Historical Argument That Was In the Wrong Forum

[sophie]

Do you honestly believe this?

Do I think that the US and Canada are currently engaging in genocide? Yes. I don't think there is much of a way around that exceedingly obvious fact.

 

[Patine]

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Do I think that the US and Canada are currently engaging in genocide? Yes. I don't think there is much of a way around that exceedingly obvious fact.

Indeed, I'm a Canadian social worker in Edmonton, and my girlfriend is Treaty Cree. I know this tragic and shameful stuff well. There were also equivalent, "programs," by the Australian Government against their Aboriginal Peoples.

 

[sophie]

Indeed, I'm a Canadian social worker in Edmonton, and my girlfriend is Treaty Cree. I know this tragic and shameful stuff well. There were also equivalent, "programs," by the Australian Government against their Aboriginal Peoples.

The Sámi people in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia too.

 

[Traitorfish]

Do I think that the US and Canada are currently engaging in genocide? Yes. I don't think there is much of a way around that exceedingly obvious fact.

What part of the evidence you've presented indicates current genocide?

 

[sophie]

What part of the evidence you've presented indicates current genocide?

Unlawful childhood relocation under foster care programs, also prevalent in Canada, replicates the process of separating and erasing indigenous people from their lands, their families, and histories which happened under the Residential school system, as was noted in the passages above. Likewise, the consistent, systematic denial of resources and institutional protection to Indian territories, in addition to consistent violence and reneging on treaties further serves to undermine the sovereignty and legitimacy of Indian nations and further erase Indian people, again, as noted in some of the passages above. The point is that, aside (probably - one would certainly hope) from the sterilization programs, nothing about Indian relations and actions have substantially changed on the part of either the American nor the Canadian governments. Everything is always framed as "that genocide stuff was in the past, and we're very sorry about it, but we certainly don't do stuff like that anymore!" while, in fact, continuing to do all the same stuff.

But even beyond that (and what I linked is just a tiny sliver of the full picture) this stuff is not ancient history, contra what Plotinus asserted. This did not happen "before we were democratic." A quarter to half of the female Indian population was sterilized when my parents were in high school. The last residential school in Canada closed when I was 5. This is very much living memory.

 

[Patine]

What part of the evidence you've presented indicates current genocide?

Unlawful childhood relocation under foster care programs, also prevalent in Canada, replicates the process of separating and erasing indigenous people from their lands, their families, and histories which happened under the Residential school system, as was noted in the passages above. Likewise, the consistent, systematic denial of resources and institutional protection to Indian territories, in addition to consistent violence and reneging on treaties further serves to undermine the sovereignty and legitimacy of Indian nations and further erase Indian people, again, as noted in some of the passages above. The point is that, aside (probably - one would certainly hope) from the sterilization programs, nothing about Indian relations and actions have substantially changed on the part of either the American nor the Canadian governments. Everything is always framed as "that genocide stuff was in the past, and we're very sorry about it, but we certainly don't do stuff like that anymore!" while, in fact, continuing to do all the same stuff.

But even beyond that (and what I linked is just a tiny sliver of the full picture) this stuff is not ancient history, contra what Plotinus asserted. This did not happen "before we were democratic." A quarter to half of the female Indian population was sterilized when my parents were in high school. The last residential school in Canada closed when I was 5. This is very much living memory.

Jean Chretien, PM from 1993-2003, had been Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development on two or three occasions during the Premiership of Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1968-1979 - 1980-1984), the father of the current PM. While Chretien was in these Ministerial positions, Residential Schools were very much still a thing. As a social worker in Edmonton, I deal with aiding in lawsuits by First Nations and Metis women attempting not only gain custody of children taken away from them at birth, but actually LOCATING them. There is a noticeable undercurrent of racism in the Edmonton Police Service toward First Nations/Metis residents - "this is how you deal with a Native suspect," jokes, which are downright vile, proliferate as police office, "humour," In some neighbourhoods, First Nations/Metis women walking at night are assumed to be prostitutes, and the men to be drug dealers, and are outright brazenly approached for such services. Not all of this indicates a direct recent legacy of genocide, but it's only a few short steps down from where it was.

