so much to be thankful for in this country: scenic beauty human rights and guaranteed freedoms (many exceptions,unfortunately) environmental consciousness history of struggle for justice abundance and economic opportunity unparalleled diversity black music (which gave birth to a lot of america's "white music"...rock) redwoods basketball
lets never forget that two of our deepest historical roots are genocide and slavery. pretty wack. but i feel its a national honor and duty to work passionately to reconcile their legacies with our values of freedom and tolerance.
people are saying that america's days are over and that we should be preparing for economic,environmental, social and political catastrophes. next decade is going to be very interesting. lets work for common good.
Im sabadabda and I approve this message.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
so much to be thankful for in this country:
We'll see about that.
scenic beauty
True dat...and it was that way loooooong before Columbus.
human rights and guaranteed freedoms (many exceptions,unfortunately)
We each have the guaranteed right to pay off America's debt to its European owners by having no choice but to be issued a social security card and then have our wages garnished by the unConstitutional IRS.
And I'm not sure where the nation with the highest percentage of its population rotting in jails and any semblance of "guaranteed fredoms" is supposed to meet.
environmental consciousness
We're conscious that the US is fucking up the environment, not just here but wordwide, at an astronomical rate??? Sounds like a indictment rather than a compliment.
history of struggle for justice
A struggle for justice implies that justice has been denied...for some, like blacks and women and those who have sufered from America's selfish overseas agandas, for centuries at a time.
abundance and economic opportunity
We all have such an accessible opportunity to exploit others in order to satisfy our own greed...hooray!!!
unparalleled diversity
Which comes at the expense of wiping out the entirity of the native population...i.e. our diversity is a fabricated bastard of nature.
black music (which gave birth to a lot of america's "white music"...rock) redwoods
Black music in Africa pre-worldwide-slave-trade, I guarantee, was just as good as anything ever produced here.
basketball
A game invented by Native Americans yet credited to a white man...a perfect illustration of how America operates.
lets never forget that two of our deepest historical roots are genocide and slavery. pretty wack.
Nice that you can point that out, but are you merely saying it's "pretty wack", as in Common's new album is "pretty wack"?
but i feel its a national honor and duty to work passionately to reconcile their legacies with our values of freedom and tolerance.
No, it's our national policy to kill first, then maybe, if we feel so inclined for the benfit of our own emotional health...absolutely inadequately honor later. How us, in any sense, feeling good about ourselves now for having benefitted from genocide is supposed to be celebrated is beyond me.
people are saying that america's days are over and that we should be preparing for economic,environmental, social and political catastrophes. next decade is going to be very interesting. lets work for common good.
Yes, do yourself a favor, Americans...off yourself today.
Not really, but at least don't stoop to patting yourselves on the back for your uncanny ability to make centuries of crushing entire nations such as Haiti under your heavy-handed boot seem like a mere harmless sneeze in the wind.
I'm not saying that Americans today should be completely devoid of pride, but rallying behind a flag that stands for 666,666,666 deadly negatives before it even begins to address a plastic positive such as check-out-all-of-these-records-I've-been-able-to-swindle-away-from-people-who-don't-realize-their-full-worth has got to be the most extreme measure of
True dat...and it was that way loooooong before Columbus.
human rights and guaranteed freedoms (many exceptions,unfortunately)
We each have the guaranteed right to pay off America's debt to its European owners by having no choice but to be issued a social security card and then have our wages garnished by the unConstitutional IRS.
And I'm not sure where the nation with the highest percentage of its population rotting in jails and any semblance of "guaranteed fredoms" is supposed to meet.
environmental consciousness
We're conscious that the US is fucking up the environment, not just here but wordwide, at an astronomical rate??? Sounds like a indictment rather than a compliment.
history of struggle for justice
A struggle for justice implies that justice has been denied...for some, like blacks and women and those who have sufered from America's selfish overseas agandas, for centuries at a time.
abundance and economic opportunity
We all have such an accessible opportunity to exploit others in order to satisfy our own greed...hooray!!!
unparalleled diversity
Which comes at the expense of wiping out the entirity of the native population...i.e. our diversity is a fabricated bastard of nature.
black music (which gave birth to a lot of america's "white music"...rock) redwoods
Black music in Africa pre-worldwide-slave-trade, I guarantee, was just as good as anything ever produced here.
basketball
A game invented by Native Americans yet credited to a white man...a perfect illustration of how America operates.
lets never forget that two of our deepest historical roots are genocide and slavery. pretty wack.
