The Exercise of Imagination

 

“The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary.”

—Ursula K. LeGuin

The Exercise of Imagination

by C.A. Matthews

My husband has a new hobby. Every evening he turns on the local newscast to view the weather forecast so we know how much watering our garden will need the next day. Lately he waits until the national newscast comes on. This is when his cathartic yelling at the screen begins.

“What the…? It’s not a war, asshole. The children of Gaza are being murdered. It’s a goddamn genocide. Say the word, you stupid bastard!”

Mercifully, the six o’clock newscast runs only about sixteen minutes or else he’d be permanently hoarse. I timed the commercials one night, and discovered the half hour is made up of mostly commercials for Big Pharma. That gives you some idea who their target audience is—older Americans with deep pockets who love popping pills.

National newscasts really don’t provide news as much as they give out headlines. Their headlines tend to be predictable propaganda soundbites courtesy of the Ministry of Truth or the government propaganda machine. The news readers with their Hollywood-movie-star looks aren’t trying to impart factual information as much as they’re trying to persuade and provoke emotions, such as hatred and animosity toward those whom the oligarchy wants us to hate. They want us to despise and fear others so much that we’d be willing to go to war with them and die—or at least we’re okay with our children or grandchildren dying for the cause.

After watching several national newscasts, the emotional manipulation became bleedin’ obvious (as my British husband says). Do the regular consumers of mainstream (legacy) media realize they’re being manipulated to believe and feel a certain way in the first place? (See last week’s post about who does the manipulating and why.) What do they really get out of it? Do they actually enjoy being lied to? Do the lies reinforce their deep-seated prejudices and feed their wildest fears, making them fat and content in their hatred? Is warmongering propaganda a source of entertainment for them?

 

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The Unwelcoming Society

The Unwelcoming Society

by C. A. Matthews

When my mother first got off the ship in the United States of America, I wonder… Did she feel welcomed?

It was right before the start of the second World War. Mom had lived in Brazil all of her young life. Now, her parents thrust her into a strange, new world full of different people, weather, flora and fauna. Being scolded by her mother to “speak only English,” she soon lost the ability to converse in Portuguese, remembering only snatches of songs and nursery rhymes in later years. Mom learned that she had to speak English only because now she was American, for better or worse.

Nowadays, it almost always seems to be “for the worse” whenever an immigrant attempts to enter the US. They may be desperate to escape persecution and violence in their home country, but once they arrive in the US or at its border, their fears not only aren’t relieved—they’re often magnified.

I wrote about the end of the infamous Title 42 program and the new Biden Asylum-Transit ban a couple of months ago in The New Title 42. The mainstream media’s continual emphasis on the urban myth of the US southern border becoming inundated with immigrant hordes after the pandemic ban was lifted has not happened. However, the re-traumatization of asylum-seekers seeking safety has just begun.

How welcoming is that?

From the terrorists masquerading as Customs Border Patrol agents at our borders, to the outright Jim Crow decrees from our state legislatures, it can’t get much more unwelcoming in the United States of America in the year 2023 CE. If you think I’m kidding, get a load of this:

A group of Chinese citizens who live, work, study, and raise families in Florida, as well as a real estate brokerage firm in Florida that primarily serves clients of Chinese descent, are filing a lawsuit to combat Florida’s discriminatory property law, SB 264. Signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, the legislation unfairly restricts most Chinese citizens — and most citizens of Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia, and North Korea — from purchasing homes in the state. Unless the courts act, the law will take effect on July 1, 2023…

Today’s lawsuit argues that SB 264 will codify and expand housing discrimination against people of Asian descent in violation of the Constitution and the Fair Housing Act. It will also cast an undue burden of suspicion on anyone seeking to buy property whose name sounds remotely Asian, Russian, Iranian, Cuban, Venezuelan, or Syrian. 

Gov. DeSantis has argued that this law is necessary to protect Florida from the Chinese Communist Party and its activities. But this misguided rationale unfairly equates Chinese people with the actions of their government, and there is no evidence of national security harm resulting from real estate ownership by Chinese people in Florida. From Chinese Immigrants Sue Florida Over Unconstitutional, Discriminatory Law

This horrible law brings to mind the first immigration law passed in the United States, The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882:

From 1882 until 1943, most Chinese immigrants were barred from entering the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the nation's first law to ban immigration by race or nationality. All Chinese people--except travelers, merchants, teachers, students, and those born in the United States--were barred from entering the country. Federal law prohibited Chinese residents, no matter how long they had legally worked in the United States, from becoming naturalized citizens… The Geary Act, passed in 1892, required Chinese aliens to carry a residence certificate with them at all times upon penalty of deportation. Immigration officials and police officers conducted spot checks in canneries, mines, and lodging houses and demanded that every Chinese person show these residence certificates. --From Digital History

We’re really come a long, long way in the good ol’ US of A, haven’t we?

