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Once again in honor of Columbus Day

post #1 of 25
10/8/10 at 2:29pm
Thread Starter 
  • BR
  • Justified Arrogance
I bring you the words of the late Kurt Vonnegut from Breakfast of Champions.

Quote:
1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.

Why, oh why do we celebrate this day? It's awful that this is somehow a national holiday.


Also, we need to stop perpetuating the whole BS about Columbus convincing everyone the world wasn't flat. Yeah, about 1800 years late there buddy. Eratosthenes anyone? A round world was common knowledge.

 

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” 
-Sagan
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“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” 
-Sagan
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post #2 of 25
10/8/10 at 2:44pm
Everyone knows that the Chinese discovered America in 1421.

http://www.1421.tv/

and before that the early natives who either came by the land bridge along the Bering Straits or following the coast from Asia to NA.
無心 The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey
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無心 The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey
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post #3 of 25
10/8/10 at 4:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FineTunes View Post

Everyone knows that the Chinese discovered America in 1421.

They didn't. But Leif Ericsson and a Viking crew did in 1006.
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post #4 of 25
10/8/10 at 5:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

They didn't. But Leif Ericsson and a Viking crew did in 1006.

You quote only half of my post--I said that there were earlier discoverers of NA---When the Vikings came NA was already inhabited. No SH!T:

Quote:
The sample of fossilized feces that was radiocarbon dated to 12,300 BC and contains preserved 14,000-year-old human protein and DNA.


By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: April 4, 2008

Quote:
The discovery was one for the pages of an archaeology classic, something with a title like Gods, Graves and Scat.

Quote:
Some people, coming into new country long ago, stopped at a cave for years perhaps, or only a days rest. Time enough, in any event, for them to relieve themselves you know, answer natures call, if they bothered with euphemism. The cave was their in-house outhouse.

Exploring Paisley Caves in the Cascade Range of Oregon, archaeologists have found a scattering of human coprolites, or fossil feces. The specimens preserved 14,000-year-old human protein and DNA, which the discoverers said was the strongest evidence yet of the earliest people living in North America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/sc...ssil.html?_r=1

The only question is what did they use to wipe after they were done?
無心 The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey
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無心 The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey
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post #5 of 25
10/9/10 at 11:35am
Nobody "discovered" America. The continent has been likely inhabited by humanity for c.50,000 years.

Sheesh already.

"We've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming". VP Cheney, 3/29/2006. Interview by Tony Snow
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"We've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming". VP Cheney, 3/29/2006. Interview by Tony Snow
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post #6 of 25
10/9/10 at 11:40am
It's certainly a discovery for those that didn't know it was there.
The politics of charisma is so Third World. Americans were never going to buy into it for long. - Foudad Ajami
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The politics of charisma is so Third World. Americans were never going to buy into it for long. - Foudad Ajami
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post #7 of 25
10/9/10 at 11:45am
We could honor all those earlier "discoveries" but since they were facilitated by climate change not caused by human actions or fossil fuel use, we have to ignore them lest the world remember the climate changes all the time without human intervention.

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." -George Orwell

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"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." -George Orwell

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post #8 of 25
10/9/10 at 1:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by trumptman View Post

We could honor all those earlier "discoveries" but since they were facilitated by climate change not caused by human actions or fossil fuel use, we have to ignore them lest the world remember the climate changes all the time without human intervention.


That is NOT what Albert told me!! ... he even had a graph to prove his point!
From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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post #9 of 25
10/9/10 at 1:39pm
  • e1618978
  • will burn in the Fiery Pit of Hell.
There were evidently a large number of waves of immigration. The "natives" we killed had wiped out the wave before them, and so on.
45 2a3 300b 211 845 833
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45 2a3 300b 211 845 833
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post #10 of 25
10/9/10 at 4:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by e1618978 View Post

The "natives" we killed...

Speak for yourself... I haven't killed ANYbody.
From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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post #11 of 25
10/9/10 at 4:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FineTunes View Post

You quote only half of my post--I said that there were earlier discoverers of NA---When the Vikings came NA was already inhabited.

They were the ones being acted upon by the Europeans. They have absolutely nothing to do with this thread.
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post #12 of 25
10/9/10 at 4:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by e1618978 View Post

There were evidently a large number of waves of immigration. The "natives" we killed had wiped out the wave before them, and so on.

