In a message dated 3/10/1999 2:34:41 AM Eastern Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< I was watching PBS NewsHour (which is syndcated on the Australian
multicultural broadcaster, SBS) this evening and it got me thinking, [why] is
America the driving force in the destruction of the planet and the subjugation
of its people? Is there something in America's history that encouraged the
male/Christian world domination/destruction ethic? >>
Is America the only male, christian dominated country in the world? The only
country that encouraged it? What history lesson taught that?
It wasn't America that decimated and adopted away the Aborigines, slaughtered
the Tasmanians. A prison colony of convicts did a lot of destruction and
subjugating people itself. It isn't America that the aborigines have fought
(and still fight) against for survival. I find it ironic that an Australian
broadcaster would highlight another country as the subjugator of people -
ironic but typical to not want to focus on the spot in its own eye.
Most recently the Australians tried really hard to complain against those
indigenous rights issues. What is the name of the "scientist" that got
elevated in the discussion of how it was only right that the aborigine culture
was destroyed because they didn't live in proper houses, speak english,
barbecue shrimp right, etc? I have those documents hovering somewhere on my
computer.
I have never heard aborigines complaining about America destroying their
people and their culture.
Tell me, is Pauline Hanson, an American?
The destruction of the planet and the subjugation of its people began long
before America existed.
Colonization didn't begin with America. Exploitation of the resources of
colonies didn't begin with America. In fact, the Europeans became Americans
because they didn't want to be exploited by the non-living in America
Europeans. They didn't want to be part of the exploited they wanted to follow
that good old european tradition of their parents and be exploiters.
It was hand and hand with the colonization goals of Europe - America is simply
a child of that agenda. A child that is continuing that mentality, while the
"parents" of that mentality have grown weaker - and now complain about the
loss of power to do as such.
Was it America that struck out at the indigenous people of the Americas? No -
those were pure europeans who did that, some of whom later became americans -
but they were acting out of their european ancestry. It is the portuguese who
decimated brasil, the Spanish who raped and plundered mexico, the french who
sowed the evil against which haiti rose to rebel.
Were all those Atlantic Slave Trade ships and slave ship captains, American?
That was a massive subjugation of people for hundreds of years, the effects of
which are tangible still, did America initiate that operation? Did America
import enslaved people into Brasil, Cuba?
This year, monuments all over the Americas and in Africa will be placed,
ceremonies held in honor of those who died and suffered through the middle
passage, and their descendants. America will not be the only country, not even
the lead country, remembered for operating that slaughter of people and
cultures.
Was it America who committed the slaughter of the belgian congo? Was it
America who forced French control on large stretches of Africa? Subjugated
African languages for the "civilized french"? Did America conduct nuclear
tests in the pacific? Was it the Americans who tried to subjugate with Opium?
Is it because of America that some filipinos have the last names of
"bermudez"? Was it Americans who inflicted apartheid on south africa? Was it
the Americans that the Rwandans and the UN revealed to be complicit in the
Rwandan Genocide? Was it America who gave smallpox and syphillis to the
indigenous people of "Latin America"? For that matter why is it called "Latin"
- were the Americans latin? Did America build and run the death camps where
masses of jews were exterminated? Was it upon America's empire the sun never
set? Was it America that seized hong kong in retaliation for blocked drug
profits? Are the Zapatistas fighting against the oppression of America? Or
perhaps it was America who the Indians fought against, gandhi fasted to fight?
Is America the neocolonial power strangling Senegal, Mali, Cote d' Ivoire? Is
it America leading a drive for timber destruction to provide wood for
chopsticks? Was it America that the Algerians fought against?
Is america the only country that is creating and endorsing viperish economic
agreements like the multilateral agreement on investments? The only country
that is exploiting the resources, polluting the environment, and oppressing
people?
America isn't even the leader at it, but it is a bold decoy for other nations
to try to hide the blood on their own hands. It is, however, only nation that
threatens the continued dominance of exploitation of these traditional
exploiters. It is simply the traditional bullies angry that a new bully is
muscling in on its victims - the ones it expected to continue to provide its
wants.
How does history, even the present, get obscured to say anything else?
Nicole
