May
16, 2006, Volume 13 Nr. 43, Issue 211
WHITE
AND MIGHT MAKE RIGHT
Jason
Miller
Morality is in the Eye of the
Oppressor
We of the privileged *Caucasian
race have been dancing without paying for centuries. And the piper
is seriously pissed.
Rudyard Kipling encouraged America's
fledgling empire when he wrote The White Man's Burden.
However, by that time the Unites States had already committed
genocide against the Native Americans, engulfed half of Mexico and
turned Hawaii over to a handful of wealthy White plantation owners.
White Americans were already "bearing the burden" of
ruling those who were "half-devil and half-child".
In the early 20th Century, confidence
in their moral superiority and Manifest Destiny spurred Americans to
slaughter tens of thousands of civilians in the Philippines, prevent
a sovereign nation from emerging in Cuba, and negate Puerto Rico the
autonomy it had negotiated with Spain.
As one of the most brutal European
imperialists, Spain played a significant role in the ongoing
oppression of the Filipinos, Cubans and Puerto Ricans. When the
United States defeated them in the Spanish-American War, they
essentially sold the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico to their new
masters in Washington.
Taking off the rose-colored
glasses
Casting aside the history books
written by the "superior" White race and viewing history
through the lens of reality, one readily sees that European nations
like Spain, Great Britain, France, and Portugal committed
unspeakable atrocities against millions whose only "crime"
was that they were born on the continents of Africa, North America,
or South America.
"Brave and noble" pioneers
and explorers like Columbus and Cortez came to the "New
World" bearing gifts. Their hosts were "blessed" with
"gifts" like Small Pox, servitude, and genocide. As they
convinced themselves they were "civilizing the savages",
the European invaders dehumanized their "converts". Human
beings became tools for empire building, or if they impeded imperial
expansion, little more than insects to be exterminated.
In the area of North America which
eventually became the United States, one of the ultimate ironies
occurred. Refugees from oppression in Western Europe became ruthless
oppressors themselves. Victims became abusers as our ancestors
nearly drove Native Americans to extinction.
Similar patterns emerged in Africa as
various European nations carved up the Dark Continent like a juicy
Thanksgiving Day bird. Humans and resources alike became subject to
the will and whims of their colonial rulers.
Encountering a shortage of labor and
an over-abundance of economic opportunities in the "New
World", the "intrepid" imperialists were undaunted.
They simply started capturing indigenous people from various tribes
in Africa, selling them into slavery, and shipping them to the
Americas. Valuable new commodity emerges. Labor shortage problem
solved. One can't help but admire their ingenuity; that is if one
suffers from anti-social personality disorder.
To summarize, our European and
American ancestors raped, pillaged, plundered, enslaved, and nearly
annihilated the "lesser beings" they encountered on
several continents in their "glorious" bids to expand
their empires.
Barren desert never looked so
good....
After the invention of the internal
combustion engine led to wide-spread use of automobiles, the Middle
East became an area of particular interest to Europe and the United
States. With the revelation that vast quantities of black gold oozed
from their sand, the heretofore unappealing arid lands of the Arab
and Persian "savages" suddenly became indispensable
commodities.
Once again the "onus of
domesticating the barbarians" was thrust upon the West. In the
process of sharing their "enlightened values", the United
States and their fellow imperialists in Europe have derived the
"ancillary benefit" of exerting a great deal of control
over the precious Middle Eastern oil. Assuaging their guilt for the
Holocaust, they also "found" a homeland for the Jewish
people. To this day we "noble" Americans are enabling
genocide against the Palestinians to make this homeland possible.
The illusion of freedom and
autonomy
While virtually all of the former
colonies are now "autonomous" nations, Europe and the
United States possess many means to continue exploiting the people
and resources of the "developing world". Imperialism is
alive and well in Africa, South America, Central America, and the
Middle East.
So called free trade agreements
perpetuate US and European multi-national corporations' virtually
unfettered access to cheap labor and valuable raw materials. The
World Bank and International Monetary Fund ensure powerful Western
influence by deeply indebting impoverished nations. The debtors are
then obliged to tailor their economic policies to benefit their
Neoliberal masters, leaving a majority of their citizens miserably
poor.
