Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Everyone knows that Dr. King not only talked the talk, but he also walked the walk. His dedication to championing the concepts of justice and equality was surpassed only by his courage, which he punctuated profoundly when he stated that “A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.” Dr. King was clearly a man who was willing to die for what he believed in because he could not live with the way things were.
It appears that the wave of protest and revolt that is currently surging across the Middle East was triggered by the supremely sacrificial act of a man who was willing to die because he could not live with the way things are in his beloved country Tunisia. I don’t know exactly what 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi believed in, but I believe that it’s safe to say that he had had enough.
Mohamed Bouazizi had a university degree but was unemployed. To make a living he sold fruit and vegetables, basically trying to survive as an unlicensed street vendor. One day the authorities in the small city of Sidi Bouzid where Mohamed lived seized his produce cart, essentially taking away his livelihood, his means of survival. It’s been reported that Mohamed became so angry that he set himself on fire. He died a couple of weeks later.
But the impact of his act was instantaneous. The incident enraged witnesses and rioting quickly spread throughout the town. Reuters reported that “Riots are extremely rare for Tunisia, a north African country of about 10 million people which is one of the most prosperous and stable in the region.” I guess the obvious question would be “prosperous and stable” for whom? A relative of Mohamed was quoted as saying, “People are angry at the case of Mohamed and the deterioration of unemployment in the region.”
The majority of Americans have absolutely no knowledge of the social, economic and political dynamics at the root of what is currently taking place in the Middle East, but there are millions of Americans who do know a little something about unemployment in a country that is “prosperous and stable” for a select few.
As a recent commentary in The Nation pointed out, “While 22 million were searching for jobs in the US this week, Goldman Sachs tripled Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein’s base salary and awarded him $12.6 million of stock, a 42 percent increase from ’09.”
Laura Flanders, who wrote the commentary, takes the position that it is the income inequality that exists in Egypt that has compelled people to take to the streets, pointing out that, “As in Tunisia, the protesters are driven by fury at poverty, lack of options and the looting of their state by the super-powerful.”
The income inequality that exists in America has been receiving major attention lately, especially during the recent tax cut spectacle. But what’s incredibly shocking and perverse in the comparison between the US and Egypt is that, as Ms. Flanders writes, “…the US actually has much greater inequality than Egypt—or Tunisia, or Yemen.”
After hammering home the facts that the income disparity between the rich and the poor in this country is “anti-democratic” and that American democracy is “suffering,” Ms. Flanders concludes with the question, “What are we going to do about it?” For me the most significant question is: When will the people decide that they have had enough?
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” Thomas Jefferson 1787
This is quite an illuminating quote from one of the founding fathers of this country who, interestingly enough, was often personally and viciously attacked by the press during his time. But apparently he understood something about the nature of man and government that compelled him to maintain the position he held regarding the relationship between the press and government until the day he died.
Another quote that I believe is relevant to any conversation regarding the recent WikiLeaks revelations and the rightness or wrongness of those leaks is attributed to the journalist I.F. Stone. He is quoted as saying that “All governments lie.” I don’t believe that any reasonable person will try to argue with that truth, especially since it’s amply supported by history.
I.F. Stone is cited as the only American journalist that challenged the Johnson Administration’s account of the Gulf of Tonkin incident that took place in 1964. The incident turned out to be a fabrication of an attack on two U.S. warships by the North Vietnamese, but was used as justification for the escalation of U.S. military engagement in the Vietnam War, which claimed the lives of 58,159 U.S. soldiers, an estimated 1 – 3 million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians, an estimated 200 – 300,000 Cambodians, and an estimated 20 – 200,000 Laotians. All of this has a tragically familiar ring to it, doesn’t it?
Sticking with the Vietnam relevance to all of this, the video features commentary and historical perspective from Professor Noam Chomsky who, along with Howard Zinn, helped government whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg edit and release the Pentagon Papers, described as the top-secret internal U.S. history of the Vietnam War. In a 1996 New York Times article commemorating the 25th anniversary of the release of the Pentagon Papers it was noted that the papers “…demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance.”
