Why are we in Iraq? What's going on in the Middle East? Why did the Russian military collapse in the early 80's? Why can't any of the independent nations of Africa get their shit together? Why are there so many bodies in East Timor? How come Tibet is crawling with Chinese? Why doesn't the U.S. have Universal Health care?
If you have any prayer of knowing the answer to any these questions, you need to study history, because today’s headlines will only tell you who got killed. When the next round of negotiations will begin, what the latest lists of demands are and the difficulty of transporting aid to the areas most heavily afflicted.
The catastrophe in New Orleans did not begin with Hurricane Katrina. The War in Iraq did not begin with intelligence to indicate they were manufacturing biochemical and nuclear weapons. The latest military strike into Palestine by Israel cannot be traced back to the latest intifada.
The answer to all of these questions can be found in the history books.
Increasingly I find that the news seem to be engaged in collusion with the government to not delve too deeply, or to even cover major issues fairly for fear of actually causing individuals to think and thus paving the way for them to act. Granted, the New York Time and Wall Street Journal, as two of the best newspapers do give some back story, some critical analysis and if they fail to ask a few insightful "next step" questions of their subjects, they at least as them rhetorically, AND answer them through excellent research and talking to everyone surrounding the supporting the individual or situation in question.
But most newspapers are too into sound bytes and following "hot" "sexy" stories with comprehensive "superficial" coverage. What I mean is, they cover almost everything, but almost all of it on a superficial level, such that if you didn't read all of last weeks stories, or all of the next weeks, you would only have 1/14th of the story which ultimately has nothing to do with the "real" questions about "why" "how" and "who".
If you are only interested in who lost their shirt today, or their life today, or their money today, then stick to the newspapers. But for the real questions, hit the history books.
What is the U.S. doing in Iraq? Well, what were they doing in Vietnam? What were they doing in Korea? Cuba? Mexico? The Philippines? Panama? It’s pretty much the same thing, just a different location. Whereas you can still find out what the real fuck-up is in Iraq if you are savvy, somewhat intelligent and can discern obfuscation from antecedents. Seeing as most folks can't even find the United States on a globe, I would suggest that you study up on the U.S's involvement in Korea, Cuba, Mexico, The Philippines and Panama. All of these wars and clashes which occurred 10-20-30 years ago. They are well researched, the essential government documents have been released and de-classified and are now available. As you begin to study history, you will find that the basic operations of a self-interested, colonial-based superpower has changed little since the Byzantine, Hellenic, Greek, Mongol, Moorish and Persian eras.
To illustrate a situation where the knowledge of history, or lack thereof has had catastrophic results, I quote from a Elisabeth Bumiller's recent biography on Condoleeza Rice:
“Some of Rice’s friends were stunned that she actually seemed to believe Bush’s argument in the final days of the war buildup that a liberated Iraq could spread freedom across the Middle East.” Ms. Rice also believed that “the postwar phase would be like the successful occupation of Germany after World War II, and that it would be possible to plant democracy in a shattered Iraq.” Either Ms. Rice knew less than she should have about pre- and post-1945 German history, or she was carried away by false optimism.
Hell, if you want to stick close to home and be "macrobiotic" and "organic" in your inquiry, just pick up a pamphlet on how the U.S. treated Native-Americans. See if you can count all the broken treaties, treacherous acts, murders, bribes and political double-crossings. I bet you can't!
If you can understand even one (1) thing the U.S. has done overseas, or for that matter what Britain, or France, or Spain, or Belgium, or the Dutch have done, then what's going on today, can not only be understood, but it could have been predicted, because history will show that it's inevitable.
Want to know why the Jena 6 shit blew up? Go get the manifest from the Dutch ship, "The White Lion" which brought the first 20 slaves to Colonial America in 1619. If you can understand that, and the forces that allowed that, supported that, invested in that, protected that fought for that... then Jena 6 is nothing more than a footnote in history.
In fact, everything that's happening today is a footnote.
Global Warming? Get a book on the industrial revolution, the exploitation of coal miners throughout the world, and "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith... in fact, if you want to understand everything from why you're a mixed race individual to why 90% of the shit under the Christmas tree was from China, go get yourself "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith.
See you in the History Section.
No comments:
Post a Comment