International Events 5, "As the World Turns"

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, L'oiseau français said:

We never imported millions of slaves to build our country, we exploited poor immigrants. While the federal government tried to to “solve” the native problem by integrating indigenous people into the country (ie by forbidding the use of languages and customs) at least we didn’t slaughter tens of thousands of them. But on top of that, I didn’t suggest Canada as a role model. Britain and the US fully engaged in the slave trade, the US literally building large parts of the country with slaves and the Brits making fortunes from the trade. 
 

I was not equating their pasts, just pointing out that most countries have origins that don't hold up that well as we become better as a people (assuming we are).

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I just don’t see how you tell countries largely populated by the descendants of slaves or that were exploited by their European “founders” for centuries that they should model their countries after them. Are they supposed to go to the US and Europe, kidnap millions of people and bring them back as slaves to build their countries and amass enormous wealth? Democracies seem to be exclusively for nations that created wealthy societies where learning and study could flourish, where ideas could be put into action. All the leaders of our western democracies came from the middle and upper classes that accumulated wealth through exploitation. 

Of course not, and in fact developing countries should learn from developed countries' mistakes. I think most people who are saying countries should model themselves after places like the U.S. or the U.K. are talking about the structure of their governments (and I would suggest a parliamentary system is the better model if I was starting from scratch). 

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It’s really disturbing to listen to politicians in some of our countries say “if only they had democracy, so that people could start businesses and create wealth!” As if that atmosphere in many Western nations wasn’t created by exploiting the rest of the world.

It was, but that's not a requirement today. What is is those same nations being willing to make financial investments in developing countries. Take Haiti for example. Restructuring their government isn't going to fix all their problems, but it would help given the shambles of the one they have now. However, what they need is money, and it needs to be given in a way that doesn't lead to corruption and theft by the crooks in charge. Cuba is in the same place, albeit far more developed. 

[Winterfell is Burning]

3 hours ago, Ran said:

I cited it as the historian Hugh Thomas suggested perhaps as many as 5,000 had been killed. Of the five relevant estimates the article cites, Thomas and Archivo Cuba are the closest in agreement while The Black Book and Amnesty International are at completely opposite poles while The World Handbook is closer to the former two than the latter two -- hence the "sweet spot".

I can't account for the meaning behind why the Brazil military dictatorship article divides it as it does, but yes, if we assume deaths caused by the actions of the government should be totalled together, that'd be ~8400 as a minimum for Brazil... and anywhere from 16,250 to 117,000 for Cuba, when you add in the wide range of estimates of the deaths of the balseros.

Well, living in Brazil, those roughly 8000 indigenous people are never mentioned as parts of the official toll (at least that I have seen), not even among organizations that opposed the regime.

I'm thinking part of it is lack of information about the subject, part because they were mostly killed not exactly in acts of political repression, but rather because the military government thought development was bulldozing the forests to make roads and other projects, and killed who stood in the way (actively or by omission in treating diseases and such) or at least turned a blind eye when private citizens (mostly landowners) did it.

[TheLastWolf]

Global events in the past 20 months made me go... 

Chaos. Anarchy. Societal collapse. Debt erased. Back to the caves. Balance restored. Nature 

(esp few weeks, last) 

Spoiler

Bliss, but don't tell anybody until it happens 

Sorry for the yodaish bracketed phrase