Years ago, when a bitch was a young college aged thang, I was confronted with the reality that some folks think the whole world should be just like us. A bitch adores history and culture…and throughout modern recorded time there is case after case of the conqueror altering the world of the conquered so fit looks just like the shit they just sailed from.
So, when a bitch read the news yesterday that Tony Blair thinks Western values should triumph over the evil ways of …ummm, well that’s ever-changing isn’t it…I was dismayed.
Blair went there…without fear…and said that “Western values” must triumph in the war against terrorism.
Some of you know where a bitch is about to go and some of you ‘don’t get it’.
But all are welcome at this temple (wink).
A bitch sees a nastified pattern breaking out…again. A pattern of powerful Western men gathered in closed door meetings to discuss how best to ‘assist’ those ‘uncivilized’ and ‘underdeveloped’ nations as they move towards the light of Western democracy and reject their current culture.
The same nations that cut up the world they ‘discovered’…brought war, disease, oppression and intolerance in their wake… populated lands already populated because those ‘savages’ weren’t doing anything with it.
The same West that enslaved and traded in human beings…who ruled over colonial nations with an iron fist, a Godless whip and a quick trigger…who had the audacity to justify their actions through religion and charity, because those poor brown people need to be taught the blessing of a Christian God and be ‘saved’ before I work them to death.
They now gather at G8 Summits and the United Nations…surrounded by aspiring wanna-be nations who are giddy from drinking all that Kool-Aid and eager for their chance to do as Massa done did…get rich on the backs of someone else who wasn’t invited to the meeting and deny those folks the shit that was denied them.
No wonder we’re having problems spreading the good word! We’re negotiating from the “Okay, we just need you to become us and then we’ll be cool” stance.
And a bitch is left wondering why my ass didn’t see it right away! Why the fuck did I expect this war to be any different…the powerful to react in some radically enlightened way when they never learned the lessons of the past?
And how the fuck are they going to learn the lessons of the past when they have yet to acknowledge that a lesson needs to be learned…that mistakes were made…that the West isn’t perfect and there is value in other cultures.
What the fuck was I thinking? These are the same motherfuckers who carved up the world after WWI…passed out countries and regions after WWII…and, when asked to leave, behaved like an annoyed dinner guest and shoved away from table leaving the mess for someone else to clean up.
And don’t get me started on the whole ‘allied like a motherfucker during the Cold War’ but ‘talk to the hand now that we’ve ended that and started another war’ shit.
Yeah…Blair’s got it right.
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ABB: There's a song called "Itsy Bitsy" that pretty much sums up what you're talking about. It's set to the song Itsy Bitsy Spider and covers S. American/Puerto Rican/African/North American history. It's pretty dead on. I think you'd enjoy it! Look on the Sing it Down Jolie Rickman/Colleen Kattau CD.
Also, has there ever been a question about what the TRUE purpose of attacking "terrorism" has been? I mean come on, we're not stupid. "Your either with us or against us" and "we're fighting for freedom!" are completely contradictory phrases yet they have been Bush's mantra for the past 4-4.5 years. Worst of all, PEOPLE BELIEVE IN THOSE PHRASES!
Too many Americans still trust their government. Too many Americans are oblivious to the truth because (a) it takes too much work to get there and (b) the responsibility that TRUTH creates within us is too overwhelming.
Sadly, because of their ignoance, the people in this country will be happy to cooperate when their National ID cards kick in (2008; Real ID Act). I think they'll be happy when their ports are sold (OH WAIT, that already happened in the recently-passed Oman Free Trade Agreement). I think they'll continue to let this country (and the world) be sold off piece by piece as if it were a failing coporation! I think our laziness is catching up with us! If we don't speak up soon, it'll be too late.
But whatever. Isn't American idol on soon?
an angry but coping hammerche
Ahem.
With the acknowledgement that it's asphalt-meltingly hot outside, that extreme heat does, indeed, "cook" people's brains, and no one is at their logical, reasoned best during the Dog Days...
Would you please be so kind as to remove your jerked knee from Tony's little rounded Blairs?
Thank you. Now, into the breach...
Whereas the comment is, indeed disconcerting (just what are Western Values, anyway? Let's assume for the sake of argument he meant Democracy, which, birthed in Greece and modernized in the US, could be classified as such), so is the heated (so to speak) reaction. If I recall my Bible (and Sister Victoria's dab hand with the ruler will ensure into perpetuity that I do), slavery of other human beings was well underway for at least a few thousand years prior to the Great White Bwana hitting African etc. shores. St. Patrick (of the "medal around my neck" St. Patricks) washed up on Irish shores in about 700 a.d. because the slave ship he was on hit a storm and he went overboard. Patricius was not on his way to pick up Kunta Kinte - he was a slave.
Further, I would strongly suggest oppression (of, cough, women if nothing else), disease, and war have been going on far past the time when there is record. Egypt and Japan have I believe the longest written histories, and these were bloodthirsty little sumbitches; shoguns and pharoahs. They liked war - gave the boys something to do with all that shiny weaponry.
Bottom line? Religion is - and always has been - used to justify what my own personal Western Values classify as both general and specific naughtiness. The concept of a "chosen people" (and in every language and belief the believers believe they are as such) by its definition establishes an unchosen people, the unwashed masses, for whom slavery and oppression is a fact of life because the oppressors are secure in their knowledge that their Bible/Torah/Koran/Book of Mormon (all Western Religions) or Ancestors/Wise Men/Shamans (East and West) tells them so.
It ain't the issue of brown brothers, Sister Bitch, it's the issue of disbelievin' brothers... that's what has turned the Middle East into a suburb of Hell.
Cheers, and STAY COOL!
