Wasn't there some party in history that advocated shipping millions

[zbdent]

of people away to another country in trains?

Oh, wait, the Repukes are saying buses . . .

[Ken Burch]

1. Yeah, it'd have to be buses

You don't burn oil to run the trains. Of course, they might make it millions shipped away in the trunks of Ford Falcons(the official car of the Salvadoran death squads)because buses, after all, are sort of like public transportation.

That's it, a million Ford Falcons being driven off cliffs...

[Jim Lane]

2. Buses made by Halliburton, of course (n/t)

[notadmblnd]

3. I believe buses were used too

the windows were sealed and the exhaust was directed inside the cabin. By the time the passengers arrived at their destination... most were dead.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Yeah, I think it was in Europe in the 1930's.

[endarkenment]

5. google "mexican deportation"

"we have met the enemy and he is us"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pogo_-_Earth_Day_1971_poster.jpg

[Ken Burch]

8. As to "Mexican deporation"

I'd advise everyone to look up the lyrics of Woody Guthrie's "Deportee(Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)".

And remember that, someday soon, that will probably happen again.

[endarkenment]

9. And while there google 'operation wetback'.

The history here is appalling. Almost as appalling as the ignorance of our own history here on DU. When you google this stuff you will find yourself on many rightwing freepoid sites where they are drooling at the thought of resurrecting another operation wetback, another grand deportation.

[sofa king]

6. Actually, I think that was us.

The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Colonization_Society">American Colonization Society's first President was former Democratic-Republican President James Monroe.

Hence, the name of Liberia's capital, Monrovia.

The Democratic-Republicans eventually dropped the Republican tag, then it was picked up by someone else, briefly shined to a gleaming badge of honor in American history, then promptly buried underneath a chicken coop.

But it wasn't trains, it was sailing ships. It's important to remember that ugly truth.

[ieoeja]

7. I don't think that was that ugly.

Someone kidnaps some people. Makes them slaves. Then Monroe comes along to free their descendants and help them return to their ancestral home (or an approximation thereof), and you call that ugly.

I must say that our opinions certainly differ on this.

[liberalpragmatist]

10. Most freedmen wanted to stay in the U.S.

Those who wanted to "return" freed slaves were doing so because they didn't believe non-Whites had a place in the U.S. or could live with Whites. And "an approximation thereof" of home isn't exactly the real thing. These were people who were born in the US, didn't speak any African language, and followed Christianity and were sent to a random part of Africa which wasn't even the place most of them came from in the first place. How is that appropriate?

[ieoeja]

11. They were "sent"?

I believe they were "offered" an opportunity which they accepted. Yours is the first assertion I have ever heard that free Blacks in the United States were rounded up and deported.

[liberalpragmatist]

12. That was the position of many abolitionists

And others in the US at the time. Thankfully, most were NOT rounded up and sent over. But the idea had been that all or most freedmen would have been sent to Africa.