From: fedora@fea.st   
      
   On Mon, 5 Jan 2026 18:20:27 -0000 (UTC), Tara  wrote:   
      
   >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 Trump?s capture of Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela, is no   
   >>>>>> exception. Kidnapping Latin American emperors is a continental   
   >>>>>> tradition. It?s 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,   
   >>>>>> it?s 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 Venezuela?s oil   
   >>>>>> produce heading to China, it?s 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 native?s leadership. The entire culture crumbled soon   
   >>>>>> after, and slaves poured into Seville. And I imagine the sketching of   
   >>>>>> Caonabó?s 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 Trump?s 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 emperor?s 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 today?s 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 Trump?s Truth Social feed. Stuck in his cell   
   >>>>>> in New York, awaiting trial, Maduro will take little comfort in the   
   >>>>>> knowledge that he?s 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.   
   >   
      
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