 

[sophie]

As a social worker in Edmonton, I deal with aiding in lawsuits by First Nations and Metis women attempting not only gain custody of children taken away from them at birth, but actually LOCATING them. Not all of this indicates a direct recent legacy of genocide, but it's only a few short steps down from where it was.

Forcibly transferring children of one specific group to another group in itself constitutes genocide, per the UN definition of the term. Indigenous children represent 52 percent of the foster population in Canada, despite representing just 7 percent of the overall child population.

 

[Patine]

Forcibly transferring children of one specific group to another group in itself constitutes genocide, per the UN definition of the term. Indigenous children represent 52 percent of the foster population in Canada, despite representing just 7 percent of the overall child population.

This much is true. I moreso meant the institutional racism was not a direct legacy of genocide, but a few short steps down, not the first part of my post, which you quoted. The transfer of children is done so under the premise of, "taking children out of endangering environments," which is just plain bollocks and a flimsy and transparent label, considering the proportion of First Nations/Metis families declared, "endangering environments for children," to all other racial backgrounds, combined, in Canada.

 

[Plotinus]

These are all fair points. But then the question is: does this mean that Canadian democracy is morally equivalent - or even inferior - to Chinese communist autocracy, as Henri Christophe claims?

 

[Traitorfish]

Unlawful childhood relocation under foster care programs, also prevalent in Canada, replicates the process of separating and erasing indigenous people from their lands, their families, and histories which happened under the Residential school system, as was noted in the passages above. Likewise, the consistent, systematic denial of resources and institutional protection to Indian territories, in addition to consistent violence and reneging on treaties further serves to undermine the sovereignty and legitimacy of Indian nations and further erase Indian people, again, as noted in some of the passages above. The point is that, aside (probably - one would certainly hope) from the sterilization programs, nothing about Indian relations and actions have substantially changed on the part of either the American nor the Canadian governments. Everything is always framed as "that genocide stuff was in the past, and we're very sorry about it, but we certainly don't do stuff like that anymore!" while, in fact, continuing to do all the same stuff.

But even beyond that (and what I linked is just a tiny sliver of the full picture) this stuff is not ancient history, contra what Plotinus asserted. This did not happen "before we were democratic." A quarter to half of the female Indian population was sterilized when my parents were in high school. The last residential school in Canada closed when I was 5. This is very much living memory.

I don't think you're really answering the question. I don't dispute that historical and even relatively recent policy by both the United States and Canada constitutes genocide, and I don't dispute that indigenous communities continue to be badly undeserved by those states. I'm asking what part of the evidence you presented represents current genocide? What part of it is evidence that the governments of the United States or Canada are, at this time, explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, seeking the destruction of indigenous populations as distinct people-groups?

 

[sophie]

I don't think you're really answering the question. I don't dispute that historical and even relatively recent policy by both the United States and Canada constitutes genocide, and I don't dispute that indigenous communities continue to be badly undeserved by those states. I'm asking what part of the evidence you presented represents current genocide? What part of it is evidence that the governments of the United States or Canada are, at this time, explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, seeking the destruction of indigenous populations as distinct people-groups?

what an absolutely tedious response.

These are all fair points. But then the question is: does this mean that Canadian democracy is morally equivalent - or even inferior - to Chinese communist autocracy, as Henri Christophe claims?

In this specific respect it certainly does. If, however, we're lumping the US and Canada together, as Henri Christophe frequently does, or if we're treating Western Liberal Democracies as one unit in order to evaluate the total moral accounting of both systems, then it's no comparison. The moral stains in the ledger book of historical accounting left behind by the US over the last 100 years - to say nothing of including the UK, France, and the Netherlands, far exceed any other regime or state up to this point. The scale, the longevity, the geographic spread, the diversity of means by which they've killed, maimed, displaced, immiserated, and generally ruined the lives of millions upon millions of people - and continue to do so to this day - is simply staggering to consider in its totality. And to look into that gaping maw of horror and misery and declare it net moral good, or even to consider it appropriate to wield as a cudgel to arrogantly condemn other governments is utterly laughable to me.

