Writing in 1945 in his remarkable essay Notes on Nationalism, author George Orwell noted the following distinction between patriotism and nationalism
Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.
Bands of chimpanzees violently kill individuals from neighboring groups in order to expand their own territory, according to a 10-year study of a chimp community in Uganda that provides the first definitive evidence for this long-suspected function of this behavior.
Admittedly, it probably does require a 10-year study to substantively indicate what we’ve known all along.
The ongoing war in Afghanistan-it can now be thought of as perpetual and unending is more important than a lot of people seem to think. It is not just a far-away semi-colonial war but part of an ongoing struggle for control of Central Asia and the Middle East by the imperial forces of NATO.
It has to be very clear than despite the fact that Europeans are somewhat reluctant partners in this enterprise they are, nevertheless partners and part of essential parts of the Empire. Europeans, like Americans, like their priviledged position in the world. They are a little less bloodthirsty than we are-it is a less essential part of their cultural life. In America violence is loved for its own sake. In Europe it is merely a sometimes necessary component of asserting interests. That’s the only realistic difference between Europe and the United States. The notion that Europeans are more “progressive” than Americans in foreign policy is just not true. Europeans sees the United States as the military arm of the Empire required to insure that world security is maintained particularly energy security. Europeans like the fact the United States provides them with security and are quite willing to accede to the brutality of the the American military in keeping the wogs in check-a brutality that they have far more knowledge of than the American people do. I generalize here because in Europe a large segment of the left is notably against militarism still unlike here.
Having said that the war itself shows us some interesting patterns. As reported in the NYT, the great show “battle” has not really had any real results. The article Violence Helps Taliban Undo Afghan Gains is worth reading but you and I both know what it says and probably knew even before the “battle” happened what the results would be as do all non-compromised journalists and observers of the situation. This and many other stories of the recent war in Afghanistan often buried on the back pages of the NYT tell a tale of woe almost unbelievable in its pathos.
1917: The US wrote Haiti’s ‘Constitution’– which mainly abolished the previous prohibition on foreign owned land. FDR claimed to have written it.
This document abolished the prohibition on foreign ownership of land-the most essential component of Haitian law. When the newly elected National Assembly refused to pass this document and drafted one of their own preserving this prohibition, it was forcibly dissolved by Gendarmerie commandant Smedley Butler. This constitution was approved by a plebiscite in 1919, in which less than five percent of the population voted. The State Department authorized this plebiscite presuming that “The people casting ballots would be 97% illiterate, ignorant in most cases of what they were voting for.”
The Marines and Gendarmerie initiated an extensive road-building program to enhance their military effectiveness and open the country to U.S investment. Lacking any source of adequate funds, they revived an 1864 Haitian law, discovered by Butler, requiring peasants to perform labor on local roads in lieu of paying a road tax.
– Wikipedia
1921: The Haitian revolt, and the US military kills approximately 15,000.
1946: US backed coup.
1950: US backed coup.
1957- 1987: The Duvalier and Baby Doc era’s :
Duvalier’s paramilitary police, officially the Volunteers for National Security (Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale – VSN) but more commonly known as the Tonton Macoutes, named for a Vodou monster, carried out political murders, beatings, and intimidation. An estimated 30,000 Haitians were killed by his government.
From 1957-1971 Haitians lived under the dark shadow of “Papa Doc” Duvalier, a brutal dictator who enjoyed U.S. backing because he was seen by Americans as a reliable anti-Communist. After his death, Duvalier’s son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” became President-for-life at the age of 19 and he ruled Haiti until he was finally overthrown in 1986. It was in the 1970s and 1980s that Baby Doc and the United States government and business community worked together to put Haiti and Haiti’s capitol city on track to become what it was on January 12, 2010.
1991: The US backs a bloody Coup against Aristide — 5000 die, many disappear.
1993: The US military comes back, this time to put Aristede back in power. After this, Aristede launches widespread human rights abuses, his associates becoming involved in drug running, etc.
Arbitrary arrest, arbitrary detention, summary executions and police brutality became everyday reality.
2004: The US kidnaps Aristide, and puts in another regime:
On March 1, 2004, US Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), along with Aristide family friend Randall Robinson, reported that Aristide had told them (using a smuggled cellular phone), that he had been forced to resign and abducted from the country by the United States. He claimed to be held hostage by an armed military guard.[16]
Aristide later repeated similar claims, in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on March 16. He was pressured to resign from office by U.S. soldiers and James B. Foley, U.S. Ambassador to Haïti, on February 29. An aircraft provided by the U.S. carried Aristide and his wife, Mildred Trouillot Aristide, into exile to the Central African Republic. Goodman asked Aristide if he resigned, and President Aristide replied: “No, I didn’t resign. What some people call ‘resignation’ is a ‘new coup d’état,’ or ‘modern kidnapping.’
