There were
many things that happened in two centuries plus and some of them were
good. It is not the purpose of this series to cover every detail. The
idea is to highlight those that are whitewashed by the powers and
historians. This malady of rewriting history is not unique to the
Hindutva Brigade, British Raj, Japanese Shintoites or Israeli Zionists.
America has done this more consistently than any other nation. American
exceptionalism and good intentions are given axiomatic status, while the
truth is often the opposite. Thus it is essential to make all citizens
and particularly the new ones aware of the shortcomings and the truth,
lest their jingoistic pride leads them to stumble and fall into the
sinkhole of using patriotism as the last resort of scoundrels. It is
important to realize that America around its birth had an unusually
large number of highly educated and intelligent leaders in Washington,
Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton and John Marshall, to name
a few. In spite of such talent America has continued on a path of
injustice. It is not a fault peculiar to America. Such is human nature.
America’s uniqueness is that it has swept most of the dirt under the
rug. It is to the credit of the integrity and efforts of American
historians and scholars of the twentieth century, that they have dug up
the truth and exposed the lies.
After the Treaty of Paris gave America independence, the Continental
congress was the national governing body. There was no executive or
presidency. The Congress was without power to enforce the laws. The
States had their own laws and enforcement powers and followed policies
in conflict with neighboring states. There was armed friction between
some neighboring states and Shay’s rebellion in Massachusetts wanted to
wipe out the debts of the poor farmers who were exploited by the moneyed
class. This mess led to the Constitutional Convention which was
technically illegal. The Federalist papers mainly by Hamilton and
Madison were published in a New York newspaper to swing the states votes
in favor of ratifying the Second Constitution. Washington served two
terms as President and Adams was narrowly elected as the second
president. The loser Jefferson was the vice president and he persisted
in his backstabbing. He was more effective in dirty tricks against Adams
than against the popular and iconic Washington. A jealous and ambitious
Hamilton though belonging to the same Federalist party as Adams, tried
to undermine Adam’s policies and corruptly influence his cabinet. This
was a time of Napoleonic wars between France and England and the two
powerful states played havoc with the American government. Adams tried
to steer a neutral course but ultimately resorted to the Aliens and
Sedition Act that limited free speech and criticism of the government.
So much for the First Amendment of the Constitution passed a few years
earlier.
This has been routine practice by the US Government including the
executive (President) and the legislative (Congress) branches. Speech
and resident aliens have been repeatedly targeted and abused starting
with John Adams. The slaves, the Native Americans, the Chinese
(exclusion act and atrocities from mid-nineteenth century onwards -read
Irene Chang’s book), the Italians and Southern Europeans whose
immigration was stopped in the twentieth century, the Mexicans after
annexing them and their territories in President Polk’s Mexican War and
currently, the immigration exclusion of non-whites (changed by Kennedy
and elimination of some quotas by Nixon), the Palmer Raids after WW1 in
Washington, the Japanese- American internment in concentration camps
during WW2 and the post 9-11 treatment of Muslim-Americans, all have
received unjust and bigoted treatment from the government.
John Quincy Adams, the first son of a president (John Adams) to become a
president, was an honest hardworking and decent man, who after a one
term presidency like that of his father, won election to the House and
died in office doing the people’s work. He was a staunch opponent of
slavery. As Secretary of State under President Monroe, Adams formulated
the so called Monroe Doctrine of prohibiting European interference in
the countries of America. This good intention of preventing the power
games of European monarchies in Latin America led to the evil of US
interference, domination and exploitation of the Caribbean and Latin
American nations. Repeated and frequent military occupations were
carried out in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvador,
Honduras, Caribbean islands, Cuba, Mexico, Panama and other Latin
American countries, Even Lebanon, Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution
and China during the Boxer Rebellion and Vietnam in gross violation of
the Geneva accords received occupying military forces. Granada (Reagan),
Panama (Bush1) and Iraq (Bush2) were invaded recently. It was during the
Vietnam war that torture and murder were used on the Viet Cong and the
refined techniques were perfected in Guatemala, El Salvador, Argentina,
Brazil, Uruguay etc., by training Latin American, Philippine and
Indonesian military personnel in torture under the guise of
counterinsurgency tactics at the military school in Panama, now moved to
Georgia.
The second time a president’s son became the president was when the
shrub (Bush2) succeeded Clinton. This time the son was not smart like
John Quincy and he got two terms so he has done double what J. Q. Adams
did. The difference is Adams did good while the stunted bush like the
Bonsai with a Bushido Empire dream (see Ian Williams’ review of Ulrich
Straus’s book "The Anguish of Surrender" in Friday’s Asia Times on line)
did harm to the nation and wreaked havoc by costing us over a trillion
dollars and increased terrorism. It is these same torture techniques
that were used in Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo. John Yoo and Jay
Bybee, then of the attorney general’s staff and Gonzales, then special
counsel to the President and now US Attorney General, at the behest of
the president and defense secretary Rumsfeld cooked up invalid legal
garbage arguments to permit torture (see "The Torture Papers" by the New
York attorneys’ association and the UN report on Guantanamo).
The American nation kept expanding by the Louisiana Purchase by
Jefferson and the military conquest of Florida from Spain. Andrew
Jackson who defeated the British at New Orleans with the help of the
pirate Jean Lafitte in the war of 1812 finally made it to the presidency
after J. Q. Adams. Jackson had been denied rightful victory due to the
manipulation of the electoral college (Florida in 2004 election of the
president was a recurring pattern after Adams-Jackson, victory of
President R. Hayes and Bush2). Jackson was an inveterate Indian hater
though he adopted one Indian child. He systematically usurped Indian
lands, broke treaties made with Indians, refused to enforce the treaties
with federal troops when states like Georgia kept taking Cherokee lands,
and forcibly moved the Cherokee and other Indian tribes from Tennessee
westwards along what is now called "The Trail of Tears’. Thousands of
Native Americans including women and children perished in this US
government perpetrated genocide.
Boloji.com is owned and managed by
Boloji Media Inc Privacy Policy |
Disclaimer No part of this Internet site may
be reproduced without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
