“Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.” Donald Trump
So…if someone was just surfing the internet and happened to come across my blog and it began with this picture and this quote, what would they think?
While the President stated the next day, “We are now in the process of defeating the radical left,” he said nothing about the radical right.
I have to begin by stating the “merciless campaign” is a few hundred thousand people very upset about unarmed human beings dying at the hands of the police. Since 3 times as many per capita of the deceased are black it is being directly connected with racism and there is no greater symbol of this than statues of “heroes” who 160 years ago fought against the United States to keep blacks enslaved. Slavery, in my view, is the quintessential example of Neoliberalism which, in case anyone reading this has not noticed, is the current dominant ideology affecting the entire planet. The free market ideally includes everything, including people. And for several hundred years in the Americas it did include human beings bought and sold as property.
I am personally “witnessing” this struggle for the soul of America and further state the effort to “wipe out our history” began during the early part of the last century when most of those symbols were placed on public display. The statues were part of an effort to “indoctrinate” the population in “The Lost Cause” of the Confederacy. Make no mistake, in regards to the lost cause, I strongly desire to “defame” and “erase our values.” A few of my coworkers, who I mention often in this blog and are almost all strongly conservative, have talked about Antifa and for better or worse I completely shocked them by stating my own view: If I happened to be involved in a scenario involving Antifa and alt-right protesters in conflict I would be on the left. My coworker’s eyes went wide and their jaws dropped when I dared to say this. I followed this shock and awe utterance with the simple truth that I hate nazis and that is what Antifa shows up for- to physically fight neo-nazis and racists. Antifa means ANTI-FAscist. My coworkers have been told of course they are part of “the radical left.” We are “defeating” the people fighting the neo-nazis? It is not all about race though and the fact is I believe this is more about greed.
I remember when I heard the news about Iris Chang and felt so bad about it I did something pretty strange. I went to my favorite bookstore and on the shelf where her books were I placed a card expressing my profound sorrow. I had to do something. As I left the store I saw people gathering around it. Anybody who knows the story that goes along with her book, “The Rape of Nanking” knows why I did this. Before I left San Francisco I visited her grave (east of San Jose). The instructor in a history class I took in college once almost broke down in a lecture talking about the holocaust and how the research he did for his thesis had affected him. I have personally seen the look on present day German military officers faces at holocaust memorial ceremonies and the sadness and shame was not anything anybody wants to see. The point I am trying to make is revising history to keep your crimes hidden is the key tactic in play here. Iris did not let the Japanese government get away with it. Deborah Lipstadt did not let David Irving get away with it. There were no fine people on the other side.
Having served in the military and traveled to some bad places I understand, as some of us do, the evil “we” are capable of. Genocide has been for many primarily an excuse to exercise greed through violence. The final solution steals everything those people you just disappeared from history owned. The Roman Empire, from which the word fascist is taken, had an inside joke about everlasting peace for subject people who made trouble- what they really meant was extermination. The greed that has infected our world is advancing and will soon become a terminal disease. The lies used to make us hate and disown each other as human beings also make extinction a distinct possibility. Those lies used to manipulate the masses may destroy all of us much sooner than anyone thinks. We just refuse to believe it can happen, which is one reason I started this blog. If our species is to survive, we must ask, as Pilate asked in that verse I consider the most important of all in the Bible, “What is Truth?”
The truth is simple. The powerful want everything and if that means everyone else suffers in wage slavery and squalor then that is survival of the fittest. The less powerful get what they deserve. We all get what we “deserve” is the universal justification to do what thou wilt. Nothing works better to convince people of this than telling them someone else is getting something for free and they are paying for it (divide and conquer, thanks again Rome). Lying is simply a best practice in the business of amassing and hoarding obscene wealth. Those stupid enough to believe the lies serve those who tell the cleverest lies. This corruption is what drove so many across a dangerous ocean to a uncertain future in a new world.
“We will never allow an angry mob to tear down our statues, erase our history, indoctrinate our children or trample on our freedoms. We will safeguard our values, our traditions, customs, and beliefs.” Donald Trump
The statues were almost all of Confederates. And a few others who owned slaves or were instrumental in the destruction of native Americans. Aside from revisionist history that needs to be erased, nobody is erasing or trampling any freedoms. What is being safeguarded is obvious. But if you say what it is…they will deny it. Coded language.
Americans should celebrate their independence from the British because it “turned the world upside down” as the story goes. It made every man a king and those in government the servant of every man. In America you would not be made a soldier to fight in whatever war the king-ordained-by-God started and you would not have to bow down and be ordered around by a higher class. The local lord did not tax as he wished and own all the land and in effect you along with it. In America all fell under the same rule of law and anyone could gather in protest of unjust laws and be elected as a representative of the people. It was not perfect as those who were male, white, and property owners were actually the only ones with all the freedoms. But it was a start.
Now it seems we may have to try again. We could start by taxing the semi-divine super-rich progressively so they are actually paying for the workforce that makes them so rich instead of getting it for free (91 percent taxes on the 1 percent in the 1950’s made America great). Stop allowing the super-rich to corrupt the political process. Universal health care, universal education… you know, getting what we need, what those Scandinavian countries get. A Green New Deal.
Since all of that is the opposite of what is going on now- looks like we need to turn the world upside down again.
Ice on the Moon 