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RE: Spanish Village called "Kill the Jews"
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estebanana
Posts: 9352
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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 RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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quote:
. Your clarifications were interesting but not really to the point. The US as a culturally homogenous entity, being essentially a successor of England; where the non-red man owns everything of consequence, is most certainly predicated on killing 99% of the natives and putting the rest on the land no one else could possibly want. "Founded" was an ill-chosen word.
In comedy improvisation one of the techniques to keep a skit going is to never say no to the lines you get handed. The best technique is to run with what ever line you are thrown and spin it back to the other participants is a positive way. When I get "that is not the point" in the first sentence it always reminds of that comedic rule of not 'breaking the chain of yes manism'. When pro comedians are jamming in wild improv check it out, they will not say "No" - I don't like the line you handed me. They will turin it around backwards, lean it on its side, stand it on its head, they will do anything strategically to bounce it back to the other person except say no.
"The US as a culturally homogenous entity, being essentially a successor of England; where the non-red man owns everything of consequence, is most certainly predicated on killing 99% of the natives and putting the rest on the land no one else could possibly want. "Founded" was an ill-chosen word."
In this sentence you say "most certainly" and throw the idea that the US is a culturally homogenous entity- Hmm, to confront another interlocutor with 'most certainly' in a discourse where nothing is really certain yet is kind of intellectually rude. You're proposing I'm not smart by presenting information that I have to take as the truth according your opinion. And the next idea 'essentially a successor of England' can be argued to be either untrue based on the nationalities of the settlers that came to North America or untrue in the sense that the early U.S.A did not format its government after the English system and thus is not a successor of England.
I'm not saying I'm telling you truths according to what is floating in my brain, what I'm saying is that those are talking points to counter the vague academic babble speak you threw at me with out the specificity to back up the concepts you are dictating to me. I'm open to being corrected or convinced to change my mind if someone needs to do that, but they better have details to back up the attack because I won't let anyone just say I'm wrong and not prove it or put up a reasonable argument.
What you did was try to take me down by offering me your opinions, basically what is floating around in your head, and get me to take them as 'a priori' considerations. What I did was say wait just a darn minute, if you feed me undigested impressive sounding, but hollow academic speak I might vomit it up. 
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Apr. 16 2014 23:31:11
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
The thing that bothers me about the Spanish and the inhabitants of the so called new world is that the Spanish clergy burned a lot of the books that they found and confiscated.
Yeah yeah yeah you can talk about a revisitation of history and all that, but just remember germs, they brought germs. They burned books. They took home potatoes. It was an asymmetrical exchange, meaning one party got the raw end of the deal and had their history wiped out.
It's hard to know at this remove how faithfully the Spanish clergy reflected the attitudes of their society as a whole. The clergy were a diverse lot. Many of them were book burners, destroyers of images and temples, and "converters" of people to Christianity by threats and violence.
Others, like Fray Bartolome de las Casas and Vasco de Quiroga were protectors of the Indians and preservers of culture. We owe our only copy of the Book of Chilam Balam, the humorous Mayan creation story, and almost all of our detailed first hand knowledge of pre-Columbian Mayan culture to Fray Bartolome.
Michoacan was a center of revolt and dissent for a century after Cortez, despite violent attempts at pacification. The Council of the Indies finally wised up and sent Don Vasco to be the Bishop of Michoacan.
Now if you ask the copper workers of Santa Clara del Cobre, the pottery makers of Tzintzunzan or the instrument makers of Paracho who it was who taught them their trades, the reply will universally be "Don Vasco taught us."
Of course the modern guitar didn't exist in the 17th century, but they were making fiddles, harps and lutes in Paracho and Zamora back then.
By bringing tradesmen and artisans from Spain, and teaching the Michoacanos their skills Don Vasco integrated his province into the economy of New Spain, and largely pacified the countryside for centuries. We need a new Don Vasco to counteract the drug gangs and vigilantes of present day Michoacan.
As you know, I'm not a particularly religious person, but if there is anywhere that someone's spirit remains influential long after his death, it is at Patzcuaro, the seat of Don Vasco's bishopric.
Then there were Pedro de Alvarado, Nuño de Guzman, and some other real sons of bitches.
In later years thousands of Indians brought from the tierra caliente to the tierra fria met their deaths from pulmonary disease and overwork in the silver mines.
