It’s difficult for me to stay angry these days. Not because there aren’t thousands of perfectly good reasons to be furious at any given moment, but because there are two very good reasons not to be. For one, anger ( in most cases ) is not productive, is self destructive, and is generally divisive. And two ( regardless of what you see on television ), this world is evolving rapidly and exponentially on a variety of levels.
In spite of the encouraging signs of progress however, the scope of American denial regarding issues of race still never ceases to amaze me. Time and time again we are presented with opportunities to face the real reasons for division, inequality, and strife on this planet, and time and time again we choose to ignore the truth and look the other way. As we commemorate forty years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, we find ourselves still facing the very same dilemmas.
First of all, let me make one thing clear. There is no situation on this planet that the populous faces that is not by design. Eons of effort have gone into creating this society ( and the burdens that control the people ) with great attention paid to every detail. The global / industry wide sub-prime “meltdown” ( or operation ) for instance, could not have occurred without a great deal of coordinated criminal effort and government complicity. No thinking individual could possibly be convinced that all of these banks ( worldwide ) coincidentally decided to give out all of these fraudulent mortgages - the majority to “minorities” - that just happed to balloon at the same time.
Nor could any reasonable person believe that all of these banks ( worldwide ) could have so outrageously lied about the actual “value” of these mortgages without the governments of the world ( particularly ours ) knowing all about it. They certainly managed to come up with 30 billion dollars in the blink of an eye ( the same amount that Bush vetoed for children’s healthcare for ten years ) to prevent the make-believe market from crashing for a few more days. Mind you, that was in addition to the ( no legislation necessary ) 200 billion the “Federal Reserve” pumped into the market only one week before.
The same reality applies to all of “society’s” dilemmas. The unending wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Darfur, Somalia, etc, are equally intentional as is the death, disease, homelessness, and hopelessness that grip the majority of this planet. If someone is suffering anywhere in the world, the reason is because someone can profit from it. I’m continually amazed that there are so many places without food but none without bullets. One would be hard pressed to find a conflict anywhere in the world that the United States is not funding, arming, or inciting in some fashion or another… and I do mean all sides. After all, wars ( and the weapons to fight them ) have been the primary export of this country for quite some time.
The objective of the rulers is very simple. Prevent the populous from recognizing and demanding their God given human rights through a policy of dehumanization, enslavement, and fear. The people of this planet have been so consistently beaten down that most consider themselves “lucky” to have any wage or food at all, while their natural resources make billions for foreign corporations. This policy of theft, oppression, and deception has been the foundation of global commerce for about as long as “recorded” history, and the reasons it can continue should be apparent. If freedom, sovereignty, and equality were actualized things, the rulers wouldn’t be the rulers anymore and they would be faced with lifetimes’ of crimes against humanity.
Anywhere you look in our society ( if you actually open your eyes ) you will find the obvious truth of this. The power base in this country became so ( and remains so ) through it’s ability to take from those less powerful, conniving, or ruthless than they are. We live under a system of organized crime that has deemed itself “legal,” extorts protection money in the form of illegal taxation to fund its various, impediments, obstacles, and operations against the people, and demands that either we surrender our souls and “get with the program” or become the slave-fuel that feeds the machine. Take advantage, or be taken advantage of… It’s the American way.
“When you lie, cheat, and steal to get something you have to lie, cheat, and steal to keep something.” C-SPAN viewer.
The reality that this country was founded on genocide, ethnocide, and slavery ( which evolved into the institutionalized forms of racism at the core of our society ) is something that your “typical” American still refuses to accept. Of course, there’s a very “practical” reason for the refusal to recognize this unpleasant reality. If you recognize the reality of the formation of this country and the genocide of 12 - 112 million Native Americans, then you have to recognize that this land was stolen. If you recognize the enslavement of millions of Africans who had their lives, families, religions, and even their names stolen from them to create the wealth of this country, then you have to recognize that that wealth was stolen. The “White House” for instance, elicits an entirely different image when you consider the four hundred slaves that built it.
