Has the U.S. ever REALLY been different? by chrisisall

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Has the U.S. ever REALLY been different?

POSTED BY: CHRISISALL
UPDATED: Friday, June 5, 2009 09:11
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VIEWED: 580
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Thursday, June 4, 2009 2:24 PM

The founding Fathers must have turned in their graves so much by now that they've drilled to the Earth's core.

Or have they?

It's always been about slavery in this country in one form or another. Corporeal or economic, it's what's made this nation great. Or, rich, anyway. Or some of it. At least richer than those idiot nations that want the best for all their peeps (I'm lookin' at you, Holland, you worthless peace-loving humps).
If you want peaks, you need valleys.
Carpetbaggers make for peaks, sheeple make for valleys. Inequity fuels the American status-quo.
The corporate mentality is not a recent invention, there have always been scapegoats as well as those that take credit for achievements that were not theirs.

To believe that America is not simply a jungle with the veneer of civilization smeared upon it like the lipstick of a crack-addicted whore is delusional.

Comments?

The laughing Chrisisall

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Thursday, June 4, 2009 3:34 PM

GINOBIFFARONI

Many looking in from outside the US have been saying that for years.

While the whole " were the best everyone else sucks " noise has been too loud for most Americans to even ask some of these questions.

Even some of the unquestionable heroes of your history, like all heroes have more than a little tarnish. Look at Lincoln for example, would history have viewed him the same if he hadn't of been killed?
Did his actions drive the US into a civil war, or was there a failure of compromise there than would have served all better?

Same with your founding fathers, people are people and they all acted with ulterior motives and less than pure intentions. But how would they view history today? The idealist version created by history would be outraged, but the men themselves.... it would all depend on where exactly they stood benefit wise.

" They don't hate America, they hate Americans " Homer Simpson

Lets party like its 1939

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Thursday, June 4, 2009 3:35 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
The corporate mentality is not a recent invention...

The British East India Company thanks you for noticing.

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

"You're a idiot." -AuRaptor, RWED, May 27, 2009.

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Thursday, June 4, 2009 4:15 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

Even some of the unquestionable heroes of your history, like all heroes have more than a little tarnish.

Didn't Jefferson have, um...slaves??
Don't get me wrong, good words are good words, but doesn't "We, the People..." mean something a little strange when slaves serve you tea while you're writing it?

The laughing Chrisisall

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Thursday, June 4, 2009 4:18 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

The British East India Company thanks you for noticing.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Thursday, June 4, 2009 5:27 PM

SERGEANTX

Chris,

They call it the American "Dream" for a reason. It's not about us. It's about the ideas.

A short time ago, I was reading some quotes on slavery from several of the founders. To a man they condemned slavery as a blight on humanity and called for its end. But, digging around, I found that every single one of the quotes were written by men who owned slaves. Some of them, for their entire lives.

Obviously, I was struck by the hypocrisy and the contradiction between their political stance and their personal practices. But as I read, I was seeing something subtle and very profound at work.

Like all of us, the founders were human, and products of their environment. They faced the unfortunate fact that the economy of the new colonies was built, in large part, on the backs of slave labor. Even less nobly, they faced the prospect that freeing their own slaves unilaterally, would obliterate their own source of wealth. Reading deeper, I saw prejudices and attitudes that were despicable. Jefferson, perhaps the most influential in forming American conceptions of egalitarian government, was by all accounting a racist. Despite his call for ending slavery, he considered blacks lesser men and unfit for participating directly in the new nation. (His solution for ending slavery was to cart them off to their own "nation" in the west.)

What I found so inspiring, behind the ugly facts on the ground, was that despite their moral shortcomings, despite the practical concerns and weaknesses that kept them from turning their backs on slavery personally, they were part of a philosophical movement that called for something better. The principles they formulated and promoted called for a world more just and moral than they themselves were able to create.

I believe that ideas have a life of their own. They move from person to person, from mind to mind, and from generation to generation. As they grow in prevalence and strength, they become part of the culture and gain real causal momentum. So to me, the thing worth celebrating is the ideas embodied in our Constitution and, hopefully, carried forward by our cultural and political leaders. It's not about the people who carry the ideas.

Maybe this is a tangent, but I'm reminded of a trend that friends and I have noticed in the careers of comedians. Talented comics usually spend a few years honing their craft in the trenches. During that time they develop a portfolio of observations and jokes, a "schtick", that is particularly effective. If they're lucky, they hit it big and milk their act for a while. The trend that we've noticed is that often, these comics - in the midst of their success and accolades - make the mistake of thinking they are funny, that they are the source of the laughs and that all they need to do is get out there and do their thing. They forget all the work and inspiration that developed their original act. The best of them, get past this period and go back to the work, the ideas, that made them great in the first place. And then there's Eddie Murphy....

