For nearly two centuries (or longer), the South has been controlled by persons who favor military action and violence, and who have had phenomenally disproportionate power in the national government.We are likely to keep getting into wars unless there are structural changes that enable decent, progressive people in the South to wield their fair share of political power instead of almost always being subordinated to the militaristic yahoos who have controlled it for so long, and who have used their political power to create wars.
March 22, 2007
Re:If You Want To Know Why We Keep FightingWars, Look No Further Than The South.From: Dean Lawrence R. VelvelVelvelOnNationalAffairs.com
Dear Colleagues:
One who often reads American history can hardly avoid being constantly reminded why the historical South deserves contempt, if not sheer anger.Southerners of today dislike hearing this.They point out such truths as that the South has undergone much change; not everyone there is a yahoo; it has millions of intelligent citizens of good will; politeness and courtesy are valued there, as one wishes (forlornly) that they were valued elsewhere.Yet one is always reading -- ineluctably -- of a history so horrible that the mind boggles that this could have been America.As bad as the North was, it was nothing as compared to what went on for hundreds of years in the region that the supposedly sainted Robert E. Lee fought for -- what horrifically went on, indeed, for 100 years after he fought for it.
The latest book I’ve read that brings up this appalling history is one I’m currently in the midst of.It is “The Race Beat,” by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff.The authors are not exactly chopped liver; they are eminent in their field.Roberts, among other things, was the Executive Editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer for an 18 year period in which, on his watch, it won 17 Pulitzers.He subsequently was managing editor of The New York Times.Klibanoff is the managing editor for news at The Atlanta Constitution.Their book is a fascinating history of the press coverage of the Civil Rights movement.I’m almost half way through it, and the portion I’ve read often describes, of necessity, horrid things that were daily fare in the South.The worst are the murders and lynchings -- themselves nearly daily fare in the South.With apologies to the authors for lengthy quotes describing two of the worst of these events in order to give the reader a sense of what was going on in the South, here are descriptions of the lynching of Claude Neal and the never to be forgotten murder of Emmett Till:
“In the same way that Emmett Till would become the most defining event in the childhood lives of Negro children in Mississippi, the terrifying story of Claude Neal had made an indelible impression on the lives of Negro residents in north and central Florida.Newson [an African American reporter] had been seven years old in 1934 when Claude Neal was tortured and lynched in Marianna, a north Florida town not far from Alabama and Georgia.Neal, who was accused of having killed a white woman, was scalded repeatedly with a hot iron, castrated, and dragged through the streets before being stretched and displayed in a tree.This had not been an impulse lynching; newspaper and radio stories had given advance notice of it.As Neal was being hauled by a mob from an Alabama jail to Marianna, a crowd estimated at about four thousand had time to get to the scene.By some accounts, he was forced to eat his own genitals, and his finger and toes were put on display in the town.It was a story that haunted the Negroes of north and central Florida for decades .”P. 95.
“On August 31, three days after Till was reportedabducted, his tortured, bloated, and decomposed body floated partially to the surface of the Tallahatchie River.It was a ghastly sight, made all the more horrible because Till’s neck was wrapped in barbed wire attached at the other end to a cotton gin fan that weighed twice its seventy pounds because of the mud on it.The left side of the boy’s head was beaten in and “cut up pretty badly, like an axe was used,” the sheriff said.One eyeball was dangling from its socket; his tongue extended from his mouth, swollen to eight times its normal size.Behind his left ear was a bullet hole.Around one of his fingers was an oversized ring that his mother had finally agreed he could wear with a little tape to help it fit.The ring was engraved “LT,” the initials of his dead father, Louis Till.”P. 87.
“At the Illinois Central station, accompanied by Simeon Booker, other reporters and photographers for the Negro press, and scores of mourners, Mrs. Mamie Bradley [Till’s mother] waited for the pine box to arrive.Booker later wrote that when the box was handed down and opened for her to see, some of the young boy’s skull fell off and some of his brains fell out.”P. 88.
