White People, Mute Swans and the Non-Question of the Day Question

I have asked others and myself this question since I was able to speak!

How did one tiny population ruin the lives of the rest of the planet by naming themselves top . . .?

I also heard the mute swan story.  I was disheartened once again by the actions of white folks. 

White wonders brought the beautiful birds here.  The innocent lovely swans now displease them; thus, the dominant culture suffocates the young eggs before they hatch.  We "trick" the parents into believing all is well.  By the time the Anatidae discover we have destroyed their lives, killed their children, it is too late!_)(*&^%$#@!~

Does this saga sound all too familiar!?

It is only the giving that makes us what [who] we are. - Ian Anderson. Jethro Tull . . . Betsy
BeThink.org

Please listen to the entire story again.  Terry Cummings speaks volumes for me.

The theory that mute swans destroy the habitat of other wildlife is in dispute.  It seems man [!] plays a role in what is occurring.

Logically speaking, if mute swans did indeed kill all other "indigenous" birds, other anatidae in the native lands of the mutes would not have survived. 

I think it is also interesting that the population is [now] large and noisy and that disrupts human life. 

When I lived in California, peacocks were the targets. 

In some places, pigeons are thought a problem. 

I think the white people are easily annoyed.  They invade natural habitats; they alter the balance of nature and then they blame the animals.  Fascinating!

It is only the giving that makes us what [who] we are. - Ian Anderson. Jethro Tull . . . Betsy
BeThink.org

sometimes slow moving. but its chaos.

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance .  G. Washington

It is not humans pecking to death herons and other birds, nor breaking their eggs and stealing their nests.

They aren't noisy, hence the name "mute"...

I think Betsy, while I understand your vegan bias, that by not reducing their numbers, you are putting a death sentence on indigenous birds.

"They are not really mute, in fact, when they are angry they can be down-right loud."

Wildlife scientists feeling heat, Species-protection data suppressed, many report
Zachary Coile
Chronicle Washington Bureau
Thursday, February 10, 2005

(02-10) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Scientists in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they've been forced to alter or withhold findings that would have led to greater protections for endangered species, according to a survey released Wednesday by two environmental groups.

The scientists charge that top regional and national officials in the agency suppressed scientific information to avoid confrontations with industry groups or to follow the Bush administration's political policies.

The mail-in survey by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility -- which drew responses from 414 of 1,400 biologists, ecologists, botanists and other scientists -- was not a scientific poll. But the two groups said the large number of responses reflect concern by of many Fish and Wildlife Service employees that political appointees are inappropriately influencing the science that drives decisions to list species and protect their habitat.

A spokesman for the agency said he could not comment on the report until agency officials have had time to review it.

But an Interior Department official said the survey results reflect the natural tension between agency scientists and managers in making tough decisions about protecting species.

"There's nothing inappropriate about people higher up the chain of command supervising the work of people below them and reaching different scientific conclusions," said Hugh Vickery, an Interior Department spokesman.

"These (decisions) should get scrutiny. That's what they pay these folks for," he said. "The question at hand is, are they doing their job properly and in accordance with the law? The answer is yes. Does everyone like it? No. But they are doing it properly."

The results were released a day before Republican leaders in Congress, led by House Resources Chairman Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, were scheduled to announce their strategy to pass a major overhaul of the Endangered Species Act, which critics say is failing to save species from extinction.

The Ungreening of America: Dirty Secrets
Mother Jones.
News: No president has gone after the nation's environmental laws with the same fury as George W. Bush -- and none has been so adept at staying under the radar.
By Osha Gray Davidson 
September/October 2003 Issue

IN THE EARLY 1980s you didn't need to be a member of EarthFirst! to know that Ronald Reagan was bad for the environment. You didn't even have to be especially politically aware. Here was a man who had, after all, publicly stated that most air pollution was caused by plants.*

By contrast, while George W. Bush gets low marks on the environment from a majority of Americans, few fully appreciate the scope and fury of this administration's anti-environmental agenda. "What they're doing makes the Reagan administration look innocent," says Buck Parker, executive director of Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm.

