Know Thyself

[McCamy Taylor]

It is great being a United States citizen. We are wealthier, healthier and have more freedoms than the average citizen of this world. True, working folks in Western Europe have it better in some ways-----more maternity leave, guaranteed health insurance, good food, fine museums. But we have more nukes. That makes us the big boys on the block, and by “block” I mean the whole planet. Nothing happens in this world without our approval. Elect the wrong leader, and we will use any means including assassination to correct your mistake. Hoard your natural resources and we will liberate them. Use the foreign aid we give you frivolously, and we will instruct you in the proper way to engineer your economy.

We call our government a representative democracy. True, special interests decide our elections for us, due to the huge sums of money required to run for public office. However, we are the ones who decided to allow them to run the show. That means that the decisions which corporate puppets make are our decisions, too.

By their acts, you will know them. Since all major religions (and many doctors) advocate self awareness (as in “Know thyself”), I think it is important for our spiritual and mental health to assess the mark which our country has made upon the world. Let’s play It’s a Wonderful Life . What great things would not have happened (or would happen less often) to folks in other countries, if the United States of America suddenly was not here to tell everyone else what to do?

I. The World’s Longest, Bloodiest War

I have written about the never ending war in the Congo before.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4904803
Foreign companies (and their government lackeys) have poured military aid into the region, pitting ethnic groups against each other, so that they can exploit the area’s abundant natural resources. Pardon me, did I write they ? I meant we. Our country is a key player in the ongoing war for diamonds/gold/etc.

I was hoping that a change in administration would change our policies in this war torn part of the world. However, the business of war for natural resources has continued unchecked.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/05/19/dr-congo-hold-army-account-war-crimes

Since late January 2009, soldiers from the Congolese armed forces, the FARDC, on military operations in eastern Congo, have attacked villages and killed at least 19 civilians in North Kivu province, including two women and two elderly men. Army soldiers have also raped more than 143 women and girls in the same period, more than half of the 250 cases of rape documented by Human Rights Watch. Some women were taken as sex slaves by soldiers and held within military positions.

Here is more on the conflict from early July, 2009

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/07/02/dr-congo-massive-increase-attacks-civilians

Rape cases have also dramatically increased in areas of Congolese army deployment. In nearly all the health centers, hospitals, and rape counseling centers visited by Human Rights Watch, rape cases had doubled or tripled since the start of military operations in the Kivus in January. While all sides continue to use rape and other sexual violence as a weapon of war, the majority of the rape cases investigated by Human Rights Watch were attributed to soldiers from the Congolese army.
The Congolese army's practice of forcing civilians to provide dangerous labor has put civilians further at risk. Hundreds of civilians have been regularly forced at gunpoint to carry heavy ammunition and other supplies for Congolese forces. On June 21, Human Rights Watch researchers witnessed dozens of civilians being forced to carry supplies for the army from Bunyakiri in Kalehe territory while soldiers deployed to frontline positions in South Kivu.

How have we, the American people responded to the war crimes being committed by troops allied with the U.N. mission in that region of Africa?

http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=2940〈=

The United States military will continue working with the Congolese armed forces in training, advising and capacity building to support security assistance cooperation activities, but has no plans to put combat troops here, said the commander of U.S. Africa Command during a visit April 24, 2009.
Snip
The United States does not have military troops in MONUC, but does provide funding support.

"To restore the peace and stability that the Congolese people deserve talks to the reason for my being here," Ward said at the press conference. "It is how we can conduct our military activities to support the training and to support the increased professionalization of the Congolese armed forces as best we can as they work to bring security and stability here in the Congo."
The war in the Congo is our war. We will not send any troops into the region, but then we do not have to, as long as we can persuade the people who live in Uganda, Rwanda and the Congo to do the fighting and dying for us.

II. The Rape of Gaza

Just kidding. No one calls it that. Not in the United States anyway. It would be unpatriotic to question our ally in the Middle East. Our elected Congress overwhelmingly approved of Israel’s invasion of Gaza over the Christmas holidays. That makes it a “good” war. A just war. A war fought with US made weapons. Among the acts which we sanctioned:

The scale and intensity of the attacks on Gaza were unprecedented. Some 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians who took no part in the conflict were among the 1,400 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces.