Till’s murderers were acquitted by a Mississippi jury in one hour and seven minutes.It was these kinds of things, it was the denial of almost all human decency in almost every way to almost all African Americans in the South, it was howling white mobs screaming at African American children, it was this kind of South, and Southern violence, that those of my generation in the North grew up learning about, reading about, seeing on television.And a good thing too, or it would never have changed.
But, in reality, perhaps the question is whether it all has changed.Let us put race aside, notwithstanding what appears to be in the heart of big league Southern leaders like Trent Lott, who wishes the country had followed Strom Thurmond.Let us confine ourselves to a single issue relating to violence; let us confine ourselves to regularly favoring the use of military force.Or, to put it more bluntly, regularly favoring starting and continuing wars.
The most famous Southern writer, Faulkner, said the past is not dead, it is not even past.This would seem true of the Southern attitude towards war.War has regularly been a Southern policy of choice -- not excluding the Civil War.The South wanted the War of 1812, it wanted war with Mexico, it wanted the Civil War, it wanted to invade and take over Cuba and parts of Central America.Woodrow Wilson, a Southerner, got us into World War I after saying he kept us out of war.Even Harry Truman, who took us into Korea without Congressional authorization and thereby set the stage for a militarized nation and Viet Nam, was in effect a southerner -- Missouri was a rebel leaning border state with lots of Southern feeling (and guerrillas) where Truman grew up not long after the Civil War.Lyndon Johnson was a Southerner, and so was Dean Rusk.So is the current George Bush.
It’s not that no northerners ever got us into (and kept us in) war:there were FDR and the first George Bush, after all.(The first Bush was really a Northerner even if he eventually repaired to Texas).But the fact is that Southerners have been prominent in seeking wars throughout American history.The South became militaristic at least as early as the 1830s or so if not before -- it started creating military academies to train men against the day it might be necessary to fight the North, and it never gave up its violent, militaristic attitudes.Faulkner’s point that the past is not even past would seem especially true with regard to the South’s love for war.Another way to say the same thing, a way I just heard a few days ago, is that Southerners just don’t care enough about their kids.(Which reminds me of the German nobleman type who said in the 1930s that he would give one of his sons to defeat England.)
Consider, most recently, the Congressional vote for war with Iraq in 2002, and the 50 to 48 Senate vote last week against pulling out most troops by 2008, a pullout that would have had to begin within four months.
When it came to the initial resolution authorizing the war in October 2002, the vote in the Senate was 77 for, 23 against.23 of these yeas came from the Old Confederacy plus the three Southern Border States of Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland, while only three of the nays came from these. (Two of the three nays came from the border state of Maryland, so that there was only one nay from all 11 states of the Old Confederacy.)In the House there were 296 for and 133 against.122 of the yeas and only 24 nays came from the Old Confederacy plus the border three.So, what is obvious is that the vote for war was overwhelming from the Old Confederacy plus the border three, with Senators and Congressmen from the rest of the country being much more divided.
Or to look at the recent 50 to 48 Senate vote against ending the war, only seven Senators from the Old Confederacy or the border three voted to end the war, while 19 voted against ending it.
These figures illustrate what has long been obvious to anyone who has studied or considered the history of the matter:they show that the South is far more inclined towards war than the rest of the nation.Naturally, there will be some objections to this view.It will be said, for instance, that the recent figures are what they are because the South is overwhelmingly Republican, this is Bush’s war, and his party members are supporting him. Well, not all party members supported him in the relevant votes.A few did not, just as some Democrats voted for war in 2002.But, far more importantly, to be in favor of war is the position of people who are conservative to reactionary (as well as some moderates).Southerners are Republicans because they are conservative to reactionary. They are not conservative to reactionary because they are Republicans.(Think of this idea as being something like Plato’s question of whether something is good because the Gods love it, or whether the Gods love it because it is good.)The South has been a conservative to reactionary stronghold (now called a red state stronghold) for at least 175 to 180 years, and that is why it is Republican today.So people who say southern support for this war is a party matter fail to reckon with the long history of conservative to reactionary, and militaristic, thinking.If the South weren’t that way it wouldn’t be Republican today and wouldn’t be supporting the war so overwhelmingly.
