The latest anti-liberal rant thread (get your daily dose here)

[conon394]

Westerners would be still ing kids like the Greeks did.

Not exactly a very good description of an institution confined largely to elites and few states.

[Basil II the B.S]

Right, seeing Epstein, the liberal elite still does it.

[95thrifleman]

Right, seeing Epstein, the liberal elite still does it.

Shall we start labelling "your" side by focusing on one person? That could be fun

[Basil II the B.S]

99% of liberal arguments rely on ''you are totally Hitler'', so nothing new. Anyway, I have some nice conversations ongoing with Ludicus and Black Knight, so I will ignore your litter.

[Basil II the B.S]

This is pretty much a meaningless statement (in the sense that there is no way I can determine what you mean). How do you define "small", and how do you define "pretty well"?

Well, its an example where dividing by national lines is impossible to implement. Should we just accept that there will be indefinite conflict in the region until one group is displaced?

Oh it's also an example where immigrants/refugees start outnumbering the locals, start displacing them and form their own state. Palestinians surely would have loved self-determination and the right to shut down borders to Jewish immigration.

Self-determination is often messy to implement and nearly impossible to do without impacting a significant of people negatively. In order for things to go smoothly, you have to define borders, you have to reach a consensus with the people (imagine voting for independence when 45% of the population votes against it), you have to deal with people groups within the newly defined borders who are not part of that new defined nation, and you have to deal with the potential conflict with a country that doesn’t want to concede control.

That's roughly the percentage of Scots that voted to leave the UK. I don't see Unionists vs Leavers at each other's throat. It goes down to plenty of elements notably social cohesion. Guess what lowers social cohesion? Diversity (see previous posts in this thread).

Nationalism was not the sole cause, but it was a significant one. Gavrilo Princip didn’t assassinate Archduke Ferdinand to further Serbian imperialism…

Serbian nationalism, not imperialism. We can argue about Slavic imperialism though. Either way, do you really think Germany and France wouldn't have jumped at each other if it wasn't for Princip killing Ferdinand? Everyone was ready and looking for an occasion.

Ultimately this would deserve its own thread (it would simply take too long for me to pull all the sources I needed to make this convincing), but I would argue that nationalism frames conflict and motivates participants to go further than the furtherance of imperialism. Much of the French population felt afflicted by “Germany”, rather than individuals or bad situations, when they lost the Franco-Prussian War, and it created a narrative where “France” should right the tragedy of losing Alsace-Lorraine at any cost. Basically, it personifies states and allows for projection of human primate politics onto a large scale. Another thing that nationalism does is perpetuate wars and make them more destructive. When your identity, your primary institution for empowerment, and representation of your people are wrapped up in a state, you are going to more willing to fight and die to protect that state. Imperialism will never motivate people to that extent.

And to your comment about Hitler, nationalism can lead to aspirations of world conquest. The only way to ensure that your nation is never threatened is to conquer everyone else. Otherwise, you leave your fate up to probability where eventually the balance of power turns against you.

Empires existed long before the nations and as an extension of the aspirations of leaders.The Hasburgs didn't start making their own empire out of the aspirations of the Austrian people. If anything their empire is an example of how nationalism and imperialism can easily be at odds rather than fueling each other. Multinational empires used actually to be the norm before 1800 and the driving force was not nationalism but feudalism (or equivalent non-Western variants).

It is true that national glory can be used as an argument for imperialism (eg, much of the modern American empire is based on that) however it's not necessarily the case. Another justification of American imperialism is for instance humanitarianism. Should we start blaming human rights for imperialism? My point being, in the name of the empire, rationalizations can be found. They can be anything so long that enough people swallow them as morally righteous.

When I say multicultural countries are not doomed to failure, I’m saying that extraordinary acts of integration are possible with the populations. Those distinct “ethnic majority groups” you quotes were not majorities, but rather the elites in the country who sought out to spread their own culture to construct unified nation. Take Italy for example. Christopher Duggan writes in his book The Force of Destiny, that only “10% of the Italian population actually spoke what would become the Italian language” before 1860 with many people being openly hostile to the idea of an Italian nation. They still identified with previous political entities/ cultural divisions that had divided Italy for centuries. This was extremely apparent to Northern elite that had united the peoples, which is represented in Massimo d’Azeglio’s remarks, “Italy has been made; now it remains to make Italians” and their approach toward introducing state controlled education, banning languages, instituting mandatory military service to allow Italians across the country to mix with each other, building infrastructure to integrate the country etc… I might not advocate for these actions specifically, but it is certainly an example where a great degree of integration occurred where there was no sizeable ethnic majority.

In Egen Weber's book, Peasants into Frenchmen, and Eric Hobsbawm's book Echoes of the Marseillaise: Two Centuries Look Back on the French Revolution, they both found that only 12-13% of the population spoke French during the time of the Revolution. Even French Bishop Henri Gregoire estimated that only 3 million citizens of the Republic spoke “proper” French with 6-8 million not being able to comprehend any French dialect at all (out of a population of 28 million). Whether it was Bretons, Occitans, Basques, Normans, or whatever, France had sizeable groups that it had to deal with. And yet in spite of diversity, elites were still pretty successful in uniting(relatively speaking) France under a more coherent national identity, a language, and a culture. The majorities that exist in these “nations” were constructed at the end of the day.

That still doesn't address my point. In every case you mention there was a unifying group, but the secondary ones still had strong enough cultural and ethnic ties to justify the project. Yes, there were actually 3 Italian languages at the time of the unfications, the elite simply picked Florentine over Roman and Neapolitan and decided that would be the official Italian. Just like Castillan is Spanish, Parisian is French. However we are still talking about countries that were 99% Catholic, 99% white, 99% Italic/Hispanic/Francophone. The great dividing factors blurred instead of overlapping.

And I’m not arguing that we maintain diverse states and perpetuate culture differences. Rather, I would like us to accept that diversity is inevitable and that we should be seeking the best ways to integrate groups as well as we can. This doesn’t mean open borders, but rather seeking an understanding of why human beings create culture, perpetuate identity, and cling to religion, so that we can navigate those things to enable a more coherent and cohesive society.