The Bush administration has been gutting key sections of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, laws that have traditionally had bipartisan support and have done more to protect the health of Americans than any other environmental legislation. It has crippled the Superfund program, which is charged with cleaning up millions of pounds of toxic industrial wastes such as arsenic, lead, mercury, and vinyl chloride in more than 1,000 neighborhoods in 48 states. It has sought to cut the EPA's enforcement division by nearly one-fifth, to its lowest level on record; fines assessed for environmental violations dropped by nearly two-thirds in the administration's first two years; and criminal prosecutions-the government's weapon of last resort against the worst polluters-are down by nearly one-third.

The administration has abdicated the decades-old federal responsibility to protect native animals and plants from extinction, becoming the first not to voluntarily add a single species to the endangered species list. It has opened millions of acres of wilderness-including some of the nation's most environmentally sensitive public lands-to logging, mining, and oil and gas drilling. Under one plan, loggers could take 10 percent of the trees in California's Giant Sequoia National Monument; many of the Monument's old-growth sequoias, 200 years old and more, could be felled to make roof shingles. Other national treasures that have been opened for development include the million-acre Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument in Arizona, the 2,000-foot red-rock spires at Fisher Towers, Utah, and dozens of others.

My landlord had a breeding pair on their pond.  The most the do is hiss and beat their wings if feeling threatened.  Left alone, they are silent.

I lived by them for 14 years, and they were mean bastards.  They destroyed their pond, eroding the banks and dropping the trees, killed all the other birds that happened by and the fish they stocked all died from lack of oxygen.

They do NOT belong in North America.  They need to be stopped from breeding here, period.

Hence why they are almost extinct since Mute Swans came along.

If you feel as you state, then are you merely saying white people were wrong to bring the beautiful white birds here, or are you saying white people are wrong to rape and pillage the world. 

If you are saying white persons are wrong to destroy our planet and we need to stop this cycle I concur.  However, if you think eliminating the swans is wise, what can I say, I do not.

I share the following two articles for your consideration.

Latin name
Cygnus olor

Family
Swans, ducks and geese (Anatidae)

Overview
The mute swan is a very large white waterbird. It has a long S-shaped neck, and an orange bill with black at the base of it. Flies with its neck extended and regular slow wingbeats. The population in the UK has increased recently, perhaps due to better protection of this species. The problem of lead poisoning on lowland rivers has also largely been solved by a ban on the sale of lead fishing weights. Some birds stay in their territories all year, while others move short distances and form winter flocks. In cold weather, some birds arrive from Europe into eastern England.

Where to see them
Breeds across most of the UK, other than in northern Scotland, mid-Wales and the moors of southwest England. Possible to see anywhere there is a shallow lake, or a slow-flowing rivers, even in urban areas and parks.

When to see them
All year round

What they eat
Water plants, insects and snails.

Mute Swans Spark Loud Debate in Chesapeake Bay
Kim A. O'Connell
for National Geographic News
June 5, 2003

  . . . But one animal-rights group has not been as receptive, arguing that pollution, not swans, is the primary threat to aquatic vegetation. On May 13, the New York-based Fund for Animals filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging a federal permit that enabled the Maryland DNR plan to proceed. The Fund for Animals' lawsuit contends that the permit violates the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the International Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds and sidesteps public review and comment.

"There are major threats to the Chesapeake Bay, including [the effects of] pollution and industries," said Michael Markarian, president of the Fund for Animals. "It's much easier for DNR to throw up its hands and say 'Let's shoot a few hundred swans,' than it is to deal with these other issues."

Just because some reactionary says it, does not make it true.  I prefer scientific data analysis of an area, and its species to a bunch of peta people hand wringing.

I note that you did not include from the same article the FACTS: (*my bold)

Mute swans, native to Europe and Asia, are found throughout the Chesapeake Bay and its major tributaries. The invasive species first took roost in the area when five birds escaped from captivity in 1962. Since then, the population has grown to 3,600 birds, having reached an all-time high of 4,000 birds in 1999.

"In 40 years this population has doubled more than nine times," said Jonathan McKnight, associate director of habitat conservation for DNR. "We've got a bunch of birds that are ready to start nesting this year or next, and it is clear that the population could reach 20,000 birds in 10 years."