Lawrence R. Velvel is the Dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, which educates the working class, mid-life people, minorities and immigrants. He is the editor of a journal called The Long Term View, hosts an hour-long TV book show called Books of Our Time, which appears in the New England and Mid-Atlantic states on Comcast's CN8 and is streamed on the internet, and hosts a radio program called What The Media Doesn’t Tell You.The radio program, which is carried on World Radio Network and is streamed on the internet, discusses important matters which the media doesn’t disclose (or insufficiently discloses) and the reasons for the nondisclosure.
Velvel wrote a 1970 book on the constitutionality of the Viet Nam War and civil disobedience, and a recent quartet called Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam, comprised of: Misfit In America; Trail of Tears; The Hopes and Fears of Future Years: Loss and Creation; and The Hopes and Fears of Future Years: Defeat and Victory.
Velvel blogs at velvelonnationalaffairs.com. His 2004 and 2005 posts have been published in Blogs From the Liberal Standpoint: 2004-2005.
While it's true that Republicans have made grean inroads in the South, the feeling is that the North and the Democrats have ignored the South on many issues. People lambasting the South and going back to the Civil War to do it don't help matters. One reason that the South is militaristic is the propensity of military bases that feed the South's economy. Quantico, Ft. Bragg, Ft Jackson, Ft. Benning, MacDill AFB, the list is actually much longer. If you want to know why we keep fighting wars, look to your broken corporate-led two party system.
by
Timothy V. Gatto (348 articles, 177 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 575 comments)
on Thursday, March 22, 2007 at 6:29:46 PM
This kind of argument is very unhelpful. While it's true
that the South has lots of ugly brutal history, let's not pretend the North is any better. Do any of the following ring a bell? -- the Salem Witch Trials, Sacco and Vanzetti, Tammany Hall, the Pequot Massacre, Sen. Joe McCarthy, the Rosenbergs... Incidentally, Wall Street is in NYC, I believe, and that is surely one of the most depraved & corrupt places on the planet -- which has not a little to do with warmongering.
The reason the US starts a lot of wars is because it's a capitalist state, and war is an exceptionally profitable industry. Expansion, stealing other people's resources, & selling armaments -- all this is fabulously lucrative, & as such, is capitalism's lifeblood. Once shrewd & aggressive businessmen recognized that you can loot the federal Treasury by establishing connections between the military, the federal government & the war industries, the jig was basically up for the erstwhile "beacon of democracy."
The Iraq War is in principle no different from the Vietnam War, or any of the other scores of US military adventures. The military-industrial complex that powers all these things is the inevitable end-result of unfettered capitalism -- hardly a regional phenomenon in the US. I think we should face the fact that we have shared responsibility for the aggressive monster the US has become.
In terms of the mind-warping propaganda that makes it all possible, no influences are stronger than the NY Times, the Wall St Journal, the WaPo, & the TV networks. Most of these institutions were born in NYC, and none of them is Southern.
by
Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1104 comments)
on Thursday, March 22, 2007 at 9:21:24 PM
I would say though that while I live here and find Wall Street types particularly distasteful, I dont find the concept of Wall street or stock markets distasteful at all.
The entire problem comes in the way the compensation system is set up for brokers. While we're at it, the entire way compensation is set up to favor salespeople in the US is ridiculous. I will never accept why the person selling something they never had a hand in making often makes more than the person making it or developing it.
Getting back to the argument, as I have said many times here before on different arguments, generalizations about people are never helpful and always unfairly discriminatory. I'm glad you at least see it in this case.
by
Steven Leser (189 articles, 35 quicklinks, 32 diaries, 1291 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 9:52:00 AM
Sometimes it benefits to not to be born in the country. I would like to say that from my experience there is such thing as 'psychological complacency and conformity' which can be locally endemic. It is true that capitalism and militarism are brothers. But it is also true that there are always endemic population groups which accept certain things more eagerly than others. South of the USA, I mean White South, retaining the psychology of the rural folks, surrounded by technology) while not developing its intellectual level very much ( sorry, folks, it is not an exception, Bavaria and Ukraine are the same) embraces the bloody tendencies more eagerly- it is in the soil. Yes, Wall St. is in New York. But most of the antiwar groups are there and UN is there and world is there. In the South the warmongering is more natural. Not that the good shepherds cannot be from CT, say. Look at Joe Lieberman. But reality bites and psychologically South is more militaristic, more ignorant and more complacent/conformal than the North. This also is connected to the funny fact- South is guilty of slavery and that guilt is still there. Guilt makes people do bad things and have bad thoughts. I would characterise the South as the land of bad thoughts.
