zondag 26 april 2015

Henk Hofland en de Massa 50


In De Groene Amsterdammer van 15 april 2015 probeert de mainstream-opiniemaker Henk Hofland de façade te renoveren waarachter de neoliberale werkelijkheid schuilgaat. Schrijvende over Hillary Clinton verloopt dit bij hem vanzelfsprekend op de traditionele manier: 

als vrouw van president Clinton heeft ze een groot incasseringsvermogen opgebouwd en later als minister van Buitenlandse Zaken heeft ze aanzienlijke politieke ervaring opgedaan. Ze kent de wereld, en Republikeinse concurrenten die haar kunnen evenaren, hebben zich nog niet aangediend.

Bovendien heeft ze ervoor gekozen zich niet kritisch op te stellen tegenover Obama maar hem zo veel mogelijk tot een van haar belangrijkste bondgenoten te maken. Of dit verstandig is staat te bezien. Bij de tussentijdse verkiezingen heeft Obama de meerderheid in het Congres verloren. Maar aan de andere kant wordt hierdoor een publieke ruzie in het Democratische kamp vermeden en heeft Obama zijn goodwill onder de lagere klassen niet verloren. Dit alles in aanmerking genomen is Hillary al de ideale kandidaat.

Et voila, de eerste mythe: 'Obama [heeft] zijn goodwill onder de lagere klassen niet verloren.' Het is de mythe van 'change we can believe in,' die ertoe leidde dat de Nederlandse mainstream-pers in 2008 juichend reageerde op Obama's verkiezingsoverwinning, en Trouw als 'misschien wel beste krant van Nederland' berichtte dat er sprake was van een 'Fenomenale opkomst in VS.' In werkelijkheid kwam 43,2 procent van de Amerikaanse stemgerechtigden niet opdagen, dat was slechts 1,5 procent minder dan tijdens de herverkiezing van de impopulaire Bush junior in 2004. Maar omdat Hoflands 'politiek-literaire elite' in de polder de schijn van democratie wil hooghouden, zijn deze ontnuchterende cijfers volstrekt taboe; een journalist die zijn of haar carrière niet in gevaar wil brengen weet namelijk dat er geen prijs wordt gesteld op onwelgevallige informatie, en dus worden de oorzaken verzwegen waarom al een halve eeuw lang bijna de helft van de Amerikaanse kiezers niet meer de moeite neemt  te stemmen. De spreekbuizen van het establishment doen net alsof de meerderheid van de westerse bevolking nog niet doorheeft dat 'de democratie' een wassen neus is. Sterker nog: Hofland beweert gewoon dat de huidige Amerikaanse president 'goodwill onder de lagere klassen' bezit. En dat kan hij omdat Hofland, volgens eigen zeggen, zodra hij op Manhattan verblijft, elke ochtend twee uur lang de kranten van de Amerikaanse mainstream-pers spelt. Zijn zelf opgelegde isolement als 'intellectueel,' en de hem zo kenmerkende dédain voor 'het volk,' beletten hem om aan Amerikaanse burgers, die niet stemmen, te vragen wat hun motieven zijn. 'Daar moet ik niet aan denken, zeg,' verklaarde hij toen de interviewer Ischa Meijer opperde dat Hofland met zijn publiek in gesprek zou kunnen raken, om vervolgens op  te merken: 'Jezus Christus, daar moet ik toch niet aan denken. Ik weet hoe het zit.' En zo is het maar net. 

Henk Hofland is geen H.L. Mencken, die zijn kritiek aldus formuleerde:

The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.

Hofland is een conformist die vergeefs zijn mythes nieuw leven in wil blazen. Al ruim anderhalve eeuw geleden, in 1843 om precies te zijn, constateerde de Duitse filosoof Ludwig Feuerbach in het voorwoord van de tweede druk van Das Wesen des Christentums:

Deze tijd [verkiest] het beeld boven de zaak, de kopie boven het origineel, de voorstelling boven de werkelijkheid, de schijn boven het wezen, want heilig is hem slechts de illusie, profaan daarentegen de waarheid. Ja, in zijn ogen wordt de heiligheid in dezelfde mate vergroot waarin de waarheid af- en de illusie toeneemt, zodat de hoogste graad van illusie voor hem tevens de hoogste graad van heiligheid is.

