Violence in the Institutional and Cultural DNA of the United States of America
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 31 Dec 2012
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service
As a parent of 2 including an American teenager, a former teacher, and a son, nephew and brother of teachers, my heart goes out to bereaved and grieving families of all American children and teachers in CT slaughtered in a senseless and insane act by a mad gunman.
That said, the two of the three pillars of the United States were the ethno- and genocide of the native people and the enslavement of African people — yes, the other is honorably the Enlightenment ideals of equality (of property-owning while males).
Both as an economic system and as an ideological edifice, USA is one of the most violent places on earth.
USA ranks number one in:
1) being the world’ largest merchant of death (arms export);
2) having the largest Armed Forces with over 1,000 bases around the world;
3) fighting, with absolutely no interval, the largest number wars, both covert and overt, in the history of wars and conflict since its founding as a republic in 1776;
4) endowed with the greatest annual ‘defense’ budget;
5) building and running the largest espionage edifice that engages in assassination and incarceration, and torture of anyone SUSPECTED – not proven – of being an enemy of the USA (throwing away the foundation of American jurisprudence – that one is innocent until proven guilty);
6) having a nominal civilian control of the Pentagon (hardly any civilian presidents most of whom don’t have any military experience would feel confident to resist the pressure from the Pentagon – for more toys and more wars because toys and wars profit certain segments of American society and American economy);
7) allowing the President to decide who among the ‘enemies of the USA’ to KILL routinely;
8) having the greatest number of civilian deaths from gun crimes in the industrialized world;
9) incorporating the violent and militaristic language of war – war on poverty, war on diseases, war on terror (the Americans are conditioned to love wars and guns by the culture industry called Hollywood, and celebrate everything national and local with the display of military prowness – not dissimilar to former USSR or China or India, in this respect);
10). having foreign policy complex that does NOT have “peace” as a pillar or value (I have heard this repeatedly with my own ears from various US officials that “peace” is not a value for State Department), despite rhetoric to the contrary – always unilateralism that decides what Washington does;
11) fiercely defending Death Penalty – many death row inmates are black males, Hispanic men and working class whites many of whom are wrongly convicted – Rumsfeld’s “the Old Europe” has moved away from such Dark Age practices and policies;
12) locking up the largest number of people – again disproportionately minorities and working class individuals – behind bars which are popular with the provincialistic, American exceptionalist voters; and finally
13) having the institutionalized habit of never counting the people the US Armed Forces have killed around the world – dismissing them as nameless statistics otherwise known as “collateral damage” – while glorifying the death of their own members of the Armed Forces, again many are from working class and minority backgrounds.
Are we stlll expected to be shocked that this society, this economy and this political system has produced a trend in massacres in schoolyards, shopping malls, university campuses, churches, mosques, and cinema halls?
It is hightime that the American people wake up from their hegemonic Amercain dream – which has been the world’s nightmare – and reclaim their wonderful Republic from the delusional maniacs who run Pax Americana.
The following brutally truthful observation made by theenown British playright the late Harold Pinter in his Noble Lecture for Literature in 2005 should serve as a good wake-up call:
“It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
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Dr. Maung Zarni is member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment, founder and director of the Free Burma Coalition (1995-2004), and a visiting fellow (2011-13) at the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, Department of International Development, London School of Economics. His forthcoming book on Burma will be published by Yale University Press. he was educated in the US where he lived and worked for 17 years. Visit his website www.maungzarni.com.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 31 Dec 2012.
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Thank you, Zarni, for articulating these truths that so many people, especially within the US itself, refuse to look at. Only by shining the light on these shameful “firsts” that have caused so many deep wounds to humanity, can healing and re-humanization take place.
Marilyn Langlois
Transcend USA-West Coast