The commonly held ejido lands of the villages were stolen by the big haciendas. The campesinos were driven to gradual starvation trying to raise corn on the eroded mountainsides. The clergy was complicit in all of this.
But it was a clergyman who took in and educated the poor Indian boy Benito Juarez, who drove the French out of Mexico, and whose presidency saw the largest redistribution of Church lands before the 1910 Revolution.
Mexico is the only Latin American country that I know anything about, but I would bet that the Spanish clergy had a similarly checkered career in the rest of the colonies.
Kind of reminds me of stories I heard from friends and relatives who served in Vietnam.
RNJ
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Date Apr. 17 2014 1:52:23
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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The Tlacallans and Tlaxcalans are the same group with two different spellings. The Aztecs considered themselves to exercise suzerainty over the Tlacallans (Tlaxcalans), and they exacted tribute and took individuals from them for their ritual sacrifices. Thus, the alliance with Cortes against the Aztecs. My main point is that the Aztecs and the Spaniards were equally responsible for the misdeeds committed against those they conquered. Neither can be said to have been morally superior to the other. We can judge both from today's values and perspective, but we must judge both by the same standard. We cannot apply cultural relativism to give one (the Aztecs) a free pass while condemning the Spaniards using a different standard, not if we are to be intellectually consistent in our judgment of others from a different culture and a different era.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Apr. 17 2014 2:25:21
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to BarkellWH)
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All the references I have read say that the Tlaxcalans never became part of the Aztec Empire. Maps of the Aztec Empire that I have seen show a blank space centered on the city of Tlaxcala, covering the four domains of the Tlaxcalan Empire.
The Mexica did take sacrificial victims from Tlaxcala, but in the references I have read, not as tribute. There was continuing warfare between the two empires. Whether the Mexica could have fielded an overwhelmingly superior force is at least debatable. (In Infantry Officer School they taught us not to attack unless we had a local superiority of 3 to 1, for 20th century combat, aimed at the total local defeat of the enemy.)
Most of the Aztec Empire consisted of recently dominated areas, dependent upon Tenochtitlan mainly in the payment of tribute, and in the political subservience of the local rulers, who were largely left in place by the Mexica. The Mexica did send merchants, soldiers and spies throughout their Empire to forestall or suppress any insurgency. The Aztec Empire, actually the Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan with two other cities in the Valley of Mexico, was less than a hundred years old when Cortez arrived in 1520, and had reached its full extent only recently.
Much of the warfare of the Aztecs was not devoted to complete defeat of the "enemy" in modern terms, but rather to the capture of enemy warriors for human sacrifice. The Tlaxcalans took a few Mexica into the bargain.
Again, this is according to the sources I have read since first taking an interest in Mexico as a teenager.
I'd be glad to hear of other, perhaps more recent sources. History evolves not only with the discovery of new sources, but with the reinterpretation of existing material.
We must also take into account that the Tlaxcalans were on the winning side, giving them the opportunity to influence the historical interpretation. At the beginning of New Spain they were the legal equals of the Spanish, with their own government, courts and titles of nobility. The Spanish were more successful in eventually subjugating them than the Aztecs were, according to what I have read, but they had a longer time to do it, and superior technology, with horses and firearms.
RNJ
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Date Apr. 17 2014 3:39:41
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estebanana
Posts: 9352
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to BarkellWH)
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So the history goes in California that the some of the native peoples were under the protection of benevolent Spanish clergy, but recent views have changed and how that history is taught.
When I was in school the benevolent priest stationed in major missions and little asistencias ( The small outposts that were built between main missions that were a less than days ride from each other.) was the main reading of history that was taught. The story was that native people helped build asistencias and missions and did chores a farming, ranching around them in exchange for shelter and community.
The some groups of natives did embrace a life where they allowed themselves to convert to Christianity, but many did not and fought the Spanish. Not very well either. So many of the tribes stayed in isolated areas in the Mohave and Imperial deserts and those tribes stayed more intact than many of the tribes in Northern California that were entirely decimated by the Gold Rush movement. The Chimihuevi, the Serrano band, the indians that lived in the Palm Springs area, are the ones that survived most. There was a tribe that inhabited the channel islands off the, and coastal tribes all up and down the coast. But the way the history is taught now is that there was more descenting indians than compliant ones working with the padres.
