“They saw their injured country's woe;
The flaming town, the wasted field;
Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear, - but left the shield.”
―Philip Freneau
.
And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again?
Archilochus
There can be no doubt that the White Man's invasion of the Western Hemisphere has had tragic, far reaching, unforeseen consequences. The same is true for our ever having brought African NEGROES to these shores as captives forced to work against their will.
Whether or not these undeniably sad, unflattering facts prove that "our" Presence here was ill-founded, and therefore, illegitimate, or whether the remarkable bravery, triumph over adversity, and brilliant accomplishments made possible by the Explorers and the White Men who followed them –– particularly te BRITISH –– have been enough to obviate, and compensate for the initial cruelty and injustice perptrated by White Men in the post-Colombian Era is still a matter of considerable controversy.
The side you take on all of that depends entirely on whether you are a self-righteous, meddlesome DO-GOODERr, or a self-rightous, illtempered, rage addicted LEFTIST malcontent always eager to dig up dead horses and try to flog them back to life in order to make trouble and help yourself wrest political power from the presnt Establishment through GUILT and INTIMIDATION, - OR - whether you are a successful, productive, realistic, sanguine, cheerfully optimistic rich or middle-class white person who has taken whatever cards have been dealt to him and made the most of whatever opportunities came his way.
The Past has aways been filled with Pain, Terror, Stupidity, Tragedy and Injustice, but "WE" have not been given the power to go back in time to CORRECT past mistakes, and REWRITE history.
Any attempt to do so is fated to produce needless conflict, often violent, that only exacerbates and compounds past agonies by atempting to bring them back to lile.
Invariably this has had a depressing, destabilizing, degenerative, counter-productive effect on society that STYMIES true Progress a it EXPANDS Pain and Suffering to unprecedented levels.
A cursory glance at the hideous events that dominated the twentieth century affords anple proof of that.
Who attacked who? That's all I have to say about it. If it hadn't been the British, it would have been the Iroquois or Huron or Susquahannock, eventually.
2 comments:
There can be no doubt that the White Man's invasion of the Western Hemisphere has had tragic, far reaching, unforeseen consequences. The same is true for our ever having brought African NEGROES to these shores as captives forced to work against their will.
Whether or not these undeniably sad, unflattering facts prove that "our" Presence here was ill-founded, and therefore, illegitimate, or whether the remarkable bravery, triumph over adversity, and brilliant accomplishments made possible by the Explorers and the White Men who followed them –– particularly te BRITISH –– have been enough to obviate, and compensate for the initial cruelty and injustice perptrated by White Men in the post-Colombian Era is still a matter of considerable controversy.
The side you take on all of that depends entirely on whether you are a self-righteous, meddlesome DO-GOODERr, or a self-rightous, illtempered, rage addicted LEFTIST malcontent always eager to dig up dead horses and try to flog them back to life in order to make trouble and help yourself wrest political power from the presnt Establishment through GUILT and INTIMIDATION, - OR - whether you are a successful, productive, realistic, sanguine, cheerfully optimistic rich or middle-class white person who has taken whatever cards have been dealt to him and made the most of whatever opportunities came his way.
The Past has aways been filled with Pain, Terror, Stupidity, Tragedy and Injustice, but "WE" have not been given the power to go back in time to CORRECT past mistakes, and REWRITE history.
Any attempt to do so is fated to produce needless conflict, often violent, that only exacerbates and compounds past agonies by atempting to bring them back to lile.
Invariably this has had a depressing, destabilizing, degenerative, counter-productive effect on society that STYMIES true Progress a it EXPANDS Pain and Suffering to unprecedented levels.
A cursory glance at the hideous events that dominated the twentieth century affords anple proof of that.
Who attacked who? That's all I have to say about it. If it hadn't been the British, it would have been the Iroquois or Huron or Susquahannock, eventually.
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