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South America?
| January 13th, 2015 at 6:26:27 PM permalink | |
| Fleastiff Member since: Oct 27, 2012 Threads: 62 Posts: 7831 | Heck, forty percent of the beef the British ate during the war came from Argentina which remained officially neutral during the war. Yes, many SS officers fled there, many fled elsewhere, but it is a very European nation: Spanish, Portugese, German, English, Greek, Swiss. |
| January 13th, 2015 at 6:49:07 PM permalink | |
| Ayecarumba Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 89 Posts: 1744 | I think the lack of interest is due to the media in the USA. The things you do know about South America seem to come from NatGeo, Discovery and the History channels. It is easy to forget that there are lots of other interesting places to see, and that the continent has a treasury of natural resources (tallest waterfall, longest river, biggest rainforest, guinea pigs, penguins, the Gallapagos Islands, Plastic Surgeons...) as well as a rich native and colonial history. It was also the place where the CIA set up junta's and overthrew them when they didn't play ball... Speaking of which, they don't have a tradition of hockey in SA, perhaps that, most of all, is why they are persona non grata to you, oh King of the Zamboni tribe... They do love the baseball down there though. |
| January 13th, 2015 at 8:57:09 PM permalink | |
| Face Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 61 Posts: 3941 | Leave it to Paco to pretty much nail it first post in. I'll keep playing along, though...
No idea.
Was taught 7. North and South are separate. Makes sense to me as not only are they nearly separate physically, they seem to be two different worlds. Maybe that's just a product of self centeredness, or American ignorance. But 7.
I've asked it many times. I dunno about "unfair", but, as I've said, things need to make sense to me. How can we be "of America" while also being "THE America"? How can we be "THE America" if a whole bunch of other stuff is in the Americas, that we are not a part of? Forget fair. I dispute just based on reason and logic.
Unfair. Define "white".
I know nothing about Argentina. Except, apparently, "Evita" was staged in it.
Easy. Gimme enough gas money and I'll drive you to Sun City. If it's not Australia, Antarctica, or an island nation, I'll get you there.
That might be the main thing. Must be the main thing. Because the stuff people have mentioned that I do know (Aztecs, Amazon, etc) are almost exclusively from NatGeo. But current events? Nothing. All of what I know comes second hand. Like, Brazil I always thought was Carnival 24/7. I thought that's what it was. The only reason I know it's so jacked up is because of Senna. It's not on the news. There's no "Facebook Effort of the Week". It's not in school texts. If not for my interest in motorsports and research into a great driver, I'd have had no idea. It's just strange, lol. Pick any part of even Africa, and I could probably write a few paragraphs. Pick all of SA and I got maybe 3 sentences. Be bold and risk defeat, or be cautious and encourage it. |
| January 13th, 2015 at 9:05:33 PM permalink | |
| Mosca Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 22 Posts: 730 | My daughter lives in Chile, has lived in Peru, and has traveled through parts of South America. She's fascinated by the continent. It is unbelievably beautiful, like much of the US is. She says Chile is very much like the US; it is modern and industrialized, and cosmopolitan. They have Targets and Applebee's. Peru is more rustic, but Lima is modern, as are other large cities there. She says travel through most of South America is safe, but there are places where you need to use common sense. Some countries are safer than others: Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Brazil are fine. Most of Columbia is fine. But US citizens need a visa to enter Brazil, you can't cross the border on a passport. Venezuela can be dicey, so can Bolivia and Paraguay. Speaking only about Chile and Peru, the people have been incredibly warm and friendly. If you want to see what it is like to walk around Santiago, Google Street View is available. Fire up Earth and pick a pair of coordinates in the heart of town. Street View is available for quite a few urban areas in South America: Valparaiso, Lima, Bogota, Rio, Buenos Aires, and I'm sure others. Not available for Quito, Ascuncion, Montevideo, La Paz. I got bored with checking after that, just drag the guy down and see if the streets turn blue if you want to check. Oh: I'm pretty sure South America is very Caucasian. Invaders dominated the indigenous people quickly. A good read is River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana's Legendary Voyage of Death and Discovery Down the Amazon, a fascinating account of European exploration in the 1500s. |
| January 13th, 2015 at 10:08:15 PM permalink | |
| TheCesspit Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 23 Posts: 1929 |
Argentina declared war on the Axis in early 1945 (after breaking relations with the Axis in mid-1944). I looked it up, as for some reason I had thought they had declared for the Axis side in mid 1943, just as the tide was turning fully against Germany and Japan. It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die.... it's called Life |
| January 13th, 2015 at 10:50:56 PM permalink | |
| Fleastiff Member since: Oct 27, 2012 Threads: 62 Posts: 7831 | By 1945, it was all over for Germany in this hemisphere. They had no commerce raiders left, they had no submarines operating near Argentina and they had no capital ships in this hemisphere. For most of the war Argentina was officially neutral and therefore German ships had only 72 hours or they would be interned. Most commerce was to the USA bound for Britain, so clearly the country was neutral in name only. Dictators. Yes. Its a tradition as is economic corruption and cronyism. |
| January 14th, 2015 at 3:17:22 AM permalink | |
| AZDuffman Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 135 Posts: 18212 |
I had a professor who claimed Europe was considered a different continent from Asia because of "racism."
