Egypt is a lesson for America, teaching us to look at ourselves, at how free we really are.
We are not so different, Egypt under Mubarak and America under what ever gang of financial criminals and foreign thugs is controlling the government today. Egyptians have known thousands of years of slavery. They recognize it when they see it. Slavery, for most Americans, is something new.
Americans woke up one day and weren’t so free anymore, maybe not at all. Some didn’t see it coming. Others screamed a warning and were pounded into the ground for it.
Seeing what is going on in Egypt reminds me of how I thought America was going to be. The 60′s were confusing, for those of us who were around then and still have the brain cells left to reminisce. John Kennedy’s America was going to save the world, not so much from Communism but from slavery and dictatorship. Africa had “de-colonialized” and the dictatorships, the banana republics, Franco, Tito, whoever that guy in Korea was, all those oppressive folks were going to be tossed aside and Americans would lead the way, Peace Corps if possible, Special Forces if it came down to it.
We were the guys with democracy to sell and Kennedy had the credibility to pull it off. Then “they” killed him and we got Johnson, the USS Liberty, deeper into Vietnam and, eventually another dead Kennedy, killed to put Nixon in office and end all that foolishness, hope and moral righteousness.
America was going to be about bombing.This is the America we now know but don’t love quite as much as we might. Not everyone is happy about blowing poor people up for money, not everyone but enough are quiet about it so that it can go on year after year.
We all thought the Cold War was a big deal, fighting for the “hearts and minds’ of the poor of the world, democracy vs. communism. All we really sold was slavery, debt and endless dictatorships. Mubarak is one of the hold overs from the Cold War, America’s “place holder” in an Egypt we “won” from Soviet influence. Mubarak’s continued survival into the 21st century was predicated on America’s new game, Islamic extremism, supposedly a “disease” threatening the world, one born in Egypt at the hands of the Muslim brotherhood.
This was to be the new “Cold War,” the fight to protect western civilization from billions of militant extremists ready to blow themselves up at a second to earn their way to martyrdom and paradise. I am now ready to rethink the Cold War, may be it was as phony as this one too. Vietnam certainly was and I know that one “up front and personal.”
Every time we find a suicide bomber or a terror cell, the money behind it seems to trace back to an insurance company tied to the FBI, CIA, RAW, Mossad or some other handler. In fact, 99.99% of terrorism seems to be aimed AT Muslims.
If there really is a “clash of civilizations,” it is between human beings and the monsters our press never reports but we all know are out there. Monsters? What do you call people who, not only profit from war and terrorism but make sure it happens even if they have to hire the terrorists themselves as we see with 9/11, or as any sane person sees with 9/11 anyway.
If America wasn’t in Afghanistan, there wouldn’t be a war in Afghanistan. There wouldn’t be a war in Pakistan either for that matter.
Think about Smedley Butler, so many years ago, ‘War is a Racket.’ This had to be the smartest man in the world. If you don’t know Butler, take a moment, open a browser and do a search. Read that. If you don’t ever come back here to finish this, you are forgiven. If you believe war is about security or honor or patriotism, read Butler several times until you know nothing else.
If you think there were ‘clean’ wars, I suggest you read David Irving’s biography of Winston Churchill. This link I will supply as this isn’t a simple search. Irving is, perhaps, the best researcher on World War II around, if anything too good. When Churchill turned out to be mostly alcohol and “hot air,” Irving made some folks mad. When everything we know about Hitler came into doubt also, Irving, a best selling author, was blacklisted and later imprisoned. He is a “truth teller.”
The point? There are no clean wars, there were no clean wars, war is a racket and people who make war do so to keep mankind enslaved. The people of Egypt are out there, being what Americans ought to be, should have been when elections were stolen, should have been when Kennedy was killed and we had that outrageous “lone gunman” story foisted on us, should have been when the cover story for 9/11 fell apart. With a clear majority of Americans believing that our own government murdered thousands of people in order to get American into a war, years of demonstrations still don’t get 300 people in the streets. The families of the dead have to buy TV commercials.
Our failure to speak up is far worse than simply burning the flag.