Nice that you can point that out, but are you merely saying it's "pretty wack", as in Common's new album is "pretty wack"?
but i feel its a national honor and duty to work passionately to reconcile their legacies with our values of freedom and tolerance.
No, it's our national policy to kill first, then maybe, if we feel so inclined for the benfit of our own emotional health...absolutely inadequately honor later. How us, in any sense, feeling good about ourselves now for having benefitted from genocide is supposed to be celebrated is beyond me.
people are saying that america's days are over and that we should be preparing for economic,environmental, social and political catastrophes. next decade is going to be very interesting. lets work for common good.
Yes, do yourself a favor, Americans...off yourself today.
Not really, but at least don't stoop to patting yourselves on the back for your uncanny ability to make centuries of crushing entire nations such as Haiti under your heavy-handed boot seem like a mere harmless sneeze in the wind.
I'm not saying that Americans today should be completely devoid of pride, but rallying behind a flag that stands for 666,666,666 deadly negatives before it even begins to address a plastic positive such as check-out-all-of-these-records-I've-been-able-to-swindle-away-from-people-who-don't-realize-their-full-worth has got to be the most extreme measure of
This is the American appreciation thread... why don't you name drop those same american rappers you are always talking about instead of bitching.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Probably why everybody has an opinion on how the great experiment is running.
How many realize that America is the world's first corporation of this modern era. It's legally called the Virginia Company and its shares of stock are owned by a select number of European trustees.
And how many that complain about corporations such as Time-Warner and Viacom and the oil companies and the pharmaceutical companies, etc. and the way they operate as if its their detatched-from-humanity structure that creates the problems at hand turn around and completely contradict themselves by acting as if America as a "nation" is something to stand behind?
The Constitution is more or less a wonderful document, at least once its been amended to rescind some of its initial bullshit, but it's really just a piece of paper that can be sidestepped by reality at every turn.
I fully understand how we can easily be fooled to think that America really is at its core a beautiful set of lofty ideals, but history obviously proves all of that to be a gotdamned lie.
So it boils down to who still belives the ALL TOO OBVIOUS LIE.
hahaha. that was dope. thanks for the history lesson and "reality check", son. finally, someone opened up my naive eyes to the bitter reality of american history.
slavery and genocide should not be glossed over or ever discussed as something other than an integral part of our history. the cross we gotta bear. effects of colionalism, resource plundering throughout the world, corporate greed and deregulation,militarism and institutional racism as well. BUT THIS IS NOT THAT THREAD
so go be little condescending boy somewhere else,"rasheed," and let me take one second to appreciate this shitty nation. you will not meet someone more cynical about our history and foreign policy. but what do you do about it on a daily basis? fall back and go write your rap reviews
hahaha. that was dope. thanks for the history lesson and "reality check", son. finally, someone opened up my naive eyes to the bitter reality of american history.
slavery and genocide should not be glossed over or ever discussed as something other than an integral part of our history. the cross we gotta bear. effects of colionalism, resource plundering throughout the world, corporate greed and deregulation,militarism and institutional racism as well. BUT THIS IS NOT THAT THREAD
so go be little condescending boy somewhere else,"rasheed," and let me take one second to appreciate this shitty nation. you will not meet someone more cynical about our history and foreign policy. but what do you do about it on a daily basis? fall back and go write your rap reviews
hahaha. that was dope. thanks for the history lesson and "reality check", son. finally, someone opened up my naive eyes to the bitter reality of american history.
slavery and genocide should not be glossed over or ever discussed as something other than an integral part of our history. the cross we gotta bear. effects of colionalism, resource plundering throughout the world, corporate greed and deregulation,militarism and institutional racism as well. BUT THIS IS NOT THAT THREAD
so go be little condescending boy somewhere else,"rasheed," and let me take one second to appreciate this shitty nation. you will not meet someone more cynical about our history and foreign policy. but what do you do about it on a daily basis? fall back and go write your rap reviews
Agreed.
