Herero latest

[Keith Davis]

>>> t was doubtless a great comfort to 2 million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs
>>> in
>>> 1947, 30 million Chinese in 1959-61, 1 million Indonesian Chinese in
>>> 1965-66, 2 million Cambodians in 1975-1979, 800,000 Rwandan Tutsi in
>>> 1994,
>>> and 5 million Congolese in 2003-2008 that their deaths were small-scale,
>>> unsystematic, non-genocidal, and not in the service of the Western
>>> belief
>>> system.

But it seems they are all in service of some man-made ideology, involving the same kind of justifications. 

The Dodo section is a " savage indictment ".

Www.innergroovemusic.com

> On May 21, 2017, at 12:01 PM, jody boy <jodys.gone2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I don't think native Americans killed horses because they were ugly,
> or couldn't be converted, as Pynchon plays with, vis-a-vis the Dodoes.
> They killed them, apparently, to eat. And, I'm not quite so sure about
> the claim that the disappearance of horses in the Americas can be
> blamed solely on  human predation. Humans in other areas of the world
> also ate (and eat) horses. It was probably more complex than that,
> i.e., multifactorial.
> 
> 
> 
>> On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 11:35 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> This is a fascinating discussion, with interesting viewpoints contributed by
>> all. I'm listening to the GR audio, and just heard, "the real business of
>> the war is buying and selling". What struck me, Monte, is the distinction
>> between colonialism and the tribalism  (?) displayed by the native North
>> Americans after their acquisition (re-acquisition?) of horses.
>> It seems to me that, though the impulses may be traced to the same source,
>> what is different is the degree of complexity, and the distance traveled
>> from one to the other. The level of technology involved in colonialism, the
>> self-justification, the duplicity...
>> 
>> Www.innergroovemusic.com
>> 
>>> On May 21, 2017, at 10:40 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> And, of course, why should we confine ourselves to genocide perpetrated
>>> against humans?
>> 
>> Why, indeed? Do you know why the Europeans' horses were so startling to
>> Native Americans in the early 1500s? Because their fucking ancestors -- not
>> a Protestant among them -- had spent millennia hunting and eating and
>> driving to extinction the horses that had EVOLVED in North America (some of
>> whom had earlier migrated across the land bridge to Eurasia).
>> 
>> Once the Spaniards' horses had spread northward tribe by tribe, they
>> transformed the Southwest and Great Plains. The sedentary tribes of the 17th
>> to 19th century, from pueblo-dwellers to the Chippewa near the Great Lakes,
>> saw and suffered what the Comanche and Kiowa and Lakota Sioux became: not
>> just mounted buffalo hunters but mounted raiders (very much like Aryans and
>> Dorians, Scythians and Mongols had been in Eurasia), descending bloodily on
>> their villages, departing with food stores and scalps, captive women and
>> children.
>> 
>> I'm sure it must have been that malign European influence. As you've just
>> provided a fine example of the "all Africa's problems trace to colonialism"
>> view I cited, no doubt you can connect the dots.
>> 
>>> On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 9:02 AM, jody boy <jodys.gone2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Your sarcasm aside, an argument can be made, and I think with some
>>> merit, that Western colonialism set the stages for those tragic
>>> examples you've listed, especially their magnitude, by directly or
>>> indirectly disrupting those cultures.
>>> 
>>> Let's not forget the role of slavery and capitalism, symbolized by the
>>> "twin gallows" in M&D, silhouetted in the clear freshening breeze of
>>> St. Helena, as it wafted over from the African coast.
>>> 
>>> Nor the role of Western science and technology, among which I- perhaps
>>> uniquely- include Protestantism, as a form of social engineering, all
>>> of which dovetailed with slavery and capitalism to engender a new and
>>> exponentially more efficient means of chronic genocide, at
>>> controllable rates and with predictable rates of return.
>>> 
>>> And, of course, why should we confine ourselves to genocide
>>> perpetrated against humans? The extinction of the Dodo as portrayed in
>>> GR, seems to me more than just a metaphor for man's inhumanity to man,
>>> but against the totality of nature and the environment we all depend
>>> on.
>>> 
>>> How does it go, the opening of GR?   "It's happened before, but
>>> nothing like this..."  something to that effect.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 9:40 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>> I think the uniqueness of the European (Western) example is unique
>>>> 
>>>> Can't argue with that
>>>> 
>>>>> Scale matters, and so does the belief system that undergirds and
>>>>> justifies
>>>>> the implementation of
>>>> systematic genocide.
>>>> 
>>>> I
>>>> t was doubtless a great comfort to 2 million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs
>>>> in
>>>> 1947, 30 million Chinese in 1959-61, 1 million Indonesian Chinese in
>>>> 1965-66, 2 million Cambodians in 1975-1979, 800,000 Rwandan Tutsi in
>>>> 1994,
>>>> and 5 million Congolese in 2003-2008 that their deaths were small-scale,
>>>> unsystematic, non-genocidal, and not in the service of the Western
>>>> belief
>>>> system.
>>>> 
>>>>> On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 6:17 PM, jody boy <jodys.gone2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Couple, three points:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I am not in competition with you to cite evidence of "the overwhelming
>>>>> edge in power and organized aggression of the European expansion over
>>>>> nearly all the indigenous people it encountered in Africa, Asia, and
>>>>> the New World." I don't claim to be an historian.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Secondly, I am not convinced that all human cultures are equivalently
>>>>> predisposed to "eat the apple," etc. I think the uniqueness of the
