.Corporate Wars Of Assimilation Or Extermination
By Beverly Darling
November 11, 2006
"I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloodied mud and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there."
-Black Elk, Wounded Knee Massacre, 1890
Since the birth or our nation, Corporate Wars and Corporate Interests have often shaped and determined our future and the prospect of others. While hiding behind the pretense of fighting for liberty, militarily intervening on the basis of protecting human rights, and ‘making the world safe for democracy,’ it has often been the greed and self-indulgence of the ruling elite and monopolists that have provoked numerous campaigns of terror and conquest.
In 1996 during the No Fly Zone War and when U.S. led sanctions were imposed on Iraq, (resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children), U.S. Brigadier General William Looney said, ‘If they (the Iraqis) turn on their radars we’re going to blow up their god-damn SAMs. They know we own their country. We own their airspace…We dictate the way they live and talk. And that’s what’s great about America right now. It’s a good thing, especially when there’s a lot of oil out there we need.’
Like many of the past wars in U.S. history, most Iraqis now realize and believe that they are in a Corporate War of assimilation or extermination.
While campaigning in Greeley, Colorado even President Bush said, ’You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources…and then you can imagine them saying, “We’re going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following.’”
During the 1800’s, eastern monopolists and southern plantation owners in the U.S. were continually looking for cheap labor, new markets to sell their goods, and constantly searching for new resources in order to manufacture more of their products. When Manifest Destiny fused with Social Darwinism-human society evolves through competition and natural selection and only the fittest should survive, the monopolists jumped at the chance to expand across North, Central, South, and the Caribbean regions of the Americas.
During President Clinton’s Administration when a former Secretary of State was asked if sanctions against Iraq, which were implemented to punish Saddam Hussein, were worth the death of hundreds of thousands of children, she simply said, ‘Yes, it was worth it.’ In other words, some lives are not as important as others and some people are expendable, including children.
During the U.S. Civil War, most of the monopolists such as J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefellar of Standard Oil, Andrew Carnegie of Carnegie Steel, and Jay Gould of the Northern Railroad, had escaped the war by paying substitutes a few hundred dollars to fight for them. These business owners amassed great fortunes by manufacturing and selling weapons and then using their railroad lines to transport thousands of troops destined to die on distant battlefields.
By now it is well known that many of the architects of the 2003 U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Iraq escaped the Vietnam Conflict through college deferment programs, or the use of bribery and political favors, such as Dick Cheney and George Bush.
After the Civil War, the monopolists continued to expand their corporations and seek new capital. The California, Nevada, and Rocky Mountain gold, silver, and mineral discoveries provided an abundance of wealth and resources. Before Abraham Lincoln’s pen was dry from signing the Homestead Act, these corporate executives were also busy buying-up land in the Great Plains that would later be sold to settlers and newly arrived immigrants for a large profit. Future Presidents and Congressional Representatives would eventually give these monopolists 100 million acres of choice land in order to build their railroad empires. Unfortunately, the Native Americans stood in the way of ‘progress.’ The monopolists would soon encourage the U.S. Government and Army to either assimilate or destroy the Native Americans and their culture.
Corporate America continues to fuel wars, especially the war in Iraq. When U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield recently resigned, it was not surprising that on Wall Street there was a decline in the shares of military contractors. Lockheed Martin Corporation immediately lost $1.06 per share. General Dynamics defense stocks lost $1.51 per share, and Raytheon lost 72 cents. There is a Corporate-Military-Political revolving door in which CEO’s, Military Generals, and Politicians sit on each others boards and committees. Each year hundreds of billions of the U.S. tax-payers money is invested into giant and wasteful corporate-military-government weapons systems. The stock option returns and the armament sales are enormous for the few and the elite.
Throughout the Great Plains, the U.S. Army backed and paid by the monopolists, forced thousands of Native Americans onto reservations where they would be assimilated-included into U.S. society. However, even the monopolists took advantage of the Indian Reservation System by diverting and selling what little food and clothing was destined to and belonged to the Indians. Some Indians were hired to be Reservation Police, while others were hired to be Army Scouts in order to kill or recapture Native Americans who had left the reservation in search of food and to regain their stolen identity.
In a recent report conducted by the Corruption Perceptions Index, Iraq now ranks as one of the world’s most corruption-ridden countries. Billions of dollars earmarked for Iraqi infrastructure has been either stolen or missing. The Office of the Special Inspector-General for Iraq Reconstruction, which the Bush Administration plans on closing, reports that only six out of 142 health clinics have opened. One reviews revealed that out of 14 infrastructure projects, 13 had serious defects. Many corporations have hired nationals from other countries for cheap labor and corporative-privatized security firms have committed many human rights abuses. Halliburton was recently sued for knowingly sending truck drivers into a raging battle without proper protection. But then lives are expendable.
Once the U.S. Army caught-up with the Native Americans, there were many massacres and Trails of Tears, such as the Sand Creek, Nez Perce, and Wounded Knee. In 1890, the Prophet
Wavoka revived the Ghost Dance among the Lakota Sioux and other Plains Indians. He foretold his people that by fasting, prayer, and dancing, they would become immune to the soldiers bullets and their ancestors would return along with the buffalo. When the Indians refused to stop fasting and believing, U.S. troops surrounded their encampment and opened fire. Several hundred Indians were massacred, including women and children.
The memories of Fallujah, Haditha, and Abu Graib continue to evoke great emotion and pain among the Iraqis. These places are also symbols of massacres in which thousands of civilians were tortured, killed, raped, and murdered. The Corporate Invasion and Occupation of Iraq has cost the lives of thousands of Iraqis. Over 1 million Iraqis have fled. Even Prime Minister Al-Maliki lashed out at the American Military this summer. He denounced what he characterized as ‘habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civilians.’ And what ever happened to the ’Salvador Option,’ in which U.S. trained Iraqi death squads would battle the insurgency?
After the massacre of Wounded Knee, (the U.S. Army called it a battle and awarded medals to its troops), some of the Indians were paid a few dollars to load the freezing dead stiff bodies onto wagons and to dig mass graves where they buried their dead.
Have we forgotten that the architects of this Corporate War in Iraq have been promoted and some even received the Medal of Freedom? Many of the U.S. soldiers who have been accused of torture and murder have never served jail time or have not been reprimanded.
The corporate controlled government and monopolists would also devastate the Native American’s right to collective ownership by forcing upon them the Dawes Act-individual ownership instead of communal ownership, which ignited inter-tribal warfare. What was left of Indian land was soon sold or stolen. This is what Corporate Wars of Assimilation or Extermination do, it alienates and tries to force foreign and ruinous belief systems onto others.
Behind the ‘March of Freedom’ in Iraq, you really have the ‘March of Corporations.’ Remember Halliburton, a Texas-based oil company formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney? It overcharged the Defense Department by $61 million to import gasoline to Iraq. Remember that Halliburton has repeatedly overcharged, by millions of dollars (and is now under criminal investigation), the repairs for Iraqi oil business. Remember that Halliburton received a $9.4 million bonus last year from the government. Halliburton’s Iraq contracts have now surpassed $15 billion.
Corporate Wars of Assimilation and Extermination divides and denies the humanity and culture of others. It destroys those who it deems to be less civilized-the protectors of life and the believers who reveal that the land is sacred, for these values are contrary to the monopolists and their impersonal and deadly actions of greed and usury. Corporate Wars of Assimilation and Extermination teaches that honor and dignity is in material possessions, instead of in relationships and respect for all of life. It offers a few dollars to families who have had loved ones murdered, and fosters a civil war so it can continue to occupy a foreign country with troops. In the end, these wars not only destroy a people’s dream, but also the perpetrator’s soul.
President Bush recently said, in referring to Saddam Hussein’s Trial, ‘It is a good day in Iraq.’ But one good day cannot make-up the other 1000 days of death and destruction caused by Corporate Wars of Assimilation or Extermination. After the Massacre of Wounded Knee, Black Elk said ‘a peoples dream died there.’ So far, 655,000 dreams have died in Iraq. How many more dreams will die before we stop Corporate Wars?
Sometimes, even in what appears to be a democracy, voting is not enough.
November 11, 2006
"I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloodied mud and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there."-Black Elk, Wounded Knee Massacre, 1890
Since the birth or our nation, Corporate Wars and Corporate Interests have often shaped and determined our future and the prospect of others. While hiding behind the pretense of fighting for liberty, militarily intervening on the basis of protecting human rights, and ‘making the world safe for democracy,’ it has often been the greed and self-indulgence of the ruling elite and monopolists that have provoked numerous campaigns of terror and conquest.
In 1996 during the No Fly Zone War and when U.S. led sanctions were imposed on Iraq, (resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children), U.S. Brigadier General William Looney said, ‘If they (the Iraqis) turn on their radars we’re going to blow up their god-damn SAMs. They know we own their country. We own their airspace…We dictate the way they live and talk. And that’s what’s great about America right now. It’s a good thing, especially when there’s a lot of oil out there we need.’
Like many of the past wars in U.S. history, most Iraqis now realize and believe that they are in a Corporate War of assimilation or extermination.
While campaigning in Greeley, Colorado even President Bush said, ’You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources…and then you can imagine them saying, “We’re going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following.’”
During the 1800’s, eastern monopolists and southern plantation owners in the U.S. were continually looking for cheap labor, new markets to sell their goods, and constantly searching for new resources in order to manufacture more of their products. When Manifest Destiny fused with Social Darwinism-human society evolves through competition and natural selection and only the fittest should survive, the monopolists jumped at the chance to expand across North, Central, South, and the Caribbean regions of the Americas.
During President Clinton’s Administration when a former Secretary of State was asked if sanctions against Iraq, which were implemented to punish Saddam Hussein, were worth the death of hundreds of thousands of children, she simply said, ‘Yes, it was worth it.’ In other words, some lives are not as important as others and some people are expendable, including children.
During the U.S. Civil War, most of the monopolists such as J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefellar of Standard Oil, Andrew Carnegie of Carnegie Steel, and Jay Gould of the Northern Railroad, had escaped the war by paying substitutes a few hundred dollars to fight for them. These business owners amassed great fortunes by manufacturing and selling weapons and then using their railroad lines to transport thousands of troops destined to die on distant battlefields.
By now it is well known that many of the architects of the 2003 U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Iraq escaped the Vietnam Conflict through college deferment programs, or the use of bribery and political favors, such as Dick Cheney and George Bush.
After the Civil War, the monopolists continued to expand their corporations and seek new capital. The California, Nevada, and Rocky Mountain gold, silver, and mineral discoveries provided an abundance of wealth and resources. Before Abraham Lincoln’s pen was dry from signing the Homestead Act, these corporate executives were also busy buying-up land in the Great Plains that would later be sold to settlers and newly arrived immigrants for a large profit. Future Presidents and Congressional Representatives would eventually give these monopolists 100 million acres of choice land in order to build their railroad empires. Unfortunately, the Native Americans stood in the way of ‘progress.’ The monopolists would soon encourage the U.S. Government and Army to either assimilate or destroy the Native Americans and their culture.
Corporate America continues to fuel wars, especially the war in Iraq. When U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield recently resigned, it was not surprising that on Wall Street there was a decline in the shares of military contractors. Lockheed Martin Corporation immediately lost $1.06 per share. General Dynamics defense stocks lost $1.51 per share, and Raytheon lost 72 cents. There is a Corporate-Military-Political revolving door in which CEO’s, Military Generals, and Politicians sit on each others boards and committees. Each year hundreds of billions of the U.S. tax-payers money is invested into giant and wasteful corporate-military-government weapons systems. The stock option returns and the armament sales are enormous for the few and the elite.
Throughout the Great Plains, the U.S. Army backed and paid by the monopolists, forced thousands of Native Americans onto reservations where they would be assimilated-included into U.S. society. However, even the monopolists took advantage of the Indian Reservation System by diverting and selling what little food and clothing was destined to and belonged to the Indians. Some Indians were hired to be Reservation Police, while others were hired to be Army Scouts in order to kill or recapture Native Americans who had left the reservation in search of food and to regain their stolen identity.
In a recent report conducted by the Corruption Perceptions Index, Iraq now ranks as one of the world’s most corruption-ridden countries. Billions of dollars earmarked for Iraqi infrastructure has been either stolen or missing. The Office of the Special Inspector-General for Iraq Reconstruction, which the Bush Administration plans on closing, reports that only six out of 142 health clinics have opened. One reviews revealed that out of 14 infrastructure projects, 13 had serious defects. Many corporations have hired nationals from other countries for cheap labor and corporative-privatized security firms have committed many human rights abuses. Halliburton was recently sued for knowingly sending truck drivers into a raging battle without proper protection. But then lives are expendable.
Once the U.S. Army caught-up with the Native Americans, there were many massacres and Trails of Tears, such as the Sand Creek, Nez Perce, and Wounded Knee. In 1890, the Prophet
Wavoka revived the Ghost Dance among the Lakota Sioux and other Plains Indians. He foretold his people that by fasting, prayer, and dancing, they would become immune to the soldiers bullets and their ancestors would return along with the buffalo. When the Indians refused to stop fasting and believing, U.S. troops surrounded their encampment and opened fire. Several hundred Indians were massacred, including women and children.
The memories of Fallujah, Haditha, and Abu Graib continue to evoke great emotion and pain among the Iraqis. These places are also symbols of massacres in which thousands of civilians were tortured, killed, raped, and murdered. The Corporate Invasion and Occupation of Iraq has cost the lives of thousands of Iraqis. Over 1 million Iraqis have fled. Even Prime Minister Al-Maliki lashed out at the American Military this summer. He denounced what he characterized as ‘habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civilians.’ And what ever happened to the ’Salvador Option,’ in which U.S. trained Iraqi death squads would battle the insurgency?
After the massacre of Wounded Knee, (the U.S. Army called it a battle and awarded medals to its troops), some of the Indians were paid a few dollars to load the freezing dead stiff bodies onto wagons and to dig mass graves where they buried their dead.
Have we forgotten that the architects of this Corporate War in Iraq have been promoted and some even received the Medal of Freedom? Many of the U.S. soldiers who have been accused of torture and murder have never served jail time or have not been reprimanded.
The corporate controlled government and monopolists would also devastate the Native American’s right to collective ownership by forcing upon them the Dawes Act-individual ownership instead of communal ownership, which ignited inter-tribal warfare. What was left of Indian land was soon sold or stolen. This is what Corporate Wars of Assimilation or Extermination do, it alienates and tries to force foreign and ruinous belief systems onto others.
Behind the ‘March of Freedom’ in Iraq, you really have the ‘March of Corporations.’ Remember Halliburton, a Texas-based oil company formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney? It overcharged the Defense Department by $61 million to import gasoline to Iraq. Remember that Halliburton has repeatedly overcharged, by millions of dollars (and is now under criminal investigation), the repairs for Iraqi oil business. Remember that Halliburton received a $9.4 million bonus last year from the government. Halliburton’s Iraq contracts have now surpassed $15 billion.
Corporate Wars of Assimilation and Extermination divides and denies the humanity and culture of others. It destroys those who it deems to be less civilized-the protectors of life and the believers who reveal that the land is sacred, for these values are contrary to the monopolists and their impersonal and deadly actions of greed and usury. Corporate Wars of Assimilation and Extermination teaches that honor and dignity is in material possessions, instead of in relationships and respect for all of life. It offers a few dollars to families who have had loved ones murdered, and fosters a civil war so it can continue to occupy a foreign country with troops. In the end, these wars not only destroy a people’s dream, but also the perpetrator’s soul.
President Bush recently said, in referring to Saddam Hussein’s Trial, ‘It is a good day in Iraq.’ But one good day cannot make-up the other 1000 days of death and destruction caused by Corporate Wars of Assimilation or Extermination. After the Massacre of Wounded Knee, Black Elk said ‘a peoples dream died there.’ So far, 655,000 dreams have died in Iraq. How many more dreams will die before we stop Corporate Wars?
Sometimes, even in what appears to be a democracy, voting is not enough.
posted by Jon at 11:59 AM
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