Amerindia US Blog

After the last several years of watching the moves of the US legislative and executive branch, we have decided that we must step back from our diplomatic ties with the US in Washington, in spite of Obama being elected president. Unfortunately, regardless of the good and wise intentions of millions of Americans, too many of its leaders, so many in elected positions, and those in US agencies, are dismantling a once great country. Those who who would speak out against it – privately, in public, and in many important documentaries, have been ignored, punished, or have just not been able to turn the tide of the far Right, the Tea Party types who have co-opted the Republican party.
It seems the Conservative Right will do anything for its own expediency, including lie, misrepresent, or completely cross itself. One idiotic case in point: There was a brief call to make it possible for a non US-born person to qualify for president (when they wanted to run Arnold Schwarzenegger), yet Arizona has just passed a law demanding that to run for president, one must prove birth in the US. Go figure. It’s no longer about what’s good for the nation, or democracy. It’s about what’s expedient to those few who want the last word in political and economic power, and will do anything to serve that self interest. These are fewer laws to assist the citizens or the welfare of the nation. There are moves to “legalize” the illegal – the power grab for the few – a true corruption of the meaning of democratic government.
On the eve of the 150th Anniversary of the US Civil War, it would seem that the war that was lost is being re-fought, and newly won. The issue of slavery has been overcome, but not states rights. It would seem that the large conservative element in the US, complete with biblical rhetoric, is prevailing in both the conservative states, and through its influence in the central government. It seeks no less than a complete break of the social contract with US citizens.
The New Republican Landscape
This is an open warfare, using the US federal budget to first limit funding, as it moves steadily forward by dismantling social safety nets, especially for the poor, health care, education, health care for women especially, and so many other services that provide the “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” promised to US citizens. Even the public park system is under siege. Everything is moving toward the private sector, and US parks are more vulnerable than ever to drilling, deforesting, mining, or any other endeavor that will benefit a private profit culture, rather than the public interest and welfare.
Regulatory agencies have been gutted and marginalized. Food and drug safety is bought and paid for by Big Agra and Big Pharma. “FDA approved” is nothing more than a stamp of approval by the company that manufactures it, and the US food production system is protected by ever less inspection and more cover up. Even the educational system has fallen under the influence of this corruption, from science to finance. We in Amerindia feel that the most corrupting educational institutions in the US are Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. There is no room to go into all the detail here, but we feel that Obama’s promise of “Change” has been held back by his time at Harvard (not wherever he was born), and that advice and influence from those educated and connected by these institutions has been a major contributor in the steady march down hill, deregulating and pillaging along the way, for the last 30-40 years, starting with the Saint of Conservatives, Ronald Regan.
Not only has the US messed its own bed, it has been an increasing menace and destabilizing influence around the world. We would recommend these documentaries for an in-depth look at how much damage has been done, how, and why:
Inside Job
It’s interesting to note that not one single person involved in the financial collapsed the global financial world has gone to jail. Quite obviously, there is no intention hold anyone instigating and profiting from this disaster accountable:
Alan Grayson: Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve?
Since the global economic collapse, regulation of financial services has increased in every developed nation except the US, where it continues with the status quo of the years since Ronald Regan. What’s more the banks have actually grown even larger by consolidation, hence, “too big to fail”, and ready to receive another bail out at US taxpayer expense should they run into trouble with their unregulated practices. However, we do note that One person has gone to jail – a would-be home owner who signed a falsified mortgage agreement. Not the bank, the executives, the lender, the agent – but the person who was told “it’s OK, everyone is doing it” – which they were.
As far as the food industry, we recommend Food, Inc. Monsanto and other giant food conglomerates continue to be the driving political force in our food industry, which values profit over the health and welfare of farm animals and crops, and the health of the American food consumer.
Food, Inc.
We feel the US should be prevented from ever going to war anywhere in the world. Its post war disaster in Iraq has destabilized that region and affected the price of oil and food everywhere on the planet. If the US has trouble with Iran, it made it worse by what it’s done in Iraq, and continues not to address there in reconstruction. The history and national heritage of a 7,000 year old nation has been lost, while a people who tentatively appreciated the US for removing a dictator, are now suffering far worse as a lawless nation in shambles, and see refugees leaving without hope of rebuilding a free and democratic society.
We recommend this documentary for the details:
No End In Sight
While we have every admiration for the men and women in uniform of the US, we do not appreciate what they have been asked to do “in defense of their country.” We see instead ignorance, mismanagement, and profit by the ever increasing use of contractors in the military. And we have a deep unease about how much of the US military and civilian top management erodes the very human rights it claims it fights to defend:
Abu Ghraib
Guantanamo Bay
Bradly Manning
US citizens are losing their homes, their jobs, and their social supports. The US now has the distinction of having the widest gap between rich and poor of any developed nation. They are increasingly losing their right to see what is going on, as their society becomes ever less transparent, ever more run by sound bites, misrepresentations, and downright lies. And the most fundamental rights of equality before the law, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, the right to be held innocent until proven guilty, and the right to a timely trial with proper representation are eroding. At first it was explained away as necessary to deal with “terrorists”, but now it has moved to the treatment of a US citizen. This is explained away as “military” being under a different set of rules than civilian. What’s next?

