Songs for white slaves?

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 04:29 AM

I know why Jim.
Nasty vindictiveness.

WysiwiG, how do you take two such consummate evils and rank them as to which is worse?

Would you say to the child snatched from its parents and raped every day, or the man chained for life to an oar with no hope but death, "think yourself lucky you are not a plantation worker?"

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 06:08 AM

"Nasty vindictiveness."
How about past record, which goes before you in spades?
As somebody famous once said, You'll never eat lunch in this town again.
"WysiwiG, how do you take two such consummate evils and rank them as to which is worse?"
By putting them into context of who was doing what to whom at the time
The events that you describe were being perpetrated by all the Christian "Civilised" nations on the "savages" they were civilising and the man chained for life to an oar - lasted for centuries for these "savages".
On the original point, the pirates who came into Baltimore where said to have done so with the co-operation of the authorities, or certainly, high ranking members of same, implicating England in the abductions   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 07:51 AM

It was English who were abducted from Baltimore Jim.
This is about the evil of slaving, not a religious argument.
It is just you and Greg trying to make it that.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 08:03 AM

"It was English who were abducted from Baltimore Jim."
It was the English who were abducting slaves from all over the world (in the name of Christianity) for many centuries, and were treating them far worse than were the residents of Baltimore.
The Empire was set up to Christianise the savage world (allegedly)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 08:13 AM

This is not a religious argument Jim, and I am not going to join in with your vindictive malice and hate.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 09:12 AM

Slavery has never gone away. It has however changed form. What Susan calls systemic slavery contains within it all the earlier types of 'people ownership'. Today, slavery is almost solely economic. We no longer load people aboard ships and transport them. We don't have to, because now we can be slaves in our own countries. Ethnicity and religion do play roles, but they're roles promulgated by media based on perceptions flung about regarding race, religion and any other generalization that can be used to divide common people.

We face a growing crisis in the world today. It's not new at all, but it is diabolical and insidious. People planet-wide have become chattel slaves, and until such time we throw off the yoke, we will continue to play our parts. Dave the Gnome (on an older thread) brought up a most important consideration when he referred us to media as being not only culpable but also responsible for how we view things and interpret the results. The 'official' media is owned by a relatively small group of people, and the unofficial media is silently coerced along selected paths by social media moderating companies interested in herding us to given positions and Hobson's choices that are of benefit to their bottom lines. They have made excellent use applying aspects of John Donne's Meditation XVII, very effectively imo. Indeed, ask not for whom the bell tolls.

YMMV and please pardon the thread drift.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 09:41 AM

"This is not a religious argument Jim,"
I'm sure it isn't - nothing is with you Keith!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 10:50 AM

I agree with Guest,#. Slavery is dreadful, and is very much still with us. A slanging match between Keith and Jim over whose slavery was worse in the past does not do anything towards eliminating this scourge today, which is surely the priority. Where I do not agree with Guest,# though is in believing that people ownership has gone away, that is alive and kicking, even in the UK.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 11:37 AM

Jim,
I'm sure it isn't - nothing is with you Keith!!

That is true Jim.
I have never argued the relative merits of any religions, nor ever advocated one over another.
Are you insinuating that I have?

Dave,
A slanging match between Keith and Jim over whose slavery was worse

Jim has tried to engage me in such a slanging match, but I refused to accommodate him.
I have not claimed than any slavery was better or worse than any other.
All is evil.

Please try not to falsely accuse.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 12:00 PM

My last posting seems to have gone astray
I have never entereed into a slanging match with Keith over the relative demerits of one type of slavery or another - on the contrary, I have pointed out that there is no difference; not my thing to offset one type of oppression against another.
I have, and will continue to bridle at the suggestion that the lot of 'White Slaves' were different in any way than any other group os slaves - "slaves are slaves", black, white purple..... and or nations has as dirty hands as any other.
As you say, slavery is still very much with us to the tune of nearly 30 million human beings, and the wealthier nations capitalise on that fact if we buy our cheap shirts from Primark and our trainers from Aldi and Lidl
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 01:04 PM

not my thing to offset one type of oppression against another.

Not mine either.
Whose "thing" is it?

bridle at the suggestion that the lot of 'White Slaves' were different in any way than any other group os slaves

Me too.
Who has suggested that though?

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 01:12 PM

"Where I do not agree with Guest,# though is in believing that people ownership has gone away, that is alive and kicking, even in the UK."

