From: tsm@fastmail.ca
On Jan 5, 2026 at 12:54:09 PM EST, "Noah Sombrero" wrote:
> On Mon, 5 Jan 2026 16:11:59 -0000 (UTC), Tara wrote:
>
>> On Jan 5, 2026 at 11:02:19?AM EST, "Tara" wrote:
>>
>>> On Jan 5, 2026 at 10:52:46?AM EST, "Tara" wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Jan 5, 2026 at 8:23:37?AM EST, "Julian" wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> One of the few benefits of being an anthropologist is the uncanny
>>>>> exhilaration one feels watching novel current events as re-runs from
>>>>> previous episodes in the history of mankind.
>>>>>
>>>>> Donald Trumps capture of Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela, is no
>>>>> exception. Kidnapping Latin American emperors is a continental
>>>>> tradition. Its simply most practical method for breaking the chain of
>>>>> command in the region. It triggers succession chaos, enables the
>>>>> extraction of resources, and keeps the rest of the hierarchy more or
>>>>> less intact. In earlier centuries, it was Spain and Portugal. Today,
>>>>> its the United States.
>>>>>
>>>>> In the colonial era, the objective was to secure enough gold to beat
>>>>> European rivals. Now, with an astonishing 90 per cent of Venezuelas oil
>>>>> produce heading to China, its about ensuring dominance over East Asia.
>>>>> And there has never been a better way of establishing dominance than by
>>>>> carrying out a good kidnapping.
>>>>>
>>>>> The first to try it in Latin America were the original Spanish
>>>>> conquerors led by Christopher Columbus. When he sunk his leather boots
>>>>> into the warm Caribbean sands in 1492, he discovered a continent of
>>>>> unprecedented size and a near-endless source of human slaves. But
>>>>> military resistance was immediate, and an Indian chieftain called
>>>>> Caonabó was the fiercest of all, directing surprise attacks that killed
>>>>> nearly all the men Columbus left on the islands when he regularly popped
>>>>> back to Spain. When the Admiral heard the news, he sent a terrible
>>>>> deputy, Alonso de Ojeda, to sort out Caonabó and eradicate any
opposition.
>>>>>
>>>>> Ojeda, approaching the Indian chieftain peacefully with a mere handful
>>>>> of men, offered the chief some polished brass handcuffs and shackles,
>>>>> saying that they were royal ornaments worn by kings in Spain that
>>>>> offered them divine and magical properties. Caonabó believed him. And so
>>>>> he let the Spaniard put them on. Then, Ojeda snapped them shut,
>>>>> kidnapped the chief, and galloped back to his settlement effectively
>>>>> decapitating the natives leadership. The entire culture crumbled soon
>>>>> after, and slaves poured into Seville. And I imagine the sketching of
>>>>> Caonabós face looked just like the pep shots of Maduro that have been
>>>>> circulating on social media today.
>>>>>
>>>>> A few decades later, the conquistador Hernán Cortés landed in
>>>>> Tenochtitlan, present-day Mexico City, and discovered yet another
>>>>> ancient civilization. This time, though, the sheer scale and
>>>>> sophistication of the Aztecs surpassed even the greatest cities back in
>>>>> Europe. The Emperor Moctezuma II, feeling untroubled by a couple hundred
>>>>> badly smelling foreigners, invited him into the city to show Cortés his
>>>>> personal aviary. The conquistador, following the Spanish tradition,
>>>>> immediately kidnapped him and put him under palace arrest.
>>>>>
>>>>> Much like Trumps recent announcement that the US would be running
>>>>> Venezuela for the time being, Cortés, too, governed the Aztec empire
>>>>> with Moctezuma as a puppet. The successful kidnap meant gold flowed back
>>>>> to Spain in abundance, but the emperor himself soon died after being
>>>>> taken onto the palace rooftop to try and calm his subjects. One of them,
>>>>> unhappy with the emperors performance, ended the whole charade by
>>>>> throwing a rock at his head.
>>>>>
>>>>> Perhaps the most uncanny example happened a few years later, when
>>>>> another Spanish conquistador, Francisco Pizarro, landed on the shores of
>>>>> Peru to discover an even bigger empire: the Inca. Their emperor,
>>>>> Atahualpa, also looked upon these straggly foreigners with little cause
>>>>> for concern. A gambling man, Pizarro took the biggest risk of his life
>>>>> by getting his priest to read the Inca emperor the Requerimiento; a
>>>>> forced submission to Christianity with cultural roots in the Moorish
>>>>> tradition, recently expunged from Spain, of the summons to accept Islam
>>>>> or be attacked.
>>>>>
>>>>> Atahualpa refused, as all self-respecting Latin American emperors did in
>>>>> the face of foreign conquest, but misjudged the cunning of the Spanish,
>>>>> who promptly closed the palace gates, locked out his army, butchered his
>>>>> bodyguards and, as per tradition, kidnapped the emperor and held him to
>>>>> ransom. Like Maduro, Atahualpa was handed a set of trumped up legal
>>>>> charges in this case idolatry and adultery (the emperor enjoyed
many
>>>>> wives). His kidnapping lasted 8 months before the Spanish strangled him
>>>>> with an iron collar, but not before being forcibly baptised as Don
>>>>> Francisco after his conqueror and tormentor, Francisco Pizarro.
>>>>>
>>>>> It did not surprise me to see that Nicolas Maduro, too, has already
>>>>> ended up in todays cultural equivalent of the ritual humiliation once
>>>>> offered as forced baptism. Maduro and his sovereignty were instantly
>>>>> mocked online, videos of American eagles eyeing up his power, were
>>>>> quickly reposted on Donald Trumps Truth Social feed. Stuck in his cell
>>>>> in New York, awaiting trial, Maduro will take little comfort in the
>>>>> knowledge that hes just the latest Latin American leader to go through
>>>>> this process.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Max Horder
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "We learn from history that we do not learn from history"
>>>> - Hegel
>>>
>>> Hegel didn't actually say this but it sounds good anyway.
>>
>> Hegel did say:
>> "But what experience and history teach is this, - that peoples and
governments
>> never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced
from
>> it."
>>
>>
>> I disagree on a personal level. I think that if an experience is profound
>> enough, we learn to not repeat it.
>
> On an individual level that is true. Once humans become a group
> though, group thinking tends to take over.
Groups are comfy and lack personal responsibility. From my observation, most
choose group 'love'.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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