Working in immigration advocacy, I am always shocked at how woefully ignorant most Americans are of how poorly we treat and have treated immigrants. Consider this sobering fact: It wasn’t until the middle of America’s involvement in World War II (1943) that Chinese-American persons—people of Chinese ancestry, born and raised in families that had lived for several generations in the US—were allowed to become naturalized citizens.

Just because your last name was Li or Chin, and it wasn’t Smith or Schmidt, you couldn’t vote even though you were born in the US, went to school all your life in the US, and raised your own family in the US. You and your children weren’t entitled to any benefits of citizenship simply because your ancestors were born far, far away, across a big, wide ocean. Funny how those “Smiths” and “Schmidts” whose ancestors also came across an ocean were able to claim US citizenship and vote without any problems, though.

Wonder what the big difference is between these two groups, persons of European ancestry and those of Asian ancestry? Hmm... Do you think it has anything to do with their skin color perhaps?

And you think the Chinese had (and still have) it bad? When did American Indians become US citizens? Their ancestors have dwelt on the North American continent for tens of thousands of years, but most who live within the boundaries of the USA were not able to call themselves American citizens until… No, not 1776 or 1865, but 1924. It actually took until the second decade of the twentieth century for Native Americans to be considered “American.” 

Now, convince me just how “welcoming” American society is if it can't even acknowledge the original inhabitants of this continent or keep any of the treaties it made with their leaders. I'll wait.

The US is so “welcoming” that we don't even believe that having enough food to eat is a human right. Imagine that! We voted against that proposal in the United Nations, of all places. That attitude certainly goes a long way in explaining our homeless and hunger problems, doesn't it? It's not that Americans can't feed and house our own people, it's that we don't want to.

But it isn’t always about race and ethnicity in the US when it comes to being unwelcoming. Senator Rick Scott (another Floridian) this past week has decided that those who are professed “socialists” aren’t welcome in his state. This announcement has really put a crimp in my vacation plans. I wanted to go south and visit my aunt, uncle and cousins in Florida, along with my sister and brother-in-law who recently retired there. Senator Scott says he doesn’t want any of my no-good socialist money in his state. It’s not good enough for the likes of Florida, like Chinese people’s money isn't, or Cubans’, or Venezuelans’, Syrians’, Iranians’, Russians’, and North Koreans’ money.

If you are trans or non-binary, you’re not wanted in the Sunshine State, either. It’s almost as if your gender identification is seen as a contagious disease. Give Florida its due—they’re racist, fascistic, and terrified of people who don’t meet their expectations of what a boy or a girl is supposed to be like. You could call it “Equal Opportunity Bigotry.”

I know it’s not only the state of Florida that has passed these prejudiced decrees recently, but it is the perfect example of evil in action. Florida is full of hateful opportunists who are riding a wave of terror of “otherness” and hoping to make a profit while doing so. Look at what color Florida is on this map and what it stands for:

It's nothing to be proud of, in my opinion. I wouldn't be planning a vacation to Disney World or Universal Studios, in other words, unless you're a raving homophobic/transphobic, anti-Asian, anti-socialist. Then, by all means, go right ahead! (Just don't bother to return home. We can isolate all you bigots in Florida with a simple “border wall” at the top of the peninsula. We don't want your kind of “immigrant” in our states.)

A year ago, it was all “Hate the Russians! Love Zelensky! Who needs to spend billions on universal health care when America can spend it on the military-industrial complex and make our Congress members with insider stock trading deals richer!” And soon it will be, “Stop eating Chinese food and hate the Chinese! We’re at war with China over… over...”  

Gee, I forget! Why is the US mad at China? Is it because the have decent reserves of lithium? Silicon chip manufacturing? Or because they’ve been trying to bring about a diplomatic end to the conflict in Ukraine, saving lives and ending the madness in the process?  

It doesn’t take much to start a hate campaign against another country or ethnic or racial or political or gender group in the US. I sure wish our so-called “leaders” could do something to stop all this hate-mongering and sit down like rational adults and work out their differences with others in the best interest of every living thing on the planet before a nuclear war breaks out. (And no, corporations aren’t people, so they don’t count as “living things.”)

