Apolyton ExtraCivs Pack: Americans

[Gangerolf]

Originally posted by Jay Bee
But that message was very equivocal, you must admit that

I admit that

But back on topic:
The Americas need to be filled up, so in addition to the Americans, Iroquois and Aztecs, we should at least add the Incas and either ARgentina or Brasil (or both) IMO.

[fezick31]

Originally posted by Trachmir
If were going to clean house, I suggest that a certain cut off date be set... say 1000AD. If you weren't around by then, your not in the game. This would also mean losing all industrial/modern special units!

Oh, and the civ uses the name of pre-1000AD, not post.

If you are going to set an arbitrary (sp?) date, why 1000 AD. Why not go all the way back to 4000BC, when the game begins? That way you could get down to the purely hitorical start. Afterall, all civilaztion arose out of mesopotamia anyway, so why deal with anything other than the Egyptians, the Hittites, and a handful of other middle eastern cultures? Maybe China as well.

The point here is tha the game includes all civs that have had major influence on the world. You cannot deny that the United States has had a major impact on the world, and possable more so than any other civilation to date.

You cannot rule out any civ that arose out of the ashes of another, or that spawned as an offshoot. If you do, than you lose the Romans, ALL of Europe and all of Africa. You might be left with China, Egypt, and the predecessor of the incan and mayan civilizations. I'm pretty sure China started arounf 3000BC, so we lose them too...

[Waku]

Originally posted by molly bloom


Rather a naive assertion, don't you think? It's not as if any of the former colonial powers has a great deal to boast about with regard to the treatment of indigenous peoples. For the Australian Aborigines, you could just as easily cite the Carib and Arawak Indians. For the Maoris, many of the Amerindian peoples of the former Spanish colonies in the southern United States. And let's not even get into the subject of the expulsion of the Moriscos and the Jews. Empire building isn't pretty or polite, whoever does it.

What is childish is to point at other saying "and you more".
I still think that the stronger difference between the two Gangerolf's columns of countries is due to what I've said.
Prove me it's a different reason.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Waku


What is childish is to point at other saying "and you more".
I still think that the stronger difference between the two Gangerolf's columns of countries is due to what I've said.
Prove me it's a different reason.

How do you disprove a negative? I also said naive, I didn't say childish. From your list we could for example, take El Salvador, and compare it with former British Honduras, now Belize. How many military coups in Belize? How many Amerindian villages targeted by paramilitary forces? How much corruption, disappearance of political opponents of the regime, how many assassinations of Archbishops in the cathedral? Then we could go on to Colombia, and compare it with, say former British Guiana, now Guyana, and again, do the same thing. Number of military coups, amount of political repression, extermination of opponents of the regime, targetting of Amerindian population and so on.

If for instance, we take Australia, the country could not at the time of European arrival have supported a large population. Not due to ignorance on the part of the Koori people but because:

they had no draught animals

no equivalent of the chicken, or turkey

no equivalent of wheat, millet, barley or corn

all, or some of which, would have been necessary for the foundation of city style development, had the land been able to support it.

Compare and contrast with Mexico and Central America and the Andean states, and North American cultures. You start with a vastly larger base population, city states, settled agriculture rather than hunter gatherer societies. Are you seriously expecting me to believe that the majority of the inhabitants of the Aztec and Incan states interbred and are now mestizos?
That there was no deliberate policy of genocide at the time, and a continuing policy of extermination aimed at Amerindian populations in former Spanish colonies? Guatemala alone would disprove this.

The point I was trying to make, is not to state the superiority of Anglo/Yankee culture, which I do not believe in, but to point out that indigenous populations were the losers in the contest with colonial powers, and still are losing, since the colonial powers have been replaced by multi-national corporations.

[Waku]

Originally posted by molly bloom
I also said naive, I didn't say childish.

I did say childish, that's what your post inspired me.

Originally posted by molly bloom
From your list...

I beg your pardon!! I have NOT mentioned a single country.

Originally posted by molly bloom
... take El Salvador, and compare it with former British Honduras, now Belize. How many military coups in Belize? How many Amerindian villages targeted by paramilitary forces? How much corruption, disappearance of political opponents of the regime, how many assassinations of Archbishops in the cathedral? Then we could go on to Colombia, and compare it with, say former British Guiana, now Guyana, and again, do the same thing. Number of military coups, amount of political repression, extermination of opponents of the regime, targetting of Amerindian population and so on.

Do you wanna talk about the CIA or do you prefer to draw a veil over these things?

Originally posted by molly bloom
Australia

lucky guys these aborigins now that you take care of them

Originally posted by molly bloom
Are you seriously expecting me to believe that the majority of the inhabitants of the Aztec and Incan states interbred and are now mestizos?