Plus, most of his argument you could just as easily take out the US and add most nations around the world and their bullshit through out history.
Probably why everybody has an opinion on how the great experiment is running.
How many realize that America is the world's first corporation of this modern era. It's legally called the Virginia Company and its shares of stock are owned by a select number of European trustees.
And how many that complain about corporations such as Time-Warner and Viacom and the oil companies and the pharmaceutical companies, etc. and the way they operate as if its their detatched-from-humanity structure that creates the problems at hand turn around and completely contradict themselves by acting as if America as a "nation" is something to stand behind?
OH MY GOD THAT IS SO AWESOME!!
I can't beleive you actually believe this shit.
Should this be renamed the Virginia Company appreciation thread?
Seriously... you are so mentally unbalanced its ridiculous?
OK, Real question:
How many times have you called in to Coast To Coast AM?
I have lived in both Europe and America. Love both places for different reasons. The one thing that drives me crazy about middle America is their insistence on saying things like "America is the greatest country in the world". Shit is totally ignorant. Honestly, lots of Americans (most of whom have never been abroad) act like the rest of the world doesn't have indoor plumbing or edible food. Shit is just embarrassing.
As for not knowing our geography or foreign languages, let me posit this theory on my European brethren. Oregon, where I live, is twice the size of England. Not a single person I met in Europe had ever heard of it or knew where it was. This is a place about as big as Italy. So it cuts both ways. The language issue is simple. We don't need to speak another language to survive or thrive and so most of us don't*. If you live in Kansas you are more than a thousand miles from the nearest foreign border. Asking the average American to learn a foreign language is like asking the average Frenchman to learn Czech. Americans learn foreign languages for the same reason that Europeans do: when it is in there own self-interest to.
*I speak French fairly fluently and can read a little Russian.
Hey, 'Shied, is America also to blame for pre-colonial slavery where Africans sold their own into slavery amongst each other and then later to Europeans?
I have lived in both Europe and America. Love both places for different reasons. The one thing that drives me crazy about middle America is their insistence on saying things like "America is the greatest country in the world". Shit is totally ignorant. Honestly, lots of Americans (most of whom have never been abroad) act like the rest of the world doesn't have indoor plumbing or edible food. Shit is just embarrassing.
As for not knowing our geography or foreign languages, let me posit this theory on my European brethren. Oregon, where I live, is twice the size of England. Not a single person I met in Europe had ever heard of it or knew where it was. This is a place about as big as Italy. So it cuts both ways. The language issue is simple. We don't need to speak another language to survive or thrive and so most of us don't*. If you live in Kansas you are more than a thousand miles from the nearest foreign border. Asking the average American to learn a foreign language is like asking the average Frenchman to learn Czech. Americans learn foreign languages for the same reason that Europeans do: when it is in there own self-interest to.
*I speak French fairly fluently and can read a little Russian.
^^^^ knowledge done hath been droppeth-ed. ^^^^
This pretty much what I say to people, when they bring up the 'geography or foreign languages' arguement. The language part hold up, the geography part is a little shakey.
It would normally be countered with, 'The difference is, why would anybody in the rest of the world need to know about Oregon? As no country has troops based there, or has an airbase with nuclear missiles there, no country has ever bombed Oregon, or armed a dissident faction there, or tried to depose its freely elected leaders..' Etc
*Please don't take this as a "I hate America post", I don't. Yes, I dissagree with your foriegn policies, but I don't like what my country's been up to either, so it would be wholly hypercritical to judge all Americans because of it.