I don't know about NA, but here in Scotland there were once small people called Picts.

"If your enemies cannot find a flaw in your reasoning, they will find it in your reputation".

~ William Hazlitt

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"If your enemies cannot find a flaw in your reasoning, they will find it in your reputation".

~ William Hazlitt

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post #13 of 25
10/9/10 at 4:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hands Sandon View Post

I don't know about NA, but here in Scotland there were once small people called Picts.

They were so much fun to kill. [heartman]Good Times[/hartman]
The politics of charisma is so Third World. Americans were never going to buy into it for long. - Foudad Ajami
Reply
The politics of charisma is so Third World. Americans were never going to buy into it for long. - Foudad Ajami
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post #14 of 25
10/9/10 at 4:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FloorJack View Post

They were so much fun to kill. [heartman]Good Times[/hartman]

I doubt that. They covered their faces in blue stuff to scare people. They no doubt put up a fight.

What's the heartman hartman thing refering too?

"If your enemies cannot find a flaw in your reasoning, they will find it in your reputation".

~ William Hazlitt

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"If your enemies cannot find a flaw in your reasoning, they will find it in your reputation".

~ William Hazlitt

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post #15 of 25
10/9/10 at 4:51pm
NewsRadio

Quote:
Evelyn William "Bill" McNeal (Phil Hartman) is a co-news anchor for WNYX. Bombastic, egocentric, and insubordinate, Bill is frequently a thorn in the news director's side. As news director, Dave and Lisa both struggle to deal with Bill. His relationships are often unorthodox or contentious. A running joke in the show has Bill describing seemingly painful or scarring childhood memories with an air of nostalgia, often wistfully saying, "good times, good times".

Hartman was one of the few celebrity deaths I actually cared about.
The politics of charisma is so Third World. Americans were never going to buy into it for long. - Foudad Ajami
Reply
The politics of charisma is so Third World. Americans were never going to buy into it for long. - Foudad Ajami
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post #16 of 25
10/9/10 at 4:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FloorJack View Post

NewsRadio



Hartman was one of the few celebrity deaths I actually cared about.

HaHa. Humor is a great thing.

"If your enemies cannot find a flaw in your reasoning, they will find it in your reputation".

~ William Hazlitt

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"If your enemies cannot find a flaw in your reasoning, they will find it in your reputation".

~ William Hazlitt

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post #17 of 25
10/10/10 at 1:49am








無心 The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey
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無心 The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey
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post #18 of 25
10/10/10 at 2:28am
There is much evidence of Pre-Colombus interaction with the Americas.

My favourites are the discovery by the glorious Welsh and the several Islamic voyages from the Ninth Century onwards.

Interesting in this regard is the Piri Reis Map from 1513 drawn up by an Ottoman admiral.

Drawn from Arabic sources as well as one map from Columbus it shows the coastline of Antarctica 300 years before it was discovered - this is significant because it is under ice and hasn't been ice-free since before 4000 B.C.

In some respects it is more accurate than some modern maps and has even been used to correct them - the Americas may have been drawn from Colombus' map but then again they may well have not given the Antarctic anomaly above...the map is known to be based on previous older maps in the Ottoman library.
What is Faith? When your good deed pleases you and your evil deed grieves you, you are a believer. What is Sin? When a thing disturbs the peace of your heart, give it up - Prophet Muhammad
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What is Faith? When your good deed pleases you and your evil deed grieves you, you are a believer. What is Sin? When a thing disturbs the peace of your heart, give it up - Prophet Muhammad
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post #19 of 25
10/10/10 at 2:43am
Thread Starter 
  • BR
  • Justified Arrogance
As cool as it would be for the Piri Reis map to reflect some vast ancient knowledge, sadly it's much more plausible that the southern section of the map is just the rest of the South American coastline bent to fit the parchment.



The point remains that people were living full imaginative lives before the arrival of Columbus. Whether you go back a few centuries before Columbus to Africans from Mali, or many before that to Leif Ericson...the Native Americans were HERE long before any of the alleged "discoveries." If we want to glorify exploration, I'm all for it. But don't lie about it. Columbus did not discover America.