Sorry, folks, that's how I see it.
by
Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3358 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 7:31:12 AM
I disagree that capitalism and militarism are brothers...
militarism and nationalism of any kind are brothers. You can feel nationalistic about capitalism or communism or religion or race or etc., and that will lead right to militarism.
by
Steven Leser (189 articles, 35 quicklinks, 32 diaries, 1291 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 9:54:01 AM
Nationalism can be purely in the form of self-protection or authonomy and then it is not militaristic. People have to survive. But if militarism has other brothers, so be it. We are talking here and now. Here, in the US militarism is a sibling of capitalism, whatever you say.
And.. again, you, folks are spending too much time defending your own visions. Yes, the powerful banking elite has no real affiliation and nationallity and they use the populus. But there are places where the populus is more conformal to being used that way. Stephen King described his state of Maine with no praise, showing how Maine people had a tendency to ' freeze' in their own misery. So what? That does not mean there are no good people in Maine. What it does mean, figuratively speaking is that the Maine culture is OK with the 'frog rain' so to speak. That happens all the time. Yes, there were the Witches' Trials in Salem, MA. But in one of the neighboring towns people did not allow that to happen. South does seem more inclined to follow suite of the traditional US militarism but it does not mean that Southerners are all horrible monsters. It means what it means- they are on average more inclined to it.
I would advise the people here, those who are commenting to give more leniency and not to attack the author just to feel good about thyselves. If you read the article carefully you will see that there is no malice. Many great Southern writers from Faulkner to Robert Penn Warren to John Kennedy Toole mentioned that As such it is valuable.
by
Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3358 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 1:08:32 PM
"Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South. They're inexpensive and easy to procure.”
Robert Pen Warren
Again, neither RP Warren, nor Lawrence Velvet meant bad towards South and Southerners. They both are not malicious. Just there are some things about the South which are... Southern.
by
Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3358 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 8:26:39 PM
Perhaps Southeners are the foot soldiers, but aren't the architects of these wars usually Northerners. Who is gaining the most from the Iraqi war and occupation? Aren't Cheney and Rummy, for instance, Northeners who have gained considerably from the war in terms of money and power? And I'm sure there are many others.
Calling Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland quasi-Southern states is a little comical. What states then are quasi-Northern states?
by
skyreader7 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 182 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 10:24:29 AM
Steven -- take a minute to read what Gen. Smedley Butler
said about this, if you've never seen it before. Butler was the most highly decorated military hero in the period 1914-1935. He said:
"It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism....
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street....
Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents..."
I think it's fairly obvious that warlike tendencies are inheret in all of mankind in all areas of the world... It's generally easier to act on the basest of instincts and bash another person in the head with a rock than it is to blow them off, work toward a mutual agreement, or turn the other cheek etc... Having said that, look what they did to Jesus/Ghandi/John Lennon etc...
I think this article, in general, was a waste of the writer's (and my own) time and shows that prejudice is fairly rampant in the North of our country too. I've lived in the South my entire life and feel proud of my Southern Culture... (not everyone's ancestors in the South owned slaves, participated in lynchings, or supported segregation or any of the bigotted policies/customs that were rampant down here. Not everyone one in Germany was a Nazi during WWII either. Also, Santa Claus isn't real).
There's a lot to be said for anti-war activists here in Dixie as well. Buddhists too. Just because you don't see it on the local news doesn't mean it isn't happening! I've known protesting and counter-protesting most of my life for the things that I believe in... and non-violence is one thing I believe in now.