I agree with you and thought I'd made that clear. Clumsy writing on my part if I left that impression. I'd meant I see the ownership coming into slavery on a broader scale, less individual. I may feel I don't own slaves, but the minute I buy stuff (chocolate from Sierra Leone for example) that is the product of slave labour is the minute I become an owner whether I care to call myself that or not.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 06:06 PM

Guest, #, that's the perfect summary of a reflection I've been mulling all day.

1. The distinction between worse treatment is not mine. It's reality.
2. Europeans did suffer some types of slavery.
3. The minute a culture that has known slavery in any form, as the victims, agrees to do it to another culture, and create generations of death thereby, instead of applying compassion to end it for all people-- that's the moment they lose claim to whatever cachet their own ancient victimization carried morally.

Now as to types of slavery. It all boils down to one fulcrum-type question. Did the persons kidnapped come from a culture with a ransom mechanism or not??? I am pretty sure, after days of actual study of the Algerine slavery, that only US chattel slavery came with no hope of ransom-- or military recapture.

I'm also well aware of Europeans whose enslavement memories were used to color their indenturement experiences, to attempt to justify and deflect attention away from their eventual participation in enchattelment.... instead of ending it.


Now I know that this is a 'song' thread. Since the other applicabe thread was closed and I have no interest in starting a fresh round of the pissing contest, what the hell. I'll post here.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 01 May 18 - 11:48 PM

“America” - from Deadhorse to Puerto Williams. Seriously? But if your answer isn't “China” - you're not done “reading.” And chattel beats sacrificial by a long shot. Property may fight or flee.

Speaking of French, one line of a mid-19th century Nile pulling shanty, with on topic context, no less:

“...Ils aiment leur état et travaillent avec ardeur: mais chaque fois qu'il faut exécuter une manœuvre un peu difficile, ils poussent des cris étourdissants, et ils ne se tirent pas toujours à leur honneur de ces difficultés passagères: lorsque le vent est vif et contraire, par exemple, on est exposé à voir chavirer le bâtiment chaque fois qu'on vire de bord. Au surplus, les matelots ne mettent jamais la main à l'œuvre sans chanter ou plutôt sans réciter des espèces de litanies sur un rythme très-monotone, mais qui paraissent les exciter beaucoup. Il en est qui, pour s'encourager, expriment des vœux essentiellement matériels dans un chant improvisé, et l'espoir de voir ces voeux exaucés redouble leur ardeur: Allah! Allah! fais-moi l'époux d'une esclave blanche, s'écrie le matelot noir, et tous les auires répètent son refrain avec des transports frénétiques, et les manœuvres s'exécutent avec plus de promptitude et de vigueur. Ces marins, comme ceux du Nil, ont toujours des taraboukas* et quelque mauvais instrument de musique, et dès qu'ils découvrent, je ne dirai pas la terre, puisqu'ils ne la perdent jamais de vue, mais une ville quelconque, les instruments retentissent et se marient aux danses, aux chants et aux battements de mains de tout l'équipage rassemblé. Le voisinage et la fréquentation des lieux saints font que la plupart de ces marins sont fanatiques ou, au moins dévots. Ils mettent généralement en pratique les préceptes du Coran, et les prières prescrites par le prophète sont récitées avec assez de régularité sur les barques de la Mer Rouge. Le riz est la principale nourriture de ces marins; ils pêchent beaucoup, et lorsqu'ils prennent du poisson, ils le mangent rôti sur la braise: ils ont toujours à bord une espèce de four dans lequel ils font cuire quelquefois de très-mauvais pain sans levain. Leur eau est renferinée dans d'énormes caisses de bois de forme carrée, qu'ils appellent ?antass, mais il est rare qu'elle s'y conserve bien, ce qui, joint à la mauvaise qualité ordinaire des eaux du littoral de la Mer Rouge, la rend souvent impotable. Les équipages ont peu d'égards pour les passagers, et en règle générale, des Européens, des chrétiens qui ne seraient pas chaudement recommandés, voyageraient avec peu d'agrément parmi eux.”

[Combes, Edmond, - Voyage En Egypt, Et En Nubie, dans les Deserts, vol. 2 (Bruxelles: N-J. Slingenmeyer Jeune, 1846, pp.354-356)]

* aka Darabukkeh or 'goblet' drum.