The
Peace Commandment
By Philip
A. Farruggio
April
22, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- John Locke, a philosopher who lived nearly
400 years ago, summed it up best: "To love one's
neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for
regulating human society that by that alone one
might determine the cases of social morality."
One can
understand the first part of this ideal, as one
of the 10 Commandments is about loving one's
neighbor as ourselves. The latter part of
Locke's quote wraps it all up quite nicely as to
determining our social morality. If we all truly
treated our fellow man as we would like to be
treated, WOW!!! No more exploitation of others
for our own financial gain; no more torture or
harsh treatment of a detainee.; No more lying to
others to support our own agenda... and on and
on.
Imperialism: "the policy, practice, or advocacy
of extending the power and dominion of a nation
especially by direct territorial acquisitions or
by gaining indirect control over the political
or economic life of other areas; broadly: the
extension or imposition of power, authority, or
influence." This defines the exact opposite of
not only that commandment, but of what Locke
suggests above.
Yet,
throughout history, spanning perhaps ad
infinitum of human life on this planet, man has
constantly used imperialism to enrich himself.
Every great empire has been defined by its use
of imperialism. The great 20th century wars were
fought by imperialist nations on both sides.
During
WW2, Churchill and the Brits blasted Hitler and
his mad Nazi regime for their concentration
camps and ethnic cleansing of Jews and Slavs. ..
And right they were. Yet, few recall that it was
the Brits (and Churchill participated) who
coined the phrase concentration camp during the
Boer War in Africa... and placed the Boers in
them. It was the Brits (again with Churchill
front and center) who, after WW1, used their
aircraft to gas the hell out of the Iraqis in
order to keep control of that region. All the
Nazis did was take these concepts to a much
deeper and darker place.
In our
nation, founded on life, liberty and the pursuit
of...the "happiness to own slaves." Racism and
jingoism has always used the tactic of
scapegoating to divide us working stiffs. During
and after the Civil War freed blacks were never
accepted as truly free men and women. Poor and
low income whites were propagandized to hate and
fear freed blacks, mostly for economic reasons.
The New
York City draft riots of 1863 ( captured
somewhat in Scorsese's 2002 film "Gangs of New
York") revealed how brutal white working stiffs
could be towards blacks, who they feared
(sometimes rightly so) would take away their low
paying jobs.
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In the
South after the Civil War, the fear of freed
blacks, coupled with generational tribal and
religious dictums of 'separation of the races'
saw more brutality and discrimination. The Brits
had their own imperial arrogance throughout
their empire. Films like Attenborough's "Ghandi"
(1982) or Sheridan's "In the Name of the Father"
(1993) reveal how the Brits viewed their
colonial peons in India and Northern Ireland.
WW2 was
a war basically fought by imperialists against
imperialists. The Germans and the Japanese just
made their 'imperial claims' overt to the n-th
degree. Every Allied player in that war had
colonies or 'spheres of interest' throughout
Asia, the Middle East and Africa, which were
then under assault by the aforementioned
Axis...who wanted them for their own interests
and control. Not one major nation in that war
cared **** about the peoples of those colonies
and 'spheres of interest'!
The
Russians knew that Hitler and his gang would
very soon turn on them and attack...for
lebensraum or 'living space' for German
settlers, and of course their raw materials and
agricultural land. Yet, Stalin made a
non-aggression pact with Hitler so as to share
in the carving up of another sovereign nation,
Poland, while buying time to get his military up
to snuff. Peace never entered into the equation!
We
Americans should finally come to grips with the
hype and spin about our beloved nation being the
'good guy' of the world. It is time to realize
that the Military industrial Empire cares only
about satisfying its enormous hunger for using
our tax dollars to fatten itself.
Philip A Farruggio is the son and grandson of
Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. A graduate of
Brooklyn College ( class of '74 with a BA in
Speech & Theater), he is a free lance columnist.
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