This attitude is not uniquely American of course, and you can find it anywhere in the “modern” world. The astonishingly racist behavior of the Israeli government is another stark example. The same denial that precludes the U.S. from acknowledging its origin precludes Israel from acknowledging the reality that their country is founded on the land and bodies of the Palestinian people, or that they have stolen their resources, or that they have imprisoned the Palestinians in their own country. We are all just supposed to forget there was ever a history before “they” arrived. The 60 years since that land was taken is the only time period we are allowed to recognize, and even then only if we accept the Nazi extermination of six million Jews as justification for oppressing the Palestinians.
There are any number of examples of this kind of oppression evident even in 2008. Our chocolate, coffee, precious metals, etc, have always come from slaves and do to this day. Over six million people have been killed in the last ten years during the continued pillaging of the Congo and I certainly don’t see the Israeli or American governments saying “never forget” that atrocity every ten minutes… And it didn’t happen over 60 years ago, it’s happening right now. The reality is that for centuries on this planet, every conceivable ( and inconceivable ) advantage has been engineered into a hierarchical society with white people at the top ( masters ) and black people at the bottom ( slaves ), whether white people are willing to accept that or not.
Unfortunately, most Americans suffer from a common problem. That problem is the selective memory that comes from being raised in American society and endlessly exposed to American media. Because of the utter denial regarding our origin the “history” that is taught often bares little resemblance to reality at all, and creates a great many false beliefs. This is why George Bush says “when history is written, Iraq will be viewed as a success.” He believes that just as it has been throughout our history, the “writer’s” will distort reality in the American white man’s favor and turn invasion into liberation.
“We have to make clear to the Iraqis that they have been given the greatest gift that a human being can give another human being - the gift of freedom. And it is up to them to decide how they will use that precious gift that has been paid for with the blood and sacrifice and treasure of the United States of America. And it is time for the Iraqis to demonstrate that they understand.” Hillary Clinton - Pittsburgh 03-16-08
Only an American white man ( or in this case woman ) could continue to make such an astonishingly arrogant, ignorant, and utterly racist statement after all that has been exposed about this horrendous war crime of an occupation. Only an American white man / woman could completely discount any civilization at all having existed before the “white man commeth” and bestowed the “gift of freedom.”
How “generous” of us it was to level their country, litter it with depleted uranium, kill a million and a half of them, displace four million of them, and appropriate ( at least ) 45% of their resources while forcing them to live in rubble without power, water, or employment. It’s the kind of “generosity” we have come to expect when “freedom” comes to your land. Hillary honoring the blood of thousands of Americans while dishonoring the blood of millions of Iraqis illustrates yet again the lesser value of “dark-skinned” life.
This is the same kind of awareness and sensitivity Barbara Bush demonstrated when confronted with the horrific Superdome conditions after Katrina.
“What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is ( chuckle ) working very well for them.”
Only an American white man ( or in this case, again a woman ) could make such a statement after seeing these desperate starving people ( who had lost everything ) jammed into a football stadium overflowing with feces, garbage, and bodies. Once again, we see that from this unique perspective “these people” are understood to be “doing well” in conditions worse than livestock receive.
“All Men are created equal, but not all men are treated equally.” C-SPAN viewer
So here we are, right where we’ve always been… Lying to ourselves about our origin, lying to ourselves about our behavior, lying to ourselves about our freedom, and lying to ourselves about our system of inequality. While we continue to falsely proclaim ourselves the self-appointed saviors of the world, we demonstrate repeatedly that we don’t have the courage to face the truth about ourselves.
Obviously, this is not the conversation about “race” that the rulers want us to have. The rulers would much rather ( as they have spent three weeks proving ) feign outrage over Barack Obama calling his grandmother a “typical” white person. Of all the crimes against humanity occurring at any given second on this planet, we are expected to accept the outrage of the white man over a black man calling a member of his own family “typical.” For weeks now, Morning Joe has found a new reason to be upset about this virtually every day.
They would rather loop the soundbytes of a preacher that tug at the hate strings of various parts of America, than face the daily atrocities committed by the rulers against man and God. In their endless endeavors to steal resources and bomb the rest of the world “back to the stone age”, the weapon’s makers that own our media would rather direct the mob with torches and pitchforks at the man of God who dares to suggest that America isn’t perfect.
