U.S. Foreign Policy Hypocrisy!

Link to Debs Canton Speech at the Zinn Education Project

As a citizen of the United States I can only wish that our own-literally bought and sold-news media were as honest as this commentary on the mind boggling hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy. Did the working class people here ever decide that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was a great friend of the United States, that socialist Cuba was a perennial enemy, that Israel-simply as another STATE-could do no wrong? After the collapse of the old Soviet Union we find fault with Czar Putin?

I just read Eugene V. Debs' famous, eloquent, and most instructive "Canton Speech". The American plutocracy has always operated under the banner of freedom and democracy. Will young working class Americans continue to die for the same Wilsonian blather that the old socialists ridiculed?

What cant over FREE SPEECH here! "Je Suis Charlie". Humbug, I tell you. Humbug!

EUGENE V. DEBS HOME
 –TERRE HAUTE,
VIGO COUNTY, INDIANA

( comment on article  published in Altavoz ( Peru ) on Jan. 28, 2015 by Editorial, "The Hypocrisy of the United States" , WATCHING AMERICA )

The folly of nationalism ( WATCHING AMERICA )

The great spiritual gift of the Jews to human civilization was Monotheism. If ONE GOD rules the universe, if one moral code can serve all humanity, why fight over wretched pieces of earth? In the 1930s here in the United States-with growing darkness in Europe--many educated Jews embraced international socialism. They are still wiser to identify with the have-nots of the world than with treacherous privileged classes in any country.

Many educated Jews are atheist-humanists. So where is the metaphysical support for modern Zionism? Israel should be reconstituted as a secular nation with great respect for all the world's religions. All any of us can hope for in a cruel, indifferent universe is human kindness and sympathy.

Syrian War Victims: Photo by Manu Brabo (AP)

Albert Einstein, a socialist, was wise to decline the presidency of Israel. He could appreciate the Relativity of Truth. It is obtuse human arrogance-absolute CERTAINTY– that is felt by any sensitive visitor standing in the very ashes of Holocaust victims at Auschwitz. This point is made by the kindly Jewish scholar-scientist in the TV series: "The Ascent of Man."

The mountain of bones at the battleground of Verdun warn us today about the folly of ALL nationalisms: "Here lie our heroic French soldiers". . . "Here lie our heroic German soldiers."

What rot! All those bloody idiotic patriotic phrases. Rotting corpses everywhere "making the world safe for democracy." The young person should shout "Non Serviam!" to the military killing machines of the world. You will not find an honest atheist in a foxhole.

( Comment on article published in Die Welt ( Germany ) on Jan. 15, 2015 by Hannes Stein , " The U.S. should open its gates " [ to European Jews ]   )

Joining hands with the bloodsuckers against Islamic terrorism?

As a democratic Socialist well aware of the evils of capitalism, I know how hopeless are terrorist strategies to bring about a more just world. But your last sentence here rings false: "a call to collective solidarity against the menace" - of international terrorism.

In the capitalist news media commentaries there is not an iota of scientific insight into the root causes of this world's disorder. Do they think that for some  unknown reason normal individuals mysteriously become intoxicated with a deranged religious ideology? Bought and sold bourgeois intellectuals babble about terrorism as if it had no connection to imperialism and global capitalism.

Should we working class people in the United States forge a fatuous alliance with our own exploiters and oppressors – the infamous ONE PERCENT – to punish the downtrodden Muslims of the world?

I will never forget what that famous Black Muslim, Malcolm X, said about this rotten economic system: "Show me a capitalist and I'll show you a bloodsucker."

Shall we join hands with the bloodsuckers of the world in order to make the world safer for their bloodsucking?

A right wing radio news anchor here in Rhode Island, U.S.A ( Gene Valicenti , 630 wpro.com ) tells me this morning that President Obama's plan to TAX THE RICH is certainly "dead in the water." But we are all one united patriotic family against Islamic extremism and terrorism?

Just what kind of DEMOCRACY does America recommend to the world? Ask WATCHING AMERICA !

(comment on article in Les Echos ( France ) on Jan. 12, 2015 , by Dominique Moisi , WATCHING AMERICA)

Refreshing H.L Mencken , old Baltimore sage

Meet the Mind of H.L. Mencken

As a U.S. citizen and a registered voter, I commend the writer of this article for his astute insight on presidential politics here. Even though I am a democratic Socialist, I must say that no American journalist surpasses that deceptively "conservative" curmudgeon, Baltimore sage, H.L. Mencken, in describing the hollow souls of successful American politicians.

