The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > 'You and me, we sweat and strain': blacks in America and the musical Show Boat > Comments

'You and me, we sweat and strain': blacks in America and the musical Show Boat : Comments

By Peter West, published 7/1/2016

A Civil Rights Act gave citizenship to black people in 1866. But success for the North and the subjugation of the South began a long period of difficult times for people of colour.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. All
Have you noticed? Although there is still great racism in the United States the country has elected a dark-skinned president. The "Black Lives Matter" movement is supported by both blacks and whites. Black people have become prominent in many areas outside of sports and entertainment. I was born in the United States in 1925 and am amazed how far the country has traveled. I was the US Army during WW2. It was segregated into black and white. It is now as many institutions in the US fully integrated. Show business often sanitises the past, but laws against mixed race marriage no longer exist anywhere in the United States. The KKK is a remnant of what it once was. Possibly racism will never be eliminated, but the United States has come a long way.
Posted by david f, Thursday, 7 January 2016 9:33:32 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
' Don't forget your past, and the misery whites inflicted on people of colour. And is that only in the past? You have to wonder.'

I wonder if Peter feels that the many cannibal tribes from Africa and Pacific Islands should forget their past? Look at South Africa today. Blacks and whites are far more likely to be murdered, raped or robbed. Some of the coloured might just look back with a little fondness but you are not allowed to say that are you. I would hate to think what might of happened to our own Indigenous had the French, the Japanese or some Muslim group settled here before the British. They could well of become extinct.
Posted by runner, Thursday, 7 January 2016 10:50:12 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
That's right , if the British Christians didn't get them the Japanese Muslims might. They were extinct in our north NSW valley a century ago, women and children all shot by armed horsemen after the men were shot out of trees where they hid.. Oi Oi.
Posted by nicknamenick, Thursday, 7 January 2016 11:27:24 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
There Runner showing that Christian love for his fellow man again.
Clearly your not a catholic otherwise you would not have brought up cannibalism.
Posted by Cobber the hound, Thursday, 7 January 2016 12:11:20 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The musical came originally from the writings of Edna Ferber. I wonder what the American readers will make of the solid criticisms made by her, and the musical, more softly, of the ways things are and have been in "the land of the free"?

What does he care if the world's got trouble?
What does he care if the land ain't free?
Posted by Waverley, Thursday, 7 January 2016 12:43:20 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The Washington Post today says blacks represent 40 percent of those killed by police in the US while unarmed. Figures for dark-skinned people killed by police are also worrying in places like Brazil. Somehow you expect the US to be better than this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/final-tally-police-shot-and-killed-984-people-in-2015/2016/01/05/3ec7a404-b3c5-11e5-a76a-0b5145e8679a_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_implicitbias-905pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Posted by Waverley, Thursday, 7 January 2016 12:55:30 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hi david f

OLO is blessed to have a fine writer of your experience. I need only turn to my School English curriculum days to recall Laurence Olivier's Othello skits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWCe6bW0-Fs .

Olivier was from a past era, like runner.
___________________________________________________________________

Happy New Year runner

Your vengeful version of "Christianity" can be relied on. You blame Pacific Islanders for having great-great-grandparents into occasional cannibalism.

Just as you blame young girls, raped by priests, for being so "low" as to want abortions.

Cheers
Posted by plantagenet, Thursday, 7 January 2016 1:03:21 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The ABC bush-band orchestra may do this as a musical, with the battle of Brisbane included for local colour:
Queensland historian reveals World War II cover-up - ABC ...

www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-22/queensland...war-ii.../5112504

Nov 22, 2013 - A James Cook University historian says it is possible African-American soldiers who rebelled against their white officers in Townsville during ...
Posted by nicknamenick, Thursday, 7 January 2016 3:29:58 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
'Just as you blame young girls, raped by priests, for being so "low" as to want abortions.'

