S Brian Willson Portal at The Alliance:  http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/sbrianwillson  


                                                                          S. Brian Willson - We are not worth more, they are not worth less. 


S Brian Willson

                       "We are not worth more. They are not worth less".   

I have been watching a series of You Tube videos graphically depicting widespread parts of the USA, both rural and Urban, where life has become bleak for more than a small minority of people. Though it is blamed on a variety of drugs, especially the lethal fentanyl, it is imperative to keep in mind that millions of US Americans are desperately seeking relief from anxieties and pain stemming from a complete breakdown of society's social, family, economic, psychological, and political institutions that have morphed into systemic anomie (normlessness).

Zombie Apocalypse??

The Kensington area of Philadelphia is considered the largest open-air narcotics market in the East Coast of the USA. I went to college just outside of Philadelphia in the early 1960s, and on weekends used to visit several cafes and sandwich shops in this pleasant blue collar neighborhood that served the best Hoagies (Philadelphia is noted for these delicious sandwiches). The area is now mostly comprised of vacant businesses and houses, as the industrial nature of the area has disappeared over the past 60 years.

Now on certain streets like Kensington and Somerset, it ranks as one of the top skid row and drug-infested neighborhoods in the USA, ranking with places like the Tenderloin in San Franscisco. With the opioid epidemic (thanks to the Sackler family/Purdue Pharma for vociferous marketing of oxycontin that is extremely addictive), added with heroin, cocaine, and the dangerous and powerful opioid Fentanyl, and a new veterinary non-opioid animal sedative, Xylacine, it has created a drug dealer’s potpourri heaven, and a user’s apocalyptic Hell, such that the area is described as a Zombie apocalypse. It has also been referred to as “Kensington Beach” because so many people are aimlessly sitting and lying on the sidewalk and streets. Others walk slowly and unsteadily. Some are standing but bent over in a trance-like rigidity for long periods of time. All ages, but mostly young, many teenagers seeking relief from the anomie of capitalism and disrupted communities and families, and a mix of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, of both genders.

I witnessed similar scenes when I was a law school student and social worker for the Wash., DC Public Defender’s Office in the early 1970s. Heroin was rampaging many communities in the US, but the DC inner-city was chronic with nodding addicts on every street in certain neighborhoods, and bus and train stations. A number of our clients died even before their trials. This was my baptism back into the Disney world of the US of A(trocities) after my earlier Viet Nam baptism into barbarism. Wow, “the greatest country in the world endowed by our creator to bring prosperity to the impoverished and Christianity to the heathen” as my childhood prayer went, set me and millions of others up to be fools for ruthless Capitalist White Christian Nationalism, very fascistic like. Thankfully, Viet Nam abruptly shook me out of that fantasy. Now what?? Revolution? Extinction on our knees? Asphyxiation? Drowning? An evolutionary and ecological awakening like no other that makes what seemed impossible yesterday and today, inevitable tomorrow, like a flip of a switch to a new Zeitgeist? Recognizing that most of us have been in our own version of a zombie fossil fuel apocalypse, insatiably destructive consumptive modernity? You tell me, please.

 



"I have had to feel, intensely, the pain of letting go of my addiction to the myth and the comfort that is associated with believing in "America" and its Way Of Life. In the process of letting go, I have chosen to walk, difficult though it is, on a different path, striving to free myself from imperialistic assumptions and thinking. This enables me to evolve as an authentic human being experiencing the new joys that accompany awareness of my sacred interconnectedness with all life. We are not worth more, they are not worth less."

February 2022: 

 

We are fools

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on meMay be a black-and-white image of one or more people and indoor

“We are willing to help people who believe the way we do.”

—Dean Acheson, Truman’s Secretary of State, 1947

The Continuing Insane “Cold” War

I cannot stress enough the overwhelming toxic spell that Cold War propaganda cast on the minds of three generations,
including some of the most intelligent people, and its influence continues today. Relentless Cold War rhetoric accomplished
a near total indoctrination of our entire US culture. Religious institutions, academic and educational institutions from kindergarten
through graduate school, professional associations, political associations from local to national, scientific community, economic system,
entertainment industry from radio and TV to Hollywood and sports, fraternal organizations, boy scouts, etc.—all systematically colluded
and cooperated to preserve unquestioning belief in the unique nobility of the US American system while instilling rabid, paranoid fear of “enemies”—
in our midst as well as “out there”—in order to rationalize otherwise pathologically inexplicable behavior around the world as well as at home. The atrocities committed in the name of defeating communist bogeymen are nearly beyond belief. As this example shows, our cultural schooling is so pervasive as to generate a universally compelling mythology powerful enough to conceal its own contradictions.

Forty years of fanatical “good us versus evil them” leads directly from the 1917 Russian Revolution to Korea and Viet Nam, and today Ukraine. Our cultural corruption was so complete we proudly utilized B-52s blessed by God-fearing chaplains flying five miles high to bomb unarmed, mostly Buddhist peasants living nine thousand miles across the Pacific. It is very difficult to recognize in ourselves what would be considered criminally insane behavior if carried out by others.

I was taken in by it as were virtually all the people I know. It was a delusion that protects our White, Eurocentric exceptionalism. And it continues with Russia as the convenient demon enabling us to remain in denial about USA atrocious, barbaric imperialism – cruel and crooked; destroyer and deceiver; savage and sadistic; violent and vindictive.

I made a solemn vow to the Vietnamese I saw dead at my feet, and to myself, I would not be fooled again. I have worked very hard since to understand US policy and its role in the world. The devil is in the details of history, the one we were not told, and continue to not be told.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Photo: I consider this napalm emaciated Vietnamese woman my mystical, spiritual mother. I have named her Mai Ly. A similar woman lay dead at my feet in April 1969. I think of her almost everyday, as barbaric US policy continues ad nauseum. People shop. Our government bombs as it lies.

November 2021:

The fate of Julian Assange is all of our fates. The persecution of Assange is proof of a totalitarian society - US, UK - and the fact that he is not honored and rewarded for his brilliant reporting of US war crimes, et al., using the internet and probing secret government communications, reveals just how corrupt, morally bankrupt and egregiously criminal are the US and UK governments. Such a clear case of US totalitarianism, and the fact that no US President is intervening to free him, means no freedom of speech or criticism of our government is safe from persecution. I just cannot believe it. But, then again, I can't believe most of what the US does or says as being lawful or caring. I don't know how much more disgust my body and mind can take in this lifetime.

Collateral Damage Video, July 12, 2007: Unedited gun-camera video, released by WikiLeaks, of the incident on July 12, 2007 in Baghdad in which two Reuters journalists and a number of Iraqis were killed by fire from an American helicopter.

It is like the murder machine never quits, and we live in a society committing multiple wars and mass murders everyday, somewhere. We shop while our government bombs. Fuck!

The US continues its criminal and disgusting obsession with destroying the very seriously progressive country Nicaragua in Latin America. It sickens me.

U.S. Cries Foul Because Nicaragua Stops it from Buying this Year’s Elections, by Rita Jill Clark-Gollub

The corporate media is again awash with accusatory articles about Nicaragua, claiming that the government is disqualifying political opponents to give the FSLN an easy win in this year’s elections. Let’s take a look at what is actually happening, from new laws, to eligibility of political parties, to treatment of those accused of crimes. It is a combination of people engaged in real crimes claiming to be presidential candidates before they get arrested; & an incredible amount of US regime change money that has been flowing into the country for years, which Nicaraguan government institutions are trying to stop.

Context

The first and most important element of context is that Nicaragua is a country under attack. Since the 2018 coup attempt, documents have come to light indicating that the leaders of the violence were receiving tens of millions of dollars from such CIA front groups as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) through programs to “promote democracy” and “facilitate transition”—code words for regime change. Additionally, as revealed in August 2020, there is an ongoing USAID coup plot called Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua (RAIN) which seeks to ensure that this year’s election results in a government to the liking of the U.S. The document even admits that the FSLN is likely to win in a fair election, in which case a “sudden, unanticipated transition” may be necessary. Finally, there is a very active effort in the U.S. Congress to impose additional and far-reaching sanctions on Nicaragua: the RENACER Act. Its “targeted sanctions” take blunt aim at virtually half the population—including all government officials and members of the FSLN party and their family members. This would be an unprecedented escalation of unilateral coercive measures that could potentially plunge this financially stable nation into the economic hardship currently being experienced by Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran.

The various branches of the Nicaraguan government have responded. First, some important laws have been passed by the legislature in the past few months. The Foreign Agents Law (modeled on an 83-year-old law in the U.S.) requires nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to give an accounting of any foreign funding they receive, including who its donors are, what money was received, the purpose of donations, and a description of how the money was spent. This information needs to correspond to the NGO’s financial statements. Another recently enacted law is the Law to Defend the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination for Peace. The law says, among other things, that those who fund or lead a coup d’etat or who facilitate or encourage economic or other sanctions against the Nicaraguan State or its citizens, may be charged with treason and prevented from holding public office. The Ministry of Justice is in charge of prosecutions under these and other laws.

Legal recognition of political parties and elections governance

Legal status has long been an issue given the infighting and splintering of opposition parties, particularly since the 2018 coup attempt and despite the best efforts of the U.S. embassy in Managua to form a united opposition. But new electoral reforms allow parties to receive government reimbursement for election campaigns, even if they enjoy less than 4% support. While polls show that if the opposition can unite around a single candidate, it could potentially garner up to 21% of the vote, such unity has remained elusive; meanwhile, the FSLN has consistently polled upwards of 60%. This makes it hard to swallow reports in the corporate media of the government eliminating opposition parties to ensure an FSLN victory. One such story is that of the Party for Democratic Restoration (PRD), that recently lost its legal recognition. But this was not done at the initiative of the government; rather, board members of the PRD itself asked the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) to annul its status because they accused the evangelical pastor leading the organization of ignoring the party’s own statutes and forming an alliance without its members’ agreement.