Regarding the Pentagon Papers Professor Chomsky said that they revealed things that “…the American people should have known that the government didn’t want them to know…” and he states that pretty much the same thing is true as it regards the diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks recently released. What is probably the most profound point that Professor Chomsky made during the interview is that “One of the major reasons for government secrecy is to protect the government from its own population.” I take that to mean that if the people find out what dirt the government is really up to they will take it upon themselves to get rid of that government.
The point of debate central to all of the discussion about the leaks is the people’s right to know. What are the consequences of the American people knowing or not knowing about what their government is up to? Take for example what Robert Scheer, editor of Truthdig.com, recently wrote regarding Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. Scheer points out that Senator Feinstein has called for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, “to be vigorously prosecuted for espionage.”
Scheer notes that Feinstein strongly supported the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and now she “has the audacity to call for the imprisonment of the man who, more than any other individual, has allowed the public to learn the truth about those disastrous imperial adventures—facts long known to Feinstein as head of the Intelligence Committee but never shared with the public she claims to represent.” But later in the article he offers an even greater indictment of Senator Feinstein, stating that “the inconvenient truths she has concealed in her Senate role would have indeed shocked many of those who voted for her. She knew in real-time that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack, yet she voted to send young Americans to kill and be killed based on what she knew to be lies. It is her duplicity, along with the leaders of both political parties, that now stands exposed by the WikiLeaks documents.”
There you have the consequences of the American people not knowing the truth about what it’s government is up to: Dead American soldiers. Dead Iraqi soldiers and civilians. Dead Afghan soldiers and civilians. Add to this those who have been physically, psychologically and emotionally maimed by these wars and only then can one begin to comprehend the level of human devastation that has been wrought by those who have taken it upon themselves to be lords over the people they are supposed to serve.
Today is the 30th anniversary of the death of the music legend John Lennon. One of his most popular songs was Give Peace A Chance, released in 1969 and considered an anthem of the anti-war movement in the 1960s. I’m sitting here thinking that the only way peace can have a chance is to give truth a chance and the only way that will happen is to recognize truth when it is revealed within today’s wilderness of facts. With a nod toward’s Mr. Scheer’s site name, it’s something worth digging for.
There is a scene from the movie Collateral, starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx, that I believe beautifully sets the tone for this post. Cruise plays an assassin named Vincent and he’s just carried out a hit on someone and has hijacked the cab of Foxx’s character, Max, and has thrown the victim’s body into the trunk of Max’s cab.
Max feebly tries to chastise Vincent for what he just did, attempting to appeal to his conscience. Here is the exchange as it took place in the movie, picking up right after Max asked Vincent what had the murder victim done to deserve his fate:
VINCENT: What do you care? Ever hear of Rwanda?
MAX: Rwanda. Yeah.
VINCENT: Tens of thousands killed before sundown. Nobody’s killed people that fast since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Did you bat an eye, Max? Did you join Amnesty International, Oxfam or something? No. I off one Angeleno, you throw a hissy fit…
MAX: I don’t know Rwandans.
VINCENT: You don’t know the guy in the trunk, either.
Until recently I didn’t know who Anwar Al-Awlaki was and I’m almost certain that I was among millions of Americans who contribute to the collective ignorance of the existence of the Muslim cleric whom President Obama has targeted to be killed because of an alleged link to terrorist activities.
The focus of this post is not Al-Awlaki’s guilt or innocence or whether President Obama’s executive order is justified or not. I want to focus on the ignorance and indifference that Tom Cruise’s character Vincent touched on in the movie.
I’m sure that a lot of people who watched Countdown with Keith Olbermann on 4/7/2010 were stunned to hear that the President of the United States had issued an executive order to have anyone killed, let alone someone who is currently a U.S. citizen.
