Sea Pirates

[Dr. Zaus]

"The founders were aristocrats, and they wished to show off their useless eduction, which consisted of the study of hocus-pocus from ancient times. They were bum poets as well.

But some of the nonsense was evil, since it concealed great crime. For example, teachers of children wrote this date on blackboards again and again, and asked the children to memorize it with pride and joy:

1492

The teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them.

Here was another piece of nonsense which children were taught: that the sea pirates eventually created a government which became a beacon of freedom of human beings everywhere else. There were pictures and statues of this supposed imaginary beacon for children to see. It was sort of ice-cream cone on fire.

Actually, the sea pirates who had the most to do with the creation of the new government owned human slaves. They used human beings for machinery, and, even after slavery was eliminated, because it was so embarrassing, they and their descendants continued to think of ordinary human beings as machines.

The sea pirates were white. The people who were already on the continent when the pirates arrived were copper-colored. When slavery was introduced onto the continent, the slaves were black.

Color was everything.

Here is how the pirates were able to take whatever they wanted from anybody else: they had the best boats in the world, and they were meaner than anybody else, and they had gunpowder, which is a mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulphur. They touched the seemingly listless powder with fire, and it turned violently into gas. This gas blew projectiles out of metal tubes at terrific velocities. The projectiles cut through meat and bone very easily; so the pirates could wreck the wiring or the bellows or the plumbing of a stubborn human being, even when he was far, far away.

The chief weapon of the sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was much too late, how heartless and greedy they were."

-Breakfast of Champions


I appreciate this perspective, but the simple facts of the world are that it's a Jungle: I wouldn't be here if my ancestors didn't recognize that history is written by the victors.

 

[soulcougher73]

Are we supposed to discuss something here? Sounds like some wacky chain email or something.

 

[dank69]

...


I appreciate this perspective, but the simple facts of the world are that it's a Jungle: I wouldn't be here if my ancestors didn't recognize that history is written by the victors.

You don't know that. Maybe you'd be here as someone else.

 

[Blackjack200]

The chief weapon of the sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was much too late, how heartless and greedy they were."

Yes, that's how I remember it. The Indians were all friends and lived in harmony until the white man came.

Actually, I thought the chief weapon of the white man was disease.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Wrong,.. thanks SMOGZINN.
Skull & cross bones didn't mean pirates; it meant no quarter, so, not only was your ass about to get robbed, but, it would be murdered as well.

A solid red flag meant no quarter, the skull and crossbones meant disease ship, and was probably used to keep other ships from trying to board her.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Skull & cross bones didn't mean pirates; it meant no quarter, so, not only was your ass about to get robbed, but, it would be murdered as well.

A solid red flag meant no quarter, the skull and crossbones meant disease ship, and was probably used to keep other ships from trying to board her.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Are we supposed to discuss something here? Sounds like some wacky chain email or something.

It's from Breakfast of Champions (as per the indication at the end of the quote). The idea essentially being that to honor people like columbus or the founders as anything more than an invading army that happened to be better armed and more ruthless. I agree with the premise, but disagree with the conclusion that there's something to be embarrassed about; The world was a violent dirty place and unless we dominated it: it would have dominated us.

I have the sense, though, that others may not agree with the premise; or may not agree with my counter-conclusion related to the premise.

You don't know that. Maybe you'd be here as someone else.

What is 'you' at that matter?

The Indians were all friends and lived in harmony until the white man came.

I don't see as how that's at all what was being said: I do wonder though, why are you reading it as-such?

 

[Newell Steamer]

A solid red flag meant no quarter, the skull and crossbones meant disease ship, and was probably used to keep other ships from trying to board her.

D'oh!

Thanks!

 

[Moonbeam]

I agree with the premise, but disagree with the conclusion that there's something to be embarrassed about; The world was a violent dirty place and unless we dominated it: it would have dominated us.

What has changed that would enable you not to be embarrassed?

 

[norseamd]

A solid red flag meant no quarter, the skull and crossbones meant disease ship, and was probably used to keep other ships from trying to board her.

what is to keep them from broadsiding the ship into destruction

 

[Dr. Zaus]

What has changed that would enable you not to be embarrassed?

You can't feel ashamed for being... I mean you can, and it seems a lot of people focus on precisely that (and covering that up), but it feels like a perpetuation of a wretched outlook.

On the other side of the coin people, instead of feeling the ashamedness instead feel anger toward the the remnant of the peoples dominated: as thought this some how ameliorates ancestry and the shame we heap upon ourselves for being.

Neither shame, nor anger to ward off feeling shame, make any sense.

 

[Moonbeam]

You can't feel ashamed for being... I mean you can, and it seems a lot of people focus on precisely that (and covering that up), but it feels like a perpetuation of a wretched outlook.

On the other side of the coin people, instead of feeling the ashamedness instead feel anger toward the the remnant of the peoples dominated: as thought this some how ameliorates ancestry and the shame we heap upon ourselves for being.

Neither shame, nor anger to ward off feeling shame, make any sense.

Are the indigenous peoples in South America not being rstroyed today as others were in the past? Who exactly do you think is responsible for that? What is 'being'?

