Modern Imperialism in the U.S. of A.

In the face of American imperialism over the past 30 years, many Muslim nations have fallen at the hands of the United States’ oil-greedy, faux-democracy-bearing, righteous, white, bastard politicians. As Taxi to the Dark Side discusses, much of the current “extremist” problem is due to American treatment of the Middle Eastern peoples. However, extreme torture is only a minor facet to this issue. As a documentary, I can understand why the film would only focus on such a narrow topic to capture and persuade audiences. But the problems with American militaristic imperialism reach far beyond torture and far beyond the era of the 2000s. Our influence on these oil rich nations goes back decades. American actions in the late 20^th century, for example, are directly responsible for the rise of religious extremism in the government of Iran today. In a review of author Stephen Kinzer’s Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, Susan Froetschel writes, “In 1953, the CIA overthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh for the British, installing a dictator who had no qualms about welcoming foreign oil firms. That operation galvanized radical fundamentalists, who, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, orchestrated the 1978 revolt, and ‘their example inspired Muslim fanatics around the world.’"  The United States is also directly responsible for the rise of the Taliban – one of our main enemies today. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the US funneled money to insurgents in Pakistan without much direction of the money’s intent. These actions facilitated the birth of the Taliban. Froetschel writes, “ The Pakistanis used the money to build up the Taliban and destroy leftist, nationalist or secular movements. One Afghan warned, ‘For God's sake, you're financing your own assassins.’”

A man heckles Iranians demonstrating for Khomeni in 1980. 

US history is wrought with similar actions all across the globe. Following World War II, these actions reached farther and wider than they had ever before. Using similar tactics as the government uses today to paint Muslims as extremists, the US painted the Soviet Union as a threat to world democracy. I recommend acclaimed writer and activist Noam Chomsky’s book Deterring Democracy if this fact peaks a particular interest. The novel reexamines the Cold War as a catalyst for the rise in the power of the United States in the latter part of 20^th century. Chomsky argues that this new found power allowed America to exploit weaker nations in the name of maintaining national interests.

Our history with the Middle East is the most modern example of this power to which Chomsky alludes. Our exploitation has had serious consequences, however, contributing to the rise of hatred toward America. In an article titled “Obama Moves to Make the War on Terror Permanent,” renown journalist Glenn Greenwald recently wrote, “A primary reason for opposing the acquisition of abusive powers and civil liberties erosions is that they virtually always become permanent, vested not only in current leaders one may love and trust but also future officials who seem more menacing and less benign.” This is the exact pattern we’ve witnessed in the Middle East. The modern “anti-terrorist” campaign is propaganda to fight the very problems America created in the past.

The United States military industrial complex is the greatest threat to human rights in the modern era. For the past decade, the nation has flexed its military strength globally, with an intended focus on the Middle East in particular. America has painted the area as a land of religious extremists with an agenda to take down America. However, this current picture is not the true reality. I urge every reader to question this US government we’ve grown up revering. Realize that our influence on the world is tyrannical and exploitive.

Even our current president, beloved leader of your average middle class democrat, is guilty of serious war crimes and human rights infringements – all in the name of maintaining US power.

The cover of the May/June edition of Adbusters magazine. 

I’ll leave you with two thoughts. If you’d like to become more informed on US militarism and imperialism, these are two very relevant places to begin: the National Defense Authorization Act and drone strikes.

Native American Experiences - The Research Paper Edition

Over the past 200 years, America has seen thousands of treaties and laws passed. This particular history has been highly important and often devastating to the Native American culture. The history of Indians and the American government is wrought with broken agreements, lost land, mass killings, and environmental injustices. However, these treaties aren't supposed to have expiration dates. Could the laws and treaties of past years become prominent today in the fight for Native American lands and for the environment? Author Steven L. Pevar  writes in The Rights of Indians and Tribes, "Regardless of how they seemed then or now, the citizens of this country have legal, moral, and ethical duty to enforce these treaties. Indians paid dearly for their treaty rights, and the United States must keep its end of the bargain." My essay will explore various treaties and laws dealing with Native Americans that have occurred in past two centuries and how they can be applied to modern environmental and social battles within the culture. 

Dear President Obama,

I am an 18-year-old college student at the University of North Carolina-Asheville and I would like a few minutes of your time. The issues you face today are monstrous and you have the incredible responsibility of carrying and maintaining the world’s economic state on your shoulders. While I inherently disagree with the very existence of this responsibility on any one man (as I completely disagree with globalization and the imperialistic endeavors of the United States), I would like to at least encourage you to use your responsibility wisely.

As I’m sure you’re tired of hearing, one of the biggest threats currently facing the United States economy is the debt. President Obama, I want you to take a stand. My future hinges greatly upon which way you will swing the door. This debt was created through years of deregulated mismanagement and corruption on Wall Street and within the banks of America, with whom the federal government continues to have strong ties.  

Your office was born into an era of economic meltdown, a time in which unemployment and foreclosures skyrocketed. And somehow, you were able to evade a complete disaster. Since this time, the economy has somewhat stabilized, but the institutions that led us to meltdown in the first place are still in power and still maintain close ties with the offices in the Washington D.C. This is no solution. Another economic disaster is waiting for us if we continue on this same path.

Author of Living in the End Times, Slavoj Zizek wrote, “We are now entering a period in which a kind of economic state of emergency is becoming permanent, turning into a constant, a way of life. It brings with it the threat of far more savage austerity measures, cuts in benefits, diminishing health and education services and more precarious employment. The left faces the difficult task of emphasizing that we are dealing with political economy –that there is nothing ‘natural’ in such a crisis, that the existing global economic system relies on a series of political decisions.”

