Wasn't That a Time

From the book Rebirth of a Realist - www.erols.com/suttonbear

It seems like just yesterday, I was an enthusiastic, patriotic, American looking forward to a wonderful peaceful future. As the song goes, "Oh what a feeling." That was when my mother and father were so proud of the two-star banner they hung in the front window. That banner told everyone that their sons were in the war against fascism.
Will any generation ever have that feeling again? How wonderful to believe, as we did, that we had ended war forever. How wonderful to believe that we had defeated the forces of fascism and racism. Yes, naiveté has its place.
I must confess now, however, that I am one of the most cynical men on the planet. I am very doubtful about the future of the human animal. This same animal, which is by far the most vicious killer to walk the planet, not only kills millions of his own species every year, but also kills and devours millions of other species. He destroys the habitat of most of the other living creatures on the planet, and he is so stupid that he destroys his own environment. He pollutes his own water and fouls his own air, all in the name of greed. He sacrifices his family happiness to
make enough money to build a huge house (bigger than his last one to show success) and own a bigger and more expensive car. He accumulates wealth and things that he or she does not use or need. Like everyone else, he will get sick and die and leave the money to be divided by lawyers,
doctors, real estate agents, and the off spring who often pass it on to their drug dealer. One cannot help but get the impression in this new century that Capitalism, as we practice it today, has become a brain disorder. My sister is at this time vegetating in a New Jersey Nursing home.
She has been there for over a year and her above average resources are being drained away. When I look at that once beautiful women, who is no longer able to communicate, and I think of how hard she worked to develop her rather large holdings, I become very angry. Many
of the above mentioned and others, all suffering from the same brain disorder, are viciously tearing at those holdings.
What a beautiful idea America was. "We the people of the United States, in order to form
a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America." Oh yes, what a hell of a great idea. I remember when I had to memorize that for a sixth grade play celebrating the Fourth of July. How did we let that great idea deteriorate into our present government? The combination of the controlled media, the taking over of small town political committees along with the structured childhood of little league etc. appears to have bred the leadership gene out of the human animal. Today in every part of the world weak, personal agenda, leaders, face constituent’s anger.
There is little knowledge of how the world works among young people today. Television saps their brain with propaganda, sex and violence, and with each generation trying to outdo its predecessor, our culture making process deteriorates even further. Yes, I also ignored the warnings of my father when he predicted the moral decline of America.
Once I asked a group of college girls at an exclusive school for women how it felt to be slave owners. They giggled and laughed and one said, "We got rid of slavery way, way back before my father’s time; back in the 1960s. There is no more slavery in America." Even the two Black students among them nodded in agreement.
I pointed out that they could go to a nearby department store and buy a sweater for only ten dollars. "Now," I said. " If the folks that shipped that sweater made a profit, and if the owners of the company made a profit and the store made a profit, how much of that ten dollars do you think was left for your slaves in Bangladesh that made that sweater for you? Read the label. Many of those sweaters are made in Bangladesh. That is what living in, what has become, one of the most ruthless, militaristic, empires the world has ever known means. We take the resources and the cheap labor from other lands and return very little. We control over 60% of the world’s wealth and we are a small fraction of its population." I told the young women, "If their parents have one hundred thousand dollars a year coming into the home they can buy many such sweaters for the whole family and even for the neighbors. They feel rich, but the slaves that made the sweater cannot afford to buy it. That is what slavery means. We have such slaves all over the world. That is why we have troops all over the world. Such slaves contribute to your family’s wealth."
One need not wonder why we Americans are hated. One need not wonder why terrorism becomes the only response against the power of a nation that has troops stationed in every corner of the planet, and the most sophisticated weapons of mass destruction that sick minds can create. We do not hesitate to use those weapons as we have in Japan and Vietnam, but other empires have had military power and still collapsed when the slaves’ hatred reached the limit. September 11,2001 indicated that some politicians in high places may believe the limit has been reached. Much has been made of the fact that the Iraqi army "Melted away," when the huge American military machine invaded their land, but so did the Russian Army melt away when Napoleon invaded. They also melted away when the Germans invaded. If I read my history right, both the French and the Germans were eventually defeated.
