The language of Spain was Spanish until a while ago. They used to enforce this with violence. They still host the Royal Academy.
Technically, most of the deaths were entirely by accident. As opposed to say, the Spanish Conquistadors.
Not that we didn’t do our part, we did, but… well, people weren’t so thick on the ground as all that.
Not that we didn’t do our part, we did, but… well, people weren’t so thick on the ground as all that. Of course, by nature, I’m pretty much on the other side of anything Ward Churchill supports, he tends to make up shit.
On the other, other hand, my family appears to be beneficiaries of the Pequot wars, having come in following Increase Mather. (And other ancestors were involved directly.) And that was pretty much genocide there.
(ran out of edit time)
So, what is the language of Spain, now?
And France? Britain?
That’s simply not true, you’re simply ignorant of the history of the US. There are countless example of ethnic hatred in fairly recent US history. As well as the more publicised antagonism towards African Americans, there was plenty of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholic feeling too. Outside the south (where at one point it had quite a following) the KKK was as much about anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish persecution as it was about persecution of African Americans.
Ethnic purity? Are you actually joking? Do you realise that all of Europe is joined together, and that most of us are ethnically more interlinked than separate? There’s pretty much no such thing as a pure-bred native anything. Take Britain. We don’t need to go back into the dim and distant past to see the Romans, who were from everywhere by the time they got to Britain; the Angles, the Saxons, the Vikings, the Normans, etc. That’s too long ago for you? (Just a minute ago you were complaining that someone was mentioning things that were too recent, so I wouldn’t put it past you.) OK - mass immigration from Ireland, France, Spain, etc. We’ve had black people here for hundreds of years, and they weren’t slaves at the beginning, nor did we hang on to the barbarism as long as you did, but being recent, you’ve got what’s commonly referred to as the Windrush emigrations. Looking more specifically at World War II, huge numbers of people from all over Europe fled to Britain, including, horror of horrors for you, thousands of Jews.
Why have I concentrated on Britain? Well, it’s an island, which is more than you can say for mainland Europe. If the people of those islands are such a mongrel-mix, do you really imagine that there’s much of a concept of “ethnic purity” in countries with land borders? Even Hitler knew that; he wanted to create a Greater Germany to take in all the ethnically German people who were living in other areas.
I have to go, but you’re not making yourself sound any less racist today than you did yesterday.
“Racist” is tossed around at the drop of the hat these days. We should save it for situations where it makes sense – speaking negatively of certain aspects of European history is not being racist.
We don’t need to find examples of outright genocide to demonstrate the European pursuit of ethnic purity. We can also turn to solutions that were used to prevent killing – like the massive forced exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey.
Of course Europe is ethnically diverse. This explains the continent’s constant attempts at homicide, suicide and genocide. Do you think it is some sort of accidents that three global conflict all arose from European conflicts? Compare that to the same period in American history. One big war, and that we fought to free an ethnic group.
Certainly there is no such thing as a pure-bred anything. We know this from the long European search for such roots.
The comparison between American racism and European ethnic warfare fails when one looks at the sheer scale. Consider the nations of the EU. Their current populations are about the same as the current US population. IF we count the number of crazed ethnicly-based killers who have risen to state or national leadership since say 1700 in the US we have a list including:
Huey Long
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Johnson
James Buchanan
and bunch of forgotten state governors
Need I even bother to list their European counterparts? Not one American even measures up to Leopold I.
The scale of the two phenomena are shockingly different. The OP asks for an explanation of why. I have offered my observation. I would value the opinions of others that can in fact explain the bloody nature of the Europeans.
Speaking negatively of one group of people while simultaneously denying the fact that another group of people did the same things, and congratulating them on not doing it, is in my opinion an example of racism. **Paul **is making assertions and generalisations about Europeans as a group, not all of which are accurate. He is also making assertions and generalisations about Americans, not all of which are accurate. However the balance of his favour is entirely coming down towards Americans. For your information, racism is not a word I “toss around at the drop of a hat”. To be strictly fair, perhaps my use of xenophobic yesterday was more accurate, since neither Europe nor America are of a single ethnicity. However I contend that there is a real prejudice there, and since **Paul **is basing it on continental… not even origin, since most people in America are at least partly of European origin… so… residence, rather than nationality, I think racism kind of does fit.
But of course the word has plain meaning. That meaning does not apply here. Still I do appreciate you opinion, unsupported as it is by facts.
So tell us, why did the pre-war Europeans hate the Jews?
Plus all the ones you fought to wipe out an ethnic group, and the one you fought to capture a bunch of territory from a culturally different neighbor, and the various pogroms against religous and ethnic groups.
Yeah no one in recent American history could comprehend of being anti-semitic, particularly no one in power, its an entirely European affliction :rolleyes:
This guy? What did he ever do to anyone?
Because they have big noses and smell funny.
Mrs. Plant does not smell funny!
I’m not saying that the British were more overly concerned with their social strata than Americans. I’m just saying that in the United States bloodlines (in of of itself) has absolutely nothing to do with class. Money and education are really the only things that matter in the States and while it is a tougher row to hoe, poor children can grow up to be in the highest rungs of society.
On the other side, up until relatively recently the House of Lords was entirely based on bloodlines and I believe still is at least to some degree. Would an Earl really accept someone as their social equal just because they had money or education? Didn’t work out so well for King Ralph as I recall. Imagine had he been Jewish 
Progroms happening in Russia because the Regime found them useful are not the same level as the Dreyfuss affair in France; in fact, part of the shock of the Dreyfuss affair was that until that point, Jews had considered France to be one of the most liberal and enlightened countries in Europe towards them.
