Comments on: Oscar the Grouch Was My Landlord…Until He Died

By: Dan L.

Dan L. — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:48:14 +0000

Thanks, Greg. Going to be a depressing day on wikipedia for me. 😉

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:37:01 +0000

There were lots of earlier genocides. First, there were several alongside the Armenian one (Greeks, etc.). The Turks wiped out many groups of people before the Armenian thing happend

A number of earlier ones come to mind: The Jews wiped out the Midianites and a few other groups. The Chinese states of the early days in some cases totally wiped each other out. Various classic Persian and Greek groups (and others of the time) wiped each other out. Mongols routinely (depending on who was in charge) wipe out entire regions of people.

The Vendean wars in France are considered by many as, essentially, a genocide. A million people were wiped out by the Americans in the Philippines in 1900+/- two years.

Millions were wiped out by the Belgians in the Congo, which overlapped in time with the Armenian Genocide but a lot of that was earlier.

The rubbing out of Native Americans came in various waves some, many, of which were clearly genocides. The Bushmen of South Africa underwent Genocide at the hands of the Afrikaners, and the Namaqua and Herero in Namibia were nearly wiped out by the Germans around the turn of the century. The Tasmanians, the Australian Aboriginies by the British in the 19th century.

The Potato Famine and related events was seen as a genocide by the English of the Irish, and it was not the first time the English did something like that there.

By: Dan L.

Dan L. — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:15:18 +0000

Which were the earlier genocides? (I have a lot of Armenian friends who are fun to antagonize. If you know any personally you will know that they are *pissed* when someone suggests they weren’t the first ethnicity to do X — insert literally anything in place of “X”. I’m quite certain they’ll be very upset to learn they’re not the first to be genocided in the modern era.)

By: Francis Mancuso-Underwood

Francis Mancuso-Underwood — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:24:38 +0000

There’s an Armenian playwright in your town who might like to hear that story–if you can get him off of crack long enough to listen…his plays kind of suck, but his desire to rise above the thuggery and lingering hate of that era are palpable-but out in L.A., Armenians: they run guns, girls, hot cars, and crack.

Oh: and television stores–and their Gyro’s are always sour…