Just as IBM thought the mainframe would be the permanent computing environment, just as the oil companies think oil will be the fuel for all time, the rulers also think that American racism is a permanent and reliable part of this country and the world. Easily exploitable at any time to play to the fears of the mal-educated, under-exposed, poor and middle classes of America.
Fortunately, these old and tired methods of diversion are rapidly loosing there effectiveness. A new generation and a new information medium ( the internet ) has broken the hold of the mainstream media, and allowed people to find the truth on their own. More and more, the old world pundits are finding that they are only talking to themselves, and that no one is jumping when they say “boo.” This morning, even Joe had to recognize that “the revolution will not be televised.” At least not while he and his clan are the ones deciding what gets televised.
The mainstream media chose to only show Barack Obama’s powerful ( but lenient ) speech one time during the middle of the day, yet they have played the misleading Reverend Wright clips literally hundreds of times over the last three weeks. For one or two days, they managed to play a couple of ten second clips from the speech and then it was never to be heard from again. All of that tremendous effort exerted by Barack Obama to respond to the unwarranted and vile media attacks, and these white commentators just dismissed it out of hand without any critical analysis.
It didn’t stop millions of people however, from going to the various postings and watching the forty minute speech ( A More Perfect Union ) for themselves, or watching the Reverend Wright sermon in its entirety - you know… to actually decide for themselves what these men were saying. That may be a foreign concept for the “soundbyte” aficionados, but it’s the future of information acquisition nonetheless.
In a glorious demonstration of evolution in action, people of all ages, shapes, colors, and sizes have been flocking to the Obama camp despite the color of his skin or the efforts to demonize him. Although the mainstream media ( owned and operated by the beneficiaries of hopelessness ) has continued its campaign to paint Barack Obama as the “black man” that “typical” white people have historically feared, there efforts have proven largely ineffective. The people of this country and this planet are “growing up” and the rulers can’t just scare them into being stupid anymore.
Bear in mind, igniting racial hatred is their only option… pathetic as that may sound. It is their only perceived chance to maintain the status quo and to stop an irreversible change in American and Global consciousness that would elect a black man to the highest ( public ) seat of power.
“I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama’s campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against,” she said. “For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It’s been a very sexist media. Some just don’t like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” she continued. “And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.” Ferraro does not buy the notion of Obama as the great reconciler.
“I was reading an article that said young Republicans are out there campaigning for Obama because they believe he’s going to be able to put an end to partisanship,” Ferraro said, clearly annoyed. “Dear God! Anyone that has worked in the Congress knows that for over 200 years this country has had partisanship - that’s the way our country is.”
Yes, that’s the way our country is, isn’t it. And it is exactly that kind of old-world ignorance that this country desperately needs and wants to get away from. I couldn’t be anymore ecstatic about Republicans ( young and old ) having the same desire to see a new path for America. “Partisanship” is division… Republican against Democrat… Rich against Poor… White against Black… That period of this country’s history is drawing to a close and we would be hard pressed to find a better representation of that than a half-black / half-white president of the United States.
So obviously we should be prepared for the barrage of racially motivated commentary designed to appeal to the most primitive aspects of humanity. If Pat Buchanan has the audacity to question whether “nature or nurture” is responsible for Obama’s ability to relate to “white” people, we can surely expect uglier aspects of the racist core elements to surface. The unfortunate people of Trinity church are already receiving bomb threats, so ask yourself just how far we have come from the days when they bombed Martin Luther King house.
But like I said at the beginning of this writing… this world is changing. The behavior of the rulers and their surrogates just continues to produce mountains of evidence of their obvious deception and malicious intent. No longer do they control the dispensation of “truth” and their days of controlling the Mind of Man are quite obviously coming to an end. Because of this, I couldn’t be happier. The population of the world - that has been anesthetized for so very long - is finally waking up. The same old ploys will not work this time, and we can finally begin the task of building the world that God truly intends.