Meria Heller’s Column
Here we are in the middle of what is known as the holy-days or holidays. However, many people have informed me that they are not in the holiday mood. Some have called and told me they are so depressed they can’t face another day. Yet, others I’ve seen are out in the malls shopping and laughing as if nothing is wrong in the world. What makes the difference?
As far as I can see, knowledge is a two edged sword. It informs us of reality and breaks our “spell” forcing us to open our eyes to the Matrix we’ve been living under for decades.
Last week was Thanksgiving. What do we have to be thankful for in America? Our homeless are growing in numbers, unemployment and layoffs at an all time high; more foreclosures on home mortgages since WW2; skyrocketing health insurance prices; 43 million Americans without health insurance; millions out of work; losses of retirement funds through crooked corporations; endless wars on the horizon; the stripping of our privacy and freedoms under the anti-constitutional, anti-Bill of Rights documents passed by a sleeping Congress called the “USA Patriot Act” and the “Homeland Security Bill”. These are just to name a few of the problems in a rapidly degenerating country. Add stolen elections, voter fraud, voter disenfranchisement, and a Supreme Court appointed President and Cabinet and it can get to you. I know. I cover the news five days a week, which means studying it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Yet, most people are under the Matrix spell of Corporate Owned media é the media of mass distraction.
I always had mixed feelings about Thanksgiving. On one hand I always loved being an American. On the other hand, I knew the atrocities that were done to the beautiful native people of this country to “found” America. This year with talk of “endless war”, pre-emptive wars, war in Iraq, axis of evil countries (future wars), how can we be thankful to be part of a country that has suppressed, murdered, raped and pillaged the societies of many weaker nations? I do love my country, however, I do not love its foreign policy. Neither past, present, or what appears to be its future foreign policy.
When you think about all the other holy-days coming up, Channukah, Christmas, Quanza, whichever, the basic message of all of them is love. Yet, where is the love on the planet? Love is a verb, not a noun. It calls for action.
Let’s look at the environment. The U.S. has pulled out of every international environmental treaty. The current Corporate owned administration has basically recalled the Clean Air Act in favor of coal and oil interests; the protections of our forests and public lands have gone away in favor of the timber industry; our food is poisoned with genetically modified garbage that even “third world” countries refuse to accept even if it means starvation; and so on and so on. Spain has a huge oil spill that will surpass the Exxon-Valdez horror of years ago. 90 Beaches have been affected by it. No one wants to claim responsibility for the spill, or the thousands of people who have just seen their livelihoods go up in OIL. Military proliferation is at an all time high. Many other countries are now stockpiling weapons and pushing the U.N. for pre-emptive strikes on supposed “terrorists” threats.
How can one even sleep at night once they are informed of the reality on this planet?
I recently saw the movie “Bowling for Columbine” by Michael Moore. Although it comes across as a very anti-gun movie, I didn’t see it that way. Michael seems to be okay with rifles, but not handguns? However, the movie shows that Canadians have even more guns, yet thousands less murdered. I believe the adage that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. I also believe the second amendment was put in place to protect us from a tyrannical government. My question is why do we kill? One thing for sure, America is a very violent society. Think about the Thanksgiving tradition of filling our bellies to near explosion, and then settling in to watch football all afternoon, an extremely violent sport. Listen to the men yell, curse, and cheer for injuries. The one question that Michael Moore seems to ask is why is America such a violent society? I spent a lot of time thinking about that one.
If one were to really study real American history, not the garbage we are taught in school or from garbage “history” books that get re-written as often as the politicians feel need be we would get a strong answer to that question.
Regardless of the pretty pictures and fairy tales about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans on Thanksgiving, there is as much truth in that as this administration tells us about anything.
This country was founded by terrorists. Yes, terrorists. The scum of the Earth, rejects from Europe, religious fanatics, thieves, criminals and people that had no clue how to fit into normal society. It was the Spanish that taught the Indians how to scalp. How many people know that fact? When the invaders (explorers) came to America as one Indian said “first they fell on their knees, then, they fell on the Indians”. Natives could not understand why the white men wanted to take the land by aggression, when they were willing to share it, or give it to them. Millions of beautiful, friendly, helpful Natives were murdered in cold blood. Only recently are apologies beginning to be made for the slaughter of hundreds of tribes of men, women and children. Smallpox was laced into blankets given to the Indians to stay “warm” in the harsh winter. Bio-chemical warfare by terrorists. (Interesting that the “bio-weapon we are given fear about 24/7 today is smallpox, I guess old habits die hard.) The department store of the Natives was the buffalo. So to put them out of business as far as food, clothing and shelter were concerned, buffalo hunts began. The dead buffalo were just left dead or dying on the ground in the millions. The natives had no choice but to be relocated to “reservations” basically concentration camps where they had to be dependent on their captors. Their language, culture and spirituality were forcibly stripped from them.
Let’s move on from there. As Michael’s movie points out quite well in a two minute cartoon, the white people were too lazy to do their own work, so next they began the “slave trade”. Forcibly shipping Africans to America to become slaves, chattel. To be bought and sold as so much corn or potatoes. Then came the wars within the country. The Civil War, the wars that have continued on instead called “movements”. Racism that is still alive in this country; the fear of anyone different; the quick “cowboy” mentality of “let’s smoke them out wherever they are”. What kind of society can evolve from murderers and terrorists? My Dad used to say the apple tree can only produce apples. He also said ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”.
