Trump tells minority Congresswomen to "go back where they came from"

[Darth Yan]

You do not need to convince me that many of the actions taken by European colonists were crimes and atrocities. Where we disagree is on how best to redress that now (and what we can do to address that now).

You still miss the fundamental point. It's not a past tense 'were' crimes. It's a present tense 'are.' There is a direct unbroken line in action between then and now, and nothing has ruptured that. To treat these crimes as historical is to be an accomplice in their perpetuation.

This means that the American system of property law, the American claim to land, and the material wealth that America has extracted from that land are all bound up in White Supremacy, and if you want to rip up white supremacy root, stem, and branch that these systems must be viewed as illegitmate.

Its a compelling argument, I admit, but it runs into serious difficulties in terms of what is practically feasible to accomplish, at least in the foreseable future.

I also believe that it is possible, and sometimes necessary (however frustrating), to introduce reforms in steps, and to modify or reinterpret bad laws so that they serve a more just purpose, rather than an all-or-nothing deal where either you scrap the entire system in one stroke or its white supremacist.

1. You are the one who at the top of your post said "you are either against imperialism, bigotry, and despotism, or you are not". If you acknowledge that the US is inextricably linked to racial imperialism then you need to position yourself against it. If you think nuance is important when it comes to racial property ownership and not, say, foreign policy then maybe you should look inwards as to why you have a double-standard.

2. If you acknowledge that the system in inextricably tied to racial supremacy, and then acknowledge that there are many many many stakeholders who are tied to that system, what chance of meaningful reform do you think there is? The second reforms are put into the hands of people who don't want reforms to work they don't work. This is why racial incarceration is through the roof, it's why voting rights have been stripped from minority participants, it's why school segregation has gotten continuously worse for forty+ years. When the system is broken you cannot expect the system to fix itself.

The problem is, if you completely throw out that legal system, you are basically advocating anarchy, and closing all doors to reform save for violent conflict. If you start from the position that all US law is white supremacist and therefore invalid and must be abolished, then where do you go from there? Even any attempt to draft new laws from scratch would require an agreed-upon legal frame work and standards to work within. Determining who would draft those laws would require a political framework.

Buddy, the fact that this is complicated and difficult is not a reason to not do it. It's a reason why we should approach these questions with care and nuance, and strive to do it right. None of these things are defenses of a pre-existing structure which is fundamentally racist.

You can't just start over from scratch, however much you might want to. You start with what you have, which is the existing political and legal system, and then try to steer it in a better direction. Or you try to burn it all, and hope something better rises from the ashes. It seldom does.

It's really interesting that you go from "We should engage in a large scale decolonial project that involves derecognizing the United States" to "ANARCHY!" Again, this imagination of the only way order can be found via a racist imperial project is truly fascinating. It shows how deep into the soul it can etch itself.

If you support a solution that does not involve mass relocation, then obviously the terms genocide or ethnic cleansing would not need to apply. The "contradiction" came when I (accurately) described mass expulsion of the current population as something that would require a genocide to implement, and you (either through sloppiness or dishonesty) interpreted that as "TRR thinks returning the land to the natives is genocide". If your solution is to place those lands under new (First Nations) rule without forcibly removing the current residents, then that is not something I would characterize as genocide (albeit extremely problematic and practically difficult in numerous other ways).

When you have said that you would work to give Native tribes what they ask for, and some Native Tribes want their land back and the people who have stolen their land off of it, and then you say "that would require a genocide to implement" you are in fact, as I said, both taking what they want 'off the table' and declaring it 'a genocide'.


Do you need this drawn in pictures? I can do that. I will open up Paint and draw it for you.

To undo the reservation system is to recognize that US claim to land across most of the country is fundamentally broken. This means that recognizing the existence of states like the Dakotas, Minnesota, Colorado, Georgia, Alabama, etc. would then be 'deplorable'.

There are a number of possible solutions here, depending on what the parties concerned are all willing to accept. Including:

1. Renegotiate the treaties, paying to (fairly) purchase the land those states are on.

Many of these tribes don't want the fucking money. They want the land back. The case I cite is one where there's billions of dollars sitting in a trust fund, and the tribe has refused it. Because they want the fucking land back. There is no monetary price that undoes ethnic cleansing.

2. Alter current state boundaries (Congress and state legislatures can do this) to cede portions of those states back to the First Nations. Although I am deeply concerned about the precedent that allowing secession movements, or creating race-based states, would set.