No plantagenet I blame you regressives for your absolute hatred of truth.
Posted by runner, Thursday, 7 January 2016 4:19:00 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
There's some common misconceptions about the slave trade.
You might want to firstly make sure you get that story right.
http://www.rense.com/general69/invo.htm

Even though blacks were historically persecuted and used as slaves I think (like other historically persecuted peoples) they have a kind of combined post-traumatic stress within their peoples identity.
I suppose it's reasonable, but I think they sometimes make the problem worse for themselves by turning every issue into a racial debate, fighting from the position of some gaping emotional wound from the past.

I don't support the "Black Lives Matter" mentality or movement, but I do appreciate the message of "All Lives Matter".

Organisations in the US deliberately use the race card in an effort to create civil unrest.
The Southern Poverty Law Center comes to mind.

I've never seen Show Boat, but I don't need a history lesson on the plight of blacks in America to remind me of my own past and the misery whites inflicted upon blacks.
I have my own family history in this country, it's a part of my Australian Heritage.
One of my grandmothers was one of 11 kids in a family that had part indigenous decent and they lived where the Warragamba Dam is today.
Back in the early days there weren't so many white women about and sometimes the working men would seek the company of the indigenous women.
The kids were never registered, and my great grandmother moved around a lot as she feared the kids would be taken from her as happened much during those times.
There's some terrible stories of how indigenous people were treated right here in this country by white people.

The question I wonder though, is whether white people of today are really deserving of the 'white guilt' you're attempting to place upon them by things done by others in the past.

Sure, its good to learn about history and how things came to be the way they are, but I don't think anyone should be held responsible for things that happened before they were born.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Friday, 8 January 2016 7:18:45 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
But it happens. Welsh people and Scots live the battles and the pommy injustices from way back. Poms say Australians are terrible due to being convicts. People in India go on and on about 2000 year old injustices by invaders ( Europeans). Aboriginal people have it now , Friday the 8th.
Posted by nicknamenick, Friday, 8 January 2016 7:57:30 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
As far as remembering past wrongs go Christians remember the sufferings of a Jew 2,000 years ago. Other people founded a religion in his name and then persecuted those who kept his religion. Christians hope for his return but might be upset if he did come back. He would still be a Jew and not a Christian.
Posted by david f, Friday, 8 January 2016 9:14:56 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
yea well I suppose remembering those rotton Chritians who pioneered and built hospitals, schools, roads as evil is better than facing the fact that today our saintly secularist murder millions of unborn babies each year. Oh yeah to remember those bad people of the past. Means we don't have to look at the rotton corruption, murder, gross immorality, pornography created by secularism today.
Posted by runner, Friday, 8 January 2016 9:26:29 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Is there much more we need to know about slavery?
Britain, France, Spain Portugal and many others built their prosperity on capturing or buying black people and selling them to Brazil, USA, etc etc. The West Indies lost its native peoples due to various acts by the Spanish; and black slaves helped build the rum, molasses and sugar trade. The "triangular trade" linked Britain and other European countries, the West Indies and various US States which bought the slaves in exchange for cotton and tobacco .Slavery was still going in Brazil in the 1880s and blacks in that country usually live a pretty difficult life.
Many Irish were sold into slavery by Cromwell, that pious man of God (??) and joined blacks also sold into slavery in the West Indies, especially Bermuda. Hence some of the peculiar accents in that region. No wonder Chris Gayle talks funny-but like most sportsmen he thinks he can do what he likes and be adored.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QHYFXDGf4Y

The other link suggested by my mate earlier doesn't work.
Posted by Waverley, Friday, 8 January 2016 10:42:51 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Road runner's "Means we don't have to look at the rotton corruption, murder, gross immorality, pornography created by secularism today."

Depends whether religion is a greater evil or psychosis.

There is certainly a legitimately, secular, constituted Royal Commission into the doings of (mainly) religious figures against defenceless children.

These religio-fascists (first coined here) have paid out expensive compo and even more expensive Queens Counsels. see http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/

But hey! Men of GOD are above mortal laws...isn't that right?

Cheers
Posted by plantagenet, Friday, 8 January 2016 10:59:08 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear runner,

Matthew 7: 16 (KJV) Ye shall know them by their fruits. That’s in the Bible, and, unlike much of the Bible, it makes good sense.