Another favorite theme of Nicaragua’s detractors is that the CSE, the fourth branch of government that oversees elections, is biased in favor of the FSLN. Recent electoral reforms included some of those suggested by the Organization of American States after the 2016 election. A new CSE was elected in May that includes one-third members from outside the governing party despite the FSLN having a super majority in the National Assembly, as detailed by Louise Richards in NicaNotes of three weeks ago. This CSE is also one of the most diverse electoral bodies in the region, including several indigenous and Afro-descendant persons, and a female majority. But Washington is still upset with its composition since none of its favorite politicians were elected by the National Assembly.

Enforcement of laws to protect national sovereignty

Last week the Director of the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation (FVBCH), Cristiana Chamorro, was charged with money laundering and placed under house arrest after she refused to account for the millions of dollars she received from USAID and other U.S. government agencies and foundations in recent years, as required by the Foreign Agents Law. The day before, U.S. journalist Ben Norton published an extensive exposé of how her Foundation has been used to channel millions to an assortment of opposition NGOs and media outlets favorable to U.S. regime change plans. One of the most scandalous aspects of this article is how the vast network of Nicaraguan opposition media outlets has been cultivated and nurtured by USAID and the NED. Anyone who has been watching Nicaragua knows that these supposedly “independent” media in Nicaragua have been the main source of Nicaragua news reported here in the United States. In other words, in my country most people get information about Nicaragua from the CIA!

The sums of money that Nicaraguan journalist William Grigsby, Ben Norton, and others have revealed are astronomical for a poor country of 6.5 million people. In fact, the USAID website indicates that since 2015 it has spent US$160,586,742 on Nicaraguan NGOs. This sum must be put into context. It amounts to US$24.70 per person in Nicaragua. If a hostile foreign power wanted to do this to the United States, it would have to spend US$8.2 BILLION to cover our population of 331 million. The hypocrisy screams at us after seeing years of headlines complaining about “Russia meddling” in our elections by spending $125,000 on Facebook ads! A comparison of the wealth of the two countries makes the figure even more outrageous. Nicaragua’s GDP is around $12 billion, while the GDP of the US is around $21 trillion—that makes the U.S. economy more than 1,750 times larger than Nicaragua’s. We can multiply US$160,586,742 by that figure to see that for the U.S. economy this would be like a hostile infusion of US$281 BILLION. No wonder Nicaragua has begun to ask for an accounting of the money.

A sad corollary to this is that Nicaragua is not receiving aid funds from the U.S. that it would like to receive and that might actually help people. The country was blocked from receiving COVID relief funds from multilateral organizations until the end of 2020; after Nicaragua took the first and hardest blows from hurricanes Eta and Iota in November 2020, it received only a fraction of the aid the U.S. sent to Honduras and Guatemala, and even this small amount went to NGOs, not to the government. And Nicaragua, along with Cuba and Venezuela, is excluded from the COVID-19 vaccine assistance that the U.S. recently decided to provide to other countries, especially in Latin America.

Cristiana Chamorro’s own statement about the propriety of her funds is rather bizarre: “The US State Department rejected the charges of money laundering against the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation based on audits they conducted that did not find evidence of money laundering or diversion of funds.” Not only does she expect the fox to guard the henhouse, she has forgotten which country she lives in. The charges against her also include depositing Foundation money into her personal bank account.

Chamorro and her supporters are calling this a political prosecution. Although at the very end of May and as the seriousness of the charges against her became apparent, Ms. Chamorro announced her intent to seek the opposition alliance’s nomination for president, she was never a viable candidate, was barely visible in the polls, and was never a model of “independent journalism.” Most importantly, not prosecuting her because she claims to be a candidate would be against Nicaraguan law. As Italian journalist Fabrizio Casari says, “That Daniel Ortega may fear her candidacy looks like hyperbole. [But] to think that the judiciary should stop the process just because she is a self-appointed candidate would be politicization of justice.”

The aforementioned Law to Defend the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination for Peace is being applied in some high-profile cases. Arturo Cruz, a businessman who had also thrown his hat into the ring for the opposition coalition’s nomination, was apprehended on June 5 upon arrival at the airport from the United States with a large sum of undeclared foreign currency. The prosecutor’s office indicates that there is strong evidence that he was in the United States calling for and collaborating in efforts to impose sanctions on Nicaragua, and that he was paid for this. Some wonder whether he brought in a briefcase full of cash because he wanted to be arrested, knowing that it would play well in the mainstream press.

And on June 8 Felix Maradiaga was charged with violating that same law and also arrested. Maradiaga, a Harvard-educated Aspen Fellow who is a long-time recipient of NED funds through his own NGO, became notorious during the 2018 coup attempt as one of the masterminds of the violence, being videotaped with armed protestors. He benefited from the amnesty granted by the government in 2019 to all those involved in crimes related to the 2018 violence, and since then he has been traveling to the U.S. and international organizations, openly advocating for sanctions to be imposed on his country. Given the animosity he has created for himself among average Nicaraguans, it is astounding that he could call himself a presidential candidate.

As we go to press, another person was arrested on June 8 and charged under this law. Juan Chamorro García had also been publicly calling for sanctions against his country to help facilitate the overthrow of the government. He has received millions of dollars from Washington, primarily through his NGO FUNIDES, some of it channeled through his cousin Cristiana at the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation.

Yes, the new laws to protect the country from foreign interference are being enforced, and there are likely to be more arrests. People are being prosecuted based on evidence, regardless of name recognition and social status. As to why this is happening now, it is obvious that – because they know they cannot win the election – the opposition groups are planning more disruption, either before the election, or when the results are declared, or both. Opinion polls in Nicaragua show overwhelmingly that people want no more violence, so the government is now trying to protect the peace over the next critical six months.

Commentators have noticed another aspect of U.S. hypocrisy, which is that it complains when legal action is taken against its allies in Latin American politics, but turns a blind eye when clearly contrived legal maneuvers are deployed against its enemies. This happened when Lula da Silva was prevented from running for election in Brazil and Rafael Correa was forced into exile from Ecuador, to name just two examples of “lawfare” waged against leftist politicians with US support.

What can we do?

It is very important for those of us in the solidarity movement to remember why the current Nicaraguan government is polling so strongly among the people: it has rejected neoliberal capitalism in favor of protecting the people and planet with policies that have brought more prosperity to more Nicaraguans since 2007 than at any other point in the nation’s history. For this it has incurred the wrath of the corporate-dominated government of the United States. Our role in this situation remains the same as it has always been: to advocate for our country to stop spending our tax dollars to meddle in other countries’ affairs. That is, to allow the Nicaraguan people to forge their own path, unencumbered by the old U.S. neocolonial mindset that purports to know what is best for people in other countries.

Fruits of the Poisonous Tree – The United States of Atrocities

As many of you know by now I focus much of my study and research on deep history, something most of us did not learn in grade school, high school, or in a college or university. It has seriously curtailed understanding of ourselves, our culture, our collective values and policies, and for exercising genuine mutual respect. In effect, 400 years, 20 generations of White exceptionalism has severely pre-empted maturity and development of character. I have posed my main thesis before, but I repeat it here with conclusions about the United States as both a culture and nation state. It was in my search for understanding the absolute criminality and barbarity of the US in Viet Nam, and my role in it, that has motivated development of my thesis and conclusions from serious and honest historical context.

“The Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine” is a legal metaphor to describe evidence procured by illegal or deceitful methods that renders it inadmissible or unreliable. If the source for the evidence is a poisonous tree, then anything gained from the tree – the fruit – is tainted as well. The Golden Age spoiled us all.

Summary of Thesis:

The culture and nation state of the United States of America is founded on the egregious and forceful dispossession of others. You might even call it an earlier version of the core of fascism – institutional dehumanization for private profit. A myth, or grand lie, was created that we are an exceptional people, effectively pre-empting openly and courageously experiencing the important feeling of social shame. This, in turn, has blocked any accountability or genuine inquiry into our genocidal origins of multiple atrocities to steal Indigenous land and primarily African labor, that murdered millions with impunity. The Psychology behind exceptionalism is the resort to the defense mechanism of denial so as not to feel shame and remorse for the genocides committed, which would contradict the notion of supremacy. So, the United States suffers from unexpressed shame that morphs into mass delusions, self-deception, a presumption of innocence. Thus, we live by fantasy of our superiority, which functionally makes us immature and stupid, as if in a stupor, unable to ask deeper questions. This is very different from intelligence. Applying the legal exclusionary rule to the culture at large, the USA is the “fruit of the poisonous tree”, as with most “civilizations”, founded on forcefully stolen land and labor, thereby lacking any moral or legal validity.

Conclusions about the culture and republic of US America:

1. The US Revolutionary War was not about human ideals and freedom, but to assure control over Indian cultures and lands that had been gruesomely stolen by the hands of a few Eurocentric White male speculator/investors (“Founding Fathers”), who would replace control from monarchial inherited government from afar;

2. The United States of America has never been a democracy or favored self-determination, but instead preserved an oligarchic patriarchy; Historian Charles Beard conjectures that of the estimated 160,000 who voted in the election of delegates for the various state ratifying conventions, not more than 100,000 favored adoption of the Constitution (Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution). The 1790 Census counted a total United States population of 3.93 million with 3.2 million free population and nearly 700,000 slaves. But of the 3.2 million “free” persons, women, Indians (not even counted in the Census at that time), and un-propertied White males, were prohibited from voting.

