Idiocracy

[Highlander]

I have stood in the exact place that Columbus reached the New World on one of his trips, at the mouth of the Salt River in St.Croix.  He found a very hostile tribe awaiting him and a vicious small battle ensued to ensure that they could land and obtain fresh water.  Yes, he wasn't a good guy to the natives at all, not many explorers or conquerers of the day were.  Usually met by very hostile locals who wanted nothing to do with the white visitors. Talking more of in the Caribbean here.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

When he set foot on that sandy beach in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, Columbus discovered that the islands were inhabited by friendly, peaceful people called the Lucayans, Ta?nos and Arawaks.  Writing in his diary, Columbus said they were a handsome, smart and kind people.  He noted that the gentle Arawaks were remarkable for their hospitality.  ?They offered to share with anyone and when you ask for something, they never say no,? he said.  The Arawaks had no weapons; their society had neither criminals, prisons nor prisoners.  They were so kind-hearted that Columbus noted in his diary that on the day the Santa Maria was shipwrecked, the Arawaks labored for hours to save his crew and cargo.  The native people were so honest that not one thing was missing.

Columbus was so impressed with the hard work of these gentle islanders, that he immediately seized their land for Spain and enslaved them to work in his brutal gold mines.  Within only two years, 125,000 (half of the population) of the original natives on the island were dead.

...

On his second trip to the New World, Columbus brought cannons and attack dogs.  If a native resisted slavery, he would cut off a nose or an ear.  If slaves tried to escape, Columbus had them burned alive.  Other times, he sent attack dogs to hunt them down, and the dogs would tear off the arms and legs of the screaming natives while they were still alive.  If the Spaniards ran short of meat to feed the dogs, Arawak babies were killed for dog food.

...

One of Columbus? men, Bartolome De Las Casas, was so mortified by Columbus? brutal atrocities against the native peoples, that he quit working for Columbus and became a Catholic priest.  He described how the Spaniards under Columbus? command cut off the legs of children who ran from them, to test the sharpness of their blades.  According to De Las Casas, the men made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half.  He says that Columbus? men poured people full of boiling soap.  In a single day, De Las Casas was an eye witness as the Spanish soldiers dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 native people.  ?Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel,? De Las Casas wrote.  ?My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write.?

 

[Kin]

Now, if I see Mount Rushmore: what a hideous and destructive monument to the reverence of white colonialism

Sure, but at least guys like Lincoln and Roosevelt have complicated legacies. Columbus, I mean, it's very hard to think he changed the world in a positive way and I'm someone who's inclined to look at the European colonization of the Americas more favorably than most.

 

[Highlander]

The motivation for building Rushmore was unfortunately not as a monument, even though most Yanks would romanticize the reason it exists to be a one of national pride.
It was actually created strictly as a tourist attraction as the South Dakota was not even on any radar of a place a Tourist would actually want to go, a virtual tourism wasteland. 
Now its almost like a pilgrimage that most Americans have to do before the bucket kicks over.
I have never been, my travels have not taken me into that region of the States. 
The Hoover Dam which I visited in March was very impressive, if you haven't been, see it, close to Vegas and not far to the Canyon.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

There are so many Bolton bombs dropping today.  Among them:

https://twitter.com/petridishes/status/1273336405507350534

 

[L K]

There are so many Bolton bombs dropping today.  Among them:

https://twitter.com/petridishes/status/1273336405507350534

And so he sat around and propped him up for....checks calendar....April 9, 2018 to September 9, 2019.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

There are so many Bolton bombs dropping today.  Among them:

https://twitter.com/petridishes/status/1273336405507350534

And so he sat around and propped him up for....checks calendar....April 9, 2018 to September 9, 2019.

And then refused to testify. What a patriot.

 

[herman]

Mount Rushmore was designed by Gutzon Borglum, who on top of starting a similar project of Robert E. Lee in Stone Mountain, was also a top KKK b-hole.

 

[L K]

Personally I am offended that America melted down the statue of King George and turned it into bullet to shoot the British.  We need to respect our history by erecting monuments to British generals and the King.

 

[Highlander]

Mount Rushmore was designed by Gutzon Borglum, who on top of starting a similar project of Robert E. Lee in Stone Mountain, was also a top KKK b-hole.

Didn't know that, thanks Herman. 

Interesting fact, Lee was offered the lead position as Head of the Union Army, just before war broke out, he refused saying he could not turn his hand against his native Virginia.
His family mansion was on a patch of land across the river from Washington.  A decision was made to consecrate the graves of Union soldiers on Lee's family land as a Military gravesite which became known as Arlington National Cemetery.  As graves went up to the side of Lee's home, it of course made it unlivable for him after the conclusion of the war.  Nice retribution!  Now it is one of the most revered sites in the country and JFK is buried their with his eternal flame.

 

[herman]

https://twitter.com/busbyj2/status/1273683231108464643
A crossover thread!

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I brought Ben & Jerry's response to George Floyd's murder earlier in the thread, today they explained what "defunding the police" means in one of the most concise (and delicious) ways I've seen:

https://twitter.com/benandjerrys/status/1273979072713052161

 

[OldTimeHockey]

I brought Ben & Jerry's response to George Floyd's murder earlier in the thread, today they explained what "defunding the police" means in one of the most concise (and delicious) ways I've seen:

https://twitter.com/benandjerrys/status/1273979072713052161

While I have a hard time watching what is happening in society, I have a such a hard time with the concept of putting less money into funding police. I'll attribute that solely to my own short comings and old age. I see it as putting less money towards fighting crime. I know that's not what people are asking for, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. Again, my shortcoming. I'm certainly open to it being explained to me and I feel the article you posted helps a lot.