You could say that I’m just more than a little tired of the United States leading the way in all this worldwide nastiness; aren’t you?

The initials “US” are very appropriate. The initials “US” can also stand for the “Unwelcoming Society.” It's what we've become—or perhaps we've always been this way? It's time we stopped and took steps to reverse this horrid trend, don't you think?

 

Related Articles and Articles of Interest

Digital History: The Chinese Exclusion Act https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3291

Chinese Immigrants Sue Florida Over Unconstitutional, Discriminatory Law https://popularresistance.org/chinese-immigrants-sue-florida-over-unconstitutional-and-discriminatory-law/

ICE, Homeland Security Accused Of Targeting Outspoken Migrant Worker For Deportation https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/27/ice-homeland-security-accused-of-targeting-outspoken-migrant-worker-for-deportation/

Afghan families traverse most of Latin America to seek asylum at the US border https://theworld.org/stories/2023-05-17/afghan-families-traverse-most-latin-america-seek-asylum-us-border

Why are these Afghan refugees still stuck in limbo? https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/05/24/two-years-after-us-withdrawal-afghan-refugees-still-stuck-in-limbo/ 

Dozens of GoFundMe Users Seek Funds to Flee States Passing Transphobic Laws  https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/31/dozens-of-gofundme-users-seek-funds-to-flee-states-passing-transphobic-laws/ 

Target Accused of “Selling Out the LGBTQ+ Community to Extremists”  https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/27/target-accused-of-selling-out-the-lgbtq-community-to-extremists-after-pulling-pride-merchandise/

 

Many transgender health bills came from a handful of far-right interest groups https://apnews.com/article/transgender-health-model-legislation-5cc4a7cb4ab69150f670d06fd0f361ab

About Quislings
https://popularresistance.org/about-quislings/

East Palestine, 100 Days Later
https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/25/east-palestine-100-days-later/

US Troops To Train Peruvian Armed Forces, Proves US Behind Coup  https://popularresistance.org/us-troops-to-train-peruvian-armed-forces-proves-us-behind-coup/

$1.1 Trillion Was Spent On Militarism And War Last Year
https://popularresistance.org/new-report-1-1-trillion-or-62-of-the-federal-discretionary-budget-was-spent-on-militarism-and-war-last-year/

 

Washington-Insider Jeffrey Sachs on US Provoking Ukraine War | SYSTEM UPDATE https://youtu.be/kU7UzrJeX6E

Ukraine: Why Negotiations Are the Only Rational Option in the Face of Climate https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/25/ukraine-why-negotiations-are-the-only-rational-option-in-the-face-of-climate-chaos-and-nuclear-dangers/

 

Yes, Those Bioweapons Labs in Ukraine are a Real Thing

https://joebrunoli.substack.com/p/yes-those-bioweapons-labs-in-ukraine-are-a-real-thing-fad3785f3818

Media's Complete U-Turn After Russia Wins Bakhmut
https://youtu.be/O3kr4ZZl5FA

Fossil Fuel Companies Owe $5.4 Trillion In Reparations, Study Says
https://popularresistance.org/fossil-fuel-companies-owe-5-4-trillion-in-reparations-study-says/

10 Years After Snowden: Some Things Are Better, Some We’re Still Fighting For https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/23/10-years-after-snowden-some-things-are-better-some-were-still-fighting-for/

The Democratic Party’s Crucifixion of Matt Taibbi https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-democratic-partys-crucifixion

Manufactured crisis over US debt ceiling sets stage for bipartisan assault on Social Security and Medicare https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/05/25/pers-m25.html 

Kissinger vs. ‘The Most Dangerous Man in America’ https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/28/kissinger-vs-the-most-dangerous-man-in-america/

Coming soon, the first book from The Revolution Continues blog:  The Little Red Book of Revolution

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Good-bye, BlackRock! So Long, Petrodollar! Hello, Peace!

China must be stopped before it imposes totalitarian diplomacy on Ukraine and authoritarian peace in the middle east. --Caitlin Johnstone

 

Good-bye, BlackRock! 

So Long, Petrodollar! 

Hello, Peace!

by C. A. Matthews

 

I took only one economics course in college, but even I can understand enough about our screwed up capitalist economic system to see where we’ve gone wrong. We’ve placed greed before compassion and war before peace because of their profit-making abilities. Look where it’s gotten us—the US stands on the precipice of total disaster.

And that’s a good thing.

Can the destruction of our corporate-controlled government’s way of manipulating and exploiting other governments be a positive development in the quest for world peace? I think we’re witnessing the end of an era. Soon the United States will have to stop forcing “freedom and democracy” upon other countries via sanctions and bombings. 