……
Some have come forward to support his claim saying they witnessed him being escorted out by American soldiers at gunpoint….
(This enraged sarcasm is crossposted from The WWL)
It has come to my attention repeatedly lately that the biggest threat to America is all the people trying to join our Military Forces and die for the New Crusades while having gender or orientation. They come as dirty sexual beings and ask to serve? How dare they!
This is beyond verboten, it is Mortal Sin!
One cannot serve the Lord and Holy Wars while being gay, let alone transgendered, or for that matter even female with a chance of reproduction. And pregnancy? Do these sluts not know what they did to become that way? A truly moral married woman will gladly give her Children to a State Institution for rearing to serve, anything less is Court Martial! Sex outside of a Man and Woman blessed by the Ordained is sinful, anyway, yet the Law prohibits family members from serving together. Our Military has been co-opted by the Satan of Lust. We must save our brave young children so they may fight with the Lord!
What is a Good Christian Nation to do against all these Unholy Masses of Antichrists swarming through the World, refusing to accept the Lord Jesus as their personal Saviour, and refusing to allow the Righteous Moral Leaders of our Land to use their Oil and Assets to further the spread of the Word of God? I mean, we would totally accept them as Servants of Christ, despite their very obvious non-whiteness, if they would only see that the only way to Salvation is to serve us, thus serving the Lord thy God. We are His Chosen.
I should start by saying this essay focuses on money, not the number of US military lives spent or those of the Iraq and Afghanistan citizens, and not the horrendous cost to the nations of Iraq and Afghanistan. If I had my way, that would be the true cost and the ultimate reason to end the wars. But the American public has become so apathetic to the sins of war, it seems the only thing that may awaken them enough to stop the madness is to appeal to their greed.
The United States military, NATO, and it’s hired guns will be in the Middle East and Central Asia for at least ten more years. Regardless the promises made by Obama, or the SOFA agreement with Iraq, there is no way military forces will be out of, or even drawing down from, either country by the end of 2011. The counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts currently being deployed as ordered by CINC Obama and directed by Generals Petreaus, Odierno and McChyrstal in both countries are generally agreed upon by experts as tactics that could take decades.
What do we have to work with here? We’re faced with a federal government that is corporate owned and leading our country to third world status, relative to a large percentage of the population. U.S. imperialism is unchanged from the previous administration and actually expanding. Greed has completely taken over all facets of our controlled existence. The entire system has been set up and manipulated by a very small minority of people who have no interest in the welfare of the common person. The comparison of serfs to nobility is more apt than ever. The political party duopoly is so ingrained that any third party challenge on the national stage is easily brushed aside. Our supposed democracy is certainly no longer that.
We have to find a way to bring the common citizen to the table. Our current system of government, not unlike most in the world, is simply too skewed toward the wants of the few versus the needs of the many. What do we have to work with? The common citizen is still too apathetic to get involved in pressuring our politicians. That task is left to a small percentage of activists. Phone calls, petitions, whatever efforts are made, are simply too small to make any difference.
We know our government systems are corrupt. We know Wall Street, big banks and the Federal Reserve have effectively stolen the wealth from the majority and given it to the few. We know the illegal attacks and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan were mounted for corporate and imperialist interests, not because of terrorists. We know the reason we can’t get single payer health care reform is because of the corporate plutocracy that has completely taken over the Congress and Senate. We know the reason the term “jobless recovery” was floated in the first place was to get the populace accustomed to the fact that it will indeed be, a jobless recovery, i.e, the rich get richer and the rest of us take a step back, or two.
How can we possibly break this system? What do we have to work with? Challenging a government requires big numbers, on the same basic page. Challenging this government would require nothing short of a full spectrum dominance from the citizens. The small numbers on the internet, working to spread the word while preaching to the choir, are not going to have enough of an impact to do anything but delay a decision that we won’t have a public option, let alone challenge the entire premise of modern day U.S. government.
American citizens by and large like the soap opera, action hero, drama thing as trained by our media. Perhaps a full frontal assault on 9/11 resulting in a revelation of the true story would wake enough citizens from their acquiescent slumber to demand an end to business as usual. What better drama could capture the audience than one that includes a conspiracy of global proportions. I come to this with an air of impatience and a realization that something spectacular needs to happen before citizens can reclaim their country. My impatience comes from reviewing other options. Those such as working locally to elect more and better democrats, urging more citizens to get involved in contacting and pressuring politicians, or working toward third party legitimacy seem like peripheral efforts of no consequence when considering the state of the country and the world. My realization comes from knowing those efforts are by and large fruitless.