It's really interesting to me how you immediately conflate undoing acts of racist land expropriation with overt racism. Like, that that's where your mind goes.

3. Hold a Constitutional Convention where everything, including the extent of the nation's borders, is on the table.

Why should an illegal nation have the right to determine how things are settled?

If a gang of burglars ransack your house why should they have a seat at the table in terms of what items of yours are returned? And how do you weigh their right to 'their' property to your right to what 'was' your property?

I acknowledge that permitting the outright separation of large parts of the country would be deeply problematic to me, not because I regard the land as rightfully America's, but because it would encourage other (ie white supremacist) secession movements, and because I am ultimately an advocate of global government, and see ethnic/nationalist secession movements as fundamentally moving the world in the wrong direction. So my conflict here is not between the American status quo and Native rights, but between two principles that are both deeply important to me: racial justice, and political globalization. I admit that I don't have a simple or easy answer to that.

The hoops that you jump through to try and say "I'm not racist, but I don't like giving back the land that was stolen as a concept" is really fucking fascinating.

I will never support race-based states in any form, because race-based states in a globalized world can only be maintained through acts of despotism.

Then how can you defend the United States? If you admit that the United States is a race based state in its origin, that it has viewed itself as a race based state throughout its history, and its claim to land, sovereignty, and power come from constructions of racial supremacy how can you support the United States?

An office can commit racist acts without the office being, by its nature, fundamentally racist. Upholding the reservation system has been a policy of the Presidency, but it is not a fundamental requirement of the Presidency.

The President is only President of these lands because these lands were taken. The states that legitimate and vote for the president are only states because the land was taken. If you give up the racism necessary for the seizure of the land then the presidency could not exist.

What you are describing when you refer to creating a fundamentally different nation within the same boundaries is essentially holding a Constitutional Convention and rewriting the Constitution from scratch, yes?

Sure? As part of the project.

But not a constitutional convention in the context of the US Constitution. Because, everything there is fruit from the poison tree.

And if the Sioux Nation demands that the US dissolve the states of the Dakotas and Minnesota, that the land be returned to their sovereignty, and that the US pay monetary damages for the time the land was out of their possession, what do you do?

I'd agree to the momentary damages, though I suspect that the scale would require them to be paid over time rather than in a single sum.

I'd try to negotiate an alternative compromise on dissolving three states. Failing that, I suppose the only lawful way to move forward on the issue would be a Constitutional convention.

So if they want the land back, flat out, you wouldn't give it to them?

You have to be proportional. One of the reason the settlements in the Israeli Palestinian conflict is an issue is that people are living there. Upending all those settlements would be a nightmare. Yes the settlements are a blatant violation of international law (and the settlers themselves usually racist psychopaths) but anyone who thinks "just move them" is easy is a blithering idiot.

Like it or not people are living in the Dakotas and Minnesota. Resettling all the natives in those lands could involve expelling people who had no part in the wrongs done years ago.

When things are the way they are for a long enough time reform is really the only option. It's sucky but it is the truth.

Also the idea that the US is some inherently evil nation that can never change its ways is absurd. As cliche as it is the mere fact Obama got elected TWICE is proof that there has been change to a degree. Hell even nonsense like Charlottesville hasn't reached the brutality of the Tulsa Olklaholma riots, or the Detroit riots. Its a slow change but it does have the potential happening,

[The Romulan Republic]

That's the problem, yeah. There are millions of people living their, who may be living on stolen property, but they are still people and still have to live. Do you expel them by force (presuming it were possible to do so without a massive civil war that Straha's side would definitely not win)? If so, what country will take them all in? Do you allow them to remain, but disenfranchise them to ensure that the government of the new nation remains First Nations controlled? These are not easy questions.

A terrible crime was committed. It should not be legitmized. But we can't simply turn the clock back and erase its effects, nor can we answer one atrocity with another.

[Broomstick]

I'm also wondering about his position regarding the governments of every other nation in the western hemisphere, all of which were built on blood, death, land theft, and exploitation.

[LaCroix]

Slight difference. None of these nations is telling another that yes, this land is yours, but we are taking 90% of it for our own use, and will administrate the rest for you without listening to you and keeping most revenue under tight control(or outright stealing it by making intentionally bad deals for you). Also, you are a 'sovereign' nation, but you are under our jurisdiction, while we do not really care for your rights and protection and will outright try to reeducate your culture out of your children.