This “War on Terrorism” era that turned the US into the world’s biggest economic terrorist is, at last, drawing to a close. China is taking the world stage as peacemaker, acting as a go-between to feuding neighbors Iran and Saudi Arabia. Other countries are being helped by China’s New Silk Road (officially, the Belt and Road Initiative) with its low interest loans that will help them build necessary infrastructure projects.

I can see that quizzical look on some of my readers' faces now. China? What do you mean it’s not forcing itself on others with economic sanctions and threats of “military interventions” the way the US does? It actually wants countries to get along so everyone can safely do business with each other and live in peace?

What a dangerous concept according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Blinken actually claimed that brokering peace deals between countries wasn’t a good thing after China said it was willing to sit down with Russia and Ukraine and help them put an end to their disagreements and save lives.

The US refuses to accept these potential peace negotiations (even though we’re supposedly not even at war with Russia) because it’s not in our best interests according to Blinken. The US government’s stance is that it prefers the fighting continue—or is it our true masters, the military industrial complex, who prefer this proxy war go on forever? Endless warfare means they can sell an infinite amount of armaments to a steadily growing number of combatants. At least that’s the theory if the countries involved don’t run out of soldiers. I guess there’s always those nifty A.I. “robodogs” with machine guns for faces to take up the slack, right?

MIC capitalists can’t have peace and cooperation breaking out across the planet like crocuses breaking through the frozen soil in the spring. No, never! What would happen to their profits if people simply lived in harmony with each other? Oh, the horror!

Those Americans who continue listening to mainstream media propagandists (who actually work for the military industrial complex) will continue believing that “War is Peace.” Orwellian doublespeak makes them see the world through the eyes of capitalist warmongers and profiteers. They irrationally hate China and its diplomatic ways. They’ll continue screaming for billions of dollars more to be sent to Ukraine in order to prolong that conflict, in spite of the fact there are fewer and fewer Ukrainians left to do the fighting. They’ll insist on the US starting a war to nuke China over Taiwan, a break away province that hasn’t been sanctioned or bombed by its parent country. For capitalists, it’s America’s way or the highway, even if the highway is strewn with millions of dead bodies from conflicts that could have easily been avoided.

Fortunately, the vast majority of sane individuals on this planet aren’t falling for the capitalists’ lies about the necessity for resource grabs any longer. They don’t agree with the US policy of economic sanctions that cause hunger and chaos in their wake. African leaders told a visiting V.P. Kamala Harris that they’re not going to be bullied into using the American petrodollar to do business internationally anymore. India and Pakistan have purchased and sold oil recently from Russia using their currency and not the petrodollar. Many countries are applying to join BRICS, an association of nations willing do business with each other in their own currencies and not the “standard reserve currency” of the US petrodollar.

Upon hearing about the growth of BRICS and the use of other currencies, Senator Marco Rubio let slip in a news interview: “They're creating a secondary economy in the world totally independent of the United States. We won't have to talk about sanctions in five years, because there'll be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar that we won't have the ability to sanction them." 

Oops!

That’s great news for heavily sanctioned countries like Cuba. Cuba, a country that came up with its own COVID-19 vaccine that it freely shares with others as well as a lung cancer vaccine than can cure millions. Cuba would prosper and be able to share even more of its people’s expertise freely without the economic roadblock of the US petrodollar. But Big Pharmaceutical corporations don’t want the “competition” that free vaccines and cures for cancer can give, so the US economic sanctions most likely will continue for the foreseeable future.

It’s nothing to be proud of. US economic sanctions and military interventions have maimed, starved, injured and killed more human beings in the last seventy years that in all the wars that have taken placed before that time. Most of the dead are children. 

Why, oh why? Don’t you capitalists have enough profits? Your CEOs are multi-billionaires already—do they have to become trillionaires at the cost of so much human suffering?

I've had enough of them. I say, “So long, petrodollar! Hello, world peace!” What about this“Good-bye, BlackRock” then?

French protesters—remember them from last week’s blog?—entered the Paris headquarters of BlackRock. BlackRock is an international corporation with assets worth somewhere in the vicinity of $10 trillion dollars. (Yes, that’s trillion with a “tr” and not a “b”.) If you are one of the millions of Americans who lost their home in the 2008 mortgage crisis, the bank or mortgage company that repossessed your home is probably controlled by BlackStone, which is owned by BlackRock. They hold a major share in thousands of corporations worldwide. Some of these corporations are major players in the US military industrial complex.

