The PC and Perpetually Offended Brigade

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

A shining example of that point is Rwanda. With the mineral wealth of that country the citizens should be living lives of absolute excess. They don't. The minerals (tungsten in particular) get smuggled out. Sold on the black market and the money used for assault rifles.

Rwanda is, above all, a shining example of a country where colonial nations (in this case the Belgians and French) did everything they possibly could over the course of decades and decades, up and into the 90s at least, to ensure that the indigenous peoples were as divided amongst themselves as humanly possible, and thereby easy to manipulate and exploit, even following nominal granting of "independence." All of the Françafrique countries are corrupt as fuck, and they are kept corrupt intentionally by private and state level French interests.

My original point was that in an entire continent there are no better systems then the western one yet. White ideas being exclusively bad is absolute nonsense that doesn't bear out anywhere.

What you're missing in your equation, overwhelmingly, is that "the western system" succeeded on a large scale only because of, initially, the rape and pillage of Africa, America, and Asia's resources, and then the ongoing subduing and exploitation of its peoples. Our comfortable western system still leans on the endorsement of corruption and effective workforce slavery in underdeveloped nations. This globe just ain't big enough for everyone to play at that game! Depending, subjectively of course, on the terms you choose, the case is pretty strong for saying that the "western system" is the worst one yet. For example, if you take overall human suffering and ecological destruction as criteria, rather than our own local human comfort level and material wealth.

Has there ever been a worse system for the planet than the western one? That's the question you should maybe prioritize.

[hellfire]

Communism and Nazism were the two worst systems of governance I'm aware of. Still most religious rule would shit on those.  Implying that African, Asian or any other countries can't recover from colonialism is nonsense. You seem to expect less of them, I don't. English people pillaged this place for centuries, I still live in one of the most fortuitous times and places in human history. Rwanda will be a horrid place to live until it changes. 

The point remains. What wonderful wellspring of ideas can we tap into from else where? There is none.

[astfgyl]

Why didn't the Africans get it together and pillage Europe with their superior civilisations over the years?

They've been around longer so is it that they didn't do as well with advancing their own civilisation and missed out on the subjugation of the entire continents of Europe, Asia and America and even Australia due to their superiority of character and better alternatives to the western system ? Maybe so..

The best and fairest systems have never really won out in history so it's not a massive leap to imagine the Africans,  Asians or Americans might have had something a bit less spiritually bereft up their sleeves, given time and a lack of white people.

Was reading a good bit about the aborigines lately and they had it pretty good for 20 thousand years or so before they got westernised, so it's not a crazy notion. Lucky fuckers didn't even have times or dates for the most part and wrote their history through songs, which, let's be fair, are at least as reliable a record as all of the thousands of years of written history that we have access to.

I guess then, alternatively, some can't make their rent this week and whitey's on the moon (or Mars, to keep it current), so was the western system such a bad thing after all? I guess it depends upon whether one can make the rent this week or not.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Implying that African, Asian or any other countries can't recover from colonialism is nonsense. You seem to expect less of them, I don't.

All I'm implying is that it is exceedingly difficult to recover from colonialism for as long as the prior colonizers are doing their level best to maintain control of your resources, all the while stoking and fueling internal armed combat, and exerting massive power over who is in power. Nothing comparable happened to Ireland, beyond the Civil War that is.

[Kurt Cocaine]

Implying that African, Asian or any other countries can't recover from colonialism is nonsense. You seem to expect less of them, I don't.

All I'm implying is that it is exceedingly difficult to recover from colonialism for as long as the prior colonizers are doing their level best to maintain control of your resources, all the while stoking and fueling internal armed combat, and exerting massive power over who is in power.

Hello, 1845-1852 calling..... (amongst other things)....

[Caomhaoin]

The native Americans were highly divided before any decisive European intervention in their affairs, and their behaviour during the 7 years war was in many instances highly opportunistic and their treatment of surrendering soldiers on the opposing side to whichever one they were allied to was, well, unpleasant to say the least.

Yeah but they were ecologically aware and had dream catchers and cool names.

It's not to justify what happened to them. They were a comparably primitive group of societies who happened  to get 'discovered' and 'pacified' by a more advanced one at a time when might was right, and the jingo drum could be beaten in public without hyperbole.

[hellfire]

Implying that African, Asian or any other countries can't recover from colonialism is nonsense. You seem to expect less of them, I don't.

All I'm implying is that it is exceedingly difficult to recover from colonialism for as long as the prior colonizers are doing their level best to maintain control of your resources, all the while stoking and fueling internal armed combat, and exerting massive power over who is in power. Nothing comparable happened to Ireland, beyond the Civil War that is.

They can't even have an internal conflict without those pesky European's. In order to berate European style governance you need to infantalise other cultures and declare them incapable of change.

Moving on from Africa,  the middle east, an extremely wealthy hellhole.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

They can't even have an internal conflict without those pesky European's. In order to berate European style governance you need to infantalise other cultures and declare them incapable of change.

Moving on from Africa,  the middle east, an extremely wealthy hellhole.

How is pointing out that countries like France armed even child militias to the teeth "infantalizing" other cultures? What do you think might have happened in Ireland if Britain had started arming gangs in the city centres to a higher level than the state army? The tools for change in Africa and the Middle East have been systematically and intentionally sabotaged by "the western system" arming up anyone who will get rid of any regime that is pesky to them, where pesky in short means "likely to take back autonomous control of resources". Look indeed at the Middle East, but preferably through the lens of a genuine history book.

[hellfire]

  you're still implying that they are so fundamentally uncivilised that they have no control over their own actions. If the French gave Belgians tons of firearms would they descended into civil war?

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

you're still implying that they are so fundamentally uncivilised

Well, hence my reference to city centre gangs already involved in violence at their own limited scale, France, Britain, the US, etc., have had a wilful knack of arming up specifically chosen uncivilized sorts with a track record for heinous crimes...child militias, for example. One would have to be exercising enormous bad faith, which you are, to imagine that any of the conflict that has torn apart these nations is a reflection on "them" where "them" is the population of a given country as a whole.

[hellfire]

The original point remains and youve done nothing to challenge it. In order to carry your point (I assume you have one?) you need to fully commit to the racism of lesser expectations. Most political discussions with you carry on in the same way. Present a nonsensical argument, pick on an irrelevant detail, get proven right or wrong on that detail and then move on to more nonsense.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I see. Man behind computer decides the political history that many have made entire careers out of studying and disentangling is "nonsense" because he has come across the expression "racism of lesser expectations" somewhere. Far out man.

[Kurt Cocaine]

Racism isn't real. It doesn't exist.

IT'S JUST AN IDEA

[hellfire]

I see. Man behind computer decides the political history that many have made entire careers out of studying and disentangling is "nonsense" because he has come across the expression "racism of lesser expectations" somewhere. Far out man.

Professional shit talker attempts to devolve everything he doesn't like into esoteric horseshit.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I really can't do anything about you taking history to be esoteric horseshit. It's pretty far out though.