Mondongo---I agree with you....but capitalism has not won, that is why there is still resistence, and why the capitalist camp has taken drastic measures to prevent any dissent......When we say capitalism, we have to understand that we are discussing capitalism in all of its evolutionary stages, from the age of god kings, to feudalism, to colonialism, to monopoly industrialization, to the age of globalization......all we see from these stages is genocide, destruction of the environment, and a completely destabilized world...... the tension and damage has built up to the point in which we are today.....yes, in the 21st century we will most likely suffer the utmost consequences for our actions.....
Survival of the fittest does not mean the survival of the most brutal.....on the contrary, in Darwinistic terms it means the organism best adapted to its particular environment, which is best to thrive off of its ecological niche.....we have destroyed our so much, how do we really claim to be the fittest in those terms? We are like parasites, destroy our environment, then move on to destroy that of other species.....yet we fail to understand that what may be profitable in the short term is not so in the long term.
Capitalism has limitations, but the capitalists will do all they can to stretch those......remember, every right a worker has today, every act to protect the environment, all were fought for hard and long....nothing was ever given.
The white man did not kill the "weaker" Native American.....the colonization of the new world occurred differently in each part....the English used genocide as a tool of conquest....The Spaniards and Portuguese used language, religion, miscegenation.......and the divide and conquer technique.... the French used the divide and conquer technique the best though....
The world is not a game of soccer, it is more like chess.....there is no rule for loser or winner.......there is no winner or loser, only changes in the power relations......power exists from bottom to top as well as top to bottom....Resistence is often passive.....but it is there.....
Tony C...the Latin hater!
Native Amricans are natives of the continent.....the label given to them by Colon does not matter as much as their emic designation.....an ethnocentric view will get one no where near reality.
They came from Asia some 25.000 years ago, your family entered the Americas when? Do not be so arrogant......everyone came from somewhere.......in the remote past we all came from Africa....big deal......
Cannibalism was practiced by Germanic tribes in Europe, by Celts.......in religious ceremonies. It was practiced pretty much everywhere as a ritual......slavery, rape, and murder were "gifts" brought by the "civilized" white people to the continent.....
Genocide of 100 million natives in the USA is more brutal than the occasional human sacrifice in a religious context.....the motivation, the act, are very different, there is no moral highground for the Europeans....
In the USA the Native Americans were murdered in campaigns of genocide and the first massive use of biological weapons.....giving them small pox infested blankets and making them march to Oklahoma territory.....read about the Trail of Tears.... In Latin America the Native Americans were not killed off, did not die off.......many still remain, many mixed with the Spaniards to form mestizo culture, others with Africans....Latin America has always been a place where you see a Native American culture with a Spanish mask over it......creolization and related processes define the processes of cultural development on the continent......the use of miscegenation to neutralize potential conflict was state policy of Spain and Portugal....
Jan--
You seem to know your stuff! Outside the context of nation states, war has always been mostly symbolic......look at Papua New Guinea where this is still practiced, war is seen as a way to show bravery and chase the enemy off, it is a magical ritual more than a frenzy of bloodlust......sometimes no one is even killed, and when killing occurs it is of a few people......then a feast to celebrate peace is made.....Australian Aborigines, and Tainos practiced similar tactics.....thats why it was so easy for the Caribes to wipe out so many of the Tainos......sometimes, war was seen as a way to kill the "soul" of the enemy warriors, a lot of the body art and decorations used by warriors were to have magical properties to ward off attack from others, and enable them to attack back.....
The divide and conquer technique was used in Mexico and the Andes, the Aztecs and Quechuas were not the most beloved groups so it was easy to enlist others to fight them, let them bleed each other, then take over......Disease also played a large role in depleting populations.....
Antonio de Nebrija said that the Spanish language and religion would be the tools of Empire, and he was right.....cultural genocide through policies of hispanization and homogenization were the decisive factor in Spanish victories. Spain viewed the conquest of the Americas as a continuation of the reconquista, and this is the cultural context in which the conquest must be viewed......
However there was much resistence to this cultural genocide and thats where creolization comes in....the creation of a mestizo culture....... and the defense of indigineous rights using the tools of the Spaniards......an intersting thing is the literary genre of protest letters from the 16 to mid 17 centuries, where Indiginous Christians write in defense of indiginous culture in Spanish....Guaman Poma, Santa Cruz Pachacuti, el Ica Garcilaso de la Vega, Tupac Amaru are among the best known figures of this genre......it shows how power structures worked off each other......from bottom to top, to regulate the middle, thus interaction between the crown and these oppressed Native Americans helped curb the abuse being done by the European middlemen.....
A Latin American union has been the dream since independence.....even in the DR, the first flag that was used was that of "Gran Colombia" with an extra star symbolizing the DR.....this was the dream of Bolivar, who's father was the viceroy in Santo DOmingo
! Its still a dream among intellectuals....thats why the more educated a Latin American is, the more solidarity they show their brothers and sisters......
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Back to the topic of Tainos.......they are a vital part of our identity, as long as we call Quisqueya Quisqieya and Boriquen Boriquen and Haiti is Haiti.......then there will be a Taino legacy, heritage, and living remnant......
