White Man's Wars, Past and Present
by BAR
executive editor Glen Ford, for Black Agenda Radio
"We must
cease collaborating with the engines of death."
We used to call them the "White Man's War's." Now that
phraseology is out of favor, but I think it still applies. Racism is the fuel
in the engine that drives the popular appeal for the White Man's wars, now
centered in the Middle East, previously in Southeast Asia, but...who knows where
next? The real motive is profit, but the people who reap the profit are a very
small group, who need a much larger polity to support their aggressions around
the world.
Our children are told that the last five centuries of
European conquest of the planet are the apex of civilization - when, in fact,
they have been the nadir of human relations, resulting in structural racism
that destroys everything that does not conform to its piratic imperatives. The
United States, the superpower, continues the mission, long after the Europeans
have been largely exhausted by the game of slaughter and pillage. The Americans
- and by this I mean white Americans, the people who support war - are
conditioned by their own aggressions throughout their history to expect
retaliation, and to blame the victim. Thus, the Indians, the native owners of the
land, were demonized as savages who had no right to life. In the same way, the
Africans, who were kidnapped and sent into the eternal hell of chattel slavery,
were deemed to be animals with no more rights than cows and chickens. On this
basis American "civilization" was born.
"The great
obstacle in setting the planet right is the United States white public."
The United States has sliced and bayoneted its way through
more countries than Hitler ever dreamed of. We hear the echoes of white
American Manifest Destiny in every phrase uttered by the ranks of the
Democratic Party that are allowed to speak on corporate media. Barack Obama
wants 100,000 new troops to protect "American interests" in the world. John
Kerry assures folks that America will "be there" to protect "our interests,"
whatever the cost. Hillary Clinton and the rest affirm the dictum. They all use
the same language of imperialism: "our interests," an open-ended phraseology of
thievery, that says: I will steal whatever I want, whenever I want.
The Bush regime prescribes eternal war. That's really just
an extension of the global war that has gone on for half a millennium, since
the European breakout of 1492. However, the world is rolling back on that
horrendous offensive, and reclaiming itself. It will take time, and there will
be uneven development. The great obstacle in setting the planet right is the
United States white public, which thinks it has a mission in a world whose
countries they cannot even find on the map. They kill people whose homes have
no addresses that they would recognize. This is truly the banality of evil. But
the edifice of white racist rule of the planet will crumble - is crumbling -
and a new humanity will emerge. In the interest of the human species, we must
cease collaborating with the engines of death, as personified by the Republican
Party and the "top tier" of the Democratic candidates for president. The
genocides must end - and they end, here.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted
at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
To listen to this Black Agenda Radio commentary, click the right-pointing arrow in the Flash Player below.
{mp3}049x_gf_whitemans_wars{/mp3}
Broadcasters wanting to download a copy of this audio file can find it on our Black Agenda Radio archive page on the menu at left.
“The chickens have come home to roost,” one resident said. “Our exact fears have come true.”
In this week’s segment, we discuss the impact on the voting rights of Black people if the SAVE Act is signed into law. But we begin with a discussion of an historic vote at the United Nations which…
Kwesi Pratt Jr. is General Secretary of the Socialist Movement of Ghana.
The SAVE Act would require proof of U.S. citizenship to be presented in person in order to register to vote in this country and would disenfranchise millions of people who are currently able to vote…
Russia finally makes good on promises to help Cuba, but its level of commitment is unclear. The left are clearly immobilized, even as Iran demonstrates how to fight back.
