He's lucky he never said this in front of my history teacher friend, Nancy. This would have led to a month-long intensive course, complete with her exhaustive fact filled lectures, a required term paper of at least 20 pages and a very rigorous final exam.
The Bakersfield School District hasn't been all that great for a very long time. It started going downhill when "The Grapes of Wrath" was published, and the anti-education element in the GOP, who form the majorities on the various school boards in Kern County, hasn't helped matters. Since McCarthy's graduation from high school, things have only gotten worse.
Keith Olbermann said the Oxford Union approached him for this debate but went with McCarthy. I guess they decided he wasn't the right person to defend American imperialism.
Fantastic article Stephen! You have succinctly and clearest summarized the United States' arrogance and exceptionalism. I wish this were required reading for every US citizen. Wont happen; the truth is embarrassing...
"The Israelis, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of Gaza, and the best safety of the border kibbutzim will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Palestinians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are."
I've thought for some time that the tragedy of Israel/Palestine was that it was the last of the great settler-states, formed just as de-colonization was kicking off. Had Israel been created a century earlier, by this time, any ethnic cleansing would be regretted (perhaps), but largely just accepted as "that was then".
My heretical view is that had the Europeans really wanted just get rid of the remaining Jews... something they'd been trying to do since England tossed them out in 1290 (and by that I mean mostly Britain) ... had really wanted to do the Jews a solid, they could have carved out a Jewish state in Germany after WWII, when they were divving the place up and moving borders anyway. Hell, they carved up India into Pakistan and India the year before Israel was founded... a horror show to be sure, but its not like Europeans weren't willing to ethnically cleanse huge swathes of land when it was other people's land.
The Jews had been moving back to their old homeland since the 19th century. I know that the pro-Palestinian narrative is that everything started in 1948 when these Jews, whom they'd never heard of before, suddenly appeared and started stealing their land for no reason, but that is not actually the story. Equating a persecuted people seeking refuge to "colonialism" is an abuse of language.
Would you say the same about the Puritans in New England? The Boer "Great Trek? Does fleeing one's persecutors justify pesecuting those in your refuge? No one denies there were pre-1940s migrations to Palestine, only that it sped up, and turned into an invasion, rather than what had been a noble experient (even if one infused with the assumptions of western surpremist rhetoric).
The Puritans were not being persecuted, but were upset about not being able to impose their religion on others. The Dutch settled in South Africa not much later than the Zulus and Xhosas moved in. Neither of those stories is the way that you seem to be imagining. Nor is the Israel-Palestine story what you seem to think: it was in the 1930s that it was first proposed that partitioning the Mandate into separate Jewish and Arab states was the only way to deal with the decades of Arab terrorism that had already been going on; the original idea was for a one-state solution where everyone had equal civil rights regardless of religion, but this was violently rejected by the Muslim leadership, which did not wish to end the "dhimmi" system of ritual subordination of non-Muslims. The partition plan was shelved because of the onset of WWII and when it was revived, the Arabs rejected it because they demanded complete ethnic cleansing of the Jews, whom they were going to "push into the sea." They lost the war because they deserved to lose it.
Divvying up the Ottoman Empire for allying with the Central Powers was done out of spite and had no long term goals. As long as the oil flowed the Brits were happy.
Just last night, I read that the reason railroads spent so much money in paying hunters to kill buffalo was that the herds were so vast that they could delay a train for days. Depriving the natives of their food supplies was just a bonus.
Apparently, flocks of passenger pigeons were once so large that they could block out the sun. Really, we’ve always been assholes willing to kill anything that inconveniences us. Not much has changed.
I don't know about a single herd of buffalo was large enough to stop a train for days, but a herd of 10,000 buffalo weighing up to 2,000 pounds could delay it for hours. I just don't think the ones in the back of a herd of 500,000 could get enough food to survive after the first 450,000 went through. But if they decided to graze along the tracks, crossing back and forth, it would stop a train for hours. While trains back then were large they were nowhere near the size of modern trains and even occasional collisions with a bull could damage a train. If there are 9,999 more of them behind that one you are going nowhere until they decide to leave. But it did put a major dent in the food supply of Native Americans.
Yeah, they took a lot more than the American military cemetery (the first overseas American military cemetery) just up the street from me here in Mexico City.
No doubt Kevin will tell people what he MEANT was:
"The United States has never fought a war on foreign soils separated from the US mainland by an ocean and then tried to colonize that land following a victory.... because keeping colonies an ocean away is EXPENSIVE!!!!!.... and also because we're such freedom-loving cool guys who women really want to date....
I will simply point out that, far from being pure "Anglo," “Chadville” and “Otisburg" are half French and half German, respectively.
Oh, and also relevant to this post -- "Lies my Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen
https://hardcover.app/books/lies-my-teacher-told-me
I lie to my students all the time insofar as I try to get them committed to having a future in this country.
A really great book on all this: How to Hide an Empire, by Daniel Immerwahr
https://hardcover.app/books/how-to-hide-an-empire
Just a heads up that the last i in Queen Liliʻuokalani’s name is missing!
Excellent, Stephen, thank you!
He's lucky he never said this in front of my history teacher friend, Nancy. This would have led to a month-long intensive course, complete with her exhaustive fact filled lectures, a required term paper of at least 20 pages and a very rigorous final exam.