Also: This is our treaty, pray we do not modify it any further.

That is pretty much what people are complaining about Tibet, only less honest.

[The Romulan Republic]

Slight difference. None of these nations is telling another that yes, this land is yours, but we are taking 90% of it for our own use, and will administrate the rest for you without listening to you and keeping most revenue under tight control(or outright stealing it by making intentionally bad deals for you). Also, you are a 'sovereign' nation, but you are under our jurisdiction, while we do not really care for your rights and protection and will outright try to reeducate your culture out of your children.

Also: This is our treaty, pray we do not modify it any further.

That is pretty much what people are complaining about Tibet, only less honest.

Well, the following would be, at least, a pretty accurate descriptor of Canada, and outside the Western Hemisphere (but definitely Western-style nations) Australia and New Zealand, as well as America, wouldn't it?

Probably some other countries in the Americas as well, but I'm less familiar with their laws and history on the subject.

Not that that's in any way a defense, because as I've stressed many times, "Somebody else is just as bad" is never an excuse for committing evil acts. Just pointing out that America isn't actually unique on this score.

[Broomstick]

Slight difference. None of these nations is telling another that yes, this land is yours, but we are taking 90% of it for our own use, and will administrate the rest for you without listening to you and keeping most revenue under tight control(or outright stealing it by making intentionally bad deals for you). Also, you are a 'sovereign' nation, but you are under our jurisdiction, while we do not really care for your rights and protection and will outright try to reeducate your culture out of your children.

Also: This is our treaty, pray we do not modify it any further.

That is pretty much what people are complaining about Tibet, only less honest.

Incorrect, as pointed out by TRR.

Also leaves out the countries that didn't make any pretense of treaties - they simply took shit, killed or enslaved the natives, and that's that. Case in point: where are the Native Taino on Hispaniola? Where are the Carribs, you know, the folks the Caribbean Sea is named for? It wasn't always ethnic cleansing and herding people into reservations, sometimes it was just outright slaughter with no one left to complain about it today.

[LaCroix]

As I was saying, the current situation in Europe is not at all comparable to the indian reservations. Apart from France/Britain, there are no external territories, and those are not demanding sovereignity, right now, as far as I know. Nor are they being "handled" like the reservations.

The fact of what Spain/France/Britain did in the past remains, but with no one left to atone to, and not being in posession of these territories, it's not something they can do anything about, right now. It also is something worth mentioning that Britain did follow through with their treaties to natives - the US pretty much seceded over not being allowed to spread out further into indian territory.

And most of all, the reservation issues are going on right now, this very moment, while those things were done 2-400 years ago. Another slight difference in how to handle things.

[Gandalf]

Because when I suggest that anti-American so-called progressives might defend Trump on certain issues, or defend his legitimacy as President, because he makes American look bad, you immediately try to turn it around and say that by the same reasoning, I must just hate him because he makes American look bad, rather than, you know, because he's an absolutely abhorrent piece of shit who routinely personifies the worst of humanity in his actions and words.

I just really wanted to see your appeals to motive turned around. Mostly from this post earlier:

So... lies for expediency?

No, the truth is bad enough. But I'd rather that people overrate the danger of something like this, than underrate it.

I'd ask why you seem hell-bent on downplaying Trump's actions, but I'm pretty sure I know why. Because America is bad and its always been just as bad and always will be, and so we shouldn't care about Trump because he's no different than anyone else.

May the thought that nothing really changed when Trump was elected bring you comfort while children are locked in concentration camps.

So... yeah.

If you can somehow infer a dastardly anti-American motive from my posts, then can't I take your defences as being similarly motivated by some nationalism?

My comments about faux progressives sympathizing with Trump because he makes American look bad weren't actually directed at you, so its interesting that you take them as such.

See above.

[Effie]

You have to be proportional. One of the reason the settlements in the Israeli Palestinian conflict is an issue is that people are living there. Upending all those settlements would be a nightmare. Yes the settlements are a blatant violation of international law (and the settlers themselves usually racist psychopaths) but anyone who thinks "just move them" is easy is a blithering idiot.

Like it or not people are living in the Dakotas and Minnesota. Resettling all the natives in those lands could involve expelling people who had no part in the wrongs done years ago.

When things are the way they are for a long enough time reform is really the only option. It's sucky but it is the truth.