Some of the fruits of Christianity are intolerance, the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the wars of the Reformation, persecution of pagans, heretics, Jews and people of other religions, extirpation of native cultures, the divine right of kings, execution of scientists such as Hypatia, Servetus and Bruno and the promotion of ignorance.

You are a victim of the promotion of ignorance by Christianity with your denial of evolutionary science. You would prefer to accept the biblical fairy tales.

Ye shall know them by their fruits.

The fact that women who do not want to continue an unwanted pregnancy and can have it terminated by a medical procedure rather than have to resort to a backyard butcher or a knitting needle is good news. To you the fact that women have a freedom previously denied them is horrible. All hail the foetus and to hell with the woman.

The most civilised countries on earth are the Scandinavian countries. They have a high standard of living, great political freedom, less difference between the rich and the poor in living standards than in most countries, excellent medical care, low corruption and good educational systems. By many statistics such as low infant mortality and life expectancy they are the best countries in earth to live in. They are also the least religious countries on earth.

Corruption in government is correlated with religiosity. The more religious a country is the more likely it is to be plagued by corruption. Statistics from Transparency International bear that out.

Ye shall know them by their fruits.
Posted by david f, Friday, 8 January 2016 11:19:25 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
runner
There's a place up north which had public service exams, paper, iron, canals , a great wall, differential gear , gunpowder, medicine, ceramic china and the odd road or two. Please explain which ones were Christian.
Posted by nicknamenick, Friday, 8 January 2016 12:37:22 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tut, Tut.

We should be charitable to poor runner on this the 13th day of the anniversary of Jesu's (our Lord's son's) birth.

For runner knows not what he blurts

RSPCA kindness to our Lord God's creatures an all?
Posted by plantagenet, Friday, 8 January 2016 1:05:13 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
'pioneered and built hospital'..da da da..
The Order of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem (Latin: Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis), also known as Order of Saint John, Order of Hospitallers, Knights Hospitaller, and the Hospitallers, were among the most famous of the Roman Catholic military orders during the Middle Ages.

. After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade, the organisation became a religious and military order under its own Papal charter, charged with the care and defense of the Holy Land'..
The Lancet is a British Medical Cavalry Monastery for ripping into Muslim hearts and lung cavities.
Posted by nicknamenick, Friday, 8 January 2016 2:47:08 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Some of these people seem not to read the article much at all, but react to what other people say.

Are we talking about religion or atheism, or about a musical and its racial overtones and undertones?
It's a bit bewildering, as the actress said to the bishop.
Posted by Waverley, Friday, 8 January 2016 3:03:26 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
G'day Waverley

We're talking of the fallen creatures (who are religious) and the secular saviors (who we be) naturally matey.

Cheers
Posted by plantagenet, Friday, 8 January 2016 4:05:35 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
There were many US Presidents who owned slaves. One was Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

These comments did not apply if you were black, apparently.

Many other Presidents also held slaves, including Washington. And the President of the Confederacy, Andrew Jackson
Posted by Waverley, Saturday, 9 January 2016 4:57:44 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Waverley,

George Washington freed his slaves and replaced them with white servants. Virginia law required that slaves to be freed should be taught a means of making a living and provided with sufficient funds so they not be a burden on the state. Washington satisfied those requirements. After he freed his slaves Virginia law was changed so others could not follow his example. Jefferson died improvident so his slaves including those who were his children were sold to pay his debts.

Andrew Jackson was a slave owner, but he was not president of the Confederacy. He was the seventh president of the United States. Jefferson Davis was the president of the Confederacy.
Posted by david f, Saturday, 9 January 2016 5:46:55 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yes I realised my mistake after I posted but I was sure some bright-eyed person would correct it.

For an outsider the double-think in any self respecting President of a free society who owned slaves is staggering. Let alone one who bore children with one of his slaves and those children, I believe, remained as slaves. That was Thomas Jefferson.