Utilizing direct and indirect
military intervention, the Neocolonialists have long guaranteed the
loyalty of their "subjects" by ousting leaders elected by
the people and installing dictators friendly to Western interests.
Close call for the wealthy
ruling elite
Consider one of many examples. With a
long-standing tradition of constitutional rule and leaders elected
by the vote of the people, Chileans made the "grave error"
of electing Salvador Allende as their president in the early 1970's.
Allende suffered from the delusion
that it would be just to nationalize industries and end years of
multi-national corporate exploitation. In 1973, the zealous efforts
of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, the CIA, and telecommunications
giant ITT bore fruit. Their three year campaign to destabilize the
social, political, and economic conditions of Chile softened the
beach-head for a bloody coup, which included the assasination of
Allende. General Augusto Pinochet, America's man, took the helm.
Pinochet "rescued" the
people of Chile by abolishing the minimum wage, crushing labor
unions, lowering taxes and privatizing the pension system. It came
as no great surprise that American multi-nationals like ITT were
able to continue their plunder.
2100 murders, 1100 disappearances,
and 28,000 torture victims later, Pinochet resigned in 1990. Since
his arrest and detention in 1998, Pinochet has been stripped of his
immunity as former head of state and indicted for crimes against
humanity. There is hope for justice.
One of the better articulations of
the indirect yet powerful Neocolonial rule imposed by the United
States and Western Europe comes from a speech Salvador Allende made
before the United Nations (as the Nixon Regime was covertly wreaking
social, political, and economic havoc under his very nose):
Our economy could no
longer tolerate the subordination implied by having more than eighty
percent of its exports in the hands of a small group of large
foreign companies that have always put their interests ahead of
those of the countries where they make their profits...
These same firms
exploited Chilean copper for many years, made more than four billion
dollars in profit in the last forty-two years alone, while their
initial investments were less than thirty million...My country,
Chile would have been totally transformed by that four billion
dollars...
We find ourselves opposed
by forces that operate in the shadows, without a flag, with powerful
weapons, from positions of great influence....We are potentially
rich countries, yet we live in poverty. We go here and there,
begging for credits and aid, yet we are great exporters of capital.
It is a classic paradox of the capitalist economic system.
The coffee is brewing, can't
you smell it?
Live in denial if you will, but we
Caucasian descendents of Western imperialists living in Neocolonial
nations owe a tremendous moral and fiscal debt to those whom our
ancestors and governments have egregiously wronged. Our wealth and
power insulates us to an extent, but those we have oppressed are
beginning to extract their pound of flesh.
Significant numbers of
"illegal" immigrants are evading detection and entering
the United States. They are passing through the grossly immoral
border our ancestors created after stealing the land comprising our
nation from the Native Americans and from Mexico. Xenophobia,
paranoia, and racism are again rearing their ugly heads as some
White Americans clamor for the arrest and deportation of 11 million
immigrants and the creation of an American version of the Iron
Curtain.
Despite his assurances that he does
not intend to militarize the Mexican border, George Bush's latest
agenda for our southern boundary includes deploying 6,000 National
Guard troops and adding prison beds for "illegal"
immigrants. Not a whiff of militarization there.
Bush's discourse made it quite clear
that despite the fact that he did not support mass deportation, the
"illegals" who had established themselves in the United
States would only be eligible for citizenship if they wrapped
themselves in the American flag, steeped themselves in the lore of
the Empire, and became fluent in English, the global language which
is the key to self-actualizing and getting into heaven. Once the
"illegals" reaching for the brass ring of American
citizenship have sold their cultural souls, Bush wants to grace them
with the opportunity to "get in line" behind those who won
the lottery in their country of origin and obtained documents to
enter the United States legally.
While Congress struggles to create an
immigration bill to pacify the Decider, business interests hungry
for cheap labor, and racist forces eager to expel non-Anglo
individuals, the deportation sweep is already taking place. On 4/21,
the federal government announced that it would treat employers
hiring "illegals" like criminal organizations. They
promptly arrested 1,000 undocumented immigrants at IFCO, a German
container manufacturer with locations around the United States.