Also the idea that the US is some inherently evil nation that can never change its ways is absurd. As cliche as it is the mere fact Obama got elected TWICE is proof that there has been change to a degree. Hell even nonsense like Charlottesville hasn't reached the brutality of the Tulsa Olklaholma riots, or the Detroit riots. Its a slow change but it does have the potential happening,

Even the wildest fantasies of the most hardcore anticolonialist Native rematriation activists envision, at most, a voluntarist process of emigration or assimilation in returned land. Outright removal is beyond fantasy.

[Straha]

You have to be proportional. One of the reason the settlements in the Israeli Palestinian conflict is an issue is that people are living there. Upending all those settlements would be a nightmare. Yes the settlements are a blatant violation of international law (and the settlers themselves usually racist psychopaths) but anyone who thinks "just move them" is easy is a blithering idiot.

Like it or not people are living in the Dakotas and Minnesota. Resettling all the natives in those lands could involve expelling people who had no part in the wrongs done years ago.

1. Again, these aren't crimes done 'long ago'. These are crimes that are present tense on-going which began long ago. There has been no dispute of this at any point in this thread.

2. Proportionality? What is the proportional response to the longest continuously running campaign of active ethnic cleansing in human history? I want to know.

3. Nobody is talking about resettling natives in those lands, they're talking resettling settler-colonists. It's a huge, but rather important, distinction.

4. At that, nobody is even talking about resettling all settler colonists. Some of them will need to go. Religious rights and history, tribal boundaries, and the undoing of American water infrastructure projects, among other things, mean that some people who are squatting on stolen land will need to be displaced. Why is that a bad thing?

5. It's also interesting to me how you draw a direct parallel between Israel, which claims a trans-generational connection to the land based on a historical connection, its diasporic removal, and a divine mandate, and the United States, which claims a trans-generational connection to the land based on white supremacy over native nations.

When things are the way they are for a long enough time reform is really the only option. It's sucky but it is the truth.

So all genociders need to do to make sure they don't face consequences for their actions is run out the clock? Cool. What's the sunset period on being responsible for aiding and abetting a genocide? How many years does it take?

Also the idea that the US is some inherently evil nation that can never change its ways is absurd. As cliche as it is the mere fact Obama got elected TWICE is proof that there has been change to a degree. Hell even nonsense like Charlottesville hasn't reached the brutality of the Tulsa Olklaholma riots, or the Detroit riots. Its a slow change but it does have the potential happening,

So far two people have mentioned the word evil in this thread. Revan when he was talking about 'the lesser of two evils' and TRR when he was going full on dime-store Freud. Evil is an abstraction best kept for Disney movies.

What has been said is that the US is inherently and intrinsicly racist. I've laid out a number of cases for this above. Nothing you've offered here raises to the point of rebuttal. If you want to try for something serious, be my guest.

As for notions of 'progress' and the 'potential' for change. I'm sure that this is a comfort to the people on the Pine Ridge reservation where, despite being wards of the richest nation on the face of the planet, life expectancy is 48 (lower than anywhere in the western hemisphere except Haiti), poverty is outrageous, and prospects effectively nil thanks to decades long targeted neglect. Then tell them that America isn't fundamentally racist because it elected a half-black man president, twice. I wonder what sort of reception you'd get. Or from the Cherokee. Etc. etc. etc.

[Straha]

I'm also wondering about his position regarding the governments of every other nation in the western hemisphere, all of which were built on blood, death, land theft, and exploitation.

I'm not sure what your argument is beyond "Other nations are built on racist grounds too!" Which... yes? Not sure I need to go out of my way to prove that Canada and Australia both have similar problems. I'm also not sure how this acts as exculpatory for the United States other than to say 'other kids did it too!' Which, if that's your arg, yikes.


What's different is that the US mode of ethnic cleansing was of its own devising, and then modeled to a greater or lesser extent in Canada, Australia, and South Africa. Most of the other countries in the Americas have either had active decolonial projects, or had brutal revolutions that helped to force the decolonial project forward. To deal with them in a wide swath is unfair to them, and not useful to exploring the more basic question poised here: "Is the US fundamentally racist?"

[Darth Yan]

You have to be proportional. One of the reason the settlements in the Israeli Palestinian conflict is an issue is that people are living there. Upending all those settlements would be a nightmare. Yes the settlements are a blatant violation of international law (and the settlers themselves usually racist psychopaths) but anyone who thinks "just move them" is easy is a blithering idiot.

