questions about love and commitment relative to K1 process

[Kailey 3]

– there is a very thin line between acknowledging mistakes and weakening your country prestige and image in the eyes of the rest of the world, you know… Shout about your achievements, acknowledge mistakes quietly and learn from them if you are wise. If you are even wiser - learn from mistakes of others..

Learn from USSR mistakes after all!

"Weakening your country's prestige" is a myth, used by politicians to ensure dissent is treated as an aberration rather than our right as a free people. IMHO, you've got it completely backwards. As a country we should acknowledge our achievements quietly, and shout about our mistakes. That's how we grow as a people. The other way is how you stagnate and fall backwards while the rest of the world passes you by.

MOX, Russia has shouted about its mistakes after USSR collapsed. A lot of ashes was powdered on the heads and what happened? there were times when we were steps away from total collapse... as soon as a country starts to bow too much it is considered to be weak. That doesn't mean one can spit on the rest of the world, not at all. That said - even accepting mistakes should be done very wisely and carefully.. just try it - go out and say 'We are guilty of this..." smart people will be right there yelling 'and that and that and that.. and my uncle X broke his ankle - that's also your fault"..

by the way was the topic of this thread sth about love... and commitment?

“The USSR didn't collapse because its citizens criticized the government so much. The USSR collapsed because the single party Communist state collapsed under its own weight. So I'm not sure why you keep comparing the collapse of the Soviet Union to criticism of the government. If anything, an argument can be made that the USSR collapsed *because* criticism of the government wasn't allowed.”

You were not here (i mean in the USSR) and didn't see how it happened.. It would be too easy you know – somebody said ‘BOO” to the Communist Party and USSR fell apart.. nope. Was not like this.. And criticism of the government was actually allowed here in 80s .. but that what started as ‘healthy criticism’ turned out to be a hungry devil.. like avalanche it covered every part of life – starting from pop music ending on Social Security and Education – people didn’t have anything to hold on to anymore.. everything seemed wrong.. thank you, critics..

.. ok, what I’m trying to say is pretty simple in reality: don't OVERDO with what you think is 'healthy criticism’. Because there will be many who will help you to criticize your own country, especially if this country - colossus as United States .. and who will happily echo ‘yes, USA, you, didn’t do this and that right’ and then even ‘let us in, we will show you how to do things right’. You will not even notice, when one day you can wake up and see … a very different country... I cross my fingers that this never happens.

I think one of the values of the USA is that its people believe that they live in the best country in the world. And this is the foundation that keeps the country going and overcoming difficulties that it meets. And let people focus on good things, achievements. Too much 'healthy critisism'.. make the atmosphere at home unhealthy..

As for Bush – ok, I (Kate) personally agree that was a mistake but no need to say it again and again. And, no one knows what you would have done if you were AT HIS place AT HIS time. It’s easy to comment being a forum commentator but no one here ever had a chance to see the world through the window of the Oval Office.

Edited June 30, 2009 by Kate and Mark

[mox 298]

Hmmm...I think the question is: did the United States recognize the American Indians as citizens?

In my mind it's a moot point though. Citizens or not, it was a genocide. American leaders have shown themselves to be capable of brutality and bloodshed at the levels of Stalin, Pol Pot, Milosevic, ad nauseum. It's playing with technicalities to try to decide if they were citizens, the fact is that they were indigenous people living within our borders.

[Thomas-n-Elena 0]

Hmmm...I think the question is: did the United States recognize the American Indians as citizens?

In my mind it's a moot point though. Citizens or not, it was a genocide. American leaders have shown themselves to be capable of brutality and bloodshed at the levels of Stalin, Pol Pot, Milosevic, ad nauseum. It's playing with technicalities to try to decide if they were citizens, the fact is that they were indigenous people living within our borders.

Not to argue the finite points but wouldnt genocide by definition be killing your own people, so if the european settlers killed each other that would be genocide but if they kill the natives(Indians, mexicans, aztecs etc) thats just homicide. right.