I have a problem with statements like ''diversity is inevitable''. Now, I think you simply meant that there are going to be minorities, that's fine and normal. Here's the problem with it though: the advocate for diversity will use the same statement to argue for ever increasing diversity in countries, for example make a random European country 10% Shia Iranian, 10% Sunni Arab, 10% Pagan Sub-Saharian African, 10% white Catholic, 10% white Protestant, 10% Jewish, etc so that it fits their fetish for collection of token ethnic and religious groups. Would a society like that, essentially a replication of the UN Assembly, ever work? No. It'd be in perpetual war, no central government could be formed. My point being, there's such thing as ''too diverse''. It doesn't mean ''let's eradicate diversity'', but simply let's not go too far with it because otherwise society is going to fall apart.

So the series of questions that I have in response to this idea that Non-Christian/non Europeans are incompatible is this: What is culture? What is its evolutionary purpose? To what extent does it actually determine our behavior? This probably would spark its own thread and help to understand what the limits are to integrating each other.

This is actually a huge tangent and I'll pass on this because we have enough meat to roast. Unless you want to make a very specific argument that we can address without derailing the whole conversation.

Good, then we can work on understanding why culture changes and what its general nature is.

Here's another thing that needs to be clarified, similar to the ''diversity is inevitable''. Cultures change, yes. Is every change desiderable? Because what liberals promote these days is that a) Western cultures are inherently bad for a variety of reasons and b) any change is desiderable, especially when coming from cultures that have no achieved comparable results, but that's simply because Westerners oppressed them.

That's.... a pile of nonsense. Can we debate on what changes are desiderable and what are not? Are we allowed to preserve what's clearly working well?

[95thrifleman]

99% of liberal arguments rely on ''you are totally Hitler'', so nothing new. Anyway, I have some nice conversations ongoing with Ludicus and Black Knight, so I will ignore your litter.

For someone who hates liberals, you love adopting their tactics.

[conon394]

Because what liberals promote these days is that a) Western cultures are inherently bad for a variety of reasons and b) any change is desiderable, especially when coming from cultures that have no achieved comparable results, but that's simply because Westerners oppressed them

Really all liberals? Again you pick from the extremes and imply those cherries picked to all. The extremes of conservatives and the right etc are not all either. Very few people argue western civilization or culture is all bad or inherently bad
but many argue for being introspective however and are looking to make them better - ie the ideal behind being a progressive.

[Ludicus]

Populism doesn't exist...But please, keep lecturing us about how bad we are.

Don't take it personally, but populism exists and it seems characterized by a dominant discourse based on an identitarian rhetoric that expresses fear and rejection of foreigners (Orban, Salvoni, Trump, Bolsonaro, Le Pen, etc). Another populist common trait is the unfounded claim that governments are more concerned with their own interests than the Res Publica. I'm quoting you on that,

What I have seen since 2016 is a systematic demonization of democratic vote every single time the people ''vote wrong'', that is not in the interests of the ruling elite.

And again, what's your political proposal? just saying "We need more responsibility" it means nothing, in practical terms. Ok, I concede that populism is not just demagogy or opportunism. But it is not a fully formed political ideology like socialism or liberalism. So, what do you really want? an apocalyptic transmutation of the democratic principles to celebrate "a part" of the people (the so called "real people") against another one through a leader embodying it and an audience legitimizing it?

The irony here is that you missed the one that was by far the most important, cotton

I fail to see the irony. In fact I accidentally missed the cotton- during the 18th and 19th centuries, much of the imported cotton in England came from slave colonies. As I wrote before in 2012 (thread "Decay of Spain, Portugal, and Ottoman Empire"), excerpt,

... Cotton had become a major new export from Brazil. In England, at the end of the eighteenth century there was an increasing demand for Brazilian products, chiefly sugar and cotton(during the Independence War)and the balance of exchange was reversed in favor of Lisbon. By the first half of the decade of the 1790's Portugal was exporting to England goods valued over a million pounds sterling more than what England was returning. During the period from 1796 to 1806, Portugal’s exports had a spectacular annual growth of 4%. Portugal’s exports to England were 34% higher and imports were 44% lower in the period between 1771 and 1775 than they had been between 1751 and 1755.
Cotton shipments from Portugal to England doubled between the 1780's and 1790's, and by the decade of the 1790's, perhaps a quarter of Manchester cotton were made with Brazilian cotton.
Clearly, Portugal’s economic relationship with England was being altered in this period. Now was England rather than Portugal that had to send gold to make up the deficit in its balance trade.For the first time since 1740, the balance of trade with Britain began to run in Portugal' s favor, with credits in 1790-1792 and 1794-1795. The trading stations and fortresses on the Angolan coast of west Africa became increasingly valuable, as the volume of the slave trade to Brazil mounted.

Sources,The Economy of the Portuguese Empire,pages 19-48.Schwartz, S.B.
Merchant networks and the Brazilian gold, Costa,L.F.; Rocha, M.M. Lisbon – Technical University Social Sciences Department – History.

It does not alter the conclusion, very much on the contrary: the historical fight of industrialization necessarily includes the world of the European colonies and their exploitation.
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The part of the Industrial revolution that has to do with colonialism is the textile industry

Not exclusively. As I have said earlier -summarizing - Africa's contribution was central to the origin of the Industrial revolution in England, for its participation in the Atlantic trade. The US's market was also decisive for the start of the English industrialization; India, for its role in the triangular commerce and credit transference to Britain that helped financing the warfare with France, in a crucial moment of the industrialization; the sugar of Antilles gave Netherlands a leadership in the second Atlantic system,The Dutch and the making of the second Atlantic system ; the Brazilian gold may have lead the foundations for the future industrial revolution in England.
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to claim that working class Englishmen (and women) that worked 18 hours a day were the ''winners'' is a large stretch of imagination.

