America’s
genocide remains unparalleled in history. It repeats in new forms. It did so
throughout the last century. It continues now.
 |
| Photo: Hiroshima survivors. |
by Stephen Lendman
July
29 marks WWI’s 100th anniversary. It was called the war to end all wars. Never
again was heard.
In
1928, Kellogg-Briand policy renounced aggressive wars. The UN Charter’s
Preamble states:
“We
the Peoples of the United Nations Determined to save succeeding generations
from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow
to mankind…”
America,
key NATO partners and Israel wage them on humanity. They’re ongoing in multiple
theaters. They cause horrific human suffering.
America
waged wars at home and/or abroad every year in its history. They began long
before the republic’s inception.
It’s
an unparalleled record. It’s shocking. It’s deplorable. It continues
out-of-control. Peace never had a chance. It’s more endangered than ever.
Wars
assure more of them. America by far is the world’s leading offender. Israel,
Britain, France and other key NATO partners are willing partners. So are other
rogue states.
Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August” recounted WW I horrors. Events were
fast-moving. Things spun out-of-control.
Over
20 million died. Many more were wounded or disabled. An entire generation of
young men was lost.
Two
decades later it repeated threefold. Never again became permanent war. It rages
on humanity. Both world wars were preludes for what followed.
All
wars include horrendous atrocities. America’s tortured past reflects some of
the worst.
They
predate the republic. Accused 17th century Salem witches faced horrific abuse.
Trials were grueling. They excluded fairness. Death by hanging awaited those
convicted.
One
or more victims were crushed under heavy boulders. It’s unknown if any were
burned alive.
Native
Americans were mass-murdered. Columbus exterminated Hispaniola’s population.
He
did so by by torture, mass-murder, forced labor, starvation, disease, despair,
stabbing natives for sport, dashing babies’ heads on rocks, letting children be
eaten by dogs, beheadings, and burning people at the stake among other
atrocities.
Ward
Churchill documented America’s genocide. Native peoples were reduced to at most
3% of their original numbers.
According
to Churchill:
Millions
were “hacked apart with axes and swords, burned alive and trampled under
horses, hunted as game and fed to dogs, shot, beaten, stabbed, scalped for
bounty, hanged on meathooks and thrown over the sides of ships at sea, worked
to death as slave laborers, intentionally starved and frozen to death during a
multitude of forced marches and internments, and, in an unknown number of
instances, deliberately infected with epidemic diseases.”
America’s
genocide remains unparalleled in history. It repeats in new forms. It did so
throughout the last century. It continues now.
A
century of war begot a second one. New millennium conflicts rage. They show no
signs of ending. They’re ongoing in multiple theaters.
Torture and atrocities are weapons of war. John Dower’s “War Without Mercy” documented viciousness by both sides
in the Pacific. America is as unprincipled as the worst of its adversaries.
US
forces mutilated Japan’s war dead. They did so for souvenirs. They sank
hospital ships. They shot sailors trying to abandon them.
They
murdered pilots who bailed out. They killed wounded soldiers. They tortured
prisoners. They killed them in cold blood.
They
buried combatants alive. They attacked civilians. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are
two of history’s greatest crimes.
Gratuitous
slaughter describes them. They had nothing to do with defeating Japan. Nor did
firebombing Tokyo. America bears full responsibility for numerous crimes of
war, against humanity and genocide.
Post-9/11,
some of the worst occurred. Others happened earlier. Millions of North Koreans
and Southeast Asians were slaughtered.
Air
war alone killed millions of civilians. North Korea became rubble. Virtually
everything in northern and central areas were destroyed. Napalm, cluster bombs,
chemical and biological weapons, as well as other terror ones were used.
US
forces dropped threefold the amount of WW II tonnage on Southeast Asia. Agent
Orange’s deadly legacy remains.
Dioxin
is one of the most deadly known substances. It’s a potent carcinogenic human
immune system suppressant. Minute amounts cause serious health problems and
death.
Agent
Orange causes congenital disorders and birth defects. It causes cancer, type
two diabetes, and numerous other diseases.
It
remains toxic for decades. It killed millions of Southeast Asians. Many others
were disabled and/or suffer from chronic illnesses. Future generations are
affected like earlier ones.
Around
three million US servicemen and women were harmed. So were many American
civilians. Many died. Living victims endure diseases, birth defects, and other
ill effects.
New
generations of terror weapons replaced earlier ones. US wars are merciless.
Fundamental laws are ignored. Anything goes is policy.
Civilians
suffer most. America considers them legitimate targets.
Obama’s
Asia pivot perhaps intends repeating the worst of past and current conflicts.
They’re ongoing in multiple war theaters.
Washington’s
new millennium wars killed millions. Many more victims die daily. Wherever
America shows up, mass slaughter, destruction and human misery follow.
War
without mercy describes them. America is a killing machine. Making the world
safe for war profiteers is policy. So is committing genocidal crimes.
The
measure of national policy is its respect for life, liberty, equity and
justice. America deplores them. It scorns them. It ruthlessly seeks
unchallenged global dominance.
It
thrives on war. It wages permanent ones. Its culture reflects violence, unfairness,
cruelty and intolerance. It punishes its own. It does so like others abroad.
Torture
is official policy. It’s practiced worldwide. It operates the world’s largest
gulag. Thousands of political prisoners suffer inside. Anyone challenging US
lawlessness is vulnerable.
So
are America’s poor, people of culture, others most disadvantaged, and human
rights advocates championing their rights.