This is one unusual take on the history that is unpopular, but when the Spanish left it did leave indians unprotected, because the Spanish had more a of feudal vassal state of indians in mind than killing them. There where indian settlements based around missions and this did offer a degree of safety. But as the Spanish left and the ranches and became Mexican and later white European owned the indians in some areas were not as protected and they were moved off of their lands and killed. The Spanish offered a life under Christianity if that was acceptable to the indians. Many priests were interested in saving souls and converting them and not clearing the land of indians.
Settlers coming from the East coast later did not care about the Catholic agenda of souls saving an just saw the natives as a problem to be dealt with in the most severe ways.
I have a friend who is a textile conservator at a museum in San Francisco. About ten years ago she was invited to do a survey of textiles from California missions. There was a tradition in the mission of indians and others, Spanish settlers and administrative creating story quilts. One of the main thing the survey was to accomplish was to begin catalog the story quilts so they could be accessed by historians as primary source materials for helping to piece together that era California history. I don't know the state of the project at this point, but hopefully she found some interesting things.
Which is to say yes there were a mixed bag of clergy administrating Spanish affairs in the Americas. And as you read Spanish history in the time from the late Renaissance to Goya's time you see the you see it's possible the most intellectually curious priests could have been the ones to go to the Americas as Jesuits and other orders were trained as historians and teachers; leaving the ambitions political minded clergy to remain in Spain to work within the power structure.
I would agree with the complexity of the church structure and conjecture there was much infighting that must have taken place over what to do in the Americas.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Apr. 17 2014 4:32:59
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estebanana
Posts: 9352
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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quote:
Okay, professor Stephen, I guess I'll wait until I have my degree in history before I dare to again address you! Thank you for taking the time to expose my lack of sophistication in such a graceful manner. (the last sentence was sarcastic, rather than facetious
Yes, I've been accused of being a snob, and a superior being, a know it all, a mud slinger etc. etc. all in the past week. It's all true, I'm a bad person.
But stop to ponder, who is putting out the humble here's how you do basic guitar making videos? Yeah it's mostly me. And for that I get branded know it all and superior being. Gee thanks!
I was in seminar art critique class a long time ago and this young woman put up several paintings for the class to look at. The teacher came in an looked at the work and then he said: "You know you will get better feedback if your pictures as all having straight an not slumping off the wall. You need to learn how to use a hammer & nails,but it's not my place to show you how to do that. I don't have time to waste on those things."
Ouch. Ever since then I decided I'd be the guy who shows people who to use a hammer and nails if the teacher is too busy to actually teach. For that I get called superior and smarmy. I don't really care about that, I care about continuing to give basic information that others are not giving out.
I'm sorry, maybe my salsa was too hot when I responded to you. You threw out a vague generalization and then said I was off base. You know me, did you expect me to roll over?
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Apr. 17 2014 4:52:14
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to estebanana)
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I think to sense a difference between the cruel culture of the Azteks and the policy and attitude of the Conquistadores.
While the Azteks thought to be complying to some mythologically based meaning by sacrificing people, the Spanish invadors largely seemed to be out to erase the infidel and inferiour.
The Azteks were correspondingly feeding and calming some devine, while the Spaniards were deliberately and pretty likely often hypocritically excelling as unasked cleanser for their god, while actually inhibitedly releasing their mercilessness and blood thirst as complex-driven underdogs against easy prey.
I remember reading about atrocities, and how the dimensions, hence numbers of sloughterers, victims and time frame within, indicated a sheer incredibly restless swinging of manual weapons in order to master all those deaths.
Not recalling the exact conditions I just made a quick internet search and found statements of 15 mio deaths in less than 40 years ( though these include death from deseases too).
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The above is precisely why I especially adore Bartolomeu de la Casa.
It´s been proven over and over that humans raised in inhumane culture will turn out mentally ill, carelss, indifferent and sadist like no other living being. And when such mob is being released under official legitimacy it will tear fellow beings into pieces. No matter whether some discriminated animal species or other humans.
And under such an insane bloodiness to not let yourself go delving in a sick trivialness, but instead stay level-headed and feeling, oppose the perverse, and risk your own well-being on behalf of the exposed:
That, I think, is REALLY something.
Such example of autonomous thinking, empathy, integrity, sincerity and actually of what we mean when we say "human"! - Eventhough the term is not accurate, seeing the small minority it in fact applies to.