BlackRock has a lot of its investments in pension plans, perhaps even your own 401K, and it owns a lot of the French pension system as well. The French workers have told President Macron that they’re tired of the wealthy not paying their fair share of taxes and his unilateral raising of their retirement age. They are burning bank buildings because they realize their true enemies are not their fellow workers, or even people around the world who don’t look like them, but the capitalists who own and operate such obscenities as BlackRock. 

The French are also marching in the streets shouting at Macron to stop spending their taxes to fund a proxy war to control natural gas sales in Europe. They are anti-NATO, because everyone in France openly acknowledges that the Ukraine conflict was provoked by Western economies to break the Russian and its friends' economies. French workers want peace and justice for ordinary people, not only the multi-billionaires. 

 

Now you can see why Secretary Blinken doesn’t want China to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. There’s money to be made in conflict for his bosses in the military industrial complex, and peace would cause their profits to plummet. The petrodollar is on the wane, and he knows it. US economic sanctions won’t work much longer if there are other currencies being used to do business internationally between nations. The whole “terrorist threat” of US economic sanctions and endless warfare/coups d'état might be coming to an end much sooner than predicted.

It’s about time.

Let’s give peace a chance, America. Everyone will benefit. Even the goddamn profit-loving capitalists.

 

Related Links:

Geopolitical game changer: China's Iran-Saudi peace deal is big blow to petrodollar and US economic hegemony https://geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/p/china-iran-saudi-peace-petrodollar 

 

Countries Worldwide Are Dropping the US Dollar

https://popularresistance.org/countries-worldwide-are-dropping-the-us-dollar/

The Tragedy of US Diplomacy Pushing for War But Never Peace

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/the-tragedy-of-us-diplomacy-pushing-for-war-but-never-peace

 

Human Destiny In Ukraine

https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/09/human-destiny-in-ukraine/

On Biden Turning Down China's Push for a Peace Deal in Ukraine

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/china-peace-deal-for-ukraine

 

How the Global South Has Risen in the Face of US Sabotage

https://www.mintpressnews.com/how-the-global-south-has-risen-in-the-face-of-us-sabotage/284247/

French Pension Protesters Occupy BlackRock, Torch Restaurant https://popularresistance.org/french-pension-protesters-occupy-blackrock-torch-restaurant/  

 

UN Human Rights Council Condemns Impact Of Unilateral Sanctions  https://popularresistance.org/un-human-rights-council-condemns-impact-of-unilateral-sanctions/ 

 

While Everyone's Distracted, The Dollar Is Dying
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/while-everyones-distracted-dollar-dying

More and More Countries Are Ditching the US Dollar, Here's Why (video)  https://youtu.be/UcIPLGvwGF0

Question marks emerge over dollar supremacy
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/04/06/tokb-a06.html

Russia Writes Off 20 Billion In Debt To African Countries
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Russia-Writes-Off-20-Billion-In-Debt-To-African-Countries-20230320-0015.html

15 Million in the US to be Kicked Off of Public Health Benefits
https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/07/15-million-in-the-us-to-be-kicked-off-of-public-health-benefits/

UN Human Rights Council Condemns Impact of Unilateral Sanctions https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/06/un-human-rights-council-condemns-impact-of-unilateral-sanctions/

Africa ‘All Out,’ 54-0, Against Joining Biden’s Proxy War on Russia
https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/07/africa-all-out-54-0-against-joining-bidens-proxy-war-on-russia/

The West Has Been Planning to Crush China For a Very Long Time
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-west-has-been-planning-to-crush

Why China's Winning & The US Is Panicking (w/ Josef Gregory Mahoney) (video) https://www.youtube.com/live/MMkqeaTlVTA

Chinese Currency Displaces Euro In Brazil’s Foreign Reserves
https://popularresistance.org/chinese-currency-displaces-euro-in-brazils-foreign-reserves/

China’s Historical Destiny Is to Stand With the Third World
https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/02/chinas-historical-destiny-is-to-stand-with-the-third-world/

 

Marco Rubio Accidentally Makes a Great Argument Against US Dollar Hegemony https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/marco-rubio-accidentally-makes-a 

 

Protesters Storm BlackRock (video) https://rumble.com/v2he81o-protesters-storm-blackrocks-offices-bidens-oil-drilling-orgy.html

Macron Fails to Persuade, So Opts for Coercion https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/08/macron-fails-to-persuade-so-opts-for-coercion/

French Protesters Storm BlackRock's Paris HQ (video) https://youtu.be/xqki_HI1ZRY