Don't mix apples with oranges. On a side note: Marx wouldn't have said it better.
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Why do you praise the European colonial past? I unfortunately cannot say I'm surprised by your love affair with colonialism: the roots of European racism and white supremacy lie in the slave trade and colonialism. If colonialism was a net loss for colonizers they wouldn't keep doing it for centuries. Aimée Cesaire reminds us that,

Colonization is (was) neither evangelization, nor a philanthropic enterprise, nor a desire to push back the frontiers of ignorance, disease and tyranny, nor a project undertaken for the greater glory of God, nor an attempt to extend the rule of law

Discourse on Colonialism 2002.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In fact, colonization was not a philanthropic enterprise- and it has not ended yet. As Ramon Grosfoguel has pointed out,

..one of the most powerful myths of the twentieth century was the notion that the elimination of colonial administrations amounted to decolonization of the world. This led to the myth of the "postcolonial" world. Although "colonial administrations" have been almost entirely eradicated, and the majority of the periphery is politically organized into independent states, no European people are still living under crude European/Euro-American exploitation and domination. The old colonial hierarchies of European remains in place and are entangled with the "international division of labor" and accumulation of capital at a world-scale. Hereby lies the relevance between colonialism and coloniality...

(The Epistemic Decolonial Turn, 2002) The epistemic decolonial turn

[Basil II the B.S]

Don't take it personally, but populism exists and it seems characterized by a dominant discourse based on an identitarian rhetoric that expresses fear and rejection of foreigners (Orban, Salvoni, Trump, Bolsonaro, Le Pen, etc). Another populist common trait is the unfounded claim that governments are more concerned with their own interests than the Res Publica. I'm quoting you on that,

This is the guy you call xenophobe:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This is the head of the Immigration department of The League:
http://www.senato.it/leg/18/BGT/Sche...n/00032646.htm
So, how exactly does this work? Legal and working immigrants flock to Salvini to take selfies with him. The only elected MP of Sub-Saharian African descent is a League member.
Facts vs the narrative.

And again, what's your political proposal? just saying "We need more responsibility" it means nothing, in practical terms. Ok, I concede that populism is not just demagogy or opportunism. But it is not a fully formed political ideology like socialism or liberalism. So, what do you really want? an apocalyptic transmutation of the democratic principles to celebrate "a part" of the people (the so called "real people") against another one through a leader embodying it and an audience legitimizing it?

Why did I say ''post-liberalism''? Because pure ideologies don't work. Classical liberalism has plenty of good elements but free movement of capital and people are a disaster, hence ideological purity isn't working. Individual atomism is also making people lonely and unhappy. The high standard of living in the West doesn't translate to happiness. People lack meaning and chase it in dumb neo-religions.

Those who preach ''Refugee welcome'' should pay the economic price of such policies, exlusively. Meaning that if you make public demonstrations about it, you pay a tax and it should be a hefty one. There should be also legal responsibility for refugee sponsors in the case the former commit crimes. It's the only way that economic and crime costs are not externalized on the working class but they are paid exclusively by the elite, which is the most in favour of immigration. One big eye opening moment for many voters here was when a mainstream journalist and notorious pro-refugee activist said ''it's not right to house refugees in the wealthy areas of Rome (where he lives) because it'd lower real estate value''. And that's exactly what we should do: he should be obligated to house them.

I fail to see the irony. In fact I accidentally missed the cotton- during the 18th and 19th centuries, much of the imported cotton in England came from slave colonies. As I wrote before in 2012 (thread "Decay of Spain, Portugal, and Ottoman Empire"), excerpt,

Well, you made a list of commodities imported from colonies but missed the one that had the most impact on the Industrial Revolution.

It does not alter the conclusion, very much on the contrary: the historical fight of industrialization necessarily includes the world of the European colonies and their exploitation.
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The industralization created the working class. Again, weren't they exploited as well?

Don't mix apples with oranges. On a side note: Marx wouldn't have said it better.
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Why do you praise the European colonial past? I unfortunately cannot say I'm surprised by your love affair with colonialism: the roots of European racism and white supremacy lie in the slave trade and colonialism. If colonialism was a net loss for colonizers they wouldn't keep doing it for centuries. Aimée Cesaire reminds us that,
Discourse on Colonialism 2002.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In fact, colonization was not a philanthropic enterprise- and it has not ended yet. As Ramon Grosfoguel has pointed out,


(The Epistemic Decolonial Turn, 2002) The epistemic decolonial turn

No. The roots of racial discourse in Europe are a consequence of scientism. The Industrial Revolution brought a jump in scientific development. Such scientific development required the creation of ''catalogues'' of pretty much everything, rocks, plants, animals, indeed humans too. It happens to be the case that scientific development lead European countries to overpower pretty much everyone, simply out of indeed scientific superiority. In a period where everything is being catalogued and some countries are routing everyone else in the world on the battlefield thanks to it, it came natural the conclusion that they achieved such development because ''they were the master race''. And we are talking about the Germanics here specifically, excluding us Southerners and the Slavs. Indeed Russians were viewed with skepticism by Westerners as ''impure mixed with Asians'', which was also amplified when Japan routed them at the beginning of the 20th century.

Nonetheless, scientific racist theories have very little to do with specific ideologies except Nazism which openly adopted them. Nazism however is a consequence and not the cause of scientific racism. Which is also one of the reasons we shouldn't be always this overly enthusiast about scientific developments. Plenty of them have been achieved abusing living beings, ranging from human to plants.

You mention slave trade. Ok, who were the slave gatherers in Sub-Saharian Africa? Very often it was the local rulers selling their own subjects. The Barbary States in North Africa also have centuries of history raiding Northern Mediterranean countries for (European) slaves to sell. Similarly, slave trade was very developed even in the Arab world. Was it because of colonialism, racism or similar? Hardly so. Slavery was practiced worldwide. Colonial powers simply went with the flow.

[conon394]

You mention slave trade. Ok, who were the slave gatherers in Sub-Saharian Africa? Very often it was the local rulers selling their own subjects. The Barbary States in North Africa also have centuries of history raiding Northern Mediterranean countries for (European) slaves to sell. Similarly, slave trade was very developed even in the Arab world. Was it because of colonialism, racism or similar? Hardly so. Slavery was practiced worldwide. Colonial powers simply went with the flow

No that conclusion is invalid. Yes slavery or bonded labor is more a less a given for most of history (before machines can do the hardest and most dangerous work) But the Atlantic slave trade was new if you will and reverberated throughout Africa. The demand helped create internal slave states because they were the one who could earn money. Also you can't ignore the slavery in question was palpably different from the essentially non racial slavery of the Ancient world. Africa had its own agency in the slave trade , but it Europe that decided on slavery of others for new world exploitation and when the locals proved to be dying a lot they found a plug in replacement.

