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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (22073)	8/15/2001 8:06:38 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Despite the various wars fought against the indigenous inhabitants, we did not engage in extermination as a matter of broad policy, and most deaths were inadvertent, a result of diseases being brought to the New World for which no resistance had been developed. Also, by the time of the Revolution, we were not simply the British. A seperate American culture had been developing. Few of the Founders had even been to Britain, and, in addition, there was a fair degree of immigration from Germany and other Northern European states already.......

To: Dayuhan who wrote (22073)	8/15/2001 5:04:43 PM
From: E	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

If the white population of southern Africa had simply exterminated the black population when they had the chance, back when people weren't worried about that sort of thing, and then declared independence, they might be in a place very similar to where we stand now. Exterminate seas of virtually free servants? Virtual slaves? You kiddin'? The Boers and Brits had it made. Every white, however untalented, lived like a goddam king. Or queen. So did, I should add, every black African with a couple of rand or pula or kwacha in the bank. The messenger in my office in Gaborone, he was about 20, had a full time maid. And the African employers I observed, and heard stories about, were, as a rule, greatly more exploitative than the "European" ones. (White non-RSA expats in Botswana were all referred to as "Europeans" most of the time even if they were Americans.) Like, instead of 1 1/2 to 2 days a week off, they allowed one Sunday every two weeks. Instead of an 8 hour day, a 12 or 14 hour one. At at half the pay, or even less. This is a generalization, and I suspect white expat employers in Botswana were more humane than white South African ones, who were comfortable with the deal, as a rule, and felt it to be God's will that the blacks wait on them hand and foot, and have no lives of their own, for less than a pittance. I don't expect that black South African employers were any different from black Batswana employers. A person might almost suspect that power corrupts or something. Here is a wonderful book, a biography of a South African sharecropper. It's hard going, being so long and sheerly full of information, unless you have a particular reason to be fascinated, as I did. But it is a precious document, a magnificent book, and explains a great deal, and I think changes one. Educates, in a certain deep way, I mean. How many books can you say that about? Kas Maine was illiterate. One of the astounding things about this book is the detail of his recall (documentation for much of which was able to be found.) amazon.com The Seed Is Mine : The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper, 1894-1985 by Charles Van Onselen There's a used copy there, I see, for $7. The man's name, Kas Maine, is pronounced Kahs Mah een neh. (Just in case anyone does read the book, they might as well know how it's pronounced; the book doesn't give that, an oversight.)