Towards Understanding American Savagery
The long term planners of the Pentagon predict that an urban revolutionary upsurge in the third world will provide a major challenge to the rogue super state America in the first decade of the twenty first century. Pentagon strategists are particularly apprehensive of “youth bulges” in the world’s poorest urban centres. Localization is a strategy for using the revolutionary zeal of poor urban youth to fuel secessionist movements leading to the disempowerment of nation states throughout the third world.
America is uniquely suited to play the role of a surrogate global state disciplining the individual, society and non capitalist states to organize subjection to global capital - moreover no other political structures exist at present which can enable global capital to exercise its systemic sovereignty. Thus while global capital weakens other states, it strengthens America. American policies for tightening imperialist control are immensely popular with the American people, as every President and aspirant President knows. American state terrorism will increase because it will become immensely popular domestically - much as gladiatorial contests became all the rage during the dying days of the Roman empire. In order to understand this phenomenon we will have to look closely at American society.
Merciless slaughter of defenseless people is the dominant theme of American history. Fifteen million Red Indians were systematically butchered over a period of two hundred years and an entire continent stolen from them - much as the Zionists are now murdering and plundering Palestine. The Red Indians have been followed by Mexicans, Moros, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Lao, Serbs, Afghans and Iraqis in this never ending horror story of the blood thirsty American quest for world domination.
But such savagery is not confined to America’s dealings with strangers. It characterizes all public life in America. Today America’s prison population stands at well over two million. American imprisonment rates are now more than six times higher than those of Britain, Canada or France. In addition to this a further 3.3 million Americans are on probation and over 700,000 on parole. One percent of all white American males and 9 percent of all black American males are currently in prison. Over 1.2 million black male Americans are on probation or parole. Incarceration rates have more than doubled for both white and black American males during the past twenty years.
The American Bureau of Justice Statistics predicted in 1999 that a third of all American black males will go to prison during their lifetime. Thirty three percent of all black male Americans are currently under some form of ‘correctional’ control as against 15 percent of all white males in America.
The crime industry is booming in America - a quarter of all living Americans have been victims of violence during their lives - as against only 17 percent in strife torn Northern Ireland. Increase in imprisonment has however failed to check criminal behaviour. Thus the number of people imprisoned for drug abuse rose by twelve hundred percent during 1979 to 1997 but the Bureau of Justice Statistics data shows that drug abuse is rampant throughout America. The percentage of American high school seniors who thought it easy to get hold of ‘mild’ drugs such as marijuana rose from 88 percent in 1975 to 89 percent in 1995. The share of American school children who thought it easy to get hold of ‘hard core’ drugs increased from 37 percent to 49 percent during this period. The rising purity of drugs and increased drug use has led to a four-fold increase in drugs related deaths during 1979-1997. HIV and Hepatitis C epidemics are also growing in tandem.
The booming American crime economy is offering glamorous lifestyles and attractive career opportunities. A life devoted to crime involves little risk for the US police force is amongst the most corrupt and least efficient in the world. The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that in 1997 only 3 percent of violent crimes led to prison sentences in America. The majority of cases remain unresolved and the American legal profession has now become an inseparable component of the national crime industry.
The criminalisation of the American justice system received an impetus during Nixon’s vicious persecution of the Black Panthers. Since then the American Justice administration has learnt how to use the introduction of drugs and the organization of gang warfare as a means for controlling the inner cities. The US police has learnt how to induce urban riots so as to murder its victims methodically. The abuses at Abu Ghraib are a mild reflection of the torture and rape that is routine in prisons throughout America.
It is not only the criminals who thrive on crime in America, the justice department, the police force and the legal professions all share the booty. Business also prospers for as imprisonment rates increase prisons have to be built all over the country. As wealth concentrates the bloated financial sector pulls investment away from inner cities, small towns and even suburbia. Constructing prison buildings is a means for offsetting these wealth-inequalizing pressures and hence the prison industry has become both lucrative and popular. It provides local jobs.
