From: casper@vxcrna.cern.ch (CASPER,DAVI./PPE)
Subject: Re: Pride goeth before the fall (and hopefully Jones Murphy will too)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 15:46:00 GMT

In article <1992Aug31.113101.11242@cco.caltech.edu>, morphy@cco.caltech.edu (Jones Maxime Murphy) writes...
>casper@vxcrna.cern.ch (CASPER,DAVI./PPE) writes:
> 
>You might as well. I know it distresses you no end that a black man makes so
>much more than you, but just deal with it, man.

Wrongo.  Of course, we only have your word for that anyway.  What distresses me
is that a black man who claims to be educated, who claims to be eloquent, and
who claims to care about morality could manage to make education, eloquence,
and morality all look so bad.

>>>The fundamental forces of the universe I live in are greed and ethnocentrism,
> 
>>Which I suppose makes you well-deserving of your self-proclaimed title as its
>>king ...
> 
>I've never claimed to be king of Amerikkka, or anywhere else. No thank you.

No, but you live in a dream world where you're smarter and wiser than everyone
else.  A dream world where generations of history can be dismissed with
sweeping generalizations.  A dream world where no one is responsible for
what happens in their own lives because it is all the fault of somebody who
oppressed their ancestors centuries ago.  That's the universe you live in, and
that's the one I was talking about.

>The Bible was written by a bunch of people as dark-skinned as I am. Their
>whiteness is questionable, to say the least. But you once again reveal your
>proclivity for putting the cultural accomplishments of other peoples(in this
>case middle Easterners who spoke a language with roots in Ethiopia) under the
>umbrella of Western Civilization.

Since you have previously described the Bible in extremely negative terms, I
did not expect you to hold it up as a cultural accomplishment to be admired.
Cultures of the Mediterranean littoral, including the Greeks and Judeans, are
commonly considered part of Western civilization.

>>>My SATs were perfect, kiddo. And you didn't have me to compete with when you 
>>>won those silly awards.
> 
>>Tell us another one, kiddo.  Everyone knows the system is set up to keep the
>>black man down.  There's no way whitey would let you get a perfect score.
> 
>Yes, there is. If my intelligence dwarfs yours, whitey.

OK, how's this.  I don't believe you.  If you, Jones Murphy, will mail me proof
that your SAT scores were 800/800, I, Dave Casper, will mail you $100 and a
signed letter affirming that you are smarter than me.  Deal?  (I won't be
expecting that letter anytime soon, of course).

>>>Yes, for raping countries dry, then tossing them aside with virtually no 
>>>infrastructure. A recipe for disaster with deadly consequences.
> 
>>No actually, it was the Goths' fault for overrunning Europe and causing the dark
>>ages, no wait, it was the Huns fault for driving the Goths out of Asia, no wait
>>..  I could go on, but now I've got to go sue Henry Ford's heirs for that last
>>speeding ticket I got...
> 
>....I see you get such a kick out of the 30,000 babies who die each day of
>starvation in post-colonial AFrica. Party on, dude.

Like hell.  I'm saying the solutions for these problems are to be found in the
present.  A whole lot of the trouble in the world is caused by extremists who
ideologically simplify things into neat and tidy packages instead of dealing
with the complexity of the problems.  I think it is you who are more cynical
about Africa's troubles.  You seem to be saying Africans didn't, don't, and
won't ever have the ability to deal with their own problems, since they will
eternally be helpless victims.

Look, you live in a world where there is still plenty of injustice.  What are
you doing about it?  You speak of the South, and Europeans in general, as if
they might have all just woken up one day and said "This is all wrong.  Let's
divide our possessions equitably with our former slaves, give back every item
which could even remotely be traced to property taken from their countries or
labor, and all live together in harmony and justice starting today."  That was
as impossible then as it is now.  You and I both live on extreme tail of the
world's wealth distribution - the money for every compact disc we buy, every
movie we go to, and every Caribbean home we own could have been used instead to
help someone with no food, no medical treatment, etc.  But people like us who
claim to care to one degree or another don't do this because we feel like we
worked for what we have and it is rightfully ours.  If we are extremely generous
we give 5 or 10% of what we earn to the needy.  Does this make everyone
fortunate enough to be born into a wealthier society "criminals"?  That just
seems to naive and too simple.  There is just no way to change the past, even
if there we as a society decided to do it at this moment.