For the majority of humanity under explotative economy is actually being zombie, merely held by obligations from displaying the mental desaster.
Only when these obligations will be lifted by any some societal doctrine, and the hunt of the "infidel", "inferiour race"( or what the target may be called) be opened, then the resisting and appeasing human minority shows.
And these days that minority is being smaller than ever.
There was no extended family, no instance, no time to educate it as natural human. It was locked into treadmill, compensating for unfed drives and running for apparent substitutes like chic sneakers or late i-pads.
It has evolved into emotional pegmen, and should it be instrumentalized again, it will be only little if at all different from the pity ego desperado that gathered for armour and horse in the 15th / 16th century to finally let it out and become someone and elite on a ship towards America.
Ruphus
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Date Apr. 17 2014 9:27:10
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
I think to sense a difference between the cruel culture of the Azteks and the policy and attitude of the Conquistadores. While the Azteks thought to be complying to some mythologically based meaning by sacrificing people, the Spanish invadors largely seemed to be out to erase the infidel and inferiour.
So the sacrifice of thousands from tribes and groups who were obligated to provide the sacrificial victims to their Aztec rulers, to have their living, beating hearts cut out with obsidian knives wielded by Aztec priests who then wore the victims flayed skin as a cloak, was a morally superior act to the policy and attitude of the Conquistadores because it represented compliance with mythologically-based meaning? Are you suggesting that good intentions and acts committed within one's own cultural framework justify any act, regardless how heinous the act and its effect on others? That, my friend, begins a slippery slope that leads to the justification of any act, regardless how heinous, as long as it is committed within the cultural framework of the perpetrator. The Spaniards were following the policies and attitudes that represented their cultural framework every bit as much as were the Aztecs. To absolve the Aztecs of their heinous acts while condemning the Spaniards for theirs is to judge them using a double standard and is intellectually dishonest. I suppose today it would go by the term "political correctness," much as I hate that phrase.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Apr. 17 2014 13:58:33
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estebanana
Posts: 9352
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to mark indigo)
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quote:
quote:
maybe I was rash saying the exchange was asymmetrical
I don't think you were rash (was that pun intended? ), I agree the exchange was asymmetrical - after all they didn't meet in the mid atlantic and trade diseases, religions and vegetables!
quote:
I wonder how many STDs the Europeans gave to the indigenous population?
I don't think the Euro's took any STD's, not that I've heard/read about, anyway, but I think smallpox, typhus, cholera, and measles was more than enough to trade with
The rash pun was discovered, I did not see it coming.
in San Francisco there was a street called Army Street. It was renamed Cesar Chavez about 20 years ago. There is a street in Oakland CA called Nelson Mandela Parkway, renamed about 20 years ago. The Spanish towns called mata this or that might eventually be renamed- But when Army street was still called Army street is was just a name, it did not have a tangible or ominous meaning, it was abstracted, Army was a street. It's not an excuse for an insensitive name, but these offensive town names seem abstract and benign, even though there me by some historical significance to the name. All these things eventually pass and sites get renamed.
There's a street in Oakland CA called Glasscock St. The girls all get a chuckle out of that one, yet the city does not change the name. Obviously a feminist plot to dominate men and the city government.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Apr. 17 2014 14:15:59
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Anders Eliasson
Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006
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RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
Tell me, how much are you paying for your 24 hour a day channel?
I´m not paying anything. The reason (Its been said on the foro many times) is that the DVD, "El guitarrero" Is Simon, Escribano, Admin´s work. He has all the rights of the DVD. When it was made, he kindly asked me if I would have some kind of percentage or rights, and I said no.
So the banner here on the foro is Simon, Escribano, Admin advertising HIS work on HIS forum. I´m not advertising anything. I´m just the clown in the show. You can´t buy the documentary from me. Its not mine
I still have this language thing, so I dont really get this with Permanent 'F'. If you refer to the curls I dont have, then you could just call me 'Curly' or 'Krølle' which is Danish for the same. Even though its irony and so, I think i could maybe end up understanding that one. 
_____________________________
Blog: http://news-from-the-workshop.blogspot.com/
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Date Apr. 17 2014 16:11:02
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
So the sacrifice of thousands from tribes and groups who were obligated to provide the sacrificial victims to their Aztec rulers, to have their living, beating hearts cut out with obsidian knives wielded by Aztec priests who then wore the victims flayed skin as a cloak...
