Letting Frederick Douglas put things in perspective

[Blarch]

Hillary brought up his name in the debate, it made me think of this speech. I am only posting the last two paragraphs of the speech

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms- of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
http://www.libertynet.org/edcivic/freddoug.html

Look how far we have come
:sarcasm:

[SteppingRazor]

1. Indeed, look how far we've come!

Since that speech, the slaves have been freed, black people and women have gained the vote, Jim Crow has arisen and been defeated, and so on and so on.

Yeah, we've got a lot of problems in America, but we've also made a lot of gains.

[Blarch]

2. My sarcasm was aimed at this part...

...for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

Were still #1

[SteppingRazor]

3. Again, I disagree ... well, about the revolting barbarity part.

We're real good at hypocrisy in America.

But terrible injustice and the horror of man's inhumanity to man exist in even greater quantities across the world. Look at Christians v. Muslims in Darfur. Look at Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. Look at the various ethnic minorities in Serbia. Look at Rwanda.

Again, I'm not saying America isn't without its problems. But don't ask me to hate my country, or to call my country the most evil, most barbarous, force on this planet. I don't believe in "my country, right or wrong," but I do believe in my country.

[shifting_sands]

4. Hate your country?

We don't even know what it means to "love this country." Not like Frederick Douglas or a Martin Luther King until we've been completely destroyed and humiliated by our country and still rise to work to make it better. The white man was always afraid that the slaves would rise against them and kill them for the barbarous way they treated others. The indians, the black culture, even today that fear of retaliation is there. But the blacks never did, they just went about being the people who did the hard labor to build this country and then served the white man and then passively marched to get Civil Rights passed. Their children were spit upon, rotten tomatoes and food thrown at them,hung, they were killed, hosed, burnt out and still they marched in peace and believed in the American Dream (and it was only a dream to them) so much that they never rose en masse to strike back.

No Frederick Douglas was pleading with the white man to stand up and be what they pretended they were and said they wanted to be. Martin Luther King asked the same thing as did Bobby Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and Cesar Chavez and a whole raft of others who said through the decades and are still saying "stand up America and live up to the ideals you say you have, we will stand together." But alas we are still broken, our government engages in torture, in starving other countries, in cheating the poorest and weakest among us, in a justice system gone bad and serving mostly the powerful and we swirl down in the gluttony of consumerism and use our entertainment system to tell us we are great, we don't look at ourselves at all.

If you think it's good enough to look at how far we've come, think how far we could go if every generation looked into Frederick Douglas' mirror. He loved his country so much that in spite of great and abiding danger to himself, he held up that mirror as did Martin Luther King. Let's start there.

[SteppingRazor]

5. You've misunderstood what I was saying.

Although, to your credit, you did so quite eloquently! :)


I don't for a minute think America has come far enough. I know we have a long way to go, and I've done my part, in my own small way, to get us there. I've written at length in print and online, including almost 15,000 posts right here. I've marched for fair trade, and against this war, and in doing so faced down police armed with rubber bullets and tear-gas bombs. I've done my best to convince everyone I know, and everyone I meet, that we face a real decision in this country, and that we need so many changes, and in doing so, I've gotten many formerly (and all too typically, in my generation) apathetic people to register to vote and participate in the process. I do not think it is good enough to look at how far we've come.

But I do think it is a fallacy to state that America has not, in many ways and at many times, stood up for its own ideals. As Americans, we do it all the time. We may not always succeed in living up to the ideals that ostensibly define the American character, but many of us often strive mightily to do so, and even when we fail, we pull this nation inexorably toward a better place. And as a result, the America of today is a better nation than the America that saw Frederick Douglass make that speech. The fact that we still have many miles to go cannot, and must not, erase that fact.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Alright, let's look.

The level of devastation the U.S. has unleased in Iraq beats Darfur, and Serbia. It hasn't surpassed Rwanda, but it's catching up quick.

[SteppingRazor]

7. Well, I think that all depends on your characterizations.

Iraqbodycount.org reports almost 90,000 reported Iraqi deaths. That number is, of course, only reported deaths, and just this month, the Iraq Health Ministry completed a two-year study that estimates 151,000 civilians dead through June 2006.
The UN estimated 140,000 killed in Serbia, 200k-400k in Darfur, and 500k-1M in Rwanda.


Of course, you could be referring to the displaced -- an estimated 4 million in Iraq, give or take a couple hundred grand. That certainly is more than the 2.5 million in Darfur.