 

[Greenman]

I find it unbelievably foolish to bemoan events of the distant past, or attempt to assign blame for them to someone alive today. The entire point of the exorcise is to demean or instill guilt, or simply to disparage the achievements of our ancestors.

 

[Moonbeam]

I find it unbelievably foolish to bemoan events of the distant past, or attempt to assign blame for them to someone alive today. The entire point of the exorcise is to demean or instill guilt, or simply to disparage the achievements of our ancestors.

Why bemoan any event in the past, even one that happened yesterday?

 

[Greenman]

Why bemoan any event in the past, even one that happened yesterday?

That's a good point, but the reality is there is a vast difference between something you've lived through, and something that happened over 500 years ago. History is primarily a teacher, learn from it, use the mistakes others have made to improve today, not to try and instill guilt in someone that had nothing to do with events at that time.

I grew up in my fathers shadow, I didn't cast it.

 

[Moonbeam]

That's a good point, but the reality is there is a vast difference between something you've lived through, and something that happened over 500 years ago. History is primarily a teacher, learn from it, use the mistakes others have made to improve today, not to try and instill guilt in someone that had nothing to do with events at that time.

I grew up in my fathers shadow, I didn't cast it.

You cast your own shadow. How is it different than his? How is a civilization that is destroying the Earth and different than ones in the past. You, of course, don't believe that humanity I'd infected with the disease of self hate so you are able to wear rose colored lenses. And because you and billions of others won't see it, can't allow yourselves to, it manifests as unconscious self destructive behavior.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

History is primarily a teacher, learn from it, use the mistakes others have made to improve today, not to try and instill guilt in someone that had nothing to do with events at that time

But if not...

 

[MongGrel]

I'm a Kurt Vonnegut fan from way back, have read about everything he's written, but he can be a bit focused on things after that fire bombing long ago as far as opinions.

 

[Greenman]

You cast your own shadow. How is it different than his? How is a civilization that is destroying the Earth and different than ones in the past. You, of course, don't believe that humanity I'd infected with the disease of self hate so you are able to wear rose colored lenses. And because you and billions of others won't see it, can't allow yourselves to, it manifests as unconscious self destructive behavior.

I've never bought into your self hate mantra, as it seems to have no bases in reality, and no resolution. I also take issue with the concept that almost everyone has this terrible condition, except for you. In my world thats called a delusion.
It is possible that you're right and everyone else is wrong, but since you're the only person who can perceive the condition, the end result will be exactly the same as it would be if it didn't exist at all.

 

[Moonbeam]

I've never bought into your self hate mantra, as it seems to have no bases in reality, and no resolution. I also take issue with the concept that almost everyone has this terrible condition, except for you. In my world thats called a delusion.
It is possible that you're right and everyone else is wrong, but since you're the only person who can perceive the condition, the end result will be exactly the same as it would be if it didn't exist at all.

Several points are wrong. Not everyone has this condition but I do. The number who don't are rare and unusual. A resolution, therefore is possible, as I have said before, via transcendence, the usual spiritual way of the various so called religions or via feeling what you feel, the potential offered by modern psychoanalysis but seldom realized. Because, in my opinion at least, transcendental techniques step over the problem, they offer hope, but not an accurate scientific analysis of the true nature of the problem, self hate, and speak allegorically say of devils etc. This makes them awkward to approach for the scientifically trained Western mind. I have been far enough down this path to have verified, to my otter shock and amazement, the presence of buried feelings I could never have possibly imagined exist in me. And as there in nothing as real as feeling what you feel, when the memories reappear, I know for a fact about what I speak. I was also guided in this by an analyst who had gone all the way.

As part of my own indecent explorations, I had already let go of all the ideas I had been culturally inculcated with which led to some small experience. Of transcendence I have spoken of on occasion here. As a result, I know something about the ego and what is like to let go of it, or more accurately, what the grace of having it drop away feels like, since the ego will never let go of the ego.

For this reason, I feel that what you experience is a part of your ego threatened by what I say that sees itself in me, some feeling that makes you think I need or want to project some kind of superiority for having special knowledge, but I am a real nobody and such a need is useless to me. Self hate, if real, would mean that your ego, your substitiute self worth, will attempt to keep you from the knowledge that somebody might care for you. To feel loved would open you to terrible pain. Something to consider.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

The human hateful rage against the perpetual pain of existence, which emanates from our existence, is fairly solid existential territory. It's actually one of the most ancient insights into the human condition: Life is perpetual pain. Its only in our amazingly plentiful times that we even think to question it... it is only in our times that we've made feeling the pain of living a malady which requires a soma.

And the real question is, are the sea pirates that killed the natives not still doing the same to the new natives: using their soma and to puncture holes in the wiring of the native 'self' who isn't a civilized enough to recognize how poor of decorum it is to recognize the pain of existence? But instead of a gun, we use prozac, and so on.

I imagine that a history of bloody murder for power isn't something that disappears over night. I recently read a letter addressed to Mexico during the mexican-american war, where the Mexicans said "we are peaceful and only want to live on our land" and the americans said "We know you are under a brutal dictatorship, we come to free you and bring democracy to you".

The more things
the more they