[Basil II the B.S]

Well clearly Europeans had a role in bringing slaves to America, I don't think I have ever denied that.My point was completely different, notably where racism exactly comes from and what's its relation with slavery and colonialism. Both actually come before racism. The latter ends up being used to justify them, but it's actually a consequence rather than the cause.

[fkizz]

Slave market was booming centuries before European powers were even minimally relevant.

[Ludicus]

This is the guy you call xenophobe:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Come on, there is also a tiny collection of Trump's dedicated black supporters.
Salvini, the racist and opportunist demagogue, and the ""prima gli Italiani" -Italian first"... policies. Basil,the blacks in the photo are not really "truly Italians". Salvine doesn't want -as he says- "to replace Italian people with other people".

For the racist Slavini, racism in football is "healthy teasing": "Bonucci was booed by the Milan fans, is that racism? Healthy teasing among fans is not to be considered racism."
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Basil, Basil, ask Italy's Donald Trump (Salvini) to Make Europe White Again...Italy's Salvini Meets With Pence, Pompeo in Washington - The Atlantic
As expected, Trump reaffirms his racial plan for America, Trump tells Dem congresswomen: Go back where you came ... - Politico

Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes took Trump to task for racism. “Unlike the Democratic Congresswomen@realDonaldTrump attacked today, I actually am a foreign-born Member of Congress,” said Himes, who was born in Peru where his father worked for the Ford Foundation. “But I’m a white male of European descent, so there’s nochance he’ll attack me. His tantrum has nothing to do with birthplace.

Bingo.
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Everything is connected.According to Orban, Putin rules a great and ancient empire. Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban′s special relationship
It's not a secret, "democratic" Russia sides with Trump, Salvini, and the illiberal regimes in eastern Europe Italy Can't Stop Talking About Salvini's Russia Tape Scandal

The revelations may not put a dent in Salvini’s domestic popularity -- Italians after all stuck by Putin’s friend Silvio Berlusconi through multiple scandals -- but they will add to tensions with his coalition partner, the anti-corruption Five Star Movement

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Slave market was booming centuries before European powers...

Ok, who were the slave gatherers in Sub-Saharian Africa?

I can talk extensively about the subject. In fact, I devoted a lot of time to the intensive study of history of the Portuguese slave trade in West Africa.
In West Africa, initially, Kongo's rulers controlled and contained the negative effects of the slavery. They relied on the export of slaves to sustain diplomatic/material and cultural ties with Europe. Foreign captives supplied Kongo's needs for slaves. In the beginning, the people born in Kongo was not exported. Very soon, the Portuguese started engaging in slavery, kidnapping freed men and women and branding them for sale. The letters from King Afonso I to the Portuguese kings form the bedrock of any understanding of the social categories that existed in Kongo - and the place of slavery in it. Letter written in July 1526,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Sir, Your Highness should know how our Kingdom is being lost in so many ways that it is convenient to provide for the necessary remedy, since this is caused by the excessive freedom given by your agents and officials to the men and merchants who are allowed to come to this Kingdom to set up shops with goods and many things which have been prohibited by us, and which they spread throughout our Kingdoms and Domains in such an abundance that many of our vassals, whom we had in obedience, do not comply because they have the things in greater abundance than we ourselves; and it was with these things that we had them content and subjected under our vassalage and jurisdiction, so it is doing a great harm not only to the service of God, but the security and peace of our Kingdoms and State as well.

And we cannot reckon how great the damage is, since the mentioned merchants are taking every day our natives, sons of the land and the sons of our noblemen and vassals and our relatives, because the thieves and men of bad conscience grab them wishing to have the things and wares of this Kingdom which they are ambitious of; they grab them and get them to be sold; and so great, Sir, is the corruption and licentiousness that our country is being completely depopulated, and Your Highness should not agree with this nor accept it as in your service. And to avoid it we need from those (your) Kingdoms no more than some priests and a few people to reach in schools, and no other goods except wine and flour for the holy sacrament.

That is why we beg of Your Highness to help and assist us in this matter, commanding your factors that they should not send here either merchants or wares, because it is our will that in these Kingdoms there should not be any trade of slaves nor outlet for them. Concerning what is referred [to] above, again we beg of Your Highness to agree with it, since otherwise we cannot remedy such an obvious damage.

Moreover, Sir, in our Kingdoms there is another great inconvenience which is of little service to God, and this is that many of out people, keenly desirous as they are of the wares and things of your Kingdoms, which are brought here by your people, and in order to satisfy their voracious appetite, seize many of our people, freed and exempt men, and very often it happens that they kidnap even noblemen and the sons of noblemen, and our relatives, and take them to be sold to the white men who are in our Kingdoms; and for this purpose they have concealed them; and others are brought during the night so that they might not be recognized.

And as soon as they are taken by the white men they are immediately ironed and branded with fire, and when they are carried to be embarked, if they are caught by our guards’ men the whites allege that they have bought them but they cannot say from whom, so that it is our duty to do justice and to restore to the freemen their freedom, but it cannot be done if your subjects feel offended, as they claim to be.

And to avoid such a great evil we passed a law so that any white man living in our Kingdoms and wanting to purchase goods in any way should first inform three of our noblemen and officials of our court whom we rely upon in this matter, and these are Dom Pedro Manipanza and Dom Manuel Manissaba, our chief usher, and Goncalo Pires our chief freighter, who should investigate if the mentioned goods are captives or free men, and if cleared by them there will be no further doubt nor embargo for them to be taken and embarked.

But if the white men do not comply with it they will lose the aforementioned goods. And if we do them this favor and concession it is for the part Your Highness has in it, since we know that it is in your service too that these goods are taken from our Kingdom, otherwise we should not consent to this...