Since cultural relativism has come up, perhaps you folks on the forum (not just Bill) would indulge me in a little speculation?
We see the Mesoamerican taste for human sacrifice through the eyes of the Spanish and through our own cultural eyeballs--of which there are a welcome and varied assortment here on the foro.
It wasn't just the Mexica who practiced human sacrifice. There is strong evidence for it among the Mayans and among the high cultures of the Valley of Oaxaca, the Mixtecs and the Zapotecs.
How might a prospective victim have felt about his fate?
First I will say that from observation of victims of gunshot and explosives, and people who eventually died of their injuries in a train wreck I was in, that pain from a severe injury is often not immediate. Kobe Bryant says that when he ruptured his achilles tendon the pain was immediate and almost disabling. But I have seen people die from severe wounds, never complaining of pain, even when asked. Often it takes time for the pain to manifest itself.
So is it possible that in the bloody execution of a sacrificial victim, his heart ripped out of his chest, death would be prompt enough that the effect of shock would make it essentially painless? Maybe, maybe not.
The Spanish were horrified by the priests' blood soaked clothes, their blood caked hair, the wearing of the flayed skin of the sacrificial victim, and throwing the body down the steps of the pyramidal temple to the crowd below, possibly to be enjoyed in cannibalistic feasting.
But the Spanish said little or nothing about the pain of the victim or lack of it. After all, they were used to slow and intentionally cruel death in the flames of the auto da fé and the often agonizing death by hanging. Large crowds turned out to witness both.
Warfare among the Mesoamericans served at least two purposes. One was conquest/defense. But another major use for war, to the amazement of the Spanish, was the capture of young warriors for human sacrifice. At times battles would cease without either side winning or losing, once enough prisoners had been taken.
Young Americans volunteer for combat duty for a variety of reasons, many of them idealistic. They know they are risking their lives. They often return disillusioned and cynical, even if not severely traumatized. Still, others continue to volunteer.
A young Mesoamerican going into battle knew that he risked becoming a sacrificial victim. But could it have been a part of the heroic mythos to know that if he became such a "victim", he was feeding the sun god, to the benefit of his family and people? Who knows.?
As I said, just speculation, prompted by the idea of cultural relativism. I don't advocate human sacrifice nor modern combat, though I have only experienced the latter.
RNJ
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Date Apr. 17 2014 20:34:21
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
Since cultural relativism has come up, perhaps you folks on the forum (not just Bill) would indulge me in a little speculation?
I want to be very clear about the thoughts expressed in my posts on the subject of the Aztecs and the Spanish. I am not condemning the practices of the Aztecs in exacting tribute and sacrificial victims from their imperial subjects. Far from it. I think it is a mistake to apply our cultural values and standards today to societies and cultures that existed in the 16th century. What I condemn is the double standard that is widely prevalent today that exempts the Aztecs from criticism for operating within their cultural framework at the time but roundly condemns the Spanish for practices that were acceptable within their cultural framework. It is the double standard that I find intellectually dishonest and inconsistent.
What is so interesting about Cortes' conquest of Montezuma and the Mexica (Aztecs) is it is one of the most well-documented, accurately-recorded historical events we have. Cortes' scribes, Spanish priests, and first and second generation Mexicas' accounts have been cross-referenced and found to have been extremely accurate. Finally, there have been many interesting and informative histories of the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, but for my money the finest is "Conquest: Cortes, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico," by the imminent British historian Hugh Thomas. Thomas has concentrated his career on Spain and Latin America. His work "The Spanish Civil War" is still the best history of that conflict. Hugh Thomas' magisterial history of Cortes' conquest of Mexico matches it in broad historical background and depth.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Apr. 18 2014 0:28:28
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
Ever see that Mel Gibson directed film...I forget the name, where they do exactly that? It was quite graphically done. But it cast the priests more as psychopathic killers duping the public into believing they had magical powers because they also had astronomical knowledge that enabled them to predict phenomena and thus set the killing to an act of nature like an eclipse. When enough captives had been killed the eclipse ended and the priest was seen as an oracle. Then the remainder of the live captives were moved to a flat field and the used as archery target practice dummies.
