This is a lazy and simplistic worldview. Every single square mile of land has been colonized, conquered, re-conquered, and conquered again. In other words, every culture has been both colonizer and colonized. Human migration has been occurring since time immemorial, and human migration generally means displacing whomever was there before. It is often a chain reaction, where one migration causes another, causes another, ad infinitum throigh history. In the most dramatic situations we sometimes label it genocide, but usually it’s more of a slow blending of cultures (and genes) over time.
carrying water for colonialism even though you probably don’t even benefit from it. why do people act like this. like conservative working class people who keep voting for tax cuts for the rich, as though they are “temporarily inconvenienced millionaires”.
Look at the result of the US election and tell me why you think it is beneficial to promulgate this simplistic colonizer/colonized, oppressor/oppressed narrative. It is no longer useful. Identity politics has become the new McCarthyism of the left. I am on the left, and I want us to extract our heads from our collective asses and start talking about things that matter to non-indoctrinated people.
I genuinely don’t see what one has to do with another. Colonialism is an expression of capitalism. It’s the same shit, it’s just a way of describing a slightly different colour of shit. Canada was created to DO colonialism: to extract value from natural and human resources in this geographical area, and transfer that value to private/corporate ownership. Our government was created and to this day fundamentally exists to facilitate that transfer. It’s not even about First Nations anymore. We are all being exploited. Your white guilt is preventing you from seeing the reality you live in. This isn’t about turning you into a boogeyman, it’s about liberating ALL OF US.
Why do you want to just pretend it isn’t a thing? Why do you stoop to defend it? You don’t bother explaining that.
We live in a capitalist society in the West and it has delivered spectacular benefits to most of us, more so than any other economic model that’s been tried.The fundamental problem at the moment isn’t “colonialism”, it is that the balance of power in our capitalist society has shifted over time to benefit the rich more than the middle and bottom of the economic spectrum. From WW2 until about 1975, we had a pretty good balance, but real wage growth stalled after that. How do we fix that? By whinging about colonialism (in 2024!?!) and engaging in worthless and destructive zero-sum oppressor/oppressed victimhood identity politics? Fuck no. We need to shift the political balance in economics to something more reasonable. We need Bernie Sanders-type practical working class socialism, not academic champagne socialism that is obsessed with language policing and fantasy-based kumbaya communism.
When Germanic tribes invaded the Roman Empire because they were pushed West by the Mongols, were they the bad guys? When the Romans killed Germanic peoples to prevent them crossing the border, were the Romans the good guys? When illegal immigrants cross the US border in their literal millions to escape the poverty and oppression of central America, are they the bad guys? When the Anishnawbec tribes invaded the territory of the Sioux and expelled them because they were pushed West by the Algonquin, were they the bad guys? The Inuit killed the Dene who were encroaching on their territory because of starvation, were they the bad guys or were the Dene the bad guys? When Hannibal invaded Rome and killed thousands of Italians over several years and attempted to genocide Rome, was he the bad guy, or was Rome the bad guy when they subsequently invaded Carthage and ended the war once and for all? Who were more evil, the Arabs who bought Afrcian slaves, or the African tribes who kidnapped their own people and sold them to the Arabs? History is a series of actions and reactions, not a set of good guys and bad guys.
You are really calling mass illegal migration colonization? The only example of colonization you provided in Carthage vs roman and both was the bad guy because they was imperial powers fighting each other and it was Roman who ended up genociding Carthage in the 3rd punic war. I don’t compare evils, evil is evil no matter who is doing
Sure. How do you imagine colonization actually happens? It is rarely a bunch of conquistadors invading and defeating the local population and then genociding them. It is almost always a long process of migration, perhaps punctuated by conflict and perhaps not. The Greeks founded colonies all over the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, some of which exist to this day. Not every colony becomes an overwhelming nation state. When various Germanic tribes invaded Rome at various times, they came and settled on Roman territory in their own little colonies, sometimes with authorization and sometimes not. When the first Europeans came to North America, they set up tiny little agricultural colonies and mostly had a peaceful (if awkward) coexistence with the local native tribes.
Over time, though, the power balance may change and then the colonists may start to demand more control. If the original and the invading cultures aren’t compatible, or if resources are scarce, they may end up at war with each other. What you think of as “colonization” is the most extreme form where one side is so technologically superior and aggressive that the original inhabitants simply have no chance. The weaker culture is subsumed and perhaps even destroyed by the stronger one. But it rarely starts out that way. Colonization is a spectrum from small colonies within a larger dominant culture to extreme cases where the colonizing culture completely displaces the existing inhabitants, and everything in between.
