Christopher Columbus’s spirit of determination & adventure has provided inspiration to generations of Americans. On #ColumbusDay, we honor his remarkable accomplishments as a navigator, & celebrate his voyage into the unknown expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. https://t.co/Mg3dxRfPuN
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2018
I’m with you Amy https://t.co/OA32dUrKfs
— David Crosby (@thedavidcrosby) October 7, 2018
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 214 of 214This seems to about a contemporary period
https://youtu.be/VB62g7-H8Kc1
Heh. You think Columbus and the Christians didn't do plenty of butchering (as well as enslaving)?
There's a pretty stark difference today, but back in 1492 it would be kind of a tossup as to who you'd rather be conquered by. They both believed conversion saved your immortal soul, and as such any method to make that conversion happen was on the table.
This is not a man to be honored.
I don't think it's necessary to judge the totality of historical figure. We can celebrate Columbus's rather remarkable feat without celebrating everything he did in life. Whatever faults he had, the man had guts you don't see very often.
Why not call it "Casino Day."
I bet President Trump can get behind a day celebrating Casinos.
Columbus according to some accounts, did let the title of cover of go to his head, boabadilla,replaced him with ovando as I mentioned earlier.
Columbus is our father, the reason most of us are here, or indeed anywhere.
He started the most significant change in world history, the European explosion, the European conquest of the world. Some things took a century or three to play out, but after 1492 it was all inevitable, one way or another. If any individual in the last millenium can be said to have made us what we are, its him, but the whole of the consequences of his voyage are so vast, and so soaked into every little thing in every human life, that the actual man nearly disappears.
Granted, if it hadn't been him, it probably would have been someone else not long after, or if there had been some stroke of fortune, possibly somewhat earlier. So to that degree Columbus himself is more symbolic than decisive. Still, anyone else who had performed his feat would have been that symbol.
And it is a symbol of that European explosion, the European conquest. Its a symbol of us, the sons of Columbus, the intricately related European tribes of world-conqerors. Hurrah for us!
The conquered, or the sensitive among them, don't like it. Its a continuing insult to their amour-propre. But what is, is.
Columbus was that European spirit in one man.
Brilliant, bold, brave, brutal, callous, opportunistic, a man of infinite curiosity and learning, of rather low birth, (as were most of the conquerors), a master of his trade, eager to use the highest technology available. And withal, sentimental, sincerely religious, and a loyal servant of his medieval sovereign (when he finally settled on one).
Complicated and confounding any simple or petty opinions. An explosion of a man.
They did one with depardieu on the 500th anniversary, yes buwaya he would have to all those things to succeed.
The conquered, or the sensitive among them, don't like it. Its a continuing insult to their amour-propre. But what is, is.
Cookie hates progress. He wants to live in the nasty, brutal and short world before capitalism.
Counterpunch hates America. I know lots of places they would be happier. Venezuela is only one.
Cook seems to believe that you will get a historically balanced perspective regarding Columbus from counterpunch.org.
By the standards of counterpunch, virtually every human being on the planet five centuries ago was a moral monster. Historians call this prejudice "presentism."
Twenty-five years ago historians were still struggling to explain European dominance of the globe. This dominance was historically unparalleled and multi-disciplinary. In virtually every field of human endeavor, from military science to governance to medicine, the Europeans excelled far beyond what other civilizations, in the past or contemporary, had done or were capable of doing.
These days a consensus seems to have formed that the secret of the Europeans was evilness, e.g. "white supremacy." For some reason the marxy-bits get an exception.
Until the widespread availability of guns the Europeans held the weakest corner of the Eurasian landmass and benefited tremendously from being the farthest from the Mongols, who crippled the Chinese and the Muslims, both of whom were stronger than the Europeans, paving the way for European dominance.
It's better to be lucky than good.
The americas pre columbus were not idyllic compounds of native philosophers. Conflict and cannibalism were rife. Few if any tribes didn't war with their neighbors. Those that did warred with thier neighbors early and often.
Inmany cases the newcomers were looked upon variously as easy prey or unwitting allies.
The end result was a ore industrial society meeting a stone age society.
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