Zoals bekend wordt 'heiligheid' omkleed met taboes, en rust er vandaag de dag een taboe op het beschrijven van het neoliberalisme voor wat het is: de voortdurende staat van oorlog met mens en natuur. Voor de meesten van mijn geschoolde generatiegenoten geldt dat het kapitalisme met een menselijk gezicht het hoogst haalbare is voor de gehele mensheid. Die doctrine is even onaantastbaar als de onbevlekte ontvangenis in de middeleeuwen was, en deze ‘illusie’ is ‘tevens de hoogste graad van heiligheid,’ dus onbespreekbaar. Heeft de afgelopen jaren ook maar één van onze mainstream-opiniemakers het begrip ‘neoliberalisme’ werkelijk fundamenteel bekritiseerd? Ik herinner me niet dat het woord ‘kapitalisme’ in bijvoorbeeld Geert Mak’s zoektocht naar ‘Amerika’ voorkomt. Het is alsof het domweg niet bestaat . En die krankzinnigheid is weer het product van het feit dat, volgens Mak zelf, hij hardstikke verslaafd aan nieuws,’ is, en als junkie elke dag weer een shot ‘waan van de dag’ nodig heeft, om de woorden van de voormalige nieuwslezeres Sacha de Boer te citeren, die na tien jaar ‘de waan van de dag’ te hebben voorgedragen ‘het nieuws’ in maart 2013 aldus kwalificeerde. Iemand die volgens eigen zeggen ‘hardstikke verslaafd’ is aan ‘suikerbroden… waarbij andere meningen er niet zoveel toe doen’ en die dus ‘de voorstelling boven de werkelijkheid [verkiest]’ kan niet anders dan, zoals Geert Mak publiekelijk ook toegeeft, ‘ontzettend conformerend’ worden.  Het gevolg daarvan is dat ook hij meedoet ‘op Europees en mondiaal niveau’ met de ‘misvorming van de werkelijkheid… die grote consequenties heeft.’ 

Evenals Henk Hoflands propaganda in De Groene Amsterdammer roept ook Mak's bestseller Reizen zonder John (2012) een beeld op dat wezenlijk afwijkt van de inzichten van kritische Amerikaanse intellectuelen. Met terloopse opmerkingen over ‘het vitale karakter van de Amerikaanse democratie,’ en de ‘burgerzin,’ die volgens hem ‘de basis van de Amerikaanse politiek [is],’ suggereert Mak dat de VS een functionerende democratie is, waarbij de bevolking een wezenlijke invloed uitoefent op het politieke beleid. Die opvatting rechtvaardigt in zijn ogen dat Washington ‘decennialang als ordebewaker en politieagent’ fungeerde ‘en nog steeds… het anker van het hele Atlantische deel van de wereld’ is. Daarentegen zijn er talloze Amerikaanse intellectuelen die na jarenlang onderzoek van de feiten gedocumenteerd aantonen dat Mak’s en Hoflands veronderstelling ongefundeerd is. Begin maart 2013 vatte de Amerikaanse geleerde Noam Chomsky het westers ‘democratisch’ systeem als volgt samen:

Now control of government is narrowly concentrated at the peak of the income scale, while the large majority 'down below' has been virtually disenfranchised. The current political-economic system is a form of plutocracy, diverging sharply from democracy, if by that concept we mean political arrangements in which policy is significantly influenced by the public will.

There have been serious debates over the years about whether capitalism is compatible with democracy. If we keep to really existing capitalist democracy – RECD for short – the question is effectively answered: They are radically incompatible.

It seems to me unlikely that civilization can survive really existing capitalist democracy, and the sharply attenuated democracy that goes along with it.

Chomsky’s constatering wordt nog eens bevestigd door het eenvoudige gegeven dat in de VS al een halve eeuw lang de opkomstcijfers bij verkiezingen opvallend laag zijn, zeker voor een imperium dat claimt elders in de wereld de democratie te verspreiden, een bewering waarvan de juistheid zelfs door behoudende en gematigde Amerikaanse academici wordt aangevochten, onder wie de Amerikaanse hoogleraar International Relations and History en Pulitzer Prize winnaar voor Geschiedenis Walter A. McDougall, wiens behoudende opvattingen in zijn boek Promised Land, Crusader State. The American Encounter With The World Since 1776 (1998) door Henry Kissinger werden geprezen:

In his sweeping history of U.S. foreign policy, Walter McDougall advances a thoughtful new view of America’s conduct of world affairs over two hundred years. In illuminating the varying principles that have governed our international relations, Promised Land, Crusader State provides a valuable guide for today’s policy makers.