So, it cannot be said that the Constitution was “an expression of the clear and deliberate will of the whole people”, nor of a majority of the adult males, nor at the outside, of one-fifth of them, but only 2.2 percent of all the human beings living in the colonies or lands adjacent thereto. In essence, the overwhelming majority of all human beings living in the thirteen states of the Union at the time, were either opposed to the Constitution or were not allowed to register a formal, legal opinion – virtually every person outside the Eurocentric White male oligarchic structure was left out.

The Constitutional convention, was held in secret for 116 days, May 25 – September 17, 1787, conducted by 55 White male Founders who had not been publicly selected. They created a document that articulated a strong national government that could assure western expansion of White Europeans protected by a national army that was able to destroy Indian resistance. This would assuredly benefit financially the many land speculators, including many of the Delegates, after the western lands were “opened” or “developed”. Such opening of lands happened immediately.

More than half the Delegates, none of whom were popularly selected, were educated lawyers. The remaining were planters, merchants, physicians, and college professors. Not one member represented in his immediate personal economic interests small farming or mechanic classes (Beard). Most believed that their property rights were adversely affected by the relatively “weak” government under the Articles of Confederation and were highly motivated economically to reconstruct the system. Beard described the Delegates, the Founding members at the Convention, as being “immediately, directly, and personally interested in the outcome” as economic beneficiaries of the Convention, identifying five interest categories: (1) Forty-one Delegates owned “Public security interests” (holding loans/notes making them public creditors hoping to be compensated); (2) Fourteen Delegates owned “Personalty invested in lands for speculation”; (3) Twenty-four Delegates owned “Personalty in the form of money loaned at interest”; (4) Eleven Delegates owned “Personalty in mercantile, manufacturing, and shipping”; and (5) Fifteen Delegates owned “Personalty in slaves”. Twenty-nine percent, or 16 members, of the original 55 selected Delegates refused to sign the final document. Clearly our Founding Father had a lot at stake personally.

3. The United States of America created a Constitution that preserves primarily property and commerce over human rights;

4. The United States of America has been a police state for all but comfortable White males;

5. The United States of America has been an apartheid state since its origins;

6. The United States of America has virtually always applied a double standard for human rights; With but 4.2 percent of the word’s population it consumes 25 percent of the world’s resources; produces 25 percent of the globe’s pollution, and 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, disproportionately Nonwhite;

7. The United States of America has been opposed to social/collective practices in lieu of privatization;

8. The United States of America has been a consistent destroyer rather than builder of fair and equitable systems;

9. The United States of America has always been racist, classist, and misogynist. This is true in its domestic as well as foreign policies;

10. The United States of America for all of its history has been an imperial nation, militarily conquering millions of Indigenous to steal their land, intervening in numerous countries nearly 600 times since 1798, virtually all couched in deceit and lies, while covertly intervening thousands of times since 1947 under cover of “plausible deniability”.



S Brian Willson     

Post-WWII Cold War: First Stop, Korea, A Tragedy Still UnresolvedImage may contain: text that says 'CHINA USSR UN advance Nov. 1950 River Yalu NORTH KOREA Pyongyango 38th parallel Truce line July 1953 Panmunjom Seoul Landing at Inchon Sept. 15th 1950 East Sea (Sea Japan) Yellow Sea SOUTH KOREA North Korean dvance Sept. 1950 100 Kilometers Pusan Area occupiec communist forces JAPAN occupied forces Movement communist forces Movement UN forces'

75 Years ago, August 11, 1945, Truman unilaterally divided historically homogenous Korea, which would never have peace again

Korea is where the Cold War first arrived. At the conclusion of World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States jointly occupied previously undivided Korea in order to expel the defeated Japanese, who had effectively ruled the entire peninsula since 1905. On August 11, 1945, two days after dropping the Plutonium Bomb on Nagasaki, and three days prior to Japan’s formal surrender, Truman unilaterally created a temporary demarcation line separating the Russian and US forces approximately along the 38th parallel. This line was not intended to create two separate countries but merely to be a temporary division as they awaited unifying elections. A Korean war was inconceivable before Truman’s arbitrary decision to divide Korea, made from the comfort of his air-conditioned White House in Washington, DC. But because of that division, the Korean Peninsula has not been at peace since; seventy years later, millions of families are still divided by the fortified, fenced demilitarized zone (DMZ).

With the Japanese surrender, the people of Korea were confident they would now be able to build their own society, resuming control over their sovereignty. The Korean people could not have imagined that they were about to become victims of an even more tragic and cruel injustice, this time inflicted upon them by a Western nation, the United States of America, rather than by one of their historic Asian nemeses.

On August 15, 1945, the day after the Japanese surrender, the Korean people, the majority seriously impoverished, openly celebrated their liberation after 40 years of miserable Japanese occupation. Ironically, on the same day and unbeknown to most Koreans, the US proclaimed establishment of “legal” occupational control over the south, though US troops wouldn’t land until September 8. Confident of their ability to regain control of their own country, Koreans had immediately formed the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence (CKPI). By August 28, all Korean provinces on the entire peninsula
had established local peoples’ democratic committees. On September 6, delegates from throughout Korea, both north and south of the demarcation line, despite the new US occupation orders, gathered in Seoul to create the Korean People’s Republic (KPR). Two days later, Koreans were shocked to face masses of incoming US troops. Coincidentally, the Koreans’ announcement of their unified independence came only four days after Ho Chi Minh’s declaration of a unified independence for all of Viet Nam.


Photo: Ex-FBI agent Jack Ryan and myself hold banner, "US Out of Korea", August 8, 2001, in front of the Yongsan US Army base in Seoul, Korea


Image may contain: 1 person, sitting, table and indoor

Image may contain: Michael Sonnleitner, text



http://www.theportlandalliance.org/globalresearch/


The Inevitable, Fatal End of Globalization – Centuries of Obscene Entitlement
Morphing into Unavoidable, Horrendous Consequences; New Beginnings?

By S. Brian Willson


Veteran Suicides: MORAL INJURY to the SOUL, including the collective soul of the United States

In Viet Nam I was staggered at how terribly dumbed-down I was as I turned 28. Because of historical ignorance, even worse, stupidity, I had thoughtlessly become part of a brutal killing machine that was murdering countless innocents, though I never pulled a trigger or dropped a bomb. This has caused me serious moral and soul injuries, a dis-ease much deeper and very different from and, I believe, more uncomfortable than anxiety. This may explain the high suicide rate among veterans who have experienced serious, deep cognitive dissonance that challenges the essence of the right and wrong innately known by the soul. And, it explains the suicidal ideational thoughts that came in and out of my head while experiencing the Fellini movie–like experience called Viet Nam. I still have them, more than 50 years later.

Three-tour Afghanistan veteran (Oct 2001, 2002, 2003) Jacob George clearly described how basic training itself weaponizes the soul. Military training is intentionally designed to dehumanize the enemy. This invariably leads to the dehumanization of ONESELF, which causes deep moral injury. The banjo-playing George, who clearly understood his own PTSD and moral injuries, was provoked to new angst when on September 10, 2014, he heard that President Obama had ordered a new war against Syria and ISIS. One week later, at age 32, George committed suicide in his Arkansas home. Fortunately, he left a beautiful legacy: a 2012 songbook with text, Soldier’s Heart, which reveals such profound wisdom about moral injury and PTSD that it behooves a serious read (and listen) for anyone interested in treating and/or healing from these injuries.

Jacob George, Soldier's Heart, http://www.jacobdavidgeorge.org/soldiers-heart

Now I'm just a farmer from Arkansas,
There's a lot of things I don't understand
Like why we send farmers to kill farmers
In Afghanistan
Now I did what I's told for my love of this land
I come home a shattered man
With blood on my hands
And now I can't have a relationship, I can't hold down a job
Some may say I'm broken, I call it soldier's heart
Because every time I go outside, I gotta look her in the eyes
Knowin' that she broke my heart, and turned around and lied
Oh I said, red, white, and blue,
I trusted in you
And you never even told me why
Now it was the summer of 2002,
I just got off the Pakistan border
To get out of the heat
And my sergeant handed me some orders
And told me to read
Well it called for the mobilization of 500, 000
Soldiers, sailors, and Marines
For impending invasion of Iraq
The coming spring
Well I got home a couple months later
And I heard the drums, I heard the drums of war
And they had y'all dancin' all around
And askin' for more
Well this soldier's heart couldn't take
I said this soldier's heart couldn't take it anymore
Now I can't have a relationship, I can't hold down a job
Well some may say I'm broken, I call it soldier's heart
Because every time I go outside, I gotta look her in the eyes
Knowin' that she broke my heart, and turned around and lied
I said, red, white, and blue, I trusted in you
And you never even told me why
I said, every time I go outside I gotta look her in the eyes
Knowin' that she broke my heart and turned around and lied
Oh I said, red, white, and blue, I trusted in you
And you never even told me why


TULSA, Oklahoma, Massacre of Blacks by Whites, May 31 - June 1, 1921

Oklahoma, May 31 – June 1, 1921. Tulsa, Oklahoma was the scene of the second known use of U.S. planes to intentionally bomb civilians. [The first known use of airplanes (Italian) to bomb civilians is believed to have occurred when Italy bombed Tripoli in 1911.]