Like it or not people are living in the Dakotas and Minnesota. Resettling all the natives in those lands could involve expelling people who had no part in the wrongs done years ago.

1. Again, these aren't crimes done 'long ago'. These are crimes that are present tense on-going which began long ago. There has been no dispute of this at any point in this thread.

2. Proportionality? What is the proportional response to the longest continuously running campaign of active ethnic cleansing in human history? I want to know.

3. Nobody is talking about resettling natives in those lands, they're talking resettling settler-colonists. It's a huge, but rather important, distinction.

4. At that, nobody is even talking about resettling all settler colonists. Some of them will need to go. Religious rights and history, tribal boundaries, and the undoing of American water infrastructure projects, among other things, mean that some people who are squatting on stolen land will need to be displaced. Why is that a bad thing?

5. It's also interesting to me how you draw a direct parallel between Israel, which claims a trans-generational connection to the land based on a historical connection, its diasporic removal, and a divine mandate, and the United States, which claims a trans-generational connection to the land based on white supremacy over native nations.

When things are the way they are for a long enough time reform is really the only option. It's sucky but it is the truth.

So all genociders need to do to make sure they don't face consequences for their actions is run out the clock? Cool. What's the sunset period on being responsible for aiding and abetting a genocide? How many years does it take?

Also the idea that the US is some inherently evil nation that can never change its ways is absurd. As cliche as it is the mere fact Obama got elected TWICE is proof that there has been change to a degree. Hell even nonsense like Charlottesville hasn't reached the brutality of the Tulsa Olklaholma riots, or the Detroit riots. Its a slow change but it does have the potential happening,

So far two people have mentioned the word evil in this thread. Revan when he was talking about 'the lesser of two evils' and TRR when he was going full on dime-store Freud. Evil is an abstraction best kept for Disney movies.

What has been said is that the US is inherently and intrinsicly racist. I've laid out a number of cases for this above. Nothing you've offered here raises to the point of rebuttal. If you want to try for something serious, be my guest.

As for notions of 'progress' and the 'potential' for change. I'm sure that this is a comfort to the people on the Pine Ridge reservation where, despite being wards of the richest nation on the face of the planet, life expectancy is 48 (lower than anywhere in the western hemisphere except Haiti), poverty is outrageous, and prospects effectively nil thanks to decades long targeted neglect. Then tell them that America isn't fundamentally racist because it elected a half-black man president, twice. I wonder what sort of reception you'd get. Or from the Cherokee. Etc. etc. etc.

1.) The actual expulsions occurred a century ago. The white people living on that land have done so for years

2.) How is it active? Yes the reservations are shit, but there is opportunity. There's no active attempt to commit genocide.

3.) Way to miss the point. For better or worse the settlers have lived there for over a century at this point. To say that the ones alive today should be expelled for what their ancestors did is pure sins of the father mentality. Like it or not history has happened at this point. Unlike Israel (where a lot of villages are still abandoned and thus could be resettled) that's not really the case here. As Romulan asked earlier "Do you expel them by force (presuming it were possible to do so without a massive civil war that your side would definitely not win)? If so, what country will take them all in? Do you allow them to remain, but disenfranchise them to ensure that the government of the new nation remains First Nations controlled?" Please answer these questions; it feels like you're dodging them.

4.) Both because of the infeasibility (a great deal of money, time and resources would need to be used) and the fact that as said earlier the "settlers have lived there for more than a century now. What you're advocating is upending people who are living there purely to undo a grievous crime that was done centuries ago. Like it or not the ink has dried on that.

5.) The palestinians had a claim to that land (my Cousin's grandfather was forcibly expelled.) Israel's identity of being a "jewish state" means it can only be maintained by forcibly keeping arabs out rather than shooting for a one state solution where all races have equal representation. Israel is a blatant ethnostate founded on the idea of "this is our lands and the arabs can fuck off and die."


Also you have been implying that the US is evil. Saying that resettling is the only option and who cares if people get hurt in the process.

I'm also wondering about his position regarding the governments of every other nation in the western hemisphere, all of which were built on blood, death, land theft, and exploitation.

I'm not sure what your argument is beyond "Other nations are built on racist grounds too!" Which... yes? Not sure I need to go out of my way to prove that Canada and Australia both have similar problems. I'm also not sure how this acts as exculpatory for the United States other than to say 'other kids did it too!' Which, if that's your arg, yikes.


