Saturday, January 13, 2007

Opiate of the USA

Rebirth of a Realist

Opiate of the USA
In Deutsch-Französischen Jahrbücher— Karl Marx said
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
Marx lived and wrote a long time ago. As hard as it might be for my grandson to believe that was even before cell phones/
Today there is new opium that replaces religion. It is called mass media. Through it the oppressed can sigh and believe and make believe.
On January 15,2007 Americans celebrate a holiday. It is the birth of Martin Luther King that they celebrate. They will hear, and see excerpts from his famous "I have a dream speech over and over that day.
WE will hear from billionaire Oprah Winfrey and the half-black Senator, who may be a presidential candidate, Barack Obama and White Americans will feel good.
Reality can not penetrate the media induced high they will receive, however the truth makes the often repeat of the Dream speech an obscene mockery of the great man whose birthday we celebrate.
The truth is Northern schools are more segregated today than they were before the dream speech. The wall of fear between the all white suburbanites and the non-white city dwellers is much thicker than it was then.
According to The State of Black America 2005, the income level of African American families is only one-tenth of that of white families, and the welfare enjoyed by black Americans is only three-fourths of their white counterparts. In 2004, the poverty rate was 24.7 percent for African Americans, 21.9 percent for Hispanics, and 8.6 percent for non-Hispanic whites. In New Orleans, 100,000 of its 500,000 population lived in poverty; with the majority of them being black Americans. The homeownership rate for blacks is 48.1 percent compared with 75.4 percent for whites. Although blacks are just 12.2 percent of the American population, 41 percent of American prisoners detained for more than one year are blacks, and 8.4 percent of all black men between the ages of 25 and 29 are behind bars.
Only 29 % of students in a Connecticut all black school graduates with their class. The drop out rate leads to the unbelievable rate of street shootings in our cities. All of our cities have become places of fear. Guns are everywhere.
Martin Luther King’s dream is still just that, a dream, but on January 15 we will breath deeply and once again go on the nod and enjoy our media induced high.
David Truskoff
www.erols.com/sutto

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

War and USA

Rebirth of a Realist

Christian Americans are the most war like people this planet has ever produced.
I say that because so many refer to America as a Christian country.

Recently someone commented on a piece of mine by asking if I could document the statements I made about how many times the US has been at war and the invasion of Russia in 1918.
I have always been aware of how little most Americans know about their own History, but I think that is true of young folks everywhere.
In 1790 Alexander Hamilton had probably saved the economy of the new American nation. A nation that was practically bankrupt after the Revolution. By the creation of the national bank and other Hamilton economic plans he set the course for what he believed would be a prosperous and peaceful nation.
"Blessed are the peacemakers," Jesus said, but his naivete must have been the same as Hamilton's. In the short span of seventy years that followed Hamilton’s plan, residents of the new country saw the slaughter of the natives. and the most idiotic, bloodiest, war of young Americans against other young Americans in a civil war that was supposed to free the slaves. The real reason for the war, however was to gain control of king cotton and save the north’s textile industry which was second only to agriculture in the nation’s economy. The northern carpet baggers that invaded the South after the war showed everyone what the war was really about.
Neither Hamilton Nor the wandering Carpenter from Nazareth recognized the pandemic infection of greed that was to bring the entire planet to the brink of destruction. 33 years after the depravity of the abominable Civil war the empire building began; the US invaded and occupied the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Two years later US marines invaded China to putdown the Boxer rebellion.
In my book REBIRTH OF A REALIST I ask the question when has the American economy not functioned as a war economy and the answer is never.
In a list compiled by Eastern Connecticut State University we see a general view of the military adventures that have kept the American economy growing.
1898
Hawaii: annexed by force
1898-1902
Cuba: US occupation following Spanish-American War
1898-1902
Philippines: 70,000 US troops fought insurrectionists led by Emilio Aguinaldo and occupied the islands until 1946, when Philippine independence granted
1900
China: troops from the US and other nations put down the Boxer Rebellion
1904-1906
Morocco: US Marine interventions
1904-1999
Panama: permanent US military bases protected US-controlled Panama Canal Zone
1907-1941
Dominican Republic: US military occupations 1905 to 1907; 1912; 1914; and 1916 to 1924; US controlled government finances 1905 to 1941
1906-1922
Cuba: US military ran the government from 1906 to 1909; occupied by US troops in 1912, and 1917 to 1922
1912-1925
Nicaragua: US military occupation 1909 to 1933, and controlled government finances from 1910 to 1924
1914-1917
Mexico: US military intervention during revolutionary turmoil; Marines sent to Tampico and Vera Cruz in 1914; from 1916 to 1917, 6,000 US cavalry under Gen John Pershing clashed with troops of Caranza’s Mexican army
1915-1934
Haiti: US Marine occupation and US control of government finances
1917-1918
WORLD WAR I
1918-1920
Russia: US sent 15,000 troops to Murmansk, Archangel, and Vladivostok as part of an Allied force in opposition to the Bolsheviks
1941-1945
WORLD WAR II
1945-1949
Korea: post-War II US occupation
1945-1954
Germany: post-War II US occupation
1945-1957
Japan: post-War II US occupation
1950-1953
KOREAN WAR (undeclared): US major contributor to the United Nations armed forces which pushed out Chinese and north Korean troops from south Korea
1954
Guatemala: CIA-trained exiles overthrew the socialist government
1958
Lebanon: 5,000 US Marines sent to aid President Chamoun government
1961
Cuba: 1,400 CIA-trained exiles landed at Bay and Pigs and were defeated
1964-1973
VIETNAM WAR (undeclared): US troops sent to Vietnam and Cambodia in support of South Vietnam
1965
Dominican Republic: 20,000 US Marines occupied the country and installed a pro-American government
1975
Cambodia: US Marines assaulted Tang Island to free the US merchant ship Mayaguez
1982-1984
Lebanon: US contributed troops to UN peace keeping force
1983
Grenada: 1,900 US Marines invaded and deposed the existing government
1984
Nicaragua: CIA secretly mined Nicaraguan harbors
1986
Libya: US bombed the capital at Tripoli
1989-1990
Panama: US invasion force of 24,000 overthrew President Manuel Noriega
1991
GULF WAR (undeclared): US-led invasion of Iraq with 425,00 US troops freed Kuwait from Iraqi occupation
1994-1995
Somalia: US contributed troops to UN peace keeping force
1994--
Haiti: US occupation and subsequent contribution of 2,400 troops to a UN peace keeping force
1995--
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia: US contributed 20,000 troops to UN peace keeping force
1999--
Yugoslavia: US participated in NATO actions in Yugoslavia
1999--
East Timor: US contriubuted a small number of support personel to the UN peace-keeping force
2001--
WAR IN AFGHANISTAN (undeclared): US led a multi-national NATO force to oust the Taliban and capture al-Queda leader Osama bin Laden; neither goal has been achieved and US troops remain in the country
2003--
IRAQ WAR (undeclared): US invasion and subseqent occupation overthrew government of Saddam Hussein
These figures do not illustrate the use of napalm and
.
These figures do not illustrate the use of napalm, nuclear weapons, Agent Orange and other weapons of mass destruction. It does not include the air strikes and the bombardments from the sea. It does not include the assassinations like Alende in Chile, ML King, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and the many attempts to kill Castro of Cuba.
One could say the so-called Christian Americans are the most war like people this planet has ever produced.
It boggles the mind to see the film "Jesus of Nazareth" on television during the Christmas holiday and at the same time see church going Americans support the carnage in Iraq.
David Truskoff
www.erols.com/suttonbear