.
If you want to destroy a nation and enslave its people, you must first destroy their culture, erase all evidence of their history. That's why the accomplishments of women and minorities in the U.S. have never been included in our history books, never taught to the children: their history has been eradicted to keep women and minorities demoralized, weak, enslaved.
When Spain decided to invade and take control of California from their bases in occupied Mexico, they found land belonging to native Americans. Spain had the weapons and trained military so could fight when necessary, but their real weapon was the Catholic Church and its dogma. They set up missions up and down the coast of California in one of the first "Hearts and Mind" military occupations in the new world. Well yes, they admit, they did kill a lot of people, but they also tried to "help" the people. For example, they gave them a place to live -- imprisoned within the mission system, enslaved to the church. They tried to help the children -- by beating them into renouncing their own culture and belief system, and proclaiming adherence to the Catholic doctrine as a condition to the right to live. Invade, slaughter, indoctrinate, destroy the local culture, force them to give at least lip service to your dogma. Spreading freedom throughout the world. Along with smallpox and other western diseases that wiped out up to 90% of some native American communities. Dominus Vobiscum.
If you really want to own people, you have to strip them of everything they have. And the most important thing they have is their history, their culture, and their beliefs. The European settlors, invaders of the land later called the U.S., began stealing Native American land as soon as they got here, and kept it up all the way to the west coast. Eventually the U.S. came up with lofty theories to claim that they were destined by God to engage in this slaughter, reducing the Native American population from an estimated 18 million pre-Columbus down to a few hundred thousand. By 1830, the U.S. government had passed a law called the Indian Removal Act which required all Native Americans be either killed or moved to desolate barren land and confined in concentration camps.
"By 1872, the U.S. Army pursued a policy to exterminate all Native Americans unless or until they agreed to surrender and live on reservations 'where they could be taught Christianity and agriculture.' The Indian [was thought] as less than human and worthy only of extermination. We did shoot down defenseless men, and women and children at places like Camp Grant, Sand Creek, and Wounded Knee. We did feed strychnine to red warriors. We did set whole villages of people out naked to freeze in the iron cold of Montana winters. And we did confine thousands in what amounted to concentration camps."
—The Indian Wars of the West, 1934
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States
So every decade or so our nation just takes out the same old fairy tale, dusts it off, and begins the extermination of another group of people. Like now, in the middle east, where we will kill all the people unless they agree to allow our country to occupy and control them while western corporations strip them of all their resources. And oh yes -- we also are there to teach those people "christianity," just like we did to the Native Americans.
As Native Americans from across the country were exterminated, and the last survivors in the west rounded up and sent on forced marches that make the Turks' treatment of the Armenians look like line dancing, the surviving Native Americans, weakened and in despair, turned to fantasy in their last pathetic hope to be saved. They turned to the Ghost Dance. The idea of the Ghost Dance spread among the survivors, and was fanatically embraced by these poor people as their communities were destroyed. The belief was that if enough of them engaged in the Ghost Dance, it would make all the white people disappear. The white people were really spooked by the dance, so they declared it illegal: No dance, no culture, no history, no belief other than that of the occupying force. When the people persisted in the Ghost Dance, they were slaughtered.
In Wounded Knee, 153 native Americans were slaughtered, many of them women and children. Resistance is futile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Dance
When the U.S. military invaded Iraq the most recent time, the occupying forces were told that they should do nothing to stop the looters (American?) who were emptying out Iraq's museums of all their national treasures. Iraq is sometimes called the Birthplace of Civilization (and its neighbor Afghanistan is called the Graveyard of Empires). Their antiquities contain much evidence of what really happened thousands of years ago, evidence which could undermine the Judeo-Christian claims about their version of history. The National Museum of Iraq includes antiquities that are almost Three Thousand Years Old. They were up, running, keeping records, long before Jesus. Imagine what invaluable, irreplaceable information was stored in that precious museum, before the Americans allowed if not directed that it be looted, the history and culture of Iraq, preserved for thousands of years, stolen and undoubtedly hidden away now in the secret rooms of many of the Wall Street Scum who profit from these wars. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/world/middleeast/24museum.html
The Iraq National Museum was partly re-opened for the dignitaries, but most of its antiquities are gone. Probably stolen, much of it destroyed. The history and culture of the people of Iraq has been deliberately erased by the U.S. It isn't war as we think of it. It wasn't really to remove Saddam Hussein. The purpose of the U.S. War Against Iraq is to destroy the nation of Iraq, turn it over to an outpost for the western corporations and their goon squad and muscle provided by the U.S. military and by private mercenary assassin groups like Blackwater. This ain't your mama's war. Destruction of the nation was not an accidental byproduct of a battle -- it was the purpose all along.