While their name sounds serene, mute swans are ruthless competitors for food. Each year, the swans eat an estimated 10.5 million pounds (4,800 metric tons) of underwater aquatic vegetation, primarily grasses, according to DNR officials. Aquatic vegetation improves water quality and provides essential habitat for waterfowl, fish, and shellfish.

The birds are also aggressively territorial. Mutes have trampled nests of least terns (Sterna antillarum) and black skimmers (Rynchops niger) and driven off tundra swans (Cygnus columbianus), black ducks (Anas rubripes), and other birds from feeding and roosting areas.

Next you will find some quote for someone who wants to save the Sea Lamprey, a eel-like fanged predator that is killing off all the Great Lakes fish.

Yes, I think they should either kill them off or ship them back to Europe.  They may taste nice with wild rice and an orange suace....

Just a quick note for I am haunted by the discussion.

It seems to me the minority majority speak of crime and say Blacks and immigrants are the cause.

The economic structure in this country gives rise to slavery, and always has.  Whether the servants are Black, basically serfs or those poor underprivileged forced to survive in low paying service jobs, the persons in power want these workers.  Yet, the better-off believe all their problems are the fault of those that attend to their needs.

I originally shared the articles referring to how "environmentalists" in recent years are forced to lie to justify business practices.  Thus, much of the literature on mute swans is for me not necessarily reliable.

When an animal causes great harm, particularly when, as I shared in the past, this is not their nature, it is because they are distressed.  Humans have altered the habitat in a way that hurts them.  They are fearful and attacking back.

Might we consider, rather than kill or "deport" [the same terms the big bullies use when speaking of Blacks and immigrants] if we work to create balance, a better environment for all, the mutes, the Blacks, and the migrants will happily co-exist with us.  Oh, were we to stop our criminal practices.  We wonder why birds and manly beasts act out. . . .

It is only the giving that makes us what [who] we are. - Ian Anderson. Jethro Tull . . . Betsy
BeThink.org

The economic structure in this country gives rise to slavery, and always has.

Huh?  This is certainly excessive.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

Lets say, somebody released tigers in a nearby sheep farm, would you say if we make the environment better, perhaps they will all just get along?  Its not acting out against humans that make Mute Swans steal nests.  They just do it, and Tigers just eat meat.  So do I.

You are a dear heart, and I am being as kind as I possibly can... I am an omnivore.  I am a science major, environmental and biology. 

I could refer 100 studies on invasive species and people like you who are vegans will never agree with the fact that some animals are problematic when introduced to an environment that is not their own.

I pour gasoline down and light ground wasp holes to burn out the nests, they are aggressive and have almost killed me 2 years running.  Do they have rights too?

I can't say more without getting what you would consider hurtful.

Please, lets drop this.

After reading your very kind response, I realize that a topic that we spoke of almost a year ago is our truer misunderstanding.

I do not enter into a discussion intending to change minds.  I do not think that is ever possible in an instant.  One, two, three discussions will not move mountains.  In truth, altering anyone is not interesting or entertaining to me.

I loathe the idea of winning, or a competition.  I have never enjoyed duels or contests; thus, I have forever avoided games, physical, verbal, and psychological.  Board games bore me.  I have no desire to conquer or convince.

Repeatedly, in numerous threads you mention my being a vegan, as though that matters or is a central issue.  What I choose is my choice.  Never, have I concerned myself with what others eat.  I have zero vegan friends.  I am fine with that.  They eat as they wish and I do my thing.

One of my closest friends remarked that when she dines with another acquaintance of hers, that person always comments on J's food.  I never even notice what J eats.  When I recommend a restaurant and the person I am speaking with says, "I am not a vegan," I reassure them I do not eat at vegan restaurants.  They are too bland for me. 

I share that I go with omnivores and pure carnivore friends.  The dilemma comes when they inquire, "what do your friends order?"  Rarely do I have any clue.  I am focused on my food.  My friends and family eat whatever they like.

I am unsure if persons in your life attempt to convert you to whatever it is they believe.  That is not I Diane.  If everyone thought as I do, I would learn nothing.  I do love learning!

It is only the giving that makes us what [who] we are. - Ian Anderson. Jethro Tull . . . Betsy
BeThink.org

I don't have anything substantive to add, mind you -- but the dearth of comments made me want to add one.

RIGHTEOUS RANTAGE, indeed.