Sir, Your Highness has been kind enough to write to us saying that we should ask in our letters for anything we need, and that we shall be provided with everything, and as the peace and the health of your Kingdom depend on us, and as there are among us old folks and people who have lived for many days, it happens we have continuously many and different diseases which put us very often in such a weakness that we reach almost the last extreme; and the same happens to Our children, relatives and natives owing to the lack in this country of physicians and surgeons who might know how to cure properly such diseases.

And us we have got neither dispensaries nor drugs which might help us in this forlornness, many of those who had been already confirmed and instructed in the holy faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ perish and die; and the rest of the people in their majority cure themselves with herbs and breads and other ancient methods, so that they put all their faith in the mentioned herbs and ceremonies if they live, and believe that they are saved if they die; and this is not much in the service of God.

And to avoid such a great error and inconvenience, since it is from God in the first place and then from your Kingdoms and from Your Highness that all the good and drugs and medicines have come to save us, we beg of you to be agreeable and kind enough to send us two physicians and two apothecaries and one surgeon, so that they may come with their drugstores and all the necessary things to stay in our kingdoms, because we are in extreme need of them all and each of them. We shall do them all good and shall benefit them by all means, since they are sent by Your Highness, whom we thank for your work in their coming. We beg of Your Highness as a great favor to do this for us, because besides being good in itself it is in the service of God as we have said above.

Later, by the turn of the 18th century, the fragmentation of Kongo's politics were completely unable to protect their people from enslavement.
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Back to the topic- you completely missed the point: the primary historical origin of modern racism lies in the relation of European to African slavery.
The international trans-Atlantic slavery came to be over the centuries ( +- 500 years) - and the international space ( Americas-North and South America, Caribbean area) more pervasive, more susceptible to racialization than of any other system of slavery seen before or since the ancient times.
AsI said before, colonialism in the age of discovery is going to begin the industrial revolution by providing the capital and raw materials from the exploited colonies. As the Industrial revolution was happening, the colonies were exploited satellites of the European nations, to supply growing industries.

It's absolutely correct to say that Industrial revolution would not have happened it had not been for the exploitation of slaves, extrapolation of raw materials from the colonies, and obviously, the physical coercion of the natives.

As an example, in Portugal-the mother of all slavers-slavery was abolished in 1761 by the Marquês de Pombal; in our African colonies in 1869; but the " Estatuto do Indígena" ("native statute"), the legal regime that defined the very limited rights of the African populations was only abolished in 1961-after the armed struggle for national liberation had already begun. Then and only then, the new law abolished forced labor and ended compulsory cultivation for crops as cotton. The new law also abolished the "imposto indigena" (native tax) applied to adult males natives, and replaced it with minimum general tax. All the reforms aimed to shield the country from growing international condemnation...

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The industralization created the working class. Again, weren't they exploited as well?

Absolutely, but that's another story. Marx,

Children of nine or ten are dragged from their squalid beds at four a.m. and compelled to work until ten, eleven, or twelve at night, their limbs wearing away...

Direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeois industry as machinery, credits, etc. Without slavery you have no cotton; without cotton you have no modern industry. It is slavery that has given the colonies their value; it is the colonies that have created world trade, and it is world trade that is the pre-condition of large-scale industry. Thus slavery is an economic category of the greatest importance...Whilst the cotton industry introduced child-slavery in England, it gave in the United States a stimulus to the transformation of the earlier, more or less patriarchal slavery, into a system of commercial exploitation. In fact, the veiled slavery of the wage-earners in Europe needed, for its pedestal, slavery pure and simple in the New World

[Basil II the B.S]

Come on, there is also a tiny collection of Trump's dedicated black supporters.
Salvini, the racist and opportunist demagogue, and the ""prima gli Italiani" -Italian first"... policies. Basil,the blacks in the photo are not really "truly Italians". Salvine doesn't want -as he says- "to replace Italian people with other people".

For the racist Slavini, racism in football is "healthy teasing": "Bonucci was booed by the Milan fans, is that racism? Healthy teasing among fans is not to be considered racism."
----
Basil, Basil, ask Italy's Donald Trump (Salvini) to Make Europe White Again...Italy's Salvini Meets With Pence, Pompeo in Washington - The Atlantic
As expected,Trump reaffirms his racial plan for America, Trump tells Dem congresswomen: Go back where you came ... - Politico

Trump doesn't go a single week without insulting someone. Latest being Paul Ryan. Of course he can tell Ryan to go off, but if he says the same to ungrateful immigrants then he's mean. Can we stop this bs that people can come here and insult the country that they graciously welcomed them, gave them opportunities and rights they couldn't enjoy in their homes and noone can tell them ''maybe go back to where you came from if you hate this place so much''?

Also, let's bring in a notorious ''white nationalist'' leader, the Dalai Lama.
https://www.firstpost.com/world/dala...t-6917281.html

Who does Europe belong to? Europeans or everyone? Do people of European descent, aka ''whites'', get to have a homeland or we should get displaced from everywhere?

Everything is connected.According to Orban, Putin rules a great and ancient empire. Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban′s special relationship
It's not a secret, "democratic" Russia sides with Trump, Salvini, and the illiberal regimes in eastern Europe Italy Can't Stop Talking About Salvini's Russia Tape Scandal

Every time Russia is brought up, it reminds me why this thread is a necessity. Liberals are fanatically convinced that history is on their side: it's a linear path towards whatever belief they choose and they will win with time. Everyone who rejects their truth and science is shunned as a heretic. Russia? It's the devil. If things are not going the way liberals predicted, then there must be some malevolent agent behind it. It's not possible for liberals that their ideas are actually wrong. It's not conceivable that people might prefer something else. This is particularly true when it comes to migration. The dogmas are that migration is only good, no downsides, and the majority of people welcome the transformation of their society into multicultural Tower of Babels, without resenting the loss of their own identity. That's the liberal religion. No other opinions accepted.

Then it just means that liberal zealots are the problem.