So, is it really as simple as good guys and bad guys? If you think so, think about it some more with a more objective and less doctrinaire lens.
The Germanic tribes didn’t impose their culture and laws and didn’t try to expulse the locals of that time. In opposition of European who tricked the native by looking friendly at first when the goal from the beginning was to take full control on their land. Same with the zionists who was pretty clear about their intentions. If I had a doctrinaire view, I wouldn’t admit Arabs evilness when they sold slaves as an Arab, i wouldn’t call Carthage an imperial power as a Tunisian.
Sorry, good guys don’t shoot schoolgirls in the back, and then in the head while she lays dying, and then get promoted. There are no good guys in this conflict - both sides suck ass.
Not judging the entire country. I’m judging the military and the government.
That’s one example of thousands. Good guys don’t blow up schools, or hospitals. Good guys don’t assassinate journalists. Good guys don’t punish an entire region for the acts of a terrorist.
Like I said, both sides suck. I wish my tax dollars weren’t paying for the IDFs atrocities.
Don’t lose sight of who the bad guys are here.
I’m more concerned with finding a good guy.
They can be found in the rubble of the hospitals that Isreal bombed.
This isn’t a game or movie there are not bad and good guys. Both sides are right and wrong for different reasons.
The colonizer is the bad guy and the colonized in the good guy. It’s that simple
Are you a colonizer too? Unless you’re 100% First Nations (you aren’t) then you are by your own logic a colonizer and doing harm.
Even if they are 100% First Nations, their ancestors were also colonizers. First Nations tribes warred and displaced one another regularly.
May ancestors yes not people of my current country. Nobody is responsible of their ancestors wrong doing
This is a lazy and simplistic worldview. Every single square mile of land has been colonized, conquered, re-conquered, and conquered again. In other words, every culture has been both colonizer and colonized. Human migration has been occurring since time immemorial, and human migration generally means displacing whomever was there before. It is often a chain reaction, where one migration causes another, causes another, ad infinitum throigh history. In the most dramatic situations we sometimes label it genocide, but usually it’s more of a slow blending of cultures (and genes) over time.
carrying water for colonialism even though you probably don’t even benefit from it. why do people act like this. like conservative working class people who keep voting for tax cuts for the rich, as though they are “temporarily inconvenienced millionaires”.
Look at the result of the US election and tell me why you think it is beneficial to promulgate this simplistic colonizer/colonized, oppressor/oppressed narrative. It is no longer useful. Identity politics has become the new McCarthyism of the left. I am on the left, and I want us to extract our heads from our collective asses and start talking about things that matter to non-indoctrinated people.
I genuinely don’t see what one has to do with another. Colonialism is an expression of capitalism. It’s the same shit, it’s just a way of describing a slightly different colour of shit. Canada was created to DO colonialism: to extract value from natural and human resources in this geographical area, and transfer that value to private/corporate ownership. Our government was created and to this day fundamentally exists to facilitate that transfer. It’s not even about First Nations anymore. We are all being exploited. Your white guilt is preventing you from seeing the reality you live in. This isn’t about turning you into a boogeyman, it’s about liberating ALL OF US.
Why do you want to just pretend it isn’t a thing? Why do you stoop to defend it? You don’t bother explaining that.
We live in a capitalist society in the West and it has delivered spectacular benefits to most of us, more so than any other economic model that’s been tried.The fundamental problem at the moment isn’t “colonialism”, it is that the balance of power in our capitalist society has shifted over time to benefit the rich more than the middle and bottom of the economic spectrum. From WW2 until about 1975, we had a pretty good balance, but real wage growth stalled after that. How do we fix that? By whinging about colonialism (in 2024!?!) and engaging in worthless and destructive zero-sum oppressor/oppressed victimhood identity politics? Fuck no. We need to shift the political balance in economics to something more reasonable. We need Bernie Sanders-type practical working class socialism, not academic champagne socialism that is obsessed with language policing and fantasy-based kumbaya communism.
