The US has always been a country of violence

[Freeper]

mnhtnbb  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Aug-13-09 01:50 PM
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The US has always been a country of violence   Updated at 8:52 AM
   

There seems to be amazement, even here on DU, that mobs of angry white folks have been whipped
into a frenzy --and might be prone to violence--concerning the reform of health care insurance.
There is a growing anxiety that these angry mobs will erupt into violence. I wouldn't bet against it;
I would wager that's precisely what the voices encouraging the protests want to see.


"Increasingly, Americans are a people without history, with only memory, which means a people poorly prepared for what is inevitable about life -- tragedy, sadness, moral ambiguity -- and therefore a people reluctant to engage difficult ethical issues." - -- Elliot Gorn, "Professing History: Distinguishing Between Memory and Past," Chronicle of Higher Education (April 28, 2000).



The overwhelming majority of American historians have not studied, written about, or discussed America's "high violence" environment, not because of a lack of hard information or knowledge about the frequent and widespread use of violence, but because of an unwillingness to confront the reality that violence and American culture are inextricably intertwined.

Many prominent historians recognized this years ago.

In the introduction to his 1970 collection of primary documents, "American Violence: A Documentary History," two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Hofstadter wrote: "What is impressive to one who begins to learn about American violence is its extraordinary frequency, its sheer commonplaceness in our history, its persistence into very recent and contemporary times, and its rather abrupt contrast with our pretensions to singular national virtue." Indeed, Hofstadter wrote the "legacy" of the violent 1960s would be a commitment by historians systematically to study American violence.

But most American historians have studiously avoided the topic or somehow clouded the issue. In 1993, in his magisterial study, "The History of Crime and Punishment in America," for example, Stanford University Historian Lawrence Friedman devoted a chapter to the many forms of American violence. Then, in a very revealing chapter conclusion, Friedman wrote: "American violence must come from somewhere deep in the American personality ... cannot be accidental; nor can it be genetic. The specific facts of American life made it what it is ... crime has been perhaps a part of the price of liberty ... American violence is still a historical puzzle." Precisely what is it that historians are unwilling to discuss? Basically, there are three forms of American violence: mob violence, interpersonal violence, and war.

<snip>

M.I.T. Historian Robert Fogelson, in his 1971 book, "Violence as Protest: a Study of Riots and Ghettos," concluded that "for three and a half centuries Americans have resorted to violence in order to reach goals otherwise unattainable ... indeed, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the native white majority has rioted in some way and at some time against every minority group in America and yet Americans regard rioting not only as illegitimate but, even more significant, as aberrant."


For the full article and a discussion of "three forms of American violence: mob violence, interpersonal violence, and war."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17195.h...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6295210

damn uppity crackers need to sit down and shut up. 

I bet you anything the first shot will not be fired by a conservative but the last shot sure as well will be.

[Chris_]

mnhtnbb  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Aug-13-09 01:50 PM
Original message
The US has always been a country of violence...

Well then, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to try ****ing with us, by say... trying to force us into socialism, would it?  The karmic "coming around" would likely mess you up.   

[franksolich]

Can anybody name a country, past or present, that doesn't have considerable violence in its past?

Yawn.

[Freeper]

Can anybody name a country, past or present, that doesn't have considerable violence in its past?

Yawn.

Yeah every place but the US. 
The entire world lived in peace until the creation of the United States of America. We invented genocide, slavery, and war. 

[DumbAss Tanker]

The self-indulgent blather quoted by the DUmmie goes a long way to explaining why history academicians have a hard time finding gainful employment.

[BlueStateSaint]

The self-indulgent blather quoted by the DUmmie goes a long way to explaining why history academicians have a hard time finding gainful employment.

Except as fry cooks.

[jukin]

I would correctly state that it is collectivism concepts such as communism and communism lite that have cause oreders of magnitude more death, destruction, and misery than a thousand USAs.  Hell, just Mao alone killed of 10 times more people than our entire history, including the world wars.

[mamacags]

Can anybody name a country, past or present, that doesn't have considerable violence in its past?

Yawn.

Australia?  I am guessing of course.  I don't feel like actually googling it.  I am playing DUmmy today and sitting on my butt until my son's football game later.

[LC EFA]

Australia?  I am guessing of course.  I don't feel like actually googling it.  I am playing DUmmy today and sitting on my butt until my son's football game later.

Nope.

There was a substantial degree of hostility and bloodshed between the colonials and the indigenous peoples.

Not to mention our participation in most of the major conflicts of the 20th century.
 

[Karin]

I know it's an easy target.  But let me get something off my chest.  Would you please stop disdaining people who drop something in a fryer in the quest to make a buck?  I'm an accountant, like Frank, but my second job is to work the family business, with my husband, which involves me making and serving food.  It's honorable work, that's all. 

[franksolich]

I know it's an easy target.  But let me get something off my chest.  Would you please stop disdaining people who drop something in a fryer in the quest to make a buck?  I'm an accountant, like Frank, but my second job is to work the family business, with my husband, which involves me making and serving food.  It's honorable work, that's all. 