America
is a dystopian wasteland. Millions are denied fundamental rights. Growing
poverty, unemployment, underemployment, hunger and homelessness reflect
horrific conditions.
Hot
wars rage abroad. Financial ones cause more harm than standing armies.
Bipartisan complicity wages war on fairness.
America’s
social contract is on the chopping block for elimination. Growing millions face
protracted Depression conditions.
Families
struggle to pay rent, provide sustenance, and handle other essential expenses.
Harvard Magazine’s January-February 2014 issue featured Elizabeth Gudrias’
article.
It headlined “Disrupted Lives.” It
discussed Harvard Sociology Professor Matthew Desmond’s research. His academic
interests include poverty, race, ethnicity, organizations and work, social
theory and ethnography.
He
studied how evictions impact America’s poor. It’s a story raw datta hide.
Sheriffs arrive disruptively. They’ve come to evict. Loud knocks announce them.
If no one’s inside they “kick the door in.”
Desmond
studies how poverty, housing and eviction affects America’s most disadvantaged.
Millions are horrifically harmed.
He
captured an important snapshot. He did it through original research. It
reflects hard times getting harder. It’s ongoing out of sight and mind.
It’s
longstanding. It’s raged since 2008 crisis conditions emerged. For growing
millions, it never ends.
Imagine
living life on the edge. Imagine it without house or home. Desmond witnessed
what happened to Danielle Shaw and her partner, Jerry Allen.
“(D)eputies
swept into (their) apartment,” said Gudrias. They took over. They “briskly
outlined” their intentions.
“The
couple could choose to put their belongings in storage at the moving company’s
warehouse – and pay a fee to retrieve them – or the movers would leave
everything on the curb.”
The
couple had little advance notice. They learned only days before eviction. They
had little time to plan.
Desmond’s
research showed “how common eviction is in the lives of poor people,” said
Gudrias.
Inner
city people of color are harmed most. They have no recourse. Their lives are
involuntarily disrupted.
Desmond
studied inner city Milwaukee. He analyzed formal eviction court records. Others
take place off the books.
Some
landlords are adversarial. They cut off electricity. They stop heat in
winter. They remove front doors. They use other ways to evict tenants.
Desmond
found almost one in eight Milwaukee renters were evicted or involuntarily
relocated. For blacks, it was one in seven. For Hispanics, it was one in four.
Many
end up homeless. Some live on streets. Others end up in shelters. Ones finding
substitute housing “are limited to decrepit units in unsafe neighborhoods.”
Transient
existence affects children’s emotional well-being. Their school performance
suffers.
Adults
endure “depression and subsequent job loss, material hardship, and future
residential instability,” said Desmond.
Eviction
compounds poverty and racial discrimination. “We are learning that (it) is a
cause, not just a condition, of poverty,” he said.
It
gets little public attention. Most often it gets none at all. Imagine millions
suffering enormous hardships. Imagine federal, state and local governments
doing practically nothing to help.
Imagine
mainstream media ignoring what need to be headlined. Imagine a growing problem
across America.
“The
average cost of rent, even in high-poverty neighborhoods, is quickly
approaching the total income of welfare recipients,” said Desmond.
“The
fundamental issue is this: the high cost of housing is consigning the urban
poor to financial ruin.”
Desmond
was a University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral student. Eviction “brings
together poor and nonpoor people – tenants, their families, landlords, social
workers, lawyers, judges, sheriffs – in relationships of mutual dependence and
struggle,” he explained.
He
learned how little eviction was studied. No national data exist. He constructed
Milwaukee facts and figures on his own.
He
did it by examining tens of thousands of Milwaukee County eviction records.
He
interviewed 250 tenants in eviction court. He conducted over 1,000 others with
affected households.
He
calls evictions and incarceration twin destructive forces. They relate to each
other. They affect millions of inner-city lives.
They’re
out of sight and minds. They’re nameless, faceless victims society forgot.
Many
prior inmates can’t find work. Others don’t earn enough to live on. Criminal
records are marks of cain. They’re permanent. They affect victims for life.
Their
ability to rent is hampered. Desmond lived in poor neighborhoods he studied. He
learned human suffering firsthand. He explained, saying:
“I
sat beside families at eviction court; helped them move; followed them into
shelters and abandoned houses; watched their children; ate with them; slept at
their houses; attended church counseling sessions, Alcoholics Anonymous
meetings, and Child Protective Services appointments with them; joined them at
births and funerals; and generally embedded myself as deeply as possible into
their lives.”
He
discovered numerous cases where victims don’t know their rights. They don’t
understand the process. They’re given conflicting, inaccurate information.
They
lack legal help. They’re on their own. They’re up against an unforgiving
system. Disadvantaged people endure what America’s privileged avoid.
Poverty
is a process, he says. It involves victims, a system creating them, people
benefitting from it, and society overall not caring.
Sociology
Professor Eric Klinenberg admires his writing skill. It’s “deceptively simple
but devastatingly sharp,” he said.
He’s
a voice for the voiceless. He lets them be heard. He explains their humanity.
It needs to be known.
He
hopes to make a difference. Disadvantaged households need all the help they can
get.
America’s
wars include waging them on poor people. They’re increasingly deprived.
Force-fed austerity inflicts greater harm. It’s ongoing when help is most
needed.
Main
Street economic recovery is nowhere in sight. Hard times for millions keep
getting harder.
Federal,
state and local governments dismissively ignore them. Today’s America is the
United States of I Don’t Care.
His new book is titled “Banker
Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”
Visit his blog site at
sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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