--7.88, --6.56      If I can't rant, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

All the other great cultures of history you mentioned were ultimately brought down by the arrogance of the ruling elites who all thought they were somehow naturally superior to everyone else and wound up destroying their civilisations from within.  History teaches me that the same thing will happen with white people.  And why should white people be any different?  Human history is marked by collosal screw ups every bit as much as it is marked by great achievements.  It would be terrific if European peoples managed to somehow avoid the traps every other civilization has fallen into but, to expect that they would,...well isn't that just another manifestation of the notion of European exceptionalism?

Biologists, anthropologists, and archaeologists have helped us to learn that our species, homo sapiens, started out as a small homonid group of only a few thousand individuals in Africa.  They estimate that the original people who left Africa to spread across the globe numbered no more than 6,000.  We are ALL of us like Mute  Swans.  One people.  One race.  We can trace our genetic heritage back to common ancestors in the very recent past. What this says to me is that none of us can lay the blame or credit for the state of the world off on "those other people".  There are no other people.  Just US.

I have reached these conclusions as a WOC living in America because I need to maintain sanity and a basic ability to function in the world each day.  And the path to sanity for me is to reject the artificial social constructs of race.  Our current notions of racial identity didn't even exist until they were invented during the European "Enlightenment". What doesn't help me is trying to substitute the myth of European moral inferiority for the myth of European moral infallibility.  Those ideas are just different faces of the same counterfeit coin.  I can't spend my life feeling inferior to white supremicists bogus claims and I can't spend my life feeling frightened of the big white bogey man either, not if I am going to stay sane anyway.  And I definitely cannot raise my children to live that way.

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,and bring the homeless poor into your house;

The metallurgy that began the age of weaponry and far travel accelerated the abilities of these ill-intended men.  I guess all men just have an immoral streak in them, and the time made it more deadly.

Such beauty in your words against my rant of today, I thank you for them, truly.

  I don't mean that the indigeous peoples of North America were at all lacking--not in industriousness of their own kind or in any other admirable traits.

  But they lacked something called "capitalism"--I happen to think there are certainly valid reasons to view that "lack" as something other than wholly regrettable.

  Still, there was no landmark study called 'The Spirit of "the Great Spirit" in the Protestant Work Ethic'.

  If you would like to understand why the people of  Europe, acquisitive, expansionist, "driven", supplanted other brilliant, and in many ways more beautiful cultures--certainly cultures more in harmony with the rhythms of nature--then I would point you to Max Weber, for one, and, for why it was particularly English-speaking culture, and Northern Europeans, after them, I'd point you to two people whose marks on English literally transformed that language and imbued it with force and rich subtlety which until them it did not possess.  English, after these two men had finished their work was an instrument which lent those who were masters of it an incomparably finer 'tool' than had any other generation before them.

  The  first of them was a man named William Tyndale

  http://en.wikipedia....

and his story is brilliantly told by the historian, David Daniell.

  The second, also known as "William" is the person who wrote the plays and poems we attribute to "William Shakespeare".

  Taken together, they transformed what the English language was capable of conveying and, after them, people were armed linguistically as they had never been before, people were awakened to a range of thought and expression which before could only be rendered rather clumsily.

  Many individuals and groups have contributed to making English what it is today; but no others can rival their contributions.

  Mute the "swans" were not.  To the contrary, their force--for better and for worse--sprang straight from a newly found strength of language which made minds more subtle and less timid.

  The expressive strength and range of English is nothing short of amazing.  And its force can lend itself to building or destroying--as those who employ it might will.

  That's my hunch.

Read - think - speak - doubt; create - explore - give - love.

Yet the English once so possessed, insisted all countrries in its surround speak the Queen's English.

There were other cultures with written word, I wonder how this language and it's purveyors became more reknown then others....

I mean most of our great philosophers were Greek, and wrote in that language, why did not all things Greek become forefront?

Sometimes the class bifurcation is easily seen, as in food words.  Pig Germanic) vs pork (from the Frenh).  Or Cow (Germanic) vs Beef (from the French).  The field workers were Saxons, but by the time it got to the table, it was referred to by the language of the upper class. We also have cattle (Latin) and Swine (German).