So, yeah, I'm offended... I think Mr. Gatto's comments are a pretty good start to how I'd counter this type of stale blather.
Enough said.
by
C.Bid (0 articles, 7 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 634 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 11:41:05 AM
If you want to know why we're in the mess we're currently in, read "The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism" by Dr. Ismael Hossein-zadeh, Professor of Economics @ Drake University in Des Moines, IA. You'll be shocked & surprised. The Professor is an Iranian Kurd immigrant who has spent much of his academic career studying the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex. The book is currently available @ Amazon.com & has its own web site, too. The reviews for the book have been great & the current 9 Amazon reader reviews have all given the book the highest rating, 5 stars, too! It is rather expensive, about $65 @ the Amazon web site, but well worth the money & your time to not only read but also to refer to when needed.
by
iman (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 89 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 11:48:42 AM
It isn't because of the south you ignorant fool, it's because of the military industrial complex seated in the pentagon in washington d.c. MONEY is why we keep fighting wars. read your history books, fool and realize you are in error. yes, attrocities happened in the south against black skinned people. they also happened and continue to happen (READ NY COPS AGAINST UNARMED BLACK MEN) in the north. gimme a break. pu-lease.
by
raine (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 13 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 11:56:02 AM
When the Solid South was ruled by Dixiecrats, Senators like Richard Russell of Georgia rose to hold unprecedented power on Congressional military affairs committees. They erected every sort of military installation and defense plant they could to invigorate the South's depressed economy. That economy was hurting, of course, because the majority whites refused to allow Negroes to be educated and hold decent jobs, thus depressing purchasing power and slowing commerce for all citizens, black and white. It was also depressed because northern businesses didn't want to invest in an area rife with racial tension. The military bases fueled the superpatriotism of the region, and made area residents dependent upon them for economic sustenance. While the Blue States, such as California and Massachusetts , acquired a reputation for their heavy concentration of universities and colleges, the Southern States became notorious for military-industrial activity. Southern States lag in most every yardstick of education, such as teacher pay. Boston is an anti-war city in good measure because of its concentration of universities. You can't allege that about Jackson , Miss. , or Birmingham , Ala. What the South needs is an infusion of educational smarts that will dilute its mindless superpatriotism. That's a long-term "solution," if solution it be, but belligerent societies change slowly unless punished terribly in a war of their own making, as Japan and Germany were punished during WWII. Those two nations, literally, were transformed overnight. For all its professed Christianity, the South today still has not adopted the philosophy of the Sermon on The Mount in its world outlook. It is insufficient, though, to condemn southerners out of hand, as there are millions of them who oppose the Iraq War and would prefer to see their tax dollars spent to benefit their communities, just as there were millions of white Southerners during the era of segregation who opposed the practice. The unfinished task that Reconstruction did not complete is to enlighten those Southerners derisively regarded as "rednecks" and "woolheads" and "poor white trash" who lack the education to see through the actions of a government that lies to them and whose economic opportunities are so scant as to make them grateful for the opportunity to work in the nuclear bomb plants of Texas and the naval shipyards of Mississippi. Just as millions of Southerners have come to see the wisdom of providing equal opportunities for African-Americans, I believe Southerners who unthinkingly walk the road to war can be turned in the direction of peace.
Sherwood Ross
Miami , Florida
by
Sherwood Ross (160 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 95 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 2:40:22 PM
I do agree with certain aspects of this piece, however, the arguments presented are somewhat simplistic. The problem is capitalism itself rather than a particular geographic region. Today, all Americans are being subjected to the Corporate State-the merger of corporations and government where corporations play the dominant role.
Over the past two decades, we’ve seen the resurgence of fascism (euphemistically called the “public/private partnership” in South Carolina) in conjunction with the simultaneous decline of New Deal policies. Classic liberalism from which both liberals and conservatives derived their ideology had failed by the time of the Great Depression. Free market capitalism was the Achilles’ heel of classic liberalism.