Here in the Kansas City area,
immigration officials are tenaciously pursuing the deportation of a
31 year old Mexican named Myrna Dick. Myrna is married to an
American and has a child with him.
Also in Kansas City, a law abiding 38
year old father of two has been victimized by anti-immigrant laws.
Adam Hernandez lived in the United States for 26 years and is
married to an American citizen. Last week our federal government
deported him to his native Honduras because he stole a car when he
was a teenager. Human compassion in action.
On 4/24 Missouri state senators voted
to empower state troopers to enforce federal immigration laws. If
you have brown skin and are in Missouri, you better be able to prove
you are a "real American" or you may find yourself
"south of the border".
Unabashed imperialists that they
were, the Romans at least granted limited citizenship, and
ultimately full citizenship, to those they conquered. America is
content to simply exploit its foreign subjects as it bleeds its
colonies dry of wealth and resources.
Interestingly, our fellow
imperialists across the Atlantic are coping with their own influx of
people they have abused for centuries.
Each year, tens of thousands of
desperately poor Africans make a perilous journey of 2,000 miles or
more to seek better lives in Western Europe. However, Europe is also
in the throes of xenophobia. 4,000 victims of the fallout from the
colonization of Africa have been detained by Spain so far in 2006.
With increasingly zealous enforcement of immigration laws, Africans
are forced to take more dangerous routes to enter Europe. At least
1300 have died at sea so far this year.
Many of the African migrants attempt
to gain entrance to Europe through Morocco in North Africa. To
counter what it claims to be a tide of millions of African
immigrants, Morocco has militarized its border, built high fences
and dug deep trenches. Despite these measures, tens of thousands of
African migrants make it into Morocco. Many of them are unable to
make it to Spain, their ultimate goal. They remain stranded in
Morocco where most live in abject poverty.
Like their counterpart in the United
States, the French National Assembly is now debating immigration
legislation. They are considering severe restrictions on the entry
of unskilled laborers from African nations. Several French human
rights groups and churches have denounced this measure. They
recognize that such laws would lead to a flood of educated African
professionals immigrating to France. Those left behind in Africa
would find their situations even more dire as their doctors and
engineers left for greener pastures in France.
In South America, two indigenous
leaders have risen to power through legitimate popular election.
Following the lead of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales are
boldly defying their Neocolonial masters. Much to the chagrin of
Western imperialists in Washington and in the European Union, Chavez
is committing such heinous acts as utilizing Venezuelan oil revenues
to provide education, housing, medical care, and food to the poor.
Morales recently nationalized Bolivia's vast fields of natural gas.
Perhaps Allende has been given a second chance through a double
reincarnation.
In a Homeric tragedy, the Middle East
has been the epicenter of a maelstrom of venomous hatred, brutality,
subjugation and war dating back to the Crusades. While instability
and conflict have plagued the region for many years, the demand for
oil has taken the unrest to new heights. Western support for brutal,
tyrannical regimes, like that of the Shah, Saddam Hussein and a
continuous parade of Israeli leaders, has fueled an intense and
understandable hatred amongst many of the indigenous people in
various Middle Eastern nations.
Committing egregious acts of
terrorism and murder "justified" by the warped notion that
military personnel simply cause "collateral damage" when
they kill innocent civilians, the United States, Israel, and their
European allies have triggered a violent backlash from the denizens
of the Middle East. While the violence committed by both sides is
abhorrent, the violent reprisals of the Iraqi Resistance and groups
like Hamas represent a rational response to invasion, terrorism,
murder of civilians, and acts of genocide committed by avaricious
and powerful invaders.
Aside from the obvious moral
imperatives, we have several pragmatic impetuses to change our
malevolent ways and redeem ourselves. Our victims out-number us.
They possess both the will and the means to do us grievous harm,
both militarily and economically. The days of their meek submission
are long past. Iraq, Iran, nuclear proliferation, oil addiction, a
notable increase in the percentage of minorities in American and
European populations, and fears of "homeland" attacks are
painful reminders of the increasing inability of the
Caucasian-dominated West to dominate the world as it once did.
