"To begin at the beginning" (if
I may borrow a phrase from Dylan Thomas) with the birth of a nation founded on
the principles stated so elegantly by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of
Independence:
We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and
the pursuit of Happiness.--
All
men are created equal?. . .life, LIBERTY?. . .This amid an accommodation of
slavery so necessary for economic growth and an accommodation of genocide so
necessary for territorial growth? With apologies to and for Jefferson, a slave-holder himself, but one I admire for many reasons, we can't help but admit that
it smacks of hypocrisy.
Connect the dots.
However, there was no
hypocrisy in the secession of Texas from Mexico and its annexation by the
United States; it was a blatant and admitted desire for coast-to-coast territorial
expansion by the United States to be accomplished by a boastful, brazen, and
blatant force of arms. Unfortunately, this greedy desire for expansion made necessary genocide of Native Americans.
Connect the dots.
At the close of the 19th
century, the battleship USS Maine sank in Havana harbor under very suspicious
circumstances, which gave American forces an excuse to invade Cuba and drive out
the Spanish. While great historical emphasis is given to the war in Cuba, little
attention is given to the shameful and simultaneous acquisition of the
Philippines, another Spanish colony, taking place in the Far East. It was
shameful in that after the Spanish were driven out, the Philippines sought
independence, but that was not to be. War between America and the Philippines
broke out and lasted for more than three years with estimated Filipino casualties
placed at between 34,000 and 1,000,000.
It ended with American annexation. American expansion had suddenly gone global.
Connect the dots.
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