Most were killed with high-precision weapons, relying on surveillance drones which have exceptionally good optics, allowing those observing to see their targets in detail. Others were killed with imprecise weapons, including artillery shells carrying white phosphorus – not previously used in Gaza - which should never be used in densely populated areas.

Amnesty International found that the victims of the attacks it investigated were not caught in the crossfire during battles between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces, nor were they shielding militants or other military objects. Many were killed when their homes were bombed while they slept. Others were sitting in their yard or hanging the laundry on the roof. Children were struck while playing in their bedrooms or on the roof, or near their homes. Paramedics and ambulances were repeatedly attacked while attempting to rescue the wounded or recover the dead.

"The deaths of so many children and other civilians cannot be dismissed simply as 'collateral damage', as argued by Israel," said Donatella Rovera. "Many questions remain to be answered about these attacks and about the fact that the strikes continued unabated despite the rising civilian death toll."

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/impunity-war-crimes-gaza-southern-israel-recipe-further-civilian-suffering-20090702

You know the phrase “you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet”? Sometimes we wait until after the chicks are hatched and then we kill them. It is easier to scare the hens into submission that way. More on children as victims of war here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4805437

III. Child Labor

We outlawed child labor in the United States decades ago---and exported the work to other countries. Most of us do not think too long or hard about how we are able to buy well made items cheaply in discount stores. With our economy in turmoil, we are just glad to have some place we can afford to shop.

Here is a report from 2006 about child labor used to produce items for US retailers.

http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/1024-01.htm

An estimated 200 children, some 11 years old or even younger, are sewing clothing for Hanes, Wal-Mart, J.C. Penney and Puma at the Harvest Rich factory in Bangladesh.
The children report being routinely slapped and beaten, sometimes falling down from exhaustion, forced to work 12 to 14 hours a day, even some all-night, 19- to 20-hour shifts, often seven days a week, for wages as low as 6 and a half cents an hour. The wages are so wretchedly low that many of the child workers get up at 5 a.m. each morning to brush their teeth using just their finger and ashes from the fire, since they cannot afford a toothbrush or toothpaste.

But that was under the Bush administration. Surely things are better now. From June, 2009

http://www.stopchildlabor.org/pressroom/world_day_06122009.html

“The ILO estimates that today 218 million children are still working in conditions that deny them their rights to a proper childhood, threatens their education, and their well-being,” said fellow CLC Co-Chair Antonia Cortese, Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which represents 1.4 million public service employees.

Read about the hundreds of thousands of children who do agricultural labor in the United States. Read about how Firestone will not agree to eliminate child labor on its rubber farm in Liberia. That is our food, those are our tires. As long as they are cheap, there is no reason to ask questions, right?

IV. "Monsanto as US Foreign Policy"

Here is an interesting link about the close ties between the Clintons and Monsanto. You know, the company that wants to own the world's food supply---and which uses the power of the United States government to get its way in other countries.

It is time to see past symbolic shows of "the White House farmer" or empty compassionate words, to the immense threat coming at all of us through Monsanto influence over the USDA and the FDA. Our food supply and those of other countries are being taken over - in Africa as "charity," in India as "knowing better how to farm," in Iraq with all pretense put aside.

http://gmfoodwatch.tribe.net/thread/78999f60-b0a6-4f52-957d-74d0bf240d96


I could talk about the massively popular (at the time) invasion of Iraq which was targeted for its oil. I could mention that we instigated the internal conflict in Georgia in which the country attacked its own citizens because of a proposed gas pipeline. I could dwell upon our reluctance to hold anyone accountable for U.S. war crimes committed against citizens of other countries. But I don’t want to be accused of bashing my country. Might makes right, and as long as no one can hold us accountable, we would be fools not to enrich ourselves at the world’s expense, especially with our economy in such miserable shape. Altruism is great in times of plenty, but when we have to tighten our belt buckles, the rest of the world had better tighten theirs twice as much. It is the American way.

"My original convictions upon this subject have been confirmed by the course of events for several years, and experience is every day adding to their strength. That those tribes can not exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear." -- Andrew Jackson

[texastoast]

1. I fucking hate Andrew Jackson

Hate. That. Bastard. Little Hitler. Shame and blood on our hands and still we do not understand that "Sins of the fathers will be visited on the sons."

We have known this since Greek times. Humans are idiots.

And much of America turns their blind eye.

[mtf80123]

3. good thing the OP at least has the word "blood" and "sacrifice"

Because we all "know" the Lamb can be sacrificed over and over...