I can imagine many asking themselves: How can a nice and timid family man like President Obama give the OK to have someone killed? Because it’s not about personality, it’s about the nature of power in this country and the necessities born out of that nature. And it’s a nature that we are not taught about in history and civics classes in this country.
What President Obama did is unprecedented in terms of authorizing the assassination of an American citizen, but as it regards a U.S. President’s authorization of assassination, this is hardly anything new.
In an Associated Press story that appeared in the 11/19/93 Daily Herald it was revealed that the administration of President John F. Kennedy (today coincidentally is the 47th anniversary of his assassination) “…asked the CIA to develop a “standby capability” for carrying out assassinations of foreign leaders, according to newly declassified documents.” The story goes on to say that “…the Kennedy administration had inherited a plan to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro…”
The Associated Press story also refers to a 1967 report by the CIA inspector general, J.S. Earman, that “…covers the various well publicized CIA efforts to assassinate Castro during the 1960’s,” and
adds that those efforts “…were reviewed in considerable detail by a Senate committee in 1975, which concluded there were eight such attempts on Castro’s life.”
At this point Max the cab driver would probably ask: “What exactly did Castro do to deserve to be killed?”
The Senate committee that the story is referring to is the Church Committee, which held Congressional hearings that took place in 1975, a portion of which is shown in the second video in this post.
The focus of the video is Congressional testimony regarding a “heart attack gun” designed for the CIA for use for assassination. It sounds like something out of a James Bond movie or one of the Mission Impossible movies that Tom Cruise starred in, but again, this was discussed during Congressional testimony. On Capitol Hill. In Washington D.C. In America.
This was not part of a movie or make-believe. Nor was Keith Olbermann’s report. It seems that the majority of Americans are blissfully ignorant of these matters, and when they hear about atrocities that take place in far away lands they barely blink. This is the state of oblivion that the assassin Vincent was referring to in the movie and it could very well become a terminal condition for America if the citizens of this country do not become more appreciative and vigilant regarding our freedoms and also the freedoms of those in other countries as well.
It’s winter…winter in America…and ain’t nobody fighting, ’cause nobody knows what to save.
From the song “Winter in America” by Gil Scott Heron/Brian Jackson
Nowadays when I reminisce about being young and black in America back in the early 70’s I see it as a special time, a transitional period in different ways, on different levels. Personally I had successfully made the leap from grade school to high school and was reveling in my passage into the teenage years, bolstered by the belief that manhood was just around the corner.
But things were drastically changing in the world at large as well. Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, and I remember standing on the back porch on the second floor of the apartment building that we lived in and watching the sky turn reddish-orange and black from the flames and smoke during the riots that had broken out. Then a couple of months later I sat in front of our black and white television mesmerized by the news coverage of the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
From what I was told these were good men that stood for what was right and wanted to help make this society, this world, a better place for all people. The fact that they were killed because of their benevolent beliefs was a signal to my young mind that this world was not as nice a place as I thought it was. I guess that it can be said that I had developed a higher level of consciousness about people and the society that I lived in.
Then there was the music. The songs began to reflect the prevailing spirit of the times, questioning and outright challenging long-held notions and beliefs about America and it’s commitment to the principles of justice and equality.
One of my all-time favorite songs of this genre of music is Winter in America, by Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson. Released in 1974, the song still powerfully speaks to the pain and disillusionment that stems from decimated dreams and perverted promises and the spiritual toll of struggling against complex forces that suppress and oppress.
One can only hope and pray that there will always be those that will never stop believing in and working towards a changing of the season that leads to the realization of the highest of American ideals…
In light of the recent outbreak of cholera in Haiti, as an aftermath of the devastating earthquake that took place earlier this year, this post will hopefully serve as a reminder- if not a revelation- of why Haiti is in the condition that it is in today, particularly as it involves the government policies of the U.S. and France.