I have lived in both Europe and America. Love both places for different reasons. The one thing that drives me crazy about middle America is their insistence on saying things like "America is the greatest country in the world". Shit is totally ignorant. Honestly, lots of Americans (most of whom have never been abroad) act like the rest of the world doesn't have indoor plumbing or edible food. Shit is just embarrassing.
As for not knowing our geography or foreign languages, let me posit this theory on my European brethren. Oregon, where I live, is twice the size of England. Not a single person I met in Europe had ever heard of it or knew where it was. This is a place about as big as Italy. So it cuts both ways. The language issue is simple. We don't need to speak another language to survive or thrive and so most of us don't*. If you live in Kansas you are more than a thousand miles from the nearest foreign border. Asking the average American to learn a foreign language is like asking the average Frenchman to learn Czech. Americans learn foreign languages for the same reason that Europeans do: when it is in there own self-interest to.
*I speak French fairly fluently and can read a little Russian.
^^^^ knowledge done hath been droppeth-ed. ^^^^
This pretty much what I say to people, when they bring up the 'geography or foreign languages' arguement. The language part hold up, the geography part is a little shakey.
It would normally be countered with, 'The difference is, why would anybody in the rest of the world need to know about Oregon? As no country has troops based there, or has an airbase with nuclear missiles there, no country has ever bombed Oregon, or armed a dissident faction there, or tried to depose its freely elected leaders..' Etc
*Please don't take this as a "I hate America post", I don't. Yes, I dissagree with your foriegn policies, but I don't like what my country's been up to either, so it would be wholly hypercritical to judge all Americans because of it.
I see your point and I would say that following your "interest based" argument there is very little reason that a person from Kansas would need to know about the existence of Norway (to get back to the original post that started this) or any Scandinavian country for that matter. In fact, very little of the European union has any daily relevance to the average joe in Kansas City.
Oh, and BTW the Japanese launched fire bombs from subs off the Oregon coast during WWII and started to some forest fires. So don't give me that we have faced invasion crap.
Hey, 'Shied, is America also to blame for pre-colonial slavery where Africans sold their own into slavery amongst each other and then later to Europeans?
This is the typical fallback point for closet rascists and secret members of the NAAWP - they did it so you can't blame us for doing it. Fuck that! If people would read BOOKS they would know that there were many differences between African slavery and European/American slavery. Most African slaves were captured or won during warfare and were allowed to keep their language, religion, and other aspects of their culture and eventually over time rose out of slavery and into the victorious Africans societies. Europeans came to the West Coast and blew that shit up with money and guns and started a massive cross Atlantic slave trade. But unlike most African slavery, Western slavery was forever and slaves were not allowed to speak their native language, practice their own religion, wear their own clothes, sing their own music, and were beaten for trying to maintain any cultural ties to Africa. Blaming Africa for slavery is like blaming the poor Afghan farmer for the drug problem, dudes just trying to survive while the cats higher up the chain are getting rich and doing evil shit to keep it that way.
Hey, 'Shied, is America also to blame for pre-colonial slavery where Africans sold their own into slavery amongst each other and then later to Europeans?
This is the typical fallback point for closet rascists and secret members of the NAAWP - they did it so you can't blame us for doing it. Fuck that! If people would read BOOKS they would know that there were many differences between African slavery and European/American slavery. Most African slaves were captured or won during warfare and were allowed to keep their language, religion, and other aspects of their culture and eventually over time rose out of slavery and into the victorious Africans societies. Europeans came to the West Coast and blew that shit up with money and guns and started a massive cross Atlantic slave trade. But unlike most African slavery, Western slavery was forever and slaves were not allowed to speak their native language, practice their own religion, wear their own clothes, sing their own music, and were beaten for trying to maintain any cultural ties to Africa. Blaming Africa for slavery is like blaming the poor Afghan farmer for the drug problem, dudes just trying to survive while the cats higher up the chain are getting rich and doing evil shit to keep it that way.