From May 31-June 1, 1921, angry Whites organized and launched a ruthless campaign against the thriving Black Greenwood neighborhood (nicknamed Black Wall Street) in the emerging U.S. oil capital, Tulsa, Oklahoma. According to survivors, the Oklahoma National Guard used airplanes to fire bomb the Greenwood section of Tulsa in a massacre of Blacks. This was never openly acknowledged by officials. Survivors and witnesses to the massacre kept this atrocity to themselves until word leaked out in the 1980s, over sixty years later. Whites had been silent from shame, the Blacks from fear. Accounts now suggest that "more than 300 blacks were killed and 10,000 left homeless (the entire population of Greenwood) after a mob of white deputies and Oklahoma National Guardsmen descended on the all-black Greenwood section of Tulsa, burning everything in sight." Tulsa officials deputized men who burned Greenwood with the "help of uniformed police." There is no authoritative data on how many Blacks were murdered these two days,

According to a number of Black witnesses, including at least four first-hand written accounts, about a dozen airplanes, apparently from the National Guard, and perhaps one plane owned by Sinclair Oil, "rained fire" from the air, while strafing with rifles, and firebombing with incendiary devices, including turpentine balls. The White terrorists destroyed 1,256 houses and other buildings, including churches, stores, businesses, newspaper offices, a school, a hospital, and a library, in a thirty-six square-block area of the prosperous Black section of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“Removal at gunpoint from their homes throughout the day, the African Americans were lined up on the street, their hands raised above their heads, and slowly marched out of the district. Others were taken in trucks and cars…With the city jail full, the blacks were detained at the Convention Hall, a few blocks beyond Greenwood’s western boundary…Guards shot at the heels of those who couldn’t keep pace…By Thursday, June 2, 6,000 blacks had been rounded up at the fairgrounds, about one mile northeast of Greenwood, where platforms used to groom cows were transformed into sleeping floors.

Many members of the recently formed (1919) national service organization of WWI veterans – the American Legion – were involved in their military uniforms with their weapons, taking credit for having "saved the damn city from militant blacks" .

US REGIME CHANGE Efforts Continue in Nicaragua – Incredible Fake News, May 28, 2020 (via Nan McCurdy)

The Regime Change attempt has never stopped since early 2018, or earlier. It peaked from April to July 2018, and since April 2020 there has been another peak. Vice President Rosario Murillo denounced this coup attempt on April 28th 2020. We know from reading US cables, and other news sources and government reports, that since 2010 the US has been funding "regime change" with hundreds of millions of dollars given to collaborators in Nicaragua, assisted by the CIA and NED, and the lapdog corporate media.

A regime change attempt does not start with people on the streets but with discrediting and smearing the government, the police, the army and or the Health Ministry in this case. Currently every opposition media outlet and member, the Costa Rican government and media, international organizations such as the CIDH (OAS) and the EU, and of course the US and its corporate media, are working together 24/7 to besmirch Nicaragua's incredible example in fighting this pandemic. The immediate objective of the US is to create the narrative internationally that Nicaragua is invaded by the virus and that this is the fault of the government. The CIDH yesterday said that Nicaragua is hiding cases. They only listen to the opposition and have not even been present in the country this year.

The local media (Confidencial, La Prensa, Onda Local, Radio Corporacion, Channel 10, 100% Noticias, Channel 12, etc) are trying to create a scenario or idea that the hospitals are overflowing. They fabricate fake news by saying that their journalists have Covid and went to a hospital and the hospital didn't have a bed for them. In reality the hospitals and the ICUs have beds and are far from overflowing. They want to sell the idea internationally that the health system has collapsed and if you read what the CIDH wrote or what other international media write, that will be your understanding. They keep putting out fake announcements of people dying and then the families have to come out and deny the fake news.

Another example of the sensationalism they are creating is the death of a well known Radio Corporation reporter who died, supposedly, with Covid-19. The opposition media filmed his funeral. In the video you can hear someone (the idea is that it is the wife) saying that his death is Daniel Ortega's fault. This gets played over and over on all the opposition media and on facebook. That is the narrative - every death is a Covid-19 death and all deaths are the fault of Daniel and Rosario. And, in fact, now the narrative includes that all deaths in Costa Rica are the fault of Daniel and Rosario. It is absurd and cruel.

Because of all the US-led and funded opposition here, in Costa Rica and the US, Nicaragua is held to a higher standard than other nations in relation to Covid. This is psychological warfare on a massive scale. The objective is to say that this government can't govern, by blaming all deaths on the FSLN, claiming our health system is collapsing, claiming we are hiding cases and deaths of Covid by setting up these fake "health consortiums" like the one that Dora Maria Tellez heads up.

Also, just like we witnessed in the 2018 coup attempt, false flag attacks are back. About a month ago, deputy Wilfredo Navarro accused channel 10 of hiring trucks to drive near cemeteries at night with empty coffins in the truck beds, while opposition actors played "MINSA health workers" as others filmed. Keep in mind this was done while we only had very few imported cases and no more than 4 deaths- trying to prepare the narrative that the government was hiding cases and deaths. MINSA is the very professional national Ministry of health.

Currently there are some people being buried at night in what we call "express burials" but this is not being hidden, MINSA talks about it openly, as this is one of the WHO's guidelines being followed all over the WORLD. MINSA gives the family of people who died from or with Covid (as well as anyone who dies of pneumonia for any reason, just in case it might have been Covid) the option to cremate, in which case they can do their service whenever; or they can bury their loved one. If they want to bury them, it needs to be done right away. So if someone dies between 6pm and 3am, they are going to be buried at night. In the US they don't ever give the bodies to the family with the option of burial.

As of Tuesday there had been 35 probable Covid deaths, and among them some pretty well-known older folks with at least two pre-existing conditions. Thus, it was easy for the opposition to make a big deal of the deaths, really amplifying them to the point that you would think there had already been 200 deaths! As we know from world data, the numbers increase once it is in the community - doubling of numbers every three days until the peak. Predictably, by next Tuesday, June 2, Nicaragua may have about 3,200 cases, although lighter cases may not go to or call MINSA and not get counted, as is the case globally.

Many people have fallen for the fake news and the sensationalism. Despite all the education and prevention done by the government, there is a percentage of people who really believe all of this and they are TERRIFIED. The opposition has many of them thinking that if they get COVID they will die. With all the psychological warfare they have forgotten that 85% of those who get COVID will not be sick at all, or have a light or medium case of it.

The opposition and their journalists are clearly requesting US intervention in the framework of the United Nations with the blue helmets. Very anti-Sandinista AP 'journalist' Gabriela Selser is so urging. She lives in Managua but remains secluded in her home according to neighbors.

Photo at right...  I am getting my blood pressure checked by a local doctor.

"If you leave it to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell we will have a Great Depression. If we had the right policy structure in place we could avoid it easily."

About this website

COMMONDREAMS.ORG

Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz Warns US Barreling Toward Second 'Great Depression' Thanks to Trump-GOP Failed Covid-19 Response

"If you leave it to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell we will have a Great Depression."


http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/MoaningSBW  When Will We Hear the Moaning?

May 27, 2009
 


Arthur Koch added a new photo to the  Album: Granada Nicaragua — with S Brian Willson.

"We met Brian Willson, a Vietnam vet, in Granada with his Nicaraguan wife and took him out to eat a few times.
You may remember the headlines
on Sept 1 1987 when was part of a non violent demonstration outside of Concord Naval Weapons Station blocking a train from sending weapons to Central America.
The train didn’t stop that time like before and instead sped up, cutting off both his legs.

Here’s the first part of a three part NPR interview: https://youtu.be/tPGcViL2svY

Brian has an indomitable spirit, continuing to work for peace, riding his hand cycle with other vets on both coasts.


More about his thoughts on his website here: http://www.brianwillson.com/ and buy his  book
“Blood on the Tracks”.  

Here is the second part of an NPR interview that goes more into his experience in Vietnam.

https://youtu.be/6BPL1w3QW8U

Here is a more personal interview about his hand cycle and book tour:

https://youtu.be/-Z6xmLfNHcQ   

US Exceptionalism Has Been Fatal – Creates Stupid, Shameful Monsters

The origins of the Grand Lie of Viet Nam, and the horrific cruelties committed there, are discoverable in the very origins of US America. The psychological and cultural conditioning growing up in US America, especially for a Eurocentric White male like myself, is emotionally and intellectually comfortable. But the noble “exceptional” history we have been taught about ourselves upon careful examination is fantastic fakery which continues to serve as a comfortable defense mechanism from learning the horrible truth – the collective shame of our unspeakable criminal genocidal origins.

Capitalism itself would not have existed without centuries of egregious colonial plunder of millions of Indigenous Americans, or millions of enslaved Africans. So, not only does the lie of “exceptionalism” enable us to avoid extremely unpleasant feelings, but it also discourages asking enlightening, delving questions, about who we really are as a people. This makes us dangerously stupid. Why mess with the apparent successful myth of being exceptional?

But thoughtlessness – a suspension of critical thinking – leads to a nuclear, arrogant war-making society. Not unintelligent, but stupid. And the power brokers, and many in the population, have a vested interest in remaining stupid to protect the comforting original lie, that requires countless subsequent lies, in turn, to preserve that original lie. So we have told ourselves a nice sounding story. But it is a lie and as long as we continue to believe in our superiority we deepen our stupidity.

Thus, throughout most of our history, we have lived by a slick Grand “American” lie, granting us comfort and security in our “superior” cultural identity. Spellbound and flattered we live by our favorite mythological maxims: “Founding Fathers”, “democracy”, “Constitution”, and “Rule of Law”, “greatest country ever”. Our political-religion of US American predatory corporate capitalism (privatization) blocks experiencing the most critical of all social emotions – empathy – that ties all humanity together, something I so painfully, but thankfully learned in Viet Nam. The Grand lie is so huge and pervasive we do not generally recognize it.

The US nation is a criminal enterprise built on forceful dispossession, deceit, and fantasy. We live with a DNA of selfishness, arrogance and violence that began long ago, and we seem content to leave it be, increasing our dangerousness.