Israelis, that my Jewish mother once vigorously supported, not only enslaved the Palestinian people, but have blown up their houses, taken their land, and practiced blatant ethnic cleansing; all in the name of God, Capitalism, and "Greater Israel." The removal of the Palestinian State would be a short cut to some of the richest Iraqi oil fields in the world. We Americans also plan to benefit from Iraqi oil. Naturally, we can disregard our Christian- Judaic heritage and support the ethnic cleansing if it helps to feed the empire. One can condemn the killing of innocent children by both sides in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, but one must keep in mind of how he would feel, and what he would do if an American Indian came to blow up his house saying that he was there first and God gave him the land? Present day Zionism has no defense other than the idiotic, "God gave us the land." The dream of "Greater Israel" or Eretz (land Of Israel) is madness. One would have to re-locate or exterminate over a million Palestinians. As I write this, Prime Minister Sharon is telling the press that he is ready to give up the idea of Greater Israel, but as Uri Avnery says, "Sharon often lies." One also has to look at the odds. Americans pride themselves in justice and fair play, yet the sight of Israeli tanks and bulldozers smashing Palestinian homes bring little outcry. My mother’s labor group demonstrated and carried signs in early1941, asking the President of the United States to save the Jews of Europe. I remember it well because I was a young boy in a tough neighborhood and after my Mother’s name was in the newspaper the kids started calling me the "Jew Boy." I believe that of she were alive today my Mother would be carrying the same sign for the people of Palestine. I am sure she would be as ashamed of a Jewish state that has become a military outpost for another nation as I am. Anti Zionism is now growing into a blazing fire in many Capitals of the world.
A Member of the British Parliament made the following astounding statement on June 12,2003. She said,
"The original founders of the Jewish state could surely not imagine the irony facing Israel today: in escaping the ashes of the Holocaust, they have incarcerated another people in a hell similar in its nature -though not its extent - to the Warsaw ghetto.
I have sadly come to the conclusion that, given the scale of the atrocities and collective punishment waged by the Israelis against the Palestinians, I have no choice but to boycott Israeli products. On reflection, whether Jewish or not, you might decide to do the same."Oona King Labour MP.
Zionists have run out of their moral power. No longer can they use the guilt of the Christians for allowing the Holocaust to happen while continuing to collect $3 Billion a year of American taxpayers dollars and using it to build the biggest and best equipped army in the region. Many Americans, like the British MP, are beginning to see Israel as creators of their own brand of a holocaust. We, in the United States cannot escape the finger of blame placed upon us by people the world over.
It is very painful for me to say these things; because each time I do, I remember how proud my mother was of the creation of a Jewish homeland. It was to be the cultural center of the world; a place for the homeless Jews of a war torn Europe. I remember my own feeling of pride when I landed at Ben-Gurion airport and saw the Israeli flag flying. Never could I have imagined then that Israel would become what is has become and never did I ever dream that my own country would be a hated invader.
Americans do not want to hear any of that. They want to believe that most Americans are the residence of the heavenly kingdom and good people. Perhaps we do want to be, but we need leadership to show us the way. I do not believe that we have had such leadership since Franklin D. Roosevelt died. Our decaying system prevents the people from choosing such leadership. The very fact that the 2003 occupant of the White House was appointed not elected proves that point. Very few American citizens had anything to do with choosing him as a candidate or electing him as President. He was packaged and forced on the American people. The system is breaking down. It would do well for every American to read the Declaration of Independence and see how many of the things we accused the British of; we are now doing to others.
The people elected FDR four times. He was our president for more than twelve years. The people trusted him; the people respected him and the people loved him. In the face of all the hardship, Americans then still felt positive about the American dream.
On May 26,2003 the Washington Post carried a story by Thomas B. Edsdall. The story was about liberal groups getting together to see what they can do to defeat G.W. Bush in 2004. The emphasis was on raising money. "Bush can raise $250 million if he wants to and the Republican National Committee can match that," said one Liberal. It illustrates the thickness of the blank wall that pseudo-liberals continue to bump their heads against knowing they cannot make a dent.
Do they not realize that they are legitimizing the frightening idea that the one who raises the most money rules the world? In that case, they cannot win. Mike Bloomberg spent tens of millions of dollars just to be the Mayor of New York City. After a shooting at City Hall, He said, "this is a blow to democracy." What kind of democracy is he talking about, one in which a person can buy the mayors seat in one of the largest cities in America?
If you have enough financial backing you can yank out a governor and put in a muscle bound actor with no credentials at all to govern a state.
I can remember one night in Philadelphia Mississippi when Stokely Carmichael and I were resting. A white Marcher said to Stokely, "Don’t you think the "Black Power" chant scares whites from your cause? Don’t you think it is important to teach them how to bring about change working in the system?" Stokely smiled (as he usually did) and said, "asking Mississippi Blacks to work within the system is like asking Jews to join the Nazi party. What we need to do is change the system." I agree with him except I think what is needed is to change the system back to what it was supposed to be when it was created.

The illegal invasion of Iraq has not only divided this nation, but it has divided the world. It can be a major step in the destruction of the US Empire.
Now, if you still want to read the rest of this book let me say that while I want to show you how I became such a cynic, I also want to point out that I have been a competitor all of my life and I will not quit now. America is my country. My activism pointed toward making the country and the planet a better place for the next generation shall continue.
If you are angry enough and fighting back your own cynicism join me and let’s take a trip through the years from the end of world war two to the present year of 2003 and see how such a cynic was created. Perhaps together, we can find a new positive attitude.
David Truskoff