BY THE LIGHT OF A BURNING BRIDGE A Permanent Goodbye to the United States
BY THE LIGHT OF A BURNING BRIDGE
A Permanent Goodbye to the United States
by
Michael C. Ruppert
August 16th 2006, 11:45 AM – CARACAS – It was about a week before I left the United States forever that I watched Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. tell Charlie Rose something all of us already know in our hearts. “Today,” he said, “the United States is hated around the world far worse than it was at the height of the Vietnam War.” I remember the Vietnam War. I will never forget it.
I opposed that war, and I still remember riots on the UCLA campus in May,1970 when four students were shot dead by National Guard troops at Kent State University in Ohio. I was a college student then, and I was 2S-deferred for the draft. A year later I would be re-classified 1A as the nation shifted to a lottery system. At least someone in my country was willing to risk his life in the face of injustice. It gave me hope. That kind of risk-taking was commonplace then, from the civil rights movement to the anti-war movement, to the American Indian Movement. American blood was shed regularly on American soil to resist American tyranny; from Watts, to Detroit, to Selma, to San Francisco to Memphis to Wounded Knee. It fertilized our lives and souls as it touched the ground. The willingness to endure physical suffering, material sacrifice, and jail for the sake of justice was a singular mark of the American character that earned respect as it infected the world.
What is the United States infecting the world with today?
Now it seems the American people won’t even risk their credit ratings, student loans, the next piece of ass, or a sideways glance from people who look at them like AIDS patients for daring to deviate from the corporate, media-instilled norm. We have come a long way backward. Rodney King’s “Can’t we all just get along” has become the modern day theme song for the surrender of America’s character, and the L.A. Rebellion of 1992 was probably the last flame of will to fight injustice in American history.
This new quiescence comes at a time when US crimes are far worse and more far-reaching than they were in 1970; certainly in the eyes of the world. In 2001 the US government both facilitated and executed the attacks of 9/11 against its own people, killing thousands of its citizens as an excuse to launch a neo-imperial conquest for energy. A few Americans held small rallies, organized some ineffective groups, bought a few hundred thousand books and DVDs, listened to a few radio programs and lectures, and then quietly lined up to have their bags, emails, credit histories, minds and bodies searched. Critical mass was never achieved as Executive Orders along with the Patriot and Homeland Security Acts shredded the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments to our Bill of Rights.
In my book Crossing the Rubicon I wrote that events that took place in the five years following those attacks would determine the course of human history for centuries to come. We now stand at the brink of that fateful anniversary.
After the 9-11 attacks the US government lied to create a war for oil in Iraq telling us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, almost-ready atom bombs, poison gas and deadly germs. We were told that he helped execute the 9/11 attacks. It was all lies, and no one has held the US accountable for the hundreds of thousands of deaths (murders) in Iraq and Afghanistan since then. Few have tried to hold the government accountable for 2,500 Americans who have died needlessly, and those who have, have been remarkably ineffective.
Link here
A Permanent Goodbye to the United States
by
Michael C. Ruppert
August 16th 2006, 11:45 AM – CARACAS – It was about a week before I left the United States forever that I watched Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. tell Charlie Rose something all of us already know in our hearts. “Today,” he said, “the United States is hated around the world far worse than it was at the height of the Vietnam War.” I remember the Vietnam War. I will never forget it.
I opposed that war, and I still remember riots on the UCLA campus in May,1970 when four students were shot dead by National Guard troops at Kent State University in Ohio. I was a college student then, and I was 2S-deferred for the draft. A year later I would be re-classified 1A as the nation shifted to a lottery system. At least someone in my country was willing to risk his life in the face of injustice. It gave me hope. That kind of risk-taking was commonplace then, from the civil rights movement to the anti-war movement, to the American Indian Movement. American blood was shed regularly on American soil to resist American tyranny; from Watts, to Detroit, to Selma, to San Francisco to Memphis to Wounded Knee. It fertilized our lives and souls as it touched the ground. The willingness to endure physical suffering, material sacrifice, and jail for the sake of justice was a singular mark of the American character that earned respect as it infected the world.
What is the United States infecting the world with today?
Now it seems the American people won’t even risk their credit ratings, student loans, the next piece of ass, or a sideways glance from people who look at them like AIDS patients for daring to deviate from the corporate, media-instilled norm. We have come a long way backward. Rodney King’s “Can’t we all just get along” has become the modern day theme song for the surrender of America’s character, and the L.A. Rebellion of 1992 was probably the last flame of will to fight injustice in American history.
This new quiescence comes at a time when US crimes are far worse and more far-reaching than they were in 1970; certainly in the eyes of the world. In 2001 the US government both facilitated and executed the attacks of 9/11 against its own people, killing thousands of its citizens as an excuse to launch a neo-imperial conquest for energy. A few Americans held small rallies, organized some ineffective groups, bought a few hundred thousand books and DVDs, listened to a few radio programs and lectures, and then quietly lined up to have their bags, emails, credit histories, minds and bodies searched. Critical mass was never achieved as Executive Orders along with the Patriot and Homeland Security Acts shredded the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments to our Bill of Rights.
In my book Crossing the Rubicon I wrote that events that took place in the five years following those attacks would determine the course of human history for centuries to come. We now stand at the brink of that fateful anniversary.
After the 9-11 attacks the US government lied to create a war for oil in Iraq telling us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, almost-ready atom bombs, poison gas and deadly germs. We were told that he helped execute the 9/11 attacks. It was all lies, and no one has held the US accountable for the hundreds of thousands of deaths (murders) in Iraq and Afghanistan since then. Few have tried to hold the government accountable for 2,500 Americans who have died needlessly, and those who have, have been remarkably ineffective.
Link here
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 7:07 PM
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