This film was shown in the small theater on Roi-Namur at the north end of Kwajalein Atoll while Larisa and I still lived there. The theater was very pleasant. It had a roof, but no walls. It was near the beach and nine or ten months of the year the trade winds kept it cool after dark. The sound system was powerful enough to overcome the constant sound of the surf on the reef.
But before the film got to the part you describe, Larisa gave me a look. I said, "Are you ready to leave?"
She nodded, "Yes."
I said, "Let's go. I'm starting to identify with the bad guys." It was getting under my skin.
Over a glass of wine back at my apartment, she asked me what I meant by that remark. I reminded her that I had been part of a military force in the mid-1960s, operating very near the area where the movie was set, "stamping out communism" among the Indians of the Caribbean coast. The Indians were supposed to be led by Cuban cadres, but the Cubans proved as difficult to locate as the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
As I have told it before, when I went back to Managua to resign I told the Station Chief, "I think we are just continuing the four-century war of the whites against the Indians, while the Somozas blow smoke up Uncle Sam's ass."
In 1961 I had spent time in villages that were still very much like those in Gibson's movie. The only really visible differences were that some of the men wore trousers and T-shirts, they had steel machetes and some of the well-off women had little cast iron hand cranked corn grinders. Other than that, the houses were the same, the corn fields were the same, the people were intelligent, funny, warm hearted and generous….
The early parts of Gibson's movie really got to me.
RNJ
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Date Apr. 18 2014 0:38:56
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Spanish Village called "Kil... (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
I want to be very clear about the thoughts expressed in my posts on the subject of the Aztecs and the Spanish. I am not condemning the practices of the Aztecs in exacting tribute and sacrificial victims from their imperial subjects. Far from it. I think it is a mistake to apply our cultural values and standards today to societies and cultures that existed in the 16th century. What I condemn is the double standard that is widely prevalent today that exempts the Aztecs from criticism for operating within their cultural framework at the time but roundly condemns the Spanish for practices that were acceptable within their cultural framework. It is the double standard that I find intellectually dishonest and inconsistent.
I think you and I are pretty much on the same page here, Bill.
An acquaintance, Dick Reavis, is married to a Mexican woman. He wrote a book called "Conversations With Moctezuma" about Mexico in the 1980s. Only half facetiously he compares the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, which ended up ruling Mexico for 73 years, with the system of tribute of the Aztec Empire.
One reason for the fashionability of condemning the Spaniards was the political rhetoric of the PRI. They portrayed themselves as heirs to the War of Independence from Spain in the early 19th century, proudly proclaiming their Aztec heritage--whether they were descended from the Mexica or not. One of several streams of ideology and military power that fed into the Revolution of 1910 was Zapatismo, led by the peasant Emiliano Zapata.
Zapata was not an enslaved debt peon on one of the big sugar haciendas of the state of Morelos, just south of Mexico City, but he was a mestizo land owning peasant who identified with downtrodden campesinos whose land had been stolen over generations of Spanish rule, and during rule by an elite of Spanish descent after independence from Spain. The campesinos were always an important segment of the PRI's political base.
Any big political rally in the Zocalo, the immense, monumental city square of Mexico City, was always attended by hundreds, or even thousands of campesinos bussed in by the PRI from the countryside.
Zapata's populist, land reforming ideology was one of the main streams of Mexican political rhetoric during the years following the Revolution, though they were honored in the breach as much as in the observance. Vilifying Spain's oppression of Mexico's peasants was a big part of the PRI's propaganda, well up into the late 1950s when I started subscribing to Mexican newspapers, and for years after that.
This extended into a glorification of the noble Indian ancestors, and their ill treatment by the savage and corrupt Spaniards. About the only major relic of Cortez that survives is his palace in Cuernavaca, just over the mountains to the south of Mexico City. It looks like a brutally fortified redoubt, compared to the beautiful Baroque mansions, gardens and churches of the prosperous centuries that followed.
Even the PRI's Presidents, retiring as billionaires at the apex of the PRI tribute machine, tended to buy palaces in Rome or Florence, rather than in Spain. Of course, the PRI, leftist in rhetoric if not always in action, never recognized the Fascist government of Franco.
RNJ
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Date Apr. 18 2014 1:31:04
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) a lot of sailors on the first (and subsequent) Columbus trips to the Americas died of mysterious disease during and after the voyages home. 