US Media Cheer as France Forces Old People to Work https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/08/us-media-cheer-as-france-forces-old-people-to-work/

Biden Knocking 15 Million Off Healthcare (video) https://rumble.com/v2h0lzq-trumps-plane-gets-more-media-than-biden-knocking-15-million-off-healthcare.html 

US Bank Bailout Benefited Billionaires, Exposing Corruption: ‘I Understand Why Americans Are Angry’ https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/10/us-bank-bailout-benefitted-billionaires-exposing-corruption-i-understand-why-americans-are-angry/

Seymour Hersh: The Nord Stream Ghost Ship
https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/05/seymour-hersh-the-nord-stream-ghost-ship/

For The Record, NPR Absolutely Is US State Propaganda
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/for-the-record-npr-absolutely-is

French Revolution 2.0/American Revolution Nil https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2023/04/french-revolution-20american-revolution.html

Seen on Twitter:

French protestors have stormed the Blackrock HQ. It's not just about retirement reforms now. They know who their enemies are (and this is why the US gov want to ban you know what) pic.twitter.com/kJq1rl90yW

— Prof Zenkus (@anthonyzenkus) April 8, 2023

"Peace? You want peace??? 😡We will give you a 'piece' of this" -- US Navy sends a nuclear submarine loaded with missiles to the Middle East after Saudi Arabia makes peace with Iran, Syria and Yemen.

America is a crazy and dangerous hegemon unable to handle its decline amidst… pic.twitter.com/S8UVqzG6TN

— S.L. Kanthan (@Kanthan2030) April 8, 2023

Same old story. During elections, Republicans and Democrats scream that the differences between them are so seismic, civilization itself hangs in the balance. Then on the most consequential actions they can take -- like hurtling into World War III -- they behave exactly the same pic.twitter.com/SSDNZuDD0m

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 6, 2023

Why Are We Repeating History?

Why Are We Repeating History?  

by C. A. Matthews 

 

Happy Black History Month!

Last year, we spent several weeks in the month of February discussing various topics that are of particular interest to African-Americans—reparations, critical race theory, and what it must be like to be considered only 3/5 of a human being (according to the US Constitution). We were still reeling from the deaths of George Floyd and many others. The Afghan War was winding down about that same time, but the upcoming proxy war in Ukraine was winding up. I held out still some hope the war hawk rhetoric would die down and the Minsk Agreements would keep things peaceful.

One year later, we find ourselves in a world of déjà vu. Critical race theory is under violent attack by right-wing pundits, reparations are still seen as an impossible (or at least a far-off) goal, and the police are killing an average of three ordinary Americans every day, many of them persons of color. (See last week’s blog about some of the latest police caused deaths, Targets On Our Backs.) Hundred of thousands have been left homeless or slaughtered in grueling, needless warfare in Ukraine thanks to a determined lack of diplomacy and billions of dollars of American military-industrial complex weaponry.

The rich got richer. The poor and POC got shot at and beaten up by thugs wearing cop uniforms. Endless warfare for control of fossil fuels continues. The more things change... 

It is said, “History repeats itself,” but that statement isn’t an imperative. We don’t have to keep repeating ourselves, especially when the event is destructive and immoral. So much of American history is just that—destructive and immoral. I don’t pull punches anymore. There’s no use lying about the filthy propaganda US government officials spew forth from their mouths like volcanoes full of molten shit. There’s no use lying about our blood-soaked history of killing our own and others across the globe simply for the sake of lining the pockets of capitalists who desire ever more blood money.

We don’t need militarized police forces or killer cops—we need social services and Medicare for All. We don’t need to pretend any longer we’re doing anything except money laundering for Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, Boeing, etc., in a provoked proxy war in Ukraine to knock out Russia’s economy. And we certainly don’t need to pretend that we’re not gunning for another chance at starting World War III by antagonizing China this week over a lost weather balloon.

We’ve been here before. Déjà vu. History repeats itself. Things don’t change for the better for the vast majority of human beings.

I read a couple of articles this past week that opened my eyes and made me think of how history and the present are intertwined. The first article ran in the New Yorker online in July 2020. The Invention of the Police tells the story of what we understand as “police” from ancient times to the present day. We learn how the American system of policing is based upon military practices. The article is well worth the few minutes it takes to read (or listen to) to see how the destructive, immoral patterns we witness in our world today have their roots in a history not worth repeating. 