I can talk extensively about the subject. In fact, I devoted a lot of time to the intensive study of history of the Portuguese slave trade in West Africa.
In West Africa, initially, Kongo's rulers controlled and contained the negative effects of the slavery. They relied on the export of slaves to sustain diplomatic/material and cultural ties with Europe. Foreign captives supplied Kongo's needs for slaves. In the beginning, the people born in Kongo was not exported. Very soon, the Portuguese started engaging in slavery, kidnapping freed men and women and branding them for sale. The letters from King Afonso I to the Portuguese kings form the bedrock of any understanding of the social categories that existed in Kongo - and the place of slavery in it. Letter written in July 1526,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Sir, Your Highness should know how our Kingdom is being lost in so many ways that it is convenient to provide for the necessary remedy, since this is caused by the excessive freedom given by your agents and officials to the men and merchants who are allowed to come to this Kingdom to set up shops with goods and many things which have been prohibited by us, and which they spread throughout our Kingdoms and Domains in such an abundance that many of our vassals, whom we had in obedience, do not comply because they have the things in greater abundance than we ourselves; and it was with these things that we had them content and subjected under our vassalage and jurisdiction, so it is doing a great harm not only to the service of God, but the security and peace of our Kingdoms and State as well.

And we cannot reckon how great the damage is, since the mentioned merchants are taking every day our natives, sons of the land and the sons of our noblemen and vassals and our relatives, because the thieves and men of bad conscience grab them wishing to have the things and wares of this Kingdom which they are ambitious of; they grab them and get them to be sold; and so great, Sir, is the corruption and licentiousness that our country is being completely depopulated, and Your Highness should not agree with this nor accept it as in your service. And to avoid it we need from those (your) Kingdoms no more than some priests and a few people to reach in schools, and no other goods except wine and flour for the holy sacrament.

That is why we beg of Your Highness to help and assist us in this matter, commanding your factors that they should not send here either merchants or wares, because it is our will that in these Kingdoms there should not be any trade of slaves nor outlet for them. Concerning what is referred [to] above, again we beg of Your Highness to agree with it, since otherwise we cannot remedy such an obvious damage.

Moreover, Sir, in our Kingdoms there is another great inconvenience which is of little service to God, and this is that many of out people, keenly desirous as they are of the wares and things of your Kingdoms, which are brought here by your people, and in order to satisfy their voracious appetite, seize many of our people, freed and exempt men, and very often it happens that they kidnap even noblemen and the sons of noblemen, and our relatives, and take them to be sold to the white men who are in our Kingdoms; and for this purpose they have concealed them; and others are brought during the night so that they might not be recognized.

And as soon as they are taken by the white men they are immediately ironed and branded with fire, and when they are carried to be embarked, if they are caught by our guards’ men the whites allege that they have bought them but they cannot say from whom, so that it is our duty to do justice and to restore to the freemen their freedom, but it cannot be done if your subjects feel offended, as they claim to be.

And to avoid such a great evil we passed a law so that any white man living in our Kingdoms and wanting to purchase goods in any way should first inform three of our noblemen and officials of our court whom we rely upon in this matter, and these are Dom Pedro Manipanza and Dom Manuel Manissaba, our chief usher, and Goncalo Pires our chief freighter, who should investigate if the mentioned goods are captives or free men, and if cleared by them there will be no further doubt nor embargo for them to be taken and embarked.

But if the white men do not comply with it they will lose the aforementioned goods. And if we do them this favor and concession it is for the part Your Highness has in it, since we know that it is in your service too that these goods are taken from our Kingdom, otherwise we should not consent to this...

Sir, Your Highness has been kind enough to write to us saying that we should ask in our letters for anything we need, and that we shall be provided with everything, and as the peace and the health of your Kingdom depend on us, and as there are among us old folks and people who have lived for many days, it happens we have continuously many and different diseases which put us very often in such a weakness that we reach almost the last extreme; and the same happens to Our children, relatives and natives owing to the lack in this country of physicians and surgeons who might know how to cure properly such diseases.

And us we have got neither dispensaries nor drugs which might help us in this forlornness, many of those who had been already confirmed and instructed in the holy faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ perish and die; and the rest of the people in their majority cure themselves with herbs and breads and other ancient methods, so that they put all their faith in the mentioned herbs and ceremonies if they live, and believe that they are saved if they die; and this is not much in the service of God.

And to avoid such a great error and inconvenience, since it is from God in the first place and then from your Kingdoms and from Your Highness that all the good and drugs and medicines have come to save us, we beg of you to be agreeable and kind enough to send us two physicians and two apothecaries and one surgeon, so that they may come with their drugstores and all the necessary things to stay in our kingdoms, because we are in extreme need of them all and each of them. We shall do them all good and shall benefit them by all means, since they are sent by Your Highness, whom we thank for your work in their coming. We beg of Your Highness as a great favor to do this for us, because besides being good in itself it is in the service of God as we have said above.

Later, by the turn of the 18th century, the fragmentation of Kongo's politics were completely unable to protect their people from enslavement.
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Back to the topic- you completely missed the point: the primary historical origin of modern racism lies in the relation of European to African slavery.
The international trans-Atlantic slavery came to be over the centuries ( +- 500 years) - and the international space ( Americas-North and South America, Caribbean area) more pervasive, more susceptible to racialization than of any other system of slavery seen before or since the ancient times.
AsI said before, colonialism in the age of discovery is going to begin the industrial revolution by providing the capital and raw materials from the exploited colonies. As the Industrial revolution was happening, the colonies were exploited satellites of the European nations, to supply growing industries.

It's absolutely correct to say that Industrial revolution would not have happened it had not been for the exploitation of slaves, extrapolation of raw materials from the colonies, and obviously, the physical coercion of the natives.

As an example, in Portugal-the mother of all slavers-slavery was abolished in 1761 by the Marquês de Pombal; in our African colonies in 1869; but the " Estatuto do Indígena" ("native statute"), the legal regime that defined the very limited rights of the African populations was only abolished in 1961-after the armed struggle for national liberation had already begun. Then and only then, the new law abolished forced labor and ended compulsory cultivation for crops as cotton. The new law also abolished the "imposto indigena" (native tax) applied to adult males natives, and replaced it with minimum general tax. All the reforms aimed to shield the country from growing international condemnation...

Do you really think that:
a) Europeans wouldn't have obtained silk and sugar without slavery
b) the story of Kongo sums up the history of slavery from Sub-Saharian Africa

?

