Mumia speaks about: Of Radicals and Extremists...
OF RADICALS AND EXTREMISTS,
If the minions of the neo-con right are to be believed, the struggle in Iraq and by extension, the Middle East is essentially a war against, what they call Extremism.
Even the verbally challenged President George W Bush has argued quite strenuously against Islamic extremists. It seems like many in the right are trying out new terms every week to stoke the fires of fear about new and foreboding threats to the besieged American republic.
Extremists, Islamic extremists, Islamo- fascists, dead-enders etc al.
For politicians, words are weapons which are used to sell images much like Madison Avenue sells soap, every so often even the best product must be made new and improved. And why shouldn’t they? Hasn’t it worked before? We now sneer at the phrase, Weapons of Mass Destruction, but several years ago it rang in the head like a klaxon.
Is it radical or extremists to fight against foreigners who invade your country and try to impose strangers who function as puppets for those foreigners?
Why is the administration never seen as extremist for invading a foreign country based on false pretenses? Why isn’t it viewed as extreme for its mad plan to remake the face of the Middle East? Why isn’t its response for the desperate acts of 19 men, 9-11, of invading a nation that has nothing to do with that act, seen as extreme? That it isn’t is largely because of the obedient services of the corporate media. Which sought obscene ratings by playing the fear card, in waving the flag.
They did so because their pay checks are signed by big business. And this administration has been good for big business; they serve their corporate masters but betray their publics. Yet this is hardly a new thing. Scholar and writer Michael Parenti, in his 2004 book, Super Patriotism, published by city lights books, looks beyond the present manic bush regime to view a long history of U.S. extremism all around the world.
U.S. leaders have long professed a dedication to democracy, yet over the last half-century they have devoted themselves to over-throwing democratic governments in: Guatemala, Guyana, The Dominican Republic, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Syria, Indonesia under Sukarno, Greece twice, Argentina twice, Haiti twice, Bolivia, Jamaica, Yugoslavia and other countries. Parenti, these countries were all guilty of pursuing policies that occasionally favored the poor elements and infringed upon the more affluent. In most instances, the U.S. sponsored coups were accompanied by widespread killings of democratic activists.
U.S. leaders have supported covert actions, sanctions or proxy mercenary wars against revolutionary governments in: Cuba, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Iraq; with the CIA ushering in Saddam Hussein’s reign of Repression. Portugal, South Yemen, Nicaragua, Cambodia, East Timor, Western Sahara and elsewhere.
U.S. intervention and de-stabilization campaigns have been directed against other populist nationalist governments including: Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Zaire, Venezuela, the Fiji Islands, and Afghanistan; before the Soviets ever went into the country.
And since, World War 2 direct U.S. military invasions, or aerial attacks or both have been perpetrated against: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, North Korea, Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Libya, Somalia and Iraq twice. Parenti.
There is no rogue state, axis of evil or communist country that has a comparable record of such criminal aggression against others nations; that scholar writer, Michael Parenti. In light of this kind of history, who are the extremists? In light of this history, who are the radicals?
This isn’t a war against extremism, it is a war waged by extremists, it is a war waged by ideologues drunk on power and willing to break a nation to prove their theories of the so- called free market.
Iraq is an essentially broken state awaiting its final crack. Like hungry wolves, these dudes are waiting for their next morsel to munch on. From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
--These events occurred throughout history and are still happening today in one form or another, if someone feels like we needed to go to war against, Viet Nam, ask yourself this question, “Could a little South-East Asian country like Viet Nam North or South, really threaten or do anything against a global powerhouse like the United States?” Nope, so why waste money swatting flies when we have/had bigger fish to fry? Sounds a lot like Iraq to me!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Incident
If you say, it was about spreading democracy, then, why didn’t we “liberate” them during the First Indochina War which lasted from 1945-1954 when France tried to re-control Viet Nam after occupying it since 1883? Because it wasn’t about freedom then, as it isn’t about it now.
