🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Apr10.214732.9204@techbook.com> gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane) writes:
>   Whoa!  You can't be serious with this exculpation of the US territorial
>   acquisitions.  You haven't mentioned the indigenous people -- you
>   remember -- the Indians?  There isn't a single inch of American
>   territory that wasn't stolen -- by force or deceit -- from the previous
>   inhabitants.
Please remember that my comments were in reply to a claim that the US
was formed in much the same way as Israel, a claim which you do not
discuss at all.  Your comments are thus pretty much out of scope.

Your view ignores the fact that the stealing was done by the European
colonial powers, not the US.  The stealing was done well before 1776
(much of it centuries before...).  How can you blame the US government
for that?

>   Not to mention your distortions of the Revolutionary War,
>   which certainly had "terroristic" elements.
Name some please.

>   You also managed to miss
>   mention our "peaceful" acquisition of California, New Mexico, Arizon and
>   Florida.
CA and most of NM and AZ were taken by the US by force of military
arms from Mexico in 1846-48.  The US pretty much conquored Mexico and
kept the pieces it wanted.  Southern NM and AZ were bought
peacefully from Mexico in 1854.  Most of FL was bought from the
Spanish in 1821, after we took it anyway in 1818.

Still, overall, most of the territory of the US was not given to us by
an international organization in the wake of an administering
authority backing out under the pressure of terrorists, and conquered
in an ensuing war.  That is how Israel was formed, and is not at all
how the US was formed.

>   You might also take a look at US imperialism -- take a good
>   look at the article in the most recent Atlantic written by Mark Twain
>   around the turn of the century in reference to US behavior in the
>   Philippines.  READ SOME HISTORY!  US behavior is no better -- in some
>   cases maybe worse -- than the Israeli, and not just two hundred years
>   ago: read something about the US gov. and the American Indian Movement
>   or the Black Panthers.  Read about the civil rights movement.

Notice please that the Philippines were given independence in 1946.
Now please explain what the Black Panthers have to do with territorial
imperialism.
--
=Jim  jime%atc.ll.mit.edu (Jim Eggert)