MCF
The differences you mentioned are true, but let's not excuse the complicity of victorious African kingdoms in trading their captors into slavery for arms. And even before Europeans and arms entered the scene, the same system of human exploitation was in place. Saying they were just trying to survive is pretty fucked up, since there's no archeological or historical evidence supporting the overthrowing of African kingdoms by Europeans to get at fresh slaves. There was a win-win system in place for both parties.
Mauretania removed the right to own slaves from its constitution in the 1990s and just recently declared slavery outright illegal.
Freed slaves who were resettled in Liberia enslaved members of the local population and kept slaves until well into the 1960s.
Nothing however could possibly compare to the industrialised slave trade between West Africa and the Americas. To use one thing to downplay the other would be plain idiotic.
Where did this thread go by the way?
I love America.
I'd love it even more however if they'd confiscate that slavery-generated "old money" down south and do something useful with it...
Nothing however could possibly compare to the industrialised slave trade between West Africa and the Americas. To use one thing to downplay the other would be plain idiotic.
Yes.
I'd love it even more however if they'd confiscate that slavery-generated "old money" down south and do something useful with it...
Comments
Im sabadabda and I approve this message.
We'll see about that.
True dat...and it was that way loooooong before Columbus.
We each have the guaranteed right to pay off America's debt to its European owners by having no choice but to be issued a social security card and then have our wages garnished by the unConstitutional IRS.
And I'm not sure where the nation with the highest percentage of its population rotting in jails and any semblance of "guaranteed fredoms" is supposed to meet.
We're conscious that the US is fucking up the environment, not just here but wordwide, at an astronomical rate??? Sounds like a indictment rather than a compliment.
A struggle for justice implies that justice has been denied...for some, like blacks and women and those who have sufered from America's selfish overseas agandas, for centuries at a time.
We all have such an accessible opportunity to exploit others in order to satisfy our own greed...hooray!!!
Which comes at the expense of wiping out the entirity of the native population...i.e. our diversity is a fabricated bastard of nature.
Black music in Africa pre-worldwide-slave-trade, I guarantee, was just as good as anything ever produced here.
A game invented by Native Americans yet credited to a white man...a perfect illustration of how America operates.
Nice that you can point that out, but are you merely saying it's "pretty wack", as in Common's new album is "pretty wack"?
No, it's our national policy to kill first, then maybe, if we feel so inclined for the benfit of our own emotional health...absolutely inadequately honor later. How us, in any sense, feeling good about ourselves now for having benefitted from genocide is supposed to be celebrated is beyond me.
Yes, do yourself a favor, Americans...off yourself today.
Not really, but at least don't stoop to patting yourselves on the back for your uncanny ability to make centuries of crushing entire nations such as Haiti under your heavy-handed boot seem like a mere harmless sneeze in the wind.
I'm not saying that Americans today should be completely devoid of pride, but rallying behind a flag that stands for 666,666,666 deadly negatives before it even begins to address a plastic positive such as check-out-all-of-these-records-I've-been-able-to-swindle-away-from-people-who-don't-realize-their-full-worth has got to be the most extreme measure of
you sound poor.
How many realize that America is the world's first corporation of this modern era. It's legally called the Virginia Company and its shares of stock are owned by a select number of European trustees.
And how many that complain about corporations such as Time-Warner and Viacom and the oil companies and the pharmaceutical companies, etc. and the way they operate as if its their detatched-from-humanity structure that creates the problems at hand turn around and completely contradict themselves by acting as if America as a "nation" is something to stand behind?
The Constitution is more or less a wonderful document, at least once its been amended to rescind some of its initial bullshit, but it's really just a piece of paper that can be sidestepped by reality at every turn.
I fully understand how we can easily be fooled to think that America really is at its core a beautiful set of lofty ideals, but history obviously proves all of that to be a gotdamned lie.
