What the USA Must Change to Become a Great Nation - by Anthony Marr of Heal Our Earth

[Annces]

by
Anthony Marr

FULL BLOG
http://homosapienssaveyourearth.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-us-must-change-to-become-great.html


I was born in China during the Japanese invasion which murdered some 20 million Chinese civilians. My mother was almost captured as a "comfort woman", i.e. a sex slave to be eventually killed when used up. Had this happened, I wouldn't be here writing this essay.

So right off the bat, I was born to think that Japan was anything but great. And though after the war I tried to forgive and forget, Japan turned the same blood-lust against the whales and dolphins, which has kept me seething. No, Japan is not a great nation, not by a long harpoon shot.

When I was 5, the Communists overran China, and my family escaped with our lives by moonlight down the Pearl River to the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. Had we not done so, my entire family could have been terminated in the purges and hard labor camps which ensued. All in all the Communist regime wiped out some 60 million Chinese people in its consolidation of power. Most of these 60 million died of starvation when the Maoist government shipped their food to Russia in exchange for technological and military assistance. After the "Great Cultural Revolution", I tried to forgive and forget as well, but the 1989 Tiananmen massacre of 3000 students forever removed China from greatness in my mind.

From ages 5 through 20, I grew up in Hong Kong as a stateless person under the rule of the British Empire. Though it was not a bloody regime, a day did not pass when I was not reminded one way or another, and none too subtly, that I was a third class citizen. By no means all Chinese, but the Cantonese culture of Guang Dong province, to which Hong Kong is attached, is notorious for its callous and broad-spectrum animal use and abuse. Britain, which ruled the Cantonese people flooding into Hong Kong, had the responsibility of enforcing its supposedly humane animal laws, but from what I saw as a child and a teenager, nothing along this line was done. Since I loved animals, the British did not relieve my pain. But then, how could a nation known for its cruel sport of fox-hunting impose its will on the people of another culture regarding humane and respectful animal treatment? Based on the above alone, Great Britain, though the lesser of two evils compared to China by far, left/leaves much greatness to be desired.

At age 21, I flew across the Pacific to Canada on a student visa. Prepped by over- dramatized Hollywood movies about the Ku Klux Klan and the Mafia, I set foot on North American soil with trepidation. But almost at once, I found the Canadian people warm, gentle and helpful, and genuinely kind and loving to their companion animals, which made me feel very much at home. Further, I was amazed by how people could openly criticize the government without any fear of retribution, and on the contrary I saw smiling politicians shaking hands with the humble people in Chinatown, which was unheard of where I had come from. There was/is a free Medicare system for all, and a respectful policy towards seniors. So finally, when I swore myself in as a Canadian citizen, I felt rightly proud for belonging finally to what I perceived to be a great nation. But it did not take me too long to get disillusioned. As a university student, I worked summers out in the bush as a geologist's assistant. It was then I began to see the horrific assault by logging companies against the environment. When one year I worked in a cathedral-like old growth forest by which I was awed, the next year, it had been reduced to a waste land, with nothing but huge grey stumps left behind. I saw trophy hunters shooting down anything magnificent that moved. And I saw mines and pulp mills discharging heavy metals, cyanides, organo- chlorines, PCBs, PAHs and dioxins on to the land. And that was before I learned about the horrendous Newfoundland seal massacre, and finally flew over the six hellish Alberta tar sands mines which made of the entire Athabasca watershed one enormous carcinogen.


FULL BLOG
http://homosapienssaveyourearth.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-us-must-change-to-become-great.html


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2odWiHN06Cw/SpH8ONJVmgI/AAAAAAAAADs/1c_bQgDcrio/s400/AM+w+Charger.jpg


He has an excellent radio show too, that you can listen to on his Myspace Page. He interviews animal rights activists and environmental activists and writers.

http://www.myspace.com/AnthonyMarr

[indepat]

1. The crimes of man against one another, wildlife, and mother nature are so incomprehensible

as to be unbelievable if the evidence of these crimes did not smack us in the face daily. :P

Edited for verb tense

[glitch]

2. This man speaks for me. Thank you for posting his site K & R. nt

[Strong Atheist]

3. Too late, I think. This will be the Chinese century, for several reaons... nt.

[Gregorian]

4. This man has a bright perspective. He has seen.

I'm so glad to read his blog. Because I have seen. I have suffered immensely as a result. And I would be that he has suffered as well. No one who sees this can not suffer. I don't know what it takes to see. But most do not. I wish I hadn't. But perhaps those who seek beauty can't find it for the ugliness. And they've seen.

Thank god there are at least a few who know what is really going on. Because sometimes it feels like there is no one else. Reading this takes away just a little of the rage I've felt about the reckless and carelessness going on around us.

When I was a kid I worked in an amazing little Chinese restaurant. Now I have to do some research, because the husband of the woman who ran the place was an important sounding economist from China. And their son was a physicist. Not your typical cooks. People literally flew across the country to come to this little ten tabled hole in the wall restaurant. It was the best food I've ever eaten. I suppose they also escaped from China. Not that that has anything to do with this thread.

Why so few people who see what we see?

[zoie1234]

5. What the USA must change to be a Great Nation

Abosolutly Great article. Anthony, you should cc to Obama and your Minister.. you articulated all my frustrations and arguments of the last 30 years of observed corruption. The atrocities that humans are committing on this planet and it's fellow inhabitants is beyond a reasonable comprehension at times. I did feel "Hope" with Obama initially, but my faith is slowly sinking. Granted, he is an improvement by far, but it is only baby steps, unfortunately, we don't have time for baby steps, maybe 30 years ago. Thanks for posting this.