Please take special note of what Randall Robinson says regarding the “humanitarian” efforts of former President Bill Clinton over in Haiti as it concerns the emergence of sweat shops and also what Naomi Klein says in reference to the insidious blog post submitted by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation that openly recognized the opportunity to exploit the monumental suffering that was taking place in Haiti due to the earthquake.
I am reminded of what Jesus told His disciples in the Book of Matthew regarding false prophets that would come to them in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they would be ravening wolves…
This video is from Thom Hartmann’s show that took place on January 6, 2010.
Thom makes the point that, with his nationally televised address to the nation on July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter set America on a course towards ending its dependency on foreign oil. Thom adds that this country was just a year away from ending the importation of oil from the Persian Gulf.
What type of world would we be living in today if that effort had been successful? Unfortunately we will never know. And why is that? Because Ronald Reagan came into office the following year and the big money that came from oil compelled him to rollback Carter’s energy policy and send this country down a path that is costing human beings their lives and the American taxpayer massive amounts of money to this very day.
As Hartmann succinctly points out, Reagan’s policy made this country more dependent on Mideast oil, dictating an American presence in the Middle East that led to the emergence of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda as social and political forces in the Middle East.
Notice that Thom’s guest- Dinesh D’Souza, former policy analyst for Ronald Reagan- tried to make the argument that America was only interested in establishing “stability” in the Middle East, which Hartmann easily shot down with some history points, particularly the U.S. government’s involvement in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953. This took place not long after Iran’s Prime Minister (Mohammad Mosaddegh) decided to kick American oil companies out of the country and exclusively control and benefit from the resources of their own land.
Bin Laden’s stated goal is to “bankrupt America,” which he is pretty much succeeding in doing in collaboration with conservative and corporate profit-driven forces in this country. If Bin Laden is astute enough to recognize how easily these forces can be manipulated to the detriment of American citizens, then it’s imperative that we become even more astute…
Here’s a snippet of a presentation by the Nobel prize-winning and world-renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz, touching on some key factors regarding how the war in Iraq has impacted the U.S. economy.
The point that he makes about how the war had an impact on the futures market is not something that is normally brought out during conventional commentary. It’s just nice to hear a little analysis that is not dripping with political expediency…
It’s been my experience that rarely do you see radical analysis of the political landscape take place on mainstream news or talk shows. In this country we’re usually subjected to just enough constipated conversation, distorted debate, and contrived conflict to allow us to happily wallow in our ideological or indifferent or indecisive slop.
That’s why when I saw this segment of Morning Joe earlier today it was somewhat refreshing. It was both delightful and depressing, as well as politically incorrect, commentary on just how ugly, dangerous, and destructive politics can be. For all of us.
Regardless of your politics, Dylan Ratigan’s “rant” raised questions that it wouldn’t hurt to have answers to:
What is the difference between Wahhabism and Islam? And if there is a distinction, why isn’t that distinction being made by the U.S. government and in the mainstream media, or by Muslim leadership, when those wars are being discussed or analyzed during public discourse?
Why is the U.S. at war against Iraq and Afghanistan, and not Saudi Arabia, where the majority of the 9/11 hijackers originated from, which was acknowledged by Saudi Arabia?
What exactly is the nature of the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi governments?
Whether you are Republican or Democrat or Independent, conservative, liberal or progressive, whether you are Red, White, Blue, Black, or Green, there are certain questions and answers that should be standard requirements for debate just as driver’s licenses are required for us to drive.
After all, it’s all about the common welfare of Americans and saving lives- especially those of the soldiers and civilians in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan- isn’t it?
I believe that most human beings know how it feels to have a dream run over by reality; whether the dream is large or small, there’s disappointment, there’s pain.
It can be said that an ideal is an elaborate or deliberate dream…deliberate in the sense that humans have a tendency of inviting others into those dreams that they strongly believe can become reality if they can convince enough people of it. Often the ideal sounds and feels so good that the spirit underlying the ideal is rarely discussed…until the ideal is run over by reality.