Image may contain: 1 person

Meet NORMAN MORRISON. He was the second of 8 US Americans who immolated themselves in angst about the criminal US war against the Vietnamese people. Fifty-four years ago, Nov 2, 1965, his act of sacrifice occurred in the Pentagon parking lot in view of Sec'y of War Robert McNamara's window, something McNamara witnessed and therefore could never forget. Morrison, 31 at the time, was the Secretary for the Stony Run Friends Meeting Society in Baltimore, MD, and he was quite distressed that the Quakers were not doing enough to stop the bombing of Viet Nam. However, he provided no warning to his wife and 3 children about his spontaneous plan "to act for the children of Viet Nam." Understandably, Morrison's act was sharply condemned in the United States as being an unacceptable way to protest. The war continued for nearly 10 more years, despite many domestic protests and millions of casualties in SEA. Congress continued to fund the war despite its insanely criminal genocidal nature.

Fourteen years prior, in late 1951, as a nearly 11 year-old boy scout, I met Norman in my small town of Ashville, NY, the first Eagle Scout I knew, seven years my senior. We both subsequently graduated from Chautauqua, NY Central High School. He dated my next door neighbor's daughter.

When I was in Viet Nam in 1969, I discovered that Morrison was a hero to the Vietnamese, one who sacrificed himself for a higher value, and that North Vietnamese trucks drivers transporting supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail had photos of Norm posted in their cabs as inspiration to continue their intense defense against the bully, high tech, 500,000 US military trying to destroy their autonomy and independence. I was blown away by this historic act of someone I had known as a kid from a small town, an act that had initially seemed an act of suicidal madness, but one that I came to respect as heroic.

The North Vietnamese quickly issued the postage stamp in his honor, that depicts Norman looking down from the clouds at US antiwar demonstrators. The US prohibited possession of the stamp in the United States. I dedicated my first book, "On Third World Legs" (Charles Kerr, 1992) to Norman Morrison. Norman's widow, now remarried, wrote a book about Norman, "Held in the Light: One Man's Sacrifice for Peace and His Family's Search For Healing" (Orbis, 2008).
There is a play abut Norman, "Re: Union" written by a Canadian playwright Sean Devine (Scirocco Drama books, 2013).

 

 background on Morrison's self-immolation: 

The Fire of Norman Morrison

Norman Morrison was angry and troubled by the U.S. military action in Vietnam. His suicide at the Pentagon in 1965 sent shockwaves across the globe. (Photo source: Wikipedia)




Dusk was approaching when Norman Morrison pulled into the Pentagon parking lot on November 2, 1965. Parking his two-tone Cadillac in the lot, he walked toward the north entrance, carrying his 11-month old daughter, Emily, and a wicker picnic basket with a jug of kerosene inside. Reaching a retaining wall at the building’s perimeter, the 31-year-old Quaker from Baltimore climbed up and began pacing back and forth. Around 5:20 pm, he yelled to Defense Department workers who were leaving the building.

Then, the unthinkable.

As U.S. Army Maj. Richard V. Lundquist told the Evening Star, “He suddenly appeared to light up and burst completely into flame, silhouetted against the dusk.




more at:  https://blogs.weta.org/boundarystones/2018/10/25/fire-norman-morrison





 

FM: Peter Phillips, Professor, Sanoma State Univ, April 28, 2019

The following are the top three Weapons Producers in the world and the Investment Management Giants that invested in them in 2017.

LOCKHEED MARTIN Corporation: State Street ($15.2 billion), Capital Group ($12.17 billion), Vanguard Group ($6.5 billion), BlackRock ($6.1 billion), Bank of America ($3.1 billion), UBS ($902 million), Bank of NY Mellon ($733 million), Fidelity Investments (FMR) ($721 million), Morgan Stanley & Co. ($703 million), Goldman Sachs Group ($474 million), Prudential Financial ($449 million), Credit Suisse ($149 million), Allianz SE (PIMCO) ($82 million), JPMorgan Chase ($55 million), Amundi/Crédit Agricole ($54 million), Barclays plc ($50 million)
[16 major investors = $47.44 Billion total]

NORTHROP GRUMMAN Corporation: State Street ($5.9 billion), Vanguard Group ($4 billion), BlackRock ($4 billion), Fidelity Investments (FMR) ($2.4 billion), Capital Group ($1.8 billion), JPMorgan Chase ($1.5 billion), Bank of America ($666 million), Goldman Sachs Group ($488 million), Bank of NY Mellon ($410 million), UBS ($248 million), Morgan Stanley & Co. ($211 million), Prudential Financial ($200 million), Allianz SE (PIMCO) ($176 million), Credit Suisse ($67 million), AXA Group ($55 million), Amundi/Crédit Agricole ($51 million), Barclays plc ($44 million)
[17 major investors = $22.035 Billion]

BOEING Company: Capital Group ($12.8 billion), Vanguard Group ($11.9 billion), BlackRock ($10.3 billion), State Street ($8 billion), Fidelity Investments (FMR) ($1.9 billion), Bank of NY Mellon ($1.6 billion), Morgan Stanley & Co. ($1.5 billion), Goldman Sachs Group ($1.2 billion), Bank of America ($1.01 billion), UBS ($729 million), JPMorgan Chase ($711 million), Prudential Financial ($440 million), Allianz SE (PIMCO) ($337 million), Credit Suisse ($273 million), Barclays plc ($245 million), Amundi/Crédit Agricole ($195 million), AXA Group ($119 million)
[17 major investors = $53.26 Billion]

Investment Management Companies in Major Arms Makers [17]
State Street
Capital Group
Vanguard Group
BlackRock
Bank of America
UBS
Bank of New York Mellon
Fidelity Investments
Morgan Stanley & Co.
Goldman Sachs Group
Prudential Financial
Credit Suisse
Allianz SE (PIMCO)
JP Morgan Chase
Amundi/Crédit Agricole
Barclays plc
AXA Group


Press Statement posted by: vfp@veteransforpeace.org,
For immediate release 18 March, 2019, Two US Veterans For Peace Refused Bail at Ennis District Court, Monday 18 March, Charged with Trespass and Causing Criminal Damage at SHANNON airport

A group of seven US Veterans for Peace took part in a protest against a US Military Base at Shannon International Airport, near Limerick in Western Ireland, on Sunday March 17th. WHY? Shannon used for refueling troop planes bound for Middle East wars in which up to one million [1,000,000] children have died since 1991. Ireland claims to be a neutral country.

Two US veterans were arrested at Shannon Airport on 17 March for entering the airfield to inspect and investigate an OMNI Air International plane on contract to the U.S. military. The two, Tarak Kauff and Ken Mayers, were refused bail at Ennis District Court today.

The plane, tail number N351AX, arrived at Shannon Airport about 8.30 am from Eielson US air force base in Faribanks Alaska, believed to be on its way to the Middle East with up to 300 armed US troops.

At about 10 am Mayers, a former Marine Corps Major and Kauff, a former Army paratrooper, both members of US Veterans For Peace, entered the airfield carrying a large banner that said:
*U.S. Veterans say Respect Irish Neutrality
*U.S. War Machine out of Shannon Airport
*Veterans For Peace

The two walked across the air field with the intent of inspecting the plane for weapons or munitions, but were apprehended by airport security and Gardai. There were detained and interviewed at Shannon Garda station and held overnight for arraignment on charges of trespass and criminal damage.

At Ennis District Court this morning Mayers and Kauff were represented by solicitor Darragh Hassett. The prosecution outlined the charges against them and indicated that they were opposed to bail. Garda Sergeant Noel Carroll gave evidence of arrest on Taxiway 12 at Shannon airport. He also stated that there was a US military aircraft at the airport, most likely referring to OMNI Air N351AX. He also confirmed that the defendants were both veterans of the US military. The prosecutor, Inspector Thomas Kennedy, said there had been substantial damage to the airport perimeter fence.

When the bail issue was being discussed Solicitor Hassett initially stated that the defendants were prepared to agree to bail conditions that involved surrendering their passports, and remaining in Ireland for the duration of the legal processes. This was an unacceptable condition as it would mean that the defendants would have to remain in Ireland at their own expense for up to two years before the trial would occur, and this restriction amounts to punishment without trial. The defendants then requested an adjournment to discuss matters with their solicitor.

After the court resumed, Hassett emphasized that the defendants needed to return home to the USA and would sign a sworn undertaking to return for trial. The prosecution opposed this and continued to oppose the granting of any bail. Judge Maire Keane then ruled that she was denying bail to the accused and remanded them in custody to Limerick Prison, where they are to appear for a further court mention hearing by video from the prison on Wednesday 20 March.

Further discussions were then held with Solicitor Hassett. He raised the option of appealing the bail refusal to the High Court in Dublin and he was told to lodge such an appeal. He indicated that it would likely be Thursday 28 March before this High Court appeal would be heard.


Ed Horgan, coordinator of Irish VETERANS FOR PEACE, said, “This process is a clear attempt to punish the two VFP activists before any trial takes place. We are calling on all peace and human rights activists in Ireland and internationally to campaign not only on behalf of Ken Mayers and Tarak Kauff, but, more important, on behalf of all the innocent people being killed and injured by US illegal wars.”

Major Ken Mayers served 12 years in the US Marine Corps. He is a former National Board member of Veterans For Peace and participate in veterans peace team delegations to Palestine, Okinawa, Jeju Island, South Korea, and Standing Rock.

Tarak Kauff was a paratrooper in the US Army during the early sixties. He was a member of the VFP National Board of Directors for six years. He has organized veterans delegations to Palestine, Okinawa, South Korea and Standing Rock. He is currently the managing editor of Peace In Our Times, VFP’s quarterly 24-page newspaper.