YouTube - Veterans Today -
Since this commercial hit, national television broke the 9/11 conspiracy wide open but it is Egyptians standing up, perhaps even for us. We can’t speak, not here in America. Even writing this borders on a violation of our new laws. Not even congress read them, even when they passed them. Half the things you say to your neighbors during the Super Bowl are considered “terrorism” now and you can be locked up for life without a trial, your lawyer jailed with you. This is how it is in Egypt, this is also how it has become in the United States.
Egyptians, by the millions, have hit the streets to bring down 30 years of a government that wasn’t hated 30 years ago, not by so many. 30 years is a long time, trading stability and security for freedom, and getting neither. 30 years of Mubarak
America is ten years into the same cycle, patriot acts, habeas corpus gone, a Department of Homeland Security, demonstrations only allowed in “free speech zones.”
I so envy the people of Egypt and the pride they are feeling, no matter how this ends. They stood on their feet, something the people of America have failed at since the early 1970s. I don’t count the Tea Party, with its financing from billionaires and its love of war and the frightening ambivalence it has shown for the real constitution, real American rights, real American freedoms.
What good are guns when those who have them watch censored news all day and have become little more than an informal militia for the corporate thugs?
Ever see a gun owner at an anti-war rally? What good are guns when gun owners care nothing for real freedoms? All the guns in Egypt are with the police and army and its Egypt standing up for our freedoms. Few Americans seem to care. Maybe its too cold outside.
Few in America were aware that Egypt was part of a political nexus in the Middle East, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United States and several more, more “regimes’ than governments with Israel alone maintaining the appearance of democracy, only at the hands of a controlled press and censored news in the US. It was Egypt that stood erect and declared their manhood.
I so envy the people of Egypt and the pride they are feeling,no matter how this ends.
What could be at the end of the road, well, it could be democracy, a word seldom used in America, not anymore. That ship has sailed, Americans talk about being a republic, accept rigged elections, defacto foreign rule, multi-national corporations, powerful foreign lobbies and a government of cowards and bunglers who pander to the weak and fearful.
Almost all Americans have written America off, declared it bankrupt, bereft of money for sure, drowning in debt, owing money that never existed to those that don’t deserve it.
That 15 trillion dollars of debt makes all Americans indentured servants, slaves now as our generations to follow will also be. Americans still work, they toil, those with jobs, Americans dream and Americans sacrifice. What Americans don’t do, not anymore, is enjoy the fruits of their labor. America is a land of petty criminals, small time con-men, not petty in theft but small of mind, body and spirit. Listen to the radio, read the job ads in the paper. Everything is a scam. America is a nation of scamsters.
All those guns, all that power and there is no nation on earth as victimized as America, no people who have lost as much, no people forced to endure as much as Americans, with our cheap food and our world class medical care for the rich. Try getting a kidney transplant by showing up at an emergency room. No advanced medical care is available for people that don’t have an “adequate support system.”
That means, if you aren’t rich, you die. You should see the level of health care we give our veterans. As a totally disabled combat vet, I have heard “you don’t qualify for that” or “we don’t pay for that” or ‘that medication isn’t available for veterans” so many times that trying to get health care is a joke. Now our new “Tea Party” congress is planning to cut medical care and benefits for veterans even more. Good luck with that.
We expected it. Whenever there is flag waving and speeches, we know a truckload of manure is coming. Speaking for America’s veterans, which I actually do, I thank those of you who supported the politicians who have turned on those who gave so much to defend their country. You say you were too busy worrying about “Obamacare” to think about veterans and our military? They’re only starting with us, veterans are always an easy target. They have plans for the rest of you. Watch gas prices rise, health care standards plunge, watch criminals of every kind operate with “Madoff” impunity, just as they did during the Bush years.
Thanks. We will remember you for this.
A decade after Americans watched the TV spectacular of the century, more a Las Vegas magic act, disappearing buildings, destroyed lives and a nation’s descent into lies and dishonor, 9/11 is the watershed for America’s decline.