(
Iraqi citizens,standing outside the museum fence and watching the dignitaries parade through).
Why destroy the country? Among other things, the U.S. has built 8 permanent military bases and a Billion Dollar Embassy there. Do you think that's for future tea parties for the neighbors? No. We plan to stay there until the oil is gone, which is estimated to be about 35 years. There are other reasons that the U.S. (and its pitbull Israel) are trying to take control of much of the middle east, which is to grab antiquities so they can continue to lie to the world about what "really" happened in history. "Their" version of history, of course, is that set forth in the Bible. But other people, and other nations, have entirely different books, different national stories about history, some of which contradict the Judeo-Christian version.
Why does the Bible still control the "official" version of history? One reason is because so many other nations are invaded, attacked, their history and culture destroyed, their writings stolen or eradicated. Why does Israel really want to control all of Jerusalem? Is it possible that there are artifacts there that completely undermine Israel's version of history? Of course so, and in fact many antiquities have been unearthed in recent years that contradict the Jewish and Christian versions of "history." Why destroy conflicting evidence? Because we like having the "official" version say that we, the Christians and the Jews, should be in charge. God says we're in charge.
For example, what if the Red Sea did not part, what if Moses did not lead slaves through the sea with the Egyptians in hot pursuit. If that is not true, then pretty much the whole story about God promising all that land to the Jews really falls apart. Imagine the turmoil throughout the world of Christianity if it was discovered that Jesus did not die on the cross, did not arise from his tomb and go directly to heaven, but instead lived for decades. Him, the Mrs., the kids. Think of all the wealth that has been collected by Bible-based religions for the past 2000 years, and imagine what would happen to them if it turned out that much of the story was disproved in writing, by evidence discovered in the region.
Hiding or destroying history can be just as valuable as writing it, claiming "the" definitive version of "what really happened." Look at who wrote the history books, and you can bet those people have skewed the story to benefit themselves.
When the U.S. military invaded Iraq, they were given explicit instructions that they should do nothing to interfere with the looting and destruction of Iraq's national treasures, undisputable evidence in antiquities about what really happened in history, invaluable and irreplaceable evidence of the history of humans on earth. Who would want that result except a group of deceitful, murdering, lying, thieving criminals like the bush-cheney gang? And why? Possibly to destroy evidence of a history that is different from what we've been told. Certainly to destroy the history, the culture, the unifying bonds of the people in that country so they would be easier to enslave.
Now it's our turn. Our country has been targeted, invaded, is being taken over, our history erased and culture destroyed. It isn't a nation doing it -- it's a collection of the world's richest people, including some of our own. They operate in secret behind corporations, all working together through the World Trade Organization. But they are destroying our country and killing off our people as mercilessly as if they were distributing measles-infested free blankets to the kids.
Our nation, our democracy is being dismantled, as if termites were destroying the foundation of our homes. The politicians all take bribes and sell their votes, the public education system is being defunded and children are being shoved into cinderblock for-profit TV viewing rooms where they will learn to be boxboys (and girls) at Walmart and nothing else. The same corporations that have taken over Iraq and Afghanistan and slaughtered their people have taken our jobs to China and stolen our money. They have stolen all our money and given it to Wall Street, and now they claim they must cut back because the money has disappeared -- as if they weren't the ones who gave it away. I actually read someone today saying that people should not be eligible for social security until they're 70 -- but with the life expectancy going down, that just means you won't get it at all.