The twin evils of neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism have filled the void caused by the corporate sponsored attack on the New Deal. Granted, many Southern politicians have been enthusiastic supporters of reactionary policies, but they had a lot of help from their Northern counterparts who in many cases control the corporations that are causing the problem. There is plenty of blame to go around. My problem in South Carolina isn’t that I don’t have a palatable progressive message. My problem is that the political opposition is incredibly well funded from moneyed interests outside of the state, and usually from outside of the South altogether. They control almost all of the institutions-the local newspaper (The State newspaper) and its editorial staff, the cable company, the Chamber of Commerce, the state and county government, etc.
People never get to hear our side of the story because a complicit corporate media filters and distorts the message. They purposely turn social democrats such as myself into villains and communists before anyone has had a chance to hear what we have to say. Believe me though; there are plenty of people in the South who oppose everything that Bush (Thank God that he is not a native Southerner!) and his corporate sponsored Republican Party stand for. When it comes to funding, however, we are totally outmatched. How can you change things when people never even get the chance to hear your message?
by
Mark Whittington (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 20 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 3:22:29 PM
Yawn. I'm your huckleberry, Vervel. Now let me make sure that I have your vainglorious summation correct in laying blame on the South for all the ills in the world. Not only do you ascribe blame for the War between the States on the South, but every other military action and war the US has engaged in as well.
We - the vile mouth-breathing, irredeemably morally corrupt, industrially inferior, slave owning, marauding barefoot hordes of the South violently started and lost the Civil War. In the following 100+ years of economic, political, educational and historical subjugation by our peace-loving, non slave-owning, morally superior northern brethren, we were able to hatch and execute a plot so successful that it has infected and overthrown the highest reaches of power in this formerly peace loving country, so psychologically warping its moral sanity as to turn it into the warmongering bloated superpower it is today.
HAHAHAHA! Thanks for the laugh.
Whomever gave the nod to Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket" hit the nail on the head.
by
k kelly (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 182 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 4:21:55 PM
So if you are educated at one of the great intellectual universities of the north, you will be educated enough to realize the stupidity of war -like George Bush who graduated from Princeton and Harvard. And who was, by the way, rejected from the University of Texas Law School because he didn't measure up.
Perhaps it was Harvard and Princetons' fault that we are in the current mess. Do you think they would own up to it?
by
skyreader7 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 182 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 5:12:16 PM
All you know about the South is that your brains and fat cells have congregated there, like it so much, they keep descending. Reason and thought are not far behind, if you'll open your eyes and accept what is there.
Laura Lelievre
from Alabama
by
Lornadune (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 8 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 7:28:36 PM
The Author's blatant South bashing, is a bit misleading to put it mildly. The U.S. as a nation, was built by ruthless military conquest and breathtaking hypocrisy! No region of the country is blamless, when it comes to sharing in the dirty work of war. These wars have been waged amongst the states, against Native Americans, runaway slaves, Mexicans, Europeans, and Asians! The national propaganda though full of lofty ideas about liberty and democracy, is heavily imbued with exhortations to military service and battlefield glory. War is exactly what General Smedley Butler said it was: "A Racket"! The perennial problem for the U.S. citizen, is that warfare, never, ever, benefitts the people who fight them! On the contrary, America's wars, like all the rest, are merely part of the hidden agenda of international captial.
Hapless U.S. citizens have been fighting in major wars since the revolution, only to be shamelessly swindled out of the promises of the constitution, by slick bankers and corrupt politicians! Poor Southerners vainly sacrificed themselves on the altar of planter class arrogance and folly, during the war between the states! Americans of all regions, were duped into world wars I and II, by the devious lies of Wilson and FDR! War has been so inqrained in the national psyche, that even the fact that Bush was caught red-handed, in the blatant lies that got us into both Afghanistan and Iraq, doesn't even register! We blindly fight on anyway! It's therefore not just Southerners, but all Americans, who're ever ready to answer the siren song, of domestic warmongers. Always susceptible to the staged incident, corrupt politicians, and the lying mainstream media, Americans of all regions, have proven time and time again, that they can be made to hate, and fight, just about anybody, anywhere, anytime!
by
Rasoul Acheh (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 122 comments)
on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 9:45:28 PM