Always easier to spot weakness in another country that it is on our own, I suppose.....
Posted by Waverley, Sunday, 10 January 2016 8:45:50 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Original sin is big again I see, all whiteys are evil... What about that it was the West which made Slavery illegal everywhere. In particular starting during World War 0 (Napoleonic) the Royal Navy lost thousands of men on the anti-slavery patrol about Africa.

But of course these were / are traditional cottage industries of the African Chiefs and Arab traders and suppression could be considered Racist.
Posted by McCackie, Sunday, 10 January 2016 8:52:18 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
'You are a victim of the promotion of ignorance by Christianity with your denial of evolutionary science. You would prefer to accept the biblical fairy tales.'

yes david f they sound like fairytales until you hear the pitiful non scientific lies of évoluntionary 'science'. With no moral base to draw upon its no wonder all you can do is to continue to twist history in order to deny current realities.
Posted by runner, Sunday, 10 January 2016 9:48:29 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Slavery seems to have been an accepted part of life until various people got at the middle-class Christian conscience. Those who confronted people with its evils included Harriet Beecher Stowe in the US, along with many others; and Wilberforce in Britain. Portugal and Spain, solidly Catholic countries, seem not to have been to upset by it.
The record of Spain and Portugal in the Americas is not one they can be proud of. It was only from a series of accidents and good fortune (??) that the USA was born and pushed Spain out of much of the Americas. Of course USA has been a God fearing country that has worked mainly for the good of mankind.

Most of the diehard supporters of slavery seem to have been pious Christians of the evangelical kind. They were still fighting integregation in the 1960s and 70s. I think the Bible can be used to support almost anything: circumcision in some cases, tithing in others (giving the church, i.e. God, ten percent of what you earn). America got the Puritans; Australia got the convicts. Who did better ?
Posted by Waverley, Sunday, 10 January 2016 1:03:54 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"Fighting integration" or successfully blocking democratic voting, public toilets and so on . 50 years ago. Amerindians had the stolen generation stuff where religions and languages were banned. Speak English only and praise the lord.
But kids bleated out the oath in school , no questions allowed.
Posted by nicknamenick, Sunday, 10 January 2016 1:12:36 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear runner,

I doubt if you have investigated any of the evidence for evolution. The tales in Genesis are just creation stories like the Rainbow Serpent of the Aborigines. Apparently all tribal people make up creation stories. Tribal people try to make sense of the world they live in but don't have the tools to do so. Ancient Jews like other tribal people tried to make sense of their world. Their stories in Genesis are beautiful stories, but there is no more reason to believe them than to believe the Aboriginal stories about the Rainbow Serpent. Evolutionary theory gives us the tools to understand how life has developed on this planet. Scientists look at the fossil evidence, the way bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics and all the other evidence for evolution. Evolution is the basis for modern biology. Without modern biology and its practical application in medicine I doubt that I would be around at 90. We live in a wonderful world, and it is great to know about the way it has developed. That knowledge we get from science not from myth.

Rather than look at the evidence of it you prefer to call people liars who base their knowledge on scientific evidence. In order to refute scientific evidence one has to look at it. It is much easier not to look at it and call people names.

All of us have a moral base. Your moral base is based on fairy tales and what others who believe in those fairy tales tell you. Morals come from the way we learn to live with each other in society. It is better to recognise that than to rely on supernatural mumbojumbo. Religion is not necessary for morality. Sometimes it is even a handicap. Religion may prejudice one against other people who do not believe the fairy tales you believe in. I have the impression you would be a much better, more generous and more accepting of people with a different viewpoint from yours if it weren't for your religion which puts you at odds with people who don't share it.
Posted by david f, Sunday, 10 January 2016 4:43:28 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The Rainbow Serpent making land-form is not a bad idea. There is much evidence that the ground level across Oz was higher, including the Dividing Range across to Lake Eyre and so on, and erosion wore it down. Rainbow-rain-rivers-snaking is correct geology. A few years ago I wrote to NSW gov about the harbour bridge being a Rainbow snake bridge and that New Year they did one with fireworks..by co-incidence....
Posted by nicknamenick, Sunday, 10 January 2016 7:01:54 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
' Evolutionary theory gives us the tools to understand how life has developed on this planet. Scientists look at the fossil evidence'

come on David f you know that the fossil evidence points to everything but evolution. After numerous fraudulent attempts that make headlines and then the fall away to another made up tale, the evolutionist have given up on finding transitional forms. The only thing to come from monkey is monkeys and your unscientific warped thinking. Your fairytale thinking makes creation look so rational.