On 9/11 we were handed a bill of goods about why “they” hate us. Bush said it was because of our freedoms and our way of life”. Then Bush quickly set about eliminating our freedoms and our way of life. As Ted Rall says “people don’t smash planes into buildings without a good reason”. Instead of coming away from that horror with compassion we came away from it, thanks to the advice of a television news reporter, (Ailes, Fox news) to the President that the public wanted to see revenge, we came out as terrorists ourselves. Declaring war on an unassuming, poverty stricken, safe target to show off our prowess as killers é Afghanistan. Why? 15 of the 19 supposed terrorists were from Saudi Arabia? How did bombing and killing innocent Afghanis help our cause? How did it make us look to the rest of the world? Our President has been called every name in the books by other world leaders. The world fears us. We have been called a rogue nation and the bully of the international scene. So, what do we do? We declare war on Iraq without actually declaring war (Congress would have to do that, but they’ve been shut out by the Homeland Security Act). The whole world is out in hundreds of thousands of people protesting a war in Iraq. Yet, we are still lining up our military and getting ready to “smoke em out”. How can Americans not pay attention to this? We are certainly not viewed as a civilized nation. Is this really the new millennium?
Our “leader” says we are a Christian-Judeo nation. Where is the Christianity from this administration? What would Jesus do? What would Moses do? Those are not issues the self-righteous church/synagogue goers want to discuss or deal with. The demonization of Muslims and people of color in this country is appalling. We are also supporting a nation that has declared an eternal war on the Palestinians. Why?
Jim Jeffords just wrote an article in the NY Times stating that we have “terrorism” here at home we must deal with in the form of unemployment, homelessness, health crisis, educational crisis, why aren’t we dealing with them? Those are the problems that will bring America down from the inside-out. Mr. Bush says we have no money to fund any of the real programs in the Homeland Security Bill that would protect the people. Yet, we have plenty of money for war. We are going to give another $14 billion to Israel to fix their economy due to their war crashing it.
One day of the world’s military budget could solve all the worlds problems. Two days of America’s military budget could feed and house and educate and provide medical insurance for every American. But, we are a violent society. If we were truly interested in creating peace and freedom, we would use our resources and position in the world for good, making real friends and allies of nations. Freedom isn’t freedom unless it means freedom for all people all over the world.
Even if you are a drone of the media of mass distraction, you “feel” the fear permeating the planet. It has to affect you. It invades your dreams, interrupts your daily life’s flow. Living with fear, fear of a bomb or another terrorist action steals your very joy and weakens your soul. Every living being on the planet is currently living with this fear. This fear has been created by the wealthy, corrupt Corporate leaders/bankers/oil barons and their minions. Fear means control and power. These weak-minded, self-serving hypocrites and enemies of all life on the planet INTEND to keep you in that fear. They intend to keep you in the matrix and slumber of the corporate whore media. They strip you of your rights, call you Un-American, a dissenter, terrorist just for believing and speaking out on what their so-called “Christian-Judeo” principles teach in the first place!
Rahul Mahajan in his book “The New Crusade” makes it very clear that the WTO and the U.S. are one and the same. Empire. History teaches us that Empires have the habit of sharing the same fate é destruction. The “Christian” Bible says that “pride comes before destruction”. The ugly tentacles of the “ten horned beast” reaches out to all corners of the Earth, devouring everything and everyone in pursuit of it’s goal é world domination.
When people have to pay for water, starve, watch their children die from diseases created in laboratories, watch everything they lived for being taken from them, they only have one option. Some call it terrorists, others call it freedom fighting. I call it survival. When people have nothing to live for they become desperate. Desperate people do desperate things.
How easy would it be for Americans and their leaders to truly live their words of democracy? A universal bill of rights? Freedom from fear for all people? Freedom from hunger for all people? I doubt we will ever hear an apology for the past horrors we have inflicted on other peoples for decades. What about just changing our foreign policy from this day forward? Negotiating. Listening. Feeding the world. Peace is not some imaginary thought for “tree-huggers”. Peace can happen if we all want it. Disarmament is an urgency. We are lucky human error and computer error hasn’t blown us all off the face of the earth so far. What is all this power and resource grab about when we won’t have a planet to enjoy it on soon? Why can’t all nations live and coincide in peace? Why can’t we respect and enjoy our diversity as human beings or as Gandhi called it “one big tossed salad”?
Ben Black Elk said a long time ago that there is only one man é every man; only one woman é every woman; only one child é all children. Until we all recognize this as human beings we will never be able to put away our fears that keep us apart.
So as you ready for your particular holiday this year, and feel a bit “off” think on these things. How can the world be dying, people dying, people starving, etc., not affect you? We are all one people, one consciousness. When one hurts the other is affected. That is the law of the Universe. Everything affects everything. Even if you make up your mind to “I just don’t want to know”. It won’t matter whether you are awake or not, whether you are doing something to protest and change the way the world is going, when a button gets pushed é a nuclear warhead goes off and our world goes away.
Perhaps this holiday you can make a real resolution. Resolve to get involved in your world. This is not a dress rehearsal. Resolve to put the commercial aspects of the holiday season to bed once and for all. Get back to the meaning of the holy-day season é love, compassion, forgiveness, sharing and caring. Pray for all people worldwide, for our leaders to wake up, for peace to happen. Peace is the only choice we have. Happier holy-days for all people of the world, the animals, the trees and all living things.
Meria Heller is MMN‘s columnist and one of the most popular web–caster on the Internet. She hosts an international web–cast heard in over sixty countries, and has for over two years now. She believes in truth, justice and humanitarianism for all living things.