Contact details:
Ellen Davidson Veterans For Peace USA, Phone +353863539911. USA: 845-297-8076; Ellen.davidson@verizon.net
Edward Horgan, Veterans For Peace Ireland, Phone +353858519623, edwardhorgan45@gmail.com


THE SHADOW

June 28, 2009

Years after my experience in Vietnam, where I witnessed the immediate aftermath of intentional, low-flight bombings of inhabited fishing villages, I again personally witnessed the cruel and nearly incomprehensible U.S. wars against the restive but humble barefoot and shirtless peoples of Central America in the 1980s. I was in disbelief, literally feeling sick to my stomach. What could possibly motivate individuals, under orders from and paid for by our government in Washington, to commit such unspeakable barbaric acts day after day. We sensed some kind of awful karma leading toward a very horrible future for us U.S. Americans.

I have often thought that Swiss psychologist Carl Jung’s concept of the “projection of shadow” has been operating at the national level in the United States, as well as at the personal level of most of us living in the U.S


See the rest of this incredible story ..http://www.brianwillson.com/the-shadow/


Notes from S. Brian Willson...

Warhawk JOHN BOLTON should be apprehended and tried, Nuremberg-like, for crimes against humanity, and premeditated crimes against peace. Apparently there is no political institution, think Congress, that will stand up to him and say NO MORE! Our system is a total criminal enterprise, can pick on anyone who cannot defend themselves from the US military, or its threat.

 First Venezuela, now Nicaragua? Bolton says Ortega’s days ‘numbered’

US President Donald Trump’s top foreign policy advisor John Bolton appears dead set on resuming his decades-long stand-off with Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega, hinting that Washington-backed regime change may be in the offing. 

People in Nicaragua are freer than they have ever been. Bolton claims three "farmers" received 550 years in prison, but the maximum sentence in Nicaragua for any crime is 30 years. In this case the three farmers murdered in cold blood four policeman along with a secondary school teacher. The evidence was documented on their own cellphones,


Virtually everything the US political leaders and much of the corporate and social media claims about Venezuela and Nicaragua is lies: propaganda supporting the US narrative for regime change. We did the same in Viet Nam for nearly 30 years. We did the same in Korea.  A criminal nation bar none.

 



LIFE UNDER SOMOZA DICTATORSHIP VS LIFE UNDER SANDINISMO
- a 70 year old campesino's testimony

My name is Emerita. I was born Sept. 22, 1948 in the community Marlon Alvarado, near the town of Santa Teresa, Carazo, Nicaragua.

My childhood was very sad. I grew up in the period in which Nicaragua was governed by the Somoza family. I was raised in extreme poverty, the same as all the poor people of that time here in Nicaragua. I am the second of ten children. I had no time to play because here we had no water, and we had to go fill buckets five kilometers away. We had no electricity either, so we used a bottle with a rag soaked in diesel for a light. The roads were just trails where the horses could drown in the mudholes in the rainy season, and we all went barefoot. Our houses had straw or grass roofs, and the walls were sticks or sorghum stalks. There wasn't any school, so we were all illiterate. Later a school was provided but only to third grade, so I learned to read and write. At age twelve I had to go work in the city to help my parents to raise my younger brothers and sisters. I worked as a maid, and in those days, there were no laws to protect us. We had no day off, nor vacation time, nor extra pay at Christmas; we were like slaves. That's how I grew up, and when I was nineteen, my father died, so I continued working to support my younger siblings.

It wasn't until July 19, 1979 with triumph of the Popular Sandinista Revolution that we poor people saw a change in our lives. It was like waking up. It wasn't until then that we had any rights, for example a right to land. Through the agrarian reform we were given an area of land to plant. That land had always belonged to a rich landowner, where we were the badly paid laborers. Now thanks to the Revolution we could work this land for our own benefit, which has helped a lot to change how we live. Now we have good roads all year round, electricity, & easy access to water. As for food, we people in the countryside produce our own food & we can survive.

After the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) lost the elections in 1990, because people were tired of so much war, scarcity of necessary items, and the loss of our loved ones, and with the propaganda that if Doña Violeta won, the war would be over, the neoliberals returned to power. With Violeta Chamorro, Arnoldo Aleman and Enrique Bolanos, we regressed. They wanted to take away the [constitutionally mandated] 6% of the budget that is for university education, including scholarships for people who can't afford it. Young people protested to claim their right, and some were killed and wounded. The roads weren't maintained so they became unpassable again. The famous "blackouts" were extended times when there was scarcely electricity six of every 24 hours. In the hospitals and health centers there were no medicines. In the schools, we had to pay for tests, and many extras. Everything slid backwards and people got tired of it.

In 2007 Daniel Ortega returned to power through the elections which the FSLN won, & a new period began in which the government works with all the sectors: the private businesses, the farmers, the medium & small-sized businesses, the unions, etc. and there began to be many benefits for the people such as the "bono productivo" [production package of the Zero Hunger Program] which is given to poor people with land in the countryside. This consists of a pregnant cow, a pig, ten hens, two rolls of barbed wire, 2 bags of cement, 8 sheets of zinc roofing, etc. I am one of many who received this bono. Another bono is when 10 sheets of zinc roofing and 2 lbs of nails are given to families whose roof is in bad shape. Other bonos are the school lunch program, free health care, a backpack and notebooks to start the school year, and the bono for those graduating from high school, housing for needy people, scholarships for university students both inside and outside the country. 
Thanks to all this, all young people can study. In my family, all the young people are professionals. For example, my brother Antonio Vega, is a farmer. He has 4 children who have graduated from the university: one civil engineer, two doctors, and one psychologist. This would have been impossible if it weren't for the 6% law which provides room and board as well as tuition for students from families who can't afford it. And that is thanks to this Revolution and the FSLN under the direction of President Daniel Ortega that all this is possible.

That is why the opposition parties know that through elections they won't return to power, since the majority of the people are content with this government. And that's why they have had to use tricks, lies, and false statements to destabilize the country, taking advantage of the internet to wage a media war, but they can't fool us because we can see what is really happening here, but they may be able to fool the people in other countries.


The Defining and Enabling Experience of Our “Civilization” — Genocide and THE THANKSGIVING MYTH

November 21, 2012

(Slightly edited version of essay originally published November 2005)

As we again plan to celebrate what US “Americans” call Thanksgiving, let us pause for a moment of reflection. Let us recognize that accounts of the first Thanksgiving are mythological, and that the holiday is actually a grotesque celebration of our arrogant ethnocentrism built on genocide.

Native Americans in the Caribbean greeted their 1492 European invaders with warm hospitality. They were so innocent that Genoan Cristoforo Colombo wrote in his log, “They willingly traded everything they owned . . . They do not bear arms . . . They would make fine servants . . . They could easily be made Christians . . . With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” This meeting set in motion a 500+-year plunder of the Western Hemisphere, which then spread to the remainder of the globe. And it has not stopped!

Historian Hans Köning concludes that what sets the West apart is its persistence, its capacity to stop at nothing. Cultural historian Lewis Mumford declared, “Wherever Western man went, slavery, land robbery, lawlessness, culture-wrecking, and the outright extermination of both wild beasts and tame men went with him.”

Jump 129 years to 1621, year of the supposed “first Thanksgiving.” There is not much documentation of that event, apparently a three-day feast, but surviving Indians do not trust the myth. Natives were already dying like flies thanks to European-borne diseases. The Pequot tribe in today’s Connecticut reportedly numbered 8,000 when the Pilgrims arrived, but disease had reduced their population to 1,500 by 1637, when the first, officially proclaimed, all-Pilgrim “Thanksgiving” took place. At that feast, the whites of New England celebrated their massacre of the Pequots in the Connecticut Valley where the Mystic River meets the sea. The Indians were in fact celebrating their annual green corn dance ceremony. But it was to be their last.

William Bradford, the former Governor of Plymouth and one of the chroniclers of the 1621 feast, was on hand for the unspeakable massacre of 1637. He described it thus in his History of the Plymouth Plantation (@1647): “Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so that they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire…horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave praise thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory.”

The rest of the white folks thought so, too. “This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots,” read Massachusetts Bay Governor John Winthrop’s proclamation. The authentic proclaimed Thanksgiving Day was born. Few Pequots survived.

Most historians believe about 700 Pequots were slaughtered at Mystic. Many prisoners were executed, and surviving women and children sold into slavery in the West Indies. Pequot prisoners that escaped execution were parceled out to Indian tribes allied with the English. The Pequot were thought to have been extinguished as a people.

But, the epitaph was premature. Enough survived such that today the Pequots own the Foxwood Casino and Hotel in Ledyard, Connecticut, larger in size than the Pentagon, with gaming revenues in the billions.

Moving 158 years further, we discover a ruthless campaign conducted in central New York in 1779 during our “noble” Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress was furious that a majority of the Iroquois Indians (those who coined the Seventh Generation philosophy) were siding with the British against the colonialists who were rapidly settling their lands. The booming capital town of the Seneca Nation was Kanadesaga at the head of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region. In the summer of 1779, the Continental Congress instructed its Army’s commanding general to take care of the Indian problem. George Washington complied. He ordered General John Sullivan “to lay waste . . . that the country . . . be . . . destroyed,” instilling “terror” among the Iroquois Indians in central New York; General Sullivan affirmed that “the Indians shall see that there is malice enough in our hearts to destroy everything that contributes to their support.” Washington declared, “Our future security will be in their inability to injure us…and in the terror with which the severity of the chastizement they receive will inspire them” [Richard Drinnon, Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian Hating & Empire Building (New York: Schocken Books, 1990), pp. 331-32].

The culminating day of “victory” was September 7, 1779. Total destruction of Kanadesaga and the forty other Seneca towns was accomplished by 4,500 troops, nearly one-third of the entire force of the Continental Army. The only major military campaign of that year, it was one of the most vicious scorched-earth campaigns in history. All orchards and food crops were destroyed, all buildings were looted, then burned. Many of the escaping Senecas were scalped and butchered. “After the battle . . . Indian warriors . . . were scalped; Lieutenant William Barton amused himself by skinning two Indians from the hips down to make two pairs of leggings, one pair for himself, the other a present for his major” [Morris Bishop, "The End of the Iroquois," American Heritage, October 1969, p. 78].

