I am proud to be a American

[Florin]

......US is a country trying sloppily to pick up the pieces of hundreds of years of European mistakes.

OK, I promise I'll ignore and I'll spare "SS 2nd Panzer" because he is 14.
But if you, as an adult, could write what I am quoting here, and I you believe it, you at least do not have the age excuse.

[Vpatrick]

Florin
Thanks for the insight, I thought it had something too with that. I just dont get your point.
Respect
Vpatrick

[Vpatrick]

Florin
Yes, I will take the hit, What I mean is hundreds of years of Anti-Semetic activities of both Eastern and Western Europe caused Zionism. And when the whole arab world was going to wipe them off the map Europe applauded. Sixty yars later you are all wondering why we (US) put ourselves in danger of backing them. Which we have been sloppy agreed.
Europe is pretty sloppy too though too.

[Florin]

Florin
Thanks for the insight, I thought it had something too with that. I just dont get your point.
Respect
Vpatrick

Is this regarding the times of Hadrian during the Roman Empire? The point is: Yes, the emperor dispersed the population of Judeea, because "enough was enough". A guy claims himself "Mesia", rise a whole nation to revolt, and the 13 legions brought by the Romans weaken Empire's defenses and cost the Empire 2 provinces and a half of the 3rd.
What do you expect after that from the Romans? To say: "Thank you very much! Do it again!"

Florin
...And when the whole arab world was going to wipe them off the map Europe applauded.

As a matter of fact, the first country who helped Israel in a massive way was the Federal Republic of Germany. The help was 4.5 billion Deutche Marks, at their value in the 50's...60's. In those days, The United States was not friendly regarding Israel. On the contrary... In 1956, when Israel was allied with France and Great Britain against the Arabs, who forced them to pull back? The United States. The United States threatened that it will enter in the conflict on the side of Egypt.

So please, would you be so kind to stop accusing the Europeans?

[Vpatrick]

Sorry Florin
I edited

[Vpatrick]

Yes
My point was Judea was broken up the romans, and the Jews were dispersed thouhout the known world. Your handle on exact facts is perfect.
Vpatrick

[Vpatrick]

I dont know if I can ask this but what did the Jews do too Germans and Europeans in general to cause such hate? Americans dont understand, because they work hard and are smart, its the slackers we hate. I dont know if this question can be answered objectively. But what the hell.

[Florin]

I dont know if I can ask this but what did the Jews do too Germans and Europeans in general to cause such hate? Americans dont understand, because they work hard and are smart, its the slackers we hate. I dont know if this question can be answered objectively. But what the hell.

I don't have answers to all questions.
The reason of my reply is to remind that in the days when there was hate against the Jews in Europe, there was also hate against them in the United States. This is regarding recent times of American history: from 1920, and continuing after WWII, for a while.

I also edited my own previous post. Please read the second part.

[Vpatrick]

Florin,
I found your answer interesting, but Ithink Germany's donation to Isreal was a healing process. Probably demanded by the victors. I think you meant as in the US dark past agaist say blacks, etc. the Jews are Germanys dark past which today we all do not trully understand. But I can tell you the reasons why Whites hated blacks. Jews too me in this country are Doctors and Lawyers and who have assimilated well in this country, I guess IM asking what was Hitlers beef from a European perspective?

[sid guttridge]

Hi Vpatrick,

The US is part of European Civilisation. The mere fact that most of its population emigrated from Europe wouldn't relieve them of collective historical guilt.

Nor is it as if anti-Semitism is a stranger to the US. Remember Groucho Marx's great riposte after he was rejected by a golf club because he was Jewish: "I wouldn't want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member anyway".

However, I don't believe in "historical" or "race guilt". "Race guilt" is the reason why European civilisation had an age old institutional bias against Jews - they had killed Jesus 2,000 years ago and were still all guilty. This was the historical foundation (shared by the ancestors of most US citizens) upon which the "Holocaust" was built. Like the Jews, today's Europeans and Americans are responsible only for their own actions. Not those of their ancestors.

