"The U.S. has routinely destroyed democracy throughout the globe while its leaders spout words about spreading democracy."
"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism....
"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
"During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." - Major General SmedleyButler, 1933.
General Butler was the most decorated U.S. military officer of his day. His experiences helping the United States Government subvert democracy throughout the world so that multinational corporations could steal the land and resources of other nations, prompted him to write a short but politically devastating book, War is a Racket, in 1934. The use of military, economic and political power to control weaker nations is a thread that runs throughout the history of the United States from the past to the present – though most Americans either deny that fact or are ignorant of it.
The recent death of Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean torturer and murderer whom the United States helped bring to power in a coup in 1973 – toppling the democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende – was simply one of the latest reminders of the history of the U.S. government in subverting democracy in order to advance the interests of U.S. bankers, oil companies, sugar interests and other economically powerful groups. Far from being a force for good in the world, the U.S. has routinely destroyed democracy throughout the globe while its leaders spout words about spreading democracy: words Condoleezza Rice invoked while helping supply the Israelis with bombs they dropped on Lebanese children in what may have been a death blow to Lebanese democracy. Words George Bush invokes while killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children so that major U.S. companies can steal Iraq’s oil.
“The fear of democracy exists, by definitional necessity, in elite groups who monopolize economic and political power,” declared Haitian historian Patrick Bellegarde-Smith. Bellegarde-Smith was writing about Haiti’s history, but his observation applies equally well to the history of the United States, including its current history: those who rule this country fear democracy, especially in lands populated by people of color, because democracy in those lands and in those hands threatens the vast wealth and political power of white elites.
“Those who rule this country fear democracy, especially in lands populated by people of color.”
This fear is especially strong in a nation that was born from a decision by privileged white males to craft a Constitution that protected their privileges, whether their wealth had been gained from buying and selling enslaved Africans, stealing Native American land, or in some other kind of “business” transactions.
“We have a security that the general government can never emancipate them (slaves),” said Gen. Charles Pinckney of South Carolina in praising the advantages the new Constitution gave slaveowners, “We have obtained a right to recover our slaves in whatever part of America they may take refuge, which is a right we had not before. In short, we have made the best terms for the security of this species of property it was in our power to make.”
The men who ratified the Constitution invoked words about “democracy,” while making sure that Black people, Native Americans, women and white males without property, were not represented at their Constitutional Convention. Patrick Henry and other “patriots” successfully argued for passage of the Bill of Rights, in order to make sure the federal government could not free their slaves under any circumstances, such as it did with some of the Black men who fought in the Revolutionary War.
|
"In economic life there is extreme inequality and exploitation. Although colonialism no longer exists openly in the political and economic sphere, still it persists indirectly, and this should not be tolerated... In this respect you should remember that in economic life, we will have to guarantee the minimum requirements of life to one and all... There cannot be any sort of adjustment as far as this point is concerned. The minimum purchasing requirement must be guaranteed to all. Today these fundamental essentialities are not being guaranteed. Rather, people are being guided by deceptive economic ideas like outdated Marxism, which has proven ineffective in practical life and has not been successfully implemented in any corner of the world. Why do people still believe in such a theory, which has never been proved successful? The time has come for people to make a proper assessment of whether they are being misguided or not." |
|
"Human beings have still not been able to form a human society, and have still not learned to move with the spirit of a pilgrim. Although many small groups, motivated by self-interest, work together in particular situations, not even a small fraction of their work is done with a broader social motive. By strict definition, shall we have to declare that each small family unit is a society in itself? If going ahead in mutual adjustment only out of narrow self-interest or momentary self-seeking is called society, then in such a society, no provision can be made for the disabled, the diseased or the helpless, because in most cases nobody can benefit from them in any way... in that case there always remains the possibility of some people getting isolated from the collective. All human beings must attach themselves to others by the common bond of love and march forward hand in hand; then only will I proclaim it a society." |