What's different is that the US mode of ethnic cleansing was of its own devising, and then modeled to a greater or lesser extent in Canada, Australia, and South Africa. Most of the other countries in the Americas have either had active decolonial projects, or had brutal revolutions that helped to force the decolonial project forward. To deal with them in a wide swath is unfair to them, and not useful to exploring the more basic question poised here: "Is the US fundamentally racist?"

In South Africa they realized that large scale resettling wouldn't work in the long run. Contrast Zimbabwe which became a nightmare. Decolonialization is a noble goal but it needs to be done carefully and what you're suggesting is using a chainsaw

[Effie]

I'm also wondering about his position regarding the governments of every other nation in the western hemisphere, all of which were built on blood, death, land theft, and exploitation.

I'm not sure what your argument is beyond "Other nations are built on racist grounds too!" Which... yes? Not sure I need to go out of my way to prove that Canada and Australia both have similar problems. I'm also not sure how this acts as exculpatory for the United States other than to say 'other kids did it too!' Which, if that's your arg, yikes.


What's different is that the US mode of ethnic cleansing was of its own devising, and then modeled to a greater or lesser extent in Canada, Australia, and South Africa. Most of the other countries in the Americas have either had active decolonial projects, or had brutal revolutions that helped to force the decolonial project forward. To deal with them in a wide swath is unfair to them, and not useful to exploring the more basic question poised here: "Is the US fundamentally racist?"

And of course, the US is ostensibly built on ideals rather than on shared ethnic and cultural heritage, which if we take it seriously would necessarily impart a much higher standard for pluralism- there cannot be an American culture, there can only be American cultures, cultures of Americans, which cannot be privileged over one another. And if we examine things from this standard, the US is still quite deficient and in need of vast transformation.

But asking people to accept their mythology as true enough to live up to is a Sisyphean struggle.

You have to be proportional. One of the reason the settlements in the Israeli Palestinian conflict is an issue is that people are living there. Upending all those settlements would be a nightmare. Yes the settlements are a blatant violation of international law (and the settlers themselves usually racist psychopaths) but anyone who thinks "just move them" is easy is a blithering idiot.

Like it or not people are living in the Dakotas and Minnesota. Resettling all the natives in those lands could involve expelling people who had no part in the wrongs done years ago.

1. Again, these aren't crimes done 'long ago'. These are crimes that are present tense on-going which began long ago. There has been no dispute of this at any point in this thread.

2. Proportionality? What is the proportional response to the longest continuously running campaign of active ethnic cleansing in human history? I want to know.

3. Nobody is talking about resettling natives in those lands, they're talking resettling settler-colonists. It's a huge, but rather important, distinction.

4. At that, nobody is even talking about resettling all settler colonists. Some of them will need to go. Religious rights and history, tribal boundaries, and the undoing of American water infrastructure projects, among other things, mean that some people who are squatting on stolen land will need to be displaced. Why is that a bad thing?

5. It's also interesting to me how you draw a direct parallel between Israel, which claims a trans-generational connection to the land based on a historical connection, its diasporic removal, and a divine mandate, and the United States, which claims a trans-generational connection to the land based on white supremacy over native nations.

When things are the way they are for a long enough time reform is really the only option. It's sucky but it is the truth.

So all genociders need to do to make sure they don't face consequences for their actions is run out the clock? Cool. What's the sunset period on being responsible for aiding and abetting a genocide? How many years does it take?

Also the idea that the US is some inherently evil nation that can never change its ways is absurd. As cliche as it is the mere fact Obama got elected TWICE is proof that there has been change to a degree. Hell even nonsense like Charlottesville hasn't reached the brutality of the Tulsa Olklaholma riots, or the Detroit riots. Its a slow change but it does have the potential happening,

So far two people have mentioned the word evil in this thread. Revan when he was talking about 'the lesser of two evils' and TRR when he was going full on dime-store Freud. Evil is an abstraction best kept for Disney movies.

What has been said is that the US is inherently and intrinsicly racist. I've laid out a number of cases for this above. Nothing you've offered here raises to the point of rebuttal. If you want to try for something serious, be my guest.

As for notions of 'progress' and the 'potential' for change. I'm sure that this is a comfort to the people on the Pine Ridge reservation where, despite being wards of the richest nation on the face of the planet, life expectancy is 48 (lower than anywhere in the western hemisphere except Haiti), poverty is outrageous, and prospects effectively nil thanks to decades long targeted neglect. Then tell them that America isn't fundamentally racist because it elected a half-black man president, twice. I wonder what sort of reception you'd get. Or from the Cherokee. Etc. etc. etc.