The only other possible option I’ve seen is waiting until things get so fucking bad that the citizens are forced into a revolution. Wait until conditions get so bad that people will finally fight back. Personally I’d prefer not to get to that point. That would mean much suffering and I have children and grandchildren who I would prefer not have to go through something like that.
What we know is our government is corrupt and our politicians are controlled by money. Most citizens already inherently realize this but don’t have a common issue they can focus on. Perhaps if the truth was revealed for all to see that our government was involved in the intentional murder of 3000 American citizens to further the agenda of imperialism and wealth transfer, the citizens would finally have had enough and avoid a revolution based on desperation.
I’m throwing this out there because of Charlie Sheen. I watched a video of him tonight and he seems to be sticking to his guns on his questioning of 9/11. Considering his high profile and that he could easily stay silent and enjoy his money, I have to applaud that. It’s not like I needed convincing by Charlie Sheen however. I’ve read pretty much everything out there and watched all the videos, so I already have an adverse opinion of the “official government version”. But he made me think again about the whole deal. Based on what I’ve learned, I can’t accept the “official government version” and believe those involved included our own government. And if our own government was involved and it can be proven to the citizens of the U.S. and the world, that just might be the path we can take to challenge the machine that controls us.
In modern times, we have been raised to believe that England is a wonderful Country, that is our ally, and our good friend.
The fact that both the Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812 were about obtaining autonomy, independence, and separation from the British oligarchy, that wished to dominate us and control us, is conveniently forgotten. What follows here is a video documentary that shows the origins of the decline of the American experiment, and the on going power struggle that continued to remain between the British oligarchy and American people, which is responsible for that decline.
It reveals that the Civil War (that followed in the mid-1800s) was, in fact, about much more than just simply “Slavery”. It reveals the origins of so-called “Free Trade” agreements (which are aggressively promoted today) that have hollowed out American manufacturing, and depressed the wages of American workers. It shows how Franklin Roosevelt came close to outmanuvering the European Establishment, and embarked upon a strategy that would have strengthened, not only the prosperity of America, but of the whole World. Tragically, Roosevelt’s health failed him before he could see any of that through. Finally, the video also reveals, in the end, what a toolHarry “Orwellian National Security State” Truman was, who sowed the seeds of our modern ruthless American Empire, and our current disintegration.
This is, unfortunately, a long video (over 1 hour), but it is well worth it to watch all the way through (the last 30 minutes are the best part).
Factoid only seven people on the planet know: Bill Donahue, Roman Catholicism’s Abe Foxman, completed his dissertation on McCarthyism at LaRoche College in Pittsburgh’s north suburb, back in the day.
LaRoche College started out as the motherhouse/inhouse college for novices of the Divine Providence order. When Donahue used its facilities, it was only slightly expanded from that, with classrooms in the motherhouse, in quonset huts, and in trailers plunked on hastily scraped lots.
Today the campus is large enough to have hosted several hundred peace activists from around the country at the second National Assembly anti-war conference.
Paul Krugman says that prosecuting the previous regime for war crimes is about recovering America’s soul, and as usual he’s absolutely right.
the only way we can regain our moral compass, not just for the sake of our position in the world, but for the sake of our own national conscience, is to investigate how that happened, and, if necessary, to prosecute those responsible.
What about the argument that investigating the Bush administration’s abuses will impede efforts to deal with the crises of today? Even if that were true – even if truth and justice came at a high price – that would arguably be a price we must pay: laws aren’t supposed to be enforced only when convenient. But is there any real reason to believe that the nation would pay a high price for accountability?
For example, would investigating the crimes of the Bush era really divert time and energy needed elsewhere? Let’s be concrete: whose time and energy are we talking about?
Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to rescue the economy. Peter Orszag, the budget director, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to reform health care. Steven Chu, the energy secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to limit climate change. Even the president needn’t, and indeed shouldn’t, be involved. All he would have to do is let the Justice Department do its job – which he’s supposed to do in any case – and not get in the way of any Congressional investigations.
I don’t know about you, but I think America is capable of uncovering the truth and enforcing the law even while it goes about its other business.
Still, you might argue – and many do – that revisiting the abuses of the Bush years would undermine the political consensus the president needs to pursue his agenda.
But the answer to that is, what political consensus? There are still, alas, a significant number of people in our political life who stand on the side of the torturers. But these are the same people who have been relentless in their efforts to block President Obama’s attempt to deal with our economic crisis and will be equally relentless in their opposition when he endeavors to deal with health care and climate change. The president cannot lose their good will, because they never offered any.