I have seen sources that consider North America just USA/CAN/MEX and Central America is just "there" and not part of any continent. It does get pretty narrow so a case could be made geographically I guess, politically is is surely easy to say it is part of neither. The President is a fink. |
| January 14th, 2015 at 5:19:28 AM permalink | |
| Mosca Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 22 Posts: 730 |
A crucial point in the only WW2 battle that occurred in South America, The Battle of the River Plate. The Admiral Graf Spee damaged the Exeter, Achilles, and Ajax, but also had her fuel system damaged and was forced to port in Montevideo (Uruguay). When the captain was informed that the ship could not stay longer than 72 hours, he scuttled it rather than face the British on what he believed would be unfavorable terms. Many countries in South America have a large German population. Chilean Spanish is very guttural and can be almost unintelligible to Spanish speakers from other countries, much the same way that English from the Deep South can be for Americans from other parts of the U.S. Although dictators may seem to be a "tradition", the people of South America are very politically savvy and want a voice in their own governance. My daughter interviewed the judge and prosecutor who convicted Pinochet. As modern as the country is, Chile is still healing from the brutality of that regime (plotted by Kissinger and funded by the US.) |
| January 14th, 2015 at 5:30:20 AM permalink | |
| Pacomartin Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 1068 Posts: 12569 |
Well the Federal district is called the "District of Columbia" so that pretty much tells you what many people thought should be the name of the new country.
The northern European and American education systems all teach it as 7 continents. But Mediterranean countries teach it as 6. As early as the first dozen years of the founding of USA, the French journalists would criticize the citizens of USA for calling themselves "Americans" when the name should include their colonies as well.
USA Census bureau definition of "White" – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. Most Argentines are descendants of the 19th and 20th century immigrants, with about 97% of the population being of European, or of partial European descent. In comparison the highest percentage of the census bureau category known as "White alone, not Hispanic or Latino" for 2013 is 94.0% Maine 93.8% Vermont But even though Argentina drew immigrants from all over Europe (Italy, Spain, France, Britain), most of them speak Spanish. So the handful in the USA are classified as "Latino".
You have to take a ferry from Panama to South America. There is no road, only dangerous jungle full of bandits. Many people think the Pan American Highway goes all the way through.
Many people come across the idea from their beginning Spanish book where they use the term for demonym for people of the United States as "estadunidense" as "United Statesian". The reaction of most people is (1) nobody says that, and (2) the official name of Mexico is "The United States of Mexico" which they adopted out of admiration for the USA. Of course that was before the USA took half their country in a war. The idea that USA co-opted the name "Americans" as an imperialistic expression of superiority is bunk. Benjamin Franklin is sometimes called the "First American". He was born when the country had a European population of 300,000 and died when it was a new country of population 4 million. For most of his life, the people identified primarily with their colony, and all 13 colonies were given British derived names. In any case, the new country was almost entirely farmers, only barely beginning to think of themselves as a nation, and without any standing navy or Army. In short "American" simply was short for "not British". It wasn't applied to the future Canadians who were mostly royalists. But the choice of the formal name for the country was considered ugly by many people. Benjamin Franklin in particular thought that USA was a terrible name, and he much preferred Columbia. In short the term "American" was basically adopted as a way of saying that we are not just part of the newly developing British Empire, but something different. The New world empires of Spain, Portugal and France did not think of themselves as "The Americas" yet. As I said earlier, the French were the first ones to object to the exclusive use of the demonym "American" to refer to citizens of the USA. In the first book ever written about "American English" (early 1800's) which was written primarily so that speakers of "British English" could decode the vocabulary the author had to explain to Brits that "American" was commonly used by people of the USA to refer to themselves (not Canadians or people from any other part of the new world). It's generally considered an esoteric discussion , as most Latinos don't care. |
| January 14th, 2015 at 6:08:44 AM permalink | |
| Pacomartin Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 1068 Posts: 12569 |
The charge is too general. The idea of three continents (Africa, Asia, Europe) originated in medieval Europe. It was just extended as Australia, the New world and Antartica were discovered. In general it does seem funny to have 6 inhabited contients, yet have half the world's population living in just a portion of one continent. Given the age of the civilizations in China, India and Japan they probably think it is strange to be lumped together. 
The terms "Northern Americas" and "Latin America" are closer to being socio-politically aligned. But you will always have objections to every term. The whole idea that an entire hemisphere which may have had 50-100 million people living in it when Columbus arrived, should be named for a single Italian is suspect. |