It seems the world has a country with power unequaled in all history. It is the United States of America, a title that I was once proud of when I was very young. I grew up in a propaganda system so complete with movies, great music and testimony from a corporate media, which constantly spent great effort describing the U.S. as the greatest country and the greatest democracy in the world.
Then it was described as the greatest on the globe, then on the planet. Why all this effort to convince us? How lucky we were to be shielded from the truth. It was a great country and still is, but it was always a system designed to support the rich and the powerful.
We had to fight and sometimes die to establish unions, which helped create the middle class. But it certainly was never the greatest in the world. Americans should reject this kind of propaganda because it says to the middle class, you have our support for any policy you carry out. We do have a Constitution admired by the entire world, but we are in danger of losing it.
We were always a warring nation. One only has to read our foreign policy for the last 100 years or more to learn the real truth. We almost completely killed all Native Americans. Then annexed part of Mexico, then controlled Cuba, then the Philippines, killed over a million North Koreans and between 1 and 2 million Vietnamese.
Noam Chomsky described how our Marines were sent to Third World countries over 100 times through the years to protect American investment. With all this blood on our hands we can see why our leaders make certain we see ourselves as only spreading democracy in these Third World countries. This we hear constantly.
Now at this time in history, we are out of control. Our military has over 700 bases in 150 countries. We are doing now what we have always done, plan and assist in regime changes anywhere on the globe. We do this because we can. No one can stop us. Not yet.
We supported a right-wing dictatorship in Honduras and now it is the most dangerous country in the world. We helped create conditions that have force mothers to separate with their frightened children and send them to the U.S. border to save their lives only to be sent back to Honduras and other countries to possibly be murdered. Have we lost our soul? The scope of our involvement with killing around the world is nothing less than immoral.
All these murdering tyrants some of which we train in the schools of America, combined with money, weaponry and the rebels we help train and install in dozens of countries are causing millions of deaths and untold suffering throughout the world, mostly in oil-rich countries. This is exactly what we have been doing to Third World countries in South America and other parts of the world for well over 100 years. The Monroe Doctrine told the entire world that we owned and controlled this part of the hemisphere.
I came out of my sleep about 20 years ago when watching Senate hearings on TV about CIA involvement in Salvadoran training the right-wing government on how to torture and sometimes kill prisoners, and shockingly discussing CIA operatives also involved in torture. If I were not watching live Senate hearings, I would not have believed it.
For over a decade we have been killing people and destroying countries in the Mideast, and we are supporting the illegal coup in Ukraine and bringing war ships to Russia’s border and we are not stopping. Now we are involved in more war. Nazi fascists are fighting with Ukraine. We are openly supporting this madness as we are bombing and leveling cities across the Middle East.
I say “we” because as Americans we are responsible for what our government does. We are losing our government fast to a global corporate empire that is controlled by a small number of extremely rich and powerful people.
There is this consensus that Americans are finally realizing the insanity of what our country has been doing. And also that the war is not only against the Islamic world, but sadly against the poor, the sick, the middle class and women. So “we” is a big word because “we” the American people are the only ones that can stop this madness.
The key is we all have to work together in the community on the local and state level. Making change by working together on small issues, replacing the structure that has been designed to keep us all down and out of the way, with too few jobs and wages no one can live on.
They don’t need us. These rich, powerful people are sick people. They live their life wanting more and more and more at the expense of people’s welfare and even their lives.
I do not think all rich people fit this description. I think we are talking about a small number. One of the things these people need is endless war. Our taxes feed these people. Let’s all work together to take this privilege away from them. Let’s fight to keep our boys home and alive. It won’t be easy but we have the numbers.
Good luck to all, and never give up.
Fred Barnes
Middlebury