It is summer stateside, time to decorate our yards with the indigenous tropical plants we call "annuals" here, break out the margaritas and mango/peach rum drinks, eat Carribean jerk barbeque with pineapple upside down cake, smoke Cuban cigars and wave our flags alongside fake plastic flamingos and electric palm trees.
In other words? We are celebrating Memorial Day, Flag Day, and the Fourth of July.. all symbols of our freedom from colonization, with foods appropriated from other cultures, traditions and horticulture of lands we have colonized or enslaved in the past, even our fireworks are not indigenous.... But is the Past past?
America still has 16 colonies, some of whom are now uninhabited due to genocide or forced relocation of their inhabitants. The most familiar to us, we think of only as a vacation destination, or where our pharmaceuticals come from is Puerto Rico. America is still busting the balls of Cuba. South America still suffers our Chicago Boy Doctrine appointees. The Middle east is teeming with US-anointed dictators with boots on their own people's throats at our behest.
Its a mind numbing exercise in cluelessness.
I have my own love affair with the tropics. I understand it. I even have a room with tropical decor and my house is full of palms I nurture through hard Michigan winters. Yet I have ZERO interest in going to a resort or even boarding one of those overstuffed exercises in excess called a cruise ship. I want to move there, and live in a shack, far from the bars and the ex-pats. I want to learn from the people there, and deprogram from my western ways.
I would be happy in a thatched hut on a beach with a bed, a bowl, a knife, my guitar and a fishing pole.
That's not usual American thinking, though.
We want resorts with brown skinned waiters wearing gloves so their dirty skin doesn't actually touch our plates, glistening waterfalls of chlorinated water cascading into bar pools. We want Disney-esque performances of dances and songs so removed from their spiritual nature as to be cartoons of themselves. We want to clear the land of the messy working people and relegate them away from their beaches; so we may enjoy a clear view from our high rise resort; and the let them deal with the toxic run-off from our Golf Courses upriver. We want to moor our yachts and whip around on our jet skis; damn the fishing industry. We want to do it with a clear conscience with the idea that our Western ways are a blessing. I mean, the idea that a community can be self-sufficient, well-fed and happy without minimum wage jobs cleaning sheets in our hotel rooms, or working for Mickey D's is absurd to us. Everyone wants money, darling... not working farms, managed wilderness and clean water. Show them the marvels of our ways and they will beg to be our wage slaves in hopes of achieving the same opulent lifestyle we enjoy.
Righhhhhhttttttt?
Not so fucking much.
What happens is they see their most beautiful places stolen by the greedy whites, and they, the rightful owners of the places gated out, often at gun-point. What they see is their local economies replaced by a system they can serve but never compete in. Then as they inevitably fail with goods and services priced for the wealthy elites and wages priced to poverty, more and more become desperate and sell off even more precious land to the Americans, dazzled by promises of wealth and more jobs for their People.
Instead, what they get is Monsanto single-crop farms. Single strains of things like bananas replacing the varied gene pool that kept crops from failing to disease. The lack of genetic diversity makes them more prone to disease, requiring the purchase of expensive chemical treatments to keep them alive, driving the price up evermore out of their reach. Family farms become replaced with United Fruit. No one thrives but the owner of the Company.
Should the people revolt against their poverty, the Colonization of their lands, the making of them second-class citizens in their own Nations?
The US calls it a revolt by terrorists and sends in the Guns, propping up and making rich any Dictator who promises to keep the People down (by any and all means) and support US Business interests.
We are told "they" are commies, terrorists who want to keep their own people down by violence, and they "hate us for our Freedoms," and wish to make their land a land of vile dictators who hate Democracy. We swallow this ugly placebo with that penultimate cluelessness only Americans can seem to achieve. If we kill enough of them, they will be free to enjoy American Democracy, American Freedom. That is, we refuse to see that means "Be slaves to our Business interests or we will kill you."
Take Puerto Rico.