Clinton got commendably close to a settlement. What killed it was the fact that Israel, already in internationally recognised possession of the vast majority of the disputed area, wanted to expand by a further 3% beyond its internationally recognised borders. All concessions since the foundation of the British Mandate after WWI have had to be made by the Palestinians.

You cannot characterise "Europeans" collectively with any accuracy. Britain is far closer to the US in terms of attitude and culpability for the current situation in the Middle East than, say, Sweden.

No. You are not Irish Catholic. You live in Boston and are presumably descended from Irish Catholics, but you are not one. I don't think Boston is the best place from which to hold a ballanced attitude to the Northern Ireland question. It has been the centre of exiled Irish republican myth making for 150 years. As a result, its attitudes are often more extremist than real Irish Catholics in Ireland. The southern irish recognise Northern Ireland is legitimately conjoined with the UK as long as the majority so wishes.

One of the great pleasures of the last 10 years (since the 150th Anniversary of the Great Famine) is that Irish historians have at last managed to shake off their nationalist leanings and are now able to look at the documentary evidence more dispassionately. Certainly British rule in Ireland was often vicious and disgraceful. But it was never so black as painted by republican propaganda.

Britain was both the worst and best thing that happened to Ireland. Most people of Irish descent now live outside Ireland. Where? Almost all of them chose to emigrate to countries where the British had set up the government - the US, UK, Canada and Australia. If British rule was so irredeemably bad, why aren't there massive Irish colonies in Catholic Brazil or Mexico? Irish history is intertwined with British imperial history, and not necessarily to the disadvantage of the Irish.

Cheers,

Sid

[Florin]

Florin,
I found your answer interesting, but Ithink Germany's donation to Isreal was a healing process. Probably demanded by the victors.........

Patrick,

The 4.5 billions in Deutche Marks given by the Federal Republic of Germany to Israel, in the 50's, was not requested by any international treaty. It was a volunteer act on behalf of Germany.

Like today... Nobody asked Germany and Australia to offer each of them double than The United States for the victims of the Tsunami. They just did that because they wanted so.

[John Kilmartin]

Hi Sid,
The names that readily come to mind of Mexicans with Irish roots would include Vincente Fox and Anthony Quinn. And if memory serves me right the original 'Zoro' Guy Lamaport was Irish.

[sid guttridge]

Hi John,

You can find Irish Catholics peppering Latin American history. Others included Bernardo O'Higgins and Cochrane in Chile. Several Irish regiments of the Spanish Army (by then containing few Irishmen) also served there after 1763. However, there was no mass migration of Irish Catholics to these countries. The Scots tried to found a self sustaining colony in Darien (Panama) and the the Welsh in Patagonia, but strangely the Irish never did. They almost all seem to have headed for "Anglo-Saxon" rather than Roman Catholic states.

Cheers,

Sid

P.S. I thought that Zorro was an entirely fictitious character. I once wrote a paper on the Borbon Military Reforms in the Americas 1763-1807 and looked at the Spanish defences in the north-west Pacific. Zorro's opponents, the various Californian presidial companies of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Nueva Espana's army, were real enough, but I found no trace of a Zorro figure. Have you more details on a real Zorro?

[Ernest Penfold]

I think he may be comingling the names of "Guy Williams", the actor who played Zorro on TV, and "William Lamport" the historical figure.

Here's a link to some information about William Lamport. He lived in the 1600s while the Zorro stories were set in the 1800s, but nevertheless...

http://home.earthlink.net/~rggsibiba/html/sib/sib6.html

[sid guttridge]

Hi Ernest,

Lamporte's connection to Zorro seems to be non-existent in time and place. He is a good 150 years and a thousand miles displaced.

I also think that extreme imagination is being displayed by the writer as far as an independence movement existing in Nueva Espana in the mid eighteenth century.

Cheers,

Sid.