It started. We were told to be afraid and given reason. Airline hijackings had been a reality for decades, we thought our government could handle it. Were told there were still sky marshals, and the world’s largest air force could intercept an airliner in a few moments, just take a F 15 to afterburner, 1700 miles per hour plus, just like chasing a moped with a Ferrari, one with a NORAD navigation system.
But we learned NORAD didn’t exist, not that day and we didn’t really have an air force either. They were gone, maybe on vacation with the sky marshals, Bermuda or maybe Tel Aviv? We were told we were defenseless and they were right, we were defenseless, but against whom?
Americans buy guys because they feel defenseless and are frightened to death of their own government. This is how things have been in Egypt for a long time and they don’t have guns.
Ten years later, I know how the people of Egypt feel because I feel the same way, oppressed by a government that has made a sham out of elections, a government that cares nothing about people or laws, one that only serves the pack of criminals crawling the sewers of Washington DC. Turn an ear that direction? Do you hear them slithering?
I wonder how many Americans are feeling what I feel.
In the last ten years, the right to own guns has become more important than ever. Do you ever wonder why?
Do you know what most American gun owners think? I can tell you. They think about how they are going to die with a gun in their hand and how it is going to go down;
Millions of Americans are thinking the same thing. They expect to see the black vans on their street, blue and red lights blinking, doors opening, a lethal cargo of faceless automatons, riot shields, submachine guns, SWAT types.Do this, imagine, not just big cities, but small towns, all across America. Imagine everyone hitting the street, not just socialists, or “gun nuts” or anti-government fanatics but regular people, sick and tired of feeling powerless, feeling duped. Imagine reaching for your coat, wanting to see what it is all about and the hope that it might just be possible to undo, to pull it all down.
What will it take, use the shotgun? No real American trusts a 9mm anymore. Do you have any idea how many gun owners have searched the web looking for rounds that will penetrate body armor?
American gun owners, millions of them, expect to die at the hands of their government.
How they see it coming down? Laws will be passed legalizing illegal immigrants. Then speaking up with be consider “hate speech.” The more controlling and oppressive the government becomes, perhaps even worse than it is now, the more need it will have to end free expression, end free thought and control all communication, even worse than it is today.
It is very bad today, don’t fool yourself. If you are getting your news from “the news” and many still are, it will be a big surprise. For others, it will be expected, in fact, millions expect it now.
Will it be “liberals” or “conservatives?” Millions worry about that too. Problem is, those telling them to worry about liberals and conservatives are the ones plotting.
Imagine hitting the streets, all Americans, not out of hate but out of love for America. Imagine finding that all those things you believed made us different no longer mattered. What if everyone wanted to live in a free country, to live in peace, to want only to work hard and earn their own way.
What if we all got sick and tired of being slaves. You say you aren’t a slave?
Funny, America doesn’t seem like a country run by a free people, in fact, I can’t say I have heard anyone crazy enough to say that in years.
Free, in America, means you one of the lucky few not to be in prison, millions are, or on probation of some kind. 20 million Americans have some kind of problem with the law. Millions of Americans learned that if you have a mortgage on your home, you own nothing.
Americans are prisoners, living from paycheck to paycheck or unemployment check to unemployment check or, as with so many, wondering where food or shelter is going to come from, how their kids are going to live. Some Americans, many Americans are actually facing starvation today. You don’t think so?
Look down your block. How many people there haven’t paid car insurance? How many are behind in rent or house payments? How many are buried in credit card debt?
You think this was an accident? When trillions of dollars left America, and it did, half of America’s money went overseas during the last 10 years, you are now living through the aftermath. The equity in your home, gone, what was equity is now debt. You can’t move, you can’t sell, you have nothing. Slavery.
Americans have had their wages cut each years since Reagan got into office. Our standard of living has lowered each years since then after 200 years of meteoric rise. The stock markets increased 10 fold in value and Americans made less, and became poorer. Few Americans own anything at all, a house, a car, even decent clothing.
This was the game all along. You don’t think you are a slave? Try being independent. “They” will give you two choices, live under a bridge or in prison.
People of Egypt, thank you for reminding us.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
1 comment:
People Have The Power
by
Patti Smith
Post a Comment