Try to start a thread on Philosophy and you will get shut down.... pronto.

[PufPuf23]

2. People that became the United States have a history if being aggressive and violent opportunists.

I have benefited from this in my standard of living and opportunity.

There are no buts as a most successful genocide is the native peoples of north america.

We have had slavery and unequal rights based on one's sex, skin color, or birth circumstance.

We have come from a bland abundance post WWII to a mean society.One wonders if an Empire based upon understanding, being adult, and kindness would not be cheaper and more effective than a military Empire (that may well be propogandized about its true relative strength).

etc etc etc -- I could go on with concerns -- I never expected our country to be in such a sad state of affairs.

Yesterday I made the 140 mile trip to see my doctor in a smaller regional city with the nearest commercial air -- I live in a remote and rural home town after a professional career as a fed, corporate management consultant, and academic -- and the newspapers were in a new small format and there were cameras installed at most major intersections and there is a Trader Joes and other box stores under construction.

My limitations are that I do not have the fast mind of youth and my physical state is increasingly fragile, but one thing I recognized in my 20s is that I could always find an individual that was better prepared to be smart and act more effectively in any subject area than my capabilities.

Many Americans are in denial. Knowing oneself is important even if the knowledge means sliding into a less dominant but more appropriate niche as an individual or society.

[bvar22]

4. Excellent essay.

Self analysis, and personal responsibility are the first steps toward real change.
Not very pretty.

[Horse with no Name]

5. Seriously

Have you ever thought about publishing a book with your essays?
I'd certainly line up for one. K&R

[waiting for hope]

6. From one of my favorite Star Trek Movies -

Star Trek: Insurrection

Jean-Luc Picard: Who the hell are we to determine the next course of evolution for these people?

Admiral Matthew Dougherty: Jean-Luc, there are 600 people down there. We'll be able to use the regenerative properties of this radiation to help billions. The Son'a have developed a procedure to collect the metaphasic particles from the planets rings.

Jean-Luc Picard: A planet in Federation space.

Admiral Matthew Dougherty: That's right. We have the planet. They have the technology. A technology we can't duplicate. You know what that makes us? Partners.

Jean-Luc Picard: Our partners are nothing more than petty thugs.

Admiral Matthew Dougherty: On Earth, petroleum once turned petty thugs into world leaders. Warp drive once transformed a bunch of Romulan thugs into an empire. We can handle the Son'a. I'm not worried about that.

Jean-Luc Picard: Someone probably said the same thing about the Romulans a century ago.

Admiral Matthew Dougherty: With metaphasics, life spans will be doubled. An entire new medical science will evolve. I understand your chief engineer has the use of his eyes for the fist time in his life. Would you take that away from him?

Jean-Luc Picard: There are metaphasic particles all over the Briar Patch. Why does it have to be this one planet?

Admiral Matthew Dougherty: It's the concentration in the rings that makes the whole damn thing work. Don't ask me to explain it. I only know they inject something into the rings that starts a thermolytic reaction. When it's over, the planet will be uninhabitable for generations.

Jean-Luc Picard: Admiral, delay the procedure. Let my people look at the technology.

Admiral Matthew Dougherty: Our best scientific minds already have. We can't find any other way to do this.

Jean-Luc Picard: Then the Son'a can establish a seperate colony on the planet until we do.

Admiral Matthew Dougherty: It would take ten years of normal exposure to begin to reverse their condition. Some of them won't survive that long. Besides, they don't want to live in the middle of the Brair Patch. Who would?

Jean-Luc Picard: The Ba'ku. We are betraying the principles upon which the Federation was founded. It's an attack upon its very soul. And it will destroy the Ba'ku... just as cultures have been destroyed in every other forced relocation throughout history.

Admiral Matthew Dougherty: Jean-Luc, we're only moving 600 people.

Jean-Luc Picard: How many people does it take, Admiral, before it becomes wrong? A thousand? Fifty thousand? A million? How many people does it take, Admiral?

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Insurrection#Dialogue

I think this country would be better served if TPTB paid attention to history .... or perhaps they are and choosing not to take note.

K&R!

[OwnedByFerrets]

7. Truths spoken here that few want to hear.

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MICHAEL JACKSON

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JON AND KATE

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LINDSAY LOHAN

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MILEY CYRUS

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CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?