Revolution #218, November 28, 2010
U.S. Supremacy: "A Blessing for the Earth" .... or "A Nightmare Seemingly Without End"?
In a recent column, New York Times pundit David Brooks called for Americans to be "unapologetic" about "preserving American pre-eminence." And to "preserve America's standing in the world on the grounds that this supremacy is a gift to our children and a blessing for the earth."
In this time of "thanksgiving"—in a nation built on land stolen through the genocide of the Native Americans and in large part on a foundation of slavery—let us take an honest look at America's "gift" to the world:
America's "pre-eminence" and "supremacy" were ushered in through the burning alive of hundreds of thousands of people at Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War 2. Its "gift to our children" includes enslaving children of Bangladesh, who sew soccer balls and recycle batteries. America's "standing in the world" is imposed through endless wars for empire, leaving destroyed villages, torturers, and brutal occupations from Afghanistan to Palestine. Its "blessing for the earth" turns the shores of Africa into toxic waste dumps, threatens the rainforests, and fills the oceans and skies with poisons.
As "The Revolution We Need...The Leadership We Have—A Message, And
A Call", from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA says:
"It is a system of capitalism-imperialism...a system in which U.S. imperialism is the most monstrous, most oppressive superpower...a system driven by a relentless chase after profit, which brings horror upon horror, a nightmare seemingly without end, for the vast majority of humanity: poverty and squalor...torture and rape...the wholesale domination and degradation of women everywhere...wars, invasions and occupations...assassinations and massacres...planes, missiles, tanks and troops of the USA bombarding people in faraway lands while they sleep in their homes or go about their daily lives, blasting their little children to pieces, cutting down men and women in the prime of life, or in old age, kicking down their doors and dragging them away in the middle of the night...while here in the USA itself the police harass, brutalize and murder youth in the streets of the inner cities—over and over again—and then they spit out their maddening insults, insisting that this is 'justified,' as if these youth are not human beings, have no right to live, deserve no respect and no future."
What the world REALLY needs is REVOLUTION. And revolution in what is now the United States would—in the most basic and fundamental sense—be a part of, and serve the worldwide struggle to end all exploitation and oppression. |
- Centerfold (PDF)
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