We highly regret the scenes of perhaps well intentioned, patriotic citizens who cover their hearts and sing US praises in “God Bless America.” But it’s done to interfere with open debate, the fundamental cornerstone, the most essential element of enduring democracy. Do they understand how they are being manipulated, how they are being “had” by those who benefit by the power they give them?

We hereby withdraw our diplomatic relationship with the US central Washington government, although we do welcome and support a relationship with many US representatives and officials, for example, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. We do realize there are many good people and organizations trying to fight an uphill battle with Washington. Also, we will continue to have ambassadors to Seattle, San Francisco, and New England (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and New York).

We will also continue to respect and continue relations with all indigenous peoples living on reservations or within the US population. We leave this entry with this message from Russell Means:
Russell Means: Welcome to the Reservation

The Queen of Amerindia

We Ain’t Got Time To Bleed. It’s Time for the Revolution.

“You control our world. You’ve poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink, and copyrighted the food we eat. We fight in your wars, die for your causes, and sacrifice our freedoms to protect you. You’ve liquidated our savings, destroyed our middle class, and used our tax dollars to bailout your unending greed. We are slaves to your corporations, zombies to your airwaves, servants to your decadence. You’ve stolen our elections, assassinated our leaders, and abolished our basic rights as human beings. You own our property, shipped away our jobs, and shredded our unions. You’ve profited off of disaster, destabilized our currencies, and raised our cost of living. You’ve monopolized our freedom, stripped away our education, and have almost extinguished our flame. We are hit…we are bleeding…but we ain’t got time to bleed. We will bring the giants to their knees and you will witness our revolution! ”

-Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, April 12, 2011

4 Ways we’re still fighting the Civil War

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

You don’t have to tour a battlefield to understand the Civil War. Look at today’s headlines. As the nation commemorates the 150th anniversary of its deadliest war this week, some historians say we’re still fighting over some of the same issues that fueled the Civil War.

“There are all of these weird parallels,” says Stephanie McCurry, author of “Confederate Reckoning,” a new book that examines why Southerners seceded and its effect on Southern women and slaves.

“When you hear charges today that the federal government is overreaching, and the idea that the Constitution recognized us as a league of sovereign states — these were all part of the secessionist charges in 1860,” she says.

One of the biggest debates during the Civil War was how far should governments go in dictating our lives. We still debate those politics.
–William Blair, Civil War historian
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We think the above article makes a good point that is becoming more evident as the Budget Crisis continues. First the US broke into “Red States” and “Blue States”, which is a step beyond describing differences of opinion expressed through political party lines. There are definite regional differences that due bear considerable ideological similarities with a civil war fought 150 years ago. It appears not to be over, but rather back in the throes of it.

States rights have surfaced as a major example. Democracy, and the will of the majority is not acceptable. The conservative regions have not mounted an attack directly on blacks, but have tried a more subtle attack on race through immigration policy. And while the conservatives could accept the taxation (for now) to provide some funds for Medicaid, it’s distribution would be at the discretion of the individuals of a state through their governor, not the federal government. An example of this is the fight over funding of Planned Parenthood and women’s health. Unfortunately, this is will impact the poor far more than those who are well off and can pay for any service they want. There is a deep rooted sense of ‘worthiness’ that the conservatives would like to reserve for themselves, rather than national democratic sentiment.

Indeed, there is demonizing, biblical rhetoric, and a call to be left alone to make local decisions that are local (state), rather than federal. For all the talk of compromising, there is a disturbing disappearance of the political center. The US would seem not so much in a financial debate, as a deep rooted ideological one that continues to separate the country in a way parallel to the war fought 150 years ago.

This was written after the First World War, but seems equally relevant to the current federal vs. states’ rights and theological ideological war being fought in the US today.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

“THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

The Queen of Amerindia