1.) The actual expulsions occurred a century ago. The white people living on that land have done so for years

2.) How is it active? Yes the reservations are shit, but there is opportunity. There's no active attempt to commit genocide.

3.) Way to miss the point. For better or worse the settlers have lived there for over a century at this point. To say that the ones alive today should be expelled for what their ancestors did is pure sins of the father mentality. Like it or not history has happened at this point. Unlike Israel (where a lot of villages are still abandoned and thus could be resettled) that's not really the case here. As Romulan asked earlier "Do you expel them by force (presuming it were possible to do so without a massive civil war that your side would definitely not win)? If so, what country will take them all in? Do you allow them to remain, but disenfranchise them to ensure that the government of the new nation remains First Nations controlled?" Please answer these questions; it feels like you're dodging them.

4.) Both because of the infeasibility (a great deal of money, time and resources would need to be used) and the fact that as said earlier the "settlers have lived there for more than a century now. What you're advocating is upending people who are living there purely to undo a grievous crime that was done centuries ago. Like it or not the ink has dried on that.

5.) The palestinians had a claim to that land (my Cousin's grandfather was forcibly expelled.) Israel's identity of being a "jewish state" means it can only be maintained by forcibly keeping arabs out rather than shooting for a one state solution where all races have equal representation. Israel is a blatant ethnostate founded on the idea of "this is our lands and the arabs can fuck off and die."


Also you have been implying that the US is evil. Saying that resettling is the only option and who cares if people get hurt in the process.

Point of order: active sterilization efforts against Native Women by the Indian Health Service continued at least into the 1970s and the Indian Schools continued into the 1990s. Those are well within living memory and both constitute active genocide.

[Darth Yan]

Wow. Did not know either of those. Both are reprehensible and that they lasted as long as they did is disturbing. But they were abolished

[Effie]

Wow. Did not know either of those. Both are reprehensible and that they lasted as long as they did is disturbing. But they were abolished

The release of Japanese-Americans from the internment camps didn't make the effects of internment go away.

[Zaune]

I think we all just need to own the fact that our culture is more than capable of producing enough small-minded reactionaries who haven't had a new idea since the Unix Epoch, bullying toadies who punch down and kiss up, self-centred bastards who wouldn't piss on someone who was on fire without payment up front, self-proclaimed "race realists" with an in-group/out-group mentality so strong that they think "ethnicity" is a synonym for "species" and people who unironically enjoy FATAL to vote people like Trump or Boris Johnson into office anyway. The KGB Internet Shit-Stirring Taskforce egging them on may not have helped, but an electorally significant percentage of the human race really are unrepentantly horrible enough to see the likes of Dollar Store Mussolini as someone they can agree with and relate to.

[Darth Yan]

It is. But we also have the potential to be egalitarian and accepting. Straha seems to think we can only ever be racist fucks and that is BULLSHIT

[Zaune]

It is. But we also have the potential to be egalitarian and accepting. Straha seems to think we can only ever be racist fucks and that is BULLSHIT

What people have the potential to be and what they actually are by the time they're old enough to vote are two very different things.

[Effie]

It is. But we also have the potential to be egalitarian and accepting. Straha seems to think we can only ever be racist fucks and that is BULLSHIT

That doesn't seem to be a fair summary of his position.

[Broomstick]

As I was saying, the current situation in Europe is not at all comparable to the indian reservations. Apart from France/Britain, there are no external territories, and those are not demanding sovereignity, right now, as far as I know. Nor are they being "handled" like the reservations.

The fact of what Spain/France/Britain did in the past remains, but with no one left to atone to, and not being in posession of these territories, it's not something they can do anything about, right now. It also is something worth mentioning that Britain did follow through with their treaties to natives - the US pretty much seceded over not being allowed to spread out further into indian territory.

And most of all, the reservation issues are going on right now, this very moment, while those things were done 2-400 years ago. Another slight difference in how to handle things.

Why are you talking about Britain and France? I asked about other nations in the Western Hemisphere, not about nations in Europe. Or are you under the illusion that Mexico and everyone south of that have a better track record than the US (or Canada, which is pretty damnable, too)?