How do we in the United
States finally shoulder the real White man's burden?
If we implemented the following
social and political policies/strategies, much of our debt would be
repaid to those we have abused and exploited, our creditors whom we
victimized would leave us alone, and humanity would no longer be on
a path to self-destruction:
1. Slashing insanely
bloated military budgets by at least 2/3 and using the savings to
balance the budget, fund domestic social programs and to increase
foreign aid. (It is delusional to believe that the US needs to
account for over 50% of world military expenditures per year to
protect 5% of the world's population).
2. Forgiving World Bank
debt and closing the doors to both the World Bank and the IMF
3. Withdrawing US forces
from the Middle East and closing many of the US military bases
around the globe
4. Ceasing US military
and financial aid to Israel
5. Ending the Cuban
Embargo
6. Adhering to the Geneva
Conventions by ending torture, rendition, and wars of aggression.
7. Adhering to decisions
rendered by the UN
8. Banning the use of
depleted uranium
9. Allowing the millions
of "illegal" immigrants who have established stable
residence the opportunity to earn citizenship
10. Putting a stop to our
support of murderous tyrants like Pinochet, Marcos, Suharto, and
Saddam Hussein
11. Placing severe
restriction on the powers and rights of corporations
12. Summarily removing
the members of the Bush Regime from office, arresting them, and
extraditing them to the Hague for war crimes trials
13. Implementing tax
increases on the wealthy and on corporate giants while eliminating
the loopholes which often enable them to shift the tax burden onto
the poor and middle class
14. Amending the US
Constitution with a Separation of Business and State clause to stop
the revolving door between corporate America and the government and
to stop corporations from buying our leaders
15. Holding
internationally-monitored elections to replace the current criminal
regime. The elections would need to be publicly funded, include a
Populist party to represent the middle class and poor (since
Democrats and Republicans are de facto representatives of the rich),
and ban the use of electronic voting machines.
16. Repealing the Patriot
Act and restoring the Bill of Rights
17. Closing Guantanamo
Bay, the torture facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the CIA's
network of secret prisons
18. Ending the
"separate and unequal" public education system by infusing
more public money into predominately Black and Hispanic school
districts
19. Creating a system of
national health care which charges premiums based on financial
capacity
20. Ending the "War
on Drugs" which has failed miserably, has filled our prisons
with non-violent offenders who committed the "crime" of
self-destructive hedonism, and has been used as a tool of military
intervention in Central and South America
21. Focusing more law
enforcement resources on rehabilitation and education and less on
punitive measures
22. Facilitating an
equitable distribution of resources, land, and power between Jews
and Palestinians in Israel
After enduring years of Caucasian
hubris, arrogance, abuse, invasion, exploitation, state terrorism,
and genocide, it is small wonder that some non-Anglos are enraged
enough to commit acts of terror and many others are desperate enough
to risk death by attempting entry into the US or Europe.
Odds are the de facto ruling class of the United States will not
rush to implement my suggestions to satisfy our moral debt and
inject more humanity into the world. Property, power and money move
their worlds. Surrender of their precious imperial, racist, and
plutocratic system is out of the question until they feel some
serious pain. Given prevailing conditions in the world, that time
may be closer than these Masters of the Earth believe.
I recently wrote that some Whites believe that we Caucasians
represent the pinnacle of human evolution. A reader emailed me to
ask what proof I had that we do not represent the pinnacle of human
evolution. The answer is intuitively obvious to the casual observer.
Highly evolved human beings registering at the top of humanity's
scale would have willingly forged a sociopolitical system based on
peace, economic justice, social justice, and universal human rights
long ago.
I rest my case.
Now let's get to work on repaying our seriously past due balance.
*including the Nordic, Alpine and Mediterranean
sub-categories of the Caucasian race, loosely referred to as Whites
Jason Miller is a 39 year old
sociopolitical essayist with a degree in liberal arts and an
extensive self-education (derived from an insatiable appetite for
reading). He is a member of Amnesty International and an avid
supporter of Oxfam International and Human Rights Watch. He welcomes
responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com
or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
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