So, what nation invented the notion of interning an entire race of people into concentration camps, there to slowly starve to death (or not so slowly in some cases)? Hint: It wasn't Germany. Germany didn't even exist in 1838, when President Andrew Jackson seized the property of an entire race of people (the Cherokee) and sent them to die.
And it goes on, and on, from the near-extermination of the native Americans (and placing of the rest into concentration camps called "reservations"), to the killing of almost a million Filipinos for having the audacity to want to be free rather than a U.S. colony in the period 1899-1912. But you probably don't know any of this. It has literally been erased from the history books. Because being an American means that you are God's holy people, and all those other folks? Just vermin to be exterminated. That's how America has always thought. That's how America *still* thinks, which is why the majority of Americans aren't upset and rioting in the streets over the fact that our invasion of Iraq has killed over a million Iraqis. Because, of course, Iraqis aren't REAL people. They're just some funny-talkin' furriners, vermin, really, so it's not really a crime if we exterminate them, it's more like, well, killing dogs, on the list of moral outrages for the average American. Only Americans are real people to the average American. Everybody else... untermenschen. To be exterminated.
America taught Hitler how to go "Heil!". We invented death camps (except we called them "Indian reservations" or "relocation camps", depending upon whether they were for Indians or Filipinos) long before Hitler got the idea from us, and the only reason the black population was not sent to death camps in the post-Civil-War people was because Southerners needed the blacks to pick cotton. The United States isn't the leader in the genocide business -- that's probably Stalin's Soviet Union, closely followed by Hitler -- but the U.S. is probably well up in the top ten when it comes to exterminating "wogs", untermenschen, those who are, well, not really human because they're not white Americans. Stating this does not mean you hate America. It simply means that you state truth. I realize that in Soviet America it is not appropriate for a good sovok to speak truth, but so it goes. And some Americans dare ask, "why do so many people hate America?" Well, it's because they don't live in Soviet America, so they get uncensored history in their schools. Here, any attempt to put uncensored history into the history textbooks is roundly condemned by folks who insist that the truth "hates America", and thus all you've ever read is propaganda. What, you thought you lived in a free nation? That's what your Party commissars want you to think, Comrade! Welcome to Soviet America, sheep.
- Badtux the History Penguin
There is no exceptionalism without the ignorance.
ReplyDeleteMold
All right, hold it.
ReplyDeleteHitler was the biggest anti-Semite in history, and anti-Semitism predates America by centuries. I don't question your assessment of American history. But America taught Hitler how to Heil? Give me a break. He figured that out on his own...
one of the things that really surprised the nazis was the outrage and fury of the americans who saw the concentration camps and understood the scope of the german genocide. they really expected the americans to see it and say something along the lines of "great work, would you like to come to montgomery?"
ReplyDeletewhile i was an undergrad at ASU in the 70s i, while crossing the campus one fine morning, was accosted by a cute young thing who was in a high dudgeon about the vile evilness of the aparthied regime in south africa. she was cute enough that i stood there, mostly admiring the bouncy play of her pert little breasts under her t-shirt in the crisp morning air, while she waxed all fucking poetic about the restrictions, the forced isolation, the way the tribal entities were kept out of the larger economy and herded into "homelands" which were nothing more than forced internal exile zones.
finally, i looked at her. i pointed to the north in the direction of the reservation where i grew up and i told her:
drive that way about 350 miles. what you're describing sounds pretty much like fucking home to me.
no, i didn't hook up with her later.
Canada is no better.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the things Canada has done.
Look at the times when these schools closed.
Jim -- the notion of rounding up folks in order to steal their property and then send'em all off to concentration camps was not something that previously existed in European anti-semitism. The Trail of Tears in 1838 was probably the first time that happened.
ReplyDeleteOne reason why the Jews of Europe were so shocked to discover that the concentration camps were death camps was because this had never happened to them in European history. Prior to Hitler, when folks wanted to steal Jewish property, they just stole Jewish property, killing any Jews they ran across while in the process of doing so. Pogroms were something Jews understood. But Hitler's concentration camp / death camp system was something new. I won't say he stole it from the Americans, because more likely he was looking at the experience of the British during the Boar War and how they dealt with the German minority in South Africa (the "Dutch" in South Africa were actually German). But the British almost certainly stole the idea from the way that the United States dealt with their Native populations...
- Badtux the History Penguin
badtux, the history penguin, should take a look at history. forced expulsions, mass deportations, along with genocide have been part and parcel of human behavior since the beginning of time. there are several examples of the enslavement of entire nations mentioned in the bible (usually it was isreal, enslaved in egypt, babylon, and assyria but they did their own share of the same at gilgeal and a few other places). the romans were quite fond of "assimilating" defeated tribes of gauls, spaniard, africans and germans by enslaving entire populations. they found that the propaganda effect on the neighboring tribes tended to bring them to the negotiating table rather than the battlefield.
ReplyDeletefor an example in america, one need only look at the acadiens of canada. the treaty of utrecht ceded canada from french to british control and one of the first things the brits did with the acadiens was to stick them all on boats to get them the hell out of there. many ended up in louisiana where they became swamp rats and produced some killer ass fiddlers and accordian players. they are also notable for being the first folks to understand that washboards are far more fun when used as percussion instruments and can be effectively struck with old fashioned beer bottle openers.
the expulsion of the acadiens was, i think (and i'm too fucking lazy right now to even bother to delve into wikipedia, if you want the exact dates i suggest you go there), circa 1755.
minstrel, the history harper and curmudgeonly student of human nature. (whose middle name will be hussain untl november at least.
Let's not forget the British, which invented the term "concentration camp" and the Turks, who massacred over a million Armenians, without little more than a peep from the rest of the world. The Turkish genocide probably gave Hitler the idea that if a large war was going on, he could then kill millions without repercussions.
ReplyDeleteOr the French, for that matter, who invented industrialized mass murder with their "drowning barges" and who also are the source of the phrase "kill them all, God will know his own."