We can now speak (as Ladipo does) of a new “prison industrial complex” comprising of builders, subcontractors, trade unionists, local and state administrators etc. The prison industry is also being privatized and privately run prisons are attracting lucrative federal and state contracts. The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) leads the powerful and increasingly influential private prison industry. The second largest private prison firm Wackenhut Correction is run by Reagan’s former National Security Advisor. The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry has also found the prison industrial complex useful - for prisoners phone collect and can be charged higher rates. Booming tech stocks thus require booming prison population. Prisons have also become a source of cheap labour for the multinationals. Prison made output sales increased by 335 percent during 1980 to 1994 and in 1997 were well in excess of $3 billion. TWA, Microsoft and Starbucks are among the leading employers of prison labour.
There are many stakeholders - police officers, lawyers, judges, local and federal officials, multinationals and labour leaders - benefiting from the prosperity of American criminality. They seek to ensure that the criminal population continues to grow. The most effective means for ensuring this is prison life itself.
American prisons systematically brutalize the new prisoner. Rape is the most common means for ensuring discipline. A 1994 survey of a Midwestern prison revealed that 22 percent of male prisoners had been raped. The Stop Prisoners Rape Group estimates that about 300,000 males are raped annually in US prisons - usually repeatedly. The youngest and most vulnerable are routinely targeted. It is now widely accepted that almost every American woman prisoner is routinely raped by guards, officials, visitors procured by guards and fellow prisoners. The prisoners at Abu Ghraib are merely experiencing what is normal practice in American prisons.
The total officially recognized criminal population of America is about 6 million and growing at an annual average rate of about 11 percent. Once a criminal always a criminal - this is ensured by conditions inside the prison and by American social conditions generally. Sammuels estimates that the total population benefitting directly or indirectly from the crime economy was about 67 million in 1995 - about a quarter of all Americans benefit from the continuing criminalization of American society. Is there any wonder that they enthusiastically applaud the global crimes of the American State?
How did America become such a sick society and the average American citizen a neurotic, paranoid, demonic, psychopath? An answer to this question requires an understanding of American history.
The founding fathers of the British colonies in North America were no ordinary criminals - they were criminals who justified their crimes in the name of Christianity. The pioneers sallied forth to murder, rob, rape and spread diseases among the Red Indians with Christian hymns on their lips and crosses in their hands. This process lasted for several centuries - as Dee Brown has shown in his path breaking study Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Abraham Lincoln was an enthusiastic Red Indian slaughterer.
Protestant Christianity’s greatest crime against God was its sponsoring of Red Indian genocide in North America. God’s holy book - the Bible - was grotesquely distorted to justify these crimes and lay the foundations of a rapacious, marauding state system in which the White Man claimed sovereignty and justified his revolt against God.
The Federalist Papers, which provide the conceptual framework of the American constitution are replete with such claims. Whitman and Dewey are apostles of human sovereignty. Their modern day disciple Richard Rorty brags that “America is the only country which seeks not to please God but to please ourselves”. In Achieving Our Country Rorty celebrates America’s rebellion against God and argues that “we have the right to forgive ourselves the crimes we committed” (p73) and continue to commit.
The essential doctrine of the American Constitution is “La ilha illa Insan” – man has the inalienable right to define good and evil and to live a life, which pleases himself. Society is based on a (constitutional) contract, which facilitates accumulation to enable man to please him. The supreme moral duty, of which human rights are merely a corollary, is the duty to accumulate capital.
American civilization compels man to accumulate capital for its own sake. Human rights are merely a means for performing this duty. Capital is intrinsically evil and itself justifying accumulation foster the growth of the vices of avarice and covetousness (competition) A rights based society is a society which necessarily distorts individual perception and promotes immorality.
In such a society the individual forgets death and seeks to become God. This widespread self obsession destroys individual morality. In such a society love is impossible and the conquest of nature – most importantly human nature – turns every man into a predator. This rights obsessed predator wars against God and wars against himself. His life is vicious, demonic and frustrating because he seeks to usurp God’s authority and worship his own self.
The American constitution and the global human rights movement which it has spawned ridicules the holy texts and seeks to trample on God’s commands. No wonder America and its associated human rights entourage regard the Muslims as their primary enemies and – in Iraq and Palestine and Afghanistan and Kashmir – continue their campaign of mass terror and genocide. Islam challenges human rights discourse and the satanic social orders it sustains Islam rejects man’s right to interpret God’s will and seeks to construct a moral political system on the basis of man’s total and unconditional surrender to God.
