Speed has been essential to our existence. We learnt early on that it is an advantage in the battle for survival … ‘Pretty much all animals that can eat us run faster.’ Secret History of Humans XII: Need for Speed, historian
There are three words that summarise the whole history of humanity: civilisation, colonisation, extermination … between colonists and colonised … Entire civilisations in the western hemisphere were wantonly destroyed, setting the western world on a path of greed and destruction. Exterminate All the Brutes I: The Disturbing Confidence of Ignorance, Sky Documentaries 2021
In Sweden, one of the most tolerant countries in Europe, like everywhere else in the world, hate is on the rise again. ibid.
America was born as a colonial power … it bears the fatal capacity to destruct the core story we have been told all these years and the very foundation of this country … A story of survival and violence. ibid.
Kurtz [Heart of Darkness]: Exterminate all the brutes ... It simply tells the truth we try to forget. ibid.
Renowned industrialist Henry Ford gave the Nazi party all the profits from cars sold in Germany. And every year an additional $350,000 was allocated for Hitler’s birthday. ibid.
The charge of genocide when applied to the United States has been unacceptable for a very long time. But the evidence leaves no other choice today. ibid.
It is about how African bodies became properties and source of labour. ibid.
The demand for rubber exploded: this would carry incalculable consequences for the villagers of the Congo. ibid.
The history of America is being written in a world where few little boys want to be Indians. In 1492 neither Europe as we know it nor Whiteness as we now experience it existed as such. Exterminate All the Brutes II: Who the Fuck is Columbus
The great majority of these people did not die in battle; most died of disease, hunger, and inhuman labour conditions because their social organisation had been wrecked by the white conquerors. ibid.
Trading human beings: what sick mind thought of this first? Brought by force and pushed to death: slavery, or the trade as they referred to it euphemistically. ibid.
The silencing of the Haitian revolution is part of a narrative of global domination; nevertheless, the revolution played a central role in the collapse of the entire system of slavery and in the liberation of the land in America. Haiti created the possible. ibid.
During the sixteenth century, England began its brutal conquest of Ireland, and declared half a million acres of land in the north open to settlement. Under British colonial rule, the Irish were regarded as a lower species and naturally inferior. They were descendants of apes. ibid.
Methods of genocide: massacre, sterilization, mutilation, destruction of cultural symbols, deportation, starvation, forceful conversion, separation of families, slavery. ibid.
On these roads, the circulation of the most valuable and decisive commodities would permit the survival of the human race in its adaptation of the planet. And along these roads, for better or worse, silk of course would circulate, but also religion, language, refugees, artists, technology and pandemics. Exterminate All the Brutes s1e3: Killing at a Distance or … How I Thoroughly Enjoyed the Outing *****
Sudan 1898 colonials wars. In Omdurman in 1989 the whole European arsenal was tested against a numerically superior and very determined enemy. One of the most cheerful depicters of war was Winston Churchill, later Nobel winner for Prize for literature. Was the war correspondent of the Morning Post. ‘Nothing like the battle of Omdurman will ever be seen again’, wrote Churchill in a book published after the experience. ibid.
An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan by Winston Spencer Churchill: ‘They were a condensed mass: 2,800 yards from the 32nd field battery and the gunboats. The ranges were known. It was a matter of machinery. The mind was fascinated by the impending horror. I could see it coming. In a few seconds swift destruction would rush on these brave men … It was based on a fatal underestimation of the effectiveness of modern weapons. Within the space of five hours, the strongest best armed and savage army yet arrayed against a modern European power had been destroyed and dispersed with hardly any difficulty, comparatively small risk and insignificant loss to the victors. Thus ended the Battle of Omdurman, the most striking triumph ever gained by the arms of science against barbarians … only a sporting element in a splendid game. ibid.
The United States, a capitalist imperialist state. And having more arms allows more expansion. More expansion means more wars. For which you then need more arms. A profitable chicken and egg would ensue in a totally incestuous relationship between military industry and governments. ibid.