So it boils down to who still belives the ALL TOO OBVIOUS LIE.
finally, someone opened up my naive eyes to the bitter reality of american history.
slavery and genocide should not be glossed over or ever discussed as something other than an integral part of our history. the cross we gotta bear. effects of colionalism, resource plundering throughout the world, corporate greed and deregulation,militarism and institutional racism as well. BUT THIS IS NOT THAT THREAD
so go be little condescending boy somewhere else,"rasheed," and let me take one second to appreciate this shitty nation. you will not meet someone more cynical about our history and foreign policy. but what do you do about it on a daily basis? fall back and go write your rap reviews
Agreed.
Plus, most of his argument you could just as easily take out the US and add most nations around the world and their bullshit through out history.
"slavery and genocide"
Yeah.. Only in America
obscure,amazing state park in new mexico
found it by chance with a traveling companion under a full moon
Black people like Tripledouble because he makes HarveyCanal look like Sabadabada.
OH MY GOD THAT IS SO AWESOME!!
I can't beleive you actually believe this shit.
Should this be renamed the Virginia Company appreciation thread?
Seriously... you are so mentally unbalanced its ridiculous?
OK, Real question:
How many times have you called in to Coast To Coast AM?
Be honest. I have to know.
wait is that guaranSHIED ?
i heart mexico
^^^^ knowledge done hath been droppeth-ed. ^^^^
aaaaahahahah...
Dude, she did us ALL a favor.
don't be such an armpit penis.
(yes, that was a jpeg challenge).
This pretty much what I say to people, when they bring up the 'geography or foreign languages' arguement. The language part hold up, the geography part is a little shakey.
It would normally be countered with, 'The difference is, why would anybody in the rest of the world need to know about Oregon? As no country has troops based there, or has an airbase with nuclear missiles there, no country has ever bombed Oregon, or armed a dissident faction there, or tried to depose its freely elected leaders..' Etc
*Please don't take this as a "I hate America post", I don't. Yes, I dissagree with your foriegn policies, but I don't like what my country's been up to either, so it would be wholly hypercritical to judge all Americans because of it.
I see your point and I would say that following your "interest based" argument there is very little reason that a person from Kansas would need to know about the existence of Norway (to get back to the original post that started this) or any Scandinavian country for that matter. In fact, very little of the European union has any daily relevance to the average joe in Kansas City.
Oh, and BTW the Japanese launched fire bombs from subs off the Oregon coast during WWII and started to some forest fires. So don't give me that we have faced invasion crap.
This is the typical fallback point for closet rascists and secret members of the NAAWP - they did it so you can't blame us for doing it. Fuck that! If people would read BOOKS they would know that there were many differences between African slavery and European/American slavery. Most African slaves were captured or won during warfare and were allowed to keep their language, religion, and other aspects of their culture and eventually over time rose out of slavery and into the victorious Africans societies. Europeans came to the West Coast and blew that shit up with money and guns and started a massive cross Atlantic slave trade. But unlike most African slavery, Western slavery was forever and slaves were not allowed to speak their native language, practice their own religion, wear their own clothes, sing their own music, and were beaten for trying to maintain any cultural ties to Africa. Blaming Africa for slavery is like blaming the poor Afghan farmer for the drug problem, dudes just trying to survive while the cats higher up the chain are getting rich and doing evil shit to keep it that way.
MCF
don't play; the one arch-anal will be PMing you shortly to compare notes.
The differences you mentioned are true, but let's not excuse the complicity of victorious African kingdoms in trading their captors into slavery for arms. And even before Europeans and arms entered the scene, the same system of human exploitation was in place. Saying they were just trying to survive is pretty fucked up, since there's no archeological or historical evidence supporting the overthrowing of African kingdoms by Europeans to get at fresh slaves. There was a win-win system in place for both parties.
I regret using the phrase "trading their own."
Freed slaves who were resettled in Liberia enslaved members of the local population and kept slaves until well into the 1960s.
Nothing however could possibly compare to the industrialised slave trade between West Africa and the Americas. To use one thing to downplay the other would be plain idiotic.
Where did this thread go by the way?
I love America.
I'd love it even more however if they'd confiscate that slavery-generated "old money" down south and do something useful with it...
Yes.
Yes.