World History That Just Isn't Taught in America

There's a great and even important article out from last Fall to which more Americans---young and old---should all be exposed:

Top 6 Countries That Grew Filthy Rich From Enslaving Black People

I can't and won't post the entire article, of course, but this little snippet, on America alone, is pivotal:

Slavery transformed America into an economic power. The exploitation of black people for free labor made the South the richest and most politically powerful region in the country. British demand for American cotton made the southern stretch of the Mississippi River the Silicon Valley of its era, boasting the single largest concentration of the nation’s millionaires.

But slavery was a national enterprise. Many firms on Wall Street such as JPMorgan Chase, New York Life and now-defunct Lehman Brothers made fortunes from investing in the slave trade the most profitable economic activity in New York’s 350 year history. Slavery was so important to the city that New York was one of the most pro-slavery urban municipalities in the North.

According to Harper’s magazine (November 2000), the United States stole an estimated $100 trillion for 222,505,049 hours of forced labor between 1619 and 1865, with a compounded interest of 6 percent.

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This, I think, on top of what the Atlantic Monthly wrote some months ago, keeps making more and more powerful cases for reparations for blacks and African-Americans in this country.

On this, the 186th birthday of Leo Tolstoy, I'm reminded of this qutoe:

"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back." 

Link:    The Case for Reparations - The Atlantic

Worst. Ever.

Worst.

President.

Ever.

Let's be clear on this and let's say it again and again so we all remember our lessons:

George Walker Bush was, by far, outstripping all other Presidents in the history of the United States of America, the absolute worst President this country ever lived through.

The former "worsts" now pale compared to this buffoon.

Wareen Harding was incompetent and there was graft in his administration but not even he could touch the lows of this "leader".

President Harding didn't attack another sovereign nation, defying international law and opinion.

President Harding didn't spend every dollar he could get his official hands on like this clown, and put us into massive, historical deficits, thus bankrupting the country.

No other President put so many people, from the very industries they came from, into positions meant to oversee those same industries.

No other President in the history of this country set his very administration against the very people of the country, the way George Walker Bush did.

The thing is, when Ronald Reagan became President, I wasn't sure we'd live through his tenure, even for four years, let alone all eight.

Not with all that demagoguery and ideology.

But we did.

We lived through it and it turned out he realized some of the things he originally wanted weren't good for the country so he changed his opinions and the course for himself and the country.

And Bill Clinton came in and cleaned up his messes. And pretty well, too.

So we lived through that and we've come out at the end of the George W. Bush administration, too, albeit bedraggled, beaten, abused (literally, physically and constitutionally, as it turns out), in horrific debt, with a sullied American name, but we made it.

And now we have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and clean up this mess.
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For more information and clarification and support on George W. Bush as the worst President of the United States--ever--go to this link:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002804

You want transfer of wealth statistics?

One of the things that really frustrated and, in fact, angered me during the campaign for the Presidency, was the ridiculous, obscene accusation on the part of anyone against Liberals, Democrats or specific candidates like Barack Obama that he was a radical, far-left Liberal, at least, and, more likely, Socialist, at worst, who was going to take away our money.

What nonsense.

You want transfer of wealth statistics? You want to hear unfairness?

This from the January, 2009 Harper's Magazine and its Harper's Notebook section I wrote about Saturday--just two statistics:

1) Portion of all US income gains during the Bush Administration that have gone to the top one percent of earners: 3/4 (that's 75%)
2) Increase since 2000 in the number of Americans living at less than half the federal poverty level: 3,500,000

You Conservatives and Republicans and fat cats and "Joe the Plumbers" want to talk "transfer of wealth" now?

Can you say "oligarchy"?

Big recommendations

For the coming new year, I highly recommend getting--or keeping--a Harper's Weekly magazine subscription. I can think of no better way of keeping up with what's going on in the nation and the world.

Harper's Magazine is THE read, I think, to know what governments and societies and individuals worldwide are doing or considering. Granted, I don't get or take enough time to read all of it (or of books, for that matter), as I should (right, Michael?), but you can't get enough Harper's.

The second and last recommendation today, of this entry, is that you (whoever you are) get the latest Harper's (January, 2009) and read the "Harper's Index" at the front of the magazine.

The Index is always a good, rather light and brief but important synopsis of what either is going on or has, and this month no less so.

It is "A retropspective of the Bush era" and a knockout. (In a month or so, when it's online, I'll put it out here. It's that good).

It should be instantly considered a "must read" for all Americans: rich, poor, Black, White, Hispanic, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, Conservative, Liberal, Moderate--you name it.

But especially any and all Republicans.

And conservatives.

And anyone who ever voted for George Walker Bush for President.

Once again, we thank you chuckleheads for the travesties of this administration.

And we blame you.

A Change is comin'

You know what? I got to thinking today that I'd write about the lack of sustainability of the way we-mankind-live today. I had written down several salient, pertinent points about the whole thing. How we're basically killing ourselves and wiping out all our resources. It had nothing to do with this being Earth Day, too. It just all came to me and I knew it was true and right.