As the website devoted to its liberation, ProLibertad Freedom Campaign states:
Puerto Rico has been a colony for 500 years, first of Spain and then of the United States. In 1898, at the conclusion of what is called the Spanish- American War, Spain was forced to cede the island nation to the United States pursuant to a treaty between Spain, France and the United States. No one conferred with the people of Puerto Rico, in violation of a Charter of Autonomy signed by Spain and Puerto Rico which provided that the island's status could not be altered without consulting the Puerto Rican people. The U.S. military declared martial law, installed a U.S. governor, and began a pro- gram to alter and destroy the fiber of Puerto Rico. Over the years, the U.S. destroyed Puerto Rico's agrarian economy; devalued its money; imposed citizenship on its people to facilitate drafting its men into the U.S. army to fight the U.S.' wars; imposed the teaching of the English language and U.S. history on its students; polluted its air, land, and water; sterilized its women; and installed 21 U.S. military bases on some of the best land.
I suggest you peruse the whole website, but this fact of Law CANNOT be understated: (my bold)
It is important to note that under United Nations Resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 of December 1960, it states that colonialism is an international crime and that a colonized people have every right to use whatever means necessary to end their colonial plight (which includes armed struggle). This international resolution makes Puerto Rico’s colonial reality and the imprisonment of the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners an international crime and human rights violations.
Far from the Love Boat Cruises, this is the Freedom Puerto Ricans have, the slums we choose not to see. We have impoverished and made a slave class of them, and despise and call "terrorist" anyone who resists our boot on their throats.
We have been imprisoning PR's dissidents against our Colonization for decades - whether they want Full Statehood, or want Autonomy from the Us. We still are. Early this month, the word from Puerto Rico is that the FBI is doing warrantless neighborhood searches, stealing computers, and harassing anyone who has spoken out for Puerto Rican Independence.
Got that? Our colonists wanting freedom = SAINT. Their colonists wanting freedom = EVIL INCARNATE.
We are trying old men for alleged heists against Wells Fargo in 1983, like 65 year old Norberto Gonzalez Claudio and 68 year old Oscar Lopez Rivera who was convicted for a non-violent part in that heist. He is serving a 70 year sentence for trying to channel that money back to PR to fund the resistance movement.
Got that? Ollie North sells drugs and guns to fund Capitalists = Hero and Elected Official. Puerto Ricans use stolen money to fund Independance seekers - Life in Prison.
The biased Cluelessness of the American Populace to these things is more cloying than a funeral room draped in lilly's and far more deadly. The rest of the world sees it. We choose not to. We even ignore the buried story released by the ACLU, when their recent visit showed the Police there are increasingly Militant, and allowed to "suppress freedom of speech and silence those who protest against it. It is unwilling to recognize the excesses of its own police force and unable to guarantee basic civil rights of its people. They are defending police behavior with a military-like rhetoric about protecting government and order, as if Puerto Ricans did not have the right to speak out against the policies that affect their lives."
Tomorrow? President Hopey McChangey will grace our "Colony" with a visit.
The president plans to deliver remarks at Muñiz Air National Guard Base in Carolina, where Air Force One will land, then visit the governor's mansion in San Juan and attend a Democratic National Committee event at the Caribe Hilton hotel before returning to Washington that night.
snip
But Obama's brief trip is hardly expected to resolve the debate over the commonwealth's political status and the lack of voting rights for islanders.
"It's hard to believe people can be citizens and get drafted and fight and die for the country but can't vote for Congress or the president," said Rangel, a Korean War veteran. "And I can't understand why for the last 40 years they couldn't resolve the status issue, but I assume the president won't go anywhere near that because it's a very, very emotional subject."
EMOTIONAL?
How about heinously ILLEGAL and a VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS that NEEDS ADDRESSING?
Lets take a look at what the US has/does.
Territories, Possessions, and Influenced Areas of the United States of America
When we think of the United States we often think of the 50 official states, but there is much more to America than just the 50 states. Below is a listing of all of the territories, commonwealths, and possessions of the United States of America.