Which isn't to say the Chinese state is good or laudable as some grand alternative to the Western neo-colonial metropole, nor to claim that there is something unique or essential to the Western character or form of government which makes them inherently predisposed to evil or something like that. The US simply happens to stand astride a global capitalist empire. The wars of aggression, the vicious sanction regimes, the toppling of democratic governments and propping up of genocidal despots and the economic pillaging all simply come with the territory of being the hegemon in that empire. I don't doubt China would do the same were they in the US's position.

 

[Traitorfish]

what an absolutely tedious response.

It's an honest question, you don't need to be a dick about it.

 

[sophie]

It's an honest question, you don't need to be a dick about it.

And I already answered the question twice.

 

[Ajidica]

The moral stains in the ledger book of historical accounting left behind by the US over the last 100 years - to say nothing of including the UK, France, and the Netherlands, far exceed any other regime or state up to this point.

I guess if you died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, the Chinese government in the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, in one of the many sordid ethnic pogroms and mass killings in the Great Lakes region, the nearly 30 years long Congo Wars, the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars, under Soviet occupation, the Gukurahudi, or Biafran war, you don't count? And that's limiting it to post-war. If we go earlier, well, we got that whole situation in the Soviet Union, Japanese Rape of Nanking and the Sook Ching massacres just for start.
Surprised you left the Belgians off that list.

The wars of aggression, the vicious sanction regimes, the toppling of democratic governments and propping up of genocidal despots and the economic pillaging all simply come with the territory of being the hegemon in that empire.

As opposed to the wars of aggression, toppling of governments, propping up of genocidal despots, and economic pillaging done by non-capitalists.
I'm sure Mugabe, Museveni, Kagame, and dos Santos would be surprised to be considered capitalists.

 

[sophie]

I guess if you died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, the Chinese government in the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, in one of the many sordid ethnic pogroms and mass killings in the Great Lakes region, the nearly 30 years long Congo Wars, the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars, under Soviet occupation, the Gukurahudi, or Biafran war, you don't count? And that's limiting it to post-war. If we go earlier, well, we got that whole situation in the Soviet Union, Japanese Rape of Nanking and the Sook Ching massacres just for start.
Surprised you left the Belgians off that list.

As opposed to the wars of aggression, toppling of governments, propping up of genocidal despots, and economic pillaging done by non-capitalists.
I'm sure Mugabe, Museveni, Kagame, and dos Santos would be surprised to be considered capitalists.

Where in my post did I preclude the existence of other bad things? This moral tit-for-tat is really bizarre.

 

[Ajidica]

Where in my post did I preclude the existence of other bad things? This moral tit-for-tat is really bizarre.

You were the one who said 'ledger book of historical accounting' and explicitly posited it as a comparison to other regimes. The death toll from the Great Leap Forward is generally estimated to be in the mid 30 million to low 40 million. Tens of millions died due to ideological agenda, incompetence, indifference, and disregard for human life, but you explicitly saying that is of a lesser 'moral stain' than the actions of the United States. I'll be the first to say the United States in the 20th century has a long and sordid history, including many bad acts and disregard for human life, but saying that is a greater moral stain than a level of indifference that resulted in tens of millions of your own citizens starving to death?
Looking at another country with a very basic agricultural economy, India was under the constant threat of famine, and ensuring India never again suffered famine or the need to import food was a primary goal of Nehru and the Congress Party. Nehru and Congress were able to implement the Green Revolution without tens of millions starving to death.

 

[Patine]

what an absolutely tedious response.



