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attofishpi
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Re: Christianity

Post by attofishpi »

Harry Baird wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:04 pm
attofishpi wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:44 pm You must realise that it's not like ALL the people of a nation\continent get together to do nasty stuff eh?
I get it. That doesn't absolve those who do.
You are being ridiculous.

Would the modern world be better without Australia, NZ, USA, Britain, Canada?
Harry Baird
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harry Baird »

attofishpi wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:09 pm Would the modern world be better without Australia, NZ, USA, Britain, Canada?
You sneak in a prejudicial word there: "modern". Of course, the "modern" world owes a great debt to the "modernised" nations of Australia, NZ, USA, Britain, and Canada, and wouldn't be the same without them.

The real questions, though, are: at what cost, to whom, and are we even better off in the "modern" world?
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attofishpi
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Re: Christianity

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Harry Baird wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:16 pm
attofishpi wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:09 pm Would the modern world be better without Australia, NZ, USA, Britain, Canada?
You sneak in a prejudicial word there: "modern". Of course, the "modern" world owes a great debt to the "modernised" nations of Australia, NZ, USA, Britain, and Canada, and wouldn't be the same without them.
Finally.

Nothing prejudicial, just the current state of affairs. Fact is had Britain not set forth to settle other lands, the world would be in a far worse state. Other European countries had far worse intentions, and ended up with the 'gold' they sought in the south Americas.

Harry Baird wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:16 pmThe real questions, though, are: at what cost, to whom, and are we even better off in the "modern" world?
Big questions there Harry, considering. The main one IS re the "modern world" as ultimately that is the one that counts...and moving forward perhaps these nations can create a stable world of unity and peace. It's the best foothold we have.
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harry Baird »

attofishpi wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:31 pm Fact is had Britain not set forth to settle other lands, the world would be in a far worse state.
While we're considering counterfactuals, it might be kinda helpful to consider how the world would be if no imperialists and colonialists had set forth to settle other lands, at least without the free and informed consent of the inhabitants of those other lands.

Just sayin'.
attofishpi wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:31 pm
Harry Baird wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:16 pmThe real questions, though, are: at what cost, to whom, and are we even better off in the "modern" world?
Big questions there Harry, considering. The main one IS re the "modern world" as ultimately that is the one that counts...and moving forward perhaps these nations can create a stable world of unity and peace. It's the best foothold we have.
I think the main ones are the costs and who has borne them, and who continues to bear them.
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: Christianity

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Belinda wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 1:26 pm
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:42 pm Right. Everyone's an 'expert'. What is this obsession with Israel? How is it different from every other country? It's not going to just disappear because of hypocritical wokie armchair 'experts'.
I think the obsession with Israel is because Israel is an outpost of the US empire. American settlers are appropriating land and water sources from native farmers.
Sure it is...
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Harry Baird wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:24 pmWhat is revisionist about my position that South Africa was colonised and exploited, and what is the non-revisionist history?
Your view requires a perspective that developed in the Marxian and post-Marxian world. In this specific sense it involves having received and integrated a framework through which the world and world history and economic relationships are viewed. It is revisionist in this sense. One employs that view, or view-structure as I say, in a revision of the circumstances. Modern moral attitudes and also economic theory are then reverse-engineered and arrays of moral judgments are made. To point this out is not necessarily to discount elements of that view, but only to attempt to answer the question that you challenge me to answer.

I do not discount the term ‘colony’ and I do not see the arrival of a colonial culture as something completely different, but what I do object to is the entirety of the view which results, which as a consequence undermines the existing civilization. For example the present and on-going critical position of the US and its establishment is a narrative with a function. Critical theory generally and many of its variants. They are wielded as *armaments*.

I do not establish such strict binaries, that is your doing, as to imply an absolute separation between one view (yours) and another possible way of seeing the establishment of South Africa, so I resist having to explain a view as a ‘non-revisionist history’. While it is possible, and certainly common in our present to use such charged terms as colonized and exploited, and I am certainly aware of what comprises these views and how they are employed (for example I have read many titles by Noam Chomsky, notably Year 501: The Conquest Continues where the ‘colonialist and exploitive’ view is expressed in lucid detail, and while I understand the view presented and can recite it (to you or anyone), I find that it is tendentious, grounded and based in Marxian principles of analysis which I question. This means that I do not stand with and I do not support the outcomes of what I refer to as Marxian analysis.