America is uniquely suited to play the role of a surrogate global state disciplining the individual, society and non capitalist states to organize subjection to global capital - moreover no other political structures exist at present which can enable global capital to exercise its systemic sovereignty. Thus while global capital weakens other states, it strengthens America. American policies for tightening imperialist control are immensely popular with the American people, as every President and aspirant President knows. American state terrorism will increase because it will become immensely popular domestically - much as gladiatorial contests became all the rage during the dying days of the Roman empire. In order to understand this phenomenon we will have to look closely at American society.
Merciless slaughter of defenseless people is the dominant theme of American history. Fifteen million Red Indians were systematically butchered over a period of two hundred years and an entire continent stolen from them - much as the Zionists are now murdering and plundering Palestine. The Red Indians have been followed by Mexicans, Moros, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Lao, Serbs, Afghans and Iraqis in this never ending horror story of the blood thirsty American quest for world domination.
But such savagery is not confined to America’s dealings with strangers. It characterizes all public life in America. Today America’s prison population stands at well over two million. American imprisonment rates are now more than six times higher than those of Britain, Canada or France. In addition to this a further 3.3 million Americans are on probation and over 700,000 on parole. One percent of all white American males and 9 percent of all black American males are currently in prison. Over 1.2 million black male Americans are on probation or parole. Incarceration rates have more than doubled for both white and black American males during the past twenty years.
The American Bureau of Justice Statistics predicted in 1999 that a third of all American black males will go to prison during their lifetime. Thirty three percent of all black male Americans are currently under some form of ‘correctional’ control as against 15 percent of all white males in America.
The crime industry is booming in America - a quarter of all living Americans have been victims of violence during their lives - as against only 17 percent in strife torn Northern Ireland. Increase in imprisonment has however failed to check criminal behaviour. Thus the number of people imprisoned for drug abuse rose by twelve hundred percent during 1979 to 1997 but the Bureau of Justice Statistics data shows that drug abuse is rampant throughout America. The percentage of American high school seniors who thought it easy to get hold of ‘mild’ drugs such as marijuana rose from 88 percent in 1975 to 89 percent in 1995. The share of American school children who thought it easy to get hold of ‘hard core’ drugs increased from 37 percent to 49 percent during this period. The rising purity of drugs and increased drug use has led to a four-fold increase in drugs related deaths during 1979-1997. HIV and Hepatitis C epidemics are also growing in tandem.
The booming American crime economy is offering glamorous lifestyles and attractive career opportunities. A life devoted to crime involves little risk for the US police force is amongst the most corrupt and least efficient in the world. The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that in 1997 only 3 percent of violent crimes led to prison sentences in America. The majority of cases remain unresolved and the American legal profession has now become an inseparable component of the national crime industry.
The criminalisation of the American justice system received an impetus during Nixon’s vicious persecution of the Black Panthers. Since then the American Justice administration has learnt how to use the introduction of drugs and the organization of gang warfare as a means for controlling the inner cities. The US police has learnt how to induce urban riots so as to murder its victims methodically. The abuses at Abu Ghraib are a mild reflection of the torture and rape that is routine in prisons throughout America.
It is not only the criminals who thrive on crime in America, the justice department, the police force and the legal professions all share the booty. Business also prospers for as imprisonment rates increase prisons have to be built all over the country. As wealth concentrates the bloated financial sector pulls investment away from inner cities, small towns and even suburbia. Constructing prison buildings is a means for offsetting these wealth-inequalizing pressures and hence the prison industry has become both lucrative and popular. It provides local jobs.
We can now speak (as Ladipo does) of a new “prison industrial complex” comprising of builders, subcontractors, trade unionists, local and state administrators etc. The prison industry is also being privatized and privately run prisons are attracting lucrative federal and state contracts. The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) leads the powerful and increasingly influential private prison industry. The second largest private prison firm Wackenhut Correction is run by Reagan’s former National Security Advisor. The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry has also found the prison industrial complex useful - for prisoners phone collect and can be charged higher rates. Booming tech stocks thus require booming prison population. Prisons have also become a source of cheap labour for the multinationals. Prison made output sales increased by 335 percent during 1980 to 1994 and in 1997 were well in excess of $3 billion. TWA, Microsoft and Starbucks are among the leading employers of prison labour.
