asses off about everyone else.