btw many lived much more than 90 in the past. I suggest you thank your Creator for your 90 years rather than persist with your myths. You only take as many breaths as He allows.
Posted by runner, Sunday, 10 January 2016 10:10:15 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear runner,

The creator is also myth. All gods are just creations of the human imagination. Humans invented gods. Then some imagine there are such things. There is no evidence that god, God or gods are anything but creations of the human mind. Christianity did not exist until humans invented it. All religions are the inventions of humans. Christianity will eventually have its day. However, humans will invent new religions and new gods.

Gullible people will continue to believe the nonsense.

The reason I have lived so long is that I have ancestors who have lived a long time. I have their genes and have lived in places with good medical care, have had an adequate diet, don't smoke, had about five alcoholic drinks last year and am married to a loving woman. Imaginary deities had nothing at all to do with my long life.

Children who believe in Santa Claus lose that belief when they grow up. To believe in god or gods is not to grow up.
Posted by david f, Sunday, 10 January 2016 10:44:04 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
david f you are living proof that wisdom does not necessarily come with age.
Posted by runner, Sunday, 10 January 2016 11:00:43 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear runner,

You really are good with the unkind quip. Maybe try a little love and kindness. They work wonders.
Posted by david f, Sunday, 10 January 2016 11:07:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
So there must be about 80 per cent of the peoples of the world who have a spiritual belief.

And from the beginning of time men have worshipped various gods.

We are all wrong, idiots and deluded fools and so on, are we?

It seems to me that this discussion has O to do with the article that poor West wrote,but carry on regardless.............
Posted by Waverley, Monday, 11 January 2016 5:23:09 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Waverley,

The number of people who believe in an idea or who advocate a course of action is no indication of either its truth or its validity. However, in the case of the United States religion was intimately connected with racism and slavery. F. W. Wood wrote "The Arrogance of Faith" which deals with the connection.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Arrogance-Faith-Christianity-Twentieth/dp/1555530966

"From Publishers Weekly

This historical study shows how the Bible has been used to justify slavery and promote racial divisions in society. "Christianity, contends Wood in this extensive, hard-hitting critique, played a fundamental role in shaping the white racism undergirding black slavery and made possible the near-extermination of the American Indian," said PW.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Wood has written an impressive scholarly survey of the relationship between Christianity and racial thought and action from the colonial era to the late 19th century. While his research is outstanding, readers should note that Wood is critical in his approach to the topic. He holds that economics was always more important than religion; his distaste for the American South is evident; and the tone of his writing often approaches that of an anti-Christian polemic. Wood finds few heroes to admire in his account, and even Quaker antislavery figures repeatedly fall short of what he thinks they should have done. Still, this survey belongs in all academic libraries and in large scholarly collections in public libraries.
- Susan A. Stussy, St. Norbert Coll., De Pere, Wis.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition."

http://www.britannica.com/topic/Southern-Baptist-Convention

"Southern Baptist Convention, largest Baptist group in the United States, organized at Augusta, Georgia, in 1845 by Southern Baptists who disagreed with the antislavery attitudes and activities of Northern Baptists."
Posted by david f, Monday, 11 January 2016 5:51:34 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
African chiefs urged to apologise for slave trade | World ...
www.theguardian.com › World › Nigeria
Nov 18, 2009 - Shackles used to capture people to be sold into slavery in Africa in the 18th century. African tribal leaders have been ordered to apologise for ...
Today there is still child slavery in coffee-growing and so on in west Africa. It existed under Vodun / voodoo, Islam and the religion for the man who was captured , flogged and nailed.
Posted by nicknamenick, Monday, 11 January 2016 6:21:51 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Slavery is something that still exists in many countries around the world today.

