They weren’t even using that land that often
Because you genocided the majority of them, you dumbfuck. Turns out when you kill over 90% of a population, it leaves a bunch of empty space.
But okay, let’s give this whiteboy the benefit of the doubt (we shouldn’t). Let’s say the majority of Native Americans weren’t murdered systemically by settlers. The reason the land in North America was the way it was is because it’s the type of cultivation that makes sense for the environment it existed in.
No mules, cows, oxen, horses, etc. meant all farming was done by humans. And why go through the effort of plowing fields when you can just plant crops that can be left alone for the year? That way, you can just move to another area where crops you planted previously are done growing. You just rotate between areas, constantly collecting fresh food. This creates a wide abundance of food for a healthy diet.
Now along comes Whitey and his dumbass cuts down all these crops. He plants things that don’t grow in their place, then doesn’t rotate what he plants, draining the soil of nutrients. His solution to this problem isn’t to change the way he grows food, Whitey’s solution is to tear out indigenous foods and turn everything into cattle ranches. This isn’t anywhere near as efficient as what the locals had been doing for thousands of years before Whitey showed up, but that’s not going to stop him from calling them “savages” for not destroying the continent.
I read “Indigenous Continent” recently, and it really drove home the point that the settlers couldn’t even identify land that was being used productively by Native Americans. They’d stumble upon carefully managed forest gardens and crop fields, and just go “look at all this completely unused land”, simply because it did not look like European farm land. The early settlers were at a complete loss as to how indigenous people were feeding themselves whilst the settlers were themselves starving to death. It went beyond animal husbandry. They wouldn’t see neat rows of plowed fields with the same crop row after row and go, damn looks like nothing is here.
Yes its rebranded as permaculture today and many would assume its just random plants in the woods if they didnt have a clue.
Native optimization of land was “invisible” towards whites who were destroying their own common lands through enclosure. Also most of the americas suffered from societal collapse due to the pandemics.
in more simple term:
‘‘my ancestors genocided the natives to the point that I will never have to see them or they are irrelevant outside of the human zoo that we have set for them. However, if I use the same logic on slavery, I would look like an asshole and a Nazi to people’’
Capitalists must alienate you from history. They must mystify the connection between the past and present, or deny there is a connection at all.
Sorry, but we needed laborersSorry, but we needed the landSorry, but the country's fullBehold! The Liberal Cerberus! Willing to spill blood and spread misery if it means they’re going to be fine!
Yeah man that’s a cool opinion come look at this neat brick I found…
He won’t need that brain. He really doesn’t need it that often.
Crackers are not alright.
“The Greater Good”
“We did what needed to be done even if it was bad!”
Very cliche fascist reasoning.
I remember thinking the fascist definition of “strength” was the willingness to abdicate morals in order to get things done (in reality, get free real estate). It shows up a lot in unironic 40k imperium fans.
Yes. One of the things common to fascists is knowing full well that what they’re doing is evil but that it is simply something that “must be done” for the good of many. This is nonsense of course but is a justification used to cast themselves as the misunderstood good guys.
“Where would you be without me? You NEED me to do what you can’t do” sort of thing.
And of course “the needs of the many” isn’t about humanity writ large but about their preferred nation/ethnicity (or, if they’re particularly naked about it, a specific state)
Greater Good/Common Good is usually evul tankie coding in mass media.
This has to be a bit, right? “They weren’t even using it that often” Like what? That is literally the kind of thing my 4-year-old tells me when she snatches a toy off the floor because her brother dropped it. Like, honey, that’s not how this works.
He is a failson who I assume is trying to get in the right wing pundit train since he failed as an actor and a ‘liberal’ pundit.
Time to take Ben Dreyfuss’s possessions violently away and take over his home. Sorry for the way you’re going to be beaten, Ben, but other people need your stuff. You hardly use most of it anyways, barely minutes a day, mostly just sits there collecting dust.
Nepofailson of another chud:
During a screening of Jaws at The Cabot theater in Beverly, Massachusetts, on May 27, 2024, Dreyfuss criticised “diversity initiatives”, and launched into what was described as a transphobic, misogynistic, homophobic, and sexist rant, causing many attendees to shout at the actor, and many to leave the venue in dismay. According to eyewitnesses, Dreyfuss criticized the MeToo and LGBTQ movements and disparaged parents of transgender children, suggesting that supporting a child’s transition was indicative of bad parenting.
Richard Dufus
Does anybody know if this guy owns his own home? Because I need that home. I believe he’s not even really using it that often, and definitely not in the right way (the way I would use it).
Ah yes, the stewards of the land for ten thousand years, who terraformed entire ecosystems, simply didn’t know what they were doing. Interesting analysis, now, please, lower this over your eyes and hum yourself a little ditty
what for? a million shitty stripmalls?
There was a fundamental willingness to misunderstand and exploit the fact typically, Native Americans didn’t even consider the land something anyone could own.
Or sell!
Sell a country?! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?
I remember the kings&general video where in that part he made the american delegate look “smart and rational” by using bazinga brain akshually they have the freedom to do so muh authoritarianism.
I remember I had a phase where I’d watch Kings & Generals, but then I saw they had videos about the eViL sOvIeTs iNvAdInG Afghanistan and pro Ukrain shit and I haven’t gone back. What else should I expect from a channel called Kings & Generals lol.
I wasn’t aware of the video you mentioned above. Gross
Yeah he was somehow considered part of breadtube and commented across various channels of “left influencers” but then he cashed out in the uwukraine war.
I actually didn’t know that. I know he had some cools videos about the General Crisis and quoted Marxist historians. I was pleasantly surprised, but the later videos turned me off. It’s a shame because I’m a sucker for maps lol
Same especially since youtube “animated historians” are a blight.
Not in like the having title deeds kind of way but land ownership in the form of having claimed territory was pretty often a thing. Allowing people to be on it under certain conditions also wasn’t totally foreign especially in exchange for goods, which on the east coast was what many thought was the deal they were getting.
Explaining crop cycling to a capitalist: “Imagine if you had non productive land”
I’m confused how he can rationalize the genocide of the natives, but not slavery. Like, “slavery was bad (obviously), but we needed that labor”.
Society has (most) accepted slavery as evil, we haven’t come close to appreciating how much we have fucked over the natives
Because native americans are less visible and numerous. And the empire uses black american culture as an cultural export.
the banality of Hannah Arendt
Did she have a take about indigenous genocide that I’m not aware of?
“not using the land” is closer to Ayn Rand now that I think of it, but Arendt did a lot of justication for colonialism
https://xcancel.com/aiukliAfrika/status/1063203765082304512
this article takes a dishonest cheap shot at Marx near the end because it’s in The Jerusalem Post, but it pulls a bunch of quotes from Arendt’s writings including Origins: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/hannah-arendt-white-supremacist-456007