Madam, I think it needs to be read in context; it's no derogation of decent and civilized people doing decent and civilized work, so as to make a living and pay taxes to support parasites on the governmental dole.

There was one primitive, now exiled, the burderned primitive, the "TylerDurden" primitive, who used to make his living working in an automotive parts store--you know, one of those almost-60 guys, balding on top of his head, fat, running around with a clipboard in hand and pencil perched behind his ear.

We always made fun of the burdened primitive, and his job.

But we weren't making fun of decent and civilized people who work in automotive parts stores.

[thundley4]

I know it's an easy target.  But let me get something off my chest.  Would you please stop disdaining people who drop something in a fryer in the quest to make a buck?  I'm an accountant, like Frank, but my second job is to work the family business, with my husband, which involves me making and serving food.  It's honorable work, that's all. 

Working a family business is much different. I think most people are referring to McJobs.  It just makes it more ironic when DUmmies talk about working those jobs when they claim to be the intelligentsia.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Good point, Karin.  Everybody looks down on the guy in the low-bucks basic labor job, until he isn't there and they're crying for someone to wait a table, change the oil, or mow the yard.  Still I think the thrust of this idiom is that for the DUmmies, the entry level jobs would be the high points of a career for many of them, or in some cases a goal they could only aspire to (if they had any career aspiration at all) but never achieve.

[GOBUCKS]

I know it's an easy target.  But let me get something off my chest.  Would you please stop disdaining people who drop something in a fryer in the quest to make a buck?  I'm an accountant, like Frank, but my second job is to work the family business, with my husband, which involves me making and serving food.  It's honorable work, that's all. 

I agree with Karin. I used to work with a fellow who started a side catering business with his wife. He ended up quitting the day job,
and made a fortune at catering, a fleet of trucks, a swarm of uniformed employees, etc.. Dropping stuff in a fryer can work out pretty well.

But you have to make fun of DUmmies like Mythsaje, writing those painfully awful books, preaching to us all, while working at the pinnacle of his career uncrating melon ballers on the receiving dock at Target.

It's also hard not to make fun of DUmmies who complain about their minimum wage drudgery after an academic career pursuing a useless degree, always without even a speck of any mathematics or science that would make them marketable. They blame it on America.

The only ones whose work (or lack of it) makes them dishonorable in addition to stupid are the parasites like Pitt, or the huge fat guy, complaining about his free rides, or the mysteriously missing UGP - useless, worthless parasites, who contribute nothing toward their own upkeep, but complain unceasingly about those of us who do. The DUmp is crawling with others who fit that description.

[Gratiot]

Nope.

There was a substantial degree of hostility and bloodshed between the colonials and the indigenous peoples.

Not to mention our participation in most of the major conflicts of the 20th century.

What about New Zealand?  

All ANZAC activities aside, and forgetting the Great Kiwi Sheep War of 84'

[Celtic Rose]

What about New Zealand?  

All ANZAC activities aside, and forgetting the Great Kiwi Sheep War of 84'

Nope, the native Maori of New Zealand engaged in inter-tribal war for centuries, and it continued once Europeans came.  They had the "Musket Wars" in the early 19th century, which decimated several tribes.There were violent incidents between the Maori and Europeans, and though you said not to include it, they have been involved in a number of wars as both a British Colony and Sovereign nation over the past couple centuries.

Disclaimer:  I do not claim to be an expert in New Zealand history, this was the quick result of a couple of internet searches.

[Gratiot]

Nope, the native Maori of New Zealand engaged in inter-tribal war for centuries, and it continued once Europeans came.  They had the "Musket Wars" in the early 19th century, which decimated several tribes.There were violent incidents between the Maori and Europeans, and though you said not to include it, they have been involved in a number of wars as both a British Colony and Sovereign nation over the past couple centuries.

Disclaimer:  I do not claim to be an expert in New Zealand history, this was the quick result of a couple of internet searches.

I actually made up, the war with Sheep 

[Celtic Rose]

I actually made up, the war with Sheep 

LOL, cool name for a war though. Maybe we could call our next war the War of the Sheep, regardless of whether or not it fits 

[mamacags]

Plus they had that whole Mordor, Frodo, Sauron thing there too.

[Gratiot]

So we're all in agreement than?  We head to war with the Kiwi's, and blame it on the sheep!   

[NHSparky]

LOL, cool name for a war though. Maybe we could call our next war the War of the Sheep, regardless of whether or not it fits 

You just perfectly described most of the attendees of Obama's infomercial tour.  Oh, those signs are so MEAN!!!

[NHSparky]

So we're all in agreement than?  We head to war with the Kiwi's, and blame it on the sheep!   

Just remember:

[LC EFA]

I actually made up, the war with Sheep 

The War OVER sheep on the other hand.....

"I ain't shearing these with anyone" (say this with a faux New Zealand accent)

[vesta111]

The War OVER sheep on the other hand.....

"I ain't shearing these with anyone" (say this with a faux New Zealand accent)

My word, no one remember the Sheep VS. the Cattlemen in our country.  Got kind of nasty, lots of shooting and hard riding.

TMC, and the Western Chanel have allot of Socialist ideas about that and the rail roads back in the 1930's.