Random Thoughts
Patriotism and War
Last Resort of Scoundrels and Opiate Panacea
History is
often a lying propaganda and myth by the victors to be fed to the naive
young and old, to covertly numb them into ignorantly internalize and
succumb to the nefarious agenda of the power elite. Nowhere on earth has
this been successfully achieved than in America, which perfected this from
the outset. According to historian Charles Royster, Charles Thomson, the
longtime secretary of Congress refused to publish a history of the
Revolution despite knowing more than anyone else about the administration
and politics of the Revolutionary War and before he died he burnt his
papers. In his words," I could not tell the truth without giving great
offense. Let the world admire our patriots and heroes. Their supposed
talents and virtues (where they were so) by commanding imitation will
serve the cause of patriotism and our country. I shall not undeceive
future generations."
While hypocrisy is the keynote of human nature, fortunately a minority of
honest and curious professional academic historians in America have
vigorously documented the true facts in the past decades. Outstanding
books which are a must read for every American citizen include, Chomsky &
Herman’s "Manufacturing Consent", Chomsky’s "Understanding Power",
Chalmers Johnson’s "Blowback" & "Perils of Empire", Howard Zinn’s "A
Peoples’ History of the United States", Ray Raphael’s "A Peoples’ History
of the American Revolution", Joseph Ellis’s "The Founding Brothers" and
"His Excellency", Henry Wiencek’s "An Imperfect God", Charles Beard’s "An
Economic History of the American Revolution" and Gore Vidal’s "Empire".
Thomas Pakenham’s "A Scramble for Africa" and Robert Hughes "A Fatal
Shore" document the earlier sordid tales of the European and British
Empires.
America has used this trick of metamorphosing history to create a cohesive
group think to pursue its goals of hegemony. Even defeated empires like
Japan still falsify the truth of their atrocities on Koreans and Chinese.
This led to the recent anti-Japanese riots and outbursts in China whose
leaders are using ultra-nationalism to divert attention from the regime’s
failures and tyranny. A similar form of patriotic appeal was used by the
British Labor party to counter the public opposition to the current war in
Iraq. The price they paid was still only a reduced margin of victory and
did not result in a significant gain for the anti-war Liberal Democrats.
The Bush victory in 2004 is another example of how appeal to patriotism
and religion can influence an ignorant jingoistic electorate to vote
against their economic interest and lend a patina of legitimacy to a
previously illegitimate president indulging in an illegitimate war that is
bankrupting the nation and literally bleeding its youth.
War has been a means of improving the economy by increasing employment and
spending by budget deficits. It also serves to enrich the leaders’ crooked
cronies. Wilson despite his promises to keep America out of WW1dragged it
into the war because major financial and armament interests had loaned so
much money to Britain that to ensure the payback of those loans, they
needed a British victory. Thus tens of thousands of Americans had to die
to enrich the powerful wealthy. They were enticed by the lies that this
war was the war to end all wars. During WW2, we were far from neutral and
massive assistance was provided to Britain. The ship Lusitania, carrying
some American passengers was sunk by a German U-Boat. It was also carrying
huge American arms supplies. American economic policies and embargoes on
scrap metal and oil were purposely designed to hamper Japan’s economy and
war effort and to provoke hostilities. Thus FDR covertly led America into
war. I do not wish to imply that the motives of Germany or Japan were any
better. In fact they were worse. The problem was that the then reigning
hegemon Britain, had thrust an onerously inequitable treaty on defeated
Germany after WW1 with the help of its allies France and America. The end
result of the wars was the bankruptcy of Britain, collapse of the British
Empire and the coronation of the new hegemon, America. The new Emperor
repeated the old mistakes which led to the defeat of its rival the Soviet
Union, but has bankrupted itself in the process and led to the emergence
of the defeated Japan and Germany as the two crutches without which the
old invalid Uncle Sam cannot take a step.
Even the American Revolution was not an insurrection of the oppressed poor
like the French and Russian Revolutions. It was a calculated provocation
of the gullible masses that were used to achieve the ends of a wealthy
class that resented their lack of power despite their wealth. Another
motive was the large debts of the Southern planters to London merchants
because of their profligate lifestyle in imitation of the British
nobility. Some hoped that a victory over the British would abolish their
debts. The rich rarely took up arms themselves. They like current
politicians sent the children of the poor to become cannon fodder.
Congress refused to provide enough money or materiel to the Continental
Army and cheated the soldiers out of their pensions and pay and later on
passed laws to enrich the speculators at the cost of the veterans. The
merchants hoarded and profiteered while the privates of the Continental
army wore rags and walked barefoot leaving bloody footprints in the snow
during the winter at Valley Forge. The most shameful tragedy is that
nearly 20% of the Continental Army consisted of free blacks who were
betrayed by America after the war. The British were equally shamefully
disgusting in that they betrayed the blacks after luring them with the
promise of freedom. They starved the blacks at Yorktown, when short of
rations and sent blacks infected with smallpox into the rebel camps to
decimate the Continental army. The commander in charge was one that any
educated Indian-American would remember, Lord Cornwallis. Jefferson,
Adams, Franklin, Madison never raised a finger in the war and Washington
who led and fought with the Black Army, sent the predominantly Black
Regiment into the vanguard for a suicidal attack on the Yorktown garrison
for hand to hand combat and after the victory demanded the return of any
slaves that sought refuge with the British under their promise of freedom.
Another thing that war always does is bring out cruelty and inhumanity in
people. One needs to cultivate a certain callousness to kill or maim an
enemy stranger. Ideology and fanaticism provide the initial motive. The
hate and ferocity are necessarily reciprocated by the enemy. This leads to
both sides dehumanizing each other. Sooner or later torture, rape and
wanton killing become the norm as Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Bagram prove.
They are the natural reaction of unthinking brainwashed young persons
physically threatened by death by ambush and mentally incapable of
understanding their enemies ideas or speech, but capable of knowing them
only by color or appearance. They are neither unique, nor the first. The
same things occurred earlier and more often in the Indian Wars, during
slavery, in the American Revolution, in the war with Spain and the
Seminoles that brought us Florida, in the unprovoked aggression against
Mexico that gave us Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and
California, the unprovoked Spanish American War that gave us Puerto Rico,
Guam, Philippines and Cuba, the Korean and Vietnam Wars and currently in
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This is not an indicting tirade on American atrocities. All armies become
inhuman and wars make us so. The criticism of America is not so much of
its sins and follies which are inherent to human nature, as much of its
holier than thou propaganda of freedom, democracy and the false image of
the shining city on the hill and thus its shameless hypocrisy which
successfully blinds and numbs the world and so-called educated immigrants
from India, who either don’t care to learn the truth or having learnt it
support these policies without the slightest remorse. The defense that we
all have is Hinduism is a religion of personal salvation and Christianity
condones slavery and exploitation. I thank providence that I am completely
immune from the plague of religion, but confess that I am only an armchair
activist.
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