Jump 162 years to 1941, when I was born in Kanadesaga, renamed Geneva by our European ancestors. As a young boy I blissfully collected hundreds of Seneca arrowheads, storing them in a special protected box in my bedroom. A chapter in my seventh grade history textbook taught that, “The Iroquois were the Indian Masters of the State,” but due to their “destructive attacks on the frontier settlements, George Washington decided to send an army to crush the Indians . . . The Six Nations never recovered from this blow.” Europeans onward and upward!

The New Republic was formed in 1789, its 1787 Constitutional Convention having been conducted in enforced secrecy, never submitted to a popular vote. The third U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) described his vision of an “empire of liberty,” with expanded commercial enterprises and territory. And without any Constitutional authority he quickly doubled the area of the young country by acquiring vast Louisiana from France’s Napoleon for $15 million.

In 1807 he advocated preventive war: “If the English do not give us the satisfaction we demand, we will take Canada, which wants to enter the Union; and when, together with Canada, we shall have the Floridas, we shall no longer have any difficulties with our neighbors; and it is the only way of preventing them” (emphasis mine) [William Appleman Williams, The Contours of American History (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1961), p. 192]. Others openly talked of expansion into Spanish America and Canada for planter and merchant prosperity in new markets, saying that the patriotic and virtuous “wise framers” of the Constitution had “too much wisdom to restrict Congress to defensive war”[Ibid., p. 194].

After moving to Humboldt County in northern California, I carefully examined its history as well. The 1849 gold rush brought a large influx of white miners and settlers to California, leading to near virtual wipeout of California Indians by 1865-70. Between 1853 and 1861 there were at least fourteen wars waged against the Indians of California, with paramilitary campaigns continuing into the late 1860s. The population, once thought to have been as high as 700,000, was estimated to be 100,000 in 1849 partly due to grueling enslavement in the Catholic Missions starting in 1769. From 1849 to 1860 the population decreased by 65 percent to 35,000, due to systematic killings [Russell Thorton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), p. 109]; a detailed list of atrocities committed against Indians in California, including many in what is now Humboldt County, can be found in Sherburne F. Cook’s The Conflict Between the California Indian and White Civilization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976)].

From 1857 to 1860, U.S. author/poet Bret Harte wrote for the Northern Californian and the Humboldt Times. Bret was privy to the white massacre of 188 Wiyot Indians on Indian Island in Humboldt Bay near Eureka on February 25, 1860, in which it was reported only one Wiyot child survived. Harte’s story, entitled “Indiscriminate Massacre of Indians, Women and Children Butchered,” included this account: “Little children and old women were mercilessly stabbed and their skulls crushed by axes. When the bodies were landed in Union [present day Arcata] a more shocking and revolting spectacle never was exhibited to the eyes of a Christian and civilized people. Old women, wrinkled and decrepit, lay weltering in blood, their brains dashed out and dabbed with long grey hair. Infants sparce a span long, with their faces cloven with hatchets and their bodies ghastly wounds. . . .” [Northern Californian, Vol. 2, Issue 9 (February 29, 1960), p. 1]. Barte fled as whites sought to lynch him.

In California as elsewhere, hordes of white frontier settlers, speculators, surveyors and other opportunists were establishing permanent settlements as they moved westward from the Atlantic Coast colonies, especially following cessation of the Seven Years War in 1763. Thousands of murders of Indigenous were proudly admitted by settlers and investors/speculators engaged in activities the equivalent of today’s paramilitary death squads operating outside “official” channels, i.e., acting parallel to or outside the jurisdiction of federal troops.

Preventive war using terror against civilians as ordered by the government carried out by young male troops or paramilitary forces are “all-American” values. Such policies have been witnessed time and again in U.S. history, rationalized by our sense of being “exceptional” people. We remain in denial about our arrogant, racist and genocidal origins. More redeeming values have been exhibited, such as civil disobedience and waves of progressive political movements. But the prevailing political and economic structures remain intransigently oligarchic. In simple terms, we remain a white male supremacy society of plutocrats supported by massive numbers of obedient consumers and laborers.

By revealing our social secrets (an oligarchy committed to selfish exploitation) and realizing that those secrets have pre-empted our social myth (a democracy committed to equal justice), we can help catalyze a revolution of consciousness. Recognizing that obedience to our system is killing us and the Planet’s capacity to host us, is a grand initial step for triggering the imaginative forces necessary to enable rapid movement toward a society based on mutual aid in which sustainable communities are built and nourished at the local level.

We have yet to come to grips with the original holocaust that continues to serve as the defining and enabling experience of our “civilization.” Embracing this “shadow” can ironically enable sudden and radical shifts as we are freed from expending the incredible unconscious energy needed to conceal our shame. Sharing our grief for what we have done to others, and ultimately to ourselves,will be experienced as tremendous relief.

This entry was written by brian, posted on at 11:15 am, filed under The Most Dangerous of Rogue Nations: The United StatesBrian's BlogChallenging Traditional Patriotism. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this postPost a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.



NICARAGUA IN THE CROSSHAIRS

 

POPULARRESISTANCE.ORG

The Troika Of Tyranny:
The Imperialist Project In Latin America & Its Epigones

The Nicaragua Crisis in Historical Perspective

Though I have become a Nicaraguan citizen and have lived in the country for the past
year, I embarrassingly am still unable to intelligently converse in Spanish. Nonetheless,
I continue to focus my studies on the involvement of the United States in the affairs of
other countries, including Nicaragua.

The first US Marines landed on Nicaragua soil in 1853 in efforts to protect US shipping and railroad interests. In 1854, the Atlantic Coast city called Greytown (later San Juan Del Norte) was bombarded by the USS Cyane for 4.5 hours, burning the entire community to the ground. A dozen or so invasions later, when the US Marines were fighting the Sandino forces who wanted the Yankees out of its country, a peace agreement was reached in 1934, but August Cesar Sandino leader of the guerrilla forces against the US Marines, and an advocate of peoples' producer and artisan coops, was assassinated on orders from the US to thwart the peace. The US-installed Somoza family ruled until ousted by the revolutionary FSLN on July 19, 1979.

Within 50 days of US President Ronald Reagan's inauguration in January 1981, Reagan on March 9, issued a formal presidential finding authorizing the CIA to begin covert activities to overthrow the new Sandinista government, with $19 million originally allocated for that purpose. The Contras were formed. Almost a billion dollars and ten years later, the US-funded and trained and armed Contra forces had destroyed much of the social fabric of the new country, killing more than 30,000 of its citizens, and maiming for life thousands more.

When the 1990 Nicaragua elections were held as called for by the FSLN government, the US spent $50 million to create a new political party, designating its own candidate, Violeta Chamorro. US President Bush openly declared to the Nicaraguan people that if they did not vote for the US chosen candidate, there would be ten more years of war, and thousands more murdered and maimed. The US candidate won, and for 16 years the Liberals and Conservatives were in power, privatizing virtually everything until the FSLN regained political power in 2007.

During the 11 years the FSLN has been in power, the country ranks as the safest in Central America (with lowest homicide rate by far), the World Bank has concluded it as a model economy for developing nations, it has become a popular tourist destination, and is a leader in creating renewable electric energy for the country.

Nonetheless, the US has been busy behind the scenes (what I call the Black Hand) through its "National Endowment For Democracy" with more than a dozen annual projects funded with more than a million dollars a year to foment dissent and dissatisfaction with Nicaragua to appease the disgruntled right wing forces who detest the Sandinista government. In effect, since Reagan's March 1981 decision to create the Contras to overthrow the Nicaraguan government, the US has NEVER left Nicaragua to develop its own unhindered efforts at creating a social democracy.

This does not mean the Sandinistas have created a paradise and are free of making mistakes as is typical of all governments, especially the USA. The latest disenchantment over the changes in the taxes to support its health care and retirement system did not warrant violence, but more intelligent debate and political changes to make the system more fair.

What explains the intense violence, from students and others to the changes in the health care law (INSS), is likely a golden "opportunity" the US has been waiting for to have an excuse to foment sufficient unrest, manipulating social media, with the goal of "regime change." Certain questions about the behavior of the police in quelling the current unrest need to be explained and addressed, but whatever dialogue is created, soon, I hope, will have the courage to address the Black Hand of the US and its NED programs in the country that have been teaching "democracy" in US style - through fundamentalist thought with violence always available to assure "regime change."

Whether one likes Daniel and Rosario or not, and their top down governing style, they have been overseeing a fairly successful society compared to all other Central American countries - El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, even Costa Rica (considered less safe than Nicaragua).

Let's hope that this crisis leads to a fresh approach to governing the beautiful people and nation of Nicaragua, that may include new leadership.

And let us not forget that the US has militarily intervened in dozens of countries almost 600 times over the last 220 years, and possesses nearly 1,000 military bases in many countries, and has, as a nation, one of the highest violence rates in the world, and more homeless per capita than any other country.

The US has absolutely NO moral or legal authority to tell anyone anything.

I do not know what is going to happen, and my lack of Spanish language is certainly an impediment to my being able to articulate a better analysis. But I am now a Nicaraguan and I intend to stay here, dead or alive. What I do know is that the US government detests the Sandinista government and is salivating at regime change because that is what the US is experienced in when a nation does not sufficiently "Cry Uncle". And that the US has never left the Sandinistas alone to develop their own version of a social democracy. This is historical fact.

SBW, former commander in Viet Nam where I learned of the long history of lies of my own country.


       I stand in front of the MY LAI MASSACRE MEMORIAL in Viet Nam, April 5, 2016.