It seems to be something that the human race of every ethnicity, is very capable of.
Exploiting oTher people for money. Look at the sweat shops that exist today.
The cruel people smugglers.
Child slavery is wide spread today in India.
Sexual slavery flourishes all over the world.

The Arabs are at this moment buying and selling women into slavery.

And mr and Mrs wealthy of whatever race, don't seem to mind using
House servants whom they barely pay.

Myself and everyone on this site don't ask questions about cheap imported goods
As long as it's saving us money.

It attests to the fact that humans on a huge scale are very capable of profiting or benefiting from slavery or near slavery.
It just depends who's looking,
And if they think they can get away with it.
It isn't just a white thing. I bet the African tribes had wars and slaves captured from other
Tribes too.

Look at those who died as slaves, being forced to build the Burma railway by
The Japanese.

The human race always uses religion to make their murderous cruel actions appear
Holy. It's a form of extreme self delusion.

Isis is doing it now.
Posted by CHERFUL, Monday, 11 January 2016 7:12:07 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
runner wrote: "david f you are living proof that wisdom does not necessarily come with age."

Dear runner,

The above is a nasty remark. You make many remarks like that. It sounds as though you are possessed by hate and anger. Why are you so angry? What impels you to make that kind of remark?
Posted by david f, Monday, 11 January 2016 11:01:04 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"Myself and everyone on this site don't ask questions about cheap imported goods"
I ask my wife about it. And myself. We bought Fair Trade coffee for a while, to offset the EU and US and farmer subsidy which hurts Australian wheat farm slaves. Soon we will grow our own oil to avoid the petrol speculators but back-packer slaves will probably ruin the business. Russian police threatened a bloke with an anti-Ukraine war T shirt, Slav= slave. Don't buy Putin's coffee.
Posted by nicknamenick, Tuesday, 12 January 2016 6:46:16 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear nicknamenick,

If we wanted to be consistent about not buying products of countries that engage in unsavoury practices we wouldn't buy Australian products either. The Australian government operates concentration camps called detention centres. The United States has a tremendous prison population due to its practice of treating drug addiction as a crime rather than a disease. China imprisons and even executes people who dissent from government policies and want democracy or practice a banned religion. Sweden has a high degree of democracy and a good standard of living. However, it sells arms to squalid dictatorships. We cannot be sure that all the components of an appliance are made in countries with clean hands. Possibly Costa Rica has clean hands, but it doesn't produce a great range of products.

We buy fair trade coffee, too. The world is so interrelated that it is not possible to avoid buying products connected with practices we disapprove of. To be virtuous we must remove ourselves from the economic system entirely and find a place where we can exist on subsistence farming and not pay taxes.
Posted by david f, Tuesday, 12 January 2016 8:40:19 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
David I think US is scary- huge percentages of blacks are imprisoned and the rate at which unarmed black youths are killed by police is worrying.So much unfairness there and the rich seem to get more or less what they want and carry guns in the street to enforce their views.
China also seems to be a scary place to live. There's little respect for views divergent from the current leadership. Journalists have disappeared, even in Hong Kong, for saying things critical of Chinese leaders.
Australia has signed "Free Trade Agreements" with both governments, and the ads on TV (which we pay for) says these are a good thing. But I worry how Australia can survive with friends and allies like these.......
Posted by Waverley, Tuesday, 12 January 2016 3:37:52 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Waverley,

In the twentieth century the challengers to the USA for superpower status were Nazi Germany, imperial Japan and the Soviet Union. As scary and bad as the US is, can you imagine Nazi Germany, imperial Japan or the Soviet Union being better than the US?
Posted by david f, Tuesday, 12 January 2016 4:17:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"To be virtuous we must remove ourselves from the economic system entirely and find a place where we can exist on subsistence farming and not pay taxes."
umm...ummm..
Australia..subsistence..
Posted by nicknamenick, Tuesday, 12 January 2016 5:12:05 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Goodness me. Who would have thought that discussion on a fuzzy old 1951 musical would have become discussed by so many!
Have a great day everyone, atheists as well as believers ha ha
Posted by Waverley, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 7:37:40 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy