Are You Proud Of Your Country? I'm Not!
By Timothy V. Gatto
19 January, 2011
Countercurrents.org
This article has been torturing me for the last five years. I know I should have written it a long time ago, but either the World situation wasn't right, or I was was daunted by the thought of writing this narrative that I knew would bea task that I didn't really want to start. I take the blame for not writing this sooner, but we are all human and beset by inadequacy.
I have been writing for at least seven year now about our nation. I have alluded to some of the things I'm going to mention in this article. I haven't been completely remiss, but the situation our nation is faced with deserves more that writing about it's evils. We must start with how this nation got the way it has become.
Most people know about the Eisenhower goodbye speech when he warned about the Military-Industrial-Complex. The truth of the matter was that he was a day late and a dollar short. The real truth was that the Pentagon and the defense contractor already were calling the shots in Washington. Ike only wanted to secure his place in history by seeming to be against it. In reality, he allowed them to co-opt the government of the United States. I'm sure he didn't do it willingly but the forces around him were much too persuasive and had too much power.
When John F. Kennedy was elected, he and hid brother Robert saw what they were up against. They played the game for a few months until The Bay of Pigs Invasion started to take fruit. Kennedy wanted no part of that invasion and let his opinion known. The CIA and the Pentagon went ahead with preparations anyway. This was an act of treason, but since it was the CIA and the Pentagon, who do you pick to stand charges and would the American people, scared out of their wits about the Soviet Union be silent?
The CIA and the Pentagon launched the Bay of Pigs. They needed Presidential authority to launch American air strikes in support of the rebels. To his credit, the President refused. This was one decision that he had power over.
The CIA never forgot this. In Dallas they exacted their revenge. The President was killed and a more compliant President was sworn in. One who knew how Washington worked. He realized that American steel was overpriced and American good were losing ground to overseas makers that could make the cheaper. He needed an industry that would put people to work, and since we were still on a war economy since the end of World War II, why not ratchet up the hostilities in Southeast Asia.
One thin LBJ didn't count on was the will of the Vietnamese and the backlash against the war here in the United States that was initially started by draft age Americans. When he used the false-flag operation in the Gulf of Tonkin, not many people in the peace movement took it seriously,I was in the peace movement and the idea that North Vietnamese would attack a Destroyer was a little outlandish.
I must say that LBJ suffered through that war. Westmorland just released his memoirs and he articulated that in the last three years, he knew the war in Vietnam was a lost cause. This was at the height of American casualties coming back in body bags. So much for an honest government. Too many people were making money on that war, and it wasn't us.
Near the end of the war, I was in the Army (in fact through most of the war), I went to a class at electronic warfare at Fort Bliss and I saw a Top Secret videotape of soldiers refusing to go out on patrol because they didn't want to be the last guys to die in that war. I always though Vietnam was my war, I was soon to find out that there were more coming. The Military Industrial Complex needs war to stay in business and the leaders through fear are only happy to oblige them.
During the period after the Vietnam war, after Nixon made the defense contractors rich with the blood of our young men, there were other World hotspots. Those that kowtowed to the American line got M-16's and U.S. War products. Those that fought against American-backed juntas used AK-47's. It's no wonder than that the AK-47 is the most produced rifle in the world.
In Central and Latin America we overthrew governments almost on a monthly basis. We supported right wing fascists that played along with the Washington line. If we couldn't overthrow the governments that didn't toe the line, the International Monetary v\Fund made loans to these countries that they could never pay back, so we nationalized their industries for American gain. Read “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins. This former employee blows the lid of the practices of the U.S. Controlled IMF.
The government wasn't content to foment revolutions and wars overseas. In the United State they opened The War on Drugs. They poured billions of dollars into the guise of fighting drug use in the United States. This money was used by police forces not only for drug interdiction, but to militarize the police forces around the nation. Drug money, boats ans automobiles are confiscated by the different police forces and sold at auction to finance their departments. It's a never-ending cycle.
One of the most heinous acts that the government has indulged in is the selling of spare parts for F-14's to Iran for large suns of money' Ollie North, one of the conspirators then used the money to but cocaine to be made into crack and sold in the inner cities so that the proceeds could be used to funnel the money to the Contras, the army fighting Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas. The crack epidemic never went away, families are destroyed because of something our government initiated. Now instead of government planes landing in places like Charlotte Airport in Florida among other places, the drug cartels run the show. Just think how many Americans are behind bars for possession of crack cocaine. Thank the U.S. Government.
I'm not going to go in to 9-11. We all have our theories about that. There is only one thing I want to add. When a planes transponder is shut off, it sticks out like a sore thumb. I know this from 12 years in Air Defense. When a planes transponder is on, it emits a half circle around the blip. When it's turned off, it registers a full circle. Think about that.
The Patriot Act was ready for ratification two weeks after 9/11. It was two-thousand pages long. That's a neat trick, especially from Washington where they cant agree on a one page bill. They didn't read it before they signed it and we have been paying the price ever since. The Patriot Act Two is even more draconian. You can liken them to the “Enabling Laws” that Hitler passed by decree after the Rheichstag fire. So far we have had the government wiretap our e-mails and telephone calls, conduct search and seizure without a warrant if you are suspected of being a “terrorist” or are in contact with one, our rights of Habeas Corpus are suspended if deemed a terrorist. That means no lawyer of being told of the changes against you and indefinite detention with none, not even your family knowing where you are. You are effectively “disappeared”. If you happen to be a Muslim, You may find a bag over your head and on a “Rendition” flight to a country that practices torture to gain information for the U.S. Government.
Let's talk about the first Gulf War. No less than Donald Rumsfeld gave Saddam Hussein the go-ahead on that little excursion. People forget that Kuwait was part of Iraq until the post-war powers divided the Middle East up. We went to war with Hussein because he wanted Euro's for his oil instead of dollars. That would have wrecked the U.S. Being the reserve currency of the World. Can't have that, can we?
We had a war in Iraq and the United States citizens hardly made a peep. We told the World that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It was a lie and our government knew it was a lie. Where is the recrimination on this? We still sit silent while hundreds of thousands are born deformed or dead from the Depleted Uranium we used to poison their country. This uranium which has been reduced from explosions to microns of.0.2 size. It's in the dust, the water, the plants. It has a half-life of 400,000 years. Iraq mothers and fathers no longer ask if the baby is a boy or a girl, they ask if it's normal. Over ¼ of the people are refuges from Iraq. Estimates of civilian deaths range from 200,00 to over a million. Over half of the population have been displaced. Their infrastructure has been destroyed. They have very little gas, electricity and medical supplies. All in the name of bringing “Freedom to the Iraqis”
Now we are in Afghanistan bringing carnage to that nation. We spend half our budget on military spending. We used to support the Taliban when they were fighting the Soviet Union. Now, since we want to build an oil pipeline through their country (Called TAPI), we are at war with them. We could be there for decades. They are now our premiere enemy (besides the insurgents in Iraq that are still shooting at our 50,000 troops.
Politicians aren't stupid. Many of our forefathers waned us about this. They wrote it on paper. Let me give you a few of their quotes. Please read these words with care. These are our founding fathers and their vision of our nation is well worth reading today.
Thomas Jefferson
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people to remain silent.”
“Dependance begets subservience and venality, suffocate the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people...They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our society.”
“If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest”.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to tome with the blood of patriots and tyrants”.
John Adams
“ Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people...”
“ There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide, We are the only real aristocracy in the world: the aristocracy of money”.
Benjamin Franklin
“By failing to prepare, you are planing to fail. They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little security shall have neither liberty or security.”
“There was never a good war or a bad peace.”
The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice...
“ All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones”.
George Washington
“Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”
“If the Freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we will be taken away like sheep to the slaughter.”
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent, it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
“It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it”
“My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the Earth.”
“The Constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.”
These are but a few of our founding father's thoughts. They have stood the test of time. Our present government does not want us to understand what was put in writing centuries ago. Congress no longer declares war, it's done by the Authorization of Force that scarcely a congressman will go against on the assumption that he may be disloyal.
The mainstream media fills us with garbage. If you want to know what is truly going on in the World you must seek out news on the internet or World news in the early morning.
I am ashamed of my country. We perform extraordinary renditions (kidnap people), we torture people, we hold people indefinitely without charges, and the government lies to its own people,
We have become a nation of killers. We indiscriminate between legitimate targets and unarmed civilians. We are spending our children's and grandchildren's future by this unending expenditures on military hardware.
As John F. Kennedy once said; “Mankind must put and end to war before war puts an end to mankind”.
You may be proud of your country but I'm not. I would like to give you some sobering facts that I borrowed from Michael Snyder. They are worth noting about the economic condition in this nation.
The following are 19 facts about the deindustrialization of America that will blow your mind....
#1 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001.
#2 Dell Inc., one of America's largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.
#3 Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in November. Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.
#4 In 2008, 1.2 billion cellphones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States? Zero .
#5 According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.
#6 As of the end of July, the U.S. trade deficit with China had risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.
#7 The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.
#8 According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.
#9 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.
#10 Ford Motor Company recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul, Minnesota. Approximately 750 good paying middle class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in Minnesota does not fit in with Ford's new "global" manufacturing strategy.
#11 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.
#12 In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services .#13 The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#14 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th .
#15 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975 .
#16 Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products. Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide.
#17 The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States.
#18 One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.
#19 The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept .
I hope you learned as much as I did writing this.
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