To add to the discussion, yes the US government has its own share of brutal violent past not including all the conspiracy stuff, we detain people without cause(gitmo, japanese internment camps etc) we fight supply side wars on terrorism and drugs, allow the fox to run the henhouse, create financial atmoshperes where worldcom, enron, madhoff etc can steal billions from regular hard working people and then give them no sentence or one that is meaningless. I could go on but that would take too long.

[BluesTraveler 0]

Not to argue the finite points but wouldnt genocide by definition be killing your own people, so if the european settlers killed each other that would be genocide but if they kill the natives(Indians, mexicans, aztecs etc) thats just homicide. right.

Incorrect.

The term genocide was created to describe the actions of Germany against the Jewish people in Europe.

Definitions from various sources...

Merriam-Webster: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group

American Heritage Dictionary: The systematic and widespread extermination or attempted extermination of an entire national, racial, religious, or ethnic group.

Online Etymology Dictionary: from Gk. genos "race, kind" (see genus) + -cide, from L. -cidere "kill," comb. form of caedere "to cut, kill"

[mox 298]

The most accepted definition of genocide was defined after WW2 by the UN:

...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

( a ) Killing members of the group;

( b ) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

( c ) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

( d ) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

( e ) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The United States is also responsible for Reality Shows and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire. I think there needs to special UN sanctions imposed just for that alone.

[Brad and Vika 129]

Another thread jacked!

[ZorValachan 0]

but if this is about about comparing countries...the USA has never had a crazed killer leader like Stalin who killed millions of his own people. As to WWII...the Russians murdered 22,000 Polish prisoners of war and now ban any discussion of that fact today. I don't think the USA killed prisoners of war...certainly not 22,000!

Most importantly...we get to vote in our idiot leaders...Russia STILL does not. There is no comparison. No USA leader his ever ordered the slaughter of millions of his own people. With Russia, it's hard to find a leader who has NOT killed many of his own people.

Hmmm, get into a big crowd of people. look to you left. Look to your right. Look in front of you. Look behind you.

See any Native Americans?

The USA and its citizens (not just the military) did genocide upon the native people of this land. Millions of lives lost (very lowest report about 8 million, highest are over 100 million, but still millions either way). Now they sit in 'reservations' and are ignored and put out of mind just as Russia/USSR tried to do with its genocides. And this was over a couple hundred years, under many presidents, who we consider our 'heroes' (look at Andrew Jackson, 'Old Hickory'). The USA just did a better job about it, portraying the natives as savage barbarians who were evil and needed to die and frontier folks as the 'good' side.

We are still breaking current treaties with Native Americans, in which we are supposed to give them health care, etc. Because in the 'big picture' 1 million or so people is a small minority in a nation of 300 million.

And for those who say it was not genocide, because of 'intent'. Exactly... We've warped it so much that the murder of millions of 'our' people was ok and not so bad when compared to others and we make excuses why it wasn't our own people, but nations, blah blah. Propaganda working at its best.

[slim 1,525]

I am guessing you meant to say Native Americans were never USA citizens.

That's exactly what I said. The U.S. government never acknowledged native people as citizens until they themselves requested to be. Even after their land was purchased or they were defeated in battle and forced to relocate, many (most, actually, even still today) were not members of the United States, citizens or otherwise, they were members of an independent Indian nation of XXXXX. Historically, Indian nations were dealt with as hostile enemy peoples and in more recent times, Native American nations (notice I'm saying nations here, as in countries other than the U.S.) are afforded some sovereignty from the U.S. on tribal lands. Only when members choose to move from tribal lands to the U.S. or participate in U.S. activities (like trade in tobacco or alcohol, work, travel to foreign lands, etc.) are they considered Americans - and that's at their own choosing.