My argument in Targets On Our Backs about how the police in the US are based on the slave patrols is further buttressed with some interesting facts:

In eighteenth-century New York, a person held as a slave could not gather in a group of more than three; could not ride a horse; could not hold a funeral at night; could not be out an hour after sunset without a lantern; and could not sell “Indian corn, peaches, or any other fruit” in any street or market in the city. Stop and frisk, stop and whip, shoot to kill.

Then there were the slave patrols. Armed Spanish bands called hermandades had hunted runaways in Cuba beginning in the fifteen-thirties, a practice that was adopted by the English in Barbados a century later. It had a lot in common with England’s posse comitatus, a band of stout men that a county sheriff could summon to chase down an escaped criminal. South Carolina, founded by slave owners from Barbados, authorized its first slave patrol in 1702; Virginia followed in 1726, North Carolina in 1753. Slave patrols married the watch to the militia: serving on patrol was required of all able-bodied men (often, the patrol was mustered from the militia), and patrollers used the hue and cry to call for anyone within hearing distance to join the chase. Neither the watch nor the militia nor the patrols were “police,” who were French, and considered despotic. In North America, the French city of New Orleans was distinctive in having la police: armed City Guards, who wore military-style uniforms and received wages, an urban slave patrol. (…)

It is also often said that modern American urban policing began in 1838, when the Massachusetts legislature authorized the hiring of police officers in Boston. This, too, ignores the role of slavery in the history of the police. In 1829, a Black abolitionist in Boston named David Walker published “An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World,” calling for violent rebellion: “One good black man can put to death six white men.” Walker was found dead within the year, and Boston thereafter had a series of mob attacks against abolitionists, including an attempt to lynch William Lloyd Garrison, the publisher of The Liberator, in 1835. Walker’s words terrified Southern slave owners. The governor of North Carolina wrote to his state’s senators, “I beg you will lay this matter before the police of your town and invite their prompt attention to the necessity of arresting the circulation of the book.” By “police,” he meant slave patrols: in response to Walker’s “Appeal,” North Carolina formed a statewide “patrol committee.” —Jill Lepore, The Invention of the Police

Eye-opening and thought provoking, isn’t it? What we’ve tricked ourselves into believing—that all police officers are the handsome cops on Law and Order or diligent Detective Joe Friday in the TV series Dragnet—is completely false. We do have an excuse. We’ve been taught to believe these lies all our lives through the clever use of novels and television/movie dramas which paint the police in strictly heroic and positive terms. If there’s ever a racist cop or a crooked cop or a super-violent cop portrayed in fiction, they’re almost always seen as the exception, never the rule.

Jill Lepore’s article demonstrates how destructive this “copaganda” (cop propaganda) truly is. When an organization is based upon protecting the property (that is, enslaved persons) and tasked with maintaining the safety of the ruling elites (that is, to prevent slave uprisings), it will always be a corrupt and violent organization. Poor and powerless persons will undoubtedly suffer and die from this organization’s practices. It’s what our true masters—the super-rich oligarchs—demand of their policing agencies.

A corrupt, violent organization must hire and train only those who are willing to do the job they’ve been tasked with, which is to keep us the poor and struggling workers, persons of color, and unwanted immigrants in their proper place, planted firmly beneath the heels of the ruling capitalist elite.

Are you starting to see why history should never be allowed to repeat itself in regards to the police? The time of rounding up “property” in order to keep the capitalist class safe and wealthy is over. At least, it should be.

Even very recent history should never be repeated. This is noted well in Caitlin Johnstone’s article US Surrounds China With War Machinery While Freaking Out About Balloons:

So everyone's losing their minds over a balloon that in all probability would be mostly worthless for spying, even while everyone knows the US spies on China at every possible opportunity. US officials have complained to the press that American spies are having a much harder time conducting operations and recruiting assets in China than they used to because of measures the Chinese government has taken to thwart them, and in 2001 a US spy plane caused a major international incident when it collided with a Chinese military jet on China's coastline, killing the pilot.

The US considers it its sovereign right to spy on any nation it chooses, and the average American tends more or less to see it the same way. This is highlighted in controversies around domestic versus foreign surveillance, for example; Americans were outraged over the Edward Snowden revelations not because spy agencies were conducting surveillance, but because they were conducting surveillance on American citizens. It's just taken as a given that spying on foreigners is fine, so it's a bit silly to react melodramatically when foreigners return the favor.

But, of course, the US is acting melodramatically over a lost weather balloon. They are attempting to provoke the Chinese into a “shoot first” situation, such as they did to Russia in February 2022 when, under the auspices of the NATO, they completely forgot about the Minsk Agreements and armed Ukraine to fight a proxy war. Yet again we are all living under the imminent threat of nuclear war.