In case you didn't know, that U.S. soldiers would commit acts of casual terror against helpless civilians was a disturbing

S Brian Willson's photo.

 discovery for many Americans. That they would be responsible for the annihilation of whole villages
was incomprehensible.

       The men who served in Vietnam were no different from those who remained at home. But they found themselves in a situation for which they had not been prepared, an environment of fear & uncertainty where restraint could mean death & the distinction between enemy & civilian could lose its reality, an environment of atrocity with its own logic of crime and punishment. 'I gave them a good boy,' despaired the mother of Paul Meadlo, one of those accused of participating in the My Lai massacre, 'and they made him a murderer'". A war policy of atrocity, terror, slaughter, and massacres existed, just as with the beginnings of the USA with Europeans forcing the assimilation or elimination of the original indigenous peoples.

       A great number of veterans (like myself) witnessed atrocities rather than participating in them. We were complicit nevertheless. A terrible plight – for life! But it was worse for those on the ground who directly participated in or witnessed murders of villagers. This is a major contributor to PTSD. Often soldiers who complained or lodged accusations toward their superiors for commission of atrocities were isolated or punished, so the larger context of the war of atrocities, and US policy in general, remained unchallenged. No US court ever entertained adjudging the legality of air strikes in populated areas as in violation of the rules of engagement, and examining the legality of counting bodies of dead civilians as part of enemy body counts.

      

Throughout the war, including at My Lai, where many officers had knowledge of the massacre or were eyewitnesses to it, the higher command levels remained virtually exempt from accountability and legal scrutiny.

Thus, the historical policy of genocide with impunity continued ac
cording to pattern, precisely the unwritten policy upon which the United States of America was founded, and has been maintained all along. Ex-combat correspondent Jay Roberts reported that "It was standard operating procedure to eliminate the enemy's shelter and his food supply."

       Charlie Company, a unit of the US Army’s Americal Division's 11th Infantry Brigade, arrived in the hamlet of My Lai in the northern part of South Vietnam on the morning of March 16, 1968. They were on a “search and destroy” mission to root out 48th Viet Cong Battalion thought to be in the area.

       They met no resis
tance; there were no Viet C
ong soldiers at My Lai. Not one bullet was fired at the US oldiers. Nonetheless, their commander, Lt William Calley ordered the slaughter of the civilians, 504 when finished. People were rounded up into ditches and machine-gunned. They lay five feet deep in the ditches; any survivors trying to escape were immediately shot. When Calley spotted a baby crawling away from a ditch, he grabbed her, threw her back into the ditch, and opened fire. Some of the dead were mutilated by having "C Company" carved into their chests; some were disemboweled. One GI would later say, "You didn’t have to look for people to kill, they were just there. I cut their throats, cut off their hands, cut out their tongues, scalped them. I did it.
A lot of people were doing it and I just followed. I just lost all sense of direction." 


There were many My Lais in Vietnam. But virtually none were photographed as this one was by army photographer Ronald Haeberle. May 16, 1968, exactly 2 months after the My Lai Massacre, details of My Lai massacre were published in France, but never picked up in the U.S. press. Not until November 12, 1969, did Seymour Hersh first reveal in the US press the March 16, 1968 My Lai Massacre (known as "Pinkville").


                                                                               US military personnel are on the ground in virtually every country - at least 75% of them. .....

SEE "A Shadow War in 150 Countries" By Nick Turse;http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175945/


As the structure of what’s always called “security” is built out ever further into our world and our lives, that world only seems to become less secure. Odder yet, that “more” is rarely a focus of media coverage, though its reality is glaringly obvious. The details may get coverage but the larger reality -- the thing being created in Washington -- seems of remarkably little interest.

America’s Special Operations forces are a striking example of this phenomenon. The commando is, by now, a national culture hero, the guy who stands between Hell and us. But what special ops forces really do all over the planet, doesn’t seem of any particular interest to Americans in general or the mainstream media in particular. 

Nick Turse, in particular, done the kind of reporting on and assessment of special forces operations that should be the coin of the realm, but couldn’t be rarer in our world. Just how many countries special forces operatives have set foot in from 2011-2014: 150 on a planet with only 196 nations. 
                                   


 The Dynamic Influence of Past Patterns on the Present


http://www.biography.com/people/sigmund-freud-9302400Cultural historians, philosophers, psychologists, essayists, and scientists caution us to seriously understand the past and its pervasive patterns. Sigmund Freud declared that in psychic life, nothing of what has been formed in the past ever disappears. Everything that has occurred is preserved in one way or another and, in fact, reappears under either favorable or unfavorable circumstances.

“The past never leaves us and the future is already here”. [Lewis Mumford].

“Wherever Western man went slavery, land robbery, lawlessness, culture-wrecking, and the outright extermination of both wild beasts and tame men went with him’. [Lewis Mumford].

“The West has ravaged the world for five hundred years, under the flag of master-slave theory which in our finest hour of hypocrisy was called ‘the white man’s burden’....
   What sets the west apart is its persistence to stop at nothing”. [Hans Koning].

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. [George Santayana].

“Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future”. [George Orwell].

Rupert Sheldrake, biochemist, cell biologist and philosopher, describes a theory similar to psychologist Carl Jung’s collective unconsciousness, or concept of a group mind, a kind of inherited COLLECTIVE memory.

Sheldrake suggests the process by which the past becomes present occurs within what he calls “morphic fields”. A morphic unit is any
form or organization such as atom, cell, social group, pattern of behavior, or even a galaxy and they possess morphic fields that organize its characteristic structure and pattern of activity. They in turn are shaped and stabilized by “morphic resonance” which incorporate influence of PREVIOUS structures of activity that transmit causal influences through both space and time. The memory within the morphic fields is CUMULATIVE within which the past thus becomes present.



Impunity

When impunity dominates history, justice as a permanent value in the history of humans ceases to exist. This psychopathology produces a
sickness in the soul—of the individual, as well as of a nation—where nothing is real. Everything becomes pretend, the lies told over and over
in many different forms throughout time.

Impunity produces severe disturbances within the individual and collective psyche, manifesting in psycyopathological behaviors of huge magnitude, such as wars. Think of a spoiled child who has never been taught boundaries or been held to account for harmful behavior. Collective as well as individual narcissism can lead to extreme antisocial conduct. Security is experienced through individuality, and rigid adherence to individual and national economic privatization, but not social justice. Identification is achieved through possessions.

The acquisitive habit settles into the inner life, pre-empting an authentic inquisitive and social mind. A social compact is destroyed in deference to privatization, creating anomie. Life is commodified. Disparity between the Haves and Have-Nots becomes extreme; today this is called neo-liberal economics. History is negated, successfully concealing past traumas such as unspeakable genocides and wars about lies.

How many US citizens know of the crimes our country systematically commits throughout the world,
crimes that are constant, remorseless, and fully documented?


Really, how many?  It is of no interest. Without historical context, there is little capacity to critique the veracity of contemporary policies and rhetoric.  Our delusion of exceptionalism, if it is believed, means the US just couldn’t be involved in patterns of criminal interventions. Our origins just couldn’t be built on dispossession and genocide. This is not the American way. But the fact is that this is the American way. We simply don’t know about it and don’t want to know about it. Impunity has erased memory.


"We are not worth more. They are not worth less".


"I have had to feel, intensely, the pain of letting go of my addiction to the myth and the comfort that is associated with believing in "America" and its Way Of Life. In the process of letting go, I have chosen to walk, difficult though it is, on a different path, striving to free myself from imperialistic assumptions and thinking. This enables me to evolve as an authentic human being experiencing the new joys that accompany awareness of my sacred interconnectedness with all life. We are not worth more, they are not worth less."

Academic Degrees:

Navigation: FrontPage / Activism / Interactive Calendar / Donate / Flyer / YouTube / Poster / Subscribe / Place Ad / Ad Rates /  Online Ads / Advertising / Twitter / News! / Previous Issues / Blog/ Myspace / Facebook1 / Facebook2

Features:   Active Community / A Few Words /Arts & Culture / Breaking News / Jobs /  / Labor History / MusicNewsBytes / Progressive Directory / Cartoons / Community CalendarLetters / Poetry / Viewpoints & Commentary

ColumnsBeeman, Brown, Engelhardt / Kucinich / Munk / Myers / William Reed / Schwebke / Norman Solomon / Vorpahl / Wittner

Partners in Publishing Alternative News: AFD / AMA / Bread&Roses / CAUSA/ CLG / Common Dreams / DIA / FSP /ISO / Jobs w\ Justice / KBOO / Labor Radio / LGBTQMRG / Milagro / Mosaic / Move-On / OccupyOEA / Occupy PDX / Peace House / The 99% / Peace worker / PCASC / PPRCRight 2 Dream Too / Street Roots / Skanner / The Nation  / TruthOut / Urban League / VFP / Voz /

Topics: A-F AIPAC / Civil Rights / Coal / Death Penalty / Education / Election 2012 / Fair Trade / F-29 / Environment / Foreclosure /

Topics:  G-R
Health / Homeless / J-Street / Middle East / Occupy Blog / Peace / Persian / Police / Post Office

Topics: S-Z STRIKE! /  Tri-Met /  Union / VDay / War & Peace / Women / Writing / WritingResource                                                               


The Portland Alliance: Cell (for emergencies) 503-697-1670
For questions, comments, or suggestions for this site, please contact editor@theportlandalliance.org or ThePortlandAlliance@gmail.com
© 1981-2022 NAAME Northwest Alliance for Alternative Media & Education, dba The Portland Alliance:
All Rights Reserved.  A 501C3 Oregon Non-profit Corporation for Public Benefit
Alliance archives at the International Peace Resource Center Library at 2228 W. Kent Ave. / Missoula, MT 59801
Support local media:
The Asian Reporter | B-Media | Kboo | The Oregon Peaceworker | Portland.Indymedia.org | The Skanner