If the minions of the neo-con right are to be believed, the struggle in Iraq and by extension, the Middle East is essentially a war against, what they call Extremism.
Even the verbally challenged President George W Bush has argued quite strenuously against Islamic extremists. It seems like many in the right are trying out new terms every week to stoke the fires of fear about new and foreboding threats to the besieged American republic.
Extremists, Islamic extremists, Islamo- fascists, dead-enders etc al.
For politicians, words are weapons which are used to sell images much like Madison Avenue sells soap, every so often even the best product must be made new and improved. And why shouldn’t they? Hasn’t it worked before? We now sneer at the phrase, Weapons of Mass Destruction, but several years ago it rang in the head like a klaxon.
Is it radical or extremists to fight against foreigners who invade your country and try to impose strangers who function as puppets for those foreigners?
Why is the administration never seen as extremist for invading a foreign country based on false pretenses? Why isn’t it viewed as extreme for its mad plan to remake the face of the Middle East? Why isn’t its response for the desperate acts of 19 men, 9-11, of invading a nation that has nothing to do with that act, seen as extreme? That it isn’t is largely because of the obedient services of the corporate media. Which sought obscene ratings by playing the fear card, in waving the flag.
They did so because their pay checks are signed by big business. And this administration has been good for big business; they serve their corporate masters but betray their publics. Yet this is hardly a new thing. Scholar and writer Michael Parenti, in his 2004 book, Super Patriotism, published by city lights books, looks beyond the present manic bush regime to view a long history of U.S. extremism all around the world.
U.S. leaders have long professed a dedication to democracy, yet over the last half-century they have devoted themselves to over-throwing democratic governments in: Guatemala, Guyana, The Dominican Republic, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Syria, Indonesia under Sukarno, Greece twice, Argentina twice, Haiti twice, Bolivia, Jamaica, Yugoslavia and other countries. Parenti, these countries were all guilty of pursuing policies that occasionally favored the poor elements and infringed upon the more affluent. In most instances, the U.S. sponsored coups were accompanied by widespread killings of democratic activists.
U.S. leaders have supported covert actions, sanctions or proxy mercenary wars against revolutionary governments in: Cuba, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Iraq; with the CIA ushering in Saddam Hussein’s reign of Repression. Portugal, South Yemen, Nicaragua, Cambodia, East Timor, Western Sahara and elsewhere.
U.S. intervention and de-stabilization campaigns have been directed against other populist nationalist governments including: Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Zaire, Venezuela, the Fiji Islands, and Afghanistan; before the Soviets ever went into the country.
And since, World War 2 direct U.S. military invasions, or aerial attacks or both have been perpetrated against: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, North Korea, Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Libya, Somalia and Iraq twice. Parenti.
There is no rogue state, axis of evil or communist country that has a comparable record of such criminal aggression against others nations; that scholar writer, Michael Parenti. In light of this kind of history, who are the extremists? In light of this history, who are the radicals?
This isn’t a war against extremism, it is a war waged by extremists, it is a war waged by ideologues drunk on power and willing to break a nation to prove their theories of the so- called free market.
Iraq is an essentially broken state awaiting its final crack. Like hungry wolves, these dudes are waiting for their next morsel to munch on. From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
--These events occurred throughout history and are still happening today in one form or another, if someone feels like we needed to go to war against, Viet Nam, ask yourself this question, “Could a little South-East Asian country like Viet Nam North or South, really threaten or do anything against a global powerhouse like the United States?” Nope, so why waste money swatting flies when we have/had bigger fish to fry? Sounds a lot like Iraq to me!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Incident
If you say, it was about spreading democracy, then, why didn’t we “liberate” them during the First Indochina War which lasted from 1945-1954 when France tried to re-control Viet Nam after occupying it since 1883? Because it wasn’t about freedom then, as it isn’t about it now.
posted by Alphaprimer at
10/28/2006 01:27:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home