[Broomstick]

I'm also wondering about his position regarding the governments of every other nation in the western hemisphere, all of which were built on blood, death, land theft, and exploitation.

I'm not sure what your argument is beyond "Other nations are built on racist grounds too!" Which... yes? Not sure I need to go out of my way to prove that Canada and Australia both have similar problems. I'm also not sure how this acts as exculpatory for the United States other than to say 'other kids did it too!' Which, if that's your arg, yikes.

That's not what I asked. I asked how you viewed all the other nations in the western hemisphere, every single one of which was built on ethnic cleansing and genocide. Are you advocating removing all non-natives there, too? What about places there no natives remain at all? Do you feel the governments of Latin America should return land pay reparations, too?

No, this was NOT about starting a pissing contest regarding who was worse or not. I'm inquiring whether you'd hold every nation in the Western Hemisphere to the same standards and penalties or just the English-speaking ones.

Most of the other countries in the Americas have either had active decolonial projects, or had brutal revolutions that helped to force the decolonial project forward. To deal with them in a wide swath is unfair to them, and not useful to exploring the more basic question poised here: "Is the US fundamentally racist?"

How are all those other countries not also "fundamentally racist"?

A violent revolution gets you off the hook for genocide?

You seem to be employing a double-standard here, where the US and Canada are held to be evils that need to be destroyed and returned to the surviving natives but Latin America is OK the way it is, never mind that those nations are also built on blood and genocide and also full of racism and bigotry. Just look at Brazil, the way groups of Natives in the Amazon are murdered for the territory even today with little or not consequences to the perpetrators. The ancestors of people of African ancestry in Latin America didn't volunteer to leave Africa, they were captured and sold as slaves. Natives where wiped out and where they weren't wiped out efforts were made to destroy their culture and language. Or does it not count somehow, because they aren't the US?

And how successful have those revolutions been? How many have left Venezuela just this year because the place collapsed politically, financially, and infrastructurally?

The entire West is built on the suffering of millions, with institutional bigotry of all sorts, and why is it surprising that the current regimes are ugly and evil? I'm just puzzled as to why you're singling out one nation among dozens as somehow exceptional in this regard when in fact these abuses were universal during the colonial period up through the modern day.

[Effie]

As I was saying, the current situation in Europe is not at all comparable to the indian reservations. Apart from France/Britain, there are no external territories, and those are not demanding sovereignity, right now, as far as I know. Nor are they being "handled" like the reservations.

The fact of what Spain/France/Britain did in the past remains, but with no one left to atone to, and not being in posession of these territories, it's not something they can do anything about, right now. It also is something worth mentioning that Britain did follow through with their treaties to natives - the US pretty much seceded over not being allowed to spread out further into indian territory.

And most of all, the reservation issues are going on right now, this very moment, while those things were done 2-400 years ago. Another slight difference in how to handle things.

Why are you talking about Britain and France? I asked about other nations in the Western Hemisphere, not about nations in Europe. Or are you under the illusion that Mexico and everyone south of that have a better track record than the US (or Canada, which is pretty damnable, too)?

I would suggest that while mestizaje or the Bolivarian vision of ethnicity is far from perfect or ideal, it is still somewhat better than the vision of assimilation or extermination that dominated American treatment of Native people in the 19th century and continues to be sadly relevant in the 20th.

[Darth Yan]

It is. But we also have the potential to be egalitarian and accepting. Straha seems to think we can only ever be racist fucks and that is BULLSHIT

That doesn't seem to be a fair summary of his position.

No it’s exactly what he’s saying. As broom pointed out Brazil still regularly brutalizes the natives, far more than what we do to our natives. Yet you don’t see straha condemning that.

[Gandalf]

No it’s exactly what he’s saying. As broom pointed out Brazil still regularly brutalizes the natives, far more than what we do to our natives. Yet you don’t see straha condemning that.

Consideting it's been a discussion of the US' origins as a white supremacist state aided by ongoing genocidal expansion, why do other countries need to be addressed at all, except to make some people feel better?

[MarxII]

Consideting it's been a discussion of the US' origins as a white supremacist state aided by ongoing genocidal expansion, why do other countries need to be addressed at all, except to make some people feel better?

I mean, I think we can all agree that any like atrocities in any other nation's history don't absolve the United States in the slightest. But given that the discussion rises to levels of clearly international significance, such as the dissolution or fundamental reconfiguration of the United States, it doesn't strike me as unreasonable to make some international comparison.