In this specific respect it certainly does. If, however, we're lumping the US and Canada together, as Henri Christophe frequently does, or if we're treating Western Liberal Democracies as one unit in order to evaluate the total moral accounting of both systems, then it's no comparison. The moral stains in the ledger book of historical accounting left behind by the US over the last 100 years - to say nothing of including the UK, France, and the Netherlands, far exceed any other regime or state up to this point. The scale, the longevity, the geographic spread, the diversity of means by which they've killed, maimed, displaced, immiserated, and generally ruined the lives of millions upon millions of people - and continue to do so to this day - is simply staggering to consider in its totality. And to look into that gaping maw of horror and misery and declare it net moral good, or even to consider it appropriate to wield as a cudgel to arrogantly condemn other governments is utterly laughable to me.

Which isn't to say the Chinese state is good or laudable as some grand alternative to the Western neo-colonial metropole, nor to claim that there is something unique or essential to the Western character or form of government which makes them inherently predisposed to evil or something like that. The US simply happens to stand astride a global capitalist empire. The wars of aggression, the vicious sanction regimes, the toppling of democratic governments and propping up of genocidal despots and the economic pillaging all simply come with the territory of being the hegemon in that empire. I don't doubt China would do the same were they in the US's position.

You were the one who said 'ledger book of historical accounting' and explicitly posited it as a comparison to other regimes. The death toll from the Great Leap Forward is generally estimated to be in the mid 30 million to low 40 million. Tens of millions died due to ideological agenda, incompetence, indifference, and disregard for human life, but you explicitly saying that is of a lesser 'moral stain' than the actions of the United States. I'll be the first to say the United States in the 20th century has a long and sordid history, including many bad acts and disregard for human life, but saying that is a greater moral stain than a level of indifference that resulted in tens of millions of your own citizens starving to death?
Looking at another country with a very basic agricultural economy, India was under the constant threat of famine, and ensuring India never again suffered famine or the need to import food was a primary goal of Nehru and the Congress Party. Nehru and Congress were able to implement the Green Revolution without tens of millions starving to death.

Ultimately, it REALLY bugs me (I could even use the word, disgusts) when people weigh tyrannies and other bad regimes against each for whom is worse by comparing body count in counted number of deaths and/or amount of time said regime has gotten away with it, ALONE These measuring sticks, in and of themselves, are highly disingenuous, manipulative, distorting of facts, and ignore context, perspective, proportion, and just what said regimes did that made them so horrid outside longevity and causing mass death.

 

[Henri Christophe]

The question is, Democracy should not be an universal value. And there is countries without Democracy, as China, who are very well.
Not just China, but monarchism as United Kingdom or Saudi Arabia is also a lack of democracy and they are also fine.
And democracy can be dangerous in certains countries as Rwanda, where it's democratic period lead by a Hutu majority lead a genocide against the Tutsi who ruled Rwanda when it don't have democracy as when it was a monarchy in the past and now a days in Paul Kagame dictatorship.

 

[Patine]

but monarchism as United Kingdom is also a lack of democracy and they are also fine.

So, you have no idea what a Constitutional Monarchy is? Do you REALLY believe that Elizabeth II runs the country by her whim and choice alone in more than just purely ceremonial and ritualistic mention on paper? And what do you honestly think PM Boris Johnson and the ELECTED Parliament do all day?

as China, who are very well.

Just ignoring EVERYTHING said by EVERYONE on this topic here as though it were never, and without even any rebuttal. A complete system reset, rhetorically.

Saudi Arabia is also a lack of democracy and they are also fine.

For a tiny percentage of the population, perhaps, but such elitist societies are not generally seen as, "fine," by most standards.

And democracy can be dangerous in certains countries as Rwanda, where it's democratic period lead by a Hutu majority lead a genocide against the Tutsi who ruled Rwanda when it don't have democracy as when it was a monarchy in the past and now a days in Paul Kagame dictatorship.

This sounds similar, though in different contexts, to George Wallace, D F Malan, and Ian Smith's reasoning why democracy by the majority would be, "disastrous."

 

[PhroX]

Didn't the Rwandan genocide begin with elements of the military assassinating the president and seizing power? Not exactly democratic....