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Thread: Happy Columbus Day

  1. #1
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    Happy Columbus Day

    I’m glad he made the trip.

  2. #2
    Moderator Float On's Avatar
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    And happy Puerto Rico Friendship Day!
    And to those in Virginia, happy Yorktown Victory Day!
    If in Hawaii, happy Discoverer's Day!
    Vermont or Oregon? Happy Indigenous People' Day!!
    South Dakota - happy Native American Day!

    Good grief, I didn't know about all this controversy until I looked it up to see if we had mail today (on my phone, in front of my husband). Here in MO, no mail/ no banks and it's still Columbus Day.
    Float On: My "Happy Place" is on my little kayak in the coves of Table Rock Lake.

  3. #3
    Senior Member razz's Avatar
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    In Canada, it's Happy Thanksgiving!
    As Cicero said, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”

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    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    If he hadn't made the trip maybe my Puritan ancestors would have stayed in England, the persecution would have passed, and now I'd have national healthcare rather than paying $15k a year.

    All joking (not really a joke) aside, I do appreciate the innovation and hard work that went into building this country. I'm not thrilled that we had to wipe out its inhabitants in the process, but you take the good with the bad. They got to build Mohegan Sun, and we got to fulfill our Manifest Destiny.
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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  5. #5
    Yppej
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    I am not a Columbus fan. But it is nice to have the day off work.

  6. #6
    Simpleton Alan's Avatar
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    I think Columbus gets a bad rap these days. It's pretty well established that the first settlers on the continent came from the west around 14,000 years earlier, across what is now the Bering Strait from Siberia, and that various Norse explorers beat Columbus by about 500 years from the east. There's even reason to believe the Chinese thoroughly explored North and South America nearly one hundred years before 1492.

    If Columbus had never lived, the result would have been the same as explorers from every point of the world came here and established governments claimed portions of it as their own. That's the history of the world, not just North America.
    "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein

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    I'm usually skeptical of revisionist history, but it's time to retire Columbus Day. He may have had an adventurous spirit, but he was basically in it for the money and his treatment of the natives of Hispaniola was nothing short of genocidal. He can be noted, but he shouldn't be celebrated.

  8. #8
    Senior Member razz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by oldhat View Post
    I'm usually skeptical of revisionist history, but it's time to retire Columbus Day. He may have had an adventurous spirit, but he was basically in it for the money and his treatment of the natives of Hispaniola was nothing short of genocidal. He can be noted, but he shouldn't be celebrated.
    While I cannot disagree with your points, I would ask if he was any different than any other of his time? Do we evaluate within historical context?

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    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by razz View Post
    While I cannot disagree with your points, I would ask if he was any different than any other of his time? Do we evaluate within historical context?
    I guess we might, and Alan is right that if it weren't Columbus it would have been someone else, but it seems that colonialism is celebrated only by those who occupy the natives. We can argue over whether or not we are better off because Columbus "discovered" America, or because India fell under the British Empire for a certain number of years, but to Alan's point: is colonialism the history of the world? Can we celebrate our success at extinguishing the indigenous? What makes the white man so special?
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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