Again, if you are honestly trying to understand this, then the timeline is very roughly:
in the Middle Ages, Jews were outside society in most of Europe because of the different laws and customs (which, as explained above, was a nasty self-perpetuating circle)
During enlightment and forming of nation states, in the 18th and 19th century, Jews in Western Europe acclimisated and adapted. Russia and Eastern states were “backward” and not comparable or representative during that time.
Becaus science was on the rise and religion on the wane, scientific race reasons were found to justify anti-semitism, which points that it was already declining.
The Holocaust was, again, a state-sponsored campagin whose true extent was hidden from - because not shared - the general population, done with the explicit help of a comparable minority of SS, and helped with propaganda.
For example, the Nazis used to show the movie “Jud Süss” in villages right before a raid for free. At that time, people didn’t have TV, so a free movie, the cinema would be packed. And Jud Süss is propaganda of the worst, but technically finest, sort. It claims to be based on the true historical portrait of the Jew Süss, who was financial advisor to a weak lord. In the movie, Süss is the sinister figure pulling all the ropes to pass laws to suck the peasants money till they collapse to enrich himself, and then corrupts the fair german daughter of some guy, dishonors her, and she goes into the water of shame. Historically, it’s compleltly false, but people didn’t know that.
The Nazis did that becasue they saw that simply showing up in a village with a big truck to cart the jews away, the people would refuse and not aid, so they had to make a terrible lie of a movie to make people more enthusiastic.
Like a PR company fabricating a lie about soldiers throwing babys out of their incubators at a hospital to make a country more inclined to start a war, if you remember that.
People aren’t denying that the Holocaust happend. The problem is that you seem to be thinking it only could happen in Europe, because they are different. That’s the big danger; that’s why the saying that fascism in America will come wrapped in the American flag of patriotism. If you believe that your nation or country couldn’t make the same mistake, then you will pay the price of repeatin history.
Did you ever read the book “The wave”? That was in America.
You misunderstand or have wrong knowledge of European history. Until the 18th and 19th century, there was no nationalism as we understand it today. Germans fought against Spanish or French because the ruling houses were fighting against each other. The 30 years war wasn’t about Catholics against Protestants, that was just the offical reason given, it was for domination.
Again, until recently, people didn’t define themselves that way. They were loyal subjects of King X or Duke Y and belonged to one big church.
The dominant religion of Spain is shared by Italy and Poland and other countries. Many countries are of mixed religion. Cuisine is shared when a large batch of people immigrates. A large group of French Hugenottes went to Prussia after religious persecution, because Friederich the Great was an atheist ready to welcome educated craftsmen with open arms.
Later, a bunch of polish miners came to Germany to work in the mining and smelting industry of the Ruhr region. There are still their 3rd and 4th generation descendants living there today.
If anything, Europeans are aware of how little national borders mean, because every 100 or 50 years, depending on the outcome of some war, they are redrawn, and the luck of the draw determines on which side of the border you end up on. In many cases, dislocation because of war has brought couples from different regions together in the first place, who might not have met and started a family otherwise.
English, spoken badly. Hamburger and fries with coke. TV soap opera. Christian with varying degree of fundamentalism. Badly, jeans with T-shirt or Hawaii shirt with shorts.
What??? Most Europeans are far more secular and relaxed about church than Americans! In many countries we don’t pray in school or parliament, we don’t know which church our politicans belong to. But in America, the fundies make people vote against gay marriage.
Sweden has a blood-soaked history because of ethnics? That must be a surprise to the Swedes.
So how do you explain the hatred Americans have today against blacks, wetbacks/Hispanics and native americans? Or do you simply deny them?
Thank you for taking the time to reply.
As you said, until recently there was no nationalism as we now understand it. You say people identified with the local lord. I propose they identified with their language, culture and so on. Which do you think is more likely?
I am fascinated that your understanding of the causes of the Thirty Years’ War is deeper and more insightful than the people actually there at the time. Please explain how you have come by this knowledge hidden for so long.
den, you know the Swedish Empire. The ones who ruled the Finns and Norwegians. The fellows who invaded Germany. I suppose your way of looking at it is that the Swedes showed how cosmopolitan they were by ruling people not of their culture. Would you make the same case for the Germans or Soviets?
While appreciate your last paragraph comparing the slaughter of millions of Europeans to the murder of tens of thousands of Americans. DO you realize how close you are coming to Holocaust denial? Though you say, “People are not denying the Holocaust happened,” but you do seem to indicate it was not a special event even in European history. Shame on you.
American history is notable for the small scale of its ethnic hatred and it low body count. Find me an event in American history as violent as the Belgian occupation of Congo, or the Thirty Years War, or WWII, or the relocation of Germans after WWII. I admit we might have sometimes come up to the level of Srebrenica, where eight thousand were killed in a spasm. “Might,” because I challenge you to find a similar orgasm of killing of ethnics in American history.
Finally, while I understand the use of racial epithets may be common amongst some people, I do not welcome them.
Gosh darn fingers! That paragragh ought to read,
*While appreciate your last paragraph comparing the slaughter of millions of Europeans to the murder of tens of thousands of Americans. DO you realize how close you are coming to Holocaust denial? Though you say, “People are not denying the Holocaust happened,” but you do seem to indicate it was a special event even in European history. Shame on you. *
That is to say deleting the second “not” in the next-to-last sentence.
In the UK we also have a proud tradition of persecuting Catholics, including massacres which with the machinery of Nazi Germany could well have ended as total extermnination.
Paul in Qatar, you do know that Swiss history is absolutely peppered with civil wars between the cantons, right? The last in 1847.
Plus before banking, the Swiss made a good living fighting in everyone else’s wars. Ask the Pope.