Gezien Kissinger’s lovende woorden moet worden aangenomen dat het leidende uitgangspunt van de Amerikaanse buitenlandse politiek voor de politieke beleidsbepalers niet wezenlijk zal veranderen. Ondanks het failliete Amerikaanse buitenlandse beleid zal het exceptionalisme het centrale concept blijven, de veronderstelling dat de VS anders dan alle andere landen ter wereld is en op grond daarvan bepaalde onvervreemdbare rechten heeft die geen enkel land bezit. Dit denkbeeld, waarop het imperium is gebaseerd, zit al vanaf het moment dat de blanke Europeanen voor het eerst voet aan wal zetten in de nieuwe wereld diep verankerd in het bewustzijn van de Amerikaanse economische en politieke elite. Het gevolg is dat de Amerikaanse plutocratie zich er niet van weet te bevrijden. In de woorden van professor McDougall:

the American enterprise was born of two… impulses: Enlightenment rationalism, with its universal notions of natural law and human rights doctrine, and a Christian anthropology that stressed the flawed and unchangeable nature of man. The first impulse infused Americans with sublime aspiration, but also tempted them to imagine themselves a kind of Gnostic elite possessed of a universal method for ordering human affairs.

Daarbij dient de lezer zich te realiseren dat die ‘universal method‘ niet gold en nog steeds niet geldt voor degenen die een obstakel vormen bij het Amerikaanse expansionisme. Dus vanaf het begin was deze ‘impuls’ al gecorrumpeerd. McDougall:

The second, religious impulse infused Americans with humility and caution, but also tempted them to imagine themselves a spiritual elite possessed of a sort of monopoly of truth and called by Providence to right all wrongs,

waarbij moet worden aangetekend dat de ‘humility’ van deze ‘religious impulse’  vanaf het allereerste begin leidde tot het gewetenloos uitmoorden van Indianen en het in bezit nemen van hun land, waardoor ook deze impuls onmiddellijk werd gecorrumpeerd. Desondanks schrijft deze door de beleidsbepalers zo gerespecteerde Amerikaanse historicus dit zonder enige ironie op. Ik citeer hem omdat McDougall’s visie een goed inzicht verschaft in de denkwereld van een toenemend aantal beleidsbepalers in kringen van de Amerikaanse elite en hun woordvoerders. Hoewel McDougall beseft dat het Amerikaanse buitenlandse beleid herzien moet worden, blijft hij tegelijkertijd krampachtig vasthouden aan enkele fundamentele uitgangspunten die juist tot dat bankroet hebben geleid. Desondanks uit hij scherpe kritiek op de huidige politiek en verklaart het failliet ondermeer als volgt:

as the nineteenth century wore on, Americans came gradually to reinterpret their original impulses in ways that eroded the ability of each to act as a check on the other… the assault on revealed religion propelled by ‘higher criticism’ of the Bible, the growing prestige of science, and the power and promise of industrial technology encouraged secular thinkers to act as if their doctrine of progress constituted a veritable religion, complete with a teleology promising that through America the world would approach perfection…

McDougall geeft geen verklaring voor het feit dat de ‘original impulses’ werden 'uitgehold,' waardoor het evenwicht verbrak. Hij beperkt zich tot een beschrijving. De enige logische reden voor dit verzuim is dat een verklaring van die ontwikkeling onmiddellijk duidelijk zou maken dat de ‘impulsen’ al vanaf het begin gecorrumpeerd waren, en vooral ook dat de Europese kolonisten niet werden gedreven door allerlei idealistische motieven bij het uitmoorden van Indianen volkeren en het roven van hun land, maar eenvoudigweg door pure hebzucht, en een genadeloze zucht naar macht. Professor McDougall:

The tendency of Protestant divines at the time of the Revolution to identify New Israel with the United States rather than with the Church Universal was an appaling conceit, however much it encouraged a young nation risking its all for freedom. Then millenarianism, not only in marginal sects but in the preachments of mainstream denominations by the 1830s and '40s, testified to the spread of a heresy: the presumption that man can prepare a place for the messiah (instead of the other way around) and so create heaven on earth... by the twentieth century, politics came increasingly to function as a religion, and religion degenerated into politics. America the Crusader State held that to refrain from trying to change the world was immoral (and stupid).

Dit laatste, omdat de kapitalistische doctrine van de groei nieuwe buitenlandse markten en grondstoffen van elders noodzakelijk maken. Ik benadruk dit omdat deze vitale informatie door Henk Hofland in De Groene wordt verzwegen wanneer hij beweert dat Hillary Clinton 'een groot incasseringsvermogen opgebouwd en later als minister van Buitenlandse Zaken heeft ze aanzienlijke politieke ervaring opgedaan. Ze kent de wereld,' en dat '[d]it alles in aanmerking genomen Hillary al de ideale kandidaat [is].'

Ook Hofland moet nu toegeven dat, zoals hij het voorzichtig stelt:

[v]ooral in de afgelopen vijftien jaar is ­Amerika meer een klassen­-maatschappij geworden. Obama heeft zijn best gedaan, maar desondanks zijn de sociale tegenstellingen toegenomen. De zeer armen zijn talrijker, de rijken zijn nog veel rijker geworden, een stad als Detroit verkeert op de rand van de finan­ciële ondergang. De tijd dat Amerika God’s Own Country was, is voorgoed voorbij...

Wordt Hillary Clinton de volgende president, dan moet ze er rekening mee houden dat ‘het machtigste land ter wereld’ zich in een volstrekt nieuwe rol bevindt. Amerika is veranderd en hetzelfde geldt voor de wereld. Dat zullen de Amerikanen moeten beseffen, net als de bondgenoten. Niet de rest van de wereld maar het Westen zal zich moeten aanpassen, nog altijd bij voorkeur onder Amerikaanse leiding, als het een Democraat is.

Bij gebrek aan eigen onderzoek, spreekt Hofland de zienswijze na die gangbaar is onder de Amerikaanse 'liberale' elite: 'Obama heeft zijn best gedaan.' Hoe absurd die bewering is blijkt uit het feit dat 'de machtigste man ter wereld' er niet is geslaagd te voorkomen dat nu '[d]e zeer armen talrijker' zijn en 'de rijken nog veel rijker [zijn] geworden.' Hoe kan er sprake zijn van een 'democratie' wanneer 'de machtigste man ter wereld' niet bij machte is om 'de sociale tegenstellingen' te verkleinen? Hofland kan hierop geen antwoord geven omdat hij dan zou moeten bekennen dat de 'democratie' niet bestaat, en dat de -- in zijn ogen -- 'machtigste man ter wereld' van ‘het machtigste land ter wereld’ nog machtigere mannen moet gehoorzamen. Hij zou dan moeten ingaan op het feit dat degene die Amerikaans president wil worden direct afhankelijk is van de financiële steun van de 0,1 procent superrijken. Niet de kiezers bepalen wie de volgende president is, maar de miljardairs die de verkiezingscampagnes betalen. Hofland en Mak zouden in dat geval publiekelijk te kennen geven dat ook zijzelf corrupt zijn, omdat zij een corrupt neoliberaal systeem proberen te verkopen als 'democratie.' En ze omarmen liever het fascisme dan dat zij zichzelf zullen ontmaskeren. Hoewel zelfs de zo geprezen Hofland nu het feit onder ogen moet zien dat '[n]iet de rest van de wereld maar het Westen zal zich moeten aanpassen,' voegt hij hier onmiddellijk aan toe: 'nog altijd bij voorkeur onder Amerikaanse leiding, als het een Democraat is.' Liever de terreur en het fascisme van Washington en Wall Street omarmen dan een ware democratie. Dat is de boodschap van de columnist van De Groene Amsterdammer. De Nederlandse 'politiek-literaire elite' is ziek en corrupt. Meer later hierover, aan de hand van de uitstekende analyse van Jan Nederveen Pieterse, 'Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois.' Pieterse schreef het in 2008 verschenen boek Is There Hope For Uncle Sam?, een ter zake kundige studie, waarover professor Richard Falk van Princeton University het volgende schreef: 

Jan Nederveen Pieterse brilliantly and engagingly depicts America's failing approach to global policy, and what might be done by way of correction. This lucid analysis deserves the widest possible readership and debate. 





Why the Founders Would Decry What America has Become

If the Founding Fathers saw what the United States has become, they would be devastated. Poverty, income inequality, suppression of speaking ones mind, crime, war, and oligarch like behaviors all make up this new U.S. It is far from being the democracy it was created as.