What is interesting is to look at a map today of all the places in the world where some Indo-European language is spoken.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

  I don't know about English "merely" qualifying as a "subset" of Latin but it's true that much of English derived from Latin and Greek.  As pedigrees go, Mater being Greek, Pater being Roman---they hardly come more August than that.

  Maybe there's a lot more "Greek" in the past and present forefront than you suppose. And the Greeks had a not-too-shabby "empire" sort of.  So much so that they made it into all the Roman daily papers--and lots of books.

  The Greeks and Romans did remarkably well for people who never knew a guy named Johannes Gutenberg who pressed type rather than olives.

  And Tyndale and Shakespeare--remarkably well for people who never knew Bill Gates or the bringers of broadband internet or fibre-optic cable.

Read - think - speak - doubt; create - explore - give - love.

I don't know about English "merely" qualifying as a "subset" of Latin but it's true that much of English derived from Latin and Greek.  As pedigrees go, Mater being Greek, Pater being Roman---they hardly come more August than that.

As per my previous comment to Diane, English is a Germanic language. One of the two largest, extant Germanic languages. Sorry. Former linguistics minor, here. I can dig for sources if you want.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker

English is an Anglo-Frisian language. Germanic-speaking peoples from northwest Germany (Saxons and Angles) and Jutland (Jutes) invaded what is now known as Eastern England around the fifth century AD. It is a matter of debate whether the Anglo-Saxon language spread by displacement of the original population, or the native Celts gradually adopted the language and culture of a new ruling class (see Sub-Roman Britain), or a combination of both of these processes. There is also debate as to whether there were substantial numbers of Saxons already in Britain in late Roman times.

Whatever their origin, these Germanic dialects eventually coalesced to a degree and formed what is today called the Old English language, which resembled some coastal dialects in what are now north-west Germany and the Netherlands (i.e., Frisia). Throughout the history of written Old English, it retained a synthetic structure closer to that of Proto-Indo-European, being based on a single literary standard, while spoken Old English became increasingly analytic in nature, losing the more complex noun case system, relying more heavily on prepositions and fixed word-order to convey meaning. This is evident in the Middle English period, when literature was first recorded in the spoken dialects of English, after written Old English lost its status as the literary language of the nobility. It has been postulated that the early development of the language may have been influenced by a Celtic substratum.[6][7] Later, it was influenced by the related North Germanic language Old Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in the north and the east coast down to London, the area known as the Danelaw.

Then came the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. For about 300 years after this, the Norman kings and the high nobility spoke only Anglo-Norman, which was close to Old French. A large number of Norman words found their way into Old English, particularly those in the legal and administrative fields. Later, many words were borrowed directly from Latin and Greek, leaving a parallel vocabulary that persists into modern times. The Norman influence strongly affected the evolution of the language over the following centuries, resulting in what is now referred to as Middle English.

During the 15th century, Middle English was transformed by the Great Vowel Shift, the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration, and the standardising effect of printing. Early Modern English can be traced back to around the time of William Shakespeare.

More:

All Germanic languages are thought to be descended from a hypothetical Proto-Germanic, united by their having been subjected to the sound shifts of Grimm's law and Verner's law. These took place probably during the Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe from ca. 500 BC, but other common innovations separating Germanic from Proto-Indo European suggest a common history of pre-Proto-Germanic speakers throughout the Nordic Bronze Age.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker

I stand corrected.  Still, curiously, I can make out most Latin based languages to some extent, having never learned a word of Latin other then Mea Culpa.  Other languages, not a word.

Thanks for teaching me something new.

I always thought this was fascinating.  One of the great mysteries in my mind is the colse relatioonship between Latin, Celtic, and Tocherian.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

Weakness is eternally considered virtue and Strength only for the damned, regardless of the actual facts involved.

It reminds me of Gott's comment that he feels there can be no such thing as a troll from the left in the blogosphere, mainly based upon the weak position the left finds itself in out in the real world.

In other words, because of one's weakness, he or she cannot be impugned, regardless of the facts.

Where does the aggression of the ancient mongols, japanese, egyptians, etc...fit into all of this? 

Isaiah's comment above speaks for me here.

(Insert name here) is a right-wing fascist warmonger!

  "Where does the aggression of the ancient mongols, japanese, egyptians, etc...fit into all of this?"

  see: "also ran"

  Spoke any Mongolian, Japanese or a dialect of Egypt lately?

 

Read - think - speak - doubt; create - explore - give - love.

Aggression, slavery, war and rape are ok as long as you eventually fall (which everybody eventually does)?

"White/european/whatever" dominance is just the latest ass on a much sat-upon throne.

I wish some here could be around in a hundred years when we quaint peace-loving Americans are celebrated as the virtuous heroes who learned their lesson when compared to the devils of China.

(Insert name here) is a right-wing fascist warmonger!

  If anyone is around in one hundred years it'll probably be thanks to someone's putting the "quaint, peace-loving Americans" in a position to "learn their lesson(s)."

  And if the Chinese don't learn from our mistakes and do better, then they'll be told how much their habits owe to "Yankee ingenuity."

  "So by also ran, you mean it is to be ignored? "

  Nope.

  "Aggression, slavery, war and rape are ok as long as you eventually fall (which everybody eventually does)?"

  Never claimed that, either.

  "White/european/whatever" dominance is just the latest ass on a much sat-upon throne."

  Sounds like "everybody's to blame so nobody's to blame" excuse-making to me.

  Read over the "Social Dominator's" Q&A series--or, as I prefer to call it, The Seven-to-Seventeen Habits (of Thought) of the Highly "Success"-crazed Conservative--it isn't the "Liberal Apostles' Creed":

The Personal Power, Meanness and Dominance Scale:

[ In a questionnaire, Dr. Altemeyer asks subjects to agree or disagree with the following statements; following each is the response typical of a "social dominator" profile]

• It's a mistake to interfere with the "law of the jungle." Some people were meant to dominate others. (Agree)

• Would you like to be a kind and helpful person to those in need? (Disagree)

• "Winning is not the first thing; it's the only thing." (Agree)

• The best way to lead a group under your supervision is to show them kindness, consideration, and treat them as fellow workers, not as inferiors. (Disagree)

• If you have power in a situation, you should use it however you have to, to get your way.
(Agree)

• Would you be cold-blooded and vengeful, if that's what it took to reach your goals? (Agree)

• Life is NOT governed by the "survival of the fittest." We should let compassion and moral laws be our guide. (Disagree)

• Do money, wealth, and luxuries mean a lot to you? (Agree)

• It is much better to be loved than to be feared. (Disagree)

• Do you enjoy having the power to hurt people when they anger or disappoint you? (Agree)

• It is much more important in life to have integrity in your dealings with others than to have money & power. (Disagree)

• It's a dog-eat-dog world where you have to be ruthless at times. (Agree)

• Charity (i.e. giving somebody something for nothing) is admirable, not stupid. (Disagree)

• Would you like to be known as a gentle and forgiving person? (Disagree)

• Do you enjoy taking charge of things and making people do things your way? (Agree)

• Would it bother you if other people thought you were mean and pitiless? (Disagree)

• Do you like other people to be afraid of you? (Agree)

• Do you hate to play practical jokes that can sometimes really hurt people? (Disagree)

• It would bother me if I intimidated people, and they worried about what I might do next.
(Disagree)

• I will do my best to destroy anyone who deliberately blocks my plans and goals. (Agree)

  No, these aren't exclusively "white people" traits.  And no one said they are.  But they're also not uniformly represented in all cultures at all times and in all places, either, I suspect.

Read - think - speak - doubt; create - explore - give - love.

White race: Inferior aggressors who dominate world for unknown reasons.

EVERYONE else: Way better than that.

Facts, links, references presented: none.

Emotional stereotypes to play to the choir: you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting one.


(Insert name here) is a right-wing fascist warmonger!

I just dont understand how a minute minority has held sway over the world for so long.

You can google the genocide in the Americas if you would like, they are factual.  You can look to India's and Africa's Brittish held possessions. Look to Northern Ireland, the Falkland Islands. Iraq and Afghanistan were also run by them.  The Carribean.  Palestine until recent times....

You can look at anything in the history of the British Empire and its fall-out and see that as invaders went they take the cake.

In fact, I often cite that exact track record when I am told how horrific us Americans are by said European angels.

But to gloss over or ignore the aggressions (past and present) of the myriad peoples and empires who don't happen to be white and/or european is  willfully ignorant and undermines the essay completely.

Aggression is a human trait, not one dictated by race.

(Insert name here) is a right-wing fascist warmonger!

Also, I expected as humanity got past the age of hunt/gather and food wars, and gained the ability to read and philosophize (is that a word?) they perchance would be come less likely to enslave and murder others, not more likely to because the age of metal and computers made it easier.

Truth be told, I wasn't thinking historically when I wrote it this morning...  I was waxing disgusted by the fact that this is the first time in history the entire planet is being forced to be held to a standard set by a minority.

When the other invasions happened, people the world over weren't affected. 

I wasn't speaking in absolutes, just in angst and anger.

(I should have posted this as new comment so as not to go all skinny, so if you reply, will you start a new wide one?  Thanks!)

  and I also read Popper's  The Open Society & Its Enemies which takes us back to the Athens of Plato and Socrates; and I've read  a bit of Marcel Mauss's work on primitive thought and religion.

  If you want Diane's points fully illustrated and heavily annotated with copious end-notes, I recommend these and the many scores of other magistral works of social and historical research they refer to.

  It's a pretty sordid panorama, frankly, and it takes a deep affection for and maybe a whopping investment in "Judeo-Christian Bankshares Holdings Ltd." to avoid noticing how very much the White Guys stick out in this sordid tale and how very badly things have gone since that early wrong turn when many were tricked or tranched into bowing and submitting to the idea of a montheistic universe.  The Social Dominator's Finest Hour, when he put the Monotheist mumbo-jumbo over on the frightened and credulous--who previously had lived somewhat less blood-thirsty, slightly more tolerant lives as things went in that time of brute violence---so unlike our time. 

It's after 4 in the morning now and my mother says I have to get off the internet and go to bed.

  Damn!

  ;^)

Read - think - speak - doubt; create - explore - give - love.

Isn't "it's all our fault" just the verso of the arrogant coin which had our obvious superiority on the obverse?  I mean, doesn't it simply say that if it has to be someone's fault, there is no one great enough other than the white people who could have such a great fault placed on them?

What i think is that those who call this or that species an "invasive species" are ignoring nature, and substituting, with all arrogance, human construct for nature.  To a muted swan, it is not an invasive species, it is just an animal carrying out the demands of its nature.

We humans are a part of nature also.  We do the same.  Persons make decisions in accordance with human nature, and it is played out in nature.

The ancient Stylites often suffered wasting wounds which would come to support maggots.  These ascetics would not call these "invasive species," but see them as a wonder of God and his nature.

In the end, biologically speaking, the species Homo sapiens has no races.  This myth of races is actually the ultimate arrogance of the white man, and one of the most destructive.  the differences between us are accidental and unimportant, just variations on one theme.  We humans are all of one race. 

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

A) nowhere in time has there been a vaster empirical spread then the Manifest Destiny of the British Empire.

B) The effects (as to the spread of English speech, English dress, English brands of Christianity) are still entirely widespread.

C) Nearly total genocide of the denizens of North America.

D)  People of color in this country still have to compete twice as hard and are subjected to White European standards and bigotry.

I could go on, but calling "White mans guilt" pales when you see the devastating effects of their spread.  No arrogance, just simple cause and effect.

Anyway, the maggot hyperbole is a case of symbiotic use, not a species from another continent decimating the indigenous ones.

Read up on the Great Lakes and see what ballast water fishes have nearly destroyed our fish ecosystem.

Things that don't export well:

Religion.
Humans.
Wild plants and animals.

Were it a case of the Swans got here naturally, it would be different.  Like that beautiful to look at Blue (loosestrife perhaps?) swamp plant someone cut loose in the midwest; Muters are killing their environs.

Entire bird populations and plant species have become extinct or damn near extinct in the last 15 years from one plant.  They choke out the natural flora and it seed heads, which entire species depend on for survival.

Responsible stewardship says we must try and preserve the balance, and restore it (wolves, bald eagles) when we can.

We tend in this culture to believe in the biblical notion that we are separate from nature and have "dominion" over it.  In your words, we have "stewardship."

The fact is that we are part of nature, and everything we do is a part of nature.

Remember, 99% of all species ever on the earth are now extinct.  Extinction is the rule, not the exception.

I is the height of hubris for us to think that the earth should forever be exactly as it is now, just because it suits us, just one small part of nature, trying mightily to pretend that we can avoid that rule.  In our arrogance, we think that we can decide just what species will or won't survive (the smallpox virus does not seem to have the backing of save the earth pseudo-environmentalists, who would carve up an industry, throw people out of work, and generally make it tough for poor people just to save the spotted owl, based on what was later shown to be bad science).

Step back to see nature as it is.  There is no "guilt" in nature.

See the same thing here: 

They choke out the natural flora and it seed heads, which entire species depend on for survival.

Those species themselves were once the invaders.  The "invaders" are themselves natural.  Someday, should they become fully extant, there will be a new ecosystem, and that species will be an important part of it.  Life won't disappear.  Someday, if that "invading" species takes hopld, some new pseudo-environmentalist will note the rise of another species which might supplant your "invader," and write great warning passages about  the new invader which might wipe out entire ecosystems based on the old invader.

We are to be reminded that what we think is different from reality.  Just as there is no scientific concept of race in Homo sapiens, there is no botanical concept of "weed."  In Arizona, one of the most used grasses is Bermuda.  When I first moved to oregon, I noticed that the lawn fertilizer promised to kill weeds, "such as Bermuda, ...."  Why would anyone want to just kill a perfectly wonderful part of nature?

I once read that in some parts of the world, roses are considered weeds.  But here, in my neck of the woods, they have spread wildly, and have replaced the previous ecosystem in part.  No longer is my little piece of land q stand of trees with a cover of blackberry bush and other wild plants.  Some animal has changed that, just as the beaver's dam leads to a grand change in the ecosuystem around it.  The beaver is "guilty" of replacing a near-stream forest with a lake, which allows "invading" water species top replace former land species, and, as with any dam, the lake will eventually silt in, it will eutrophy, and where once was a forest, a grassland will arise.  Those species dependnt on the forest will lose habitat to species better suited to grasslands.

Some of my ancestors once occupied all the land of continental Europe except for Italy and Greece.  But less than a few hundred years later, they were confined to parts of Wales and Hibernia, from the latter spread to what is now Scotland.  The family of languages once heard across that expanse is barely heard now, replaced by dialects of Latin, German, and Slavic languages.  These ancestors of mine were forest people who loved freedom, whose motto of government was "every man a king."  Anyone could proclaim nimself king if he dared to defen that title.  Any concerted action depended on convincing others that it was something to take part in.  Twice, my ancestors sacked Rome.

But eventually, the Romans mastered a more efficient and centralized warfare, which defeated my ancestors.  Then the warriors from the Asian plane swept across Europe wiping out both my ancestors and the Roman Empire.  Where is the "guilt" here?

Under your thinking, are not the first humans to leave Africa the guiltiest of all?  Are you angry with those who spread plants and animals of the Americas, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, tobacco, Zea mays and others around the world?  Those who brought the horse to America after it had gone extinct here?

Check out out Saturday gardening thread.  How many of the plants mentioned there are invaders from other parts of the world?  Most, i would say.

Responsible stewardship says we must try and preserve the balance, and restore it (wolves, bald eagles) when we can.

The concept of a "balance of nature" is a leftover of bad pop ecology from the 60s.  There is NO balance of nature.  It is simply a human concept which we rudely try to enforce on nature.  To be sure, parts of nature have a certain homeostasis over some limited time, but in all, nature is a river in constant flux.

We are free to do what we want, to selfishly choose to preserve animals like us that we like (vertebrates like bald eagles and wolves), and to try to wipe out organisms that we don't (like wonderful bacteria and viruses)--after all, it is in our nature to do so.  It is we who destroyed the natural grasses to plant our own choices, including Zea mays.  It is we who require me to go out to my yard and destroy the ecosystem there by mowing the grass.

Yes, we are a selfish species, given to thinking that what we see with our eyes, through the prism of our own preferences, is reality itself.  Given to thinking that our labels, "invading species," "weed," describe reality.  We are free to mourn the loss of nature-as-we-would-have-it, as we hate nature-as-it-is.

It is a part of our overwhelming arrogance that we do so.  The fact is, we don't love nature at all, we love nature as we think it should be.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.