Re: Still baffled

At 02:58 PM 4/29/2000 -0300, you wrote:
>And this is the second of two messages that I'm forwarding from Jeffrey
>Sommers in Latvia -- he's having problems posting to the list.
>
>Randy McDonald
>Charlotetown PE
>Canada
>
>>X-POP3-Rcpt: mcdonald@kiln
>>Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 08:30:19 +0300
>>From: jeffrey sommers <jsommers@latnet.lv>
>>Reply-To: jsommers@latnet.lv
>>Organization: World History Center <www.whc.neu.edu>
>>X-Accept-Language: en
>>To: mcdonald@isn.net, wsn@csf.colorado.edu
>>Subject: Re: Still baffled
>>References: <1.5.4.32.20000429025201.006792a8@mailer.isn.net>
>>
>>Dear Randy,
>>
>>The distinction (20th cc) is somewhat arbitrary.  If anything, US
>>removal policies
>>of American Indians (ethnic groups) were more brutal than those
>>exercised by
>>authoritarian states only a few decades later--and here I mean removal
>>rather than genocide policies.

But did did fit with contemporary patterns. In German Southwest Africa in
1904-5, the Herero were subjected to a campaign of genocide, while earlier
in the 19th century, the first Russian conquest of the Caucasus led to the
diaspora of a significant proportion of the Caucasian Muslim population to
the Ottoman Empire and the death of still more. Outside the West, China's
suppression of the Hui (Muslim Sinophone) rebellion in the 1850's and 1860's
included genocidal policies of massacre.

In the 20th century, the United States largely abandoned the pursuit of
state-sanctioned violence aimed against ethnic minorities. Neither Germany
nor the Soviet Union did -- if anything, compared to patterns in Imperial
Germany or Tsarist Russia, the breadth of state-sanctioned violence directed
towards Germans and Soviets increased tremendously.

>>The US pretty much finished the job
>>with Wounded Knee at the close of the 19th cc.  Job completed, it then 
>began
>>expansion into the Philippines, 25,000 killed and another 200,000 dead
>>from effects
>>of pacification effort, and to enforce its hegemony over the Wester
hemisphere,
>>which included numerous invastion with some considerable deaths, such as
>>in the 19
>>year long occupation of Haiti.
>>
>>It took a long time to make the US anything resembling democratic. 
>>Long, hard fought struggles from below, and it still has a long way to go.

It does, but at least -- unlike Germany or Russia -- it has not fallen under
a totalitarian regime. Racist regimes, yes. Militarist regimes, certainly.
But at least the United States was spared the horror of death camps and
full-blown imperialist warfare, not to mention the less visible aspects of a
police state.

>>Best,
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>Jeffrey Sommers
>>World History Center
>>Boston/Riga
>><www.whc.neu.edu>
>>
>>"Adam Smith started with a view of the forest but his followers lost
>>themselves in
>>the woods."
>>       --John R. Commons, 1934--