There are many stakeholders - police officers, lawyers, judges, local and federal officials, multinationals and labour leaders - benefiting from the prosperity of American criminality. They seek to ensure that the criminal population continues to grow. The most effective means for ensuring this is prison life itself.
American prisons systematically brutalize the new prisoner. Rape is the most common means for ensuring discipline. A 1994 survey of a Midwestern prison revealed that 22 percent of male prisoners had been raped. The Stop Prisoners Rape Group estimates that about 300,000 males are raped annually in US prisons - usually repeatedly. The youngest and most vulnerable are routinely targeted. It is now widely accepted that almost every American woman prisoner is routinely raped by guards, officials, visitors procured by guards and fellow prisoners. The prisoners at Abu Ghraib are merely experiencing what is normal practice in American prisons.
The total officially recognized criminal population of America is about 6 million and growing at an annual average rate of about 11 percent. Once a criminal always a criminal - this is ensured by conditions inside the prison and by American social conditions generally. Sammuels estimates that the total population benefitting directly or indirectly from the crime economy was about 67 million in 1995 - about a quarter of all Americans benefit from the continuing criminalization of American society. Is there any wonder that they enthusiastically applaud the global crimes of the American State?
How did America become such a sick society and the average American citizen a neurotic, paranoid, demonic, psychopath? An answer to this question requires an understanding of American history.
The founding fathers of the British colonies in North America were no ordinary criminals - they were criminals who justified their crimes in the name of Christianity. The pioneers sallied forth to murder, rob, rape and spread diseases among the Red Indians with Christian hymns on their lips and crosses in their hands. This process lasted for several centuries - as Dee Brown has shown in his path breaking study Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Abraham Lincoln was an enthusiastic Red Indian slaughterer.
Protestant Christianity’s greatest crime against God was its sponsoring of Red Indian genocide in North America. God’s holy book - the Bible - was grotesquely distorted to justify these crimes and lay the foundations of a rapacious, marauding state system in which the White Man claimed sovereignty and justified his revolt against God.
The Federalist Papers, which provide the conceptual framework of the American constitution are replete with such claims. Whitman and Dewey are apostles of human sovereignty. Their modern day disciple Richard Rorty brags that “America is the only country which seeks not to please God but to please ourselves”. In Achieving Our Country Rorty celebrates America’s rebellion against God and argues that “we have the right to forgive ourselves the crimes we committed” (p73) and continue to commit.
The essential doctrine of the American Constitution is “La ilha illa Insan” – man has the inalienable right to define good and evil and to live a life, which pleases himself. Society is based on a (constitutional) contract, which facilitates accumulation to enable man to please him. The supreme moral duty, of which human rights are merely a corollary, is the duty to accumulate capital.
American civilization compels man to accumulate capital for its own sake. Human rights are merely a means for performing this duty. Capital is intrinsically evil and itself justifying accumulation foster the growth of the vices of avarice and covetousness (competition) A rights based society is a society which necessarily distorts individual perception and promotes immorality.
In such a society the individual forgets death and seeks to become God. This widespread self obsession destroys individual morality. In such a society love is impossible and the conquest of nature – most importantly human nature – turns every man into a predator. This rights obsessed predator wars against God and wars against himself. His life is vicious, demonic and frustrating because he seeks to usurp God’s authority and worship his own self.
The American constitution and the global human rights movement which it has spawned ridicules the holy texts and seeks to trample on God’s commands. No wonder America and its associated human rights entourage regard the Muslims as their primary enemies and – in Iraq and Palestine and Afghanistan and Kashmir – continue their campaign of mass terror and genocide. Islam challenges human rights discourse and the satanic social orders it sustains Islam rejects man’s right to interpret God’s will and seeks to construct a moral political system on the basis of man’s total and unconditional surrender to God.
posted by Alghazalians at 8:39 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home