>>>>> European (Western) example is unique and it is precisely that
>>>>> uniqueness that Pynchon is concerned with. Scale matters, and so does
>>>>> the belief system that undergirds and justifies the implementation of
>>>>> systematic genocide.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Lastly, it seems obvious to point out, that all human societies are
>>>>> capable, push to shove, of atrocity, but that gives short shrift to
>>>>> the uniqueness of the Western version. There are hints in the texts of
>>>>> another type of uniqueness- perhaps the flip side of the same coin,
>>>>> that there is something special- especially good- about "us," that we
>>>>> have something unique to offer the rest of the planet that may yet
>>>>> turn out to be decisive. In order for that to happen, "we" need to be
>>>>> especially honest.
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 11:52 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> "False equivalence"? I don't question for one second -- and venture
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> I
>>>>>> could cite a lot more evidence than you could for -- the overwhelming
>>>>>> edge
>>>>>> in power and organized aggression of the European expansion over
>>>>>> nearly
>>>>>> all
>>>>>> the indigenous people it encountered in Africa, Asia, and the New
>>>>>> World.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> But I don't agree that it "rubs salt in the wounds of the victims" to
>>>>>> acknowledge that there *were* many indigenous, warlike, expansionist,
>>>>>> slave-taking empires -- Chinese, Indian, Mongol, Central and West
>>>>>> African,
>>>>>> Mexica (Aztec), Inca, Five Nations -- before the Europeans arrived.
>>>>>> Or
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> their interactions with Europeans got complicated:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> - the Huron and Mohicans playing English and French for guns in their
>>>>>> own
>>>>>> immemorial war, while the English and French were playing them
>>>>>> - Indian rajahs and sultans doing the same against each other with --
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> typically marching with -- troops of the British East India Company,
>>>>>> French,
>>>>>> and Portuguese
>>>>>> - Cortes taking Tenochtitlan with 750 Spaniards -- and 80,000 or more
>>>>>> Tlaxcalan and other allies he'd recruited, who cheerfully slaughtered
>>>>>> their
>>>>>> erstwhile Mexica overlords
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> You call these "unique"; I call them ubiquitous. It's the Herero
>>>>>> "war,"
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, that are more nearly unique
>>>>>> precisely
>>>>>> because they were so one-sided; the victims had *no* state, allies or
>>>>>> organized military power of their own. That doesn't mean everything
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> happened from 1450 to 1950 was the same story writ large.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Nor does it mean that other, less helplessly "pure" victims, deserved
>>>>>> or
>>>>>> asked for what imperialism/colonialism did to them. It doesn't
>>>>>> exculpate
>>>>>> Europeans from any of their bloody 500-year spree. It just means that
>>>>>> *all*
>>>>>> humans are liable to eat the apple (drink the Kool-aid?) of power and
>>>>>> domination when they can.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Pynchon spends a lot of time exploring the specifically European and
>>>>>> USAn
>>>>>> expressions of that, and it leaves a mark -- as it should. But he
>>>>>> also
>>>>>> dips
>>>>>> via Calvinism to Adam's fall and other mythologies, visits ancient
>>>>>> ruins
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> legends, zooms out to millennia rather than centuries -- and those
>>>>>> are
>>>>>> reminders (I think deliberate) that it's not *all* about us.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 9:55 AM, jody boy <jodys.gone2 at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I think it is pretty clear, and that bringing up the divisions,
>>>>>>> infighting and betrayal among the Herero amounts to a false
>>>>>>> equivalence.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I'm not insinuating that you endorse or excuse the genocide in any
>>>>>>> way, but each of those examples you listed are unique. Lumping them
>>>>>>> together rubs salt in the wounds of the victims.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 7:29 AM, Monte Davis
>>>>>>> <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> Gotcha. All clear now.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 8:42 PM, jody boy <jodys.gone2 at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> This is an example of white European Christians travelling
>>>>>>>>> thousands
>>>>>>>>> of miles to the homeland of native Africans, colonizing it, and
>>>>>>>>> then
>>>>>>>>> rounding up the natives and systematically exterminating them.
>>>>>>>>> The
>>>>>>>>> only complexity about this is the twisted, convoluted arguments
>>>>>>>>> about
>>>>>>>>> why they did it, and why they should not be held accountable.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> "Oh, but it's more complicated than that..."  I'm reminded of
>>>>>>>>> Archduke Ferdinand playing the dozens. Oh, and his trophy's- if
>>>>>>>>> he
>>>>>>>>> even bothered to have the carcasses stuffed- littering the
>>>>>>>>> plains.
>>>>>>>>> Or,
>>>>>>>>> those brave "souls" riding along
>>>>>>>>> on the first transcontinental railroad shooting the buffalo until
>>>>>>>>> their fingers got tired.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Let's get real here, and not obfuscate like the ink of a white
>>>>>>>>> octopus.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 9:55 AM, e tb <eburns at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> Salt in old wounds: What Germany owes Namibia | The Economist
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21721918-saying-sorry-atrocities-century-ago-has-so-far-made-matters-worse-what
>>>>>>>>> -
>>>>>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>> 
>> 
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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