Trump and his love for Andrew Jackson

[zoogs]

Are the 'forgotten men and women' the native Americans in this scenario?

[Landlord]

No, the white slave owner was genuinely making a boat load of cash at the expense of other human beings.

 

 

Much different than the top execs at companies like Apple and Nike?

[ZRod]

 

No, the white slave owner was genuinely making a boat load of cash at the expense of other human beings.

 

 

Much different than the top execs at companies like Apple and Nike?

I mean they don't beat them, put them in chains, and kill them...

[Moiraine]

 

 

No, the white slave owner was genuinely making a boat load of cash at the expense of other human beings.

 

 

Much different than the top execs at companies like Apple and Nike?

I mean they don't beat them, put them in chains, and kill them...

Maybe they don't? Nike in the past has used child labor and child labor has been used to create parts for Apple products.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jan/25/apple-child-labour-supply

 

The report follows a series of worker suicides over working conditions at Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that assembles must-have products such as the iPad and iPhone, and lethal explosions at other plants.

 

Apple's annual supplier report which monitors nearly 400 suppliers found that children were employed at 11 factories involved in making its products.

[ZRod]

I'm well aware.

 

It's all relative. But let's not play Trump games here. I think Enhanced said it pretty well.

 

Doing great things doesn't absolve you of the negatives (even if they were the norm of your time). The same rules apply today.

[Enhance]

 

No, the white slave owner was genuinely making a boat load of cash at the expense of other human beings.

 

Much different than the top execs at companies like Apple and Nike?

That's not the argument you presented, Landlord. You were trying to suggest slave owners (as a whole) were operating out of some warped sense of the "greater good." That's just plain silly.

 

Andrew Jackson was a white nationalist slave owner and an influential president. He was a racist and a powerful politician. His negative qualities are not less relevant just because they were culturally cool at the time.

[zoogs]

There's criticizing the current exploitative nature of corporations and there's not allowing for criticizing the heinous deeds of the past.

[Landlord]

 

 

No, the white slave owner was genuinely making a boat load of cash at the expense of other human beings.

 

Much different than the top execs at companies like Apple and Nike?

That's not the argument you presented, Landlord. You were trying to suggest slave owners (as a whole) were operating out of some warped sense of the "greater good." That's just plain silly.

 

Andrew Jackson was a white nationalist slave owner and an influential president. He was a racist and a powerful politician. His negative qualities are not less relevant just because they were culturally cool at the time.

 

 

 

I'm suggesting that people suffer from moral blind spots of their time and culture. Andrew Jackson was an awful man by our standards of decency today - he wasn't by the dominant majority worldview of his time. I hope that the things I do in this life will stand the test of time, but I can see a future where I'm looked back on with distaste for things I partook in and didn't stand against.

 

I'm not excusing Andrew Jackson. I'm not ~not~ allowing for criticism of people in the past. I'm just saying, understand why these bad people of history did these bad things, because the explanation is more nuanced than the idea that humankind just continues to become chronologically superior and more moral.

[zoogs]

I'm not excusing Andrew Jackson. I'm not ~not~ allowing for criticism of people in the past. I'm just saying, understand why these bad people of history did these bad things, because the explanation is more nuanced than the idea that humankind just continues to become chronologically superior and more moral.

Okay. This I definitely agree with.

 

But to circle back to the beginning of all this, I think idolizing Jackson (or even making various excuses for him) merits its fair share of legitimate criticism.

[knapplc]

I can see Landlord's and Enhance"s points here. Agree with both on varying levels. But this is such a weird conversation.

[ZRod]

But this is such a weird conversation.

Right? It feels like: Stalin beat the Germans. He was an ok guy because Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo did some bad sh#t too.

[Enhance]

 

 

 

No, the white slave owner was genuinely making a boat load of cash at the expense of other human beings.

 

Much different than the top execs at companies like Apple and Nike?

That's not the argument you presented, Landlord. You were trying to suggest slave owners (as a whole) were operating out of some warped sense of the "greater good." That's just plain silly.

 

Andrew Jackson was a white nationalist slave owner and an influential president. He was a racist and a powerful politician. His negative qualities are not less relevant just because they were culturally cool at the time.

 

 

I'm suggesting that people suffer from moral blind spots of their time and culture. Andrew Jackson was an awful man by our standards of decency today - he wasn't by the dominant majority worldview of his time. I hope that the things I do in this life will stand the test of time, but I can see a future where I'm looked back on with distaste for things I partook in and didn't stand against.

 

I'm not excusing Andrew Jackson. I'm not ~not~ allowing for criticism of people in the past. I'm just saying, understand why these bad people of history did these bad things, because the explanation is more nuanced than the idea that humankind just continues to become chronologically superior and more moral.

I see what you're saying and I think, to varying degrees, our arguments aren't very far away from each other. You're suggesting we understand why they made the decisions of their time and I do - completely.

 

But, I think we should be clear on one thing - slavery in its simplest form is about power and money. It's immoral, unethical and all those other things; however, it is substantially more than a "moral blind spot." Phrasing it like that gives the impression that it was an accident.

 

To relate this all back to the OP, I believe it's in poor taste to openly recognize someone like Andrew Jackson. This will surely come from a place of 'look how great he was' and that seems wrong.

[Landlord]

To relate this all back to the OP, I believe it's in poor taste to openly recognize someone like Andrew Jackson. This will surely come from a place of 'look how great he was' and that seems wrong.

 

 

I very much agree. Can't wait for him to be off the $20 bill, and hope for a world where he's remembered, but not celebrated or given more than the bare minimum of honor that a President deserves.

[NUance]

In the fall of 1813, Indian hostilities finally brought an end to Jackson's inactivity. At Fort Mims in Mississippi Territory (now southern Alabama), warlike Creeks known as "Red Sticks" had overwhelmed and slaughtered more than four hundred whites. Jackson led a force of Tennesseans and allied Indians deep into the Creek homeland, where he fought a series of engagements. At the culminating battle of Horseshoe Bend in March 1814, Jackson annihilated the main Creek force. LINK

 

Does it make any difference that the 400+ people slaughtered at Fort Mims north of Mobile, Alabama included quite a few women and children who had taken refuge in the fort to avoid being slaughtered on their nearby farms? When the Tennessee legislature voted to send Colonel Andrew Jackson's troops after the Creek Indians who attacked Fort Mims, should he have disobeyed or resigned?

 

How many of you in this thread remember the feeling of America after 911? In response to 911, America started two wars and toppled the governments of two countries, killing over 200,000 civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan in the process. 200,000! Should we start a thread vilifying George W. Bush for his role in all those deaths?

 

Also consider that Jackson was following orders as a colonel in the Tennessee militia. Bush was the U.S. President and commander and chief of the U.S. military.

[Landlord]

George Bush should absolutely have to answer for what our country did under his leadership, and he's probably guilty of war crimes.

 

 

One way that the Natives differ from post-9/11 and muslims is that the first 100+ years of European colonization here would not have been possible without them. All the poor pathetic white folk were completely helpless in this new land - the Native Americans saved them from starvation and taught them how to work the land.