 

[Hobbes]

I'm certainly open to it being explained to me and I feel the article you posted helps a lot.

If you'd like a (grossly oversimplified) analogy...

Imagine you have a limited and fixed budget to maintain your car's safety on the road. For years you've been pumping half of your budget into better and better tires...puncture-resistant, grips in ice, almost impossible to aquaplane...they're really nice tires. Trouble is, to pay for these premium amazing tires you've been critically underfunding other areas of car maintenance so now you no longer have any brake pads, tail lights, turn indicators, radiator coolant, windshield wipers or washer fluid, etc.

Roughly what the "refund" calls are about is maybe cutting back on that tire budget and investing in those other things to try to make an overall safer vehicle to drive...in fact, experts are telling you that by addressing those other needs the likelihood of you those fancy tires being so essential will be greatly decreased.

Obviously the analogy fails on a lot of levels but that's the gist of it.

Or since you're in my age range, you might remember that at the time of the Ethiopian famine in the late 70's/early 80's it was felt essential not to keep pumping more and more -- or all of the -- money into buying food to feed the starving...it was far more practical/important in the long term to invest in teaching sustainable farming practices, improving irrigation/water access, etc. Sure, none of that directly put food in mouths but it had the long term effect of far fewer people needing to be fed.

Defunding the police isn't a strategy of "let's slash their budget and hope it all gets better." That would be crazy. Instead, it's "let's put a much larger chunk of our budget into the services that will result in far lower crime rates in the first place, that way the police won't need tanks and grenade launchers to do their jobs.

There is no statistical evidence to suggest that putting more police on the street and arming them with more lethal weaponry in any way acts as a deterrent to crime; particularly when the money to do that is taken by defunding or underfunding programs that *do* have a direct impact on crime rates.

 

[Highlander]

I am in the same boat as you Old Time Hockey.  While I think much more should be spent on the different suggestions on the ice cream I think we have to admit some things; not only is the police system not working, but the U.S education system is a total joke, it is not working either.  The drop out rate in African American demographics is so high that one quickly realizes unless Education if revamped then there is little hope for real change. Education will alway be the key, but we have to figure out what works and what doesn't.  And that's a daunting challenge.

 

[Bender]

I am in the same boat as you Old Time Hockey.  While I think much more should be spent on the different suggestions on the ice cream I think we have to admit some things; not only is the police system not working, but the U.S education system is a total joke, it is not working either.  The drop out rate in African American demographics is so high that one quickly realizes unless Education if revamped then there is little hope for real change. Education will alway be the key, but we have to figure out what works and what doesn't.  And that's a daunting challenge.

Inner city kids are so screwed. Teachers make next to nothing, quality of education is poor, socioeconomic status means it's hard to get out of an area where people are poor and resort to crime and drug use etc. Then you're asked to pay tens to hundreds of thousands for post secondary.

I get that there are people that may be wired to just go down a bad path, but not to the extent that we are witnessing. The level of inequality is criminal, but the US is so focussed on the individual and so distrusting of the state, even if they have an admin fighting for their interests (it happens here with poor people backing right wing tax breaks when it really benefits the rich) that I don't see a chance for decent education & tax reform. 

 

[Kin]

But that's the problem with looking at any one element in isolation. Education in inner cities is underfunded because school boards and their budgets are local. So poor neighbourhoods have less money for schools. So you have to look at why neighbourhoods get poor and the reality is that in the states a lot of that was caused by the decay of the job market in inner cities and the resulting white flight to the suburbs.

So drop-out rates in isolation don't examine a problem with "education" that can be solved via budget increases to schools. It doesn't matter if the computer lab has a bunch of new Macbooks if your electricity gets shut off and your family needs to you to earn money to pay bills.

As always it goes back to structural issues with capitalism. If a system is geared to produce "winners" and "losers" then you get what we get and you have a lot of poor, desperate people. Add systemic racism on top of that and, well, you get America. Any approach that doesn't radically rethink the current model of economic distribution is, at best, a band-aid.

 

[Bullfrog]

Well said, Nik.

For anyone who hasn't watched it, I highly recommend watching "13th", which is available on Netflix (and maybe other places?) It is primarily centered on the disproportionate amount of black people in prisons, but it touches on the same core issues Nik talks about above.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

I'm certainly open to it being explained to me and I feel the article you posted helps a lot.

There is no statistical evidence to suggest that putting more police on the street and arming them with more lethal weaponry in any way acts as a deterrent to crime; particularly when the money to do that is taken by defunding or underfunding programs that *do* have a direct impact on crime rates.

Thanks. The analogy does make sense.

But wouldn't the other side of that coin argue that crime rate has been decreasing quite steadily since 1990?

 

[Kin]

But wouldn't the other side of that coin argue that crime rate has been decreasing quite steadily since 1990?

It has but it's been decreasing effectively everywhere regardless of police budgets or tactics or any sort of single data point.