Western political thought from the Enlightenment forward has been characterized by a messianic view of "the West's" role in the world. From Marxism to the (supposedly) democratic ideals of neo-liberalism and now neo-conservativism (the former characterized by the IMF and the World Bank, the latter characterized by the Project for the New American Century), they all share the belief that it is the destiny of the Great Western Powers to lead the rest of the world into adopting one system of economics and governance based on eighteenth and nineteenth century European ideals.
What's particularly interesting (well, to me anyway) is the spectacular failures of these projects to achieve the promised Utopian results. In the case of Communism, the collectivization of agriculture in Stalin's Russia and later Mao's China caused millions to die from starvation as the Marxist model, based on Marx's observations of European agriculture, proved ill-adapted to the circumstances of those countries. Neither country had a history of the type of feudalism shared by the countries upon which Marx based his theories. Plus, Marx placed a lot more faith in the ability of industrialization to improve crop yields than was strictly warranted by facts.
The Free-Trade panacea exemplified by the IMF-dictated austerity and privatization programs imposed on "Third World" countries have likewise led to case after case where countries applied the prescribed remedies to their economies only to watch them sink into complete collapse. Witness Mexico in the 90's, or Argentina, etc etc ad nauseum.
Yet one almost never sees any critique of this basic idea, so central to our country's self-image as to be considered gospel, that the rest of the world would be better off if they adopted "democratic" and "free market" systems based on our own model. The debate almost always centers on how we should go about bringing the fruits of democracy to the rest of the world, and not why we see our role as the world's sole superpower as a necessary means to this end and not as a hindrance to other countries' self-determination.
For instance, it's just possible that one reason China isn't in such a big hurry to revalue their currency and apply other "reforms" along those lines is because they can look next door to Russia and witness the utter collapse of that society that took place when they submitted to Western demands to "open" and "reform" their economy.
Yes, the west continues to carve up the world. Continues to think there is only onw way to live. Unfortunately, we all know that that one way is wasteful and while great for business, shitty for humans. These guys won't learn because they are myopic and those who believe in them are myopic as well. It does not surprise me that Blair or Bush or any of them speak this way. What surprises me is that people believe and trust these fools. SAAAAAAD beyond beleif.
OK Bitch!
I have not been blogging or commenting on things for about the last 4 or 5 months or so. I went to see my grandmother near New Orleans on the Mississippi side of Lake Pontchartrain and had to take a breather from all this bull-kaka. There is something terribly wrong with the poverty that was there before Katrina that makes life after seem so bleak for the people on the coast.
Plus I had to work on getting out of Nashville and moving back to NYC where I don't have to watch political ads that target gays, Hillary Clinton, hispanics and pro-choices with no view from the otherside. It has all been very hard to witness, plus the war. So, I have just shut-up and worked on getting to a place of support.
We have another war of ideology except it is based on theology this time. As a History PhD student stuck in motion I know that all wars are about land but come under the guise of dictators-absolute monarchs,ideology , or religion. Guess which one this is about?
And in the mist of listening to Femi Kuti and thinking about the current situation we are in, I read your blog on Blair and the West.
Gurl, I thought you knew. The thing is though, that the fight this time is different. Hegel swings all the time, but sometimes the counterpoints are different . . . so guess who the Facists are now? . . . those that were oppressed in the last war . . . this stuff ticks like a clock. (I don't believe Western philosphy is universal, but they are talking about themselves so I gleam a lot from the "Western Cannon").
The seeds of triumph for one group has sown the sorrow for another over the last half century, and I am afraid we are witness to the blossoming of that ill planted flower. The West is just using its normal egotistical babble as before, this distrust of the East has been going on since Queen Isabella kicked the coloureds and jews out of Europe to help create "the West".
And now we have to worry about "the West" the new term for white folk in their 3rd partioning of the world. First was 1492. Then the industrialization of the world and the annexation of India and the partition of Africa. Now it is Middle Eastern Oil. Colonialization. Industrialization. Globalization. Same cat in different raincoats.
So . . .
Stay tuned next week, for another exciting installment of "The West".
This is the same Tony Blair who maintains there is no civil war in Iraq.Civilian deaths are now averaging 800 a week.So Tone,what's your definition?
This world is getting more fucked up by the day and it comes as a relief in a way to find your site. I was feeling like no-one even gave a shit what happens to the civil liberties of the rest of the world. We’re living in a time where even the west is having its rights striped away and still no-one seems upset enough to speak out. I saw how this was all going to go down back in 2001 when the towers first fell. I’ve tried to speak up but no-one is listening. Thank you bitch for laying some of shit out on the table, there’s a whole lot more that needs to be said. As concerned individuals we must find a way to shout it out to a larger audience, preferably without being arrested as ‘terrorist sympathisers’. It seems that is the label stuck to the fore head of anyone who cares about the larger community. Its time we as a people started asking questions, here’s a few that the public never seems to ask it’s self:
Why it is the Middle East hates us?
This question never seems to occur to anyone I’ve met, and yet I would have thought it would be the first thing we ask. Its not that we’re not told, if you want to now it’s easy enough to find out, but we as a people just don’t care to know
Who stands to gain from tighter security measures?
Not the public, the tighter the grip on security, the tighter the grip on the populace leaving the government free reign to do what ever they like in our names
Who gains most from a terrorist threat?
Well it isn’t terrorists, but the government clamps get bigger every time.
Who gain most from the fall of the towers?
Again not the terrorist, since the towers came down the U.S has got the space based weapons they had been having trouble getting approval for. We have lost our freedom of speech; we have lost the right to protest. And we have gone to war with who ever we choose without proof or provocation.
It is not a privilege to be from an affluent culture surrounded the passive aggressors, I’m ashamed to be from the west, and I’m appalled by what is done in our names.
How can any of us help without the majority no our side, the only answer is to get them on the side of truth and justice, not the American way.
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