Memorial for the Sins of Empire

By Philip A Farruggio

May 27, 2016 "Information Clearing House" -  All the flags are out on many of the homes throughout our nation. The American flag is a wonderful symbol of the fact that we are nation composed of 50 states with a melting pot of too many different cultures to even list. Sadly, our flag has been hijacked by those ' wizards of empire ' for a few generations. They use the flag, hypocritically, to honor the dastardly deeds they have construed for so long. Always, while honoring these events, they always manage to propagandize so many good and decent Americans with phony tributes to ' Our brave soldiers'. Believing in the lies of empire, many of our young men and women have been sacrificed, mortally or wounded for life in what George Washington warned of ' Foreign entanglements'.

The Cold War was a major con job perpetrated by not only our wizards but the Russian ones too. If one reads both Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard and Stone and Kuznick's The Untold History of the United States, one can see that Stalin and the Dulles brothers ( especially Allen ) were devils. American imperialism drove our government to exacerbate the rift between the Soviets and ourselves. Why? It is what imperialism is always about: taking control of foreign resources and markets for a nation's business advantage. Stalin and his Kremlin were imperialists as well, wishing to expand the Soviet empire for their similar advantage. Now why was the entire Cold War a con job? Well, history, not the revisionist kind, tells us that WE knew that they were weaker than us militarily, and They knew that We knew! When we dropped those A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki we didn't do it to save American lives during an a possible invasion. No, we did it to A) show the Russians that we can make such a deadly weapon, and make more than one and B) to keep the Russians from invading Japan and thus getting territory that we wanted to control for ourselves. This weapon then got Stalin and his gang to move in overdrive to develop their own , and thus we had ' The arms race ' ( which survives to this day, 70 years later ). The most heinous result of the Cold War hysteria was the growth of Dulles and company's Military Industrial Empire , with too much of our tax money going for military spending and not for domestic modernization. Ditto for the Soviet side as well.  Imagine if the Cold War was never created. Imagine all those years throughout the 50s , 60s , 70s and 80s that our tax money ( 100s of billions each year ) went for infrastructure upgrades, National Health Insurance for ALL, real viable mass transit ( rail modernization like the Europeans have ) , high paying jobs programs, federally subsidized increases in minimum wages becoming ' Living Wages' .... etc. etc. etc.

We memorialize the Vietnam War for all those young men and women that were killed in that patch of land we had NO business ever being in! Because of the phony Cold War, Vietnam became a byproduct, as was Korea. The only monkey wrench was now we had China in the mix as well. That meant more spending on the military ( making billions for private sector contractors AKA 'friends of the empire'), more bases worldwide to stop the Commies, and more and more dead soldiers in Vietnam. Someone should have honored those brave soldiers by indicting all the bastards that wanted that war to begin with... and to continue it for a decade! Of course, no one speaks of the millions of Vietnamese who our bullets, bombs and Napalm killed or deformed for life. As with what we did and are doing  in and to Iraq and Afghanistan, and all our dead and wounded for life young soldiers, you cannot have a real memorial until you connect the dots.

If one believes in Karma, well, our nation's phony leaders have lots of it to deal with. This writer is of the belief system that whether it be before this ' dream of life ' ends or after we cross over into the new realms, Karma will be served up. To balance that, one should remember the vision that Betsie ten Boom had before she died in a concentration camp in 1944. Betsie and her sister Corrie spent the war years in Holland helping to hide Jews from the Germans. They were arrested and sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Before Betsie died she had three visions she felt came from God ( or the universe). The most revealing one was, if she survived, to run a camp for the Germans ( including the guards ) to teach them to love. We should remember that this Memorial Day as well.

PA Farruggio - Memorial Weekend 2016  

Philip A Farruggio is a semi retired baby boomer born and bred in blue collar Brooklyn NYC. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn longshoremen, and educated at ' free tuition ' Brooklyn College, class of ' 74.  -  paf1222@bellsouth.net