The symbol of all evil: it is something odd, hidden deep behind two words: Hiroshima, Nagasaki. It was said that it was a war against fascism. It was said it was to prevent further American death, but hundreds of thousands died, the accounting is irrefutable. In a chess game, the objective is to checkmate the opponent’s king. All of the pieces then become collateral. Their respective value depends on the strategic value you assign to them. In the present case the King is an emperor, and Japanese death will provide the collateral. Shock and awe. A massacre determined by an algorithm. It came at eight o’clock on August 6th 1945. Nobody was expecting it. They were pawns in a sordid game. Killing at a distance had just taken on a new meaning. No explanation required, no cries tolerated. No pity. ibid.
Joseph Conrad’s book Heart of Darkness was influenced by the Battle of Omdurman. ibid.
A new era in the history of racism. Europeans started mistaking military superiority for intellectual and even biological superiority. That’s when things turned nasty. No-one had to pretend any more. ibid.
Baden-Powell writes to his mother: ‘I thoroughly enjoyed the outing. Except for want of a fight. Which I fear will preclude our getting any medals or decoration. ibid.
Lord Salisbury, Albert Hall 4th May 1898: ‘One can roughly divide the nations of the world into the living and the dying. The weak nations become increasingly weaker and the strong, stronger. It was in the nature of things that the living nations would fraudulently encroach on the territory of the dying. ibid.
The Germans did not think that as a higher race they had any need to abide by treaties they made with the natives. As in north America, the German plans for immigration presupposed that the natives were to be relieved of all land of any value. When the Hereros resisted … every Herero found within the German borders with or without weapons was to be shot … 80,000 Hereros died in the desert. ibid.
Eugenics: The over-infatuation with genetic impurity, an impressive amount of energy put into the classification of people. A pathological obsession for the concept of race that scientifically doesn’t exist. ibid.
The Myth of Pristine Wilderness: a land with no people does not exist. The idea that America was virgin land, a wilderness inhabited by non-people called savages, is a myth. Only through killing and displacement does it become uninhabited. Before the arrival of the British, north America was a continent of villages, of nations, of confederations of nations. Exterminate All the Brutes IV: The Bright Colours of Fascism
The Navy Seal team members who carried out the assassination of Osama bin Laden on May 2nd 2011 were reporting in real time to President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other officials in the sealed Situation Room. Following the operation, the New York Daily News commented, ‘Along with the unseen pictures of Osama bin Laden’s corpse and questions about what Pakistan knew, Intelligence Officials’ reasons for dubbing the Al Qaeda boss ‘Geronimo’ remain one of the biggest mysteries of the Black Ops mission.’ ibid.
Kill anything that moves. Take no prisoners. In California, hunting Indians was both legal and profitable. $5 a head, 50 cents a scalp. In 1849 the American government paid more than a million dollars to Indian hunters. ibid.
Make America Great again, he said. When exactly was it great? I mean really great? And for whom? ibid.
In the beginning, the slaves had to clean the cotton with their bare hands. The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney would change everything. But Cotton also destroyed the soil, while using slaves’ bodies like a commodity became the most lucrative enterprise around. More profitable than all lands, banks, railroads, factories and gold products put together. Slaves were used as collateral for mortgage, a newly developed tool of commerce. ibid.
By 1890, disarmed, held in concentration camps, their children taken away half starved, the Lakota and Dakota survivors found a new resistance: ghost dancing. ibid.
Wounded Knee Massacre: East Indians killed: 300; Survivors: 51 (4 men, 47 women), Army casualties: 25 dead. ibid.
Frank Baum: The pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends on the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better in order to protect our civilisation follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the Earth. The fact is, the Native Americans are still here, and this is still their home … The real fight remains the fight for self-determination and restitution. ibid.
As writer James Baldwin says, ‘There is scarcely any hope for the American dream. Because people who are denied participation in it, by their very presence will wreck it.’ ibid.
Lost souls on a pile of human confusion. The absence of any trace of empathy and genuine humanity is unbearable. The nightmare is buried deep in our consciousness. So deep that we do not recognise its ghosts. ibid.