We’ve been here before. Déjà vu. History repeats itself. Things don’t change for the better for anybody.

Why are we repeating history like this on a yearly basis? Isn’t the military-industrial complex making enough money from armaments sales? Arms manufacturers' stock prices have skyrocketed on Wall Street. The idea that the US/NATO bloc can take on two nuclear powers at the same time is utterly insane. But here we are again, repeating history, attempting to provoke another super-power, while simultaneously riling up the American public’s emotions with over-the-top propaganda about a lost weather balloon. 

For example, my husband turned on ABC News Friday night. We rarely, if ever, watch mainstream media outlets, and he’d turned off the sound, but I noticed the first story was about the lost weather balloon. I went into the kitchen and a few minutes later I came back and noticed that the same video clip of the weather balloon was still plastered on the screen. I turned on the sound and heard nothing but hysterical “The Chinese are invading!” commentary. I promptly hit the mute button. Five minutes later, the weather balloon was still on the screen and “experts” were all screaming about how this lost weather balloon means war. ABC spent the entirety of its half hour newscast spewing inflammatory nonsense, probably at the behest of the Biden Administration. War propaganda bears repeating, apparently.

All Americans can learn something from celebrating Black History Month. That feeling of “We’ve been here before. Déjà vu. History repeats itself. Things don’t change for the better for the vast majority of human beings,” is real. It proves that our gut feeling is correct. The ruling elite will do whatever it takes to get the results they want. 

If the elite want to keep their enslaved workers from running away, they’ll equip and arm a slave patrol. If they want to corner the LNG market in Europe, make huge profits from selling arms, and destroy Russia’s and possibly China’s economies, they’ll rev up the propaganda machine of the mainstream media (90% of which are owned by just six corporations) to create the necessity for a war in order to do so.  

The US is still the only industrialized country on Earth without a single-payer (Medicare For All) health care system, free education pre-K through college, and a Universal Basic Income because these programs have been deemed unnecessary by our masters. We breath polluted air, drink water full of plastic particles, and eat cheap processed food infused with high fructose corn syrup because its all we can afford. If we should ever act out because of these injustices and protest, the elite's "slave patrols" stand ready to put us back into our place, swiftly and violently, if they deem necessary. 

Whatever the ruling capitalist elite want they will have it. They will have their way, and they won’t lose any sleep over how many are starved, killed, or maimed in the process. You can be sure about that, as history repeats itself.

Happy Black History Month, America. Our sordid history doesn't need to keep repeating itself. Abolitionist David Walker had the right idea for a rebellion, don’t you think? Watch out for those slave patrols.

 

Related Links:

Teach Black History--Don't Ban It https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/04/teach-black-history-dont-ban-it/ 

New Advanced Placement African American Studies Course is Watered Down Version of Itself  https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/03/new-advanced-placement-african-american-studies-course-is-watered-down-version-of-itself/

The Invention of the Police https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-invention-of-the-police

US Surrounds China with War Machinery While Freaking Out About Balloons  https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/03/caitlin-johnstone-us-surrounds-china-with-war-machinery-while-freaking-out-about-balloons/ 

The Pentagon's Balloon Floats On  https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/05/patrick-lawrence-the-pentagons-balloon-floats-on/ 

Chris Hedges: WikiLeaks Exposed the Extent of US Meddling Abroad and Corruption at Home. Why Have We Forgotten It? https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/04/chris-hedges-wikileaks-exposed-the-extent-of-us-meddling-abroad-and-corruption-at-home-why-have-we-forgotten-it/ 

 

Nuclear War Imminent? https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/03/nuclear-war-imminent/ 

 

More Evidence That The West Sabotaged Peace In Ukraine

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/more-evidence-that-the-west-sabotaged 

 

How the US Instigated the Ukraine Crisis https://popularresistance.org/how-the-us-instigated-the-ukraine-crisis/

 

Uncomfortable Truths: Critical Race Theory https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2022/02/uncomfortable-truths-critical-race.html

Why Not Reparations? https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2022/02/why-not-reparations.html

 

What's It Like to Be 3/5 of a Person? https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2022/02/whats-it-like-to-be-35-of-person.html

 

Targets On Our Backs https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2023/01/targets-on-our-backs.html

 

Do the Police Have an Obligation to Protect You? https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/do-the-police-have-an-obligation-to-protect-you/

 

Quote of the week:

Ask an empire apologist to show you how China is aggressing against the US and they'll start babbling about TikTok and balloons. --Caitlin Johnstone

 

 

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