The impetus for the revolutionary movements that developed in Africa — the anti-colonial movements, the movements to reclaim Africa from those who did arrive as colonists and did establish colonial systems — all seem to have been parts of movements inspired and informed by the Marxist ideology I describe. It is my personal view, and a view that I am developing and working on but do not have completely worked out, that these movements have strongly destructive elements. But I define ‘destruction’ differently than I suppose that you do or would. So I again recognize, or admit if you wish, that the overturning of the South African order was a liberal achievement and recognized as a ‘positive outcome’ and I have done enough research on contemporary South African cultural politics to see that, still, many people have this opinion and hold to it. Yet I also notice that in many different ways the country, the civilization of South Africa, or that was South Africa, is in a downward spiral. It seems only to be increasing and not abating or ‘getting better’. And this pushes me back into the ideas I have entertained about more strict hierarchies as being necessary. And I do mean exactly what you think I am merely alluding to.

What this means, in my view, is a reexamination of modern liberal tenets. A challenge of them as legitimate assertions. I mentioned some intellectuals who are strongly opposed to the liberal tenets I refer to. And I know that to broach such an idea is deeply contentious. However in my case I enter into such consideration not as an activist trying to change or influence culture, or any person’s opinion or viewpoint, but fundamentally as one interested in examining the operative tenets in greater detail and in a critical mood.

I am aware as well that what I am describing is going on independently of what I say or think about it. So I could, as an example, refer you to numerous people, South Africans or former South Africans, who speak from the perspectives I have referenced or alluded to. I am also aware of and can refer you to people who have an anti-liberal or counter-liberal position (or countervailing set of tenets) about the liberal tenets and assumptions that are now highly operative and ascendent in America itself (my own country, at least technically). And in relation to that I am aware, and frequently talk about, how there is now unfolding and going on various levels of *ideological warfare* within these areas or zones. I cannot say that I have an absolute fixed position because I often do not know what to finally decide, so I prefer to present ideas in a more neutral way and talk about positions that are extant from a somewhat removed position.

I cannot think of any way to be more direct and also polite with you, Harry, in resisting any sort of reaction to your insulting manner. I say that to develop the countervailing ideas I refer to is extremely difficult because we run up against ideological edifices that have been established for us and in us through cultural machinations (education, PR, propaganda, media). If I confront, of believe that I confront, such idea-structures that I often see operating in you I am aware (and I often say) that I am also dealing with the same edifices in my own self.

[Your use of terms like ‘bs’ and your assertion of bad-faith are way off the mark and very inappropriate. Along with *UTTER nonsense. “How can you keep a straight face”. That I only offer *crickets* when I make efforts to explain myself. “Disingenuous bs”. I also will mention that there is something really irritating about your use of the term ‘dude’. Your insinuation that I lack courage is also off the mark.]

In Open Veins of Latin America (Eduardo Galeano, one of the most influential left-progressive thinkers who wrote the textbook for modern Latin American resistance) he developed the idea of funnel systems. All roads, all rail lines, all river and all transport systems led to the ports and the chief outposts wherefrom the materials and products were then carted off to Europe. That is the accepted colonial model. That colonies are transportation centers for bleeding the region. I do not simply discount the validity of this model. It certainly has its place.

But South Africa was established on a different model, or a modified model. Similar to the (N) American colonists South Africans came with the plan and the intentions not of setting up a colonial funnel outpost, for the transportation of goods back to Europe, but because they desired to live there, to build a civilization, to create a culture. Therefore to explain SA in terms of the eploitive funnel model is what I objected to. I did not say and do not say that a foreign people did not come and did not supplant others (though the southern horn has less populated than other regions); and I would not say that they did not ‘exploit’ the land, people and the circumstances in the region, but I do say that they desired to establish a ‘complete civilizational unit’ as their homeland, as their creation. So I draw a comparison to the N. American colonialists and a contrast with, say, the Central American and the South American colonial structures. These were established by men seeking wealth and riches through conquest and, as you say, exploitation, often to return with that wealth to Europe. The difference was (in those early days) that the American colonialists desired to create a civilization for themselves. I assume that you will get my point.
Last edited by Alexis Jacobi on Tue Nov 29, 2022 7:04 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: Christianity

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Harry Baird wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:16 pm
attofishpi wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:09 pm Would the modern world be better without Australia, NZ, USA, Britain, Canada?
You sneak in a prejudicial word there: "modern". Of course, the "modern" world owes a great debt to the "modernised" nations of Australia, NZ, USA, Britain, and Canada, and wouldn't be the same without them.