But then, by the end of the day, I also realized that I'm not educating anyone; I'm not saving anyone--least of all mankind.

Millions of knuckleheads went out and voted for George W. Bush for President, not once but twice, unbelievable and anathema to me as that is. And no one is going to stop doing incredibly stupid stuff like that because of anything I write. Corporations and rich people are going to go on being incredibly selfish, self-centered, greedy and downright ugly and, yes, stupid. Nothing is going to change.

So you know what?

To hell with it.

Yeah. No kidding.

I don't want to be some bitter, old, well-informed fool who tries to go around letting people know what's "right".

I have my opinions and I'll just keep them.

I sent my brother an email with the information from Harper's, below--my earlier entry--on how the President is no doubt the worst one ever.

His response? He wrote back that he didn't want to hear negative things.

Yeah, well, good for him, right?

And that's the way it is with America. They don't want to face that their own brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, friends and soldiers are being killed for them and in their name. They don't wanna hear about Iraq. (It's the 4th highest priority right now, according to polls, in terms of importance, to the American voting public). They don't want to hear about how they need to sell their 8 cylinder automobile and conserve fuel.

They don't want to hear anything that's corrective. Nothing could possibly be wrong with the United States, could there?

Ralph Nader is right about America and corporations but hardly anyone cares.

Understand, this is not a response to my brother's email response. His stance is just typical of America. He's going along.

My response is more a desire on my part to try to just be pleasant and positive and not think or feel that I have to be aware of every problem in the United States--or the world--so I can write about either the wrong, what we should do to correct the wrong, or both.

Screw it.

I'm changing this blog to be one about photography, humor and beauty, if and when I can find it.

No one's looking anyway.

Worst. Ever. (Now official)

TITLE Worst. President. Ever. (from Harper's Magazine: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002804)

DEPARTMENT No Comment
BY Scott Horton

PUBLISHED April 5, 2008

“It would be difficult to identify a President who, facing major international and domestic crises, has failed in both as clearly as President Bush,” concluded one respondent. “His domestic policies,” another noted, “have had the cumulative effect of shoring up a semi-permanent aristocracy of capital that dwarfs the aristocracy of land against which the founding fathers rebelled; of encouraging a mindless retreat from science and rationalism; and of crippling the nation’s economic base.”

America’s historians, it seems, don’t think much of George W. Bush.

Now in all fairness, historians should wait a while before passing judgment on a president’s who served recently, much less one still in office. But the current incumbent is a special case. After all, 81 percent of Americans, according to a recent New York Times poll, believe he’s taken the country on the wrong track. That’s the highest number ever registered. The same poll also says 28 percent have a favorable view of his performance in office, which is also in Nixon-in-the-darkest-days-of-Watergate territory.

But, as George Mason University’s History News Network reports, the historians have a different measure. They want to stack him up against his forty-two predecessors as the nation’s chief executive. Among historians, there is no doubt into which echelon he falls–his competitors are Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Franklin Pierce, the worst of the presidential worst. But does Bush actually come in dead last?

Yes. History News Network’s poll of 109 historians found that 61 percent of them rank Bush as “worst ever” among U.S. presidents. Bush’s key competition comes from Buchanan, apparently, and a further 2 percent of the sample puts Bush right behind Buchanan as runner-up for “worst ever.” 96 percent of the respondents place the Bush presidency in the bottom tier of American presidencies. And was his presidency (it’s a bit wishful to speak of his presidency in the past tense–after all there are several more months left to go) a success or failure? On that score the numbers are still more resounding: 98 percent label it a “failure.”


Historians Rate George W. Bush a “Failure”
This marks a dramatic deterioration for Bush. Previously he wasn’t viewed in the most positive terms, but there was a consensus that he wasn’t the “worst of the worst” either. That was in the spring of 2004. In the meantime, Bush has established himself as the torture president, the basis for his invasion of Iraq has been exposed as a fraud, the Iraq War itself has gone disastrously, the nation’s network of alliances has faded, and the economy has gone into a tailspin–not to mention the bungled handling of relief for victims of hurricane Katrina. In 2004, only 12 percent of historians were ready to place Bush dead last.

Here are some of the comments that the historians furnished:

“No individual president can compare to the second Bush,” wrote one. “Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every henhouse, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world’s goodwill. In short, no other president’s faults have had so deleterious an effect on not only the country but the world at large.”

“With his unprovoked and disastrous war of aggression in Iraq and his monstrous deficits, Bush has set this country on a course that will take decades to correct,” said another historian. “When future historians look back to identify the moment at which the United States began to lose its position of world leadership, they will point—rightly—to the Bush presidency. Thanks to his policies, it is now easy to see America losing out to its competitors in any number of areas: China is rapidly becoming the manufacturing powerhouse of the next century, India the high tech and services leader, and Europe the region with the best quality of life.”