Anyway, I think in many ways, our nation has been making the same mistake. We've deluded ourselves to believe we our the source of the American Dream. And we're not. We merely carry it. Or not.

SergeantX

"It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

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Thursday, June 4, 2009 6:08 PM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

Our founding fathers had to kill their politicians and cops. In large numbers. With guns. And cannon.

Their mistake was not sailing to England to behead the monarchy, like the Puritans did.

Now its USA's job to behead the British (German) monarchy, jail the jewish banksters in all the private central banks, and free the slaves of the British (German Nazi) Empire.

My job for Uncle Sam in UK was nuking UK military bases. So don't tell me it can't be done.
www.piratenews.org/pentagonwhistleblower.html

That's why alcoholic psychotic drug addict Glen Beck got a $50-million pay raise this week to say Republicans, Christians, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, veterans, bloggers and gun owners are members of AllCIAduh with Iran, reading varbatim from ADL's MIAC Report.

Beck (a nice Nazi name) before his 2nd $50-mil paycheck:

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Friday, June 5, 2009 4:06 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
I'm lookin' at you, Holland, you worthless peace-loving humps.

Chris.

The Dutch had slaves too. They just tended to keep them in the Dutch West Indies and their other colonies (including those in North America). Out of sight - out of mind, I guess. Slavery in Dutch colonies wasn't abolished until 1863. They also ran what is now Indonesia as their personal cash cow up to the end of WWII. So maybe not the best example?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, June 5, 2009 4:30 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
So to me, the thing worth celebrating is the ideas embodied in our Constitution and, hopefully, carried forward by our cultural and political leaders. It's not about the people who carry the ideas.

I guess it's a "glass half empty - glass half full" kind of thing.

I tend to remember growing up in Georgia in the '50s and '60s when Segregation was still pretty much the rule, and comparing that with the much more diverse and inclusive society I see today.

Madame Geezer notes that in the films of mission control for the Apollo moon flights the crew were all crew-cut white guys in white shirts and ties. But look at the teams supporting the current Mars rover missions. Men and women of all ethnicities (and clothing styles).

So I suppose I see us moving in the right direction. Obviously not fast enough for some, but changing cultural direction is gonna take time - possibly generations. And there will probably be setbacks from time to time, but they seem to get overcome eventually.

And anyway, folk need to remember that many of the countries they now hold up as examples of a better way have their own history of slavery, colonial oppression, military adventurism, and just plain nastiness that run for far longer than the entire lifetime of the United States. It took them a long time to get where they are today. Don't we deserve the same chance?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, June 5, 2009 5:58 AM

FREMDFIRMA

It appears Sarge has nailed the salient point, and quite out of the park, indeed.

This is why I carry that flag FORWARD, mind you.

Civilization, such as it is, was only the first step, not the end point.

-F

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Friday, June 5, 2009 6:06 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Slaves aside - the FF wanted - and had - a more egalitarian society than we have today.

Some did understand it to be due to the 'frontier effect': anyone who did not want to work for employer-set wages could always go off and get their survival by their own work. It kept workers from sinking too low, and owners from rising too high.

Today we have an entire class of rich people who run the country through the application of money. Hence the political and legal systems today work nothing like how they were intended to work.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Friday, June 5, 2009 6:19 AM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:

What I found so inspiring, behind the ugly facts on the ground, was that despite their moral shortcomings, despite the practical concerns and weaknesses that kept them from turning their backs on slavery personally, they were part of a philosophical movement that called for something better. The principles they formulated and promoted called for a world more just and moral than they themselves were able to create.

Like Frem said, that was great.
Thanks.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Friday, June 5, 2009 6:28 AM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:

Madame Geezer notes that in the films of mission control for the Apollo moon flights the crew were all crew-cut white guys in white shirts and ties. But look at the teams supporting the current Mars rover missions. Men and women of all ethnicities (and clothing styles).

So I suppose I see us moving in the right direction.

Yes, peeps of colour have moved into positions of power & control, where they are now a percentage of our masters.
The race thing is tangential to my purpose in starting this thread- I wanted to point out that great wealth is seldom earned, it is stolen and/or passed down. Recent new wealth had it's shot at earning it, and been somewhat successful, but cheap foreign labour (the new, gentler slavery) is what makes most of it possible.

My ultimate point is that the collapse of our economic system is still just beginning. Like an oil well, it can't last forever. When the dragon begins to swallow it's own tail, we will be in the center of the economic revolution, where peeps will emerge as more important than greed.
But it will not be pleasant. The monster will go down struggling.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Friday, June 5, 2009 9:11 AM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Slaves aside - the FF wanted - and had - a more egalitarian society than we have today.

You'd also be excludin' the suppression of womenfolk, I conjure...?

The laughing Chrisisall

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