 

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” 
-Sagan
Reply

 

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” 
-Sagan
Reply
post #20 of 25
10/11/10 at 4:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BR View Post

I bring you the words of the late Kurt Vonnegut from Breakfast of Champions...

Wait... you're smearing one of history's most distinguished and preeminent ocean explorer, navigator, and discoverer of the New World with the petty words of socialist labor advocate and atheist? Predictable you are...

HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY EVERYONE!!!
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post #21 of 25
10/11/10 at 5:19am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camp David View Post

ocean explorer, navigator,

Sure, I buy that.

Quote:
discoverer of the New World

100% a lie. Go read a history book.
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post #22 of 25
10/11/10 at 5:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camp David View Post

Wait... you're smearing one of history's most distinguished and preeminent ocean explorer, navigator, and discoverer of the New World with the petty words of socialist labor advocate and atheist? Predictable you are...

HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY EVERYONE!!!

It's not surprising that someone such as Columbus should be a hero for the Right.... in many respects he personifies the murderous ignorance, greed and xenophobia which have unfortunately been elevated to the status of Holy Writ ever since the current Right-wing political agenda was formulated by the likes of Hitler, Franco, Mussolini and Thatcher.

The disgrace is not so much the crimes of Columbus - an area in which he ranks alongside Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein - as I do not subscribe to the belief that one can judge figures of the past by mores of the future in every case but rather (as usual) the Right's celebrating of yet another criminal.

For example: after stealing the land for Spain he set to use the populace to mine the gold in much the same way that Nazis made prisoners work for the Reich in concentration camps; with no mercy and driven to the limit of human endurance until they died when they would be replaced by the next victim.

Within only two years, 125,000 - ie half of the population - of the original natives on the island were dead.

That's genocide.

He also instituted a system of sexual slavery where girls from 9 - 10 years old were sold to be used for his staff. From his diary:

Quote:
"A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand."

So to genocide we can add prostitution, abduction, slavery and paedophilia.

But there's more:

Quote:
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.

A great Christian supported and celebrated by other Christians like Camp David.
What is Faith? When your good deed pleases you and your evil deed grieves you, you are a believer. What is Sin? When a thing disturbs the peace of your heart, give it up - Prophet Muhammad
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What is Faith? When your good deed pleases you and your evil deed grieves you, you are a believer. What is Sin? When a thing disturbs the peace of your heart, give it up - Prophet Muhammad
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post #23 of 25
10/12/10 at 8:38am
Today is the actual Columbus Day__Indigenous Peoples' Day. Thought that this might be of interest on this day of remembrance.

Quote:
Perhaps the seminal text of revisionist American History, "A People's History of The United States" offers a scathing portrait of the man once hailed as the discoverer of America.

Zinn reports that Columbus wrote about the Arawk people in his journal:

Quote:
"They would make fine servants ... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."

Zinn also writes:

Quote:
"To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to de-emphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves- unwittingly-to justify what was done. My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)-that is still with us."

Quote:
Endless testimonies . .. prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives.... But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder, then, if they tried to kill one of us now and then.... The admiral, it is true, was blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians....

Quote:
Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides ... they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation.... in this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk . .. and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile ... was depopulated. ... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write. ...

Quote:
He had his faults and his defects, but they were largely the defects of the qualities that made him great-his indomitable will, his superb faith in God and in his own mission as the Christ-bearer to lands beyond the seas, his stubborn persistence despite neglect, poverty and discouragement. But there was no flaw, no dark side to the most outstanding and essential of all his qualities-his seamanship.

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncol1.html
無心 The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey
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無心 The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey
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post #24 of 25
10/9/11 at 10:02pm
Thread Starter 
  • BR
  • Justified Arrogance
One year later, same deal. Fuck you, Columbus Day.

 

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” 
-Sagan
Reply

 

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” 
-Sagan
Reply
post #25 of 25
10/11/11 at 10:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BR View Post

One year later, same deal. Fuck you, Columbus Day.

Columbus's bloodstained moniker has been attached to rivers, mountains, cities, states and even countries.

Do we really need, in addition, a public holiday to commemorate someone whose most significant legacy was killing a lot of innocent people?

Dump it.
"We've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming". VP Cheney, 3/29/2006. Interview by Tony Snow
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"We've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming". VP Cheney, 3/29/2006. Interview by Tony Snow
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