Because I can bring up the Ashanti Empire were slavery was a tradition and it was a heavy supplier to Europeans. Songhai, Mali, Kano all had a heavy involvement in slave trade long before Europe managed to reach them. Blaming exclusively Europeans is simply a convenient narrative for those with specific agendas.

[conon394]

Because I can bring up the Ashanti Empire were slavery was a tradition and it was a heavy supplier to Europeans. Songhai, Mali, Kano all had a heavy involvement in slave trade long before Europe managed to reach them. Blaming exclusively Europeans is simply a convenient narrative for those with specific agendas.

Well yes slavery was sort of norm since Sargon's day (or something very similar) Yes African states had slaves. But before the Atlantic trade they had no particular acute slave states. Essentially by trading gold and later guns to the coastal states and providing and endless demand from black slaves the European did pervert the course of development in Africa. The coastal states became more powerful more organized and were driven to acquire stock not for themselves to sustain the trade for wealth and guns. The mortality rate of the crossing and at the at least the cane plantations in the Caribbean and Brazil meant the demand was well bottomless. That is very different than the pre slave trade era in Western Africa.

[Basil II the B.S]

And on top of the ''Russia Russia' narrative, here's a stupid liberal who comes to the realization that most voters don't give a about Putin's (unproven) meddling.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...premium-europe

Nor Twitter outrage over it. Liberal commentators are that ing slow. God I hate them.

[Ludicus]

Can we stop this bs that people can come here and insult the country that they graciously welcomed them, gave them opportunities and rights they couldn't enjoy in their homes and noone can tell them ''maybe go back to where you came from if you hate this place so much''?

Do you agree with Trump? the racist is a national embarrassment in the United States. House to vote on resolution condemning Trump's racist tweets,

Trudeau, prime minister of Canada has joined Britain’s (still, just) Prime Minister Theresa May in condemning Donald Trump’s racist attack on the Squad

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Blaming exclusively Europeans is simply a convenient narrative for those with specific agendas.

Nonsense.
I don't blame the past. The past is the past. As Norman Fiering put it, "anyone viewing the world in about 1600 without knowledge of what was to come would not have the same prejudices as existed in 1900"

Ashanti Empire were slavery was a tradition and it was a heavy supplier to Europeans... long before Europe managed to reach them.

No. Basil, instead of talking about "specific agendas",you should learn more closely the history of the European Atlantic expansion. European/Portuguese-contact with the Asante people begin in the 15th century in what is now Ghana. For the sake of curiosity, São Jorge da Mina ( Elmina Castle) was the first prefabricated building of European origin to have been planned and executed in SubSaharian Africa (1481) , and King João added the title "Lord of Guinea" to his titles. Elmina was the place where the Ashanti Kingdom slaves were sold to Portuguese Empire and shipped to Brazil and Cape Verde. The Ashanti established their state in 1600.




You are unwilling to understand that the roots of European racism lie in the slave trade and colonialism. In 1454, the Pope Nicholas V followed up Dum Diversas with Romanus Pontifex, which granted Portugal the more specific right to conquer and enslave all peoples south of Cape Bojador.
These papal bulls signaled to the rest of Christian Europe that the enslavement of sub-Saharan Africans was acceptable and encouraged.
By the second half of the 15th century, the term "Negro" ( black Africans, Negroes) was synonymous with "slave" across Iberia.After that, in Portuguese and Spanish South America colonies, Indian slaves were "blackened" to conform to their social status. Before the Portuguese contact with the West african coast, in England- unlike in Spain and Portugal- Africans were free people and human beings. However, in a short period of time, the English adopted the same negative attitudes towards Africans. John Lok's journey to the Mina coast noted that the Africans were "a people of beastly living, without a God, lawe, religion, or common wealth". The negative stereotypes about Africans quickly came to be associated with skin color. Blackness was a"natural infection"- here is a commonly used expression in 1600: "You labor in vain to wash an Ethiop white". the atlantic context of racial slavery, 1492-1629
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In Africa, before the beginning of transatlantic trade, slavery was widespread because slaves were the only form of private, revenue producing property recognized in African law. By contrast, in European legal systems, land was the primary form of private, revenue-producing property, and slavery was relatively minor. In Africa, African slaves were often treated no differently from peasant cultivators, as indeed they were the functional equivalent of free tenants and hired workers in Europe.
However, the rapid growth of slave exports forced Africans to exceed their capacity to deliver slaves at a later period when high demands for slaves played an important role. African exports of slaves expanded dramatically beginning in the mid seventeenth century, to the point where the number of exported slaves grew from being a relatively small number relative to the total population of the African regions from which they were taken to having a major demographic impact.




A POPULAÇÃO DO REINO DE ANGOLA DURANTE A ERA DO ...

We find out that there are signs of growth, by the expansion of the Angola’s border during the eighteenth century and that between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth occurred a demographic collapse that appears to be linked to droughts and an increasing enslaving pressure.

African Population, 1650 - Morten Jerven

Northern and Eastern slave trade (Table C.6).
Estimates of the volume and composition of the northern and eastern slave trades—sending captives across the Sahara, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean—are based on much vaguer evidence. Work beginning in 1975 by Ralph Austen has done much to address this lacuna, and recent work on the Indian Ocean slave trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially by Gwyn Campbell, Abdul Sheriff, and Richard Allen, has added substantial detail (Allen 2004, Austen 1989, Campbell 2005, Sheriff 2005). There is nothing near to equivalent to the Slave Voyages dataset for the Atlantic slave trade, however.

1700 – 1790. In response to the expanding Atlantic slave trade, populations of West and Central Africa declined steadily from 1700 to 1800. The export slave trade to the north and east of sub-Saharan Africa remained relatively stable; the populations of East and Northeast Africa, in that period, grew modestly. Since most transatlantic captives were male, the result for eighteenth-century Africa was that a significant shortage of adult males developed, especially in coastal regions, so that the ratio of adult males to females averaged some 75% to the normal ratio for West and Central Africa generally. Once the analysis of the Slave Voyages dataset through Bayesian statistics is completed, we will have improved estimates of gender ratios in the Atlantis slave trade.