Imagine that the Founding Fathers could travel from the past into our world and see just how America, the nation they created, had evolved. They would see an America that they would never have envisioned and they would decry what it has now become.
Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison and their fellow founders were courageous patriots who put country above all else. They saw America as a nation with the potential for greatness, but they also had grave concerns over the dangers that lie ahead as the young nation grew and spread its wings.
The Founders would be very distressed as they viewed the America of today, a nation now beset by a myriad of very serious problems, most of them of its own making.
Endless War, A Military Empire     
The Founding Fathers warned against standing armies and the dangers of imperialism. Here are several quotes that illustrate their great concerns relative to this issue:
Jefferson: “If there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.”
Washington: “I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.”
Madison: “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. 
Modern-day U.S. governments and presidents have taken a completely opposite view. For decades they have followed an agenda of endless war and maintained a massive military empire, one that stretches across the world to protect America’s “vital interests”, with oil being the greatest.
They would be dismayed by the Bush Doctrine, a policy this current government still continues to follow, which states that it has the right to launch a pre-emptive attack against any nation or faction within it that it even suspects of being a threat to America.
 Assault On The U.S. Constitution     
They would be astounded to learn that, in 2010, the current U.S. Supreme Court, in the Citizens United Case, violated the 1st Amendment when it granted corporations the same rights of free speech as American citizens; and, thereby, opened the floodgates for unlimited campaign contributions that would serve to thoroughly contaminate this country’s election process.
The latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed by President Obama on January 2, 2013 authorizes the indefinite detention, without trial or indictment, of any US citizen designated as an enemy by the chief executive. This Act violates the 6th Amendment which states that U.S. citizens must be formally charged and must receive jury trials to defend themselves against any charges placed against them.  It guards against indefinite detentions of citizens not charged with a specific violation of law.
The Founders created the 4th Amendment to guarantee “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
However, the NSA (The National Security Agency) has chosen to violate this amendment by collecting masses of electronic communications of the American people, supposedly as a means of guarding against potential terrorist plots. It could not be more clear that those in the White House and the Congress who have oversight responsibility over this agency fully intend to allow it to continue to invade the privacy of U.S. citizens without any restrictions.
Ethics, Integrity, Morals
The Founders would be more than troubled to see how these important principles were falling by the wayside as the scam artists and manipulators who inhabit Wall Street continue to use every deceitful tactic at their disposal to fleece the American people, all in the quest for greater profits; yet neither the Bush nor the Obama administrations have initiated any in-depth criminal investigations or prosecutions to punish the perpetrators. The bandits of Wall Street have been given license to continue their unlawful and unethical practices; they remain untouched; seemingly, above the law.
How might the Founders react to the recent very troubling revelations involving CIA torture practices and the apparent lies and cover-ups by those in this government? Well, we might venture to say that they would find these actions by this government agency totally reprehensible and a low point in this nation’s history.
Crime And Violence    
The Founders would see an American society in which numerous forms of violence are committed by Americans against their fellow Americans. Much of this societal violence can be attributed to the fact that there are more than 250 million firearms of various types owned by the American people, including deadly assault-type weapons.
Many states have enacted “stand your ground”, laws and all 50 have passed “concealed carry” laws, both supposedly designed to reduce violence; but, in reality, they could well result in increased confrontations leading to more needless deaths as more Americans have the capability to take the law into their own hands. But when was the last time you heard of a state increasing the funding of programs to identify and step up the treatment of those who clearly have mental problems that could endanger their fellow citizens?
This continuing slaughter of innocents in this society goes on because the members of Congress dare not go up against the massive influence of the NRA that represents the powerful firearms industry. These great patriots of the past would find it incomprehensible that America has now become, by far, the most violent of the developed nations of the world.
Democracy Replaced By An Oligarchy:
How shocked the Founders would be to see America’s democracy under attack by those whose objective is to transform this government from one “of, by and for the people”, into one that is, instead, controlled by the money and power of those who put the generation of profits above the needs and interests of this country.
The Founders recognized the dangers of what they called the “aristocracy of corporations” and “the selfish spirit of commerce that knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.” The Founders were well aware of the power that corporations, especially the banks, possessed and they feared that this power could and would be used to control the functions of government; how right they were.