Just the other night I read his scathing assessment of President Woodrow Wilson: "Archangel Wilson." Wilson's hollow rhetoric got us into the Great War- "the war to end all wars ... the war to make the world safe for democracy."

And no socialist writer wrote with more bone-deep contempt for our own American plutocracy than H.L. Mencken. They had money and nothing else, he thought. He believed in a "natural aristocracy" of brains and breeding. But don't look for it here!

izquotes.com

( WATCHING AMERICA, comment on article published in Die Zeit (Germany) on Jan.12, 2015 by Martin Klingst , "Romney Should Drop Out for His Own Good" )

"Obama PULLS the Race Card" , WATCHING AMERICA

Link to "Les Miserables" Theme Song

I am a citizen of the United States and a registered Democrat in the beautiful state of Rhode Island. In my heart I am more of a democratic Socialist -but most socialist parties here have sunk into demoralized confusion or a bizarre personality cult. I hope that they too, like Christ Crucified, can rise from the dead ..

I never voted for President Obama because I thought way back in 2006 that this charismatic American politician was being puffed up by our shadowy power elite. Obama has proved himself to be a Neo Democrat out of touch with the great tradition of New Deal Liberalism. Franklin D. Roosevelt did not fear scaring our privileged class.

You cannot separate the problem of RACE from the problem of CLASS in America. I read in the above text "No, Obama is not Martin Luther King or Malcolm X ."I do think that Malcolm X is more relevant to black rage in the streets of America than the ideals of Obama or Martin Luther King.

In the last year of his life (1965) Malcolm X was thinking in much larger terms than RACE. So white radicals on the left became very interested in his new message: "Show me a capitalist," Malcolm said, "and I'll show you a bloodsucker."

You have to begin with a bold sentiment like that in order to achieve even MODERATE social progress here in capitalist America. Oddly enough, President Obama is still more representative of the great majority of Americans than our new Republican Congress.

Will these Tea Party Republicans soon be serving up the crackpot reactionary Ayn Rand to the Other America? Just what we need: "The Virtue of Selfishness" with a COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE facelift.

Interesting times in the United States of America. Thinking about the Great French Revolution of 1789. The song from the popular play "Les Miserables": "Do you hear the people sing . . . ?"

( Posted comment on Le Temps ( Switzerland ) on December 3, 2014  by Stephane  Bussard )

WATCHING AMERICA: Recalling RED China

I am a citizen of the United States and a registered voter here in Cranston, Rhode Island. Just a thought question for those young Chinese who still vaguely remember "Red China" and the ideals of socialism-communism: Do you think the American legal system can possibly rise morally superior to the rotten and unjust American economic system?

Where in the world is capitalism all about equality and justice for all?  Certainly not here in America!

(WATCHING AMERICA : "Ferguson Unrest Exposes an Incapable US Judicial System", published in Huanqui, China, November 28 by Zhi Zhenfeng )

This Society has a race problem ...... WATCHING AMERICA

I am a citizen of the United States and a registered Democrat (more a democratic Socialist) in the beautiful state of Rhode Island. Outraged by the Ferguson decision, many blacks here-with their white and latino supporters- on the day after, blocked interstate Route 95 for nearly an hour.

It was all rather foolish, I think. But it shows that alienation in American capitalist society is reaching a breaking point among the nation's have–nots. For too long Neo-Democrat inspired "political correctness" has racialized  POVERTY IN AMERICA. I can't imagine a million homeless white people identifying with our ONE PERCENT ruling class in common hostility to "lawless and rioting" black people.

The vast majority of white people are just unpretentious working class people who create the wealth and fight the foolish wars of our ruling class. They know that the MAJESTIC LAW swindles the common people.

I am by disposition a believer in non-violent social change. But I wonder if the assassinated black revolutionary firebrand Malcolm X is more relevant today to Afro-Americans than Martin Luther King. Malcolm's last year alive is very interesting to left-wing scholars. He was invited to speak before enthusiastic liberal audiences, mostly radicalized white students. "Show me a capitalist", Malcolm said passionately, "and I'll show you a bloodsucker!".

Will Washington D.C. soon look like Cairo, Egypt in 2011? PEACE!

POST under WATCHING AMERICA commentary published in Die Presse ( Austria ) on 26 November 2014 by Wieland Schneider : "A  Society in which Some Members Feel Locked Out Has a Problem."