I've got some statistics handy:

http://www.azteca.net/aztec/indpop.html

And note this is not about mestizos but pure amerindians

Originally posted by molly bloom
The point I was trying to make, is not to state the superiority of Anglo/Yankee culture, which I do not believe in, but to point out that indigenous populations were the losers in the contest with colonial powers, and still are losing, since the colonial powers have been replaced by multi-national corporations.

I haven't said anything against in any case it doesn't make any difference.

Something funny I've found:

http://www.azteca.net/aztec/story.html

About 1966 or so, a NASA team doing work for the Apollo moon mission took the astronauts near Tuba City. There the terrain of the Navajo Reservation looks very much like the lunar surface. Among all the trucks and large vehicles were two large figures that were dressed in full lunar spacesuits.
Nearby a Navajo sheep herder and his son were watching the strange creatures walk about, occasionally being tended by other NASA personnel. The two Navajo people were noticed and approached by the NASA personnel. Since the man did not know English, his son asked for him who the strange creatures were. The NASA people told them that they were just men that were getting ready to go to the moon. The man became very excited and asked if he could send a message to the moon with the astronauts.

The NASA personnel thought this was a great idea so they rustled up a tape recorder. After the man gave them his message, they asked his son to translate. His son would not.

Later, they tried a few more people on the reservation to translate and every person they asked would chuckle and then refuse to translate. Finally, with cash in hand someone translated the message,

"Watch out for these guys, they come to take your land."

[Plan Austral]

Originally posted by molly bloom


How do you disprove a negative? I also said naive, I didn't say childish. From your list we could for example, take El Salvador, and compare it with former British Honduras, now Belize. How many military coups in Belize? How many Amerindian villages targeted by paramilitary forces? How much corruption, disappearance of political opponents of the regime, how many assassinations of Archbishops in the cathedral? Then we could go on to Colombia, and compare it with, say former British Guiana, now Guyana, and again, do the same thing. Number of military coups, amount of political repression, extermination of opponents of the regime, targetting of Amerindian population and so on.

If for instance, we take Australia, the country could not at the time of European arrival have supported a large population. Not due to ignorance on the part of the Koori people but because:

they had no draught animals

no equivalent of the chicken, or turkey

no equivalent of wheat, millet, barley or corn

all, or some of which, would have been necessary for the foundation of city style development, had the land been able to support it.

Compare and contrast with Mexico and Central America and the Andean states, and North American cultures. You start with a vastly larger base population, city states, settled agriculture rather than hunter gatherer societies. Are you seriously expecting me to believe that the majority of the inhabitants of the Aztec and Incan states interbred and are now mestizos?
That there was no deliberate policy of genocide at the time, and a continuing policy of extermination aimed at Amerindian populations in former Spanish colonies? Guatemala alone would disprove this.

The point I was trying to make, is not to state the superiority of Anglo/Yankee culture, which I do not believe in, but to point out that indigenous populations were the losers in the contest with colonial powers, and still are losing, since the colonial powers have been replaced by multi-national corporations.

Yes
The inhabitants of the Aztec and Inca interbred,
and now many are mestizos, and there is a big amount of pure
indians.
Not only that,
many people in Peru, Bolivia, And northern Argentina and Chile kept their culture quite intact.Many still pray to old gods like the pachamama.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Waku



Do you wanna talk about the CIA or do you prefer to draw a veil over these things?...

...lucky guys these aborigins now that you take care of them

I>

Somewhat luckier than these people:

https://www.law.nwu.edu/depts/clinic/ihr/hrcomments/1995/oct11-95.html

news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_464000/464759.stm

https://www.peacebrigades.org/guatemala/cap95-02.html

https://www.americas.org/news/nir/20000129_massacre_victims_found.asp

https://www.icomm.ca/carecen/page61.html

garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~sss4407/RioNeg.htm


And that's just Guatemala and El Salvador, and only a few cases. There are of course many more.

I don't think blaming the C.I.A. for everything really works as an excuse, do you? I have no brief for the C.I.A. either, believing that U.S. interference in Central and Latin America has served only to worsen the lot of indigenous peoples.

[Waku]

Originally posted by molly bloom
And that's just Guatemala and El Salvador, and only a few cases. There are of course many more.

seems like if someone in central america has been reading a book about N/america history and now he's trying to follow their advice

Originally posted by molly bloom
I don't think blaming the C.I.A. for everything really works as an excuse, do you? I have no brief for the C.I.A. either, believing that U.S. interference in Central and Latin America has served only to worsen the lot of indigenous peoples.

It is impossible to write the History of Cebtral America without talk about US interventions:
U.S. Interventions in Latin America

"The enemies of American civilization-- for such are the enemies of slavery-- seem to be more on the alert than its friends."
William Walker circa 1855

[Dr. Nick]

I could use the example of the Guatemala was it, the National Banana COmpany, owned by Americans? That when some of its lands were going to be seized to have a land reform to favour the landless peasants the president was overthrown.