They would see a Congress in a state of gridlock, unwilling to pass critically important legislation needed to address this nation’s mounting domestic problems. They would see presidents enter office and, shortly thereafter, succumb to the power of big business and the Military-Industrial Complex.
As this corruption of the election process gains momentum an increasing number of Americans who are already totally fed up with politicians and no longer trust their government to represent their interests, simply refuse to vote. That’s why in the 2014 mid-term elections a pathetic 37% of eligible voters went to the polls; over 60% did not want any part of it, another blow to the heart of this democracy.
Government Versus Its Own Citizens   
The Founders would find it incomprehensible that, in this country known for its freedoms, we are witnessing the emergence of a police state involving police SWAT teams, the use of massive armored vehicles and police snipers; that the situation is getting so bad in many areas of the country that people are resisting the heavy-handedness of police agencies by using one of the only methods at their disposal; their cell phone cameras to record police abusive tactics.
Heightened levels of protests are taking place across this country after people have witnessed a sharp increase in excessive force, including shootings of civilians in situations that did not justify such deadly force. As these overreactions by police in various parts of America escalate the most troubling aspect is when grand juries fail to bring police officers to trial for these offenses against citizens. And this clearly is an indication that those responsible for enforcing the law are being allowed to operate above the law themselves.
Suppression Of Dissension    
Jefferson is often quoted as having said, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism”, words that proclaim that American citizens have a patriotic duty to challenge their government’s policies and actions when they appear to be in conflict with the best interests of the people and the laws of the land.
They would see a current U.S. government that, instead of advocating and protecting free speech and allowing dissension as a legitimate means to identify and correct major governmental abuses, has been actively conducting a war of suppression against whistleblowers and investigative journalists.
New York Times journalist James Risen was threatened with prison unless he identified his government source that helped to expose a botched C.I.A. operation in Iran. Risen refused to reveal his source as the threats against him mounted and he prevailed against the Justice Department; he and other courageous journalists in this country are following in the footsteps of the fearless Daniel Ellsberg who published the Pentagon Papers that exposed military abuses in Vietnam and eventually led to the Watergate Scandal and the resignation of President Nixon.
The Founders would be proud of these and other courageous Americans who are standing up against government attempts to interfere with the freedom of speech and the press.
Poverty, Homelessness, Massive Inequality Of Income  
The Founding Fathers would be deeply troubled by the fact that 47 million Americans are dependent upon food stamps with roughly the same number living below the poverty line. They would see this as a national disgrace. How could such a terrible condition be allowed to continue? And what kind of a country and government is this when many of its decadent politicians are determined to slash this critically important program that millions of Americans so badly need?
They would find a great many Americans no longer share in the American Dream and no longer possess upward mobility in this society; many are now trapped in a state of joblessness, homelessness and hopelessness. It’s not only the poor who are suffering from the effects of the inequality of wealth and income in this country, supposedly the wealthiest in the world. Our middle class is slowly but surely being dismantled, as more and more wealth is transferred from the heart of America to those at the top of the income spectrum.
This massive inequality is largely due to the fact that this country’s business sector has decimated America’s manufacturing sector and associated workforce by handing it over to China. This government has stood by and watched as some 60,000 factories have been closed in this country since the year 2000 and some 5 million jobs have been lost as a result and has done absolutely nothing to stop the hemorrhaging. These craven politicians have allowed the masters of Corporatism to carve the heart out of America.
A Government That, Seemingly, Has Lost Its Sense Of Direction And Purpose  
The Founders would see a country that has fallen far short of its potential because its leaders have failed to follow a coherent, constructive path to strengthen this nation. Once the most respected and admired country in the world it has, by its highly aggressive military actions, with invasions and occupations of countries around the world, now has earned the reputation, based on a recent report from an international Gallup poll, of being the “greatest threat to world peace.” The Founders would be shocked and in a state of complete disbelief that this could have happened to America.
They would search for American exceptionalism, for statesmen, modern-day patriots, and visionaries who put country first but that would prove to be an exercise in futility. They would, very likely, find a handful of individuals who might fit that description but who are powerless to do what is right for this country because they are trapped within a system that very effectively prevents those type individuals from assuming positions of power and responsibility.
The Founding Fathers would be devastated at what they had seen, unable to comprehend what the country that they had created had now become.

