Thank you Angela, Cary, Nick, Harry, Alison, Claire, Nina, Brandon, Alex, Ben and Lian for sharing your heart felt thoughts on the work of Tom Stone. I’m so taken by the depth of your analysis and more importantly the ways in which you express yourselves. I find your words very moving – all of them. Thank you. I especially appreciate that you are able to bring an exhibit like this back to what we are studying and then simultaneously bring it to your every day lives. I think this shows incredible maturity and depth and I am humbled by it.
For this next blog, I’d like us to consider American imperialism. What do you think of the Spanish-American War and the Annexation of Hawaii? Are these events an extension of US policy against Native Americans and Mexicans? Or are they different?
I’m attaching a few different files to look at (all are small and worth completing). One is a letter from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, two are You Tube videos about the annexation of Hawaii and the last one is a small op-ed piece that thinks US imperialism is a good thing.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
http://lists.ccil.org/pipermail/firstnations/2000-November/000011.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS35CnwYEOk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE4DM3e8l_w
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-05-05-boot_x.htm
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36 comments:
I think American imperialism is both good and bad, as i agree with some points made in both articles. I think that sometimes, there is nothing wrong with being the world police. Yes, it is disgusting to destroy a culture, and in the case of Hawaii and Indians, it is surely wrong to imperialize them merely because we wanted their land. What did Hawaii ever do to us?There was no reason to destrpy their monarchy and cuture other tan the fact that Americans were greedy and had no way to justify their theft of Hawii's land and culture other than the rather b.s. "manifest destiny"
On the other hand however, I do think that in some cases, i.e Iraq, when having the right gameplan(which Bush failed to institute) some forms of imperialism is ok. There is a distinct difference between robbing a culture and land from a people like the Indians or Hawaiians who never really did anything to us and imperializing a dangerous, and generally dogmatic region liek the middle east. Yes, we do not want to rob them of their land and culture, but if they want to maintain that culture, they sure havent done a good job of proving that they can be a safe, stable society by themselves.
Thus i think that American imperialism is a good thing when as Max Boot states "It means imposing the rule of law, property rights, free speech and other guarantees, at gunpoint if need be." i think its bad when it is simply robbing land and resources as a result of greed and power hungry fervor.
that was cary
Having spent some time on the subject of American imperialism and looked at specific examples of blatant takeovers like Hawaii, one can't help but to come to the conclusion that with legitimate power come aggression. That first youtube video that’s posted on the blog showed me how true this was. America was indeed founded on the principle of freedom and independence from powers unjustified in the rule of a people, and yet, less than two centuries after its creation, our great nation took over a foreign land for its own economic and geographic gain. This epitome of aberration from the foundations America was founded on shows that regardless of a nations history, when it gains power, it takes advantage of the feeble without fail.
-Harry
Cary,
I agree that there are definitely differences between America's takeover of Hawaii and its presence in the Middle East. However, some of the motives are the same. Hawaii offered America cheap crops like pineapples. One of the reasons we want stable governments in the Middle East is so that we want cheap oil from a friendly, subordinate source.
-Harry
Cary,
I agree that there are definitely differences between America's takeover of Hawaii and its presence in the Middle East. However, some of the motives are the same. Hawaii offered America cheap crops like pineapples. One of the reasons we want stable governments in the Middle East is so that we want cheap oil from a friendly, subordinate source.
-Harry
Cary,
I agree that there are definitely differences between America's takeover of Hawaii and its presence in the Middle East. However, some of the motives are the same. Hawaii offered America cheap crops like pineapples. One of the reasons we want stable governments in the Middle East is so that we want cheap oil from a friendly, subordinate source.
-Harry
sorry
I suppose it depends on what you're acting. Hopefully, as a powerful nation, the US would do what is good for the world in addition to what is good for the country.
Clearly war is not good for the world. And taking land from others with the justification of manifest destiny/white man's burden is not good either. And destroying culture, Hawaiian and Native American and terrible.
But does the good of the world outweigh our selfish intentions? Maybe not, since we took Hawaii for its crops and a naval base. Maybe not, since we took land from Indians and destroyed culture. And it's BS to say we gave them options; They either had to move or assimilate. (Oh, wait. I forgot about death...Trail of Tears anyone?) And once we reached the coast, where were they to move? Either way, we were forcing them to get out or get rid of themselves, but we were doing it kind of discreetly.