Territories:
American Samoa - since 1878 (original purpose of acquisition: coaling station)
Guam - since 1898 (original purpose of acquisition: military significance)
United States Virgin Islands - since 1917 (original purpose of acquisition: military significance)
Commonwealths:
Puerto Rico - under US control since 1900, became a commonwealth in 1902 (original purpose of acquisition: military significance)
Northern Mariana Islands - under US control since 1947, became a commonwealth in 1978 (original purpose of acquisition: military significance) see also
Possessions:
Howland, Baker, and Jarvis Islands - since 1857 (original purpose of acquisition: guano production)
Navassa Island - since 1857 (original purpose of acquisition: guano production)
Johnston Island - since 1858 (original purpose of acquisition: guano production)
Midway Atolls - claimed in 1876, annexed in 1908 (original purpose of acquisition: military significance)
Palmyra Atoll - since 1898 (original purpose of acquisition: was part of the Hawaii acquisition)
Wake Islands - since 1898 (original purpose of acquisition: military significance)
Guantanamo Bay - since 1898 (original purpose of acquisition: military significance)
Kingman Reef - since 1922 (original purpose of acquisition: stopping point for air traffic)
Compacts of Free Association:
Republic of the Marshall Islands - since 1947 (used for nuclear weapons testing)
Republic of Palau - under trusteeship in 1947, gained independence in 1994
Federated States of Micronesia - since 1978
For more information about these American places and how they are governed see:
http://www.macmeekin.com/...
In addition to these places it is helpful to know which places have been possessions of the United States in the past as well. Previously occupied American territories include:
The Philippines 1901 - 1946
Panama Canal 1903 - 1999
Nicaragua 1912 - 1933
Haiti 1915 - 1934
Dominican Republic 1916 - 1924
On a more subjective level there are also many countries who's leaders or political systems have been controlled or influenced by the United States in some way over the years. For the purpose of helping to understand American influence I will include some of these places here and the times in which it is generally accepted that their political systems were under significant influence of the United States.
Nicaragua 1855 - 1860
Liberia 1820 - 1865
Cuba 1898 - 1952
Germany 1945 - 1955
Japan 1945 - 1955
South Korea 1948 - 1960
Congo 1960 - 1964
Vietnam 1950 - 1973
Chile 1964 - 1973
Iran 1953 - 1979
Guatemala 1953 - 1980s
Indonesia/East Timor 1965 - 2002
Iraq 2003 - ?
What this does NOT address, and Wiki even white-washes in the language of "now uninhabited" is the fact we forcibly removed people when we stole their islands. What history does not redress is how many indigenous peoples were decimated if not the subjects of genocide by European Colonization. One only need to look to Haiti's history to see what wave after wave of Colonists did to their beautiful Island.
Haiti is still fighting a Slave's Revolution.
The US still interferes there to the detriment of the People. We overthrew the rightfully elected Aristedes for not being subservient enough to our Business Interests, and had a recent hand in ensuring that his party, Fanmi Lavalas (FL), would not be represented in the latest election. We actively, through our Embassy and graft, influenced then Haitian President René Préval to effectively block a pay raise for his people.
Contractors for Fruit of the Loom, Hanes and Levi’s worked in close concert with the US Embassy when they aggressively moved to block a minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly zone workers, the lowest-paid in the hemisphere, according to secret State Department cables.
snip
Two months later Préval negotiated a deal with Parliament to create a two-tiered minimum wage increase—one for the textile industry at about $3 per day and one for all other industrial and commercial sectors at about $5 per day.
Still the US Embassy wasn’t pleased. A deputy chief of mission, David E. Lindwall, said the $5 per day minimum “did not take economic reality into account” but was a populist measure aimed at appealing to “the unemployed and underpaid masses.”
snip
The revelation of US support for low wages in Haiti’s assembly zones was in a trove of 1,918 cables made available to the Haitian weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté by the transparency group WikiLeaks.
It is unimaginably reprehensible that we endorse, by our silence, keeping a Nation in abject poverty, so that Levi Strauss' family can make extra billions by working people for 3 dollars a day to create jeans they sell for 50 dollars a piece.
But golly, let the other half of that Island, the Dominican Republic who allows the huge American Resorts and the Love Boats pull up and spew its vomit of obnoxious touristas and we allow them autonomy. Limited Autonomy - that is you can be as autonomous as you want, as long as your interests reflect American PROFITS.
I could go on, and will in another piece, about the travesties of justice, the deplorable interventions we still are repressing People by American Fiat and Military intervention.
Honduras.
Cuba.
Venezuela.
Chile.
The list goes on, endlessly.
The whole world sees us for what we are. Clueless deluded fools, who choose not to see how we exploit and make suffer the World for the profits of our few.
Damn.
Viva la revolucion!