The Bakersfield School District hasn't been all that great for a very long time. It started going downhill when "The Grapes of Wrath" was published, and the anti-education element in the GOP, who form the majorities on the various school boards in Kern County, hasn't helped matters. Since McCarthy's graduation from high school, things have only gotten worse.
"It started going downhill when "The Grapes of Wrath" was published..."
Any uptick after "Faraway Eyes" was released?
Not to my knowledge. Kern County is MAGA country.
Join the Wake Island Liberation Front! Free the land from US seizure!!! Return it to the People!!!!
No. wait......
"Woke" Islands, amirite?
Keith Olbermann said the Oxford Union approached him for this debate but went with McCarthy. I guess they decided he wasn't the right person to defend American imperialism.
Fantastic article Stephen! You have succinctly and clearest summarized the United States' arrogance and exceptionalism. I wish this were required reading for every US citizen. Wont happen; the truth is embarrassing...
"The Israelis, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of Gaza, and the best safety of the border kibbutzim will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Palestinians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are."
A quote from L. Frank Netanyahu?
I've thought for some time that the tragedy of Israel/Palestine was that it was the last of the great settler-states, formed just as de-colonization was kicking off. Had Israel been created a century earlier, by this time, any ethnic cleansing would be regretted (perhaps), but largely just accepted as "that was then".
My heretical view is that had the Europeans really wanted just get rid of the remaining Jews... something they'd been trying to do since England tossed them out in 1290 (and by that I mean mostly Britain) ... had really wanted to do the Jews a solid, they could have carved out a Jewish state in Germany after WWII, when they were divving the place up and moving borders anyway. Hell, they carved up India into Pakistan and India the year before Israel was founded... a horror show to be sure, but its not like Europeans weren't willing to ethnically cleanse huge swathes of land when it was other people's land.
The Jews had been moving back to their old homeland since the 19th century. I know that the pro-Palestinian narrative is that everything started in 1948 when these Jews, whom they'd never heard of before, suddenly appeared and started stealing their land for no reason, but that is not actually the story. Equating a persecuted people seeking refuge to "colonialism" is an abuse of language.
Would you say the same about the Puritans in New England? The Boer "Great Trek? Does fleeing one's persecutors justify pesecuting those in your refuge? No one denies there were pre-1940s migrations to Palestine, only that it sped up, and turned into an invasion, rather than what had been a noble experient (even if one infused with the assumptions of western surpremist rhetoric).
The Puritans were not being persecuted, but were upset about not being able to impose their religion on others. The Dutch settled in South Africa not much later than the Zulus and Xhosas moved in. Neither of those stories is the way that you seem to be imagining. Nor is the Israel-Palestine story what you seem to think: it was in the 1930s that it was first proposed that partitioning the Mandate into separate Jewish and Arab states was the only way to deal with the decades of Arab terrorism that had already been going on; the original idea was for a one-state solution where everyone had equal civil rights regardless of religion, but this was violently rejected by the Muslim leadership, which did not wish to end the "dhimmi" system of ritual subordination of non-Muslims. The partition plan was shelved because of the onset of WWII and when it was revived, the Arabs rejected it because they demanded complete ethnic cleansing of the Jews, whom they were going to "push into the sea." They lost the war because they deserved to lose it.
Divvying up the Ottoman Empire for allying with the Central Powers was done out of spite and had no long term goals. As long as the oil flowed the Brits were happy.
Just last night, I read that the reason railroads spent so much money in paying hunters to kill buffalo was that the herds were so vast that they could delay a train for days. Depriving the natives of their food supplies was just a bonus.
Apparently, flocks of passenger pigeons were once so large that they could block out the sun. Really, we’ve always been assholes willing to kill anything that inconveniences us. Not much has changed.
I don't know about a single herd of buffalo was large enough to stop a train for days, but a herd of 10,000 buffalo weighing up to 2,000 pounds could delay it for hours. I just don't think the ones in the back of a herd of 500,000 could get enough food to survive after the first 450,000 went through. But if they decided to graze along the tracks, crossing back and forth, it would stop a train for hours. While trains back then were large they were nowhere near the size of modern trains and even occasional collisions with a bull could damage a train. If there are 9,999 more of them behind that one you are going nowhere until they decide to leave. But it did put a major dent in the food supply of Native Americans.
Dumbass doesn't even know his own district is land which was conquered and taken from Mexico in a war.
Yeah, they took a lot more than the American military cemetery (the first overseas American military cemetery) just up the street from me here in Mexico City.
No doubt Kevin will tell people what he MEANT was:
"The United States has never fought a war on foreign soils separated from the US mainland by an ocean and then tried to colonize that land following a victory.... because keeping colonies an ocean away is EXPENSIVE!!!!!.... and also because we're such freedom-loving cool guys who women really want to date....
The Kingdom of Hawai'i would like a word.
See Stephen Kinzer's book "Overthrow" - its a great read. "All the Shah's men",is also very very good.
Read these and Hannity will hate you.
“Otisburg.”
This is how I know this is an SER joint,....Love it!
Miss Tessmacher got HER own city... so it's only fair...
"It's just a little place..."