It seems like a great thing for the country. Pineapple, land, and oil. Who wouldn't want imperialism? Except no, because it's at the expense of other people, and how can you justify the death of a people and a culture?
"It means imposing the rule of law, property rights, free speech and other guarantees, at gunpoint if need be."
using fear and violence to guarantee a right. isn't that kind of counter-intuitive/hypocritical? If you're defending Imperialism because you say you're giving people rights and like protecting them, how is violence the answer? Does the ends justify the means? If you're aiming to get safety/rights, how could using violence to get there help? Does it even matter if you killed people in the process?
The takeover of Hawaii and taking basically all of our nothern American territory from the Indians demonstrate horrible Imperialism. Destroying an entire culture in Hawaii that was ruling itself completely fine is complete BS. The fact that we took land from Hawaii just for things like pineapples and sugar is idiotic. Destruction of culture and people is one type of imperialism that the U.S. has clearly demonstrated.
The US forced Indians and Hawaiians to give up their entire sense of selves in order to join the US. We gave them no options besides dying or becoming "Americanized." We justified what we did by saying we needed to expand or we needed more resources. What horrible reasons. How stupid of us to go into territory that wasn't ours, STEEL it and then kick the natives out. It's the wrong thing to do.
For America, imperialism works for us because we're the biggest and strongest country. But for others around the entire world, imperialism sucks. For the small countries who get wiped out by countries like ours, what are they supposed to do? They can stand by and watch as their entire culture is destroyed, or they can die with their culture. The choices we gave to the Hawaiians and Indians were horrible ones.
Imperialism to us can be good, but what about the cultures and people who are being taken over?
-Claire
The US took both the Indians land, Mexicans land, Phillipines, Hawaiian and other countries' lands.
It was a pttern for us in this era, to just "imperialize" by forcing assimilation and killing of people and culture. Was it for land, power, or some other immoral reason, I think a combination of all 3. We took the Indian land and forced them to relocate then abandon their culture, We invited the Chinese then forced them to leave, we killed millions of Hawaiians and Filipinos just for their land and for their assimilation.
It is all the same, it is all a brutal imperialism.
Is it justified? NO
Is it moral? NO
But did it help our country grow? YES
And b.c the last is true, the atrocities of this plan are overshadowed by all the benefits that we gained. We gained the west which meant gold, oil, land, and more. We gained hawaii which meant sugar, fruit, etc...
All of this is "Imperialism", the idea that the more powerful should take the less powerful's land and culture.
It is all the same concept and immorality. Yes some imperialism is worst than others, and some genocides are worst than others...but it's all bad to begin with
NICK BERMAN
Through imperialism, the US exploited its power and destroyed other cultures. As the video illustrated, the US conquering of Hawaii took the idea of manifest destiny worldwide. We only overthrew the territory once it was developed and had something we wanted. The Hawaiians clearly did not want the US’s influence on their territory and Queen Lil only agreed to try to have diplomatic resolutions to prevent bloodshed. Our conquering of Hawaii was not justified. We only wanted to gain the territory for our own benefit with ultimate disregard for the Hawaiian culture.
The conquest of the Indians was just as destructive and unjustified as that of the Hawaiians. We just set out “to destroy all things Indian”. We annihilated everything the Indians had just to expand our territory. Although expanding helped to build the country we have to today, at what cost are we willing to pay to create our own success?
Cary, you bring up a good point. When countries are imperializing for their own sake, for their own prosperity, and destroying other cultures in their way, imperialism is terrible. How is imperializing a country with one’s own desires in the forefront good? It is not moral, ethical, or acceptable in any way. This only destroys one country for the success of the other.
But in the case of countries imperializing others to make their nation a safer and better place, it is good. When a country imperializes a place in a dire situation, it helps to make the nation stronger and more stable and ultimately gives the country a realistic prospect of a better future.
