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| They are coming at you, guys: President Barack Obama delivers a policy address on the Middle East and North Africa (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Top of the world: the swearing in on Jan. 20, 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| John Wayne, propagandist for the American way (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Les responsables: In January 2009, President of the United States of America, George W. Bush invited then President-Elect Barack Obama and former Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter for a Meeting and Lunch at The White House. These are the guys who are responsible. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
If there
are any regular readers of this site, it may not have escaped their notice that
during recent months, as momentous events have swirled around our heads, I have
maintained a lofty silence. Not a word
on the Canadian election. Not a word about the so-called refugee crisis of
Europe. Not a word about the rise of ISIS. Not a word about the blunderbuss
incoherence of American foreign policy. Nothing about the challenge of man-made
climate warming. And so it goes on issue after issue.
Since I began this site almost twenty years ago with the
intention of having a sounding off place, where I could say what is on my mind,
this silence is rather surprising, even to me.
Perhaps it is because I have been preoccupied with other issues: for
example, it is getting on for ten months since I fractured my Achilles tendon,
which precipitated a sudden realization that I am not immortal. In fact, I am
kind of aging, which is to say, I am getting well advanced into the age at
which one’s various parts are wearing out finally, and the inevitable
end-effect suddenly appears to be not far off.
(Not to worry, I tell myself, we all die.)
Other reasons for my silence could be:
· that I am old enough to know I have
nothing relevant to contribute to the solution of any of these momentous
problems, a factor which,
· allied with my new understanding that
no one really wants to hear from a cranky old geezer living through his ninth
decade,
· really does enjoin one to maintain a
silence as dignified as one can make it,
(which, in my case, my personal dignity having never before been an
issue for me, is probably not a very compelling reason).
Nevertheless, the fact is, that I still have a body of
opinions, however poorly based they may be, that do require to be released for
an outing every now and again, so here goes:
Last night I watched on Croatian TV the third of three films
made, in 1950, by John Ford about the US
cavalry. The film was Rio Bravo, the
stars John Wayne, Victor McLagan, Maureen O’Hara, and the theme, I couldn’t
help noticing, was the age-old one of the Yankees straightening things out at
the barrel of the gun.
It was striking, to say the least, to observe this dollop of
American propaganda, the celebration of what President Barack Obama so proudly
calls “American exceptionalism” (which he said recently he believes in “with
all my heart and soul”), in these historical circumstances, in this case an
exceptionalism including the unquestioned belief of the invading Yankees as
they moved West, that it was their right to occupy the land they wanted, and to
get rid of the previous occupants by killing them and driving them into prison
camps or reservations where they no longer had the opportunity to look after
their own needs, but at least were out of the way of the invaders.
Although one would never have guessed it from the movie,
which showed the Yankee army as a nice little club of singing soldiers, loyal
husbands who took their wives and children along with them to the front, while
at the same time being insensate killers, one would never have guessed that these
guys were undertaking their part of the greatest genocide ever visited by one
people on another, that is, the extermination policies conducted by European
invaders throughout the Americas, which are estimated to have killed off some
90,000,000 people.
It was amazing to make the jump from that propaganda picture
of the founding principles of the United States, which appear to be still
believed by most Americans, to what we see in this present day --- the Middle
East in flames, as a direct result of American invasions, undertaken under the
protection of complete lies told by the government to its citizens, a sort of
blunderbuss action that any schoolchild could have foreseen would, at the very
least, destabilize the whole region, with unpredictable results.
The overall story, that the United States is interested only
in spreading its sacred value of democracy, is one that even an infant class
could see through, given that the leading American allies in the region, Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, the Gulf states, are among the most undemocratic,
indeed, among the nastiest, that exist on the planet today, an anomaly that is
reinforced in other parts of the world, where insensate dictators like long-running
Mubuto in the Congo, and a raft of disreputable leaders in Latin America have
for decades been able to rely on American support.
Okay, so that takes care of the global situation, in the
broadest terms. Although, broken into its component parts, it provides no less
a disturbing picture. For example, Iraq, attacked to get rid of its dangerous dictator,
is now threatened by a previously unheard of Islamic entity of horrendous
brutality; for example, Afghanistan, attacked to clear out the perpetrators of
the onslaught on New York’s World Trade Centre in 2001 (none of whom came from
there), but now suffering from what we once might have called barbarous armies
as never before; for example, the secular state of Syria, governed by a rather
nasty family that routinely tortured prisoners, is now in ruins (millions of
their citizens fleeing in panic towards a Europe which doesn’t want to be
bothered with them), because of U.S. encouragement to incoherent groups of
dissidents who thought they had what it
takes to overthrow the ruling family, but who have proven to be woefully inadequate
to that task. And so it goes on, everywhere the U.S. feels itself called upon
to “defend its interests”, as their current claptrap excuse goes. Even for
god’s sake, in the Ukraine, historically part of the Russian sphere of
influence, but now being surrounded by NATO forces (for which read “American”),
in an effort to unreasonably extend the influence of our so-called democratic
values, but which seem to have attached themselves to something more akin to fascism.
Okay, is it any wonder I have maintained my silence on these
issues until now? How about the TPP, this extension of our disastrous NAFTA, an
alliance of Pacific states designed by the Americans to extend and defend the
interests of American corporations, under which, if it ever comes to pass,
corporations will have the existence and stature virtually of sovereign states,
and be able to sue any State that takes any action that might reduce their
profits. What? Are there actually
politicians in this world that are espousing this rubbish? I am afraid it is so, my dears.
And as for climate change: for years now I have felt one has
only to take a trip to Toronto and there watch the ceaseless coming and going
of the countless cars that flow along its 401 highway, and to realize that this
is multiplied by the thousand in cities around the world, and that this even
this is but a fraction of the pressure these cities are putting on the very
earth that sustains us, the very water we cannot live without, the very air we
breathe, to realize that all hope of ever reducing the carbon we emit that is
inevitably warming the earth, is likely to be a false hope. To put it at its
least dramatic, the action of any
citizen in recycling his cardboard and paper is unlikely to be enough to turn
back this tide of carbon we are emitting with almost every action we take. And
that, so far, we can see almost no sign that our world of sovereign States is
capable of taking the needed decisions to save us from choking to death.
Is it any wonder I have been silent?
And I haven’t even mentioned over-population, the engine of
our impossibilities. A friend recently sent me a series of photographs
illustrating to what extent overcrowding has become an issue for most of the
world’s poor people. I hope my computer skills are up to transferring those photos on to the end of this, so that anyone who has read thus far can see for
him or herself just what is at stake.
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