how am i only now seeing this?(cor blimey)


well, all right...
...give me a little while longer, gare

i only hopped on to leave this acknowledgment of your journal here — i'd been wondering why the silence, when i look down to see this

as of now i haven't even read your submission ..... but believe me, i shall soon!

Thanks! June's been a busy month for me, which is why I've been quiet.

handle your business, playboy



by all means!

so once again i find myself not having too much to add, regarding the topic at hand — but maybe it's enough, i lend my own credence to it

to what you're putting out there, gare

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and it's hard for me to read about more trauma but..
..i will make myself do so, some time over these coming days

i think it safe for me to assume, these resources above simply are all recountings of the atrocities of the colonizers (who happen to be european)
******
hey.
gare.

that reminds me...
...have you ever done a deep dive into the historical activities of the dutch, as conducted over in indonesia?)
******
it is noteworthy as usual, for me: that you as a white american man continue speaking out on these matters

i know it is not easy

just as it is never easy for me, as a black american man, to be confronted by the misdeeds my own people commit (irrespective of whether there are mitigating circumstances behind a large chunk of these embarrassments, or no)


you earn more bonus points from me, for specifying you're not brooking those who attempt to derail you, through the employ of both•sides-ism

what more can i say?

besides, "change" must start from somewhere — and by someone

Yeah, this stuff is hard to read, but it's important to have a complete understanding of history and of prejudices. I'd love to know your thoughts on the articles as you read through them.

******
I really haven't, but I could if you want. European nations had this habit of doing horrible things to other people. (Someone's likely to point out that every nation sooner or later has something horrible in it's past, just proving they're incapable of admitting that it's important for people to learn about this stuff so it doesn't happen again.)

******
I feel I have an obligation to speak on this, if no one else will. There's that old saying about how changing the world starts with yourself, and I need to try to be the best person I can be, which also includes pointing out things that are wrong or just plain evil.

Bothsideism is "yeah, he shouldn't have raped that woman but she shouldn't have been wearing that!" or some similarly disgusting statement that effectively blames the victim for what happened.

1.) i wonder if i am capable of giving you something more than my simplistic condemnation of the acts, the actors, and the actors' constituents, as i travel through each of your cited recountings?


1a.) obviously, i can't go back in time to alter history (the obvious time parodices involved in such an activity, not•withstanding); but, supposing i could be allowed a few chances to "make things right," should any one of my choices not allow for all of man to live peacefully and intelligently or, even, make things worse..

..well, gare: if i note that, no matter what i do, mankind will take to screwing each other anyway, then i'd simply opt to, with a decent arsenal of arms and poison, travel right back to that moment in time to eliminate the origin of man

the earth will, after all, be fine without the human virus plaguing it

1b.) L.o.L.

how would i know what to do?

say, if i went back and was successful in dissuading africans, 400-some-odd years ago, from selling off their unwanted to the enterprising european?
if i was, in a general manner, able to prevent this particular leg of our history of enslaving each other from taking foot

what if, in its stead, a catastrophe even worse—pun, maybe or maybe not, intended—than the black plague were to occur?
a catastrophe, in about 7 years' time after the original, averted Fateful Day, that would give rise to an oppression, the likes of which we've never envisioned?
giving rise to a class of oppressors, who wouldn't be content with, merely, destroying everyone else and, eventually, themselves — but, rather, figure out and establish systems, even more pervasive than what we have in place now, which ensure the insanity, both, never ceases but never touches them¿


all fun things to theorize about, of course

if people with a lot more money, and brains, than i'll ever possess, haven't been able to figure out time travel, i'm positive i won't be dabbling in this either, in my lifetime

2.) no pressure to research what the dutch were up to
the end result would still be the same, after all

all the same, if you are still curious then, have at it

i will say, what i found out made me disappointed in the citizens of that country (dë nederlunds) also

2a.) all in all, i really don't care what the colour of the asshole's skin is: all i know, is people suffer, due to the whims of psychopathic, anti-societal, usually self-important narcissists who happen to be born with enough cunning to amass the power they need to eventually exercise said whims

and i don't like any of it

3.) you're gonna make me metaphorically cry tears of admiration for you, if you keep this up man



3a.) consent is sexy

psychopaths presume they can just take something of someone else's... ...and then go on to deny their own culpability, and their inability / unwillingness to comport themselves with basic human decorum

this is correct

4.) i said all that, but i haven't forgotten your request of me
i cannot pledge to doing so quickly but, i will be reviewing your material

i'm still on the first one, for the smallpox biological warfare

1) Don't feel obliged to get back to me on them--I'm just curious and I love to hear your opinions, but if you find yourself without much more to say than condemnations, it's fine.

2) Yeah, we can't go back and fix things, but we can try to make things better going forward.

3) Things that tended to happen under European colonization make for great horror stories.

hey!

maybe it'll help guide me, if you kicked things off?
then i can see about following your lead, if possible

i finished the smallpox blankets article; what are your thoughts about it gare?

It's pointed out that there's only one clearly documented use of it and that whether or not it worked is questionable. However, the more important thing is that it exemplifies exactly how far colonists were willing to go to eradicate the Natives. It's also important to note that, even at the time, this act was considered repugnant.

It's just one thing, but whether it worked or not is irrelevant. What's important is that it was actually tried and that the effects of killing non-combatants were not cared about (or, perhaps, even desired).

well, yeah..
..there was the one documented attempt



most assholes (especially "of yore") didn't go around actively chronicling their misdeeds; there's also the consideration to be made, any number of the chronicles that were penned, may have been lost or (somehow) undiscovered

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all the same, this one circumstance doesn't detract from the realities,

- at least some people, at that time, were conscientious enough to not "be cool" with poxxing
- some other people were quite cool with poxxing: poxxing people who were here first
(i'd dare someone to "but what about. . .?" us on that one gare)


the outcome was definitely desired (if not short-sighted) — they (the european colonizers) had to natively apprehend the natural consequences of what promulgating That Sickness amongst battlers and innocents alike woulda wrought, had this plan succeeded


in my opinion, we might consider ourselves lucky it didn't
but it's also troubling, that this deed, also, remains largely swept under the rug, because the exposure of such truth would be "inconvenient" for the whites who did benefit from the rest of the genocide that did go off without too much a hitch
it suppose it would be that way: history being written by the "victors"

I mean, yeah. I'd still rather have reliable backing on claims, even if I suspect this isn't likely the only time it occurred. It's funny how quick some people are to point out historical inaccuracies when one tries to point out awful behavior but are quick to ignore documented accounts that go against their positions.

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No, the reality is not much changed I fear. There are still people looking on in askance when someone does something truly nasty and others who will defend the person by doing whatabout. Oh, I'm sure someone will because they'll treat all Native responses to literal invasions of their lands as overreactions. It's always going to be some people rooting for the colonists because, hey, we couldn't get some more land without breaking a few legs, right?

The US always does this with its history. It tries to whitewash (too often literally) things so that it seems like our history was mostly done by rich White men with the occasional Other providing just enough "diversity" to let people say something stupid about not ignoring women and minorities.