Tinker Bell, Pinochet And The Fairy Tale Miracle Of Chile

[Tony]

Hogeye wrote:

Tony, our "disagreement" is merely semantic. I agree with most of what you wrote, given your broad definition of imperialism.

Ok, I get the gist of your argument. You were not trying to redefine 'imperialism' as you were trying to point out the different sorts of imperialism. Is that right?

I do take exception to your statement that Polk decided to not take all Mexico because he did not yet have an imperial mindset, as per your usage. The South, long the center of expansionist sentiment in 19th Century America was clamoring to keep it all. What is often overlooked is the level of resistance the Mexicans were offering after we occupied Mexico City. The consensus is that he realized how overextended the U.S. was, decided the resistance was too costly to overcome, and thus 'settled' for stealing half Mexico. Outside the Northeast, there was very strong sentiment to 'bless' all Mexico with our domination.

Other than that, yeah, I think I get what you meant. A semantical disagreement indeed.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Hogeye - Just who do think encouraged (even went to Europe and brought them over by the boatload)? Who "opened" the land for the pioneers to settle? Who sent out the "broadsides" about "free" land? Who created the "Homestead Act"? That's all government, with a little assist by the major corporations of the day, as usual.

As to Mexico - and "Texicans" were a part of that - We'd "won" our independence in 1836, but Mexico didn't officially recognize that any more than Great Britain officially recognized the U.S. after the American Revolution (not until the War of 1812). When Texas decided to become a part of the U.S., that unrecognition made it, from Mexico's standpoint, an act of war. All the desert regions were very sparsely populated (little rain, little grass - in the days of sanity, population was based on land carrying capacity), so Mexico didn't really argue too much about that. They didn't like losing the Rio Grande Valley, but transportation was difficult enough to let that slide as well. But trying to keep the Mexico City region had a whole lot in common with our current attempts to occupy Iraq. Buchanan may have been an imperialistic jerk (and he was) but he had more sense than to do that. (Of course, they did wait a full generation to tell the people of the Rio Grande Valley that their country had changed hands. Then they came in and "sold" the traditional family properties for "back taxes" to a state they didn't know they belonged to. That's how the Hispanic population - both the wealthy and the family farmers - became the poorest of Texas' sizable population of poor.)

[Hogeye]

Tony, thanks for the info about the Mexican War - I'll have to read up on that. Surely you are right that there existed flaghumping warmonger imperialists in that era. How much Mexican resistence (as opposed to other factors such as possible new slave states and consequent congress-critters) had to do with the Polk administration's decision not to try to hold Mexico, I don't know yet. But the bottom line is that they decided not to, unlike the long-term occupation of Phillipines.

Mexico didn't officially recognize that any more than Great Britain officially recognized the U.S. after the American Revolution (not until the War of 1812).

??? But GB did officially recognize the United States as several sovereign States.

The Treaty of Paris of 1783, signed on September 3, 1783, and ratified by the U.S. Congress on January 14, 1784, formally ended the American Revolutionary War between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United States of America that had rebelled against British rule in 1776. ... Recognizing the 13 colonies (Delaware is not specifically mentioned but was likely included in Pennsylvania, of which it was technically part before the war) as free and sovereign States [Article 1];...

The United States didn't become a single centralized State until the War of Southern Independence nearly a century later. I guess you mean that GB didn't officially bless the US Con - but why would they recognize some foreign internal paper?

Just who do think encouraged (even went to Europe and brought them over by the boatload)?

Private individuals and firms - not the US State.

Who "opened" the land for the pioneers to settle?

Mainly private individuals, who we now call "pioneers." The US State actually destroyed several "squatter" settlements, claiming the homesteaders were stealing public land. We have records of senate and congressional speeches discussing the no-good land-stealing squatters. The US State had no rightful jurisdiction over unused land by any entitlement or homesteading theory. But, like King George's State before, the US State certainly wanted to sell/gift it to crony companies and bigwigs! Bottom line: The US State did not open the land to homesteaders; on the contrary they did everything possible to claim it for the State and discourage "squatters." Eventually, the rulers realized it was hopeless and unpopular to take the Merchant State line (it's hard to control armed people in the wilderness), and acquiesced to the Homestead Act and "preemption" conventions.

[Tony]

Hogeye wrote:

How much Mexican resistence (as opposed to other factors such as possible new slave states and consequent congress-critters) had to do with the Polk administration's decision not to try to hold Mexico, I don't know yet.

Expansion of slavery most certainly DID play an important role all the way through the ordeal. It was a primary reason Texans rose up in the first place. Mexico had outlawed slavery, and appeared to be trying to enforce it. I too will have to dust off some books, its been a while since I studied all this.

Sometime we will have to argue about your Southern apologist terms for the Civil War, i.e. "War of Northern Agression", "War for Southern Independence", etc. And what a philosophically contentious topic that is...

Cheers,
Tony

[LaWood]

>Will you agree that the Spanish-American War was the first war by the US which took over a foreign people's territory for purposes other than settlement by Americans?<

Hog your getting thin as piss on a rock. What difference does it make if we take over land for settlement (Mexico, and Continental U.S.) or just to steal its resources?

You sound like a psycho attempting to justify why he shot an innocent bystander.

For what it matters Teddy's Raiders used the ploy of "manifest destiny" to justify taking over so-called foreign lands.

[Hogeye]

For some of us "psychos", the difference between world empire/world policeman and local space for living is huge. It is the difference between shooting an innocent bystander in a neighborhood dispute and bombing civilians halfway around the world.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Hogeye - that excuse of "local space for living" is the one Hitler used to justify his war - and attempted genocide of the eastern European peoples already living there. No different to do it to a neighbor because you want his property than to do it to somebody across town, across the nation, or across the ocean because you want his gold, oil, or banana plantation. You are making a specious distinction between real estate ("real" property) and resources.

As to the above comment about no-good, land-stealing squatters - that's because the settlers in question hadn't gone through "channels" - or were settling on treaty lands which congress had to pretend was not their idea all along. (1850 Kansas was "perpetual Indian lands", 1860 Kansas was a new state in the Union). Industry largely brought in "settlers" with government backing - tacit if the land in question was still officially "Indian", openly if not.

GB as grudgingly left the U.S. as we left Vietnam, and recognized the individual colonies as individual states in the expectation that the "United States" wouldn't stay united for very long. That meant they didn't recognize U.S. merchants, U.S. Navy, or U.S. treaties of any kind. This permitted them to "legally" board U.S. ships, confiscate their cargo, and "press" their sailors - and execute for treason anyone on said U.S. ship who even vaguely could be suspected of having been British at the time of the unfortunate conflict. Considering the number of immigrants to North America 1766-17782, that left them lots of latitude for executing U.S. Merchant crews. If they had recognized the U.S., this would have been piracy, an action all maritime countries strongly disapproved of and punished. Sort of the reasoning of various Arab states that if they don't recognize Israel as a state, it's OK to wipe out the population - and in fact, was the U.S. rationale for why Indian genocide wasn't genocide.