America, with its history of bloody imperialism, has in its continuous seeking of further territory alienated the world around it and has cast America in a less than flattering light. Rarely has a colony been strategically advantageous, and never has one been morally so. Not only the destruction of culture, but in many cases the destruction of peace and stability as well. America, in repeatedly using latin america as its playground, has insured its instability for years to come as governments struggle with justifying their legitimacy. To try to justify hardpower or softpower imperialism is to justify a form of genocide and social darwinism to the point of eugenics. The white man's burden is both essentializing and paternalizing, ensuring that noone that doesnt fit the norm can ever be taken seriously by the United States. In Iraq the united states presumes that its culture, the culture, i might add, that has fostered more violence than ever the middle east did, is far superior to the nations of the middle east, which it considers, in a typical orientalist fashion, dangerous and barbaric. If the united states continues in this manner, which its current military doctrine dictates, the end of global hegemony must be imminent.
We must strive to stop essentializing and to accept a levinas-esque respect for the other, to the point that they no longer are the other.
Cary- to say that Iraq is different because they are dangerous and dogmatic as a region is incredibly orientalistic-- America has dropped far more bombs on other nations with far less impetus (i.e. Nicaragua), and they are, from an objective point of view, far more dangerous with their more powerful weapons and bullying international tactics. We must strive to be objective and consider not only our biased point of view but the objective truth-- would we think it just for the american government to be dismantled to stop truly evil organizations like NAMBLA or the Aryan Brotherhood? It is the same to punish the Iraqi cultures for terrorists in their midst.
I think American Imperialism is bad, mainly because i don't believe America needs more land. While some people say that what we did to the Indians is in no way relatively similar to what Hitler did, i have to agree and disagree. I agree in that our reasons for conquering the Indians for their land where as Hitler's reason was racial. But in the end we were after the land and didn't care who or what was in our way as long as we got what we wanted. But at the same time- i in certain cases imperialism is reasonable. Therefore I am leaning towards bad but in the end i really am in the middle
- angela or gela
i totally agree with you in that I hope that the US would also do what is good for the world in addition to what is good for the country but... most of time what is good for the country may be hurting the world in some way or another.
I think that American Imperialism is not so black and white as people may try and portray it. Like we had discussed in class with the comparison to Nazi Germany it was nowhere near similar to our Imperial takeover of the whole United States, our murdering(still very unacceptable not taking anything away from that) was for the purpose of expanding and improving our nation to the level of worldwide competition however nazi Germany and Hitlor had the intent of killing people for the creation of a super race and because of the hatred of another. And ion the case of hawaii there are pros and cons. Yeah we unrightfully took the land but it was paertly due to the whole topic of big business and such and Samuel Dole recognized the major profit from Hawaii. I think justifying imperialism should be based on intent which once again theres no right answer due to various perspectives.
Juan
I totally disagree with carys first comment on how imperialsim in Iraq is just. I think the United states tend to try and help other nations which may come of as imperialistic and a reason for some of the resent other nations have towards us.Whether we helped or didnt help Iraq we didnt have the right to go over and take it over due to the terrorist population in Iraq instead we should have just dealt with them.
Juan
Personally, I beleive that America's addiction to imperial conquest is weakening our nation, despite strengthening it in the past. Both the annexation of Hawaii and the hostile takeover of the Native American territories significantly increased the might of the United States, but at what cost? America's integrity is put at risk every time we try to play World Police and invade nations "for their own good". On the other hand, I believe that the conquest of the Native Americans differed from the annexation of Hawaii. Since the Native American territory was contiguous with the US territory, it was very similar to what nations had been doing since the foundation of Rome, although there were few "wars" so brutal and lopsided. Hawaii on the other hand, was conquered socially before it was conquered militarily, and the decimation of their culture was damage more terrible than any a war could have caused.
Here we go. America is definitely an Imperialist nation. Let's face it. It has been for a long, long time, and apparantly we still are, judging from the state of things in Iraq (by the way, does anyone know what's going on in Afghanistan now? There's one that's been swept under the carpet...). Anyhow, that means that, yes, I do believe seizing the land of the Indians, Hawaiians, etc was incredibly imperialistic. There is no way Americans "needed" more land. America was simply building itself up and greedy for more resources and power. It's bad. It's very bad. But is it the natural way of things? Since the beginning of the age of man, it seems, civilizations have been attacking and dominating one another. I always think "look how far we've come," but have we really? In a way, yes, and in a way, no. It's my belief that Imperialism, as a whole, is just no good, but it scares me sometimes to think that it's inevitable. If people are living somewhere, it's never all right to just throw them out or oppress them in their own home.
