On Sep 29, 12:23=A0pm, hol...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Eugene Holman) wrote:
> No it isn't. I despise what Russia did in the Baltics as much as I
despis=
e
> what the Americans did in Hawaii. It is not OK, nor can you excuse what
> one country did because it happened a hundred and ten years ago to
> Polynesians but excoriate the other one becase it happened only
sixty-fiv=
e
> years ago and to Europeans if you are going to be intellectually honest.
I am probably one of the few SCB contributors who does consider
American imperialism to be just as rreprehensible as Tsarist /
Soviet / Russian Federation imperialism. But the matter of a
century's time difference cannot be ignored. And as far as I am
aware, the Yanks did not de****t any Hawaiians to Alaska.
> > We need to be telling those eastern barbarians NOT that it's
> > OK to emulate what USA did more than a century ago, BUT we should be
> > telling them they have to emulate civilised countries, like
> > Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries, that haven't attempted
> > imperialism for a couple of hundred years (Switzerland =3D96 never)
and
> > most Western European countries, that have behaved themselves for more
> > than a century now, with the unfortunate exception of Italy and
> > Germany. =A0
>
> I don't know about you, but I have actually done that. I worked for a
> summer in New York and Kiev with the Freedom Sup****t Act helping
teenager=
s
> from the former USSR who had been awarded a year's scholar****p to live
in
> the USA attending American high schools to understand how American
societ=
y
> and families work, and I have worked publi****ng books, films, and
teachin=
g
> packages to help young Estonians and Estonia-resident Russian speakers
> understand such issues as democracy, tolerance, and majority-minority
> relations.
Excellent.
> > But the great civilising force of the EU is here to stay,
> > and European standards (=3D3D EU standards) should be what all
European=
s
> > strive for. =A0
>
> Here we agree one hundred per cent.
Wunderbar.
> > If the Russians want to call themselves Europeans, that's
> > the standard they have to aim to meet. =A0So stop making excuses for
> > them. =A0Sorry, "Yankeeland does it too" doesn't get the Russians off
> > the hook.
>
> I am *not* making excuses for them. Russia and the United States both
hav=
e
> a history of imperialism. What I am objecting to is that some of the
same
> people expressing amazement that Russians can deny the fact of the
Baltic
> countries having been occupied, but denying that Hawaii came to be a
part
> of the United States according to precisely the same scenario, but,
unlik=
e
> the three Baltic countries, is still under foreign occupation. It ain't
> OK, and I do not make excuses for either.
Well, as I said to Macbeth's friend (McDuff), it doesn't go over well
telling us Balts that you find a creep like the nats-bol B=E4ckman's
left-wing revisionist theories "interesting" when you should be
finding them repulsive, just as you would find theories of left-wing
neo-nazi revisionist repulsive.
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