Strongly disagree with the logic here. The Louisiana Purchase was completed in 1803. The purchase was made ignoring the Native Americans that lived in the Midwest. The French and USA did not have treaties or diplomatic relations with the Native Americans in the Midwest. All we had was a flag.

The French and the U.S. did have diplomatic relations with Native Americans in the Midwest. All "friendly" tribes were assimilated and/or relocated and all "hostile" tribes were labeled as "enemy nations" and engaged in a state of war. Just because the U.S. purchased the Midwest and placed their flag there doesn't mean everyone living there at the time was instantly handed a blue passport.

It's not like the U.S. recaptured islands from the Japanese in WWII and waived the wand over Filipinos and Malayans and instantly made them Americans. Patton and the boys didn't march through France and start handing out voter registration cards. Sovereign nations were engaged according to diplomatic status.

And as you know, if you have a flag...you can claim something as your own.

You are 1/2 correct about that. - Ask the boys on Mt. Suribachi. It takes a lot more than a flag.

The American-Indian wars were perpetrated from the early 1700's to 1918. The majority of the conflict in the Midwest occurring from 1820's to 1890's. Now if we go back to the Louisiana Purchase date of 1803 -- we can see the problem. You "buy" land that doesn't belong to the seller, receiving of stolen property, and then you find you a problem. The USA government then commits widespread genocide. And really we need to call it genocide since it was deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial group.

It was genocide and it started way before the 1800s. You are still incorrect on your point of the U.S. government killing millions of it's own people. The "native peoples" of the Americas weren't subject to U.S. law or jurisdiction. They were recognized as independent tribes and sovereign nations. That makes them not "American" at all. They could be compared to the variety of "Mexicans" living in North America at the time, "Canadians" of one sort or another, or even "Russians" living on the West Coast. Hell, even England still claimed parts of the U.S. in the early 1800s - why weren't the natives "protected" by the Crown? Is that what they were doing in New Orleans in '13?

Having more guns, i.e. cannons doesn't mean you are allowed to kill an entire racial group.

Actually, yes it does. Having more guns means you are allowed to do whatever the hell you want to do until someone with more guns comes and stops you. Once again, we can reference the Japanese in WWII. They did whatever the hell they wanted in the Pacific until someone with more guns (that'd be us, mack!) came and stopped them. The only reason we "stopped" was because our populace - the common man - has more guns than our government and therefore the will of the people will be adhered to. Thankfully, we have many good-minded folks in our country and we try to do what's "right" - within reason, of course.

You can not call the Louisiana Purchase legal and NOT make the Native Americans US citizens. Granted, I realize that is what happened historically. However I vehemently disagree that the USA didn't kill their own people. If you purchase, acquire, take over the land, then the people on the land are part of your country now, and you are not supposed to kill your own people!

I believe you just made your own point, counter point, and then proof.... of my point. The people with the guns can do whatever the hell they want and call it whatever the hell they choose to call it. Right or wrong, it doesn't really matter what they're supposed to do or not supposed to do because they can impose their will upon those who cannot defend themselves against it.

Ask yourself one question........ when you vote, are you asking your elected officials to do your bidding, or are you TELLING THEM what to do? (I'll give you a hint - if you own a rifle and are proficient in it's use, you don't have to ask anything!)

In my mind it's a moot point though. Citizens or not, it was a genocide. American leaders have shown themselves to be capable of brutality and bloodshed at the levels of Stalin, Pol Pot, Milosevic, ad nauseum. It's playing with technicalities to try to decide if they were citizens, the fact is that they were indigenous people living within our borders.

No arguing that the U.S. is capable of wholesale slaughter. We're actually the most efficient in the world at it and we don't even get our hands dirty while doing it. The point is, not even the U.S. government could slaughter it's own people and remain in power. When you look at past leaders who did just that, they disarmed their competition first. Until our general population is disarmed (go 'head Pelosi!) the government cannot commit mass-murder against it's own population.

The whole Native Americans argument came into play when it was posted that the U.S. has killed millions of "it's own people" in the past. The U.S. has never killed millions of it's own people. To my knowledge, the strongest argument to that end would be post-bellum blacks in the south (who are our own people) until the mid-1970's or so. Before you go spouting off numbers and statistics though, keep in mind - they were disarmed. Not too many armed blacks (in the north) were killed. Since the civil rights movement, (and subsequent arming of blacks in the south) not too many have been killed there either! Well, not by the hands of the government, anyway.

To add to the discussion, yes the US government has its own share of brutal violent past not including all the conspiracy stuff, we detain people without cause(gitmo, japanese internment camps etc)

This is an excellent supporting point that illustrates clearly the difference between "our own people" and "members of hostile nations." The internment camps were set up to hold U.S. citizens, not to exterminate them. The U.S. citizens (Nisei Japanese-Americans) were unjustly held against their will, but they were not victims of genocide. Why? Because if the government could do it to one group of -Americans, then they could do it to any group of -Americans. Imagine if you will, the U.S. government decided to intern all German-Americans. What would've happened then? Nisei weren't as numerous (or as well-armed) as German-Americans, but they were Americans all the same. They were still afforded the rights and protection guranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

As to the point of "without cause" I believe they think there's a cause. With the Nisei they believed they still had enough of a tie to Japan that they'd commit sabotage and partisan activities here in the U.S. The government believed it better to have them interned in camps where they could keep an eye on them. Definitely not legal, but it wasn't genocide which is what happened in other parts of the world at the time. With terror suspects at Gitmo, the government believes they could be or could have participated in terror activity. Legality questionable, genocide, not yet. Point is, Nisei were protected from genocide by their countrymen (American citizens who owned rifles and could use them against their own governemnt) and terror suspects are not.

we fight supply side wars on terrorism and drugs, allow the fox to run the henhouse, create financial atmoshperes where worldcom, enron, madhoff etc can steal billions from regular hard working people and then give them no sentence or one that is meaningless. I could go on but that would take too long.

The Kansas City Shuffle.

[slim 1,525]

And I almost forgot ------

Not to leave out Kate and mox's side debate, but when the U.S. pulled out of Mogadishu, we basically turned on the green light for every terrorist and third-world rabble to take a shot. Prior to that, there was an established standard that if you trifled with us, you got dealt with. Severely and swiftly.

Since then, we've kind of been swatting mosquitoes as they bite us.

[ZorValachan 0]

The Japanese camps were because we couldn't do it to German-Americans, because they 'looked like us'. White people in camps would have been an outrage. Asians, not so much. If a few Chinese or other Asian-Americans got tossed in too, it would be easier to explain than if an Anglo with a german sounding name got interred. If German's all had purple hair, you'd have seen German camps.

Same with Native Americans. They are 'different' thus their elimination from the planet is 'better' than genocide of jews, and other who 'look like us'

You can't tell me there is difference if the USSR absorbs a country and kills those citizens as 'enemies' for collective farming (killing its citizens) than the USA taking land from Native Americans for use by citizens (whites) and saying it is ok because they are 'enemies'.

Propaganda is a great tool and in the the USA completely succeeded when we consider the slaughter of our millions ok or at least 'better' than genocide of millions under Hilter and Stalin. Hell, we still call them Indians; further distancing them from us, because by calling them 'Native Americans', we acknowledge they should be here.

Like Pontius Pilate, we get to just say 'We wash our hands of this' and people actually believe it takes care of everything and we didn't do anything bad but kill our foes.

We didn't hand out passports in Europe and Asian islands/Japan, because we didn't want that land. It would have been different if we wanted it... Guam. Hawaii.. Puerto Rico..

[visaveteran 1]

but if this is about about comparing countries...the USA has never had a crazed killer leader like Stalin who killed millions of his own people. As to WWII...the Russians murdered 22,000 Polish prisoners of war and now ban any discussion of that fact today. I don't think the USA killed prisoners of war...certainly not 22,000!

Most importantly...we get to vote in our idiot leaders...Russia STILL does not. There is no comparison. No USA leader his ever ordered the slaughter of millions of his own people. With Russia, it's hard to find a leader who has NOT killed many of his own people.

Hmmm, get into a big crowd of people. look to you left. Look to your right. Look in front of you. Look behind you.

See any Native Americans?

The USA and its citizens (not just the military) did genocide upon the native people of this land. Millions of lives lost (very lowest report about 8 million, highest are over 100 million, but still millions either way). Now they sit in 'reservations' and are ignored and put out of mind just as Russia/USSR tried to do with its genocides. And this was over a couple hundred years, under many presidents, who we consider our 'heroes' (look at Andrew Jackson, 'Old Hickory'). The USA just did a better job about it, portraying the natives as savage barbarians who were evil and needed to die and frontier folks as the 'good' side.

We are still breaking current treaties with Native Americans, in which we are supposed to give them health care, etc. Because in the 'big picture' 1 million or so people is a small minority in a nation of 300 million.

And for those who say it was not genocide, because of 'intent'. Exactly... We've warped it so much that the murder of millions of 'our' people was ok and not so bad when compared to others and we make excuses why it wasn't our own people, but nations, blah blah. Propaganda working at its best.

Well, I think we had the Indians Wars and we won. They were armed if I recall..sometimes with our own guns. Perhaps we won in a way that many don't like, but this was in the 1700s and 1800s. The whole world was into colonialism, slavery, and conquest. Hard to find one group not killing off some other group...including the Indians who did a pretty good job lowering the overall Indian population themselves.

We can say it was "their country" but they migrated from elsewhere...I guess they committed genocide against the local animals to to survive...somebody call the animal welfare league.

[mox 298]

I'm pretty far out of my depth when discussing the Native American issue, but it seems to me that what sticks in the craw of most Native Americans the most is that they (meaning multiple Indian nations) made treaties with us, and we broke those treaties over and over again when it suited us. I do agree that it was a different time and that attitudes were different, but I also think it makes the case that even so-called enlightened leaders are capable of some pretty heinous stuff. I'm sort of inclined to agree with slim that these people weren't really seen as "Americans," although I think they weren't really seen as human beings either. And at some point, when they really did become Americans (because we eventually did own the whole damn continent), we still continued to treat them as sub-human. Even nowadays I think we probably treat the Iraqi's better than the Iroquois. (ohhh, see what I did there? )

Edited July 1, 2009 by mox

[Thomas-n-Elena 0]

The most accepted definition of genocide was defined after WW2 by the UN:

...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

( a ) Killing members of the group;

( b ) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

( c ) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

( d ) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

( e ) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The United States is also responsible for Reality Shows and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire. I think there needs to special UN sanctions imposed just for that alone.

My bad I was wrong everyone else is righter than me - this sounds like every argument I have with my wife. sheesh!!

[visaveteran 1]

I'm pretty far out of my depth when discussing the Native American issue, but it seems to me that what sticks in the craw of most Native Americans the most is that they (meaning multiple Indian nations) made treaties with us, and we broke those treaties over and over again when it suited us. I do agree that it was a different time and that attitudes were different, but I also think it makes the case that even so-called enlightened leaders are capable of some pretty heinous stuff. I'm sort of inclined to agree with slim that these people weren't really seen as "Americans," although I think they weren't really seen as human beings either. And at some point, when they really did become Americans (because we eventually did own the whole damn continent), we still continued to treat them as sub-human. Even nowadays I think we probably treat the Iraqi's better than the Iroquois. (ohhh, see what I did there? )

Nice alliteration.

[Thomas-n-Elena 0]

Since then, we've kind of been swatting mosquitoes as they bite us.

I hate getting bitten by mosquitos, but I do like taquitos. umm yum almost as good as gun pie.