-Phoebe
Oh, a quick response to Cary's first post. Look, in my opinion, the war in Iraq's just the same as any other imperialist act. Hawaii had all those nice cheap crops... well, sometimes it's pineapples, and sometimes it's oil, I guess. But I won't expand on that, since it looks like a bunch of people have brought that up already. I just want us all to be careful with the statement, "we don't want to destroy their culture." I'm certainly not accusing anyone of consciously wanting to do away with another civilization's cultures and traditions, but I just want us to bear in mind how frowned upon the ENTIRE lifestyle of almost every group of people in the middle-east has become. A lot of times, through messages on the media and even those little jokes we think are harmless, it seems to me that there's very little respect for any aspect of their way of life. And... how many of their museums have been raided now? Just think about it.
-Phoebe
Oh my gosh. One more from me makes three in a row in like... five minutes, but whatever.
Juan said...
"Yeah we unrightfully took the land but it was paertly due to the whole topic of big business and such and Samuel Dole recognized the major profit from Hawaii."
Okay... okay, okay, okay... now, I'm a little irked, but that might just be because this is my heritage we're talking about. If there's one thing we learned about "Big Business" during this time period, it was that it was corrupt, corrupt, corrupt. The fact that one guy saw PROFIT for himself at the expense of an entire race of people in no way justifies the act. I understand that in the mindset of the day, it might not have been so "bad," but if we keep saying, "Well, in those days it was alright, so we'll let them off the hook"... well, we'd be going too easy on them. The population of native Hawaiians halved in a snap, and in their eyes, their land was raped and stolen. One man thinking, "I can make a profit here!" makes this whole ordeal, if anything, even worse, in my opinion. Well, I overreacted a little. Sorry.
The point is, there's a difference between "recognizing potential" and stealing.
-Phoebe
NIck i dont understand... earlier in your response you said that imperialism, no matter where it is, is all the same, and then at the end you said that some are worse than others.. which is it? you did not answer the important question of IS THERE A DIFFERENCE? i think there is, because of the fact that imperialism has lead to the growth and benefit of countries like Panama and has arguably helped promote the ideals of democracy into a dogmatic, radical region like the middle east, and thus possibly produce a stable society there when all is said and done.
that was cary again
i personally believe that imperialism is kinda good. I mean, if we hadn't annexed Hawaii it might have been in a much worse state than it is right now. Although the Hawaiian native people became a minority in their own country, Hawaii prospered by growing many different kinds of fruits by Dole. because the us annexed hawaii, we were able to industrialize it, which ultimately helped them prosper. If it had not been for us, hawaii would probably be lesser known and less prosperous. Because hawaii has become a part of a huge nation, they have been able to become more well known in the world. Some people might think im really bad / evil for thinking that imperialism is a good thing, but it doesnt mean that i dont think its not a bad thing. i think that its terrible that Queen lil was forced to resign her throne from her own native country. Yes, we did exploit the Hawaiians, but it was ultimately for their own good. Because the us was already imperializing the native americans by massacring them by the thousands and the mexicans by taking away their land, it was kinda obvious that the us would imperialize the hawaiians when there was such a huge white population there.
-- Nina Kim
Nick, i totally agree with what you said. I basically wrote the same thing as you did but you wrote it a lot better and eloquently? yeaa so i think that imperialism isnt moral but it did benefit hawaii and help them in the end so i think that the benefits of imperialism outweigh the negative consequences.
-- Nina Kim
I completely agree with Phoebe in that I also see the extinction of culture in Hawaii all for the sake of profit for a single business mogul. Clearly the degree of corruption found in the American Government was unprecedented in history. While many people discuss Haliburton as the peak of corruption in the United States, they fail to realize that the conquest of Hawaii had absolutely no justification with the exception on enriching Dole. Cary, while I agree with you in that Imperialism does differ from case to case, in no case is it excusable, let alone beneficial to the country be suppressed.