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In fact, Portuguese vessels carried an estimated 5.8 million Africans into slavery, not just 4.650,000.A significant part of the Spanish trade was carried in Portuguese ships.
--

[irontaino]

Do you agree with Trump? the racist is a national embarrassment in the United States. House to vote on resolution condemning Trump's racist tweets,

It doesn't help that 3 of the four women he told to "go back where they came from" are born and raised in the US and Rep. Omar has been a U.S. citizen longer than the first lady.

[Basil II the B.S]

Do you agree with Trump? the racist is a national embarrassment in the United States. House to vote on resolution condemning Trump's racist tweets,

That's just squabbling with zero consequences. They can do it, they'll do it, it'll have no repercussions.
-----

Nonsense.
I don't blame the past. The past is the past. As Norman Fiering put it, "anyone viewing the world in about 1600 without knowledge of what was to come would not have the same prejudices as existed in 1900"

No. Basil, instead of talking about "specific agendas",you should learn more closely the history of the European Atlantic expansion. European/Portuguese-contact with the Asante people begin in the 15th century in what is now Ghana. For the sake of curiosity, São Jorge da Mina ( Elmina Castle) was the first prefabricated building of European origin to have been planned and executed in SubSaharian Africa (1481) , and King João added the title "Lord of Guinea" to his titles. Elmina was the place where the Ashanti Kingdom slaves were sold to Portuguese Empire and shipped to Brazil and Cape Verde. The Ashanti established their state in 1600.




You are unwilling to understand that the roots of European racism lie in the slave trade and colonialism. In 1454, the Pope Nicholas V followed up Dum Diversas with Romanus Pontifex, which granted Portugal the more specific right to conquer and enslave all peoples south of Cape Bojador.
These papal bulls signaled to the rest of Christian Europe that the enslavement of sub-Saharan Africans was acceptable and encouraged.
By the second half of the 15th century, the term "Negro" ( black Africans, Negroes) was synonymous with "slave" across Iberia.After that, in Portuguese and Spanish South America colonies, Indian slaves were "blackened" to conform to their social status. Before the Portuguese contact with the West african coast, in England- unlike in Spain and Portugal- Africans were free people and human beings. However, in a short period of time, the English adopted the same negative attitudes towards Africans. John Lok's journey to the Mina coast noted that the Africans were "a people of beastly living, without a God, lawe, religion, or common wealth". The negative stereotypes about Africans quickly came to be associated with skin color. Blackness was a"natural infection"- here is a commonly used expression in 1600: "You labor in vain to wash an Ethiop white". the atlantic context of racial slavery, 1492-1629
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Here's something that bothers me. You and I are both neo-Latin language native speakers. You know where Negro comes from, you know what it means. You also know that there are countries to this day that use that original word, niger as their own names, the countries of Niger and Nigeria. Now, I'm not saying that at a certain point it became a negative connotation to describe slaves/inferior human beings. However, by 1550 it's inoffensive if you consider that the ''River Niger'', which is the reason those countries are named like that, is first called like that by a Venetian explorer of the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descri...ca_(1550_book)

And that's simply to show you how you are way overreading this. You have to wait the late 18th century and mostly the 19th century to have legitimate race based theories and that's merely out of the classification of humans.

In Africa, before the beginning of transatlantic trade, slavery was widespread because slaves were the only form of private, revenue producing property recognized in African law. By contrast, in European legal systems, land was the primary form of private, revenue-producing property, and slavery was relatively minor. In Africa, African slaves were often treated no differently from peasant cultivators, as indeed they were the functional equivalent of free tenants and hired workers in Europe.
However, the rapid growth of slave exports forced Africans to exceed their capacity to deliver slaves at a later period when high demands for slaves played an important role. African exports of slaves expanded dramatically beginning in the mid seventeenth century, to the point where the number of exported slaves grew from being a relatively small number relative to the total population of the African regions from which they were taken to having a major demographic impact.




A POPULAÇÃO DO REINO DE ANGOLA DURANTE A ERA DO ...


African Population, 1650 - Morten Jerven


------



In fact, Portuguese vessels carried an estimated 5.8 million Africans into slavery, not just 4.650,000.A significant part of the Spanish trade was carried in Portuguese ships.
--

All of which is really nice but again it's not like I have ever denied it. I simply point out, many of the country of origins of the slaves sold people to Europeans,which is a fact.

[Ludicus]

I'm not saying that at a certain point it became a negative connotation to describe slaves/inferior human beings. However, by 1550 it's inoffensive if you consider that the ''River Niger'', which is the reason those countries are named like that, is first called like that by a Venetian explorer of the time

And again,don't mix apples and oranges. Indeed, the earliest use of the name "Niger" for the river is by Leo Africanus.
But by the second half of the 15th century, the term "Negro" was synonymous with "slave" across Iberia, and shortly after across Europe. Have you read the atlantic context of racial slavery, 1492-1629 ?

Slavery has existed for thousands of years, and has been commonly place in many societies/cultures, but the concepts of "race" and "racism" are inventions that arose /became part of the dominant ideology of societies in the context of the African slave trade the 1500s and 1600s. Slavery and racism were endemic in the European colonies from the 16th century on.
The origin of race /racism in the 17th century became a basis for categories of subordination and hegemony; the European colonists and slave traders of the 17th century were already sure that there were genetic, and biological differences that constituted whites as superior beings to blacks. The social, moral and intellectual justifications for the slave trade derived from race and colour prejudices in existence in Europe even before 1600.
As an example, let's keep in mind Las Casas-Sepulveda debate in 1550. According to Sepulveda, the Indians were irrational beings whose inherently inferior condition immediately made them slaves by nature; a barbarian race whose natural, inferior condition entitled the Spaniards to wage war on them.
Father António Vieira, Jesuit priest, diplomat and member of the Royal Council to the King of Portugal was not an abolitionist - and yet he found words to denounce racism: "Can there be a greater want of understanding, or greater error in judgment between men and men than for me to think that I must be your master because I was born farther away from the sun, and you must be my slave because you were born nearer to it?"
The post slavery evolution of the scientific racism is a modern development.