Rupert Murdoch owns the corporation that runs Fox and its related propaganda empire. Rupert and a Saudi prince own it, and they decide what information our nation should have, what lies to spread. They are erasing our history as we speak, lying about these wars, lying about all the thieves on Wall Street that have gotten away with the biggest theft in the history of the world. They lie, they breathe, all the same to them.
Our movies are garbage, and "art" is a collateralized asset bought and sold by Wall Street Scum just like they buy and sell people's lives. There is no inherent value in anything in this country anymore because the people who run the country destroy everything of beauty, every person with integrity, every idea that is original or creative. If they can't slap a barcode on it and sell it for an obscene price, it just does not exist. That includes people.
Our culture is being destroyed. That is a critical element. If you destroy the culture, there is nothing left to unify people or remind them of their common history. Instead of art, singers, musicians, composers, dancers, festivals, fairs, community events, local pride, regional and statewide recognition of accomplishments, we are left with guns, war and the flag.
Our culture glamorizes thieves, violence, guns, and young men who have been in war, men who steal and men who kill. Once again we are being told that we should read the books of young men who have been in war, vote for them to be our politicians and leaders, go see their movies, invest with them, buy insurance from them, trust them, follow them. I think we should not. I think our leaders in all fields should be only women, and only those who have never been in war.
As our treasury has been looted, and the rich have bribed the politicians to change the laws so they no longer have to pay taxes, the funding for our culture and arts has evaporated. Reading rooms for young writers, shuttered. Museums selling off assets because they can't afford to pay the air conditioning bills.
You go to bars around U.S. military bases in the third world and you find bar girls -- women who are prostitutes, hang around the bars and have sex with the military men for money. We recoil at pictures of them, thinking these are other people's young daughters whose lives are being destroyed. But our modern culture does much the same to our young women. Our entire media portrayal of American women makes them all Philippine bar girls.
Music is Lady Gaga, cheap tricks with cheap tricks. All women in the arts are sexualized, as are little girls in "beauty" contests, child trafficking in entertainment for pedophiles. TV is sex and violence and idiocy, and most of our radio has been taken over by the group that pushes the deaf drug addict as the new voice of America. Soon they will take over the internet so that when people try to search for information, they will only be taken to links provided by Rupert Murdoch's Whorehouse. Destroy the culture and you can destroy the people. That's what we've done in Iraq, and that's what our "leaders" are doing to us. That means it's almost complete. The End of a Nation.
What is the difference between child prostitution in third world countries and the way that the financial rulers force all young women in our popular culture to have breast implants, pose with lewd crotch shots, and simulate oral sex with various objects onstage. That's before they "sing," of course. You know what the real difference is? Ours get paid more. Other than that, in terms of destroying our culture, demeaning our people, cheapening our lives, no difference at all.
When it's over, I think they should rename the country. No longer the United States of America because our states are bankrupt and there will be nothing to unite us but shame. We should call it something corporate, like Principal Place of Business. Or, maybe World Trade Organization Headquarters. I like it: it's direct but catchy. I can see it on the T Shirts already. Now we need a new national hymn. How about that Coke song, but we could change the lyrics slightly: I'd like to teach the world to buy and borrow more money, I'd like to watch the nations die and Wall Street rule the earth. It's the real thing.....
It does not matter what the Koran says, or whether anybody likes Muslims. Just does not matter in our legal system, period. Completely irrelevant. Our law prohibits the government from favoring or supporting one religion, or disfavoring or banishing another. Our law simply requires the government to stay out of it. If the zoning laws in a city allow religious structures to be built in a certain neighborhood, that is the beginning and end of the inquiry as far as government involvement. If the structure otherwise complies with height restrictions, architectural requirements, health and safety code (fire sprinklers), set-backs, the structure can be built.
