Originally posted by Administrator:
I agree with part of your post. Our agencies in the United States are far from perfect and are responsible for committing atrocities. All of these horrible things pale in comparison to the KGB's murder of millions and I think it is insensitive, irresponsible and immature for you to put them on an equal footing.
Administrator,
You will have to excuse me because this is difficult. On a normal basis I look up to your comments as true guidance (even if it may not seem like it). But you forced me into the extremely uncomfortable position of having to disagree with my superiors/ or elders publicly. Since it is a political issue and not, so to speak, a spiritual topic; I am a little more at ease.
I started to post more of an "empirical' post that documented all of the atrocities associated with American military and intelligence services. But I changed my mind, I am 95% certain that Administrator and Alex are both totally aware and knowledgeable about this history. No need to repeat that which everyone knows.
Countering the assertion that the American Government has killed people with the counter-assertion that yes it has killed people but not as many as the KGB is frankly not a real argument. I think the allegation that the American state has not killed as many people as the former Soviet state means little to the person who is on the other side of the barrel of a U.S. supplied and financed weapon held by an operative trained and paid by one of several U.S. intelligence organizations. I don't think it means much to the thousands of Latin American Mayan Indians who had their whole villages massacred by death squads (CIA backed). These village slaughters would usually kill every man, woman and child with only 1 or 2 survivors who lived to tell the story and show the forensic crews the areas of the mass graves. The KGB comparison, I am sure, does not matter to the Salvadorans who had to witness their spiritual father Archbishop Oscar Romero assassinated during Mass to be followed by the massacre of the Jesuits! The particular assassins of the latter mentioned were themselves graduates of the U.S. Army "School of the Americas' Fort Benning, Georgia. The School of the Americas has trained, supplied and supported some of Latin Americas most notorious dictators: Manuel Noriega, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola (Argentina), Juan Velasco Alvarado (Peru), Guillermo Rodriguez (Ecuador), and Hugo Banzer Suarez (Bolivia). In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release “School of the Americas” training manuals. According to The New York Times "Americans can now read for themselves some of the noxious lessons the United States Army taught thousands of Latin Americans... [The SOA manuals] recommended interrogation techniques like torture, execution, blackmail and arresting the relatives of those being questioned." The price of empire. I am especially appreciative of the genuine Christian charitable work being done by the Catholic Maryknoll Order whose members have went on hunger strikes and sat in federal prison for protesting this atrocious institution and American imperialist policies generally.
This is only recent and basic stuff, I did not mention Allende, Patrice Lumumba, Mosadeg, or Arbenz because I am sure that people get the point by now.
Actually, I was not even going to say anything in response to Administrator as I agreed with the upper part of his statement. But then I read:
“The difference here is that the Soviet government was created to serve the Communists. Here in America we the people have created a government of the people, by the people and for the people.” No, no the government was created BY the people for sure but was created FOR rich white male slave owners (such a George Washington and Thomas Jefferson [who himself raped his slave Sally Hemmings].)
During the founding of the republic the U.S. constitution provided for a senate whose members were elected not by the people but by the state legislatures, for a president elected by an electoral college whose members were selected by the state legislatures, and for a supreme court appointed by the president. The only popular elections were for the House of Representatives. Qualification to vote in these "popular elections' included property ownership.
Of these "people' that Administrator says the government was created for � of them could not vote because the constitution deemed them to be 3/5 of a human being. These were the slaves of African descent. One half of the white adult population could not vote because they were women. One third of the white male population could not vote because they did not meet the property requirement.
Administrator, do not get me wrong. I know you are not trying to gloss over this reality or claim otherwise and I am not trying to accuse you of believing in something or promoting something which you don't. I am only saying that your statement “in America we the people have created a government of the people, by the people and for the people” is not entirely correct.
And of course these outrageous things changed overtime, things got better. Shay's rebellion ensured the Bill of Rights into the constitution. Dorr's Rebellion in 1841-42 bettered the laws on suffrage, etc. The Civil War ended slavery. The woman's suffrage movement won the right of voting for women (but the struggle continues). The 1930's labor uprisings improved work conditions and gave workers the rights to organize unions (but the struggle continues). The Civil Rights movement did a lot to improve race relations, civil liberties, and gave the right to vote to adults (18 year olds) as opposed to only adults (21 year olds), (and yes, the struggle still continues).
My point Mr. Administrator is that America (the state) is not some benign country that always has the best of intentions as you sort of implied. The fact is that all of these gains for democracy that Americans have made over the years have been won through the struggle, sweat and blood of Americans who were courageous to stand up against the government (which opposed and in MANY ways repressed all of the mentioned reform movements with the exception of the Civil War) and fight for what was right. The African American reformer of the 19th Century, Fredrick Douglass, said that “Power concedes nothing without demand, it never did and it never will.”
A. Semaet