Suicide on the Great Sioux Nation

Sunday, 26 April 2015 00:00 By Jason Coppola, Truthout | Report 
A sign at the entrance to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. (Photo: Jason Coppola)A sign at the entrance to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. (Photo: Jason Coppola)
Suicide arrives in waves on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
On Christmas Day, a 15-year-old Lakota girl took her own life. Soon afterward, a boy, just 14, took his.
Since then, a young man and six more girls, one as young as 12, have followed as this current wave continues to swell. There have been numerous additional attempts in the last few months on this South Dakota reservation of about 28,000 people.
The rate of suicide among Native youth in the United States is more than three times the national average. Very often that rate climbs even higher.
In March 2010, then president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Theresa Two Bulls declared a suicide state of emergency after a rise in the number of suicides. Current President John Yellow Bird Steele has now declared one yet again.
"Spiritual Genocide"
There are many difficult issues facing the Oglala Lakota people of Pine Ridge. Stories about alcohol and drug abuse, poverty and depression attract much attention. But to some, these are just parts of a much larger picture.
"I think of suicide in Native communities as an extension of the genocide that occurred against Indigenous peoples starting back in 1492," said Ruth Hopkins, a chief tribal judge for the Spirit Lake Nation, and tribal judge for the Yankton Sioux and Crow Creek Sioux Tribe. "And I think there's evidence to show that it's still continuing to this day."
According to Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, Ph.D., "Historical trauma is cumulative emotional and psychological wounding over the lifespan and across generations, emanating from massive group trauma. Native Americans have, for over 500 years, endured physical, emotional, social and spiritual genocide from European and American colonialist policy."
Brave Heart, a Hunkpapa and Oglala Lakota, is cofounder of the Takini Network, an organization with the goal of helping Indigenous peoples heal from historical trauma.
According to Brave Heart, "The historical trauma response is a constellation of features in reaction to massive group trauma. This response is observed among Lakota and other Native populations, Jewish Holocaust survivors and descendants, [and] Japanese-American internment camp survivors and descendants."
"The cycles of abuse that continue from boarding schools, having your parents taken away or your children removed from your home and the breakdown of the family that we were exposed to - everything is connected really," Hopkins told Truthout.
"Because of where we were placed on these remote reservations," she added, "taken away from our homelands, the economic struggle we deal with to this day, all of those are reoccurring issues that have to deal with intergenerational trauma."
Speaking from her personal experience, Hopkins told Truthout, "When I tried to commit suicide, I was 22 years old. I had suicidal thoughts before that, but it was something I hadn't dealt with.... I was born into poverty. All through my adolescence, I knew people who committed suicide. It's something that was always there."
Hopkins has witnessed the historical trauma response's "constellation" firsthand. Her father was put into a boarding school when he was 4 years old; she has witnessed alcohol abuse within her family and she explains how she has had to endure a stigma that Native women are about 33 percent more likely to have to endure than non-Native women.
"I was sexually assaulted when I was 15," she told Truthout. "It's something I didn't tell anybody about. Native girls today don't like to come forward because chances are the person who did it to you is not going to be prosecuted."
According to the US Department of Justice, "one in three Indian women reports having been raped during her lifetime." In the majority of those cases, the perpetrators are reported to be non-Native men. Arrests and prosecutions are rare in those cases.
"I didn't think about these things until after I attempted," Hopkins said. "That's when I started to put all of these pieces of the puzzle together. My life is an example of how these things are connected and intergenerational trauma is part of it."
"No Longer the Warrior"
As Native Americans were forced onto reservations and into Christian boarding schools, it was not only their relationship to the land that was severed.
Eileen Janis of the Sweet Grass Suicide Prevention Program. (Photo: Lori Whirlwind Horse)Eileen Janis of the Sweet Grass Suicide Prevention Program. (Photo: Lori Whirlwind Horse)Eileen Janis, a volunteer at Oglala Sioux Tribe Sweet Grass Suicide Prevention Project, told Truthout, "We made our own houses; made our own clothes; we got our own food; we stored it to prepare for winter. Then they put us onto reservations and said you will not hunt anymore; we will bring you your rations and they gave us canned food."
Taking the hunter out of the culture and replacing that spirit with canned food was not unlike other cultural disconnections.
"Our spirituality is not a religion where you say an 'Our Father' in the morning and a 'Hail Mary' at night," Janis said. "Our spirituality is a way of life. The churches came in and they taught the Bible, which wasn't the same as our spirituality. They taught us that our children were born with sin. That's just not right. Our children are sacred beings."
Janis thinks that this attempt to change their way of life and make them dependent, both physically and spiritually, is still very much present today and is reflected in the struggle of their youth.
"People don't look at it that deeply but it does go that deep," she said.
According to Janis, the number of suicide attempts is usually much greater than reported. One reason for this is the reluctance of children to go through the Indian Health Service, which sends them to hospitals in Rapid City to receive counseling in groups with non-Native children before being returned to the reservation.
The Sweet Grass Suicide Prevention Project provides suicide prevention training based on the concepts and values of Lakota culture.
The Mitakupi Foundation formed in 2011 to address teen suicide, and has a new 24-hour suicide hotline up and running along with plans for art and sports programs. The foundation's purpose "is to create programs for reservation youth and to support the work of existing programs that give reservation youth the same support and opportunities that all other children in America have - the first and foremost being hope."
The organization, "committed to supporting the Lakota People as a self-sufficient and sovereign nation," stresses the need of "supporting the work of community and spiritual leaders that are helping the youth to turn to their ancient traditions instead of drugs, alcohol, and death."