There were a couple of things that inspired me to write the poem below, portrait of guatemala. After reading different accounts of the American government’s involvement in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954, and then reading Guatemalan Mayan leader and 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Mench’s memoir, “I, Rigoberta Menchu,” I felt compelled to express thoughts and feelings about this massive collision of ideal with reality.
America is supposed to be the model- the ideal- for democratic government. So why would this country’s government engage in the sabotaging of another democratically elected government?
But that’s for another time and post. What prompted this post is the recent revelation that in the 1940s U.S. government researchers deliberately infected Guatemalan prison inmates, women, and mental patients with syphilis as part of an experiment to test the then-new drug penicillin.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a joint statement apologizing to “all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices.” President Obama also issued an apology.
The experiment was uncovered by Susan Reverby, a professor of women’s studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She found out about it while following up on a book about the infamous 1960s Tuskegee study on black men who were deliberately left untreated for syphilis. (Another time, another post)
Regarding the Guatemala experiment Reverby said, “In total, 696 men and women were exposed to the disease and then offered penicillin. The studies went on until 1948 and the records suggest that, despite intentions, not everyone was probably cured.”
She also pointed out that the Guatemalan government was a co-sponsor of this hideous practice. I have no doubt that there are some who are twisted enough to try to justify what happened on the grounds that the victim’s own government consented to their suffering and death, so why should the U.S. government be condemned?
I can hear the words of Dr. Martin Luther King ringing in my ears: “To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it.”
portrait of guatemala
it could be that democracy died the moment that it became a spoken word,
exposed to the malignant discourse of congress that prevails against conscience;
maybe it was an embryo aborted by the eagle, never given a chance to soar, it’s death going unrealized until 1954…
if there had been passion for the lie instead of the literal the deaths would not have multiplied the deception by a hundred thousand or more
but truth must become human before it becomes passion and people are sacrificed because truth is eternal:
while they bled the zopilote was red / as they faded the zopilote was white / when they died the zopilote was blue;
in the fincas, in the cantinas, it was myth turned to stone that ground them like maize; myth born of ideals that frighten the central banker
myth born of ideals that threaten the corporate planner; myth born of ideals that endanger the satanic structure
myth no longer nourished by the mind’s heart yearning to cradle what it has given birth to becomes the stone that is dead wisdom;
it becomes righteousness that precedes rape, the eucharist that precedes extermination.
lies/fincas/plantations/catinas/taverns/lies…
a lie corrupts time because it is neither the beginning nor end of truth; it is the nightfall sometimes mistaken for midday
when men suspended between power and pathology insert images like knives into the endemic eye
and flashes from the blades are said to reflect the glory of the sun
lies/fincas/plantations/catinas/taverns/lies…
pain is confined to one language, many severed tongues woven into the one silent scream
that is heard when the two faces speak from one mouth, the teeth sinking into throats primed for revelation
when democracy breathes from dividends that final breaths yield:
while they bleed the buzzard is red / as they fade the buzzard is white / when they die the buzzard is blue;
the images of something higher fall from the skinless sky
that held no eyes of yellow and white, just red vein-like patterns that lead to and from the mass graves of mud and concrete and lead and ink…
(the substitute gods are becoming illiterate in their deception)
they can be seen running naked across avenues from finance to fiction, screaming for reclassification; their own mode of mercy they must digest like vomit
(their tombstones resemble half-eaten maize)
when will the apologies cease to be white like the powder that decorates the fresh dead?
(the still faces of peace as violent illusion)
savagery becomes a trait of sorrow when yesterday’s tears become today’s smudges; narrow streams that nourish the late edition, the misplaced memorandum
the torturous drip of truth that the tongue tries to catch before it falls to the dust that was once particles of faith, particles of promise; the disintegration of dawn…maybe (for the sincere propagandized)
a moment of deity that ruptured the human shell, spewing hope that distorts the heavens and the saints-
while we bleed the zopilote is red / as we fade the zopilote is white / when we die the zopilote is blue…
The Muse Minefield 