Or you could be referring to financial loss -- the Iraq War, of course, dwarfs the others, both in terms of the money we've spent and the damage caused.

But in any case, I think it's a bad idea to engage in this sort of comparison. My only real response to your position is this -- while I cannot disagree in more strident terms with America's decision to invade Iraq, comparing it to Serbia, Darfur or Rwanda is wrong for a whole variety of reasons, the most important of which is that the U.S. has not been engaged in systematic genocide in Iraq. the same cannot be said for any of the other examples. The people who led us into this war are guilty of war crimes as far as I am concerned -- aggressive war, in and of itself, is a war crime, and I believe Iraq falls into that category. But to characterize the U.S.'s invasion of Iraq as analogous to any of the other conflicts is to mischaracterize the nature of the conflict, in my very humble opinion.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. I'm referring to the 1.2 million dead in Iraq.

"But to characterize the U.S.'s invasion of Iraq as analogous to any of the other conflicts is to mischaracterize the nature of the conflict, in my very humble opinion."

We've killed 1.2 million Iraqis for the sake of killing Iraqis and stealing their natural resources.

Which strikes me as pretty much the same reason for all the other bullshit.

[SteppingRazor]

10. You're referring to a single poll taken in Sept. 2007 ...

the results of which were twice as high as the previous highest estimate.

The Iraqi Health Ministry Survey that came out this month hit up close to 10,000 households over two years. I think it's probably closer to the real number, though I also think it underestimates.

But again, here we go with the comparisons of how many deaths there have been, a game that, as I stated before, I wanted to avoid. No estimate of the dead is going to be correct until Iraq is once again an orderly nation, and every estimate is an exercise in futility, as even one death for the sake of robbing a country of its natural resources, as you so succinctly put it, is one death too many.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. LOL

The Iraqi Health Ministry?

Jesus fucking Christ.

[SteppingRazor]

15. Yes, the Iraqi Health Ministry

What exactly are you suggesting?

That Iraqis couldn't possibly be capable of conducting a survey? Why? Because they're Iraqis? Because they're brown? Why?

Maybe you're suggesting, for some bizarre reason, that Iraqis are actually less likely to talk with Iraqis than they are to talk to a British polling group, though given the fact that the ministry used a bi-partisan group for the survey, I seriously doubt that.

Or maybe you just think the Iraqi Health Ministry is corrupt and lowering the numbers to try to make Americans and the nascent Iraqi government look better. If that's the case, then maybe you're not aware the study was done in conjunction with the World Health Organization.

In any case, your casual dismissal suggests that you value a poll of just over 1,000 homes taken over the course a couple months more than a survey of 10,000 houses taken over two years, and your tone smacks of racism, a lack of knowledge about the methodology, or a lack of knowledge of the credibility. Take your pick, but in any case, you sound ignorant.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. Because they're a puppet government for the invading forces.

It's like the Vichy French Ministry saying how fine everything's going in Vichy Frnace.

"your tone smacks of racism"

Oh, the irony. Here I am talking with somebody who may as well be a holocaust denier, and I'm the one that's racist.

:rofl:

[Blarch]

11. The game isn't over yet.

The CIA coup in Guatemala led to a 36 year civil war ...The Iraq game has just started.

[SteppingRazor]

12. Hell, that was merely a CIA-backed coup.

In countries that we actually have an out-and-out war with, we're there a hell of a lot longer than 35 years. Look at Korea, Japan and Germany. That's just yet another reason why the 2008 election is so important. All three of the major Democratic candidates have come out against permanent military bases in Iraq. Of course, none of the major Republicans have, and we've even got that nutter McCain talking about staying there for a century.

[malaise]

9. That my favorite Douglass speech

Haven't read it since last year. Thanks.

[shifting_sands]

14. You do have a point

Look Stepping Razor you are kind of taking a beating and I think it's reflective of so much frustration over what is going on right now. You are right, we have come a bit further, at least from African/Americans not being able to drink out of the same water fountains to a Black presidential candidate and so far no one has taken a shot at him. That says a lot about us so far.

Every generation has the responsibility for standing up and there are people who do stand for their values and ethics and morals, sadly it's not always our government. We are not perfect and we make choices that aren't in our own best interests much less anyone else, however you are right, people keep trying and who knows maybe one day we will make it the "American Dream" for all. To reach the day where we are not victims and we do not victimize. Now there is a dream.