Okay, WOW. Haha, Nina, let's talk. Saying that if we had not taken over Hawaii, it might not be as well off today is like saying that if Hitler hadn't slaughtered so many Jewish people, the Jewish community might not be so tightly knit today so it's all good in the end. That's not true, is it? And what do you define Hawaii as, at that time? If you define it as Dole's business, then yes, it prospered. But if you define it as anything else, I think it's time to take a second look. The Hawaiians didn't prosper; they buckled. They were absolutely exploited. Regardless of whether or not it was "obvious," it was still horrible. It's pretty hard to "exploit people for their own good." That... doesn't work. And ultimately, it couldn't have been for their own good, because there are SO few true Hawaiians left today. I'm not. Where is Hawaii's culture? There's more to it than Hula. There's no proof that Hawaii would be badly off without us. Now lemme take a breath.
Phewww.
Okay. That's all for now.
-Phoebe
Cary:
What i meant to say if it wasnt clear is that you can't have Imperialism thats just great for everyone...Imperialism ends up with negative repercussions no matter how well thought out it is. I also said that some Imperialistic conquests end up worse than others; for example, The US imperialism of Puerto Rico has not had as many casualties as that of the Phillipines.
Which brings me to my next point, You brought up our 'Policing the World' as being okay, but who puts us in charge. Aren't we guilty of the same tyranny that is currently occurring in many countries, just we did it a few decades earlier.
And aren't we in a way, just imperializing again; causing the deaths of many Iraqis and US soldiers for the sake of Oil and what we say is protection (however we didn't find nuclear weapons..but this is a discussion for another time and another day).
My point is, Imperialism is Imperialism. That's black and white; now to what extent is that Imperialism immoral and tragic..that's the gray that people can argue over.
NICK BERMAN
I have to ask what makes us qualified to be the World Police? Are we perfect? Clearly not, seeing as the presence of poverty is clear. No, since there still seems to be corruption within our government and society?
How can we impose our rules upon other countries, when we're still trying to figure it all out? Wouldn't that be the blind leading the blind. Sure, we seem to have a good system and we're more stable than developing countries, but are we ready to be the role model for other countries?
It seems like we're taking on a task too big by being the World Police. We're floundering in our war and maybe we're not ready to be the World Police.
And if we're using imperialism to benefit ourselves, I just realized. We usually end up "apologizing/regretting" it. eg, Native Americans and Hawaiians, or just sucking at it, eg Iraq.
I feel that American Imperialsim of Hawaii and Mexico was not right. They destroyed many lives in the process. Cultures were destroyed and thousands were killed. I think Americans should have realized that they were once the colonies. They had been oppressed by a government thaT they hated. They should have stepped back and realzied that imperialism is not the way.
However, i do not feel that these were acts of racism targeting the extinction of Native Americans. I think the Americans wanted the land and power, and did not how the intention to kill an entire racial group
-Brandon Wilton
I agree with cary on the idea that imperialism can be done right. There is a way to assimilate culture and not try to run over all the people and their ways. Also if people are accepted then they are more likely to oblige. This is why we need to do imperialism the right way
-Brandon Wilton
American imperialism is hypocritical because our founding fathers fought for independence from imperial britain, but i wouldn't have a problem with it if we granted independence to nations that want it. As long as another nation is content with being part of the american imperial empire, it's not a problem to me, but once there is some form of a declaration of independence signed by the imperialized nation, it would just be so wrong not to recognize it. It would be a dishonor to our founding fathers not to recognize it because they struggled for independence so that our country could be what it is today, and dismissing the same sort of sturggle for another country as barbaric would be equating our own revolution as barbaric. Unfortunately, its so rare that a nation is totally content with being imperialized, so in almost every case, i think its wrong.
Jonny Meyer
Harry, im totally with you on how with power comes aggression. People are just competitive with each other. No matter where you go, people try to outdo one another at everything they do. Since people are so competitive, powerful people aren't going to let their power go to waste. If there was 1 million dollars lying around that didn't belong to me, and I knew I wouldn't get punished for taking it, I'm about 99.9% sure I'd take it even though I know it's wrong. Since America knows their going to dominate these places when they take them over, they go ahead and take them even though it's against the principle of independence that this country was founded on.
Jonny Meyer
Cary and Brandon said we need to do imperialism the right way.
Have we done that yet? I'm just wondering. The hawaiian and native american culture is ruined, Iraq is just a mess, and the Philippines is still a developing country. Is there a way to make imperialism successful for both ends?
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