This does not contradict what I said. When we was the occupied we was the good guy and when we were the occupied we became the bad guy
When Germanic tribes invaded the Roman Empire because they were pushed West by the Mongols, were they the bad guys? When the Romans killed Germanic peoples to prevent them crossing the border, were the Romans the good guys? When illegal immigrants cross the US border in their literal millions to escape the poverty and oppression of central America, are they the bad guys? When the Anishnawbec tribes invaded the territory of the Sioux and expelled them because they were pushed West by the Algonquin, were they the bad guys? The Inuit killed the Dene who were encroaching on their territory because of starvation, were they the bad guys or were the Dene the bad guys? When Hannibal invaded Rome and killed thousands of Italians over several years and attempted to genocide Rome, was he the bad guy, or was Rome the bad guy when they subsequently invaded Carthage and ended the war once and for all? Who were more evil, the Arabs who bought Afrcian slaves, or the African tribes who kidnapped their own people and sold them to the Arabs? History is a series of actions and reactions, not a set of good guys and bad guys.
You are really calling mass illegal migration colonization? The only example of colonization you provided in Carthage vs roman and both was the bad guy because they was imperial powers fighting each other and it was Roman who ended up genociding Carthage in the 3rd punic war. I don’t compare evils, evil is evil no matter who is doing
Sure. How do you imagine colonization actually happens? It is rarely a bunch of conquistadors invading and defeating the local population and then genociding them. It is almost always a long process of migration, perhaps punctuated by conflict and perhaps not. The Greeks founded colonies all over the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, some of which exist to this day. Not every colony becomes an overwhelming nation state. When various Germanic tribes invaded Rome at various times, they came and settled on Roman territory in their own little colonies, sometimes with authorization and sometimes not. When the first Europeans came to North America, they set up tiny little agricultural colonies and mostly had a peaceful (if awkward) coexistence with the local native tribes.
Over time, though, the power balance may change and then the colonists may start to demand more control. If the original and the invading cultures aren’t compatible, or if resources are scarce, they may end up at war with each other. What you think of as “colonization” is the most extreme form where one side is so technologically superior and aggressive that the original inhabitants simply have no chance. The weaker culture is subsumed and perhaps even destroyed by the stronger one. But it rarely starts out that way. Colonization is a spectrum from small colonies within a larger dominant culture to extreme cases where the colonizing culture completely displaces the existing inhabitants, and everything in between.
So, is it really as simple as good guys and bad guys? If you think so, think about it some more with a more objective and less doctrinaire lens.
The Germanic tribes didn’t impose their culture and laws and didn’t try to expulse the locals of that time. In opposition of European who tricked the native by looking friendly at first when the goal from the beginning was to take full control on their land. Same with the zionists who was pretty clear about their intentions. If I had a doctrinaire view, I wouldn’t admit Arabs evilness when they sold slaves as an Arab, i wouldn’t call Carthage an imperial power as a Tunisian.
It’s rare, but every now and then I find a voice of reason on this website. Thank you.
And thank you
In one single sentence you summed up everything wrong with the left and their perspective on Israel (not to mention the entire world).
No. The inability to accept that genocidal Islamist terrorists are bad guys shows just how morally confused the left is.
Sorry, good guys don’t shoot schoolgirls in the back, and then in the head while she lays dying, and then get promoted. There are no good guys in this conflict - both sides suck ass.
Yeah, let’s judge an entire country by one alleged incident. Guess what that’s called?
Not judging the entire country. I’m judging the military and the government.
That’s one example of thousands. Good guys don’t blow up schools, or hospitals. Good guys don’t assassinate journalists. Good guys don’t punish an entire region for the acts of a terrorist.
Like I said, both sides suck. I wish my tax dollars weren’t paying for the IDFs atrocities.
But you’re okay with your tax dollars funding Hamas terror tunnels and luxury homes while civilians live in poverty and suffer the brunt of the war.
Good people can do bad things. I know that’s a hard nuance to grasp.
Removed by mod
Nice strawman.
This isn’t a one side OR the other is shitty. This is both sides suck. I don’t want my tax dollars going to fund either.
I’d be OK if my tax dollars went to rebuilding some of the schools and hospitals the IDF bombed, and for providing food to starving civilians, tho.
Frankly, the way Isreal is behaving, it’s like they /want/ some nutter with a nuke to glaze over Juruselem. Imho, sadly, it’s just a matter of time.
Yeah, you sound really broken up over the possibility of someone nuking Jerusalem