But even ancient traditions present new challenges.
Yvonne "Tiny" DeCory works with Sweet Grass and is a founder of B.E.A.R (Be Excited About Reading), a reading mentorship and suicide prevention program. "A lot of young people are going back to the traditional ways of the sweat lodge, but they still can't go back to the traditional ways it used to be because of technology," she told Truthout. "We have so much interference. Everybody wants to have an iPhone; everybody wants to have an iPad; everybody wants to be hooked up to the outside world. And that's not always good because we're losing our kids."
Yvonne "Tiny" DeCory of the Sweet Grass Suicide Prevention Program with children from her "Be Excited About Reading,” suicide prevention and mentorship program. (Photo: Teton Saltes)Yvonne "Tiny" DeCory of the Sweet Grass Suicide Prevention Program with children from her "Be Excited About Reading,” suicide prevention and mentorship program. (Photo: Teton Saltes)
Yvonne "Tiny" DeCory of the Sweet Grass Suicide Prevention Program with children from her "Be Excited About Reading,” suicide prevention and mentorship program. (Photo: Teton Saltes)Yvonne "Tiny" DeCory of the Sweet Grass Suicide Prevention Program with children from her "Be Excited About Reading,” suicide prevention and mentorship program. (Photo: Teton Saltes)
DeCory has been on the front lines of suicide prevention for decades, responding to calls for help across the beautiful landscape of her nation.
DeCory told Truthout about visiting young men who had later taken their lives who pleaded for help. "They'd say, 'find me a job. Find me anything. I just want to be able to put something on my table for my children. I'm no longer the warrior anymore,'" she said. "There's poverty everywhere, but you are talking about an unemployment rate here of 82 percent or higher."
"Why do I have to be a product of historical trauma?" an insightful 17-year-old once asked DeCory. "That happened to my great grandparents. Why me? Why do I have to live that?" he asked. "'I'm trying to move on,' he'd say, 'yet I keep hearing about what was done to my family and that leads to why I'm this way,'" DeCory said.
Despite these challenges, hope remains.
"There is so much life in the faces of these young children here," DeCory said. "You see the kids wanting to live. Our children are hungry. We have to keep feeding them good things. We have to give them water from a good well. Water is life."
Staying together is key for DeCory.
Yvonne "Tiny" DeCory of the Sweet Grass Suicide Prevention Program. (Photo: Jason Alley)Yvonne "Tiny" DeCory of the Sweet Grass Suicide Prevention Program. (Photo: Jason Alley)"We are all responsible for the prosperity of our community," DeCory, an Oglala Lakota, told Truthout. "The only way we can tackle our suicide problem is if we can come together as a family. We have to strengthen our 'hochoka.' In our language 'hochoka' is a circle. Our way of life. We have to strengthen that way of life. Regardless of how painful it can be."
Hopkins agrees. "You can't just take one individual out of the equation and say, 'we are just going to fix this one person.' Of course, you need to work on that one person, but you have to look at that person's community and their family and their history in order to get to the root of the problem and have a real solution," she said.
"We are essentially spirit. Our bodies, our minds, our emotions: They all change; they all fade; they eventually pass away, but our spirit stays the same," Hopkins added. "Sometimes we don't take care of that; we neglect it. With children and adolescents, when you don't have that kind of foundation, I think it's detrimental to them. If you have that spiritual foundation, then it doesn't matter if you are fighting alone; there's something you can build from."
Hopkins, also a founding writer for LastRealIndians.com and a columnist for Indian Country Today Media Network, trusts the spirit and strength of her nation.
"We have our own ways of healing," she said. "People have given up so much to save the ceremonies and the language and those sacred ways."
Up until the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, Native Americans were forbidden to practice traditional ceremonies.
"Our spirituality is such a crucial part to who we are," Hopkins said. "It's part of our identity. When you embrace that, you embrace yourself. I think that is healing in and of itself."
The challenges to this cultural and spiritual identity are literally set in stone.
This year, the Mount Rushmore National Memorial will be celebrating its 90th anniversary. This "shrine of democracy" was carved into the face of what the Lakota consider to be their sacred Black Hills. The memorial serves as a constant reminder of this historical trauma, bringing it out of the history books and into present tense as it stares down upon Lakota lands protected by treaties signed with the United States.
Mount Rushmore National Memorial carved into the sacred Black Hills. The Black Hills are part of treaty protected territory of the Great Sioux Nation. (Photo: Jason Coppola)Mount Rushmore National Memorial carved into the sacred Black Hills. The Black Hills are part of treaty protected territory of the Great Sioux Nation. (Photo: Jason Coppola)
The breaking of these treaties stripped the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota of the Great Sioux Nation of rightful sovereignty over their land. Hopkins, who is Sisseton Wahpeton and Mdewakanton Dakota as well as Hunkpapa Lakota, says that the US government needs to take responsibility for these broken treaties that, according to Hopkins, are "part of the reason why this situation has arisen ... And I think that's part of the healing process that needs to take place."
Unfortunately, for now, history may be of little comfort to those in mourning.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission

JASON COPPOLA

Jason Coppola is a writer and producer of the upcoming documentary film Operation: Manifest Destiny. Coppola has worked unembedded in occupied Iraq and on the Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River Indian Reservations. His stories for Truthout and Al Jazeera English have won awards from the Native American Journalism Association.

    1 opmerking:

    Ron zei

    Gelukkig heb ik geen abonnement op de Groene Amsterdammer.........Deze feeks Hillary Clinton is straks misschien niet alleen de eerste vrouwelijke president van de VS, maar ook de eerste VS-president die zelfs al misdaden tegen de mensheid heeft gepleegd VOOR het presidentschap......

    Peter Flik en Chuck Berry-Promised Land

    mijn unieke collega Peter Flik, die de vrijzinnig protestantse radio omroep de VPRO maakte is niet meer. ik koester duizenden herinneringen ...