The real questions, though, are: at what cost, to whom, and are we even better off in the "modern" world?
Go back to the jungle then. You have no right to be in the land of the aboriginies. Donate your assets, get off your 'modern' computer and take your sorry, guilty arse back to Africa.
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: Christianity

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Harry Baird wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:54 pm
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:42 pm Right. Everyone's an 'expert'.
You seem to have inferred that Belinda's comments support your position. Unless it's me who's misinterpreting, they don't. She wrote explicitly that the "policy" that "right wing Israelis" are pursuing is (emphasis added) "dishonest".

But, as is becoming apparent, connecting one thing with another is not exactly your forte...
That just seals the deal. You obviously have no reading comprehension skills. Unlike you, I can actually read. I also don't seek out others to 'support' my 'position'.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

I have been wondering if energy drinks can be combined with liquor into a sort of ‘shandy-like cocktail’. What is the result, lets say in a person’s prose, if they are half-drunk but jacked-up on energy drinks from how they might write in a normal state? Would the effect of the liquor override the caffeine? Would they become less belligerent or more belligerent?

These are some questions I have. Surely some here can clue me in . . .
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: Christianity

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Perhaps you should try it. It might make you less of a crashing bore.
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attofishpi
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Re: Christianity

Post by attofishpi »

..lookout peeps, the wookie shit the bed again. :D
Harry Baird
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harry Baird »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:51 pm
Harry Baird wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:24 pmWhat is revisionist about my position that South Africa was colonised and exploited, and what is the non-revisionist history?
Your view requires a perspective that developed in the Marxian and post-Marxian world.
Absolutely not. My father is a conservative businessman and one of the most unabashed capitalists you'll meet, who has no truck at all with Marxism or socialism in general, yet he was also a vehement opponent of Apartheid.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:51 pm I resist having to explain a view as a ‘non-revisionist history’.
Yet it was you who accused me in the first place of historical revisionism - an accusation that presumes you must be able to explain what the "unrevised" history is.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:51 pm I also notice that in many different ways the country, the civilization of South Africa, or that was South Africa, is in a downward spiral. It seems only to be increasing and not abating or ‘getting better’.
I haven't followed the situation much, although I did have an informative online chat with a cousin still living there a few years ago, and, yes, the country's politics do seem to be mired in corruption, along with other problems such as ongoing violence, etc, etc. This, though, doesn't justify the exploitative - and openly racist - colonial project that preceded the present situation.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:51 pm And this pushes me back into the ideas I have entertained about more strict hierarchies as being necessary. And I do mean exactly what you think I am merely alluding to.
What I think you're alluding to is that, in your view, Africans are a primitive people, and that they are thus on a lower rung of the "strict hierarchy", and, thus, that Africans need or at least ought to be governed (to use the sort of euphemistic term I imagine you preferring) by Europeans.

How close am I to understanding your allusion?
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:51 pm South Africans came with the plan and the intentions not of setting up a colonial funnel outpost, for the transportation of goods back to Europe, but because they desired to live there, to build a civilization, to create a culture. Therefore to explain SA in terms of the eploitive funnel model is what I objected to.
I did not and would not have used the term "funnel model", so there is no basis for your objection on those grounds.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:51 pm I did not say and do not say that a foreign people did not come and did not supplant others (though the southern horn has less populated than other regions); and I would not say that they did not ‘exploit’ the land, people and the circumstances in the region
So, you don't, ultimately, deny the basis of my claim that South Africa was an exploitative colonial project, and it remains a mystery as to why you initially described my claim as "historical revisionism" - yet you think it's me who's out of line in this exchange.
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harry Baird »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:53 pm Go back to the jungle then.
Come over here and make me, possum.
Last edited by Harry Baird on Tue Nov 29, 2022 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harry Baird »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 7:02 pm
Harry Baird wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:54 pm
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:42 pm Right. Everyone's an 'expert'.
You seem to have inferred that Belinda's comments support your position. Unless it's me who's misinterpreting, they don't. She wrote explicitly that the "policy" that "right wing Israelis" are pursuing is (emphasis added) "dishonest".

But, as is becoming apparent, connecting one thing with another is not exactly your forte...
That just seals the deal. You obviously have no reading comprehension skills. Unlike you, I can actually read. I also don't seek out others to 'support' my 'position'.
OK, I'm open to being corrected as to what you really meant. I'm guessing, then, that when you wrote "Right. Everybody's an expert", you didn't mean, as I'd originally interpreted, "Yes, Belinda, that's right: everybody's an expert", you meant more, "Oh jeez, like everybody, Belinda thinks she's an expert".

Am I closer to the mark now?
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harry Baird »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 7:09 pm I have been wondering if energy drinks can be combined with liquor into a sort of ‘shandy-like cocktail’.
You might like to look into the Vodka Red Bull combo. Experiment with it a little, and you might be able to answer your own questions!
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