What we can hope to do is avoid the mistakes of past though.  And one of the
mistakes of the past was the sweeping generalization that the "the [insert
non-European race of your choice] will never be the equal of the white man."
This was taken by many to be a obvious truth, and never questioned.  You are
trying to advance a similar sweeping generalization.  The world has never been
that simple and never will be.

>>>I said Sweden did have overseas colonies. I've refuted your entire argument.
>>>Germany colonized what is now Namibia. I don't know what they're teaching you
>>>kids these days.
> 
>>Germany colonized Namibia, and Italy colonized Eritrea CENTURIES after
>>industrialization began.  You might as well have included the two world wars as
>>more evidence for your absurd statement that "slavery and colonialism were the
>>driving force for everything Western Europe achieved subsequent to their
>>commencement."  You don't even understand my argument, so how can you refute it?
> 
>Italy was not an industrialized country when it attacked Ethiopia. 
>Germany had barely begun.

>I[n] any case, you asked if these countries had colonies
>nd I proved that they'd engaged in rampant theft and slaughter.

We were discussing (I use the term loosely) a particular, if somewhat hazily
defined, period of history.  These events clearly fell outside that period of
time.  I'm suprised you didn't mention Rome's colonies as a counter-example
for Italy.

>The fact of the matter remains that European commerce experienced a tremendous
>influx of stolen goods from colonialism, and that that is what catalyzed 
>the Industrial Revolution in England. This in turn was imitated by Britain's
>neighbors.

And I'm saying the economic effect of colonialism on the European economies
was a marginal one at the time of industrialization - what the colonies produced
were small quantities of luxury goods like fur, rum, tobacco, ivory, spice, tea
silk, gold, silver, etc., and frequently the slave labor needed to produce them.
These goods, if not produced in a country's own colony, would have to be
bought from another colonial power, hence having a disproportionate effect on
the balance of trade.  If one colonial power managed to get a monopoly on some
item which was in heavy demand, they could and did turn a big profit.

This is a long way from saying colonial booty fueled industrialization.  You
make it sound like supertankers filled with oil and trainloads of iron-ore
were pulling up to newly built factories which would have been idle otherwise.
That's just not so.

I said then, and I still say, that colonialism and slavery were much more a
_result_ of industrialization and the differential advantage it gave the
Europeans to impose their will on other parts of the world, rather than the
other way around.  History is replete with other examples of economic and
structural advantages fueling expansion and aggression.

>>you made the original counter-factual statement that most of modern medicine and
>>agricultural techniques were not developed by Europeans.
> 
>That's a bold-faced lie. Nuff said.

How, I mean, how, can you argue this point?  Most of the universities in the
world were in the West, up until the middle of this century and probably even
today.  The scientific method, peer review of research, and all the other
infrastructure needed to do successful research were all largely, and I never
said totally, developed in the West.  The Arabs made contributions, the Chinese,
the Africans (after all the first heart transplant was performed by a South
African), and others too.

Even so, your inability to concede even so trivial a point, and to ascribe it to
a white conspiracy to rewrite history shows that you have ideological blinders
on.

>Your invective reeks of racial envy of a black man who is smarter than you are
>and better educated, 

Even if you were smarter and better educated (about as likely as your
historical theories), I still wouldn't envy you.   You're rude, boorish,
and hateful.  You have no respect for the opinions of others.  It is a shame
too, because if you weren't such a pathological jerk, you might actually be a
little interesting. 

>the same racial envy that drove the Confederates to fight
>and die to keep AFricans poor and ignorant. You're a worthy spiritual 
>descendant, and it's no wonder you resent me so much.

Truly laughable.  I was telling people here they were giving slavery and its
evils short shrift before you ever got here.  It is a tribute to your
closed-mindedness that you could alienate me.

Trading insults with you has become tiresome, and serves no further purpose.
I would suggest the following basis for allowing this group to continue on
a more mature basis than the past weeks have seen.  I undertake to adhere to
them and I hope others will.  They seem almost self-evident, but apparently
they are not.


1)   Avoid disparaging the intelligence of people who disagree with you.
1a)  Avoid calling yourself smarter, more educated, more eloquent, etc. than
     everyone else.
1b)  Avoid nit-picking dissection of word use, whose sole purpose is to
     circumvent 1 and 1a.
2)   Avoid use of inflammatory racial labels in a manner designed to offend or
     shock.
2a)  Avoid referring to other posters by using racial labels.
3)   Avoid trivializing or demeaning references to ethnic or cultural groups.


Dave Casper
CERN - Geneva
casper@vxcrna.cern.ch

Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa