Life Is Intolerable
POSTED BY: AnthonyT
UPDATED: Tuesday, November 22, 2011 23:44
VIEWED: 5214
PAGE 2 of 4
Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:Quote:
My grandfather had died, and my mother was trying to explain it to me. . . .Grandpa isn't coming back? No, she said. Not ever again. . . . And I remember saying, hold everything right fucking there. You went to all the trouble of conceiving me, and giving birth to me, and raising me and clothing me and all . . . and you make me cry and things hurt so much and disappointments crush my heart every day and I can't do half the things I want to and sometimes I just want to scream — and what I've got to look forward to is my body breaking and something flipping off the switch in my head — I go through all this, and then there's death? What is the motherfucking deal here? I wasn't having this. This was not fair.
-Spider Jerusalem
Dude, you really need to read Transmetropolitan - you'd like it.
-F
Brilliant
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Quote:It's more like this: People who were taller and skinnier with angular faces were called "Tutsi."
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Tutsi are generally taller and skinner with very angular faces.
Whatever. It was classic, divide-and-conquer tactics by the Belgians. It was Jane Elliot's Brown Eyed-Blue Eyed experiment in real life.
Quote:
http://crinfo.beyondintractability.org/case_studies/rwandan_genocide.j
sp?nid=6815
The terms "Hutu" and "Tutsi" were first given significance by the early white explorers. As both Hutu and Tutsi spoke the same language, practiced the same religion, and participated in the same government, ethnographers claim that the two groups "cannot be called distinct ethnic groups" (Gourevitch, 48). Rather, the two terms referred to a caste system in which the Hutu were primarily farmers and the Tutsi were primarily herdsmen. In the Kigali Genocide Memorial, historians even claim that this status was not always permanent; by owning ten or more cattle a Hutu could become a Tutsi and vice versa. However, British explorer John Hanning Speke interpreted these terms in a different way. In what is now known as the Hamitic Myth, Speke believed that the Hutu were a typical specimen of a "primitive race," "the true curly- headed, flab- nosed, pouched- mouthed Negro" while the Tutsi were "descended from the best blood of Abyssinia" and therefore far superior (Speke, Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile).
Soon after, Rwanda became a German colony. After the German defeat in World War I, Rwanda- Burundi was given to Belgium by the League of Nations. When Europeans first arrived in Rwanda, they found a complex and well organized semi- feudal society with a strong monarchy (Melvern, 5). In order to effectively control Rwanda, the Belgian colonialists issued out identity cards in 1933, "arbitrarily [classifying] the whole population as Hutu, Tutsi or Twa" by measuring qualities such as height, length of nose and eye shape. During Belgian rule, Tutsis were favored for all administrative positions and Hutus were actively discriminated against.
During the Rwandan genocide, the only thing I could do to "help" was help a Rwandan-American professor design a website to help publicize the news. He was a Hutu married to a Tutsi. This is pretty much the story he told me too. Also, my husband, who was actually in Rwanda the day of the genocide, tells me the same.
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Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth. -- Lucy Parsons (1853-1942, labor activist and anarcho-communist)
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I knew it. And that is the most bizarre thing about the situation. I mean, its bizarre to want to kill everyone in a tribe or ethnicity to begin with, but when that tribe or ethnicity are basically not any different and the difference is imposed on them by outside forces it is just plain weird.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Well, more of a predictable cycle of self-destruction, as most examples of malicious European meddling tends to be.
I was thinking today about the original subject of this thread, and it occurs to me I'm not really sure I believe in the concept of death. And not in a "afterlife" sense, but in a purely repetition of history and natural cycle and reuse of genetics and chemicals and physical sense.
I see death by itself as just another facet of life. Violent and wrongful death is something else, but only something that concerns me when it might affect other people. Of all the things I am anxious or paranoid about, my own death is not something I fear or resent.
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Well death is indeed inevitable, it will happen to all of us and there's nothing we can do to stop it. My wish is that everyone could live a full meaningful life in which they're able to make the choices they need to make for their good and for the good of humanity. Every life doesn't have to look the same, nor should it. It is sad when someone's life feels like it got cut short, but again its just one of those inevitable things, it will happen to some, others will get a good long time. I guess we've all got to make good choices _now, use our time well _now.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
To be quite honest, people manage to be racist and still very accurate about color. There was a whole gradation of color in South Africa... very scientific... Same as in Haiti. And black people in the USA know that it is much better to be high (social standing) yellow (golden-skinned) than blue-black. In fact, criminal sentences in the USA are directly correlated to skin color, for equal crimes. The darker the skin, the worse off you will be in a court of "law".
I know you are trying to lighten up (so to speak!) the topic of racism, but this is not the answer, seriously OR in jest!
My guess is that Bond regrets ever having done this skit, but I don't care. Still funny as hell.
"The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein
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The title: "Life is Intolerable"
Well, yes and no.
Right now, somewhere, is a child going to sleep without a blanket. They are cold, hungry, alone, and have never known things like Ipads, interwebs, AC, or clean water.
But.
They are going to sleep, and tomorrow will wake up. Their first thought might be how to get food, or water... and they are going to fight.
They are going to fight to get food. To get water.
While we here argue about the morality of OWS, or the Tea Party... there is that kid trying to live another day.
We, Americans, are so spoiled.
"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"
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This was more about philosophical existential angst and crisis, but okay.
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Reasonable point Wulf.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Wulf, this is sorta what I meant when I said , in the past, that life is unfair . More accurately, the Universe is unfair.
I mean, we can try to organize our lives, our society in a kind and supportive manner, which promotes all the qualities we want, and gives as many the best chance of not just surviving, but succeeding. But regardless of our plans and intentions, there are forces well beyond OUR control which will come into play. Be it the unintended consequences of something we do here on Earth, or the meteor that falls from the sky one day, and turns a Tuesday into armageddon.
Which isn't to say we shouldn't try, but just so we understand, that the odds, they are agin us. Look around. Earth is ( so far ) the only place we know of which harbors life. It's the lone house out on the vast prairie with the lights on. And as Kaylee says... 'it can get awfully lonely out there in the black '
"The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein
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