donderdag 2 juli 2009

The Empire 460


Kill the Indian. Save the Man.

Thursday 02 July 2009

by: Dahr Jamail and Jason Coppola, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Manifest Destiny

In 1845, an American columnist, John O'Sullivan, writing about the proposed annexation of Texas, claimed that it was America's "manifest destiny to overspread the continent." Later in the same year, referring to the ongoing dispute with Great Britain over Oregon, he wrote that the United States had the right to claim "the whole of Oregon."

And that claim is by the right of our Manifest Destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent that Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.

The westward expansion did not originate with O'Sullivan's theory. In 1803, the United States acquired 23 percent of its existing territory through the Louisiana Purchase. Seeing land as a source of political power, the government began to actively pursue aggressive expansion of its territories through the 19th century. The idea of Manifest Destiny was one component of the process which captured the popular imagination. This was further fueled by the discovery of gold and other minerals in the West attracting Easterners acting on their conviction in their right and duty to expand.

The Mexican-American conflict generated massive casualties, and when it was over, the US controlled all of New Mexico and California, and more of the territory of Texas. When Texas was annexed in 1846 as the 26th state, Col. Ethan Allen Hitchcock wrote, "We have not one particle of right to be here."

Acclaimed historian Howard Zinn told Truthout, "The Mexican War, presented as something we were doing because Mexicans had fired on our soldiers ... no, we were going to Mexico because we wanted to take forty percent of Mexican land. California, Arizona, Nevada ... all of that beautiful land in the Southwest that was all Mexico. I'll bet there are very few Americans today who live in that area and know that it belonged to Mexico. Or they may ask, how come all these names? How come Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, Santa Ana, how come?"

Perhaps Americans seriously believe that the US was preordained by God to expand and exercise hegemony over all that it surveys? After all, our 25th president, William McKinley, (1897-1901) declared that "The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation."

In the Sandwich Island Letters from Hawaii, Mark Twain exhorted his country folk sardonically, "We must annex those people. We can afflict them with our wise and beneficent government. We can introduce the novelty of thieves, all the way up from street-car pickpockets to municipal robbers and Government defaulters, and show them how amusing it is to arrest them and try them and then turn them loose - some for cash and some for political influence. We can make them ashamed of their simple and primitive justice. We can make that little bunch of sleepy islands the hottest corner on earth, and array it in the moral splendor of our high and holy civilization. Annexation is what the poor islanders need. Shall we to men benighted, the lamp of life deny?"

North America

2 opmerkingen:

Paul2 zei

Perhaps Americans seriously believe that the US was preordained by God to expand and exercise hegemony over all that it surveys? After all, our 25th president, William McKinley, (1897-1901) declared that "The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation."

http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa01.html

En lucht voor anderen gewenst:
Richard Perle, USA Pentagon advisor:

"I do not believe that the United States should be bound by the same rules as the smallest African nation. Life isn't like that."

Madeleine Albright, former USA Secretary of State to the United Nations:

"[The USA will] behave, with others, multilaterally when we can and unilaterally as we must."

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, USA ambassador to the United Nations writing in his book, A Dangerous Place:

"The [USA] Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success."

http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa01.html

Paul2 zei

''En lucht voor anderen gewenst''
Moest zijn ''En lucht voor anderen om te kunnen ademen niet gewenst''

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 ...