Filed under: Bureaucracy, Crime, Domestic Policy, History, Italy, Latin America, Politics, South America | Tags: Chicago Mayor Lightfooot, Disappearing Columbus, He Landed in the Bahamas
With all the statues being torn down or defaced, the most popular one to be tackled seems to be Columbus. I’m not sure just what it is about poor old Columbus that creates such ire, but he seems to be especially enticing for the statue-destruction bunch. Chicago just had some pretty violent demonstrations in an attempt to pull the poor old fellow down, and Mayor Lightfoot had it taken down with a crane in the middle of the night.
Columbus haters seem to think that his discovery of the Americas was some sort of predecessor to the slave trade, although the Americas weren’t exactly a pristine paradise before his arrival. I looked up pictures of Columbus statues to see what was so offensive, but he is mostly engaged in pointing!. Land Ho! I assume.
Charles Mann’s book 1491 takes on what the Americas were like before the fated arrival. In 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe. Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capitol had more population than any European capitol of the period. That city had running water, beautiful botanical gardens and immaculately clean streets. Europeans arrived in a hemisphere already massively “landscaped” by human beings. And if you want to talk civilizations, you have to start by defining just what is meant by “civilization”.
I have the impression that Columbus statues were being attacked long before George Floyd was killed, but I have never really understood than animus against Columbus. Italian Americans regard Columbus as one of their heroes, and are apt to turn out to try to protect the statues.
Filed under: Africa, Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Election 2020, England, Freedom, Law, Media Bias, Police, Politics, South America, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: Changing History, Fixing the Civil War, Pelosi's Pandering
Democrats are apparently terrified that Donald Trump might win re-election this fall and subject them to another four years of terror. Their immediate focus concerns the vote of Black Americans. They have already shown that they will kneel in abject humility on the floor of the United States Congress, draped in what they consider to be African apparel to show their plaintive agreement that “Black Lives Matter,”and encourage Blacks to vote for them.
Not enough. Nancy Pelosi is now attempting to demonstrate that Republicans are the “white supremacy” party and Democrats deeply oppose the side of the South in the Civil War of 1861, by removing four portraits of former Speakers of the House who once served in the Confederacy.
Well, it’s a little difficult to blame it all on Republicans when one recalls that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, which became effective on January 1, 1863. The reproduction shown above was from 1864 and is in the Library of Congress.
History is a record of what happened. Sometimes new evidence is discovered that alters our understanding, but in general we’re stuck with the evidence of what really happened. Human nature is not all sweetness and light. We are human beings, some good, some bad and some really dreadful. No saints. Do remember that most families have trouble getting along,
Most of us don’t know enough history. Our public schools are clearly doing a lousy job, and if we have kids, we need to help them to get interested. The general knowledge of history, American history and world history is lacking. Knowing how we screwed up in the past sometimes helps us to avoid doing it again, but we cannot remake the past. What happened, happened.
Slavery was at one time common. Muslims ruled the slave trade in Africa, and marched captured Africans north, and to the Atlantic coast to ship to the Americas. Most of the slave trade went to the sugar islands and South America rather than to the Southern States. American Indians kept slaves. When they warred with another tribe, those captured were kept around to do the scut work, rather than killed when the fight was over. That may be the origin of much of slavery. Britain stamped out the slave trade. They set the Royal Navy to eliminating the Atlantic slave traffic, which they did.
Look at all the changes in society that have made slavery unnecessary, aside from being disgusting, of course. Most of the slave trade in the South was because of the cotton crop which the British needed for their fabric mills, and the South needed for income. Farm work today has become heavily mechanized, though there are some things that still must be picked by hand. Farm equipment is truly astonishing these days, and the elaborate machines are something to behold. And we are just at the beginning of the age of robots and computer printing and there are plenty of enthusiastic applicants for the Space Force. The more we know about our own history, the better it will help us to avoid bad mistakes in the future.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Canada, Capitalism, China, Cuba, Domestic Policy, Economics, Education, Europe, European Union, Islam, Israel, Latin America, Law, National Security, South America, The United States, United Kingdom | Tags: A Government That Works, Between Angry and Bloody, The Americas
Politics. Many of our friendly nations are currently embroiled in politics. Our Democrats are trying for a do-over of the previous election, because they simply cannot get over the fact that they lost the 2016 election to the hated Trump. Just why they hate President Trump so much remains a mystery, because he is doing a remarkable job of getting the economy back on track, which is what we elected him to do.
Canada is not entirely happy with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but he is going to keep his job and form a minority government. His Liberals are again the largest party, but have lost their parliamentary majority.
The British have a Prime Minister in Boris Johnson, but are embroiled in Brexit. From what I can tell, the people want out of the European Union, but the Parliament does not. The battle goes on, and on. Back in 2007, Valery Giscard d’Estaing was writing a Constitution for the European Union, and briefly looked at the American Constitution, but couldn’t handle all those freedoms, and rejected it outright as an example. Unfortunate.
The Israelis are having a crisis of sorts because Prime Minister Netanyahu could not form a government because of the (weird to Americans) way the Israeli government is formed. The Prime Minister gets elected, I think, and then has to create a government by getting all the other parties to agree to what he comes up with, or something like that. We all get accustomed to our own form of government and do not understand any other countries’ politics, which usually is just as complex as ours, and often more so.
South America is a mess, but since we don’t speak their languages, we don’t pay all that much attention. Odd, but I don’t know how many Americans could name the countries of South America on an unlabeled map. And of course, we always call ourselves “Americans” which undoubtedly annoys the citizens of Central and South, who are just as much “Americans” as we are.
Hong Kong and China are getting bloody. China is Communist, which works only for those at the top, and until they are overthrown. We have enough world history about what works and what does not to teach us all – how to go about doing government. The most passionate are always the least-informed, and sure that they have a better idea.
Apparently our colleges and universities are graduating a new class, sure that the answer to the problem of the rich is Socialism or Communism. They are, of course, tutored by professors who discover that there are successful entrepreneurs who without the qualification of a PhD in something or other receive enormous salaries and benefits for keeping a corporation healthy and thriving. No Fair! If you wondered why a college education costs so much today, there you go.
President Trump is beginning to move governmental agencies out of the “swamp” and closer to the people they are supposed to be serving. Thus the Farm Bureau is moving to farming country which is excellent, but those who are being moved from cosmopolitan D.C. to farm country are not happy. I think it’s a great idea.
Filed under: Brazil, Bureaucracy, Global Warming, Junk Science, Politics, Science/Technology, South America | Tags: A Report on Climate, Environmentalists, The Amazon
The panicky people are claiming that the Amazon rainforest is on fire, “the lungs of the planet” are burning,— except that they don’t know what they are talking about. NASA has explained that the current fires in the Amazon are close to normal, but a little below — compared to the past 15 years. The fires are on land adjacent to the rainforest that has already been cleared for agricultural use. They were not caused by climate change. And started purposely by humans to burn off stubble. You can relax, The planet’s lungs are just fine.
American Elephants 