Same think in Iran. Or similar.

And in the 70s, when all this "communist paranoia" was on they toppled almost every regime from the Panama Canal to Cape Horn... are you ready to account for the illegal murders of thousands of "disappeared".

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by El Awrence
I could use the example of the Guatemala was it, the National Banana COmpany, owned by Americans? That when some of its lands were going to be seized to have a land reform to favour the landless peasants the president was overthrown.

Same think in Iran. Or similar.

And in the 70s, when all this "communist paranoia" was on they toppled almost every regime from the Panama Canal to Cape Horn... are you ready to account for the illegal murders of thousands of "disappeared".

You could indeed cite numerous cases of American interference in Latin American, Central American, and African and Asian and European politics. The point several people seem to be deliberately avoiding is that for their influence and interference to work, with the exception of actual military intervention by American armed forces (The Spanish-American War, 1898, invasion of Nicaragua) American 'advisers' have, to succeed, to work with inhabitants of the target countries. Would they have achieved anything in Chile without the help of elements in the military and political opponents of Allende? Could the interventions in Nicaragua prior to the Sandinista revolution have achieved anything without the participation of a self-interested oligarchy?

As for Waku's comment about someone in North America being copied by someone in Central America...trying to defend the grotesque crimes against the indigenous populations of Central and South America by shifting the blame onto the Anglos is truly hilarious; if we were to take that approach, you may as well say the Puritans of New England copied the Spanish examples in Florida, New Mexico and Texas and California. My point is, that the Juan Gines de Sepulvedas on both sides won the philosophical and political battles, and that Spain virtually alone of all the Colonial powers, was the only one to publicly debate the morality of conquering the indigenous inhabitants.

"The Indies are being destroyed!"

Fr. Bartolome de Las Casas, also:

"...the institution of the encomienda is more unjust and cruel than Pharoah's oppression of the Jews", depriving "both masters and subjects of their freedom and of their lives".

Estimates of the Indian population in Central Mexico place it as high as 25 million on the eve of Conquest: barely half that number existed fifty years later, and it was down to something over one million in 1605, according to Barbara and Stanley Stein in
'The Colonial Heritage of Latin America'.

A combination of disease, genocide, forced labour, military repression, war and famine, managed to reduce the indigenous population from approximately one hundred million in the territories of the isthmus and Andean South America to a low point of 1.6 million in 1620*.
* William H.McNeill, 'Plagues and Peoples'.

And all without any help from the C.I.A. and the Anglos.

The last word to Carlos Fuentes, in 'The Buried Mirror':

"Having conquered the Indians, they might have been the fathers of their own political democracy, as the settlers of New England were to become...the conquistadors did not choose this avenue. Between individualism as democracy and individualism as feudal might, they chose the latter.They thus sacrificed their individualistic virtue, their civilian dimension, to a spectral vision of the power that their ancestors in Spain had never had."

[Dr. Nick]

Bloom, the point of illegal American intervention in Latin America is that, quite arguably, without it, nothing would have happened as it has.

What can you expect when you give a joint to a junkie?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by El Awrence
Bloom, the point of illegal American intervention in Latin America is that, quite arguably, without it, nothing would have happened as it has.

What can you expect when you give a joint to a junkie?

I think, as Fuentes points out, the battle for democracy predated American interventionism, and repression of the indigenous population was already a given. But I agree,that, in modern times, American influence has been entirely to the detriment of the poor and the indigenous inhabitants:

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/cc101.htm

https://www.boondocksnet.com/ail/airoots.html

https://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC20/Forest.htm

https://www.isengrim.com/sdb2.html

[Dr. Nick]

Originally posted by molly bloom
I think, as Fuentes points out, the battle for democracy predated American interventionism, and repression of the indigenous population was already a given.

Could you please explain what you mean, I do not understand.

But I agree,that, in modern times, American influence has been entirely to the detriment of the poor and the indigenous inhabitants:

I'm not only talking about the suffering that the american intervention unleashed upon the indigenous, I;m talking global. I'm talking Plan Condor. Henry Kissinger's devious plan to rid Latin America of everything subversive a la Machiavelli's Prince, do it however you can, just do it.

[Waku]

Originally posted by molly bloom
As for Waku's comment trying to defend the grotesque crimes against the indigenous populations ...

I have NEVER defended any criminal. I demand you to correct yourself.

And let me to remind you that we wouldn't be arguing if the anglosaxon world had been more RESPECTFUL in this thread with some Latin American countries.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Waku


I have NEVER defended any criminal. I demand you to correct yourself.

"seems like if someone in central america has been reading a book about N/america history and now he's trying to follow their advice "

Your quote, I believe, Waku. And if that doesn't sound like someone trying to explain the behaviour of Central American paramilitaries by claiming they were copying (!) Anglos in North America...get a grip.