President Obama, I beg of you to realize how wisely you must hold this responsibility. You need to take a stand against corruption in the financial system today. If the economy really relies on a series of political decisions, then your role in a new future for America is integral. You must realize and proclaim that this world does not fall and rise at the hands of profit. As Charles Eisenstein writes for Adbusters, “’I wasn’t put here on Earth to sell product.’ ‘I wasn’t put here on Earth to increase market share.’ I wasn’t put here on Earth to make numbers grow.’ We protest not only our exclusion from the American Dream; we protest its bleakness. If it cannot include everyone on Earth, every ecosystem and bioregion, every people and culture in its richness; if the wealth of one must be the debt of another; if it entails sweatshops and underclasses and fracking and all the rest of the ugliness our system has created, then we want none of it.”

President Obama, we need a new dream. The world cannot sustain another economic crisis of the likes of before, literally. This new economy needs to be built for the people and the environment. This new economy needs to be a collective effort. You have the power to make a major change in the way people view economics in this country.  No more empty promises and false hope. Appoint people to office who have the interests of the environment and the people in mind over profit. This will change the face of the economic system and will be what brings prosperity to the planet, to society, to the economy, and to finance. We cannot make the same mistakes and follow the same systems as before.

 As a child of the younger generation, who will reap the effects of your decisions now for the rest of my life, I ask you to take your responsibility as my President and use it for good. No more deception and no more profit-driven decisions. Put Wall Street and the banks into their rightful positions and make mindful decisions about the future of this country.

Sincerely,

Erin Bridges

"At the end of the line, there's someone diggin' their way through my good times"

Ben Sollee - The Wires

good times in brooklyn
at the brewery with my friends.
i like to try those seasonal blends.
the alcohol the laughter,
it's somethin' like a dream.
as the night wears on
the lights stay on,
i lose the comfort of my seat.
in the distance a subtle hum.

oh can you hear the wires?
they're comin through the wires

drivin' up the coast
in a rental car.
on the speaker the preacher's preachin' some hip-hop star,
livin' fast, livin' free
it reminds me of a dream.

but the road is long today,
longer than it used to be.
there's somethin' wrong.
on the speaker's a subtle hum.

oh can you hear the wires?
listen to the wires.
they're comin' through the wires.
listen to the wires.

at the end of the line
there's someone diggin' their way through my good times.
i can see the people callin,
i can see the mountains fallin' for my good times.
oh and i don't want it no more.
i don't want it no more.

hikin' up the creek,
hemlocks hangin' over me.
a swimmin' hole, a tired old rope swing.
the shell banks surround me like a dream.
but the ground it shakes, not so naturally,
my feet are feelin' heavy, this dust is coverin' me.
all this for somethin' as faint as a hum.

can you hear the wires?
they're comin' through the wires.
listen to the wires.
they're comin' through the wires.

This is depressing and I apologize

There’s always talk about the world we’re going to leave our children 10, 20 years from now. The scientists never have anything positive to say about the plight of these future generations. But sometimes I look at the world that’s been given to me in this present reality and I feel like I am the child that’s always being talked about. I feel sold short. I feel I’ve been given a broken earth.

                This broken world is a direct product of the choices of my parents’ generation and the globalized world they produced. I’m angry. I’m so, so angry. I was born into a world driven by profit. Manufactured Landscapes depicted this reality. The images of the film give viewers an intimate look into the barren, ravaged, polluted landscapes of the world, of which the newspapers always talk but we often never see.

A mountaintop removal site in Kentucky, my home. These manufactured landscapes are near to very us. Mountaintop removal is a practice of coal mining in which a mountaintop is literally blown off and the coal below is reclaimed. The practice is devastating the land and culture of my home and of many others in the mountains of Appalachia. The Kentucky House of Representatives recently passed a bill that will strip the EPA and the Office of Surface Mining of their abilities to protect the public and the land from the disastrous effects of mountaintop removal. The Kentucky legislature is in bed with the coal companies responsible, just as the governments of the United States, Russia, China, and many others are in bed with energy companies across the world. It's time for a new world order in which the health of the people and the land are taken into higher priority than money. 

I appreciated this film and every ounce of bias it carried. Its bias is strong and captivating to viewers. I hope that its strength enraptures audience into action for change. I’m so tired of apathy and if a little more bias is all it takes to persuade people into action, then I’m all for it.

I’m only 18 and I’m already fed up with the apathy of the world. I don’t understand why profit should be more powerful than our environments, our interactions, our creative spirits, our lives, our everything. I don’t understand, and I shouldn’t feel like this. I shouldn’t feel like there’s absolutely nothing of significance I can do to reverse the choices that have already been made. You’re saying to yourself, “Wow, Erin’s really pessimistic.” But you’re wrong. You’re just letting yourself forget about the extreme depths of crap that is our current reality. America loves to forget. We all love to forget. But Manufactured Landscapes brings us back to the mindset we all need to be in to save this world: reality.

Optimism of the will, pessimism of the mind. Optimism of the will, pessimism of the mind. Optimism of the will, pessimism of the mind. Optimism of the will, pessimism of the mind. It’s the mantra I live by. It runs through my veins through and through and keeps me sane. I can know that government and corporate interests will strip this world of its own sanity, but I can keep my own by always living counter to their profitable interests. I will work for a more wholesome, mindful planet even if I know I these actions cannot change much. I was born into a manufactured planet. But I will not let this status quo stand. I will fight until the last tree has fallen and the last river has been polluted and the last landscape has been raked of its beauty. And as the old saying goes, “Only then will they realize that money cannot be eaten.” 

Spaces of Mind

My mind is jumbled and lost and a million thoughts whiz through my synapses. I have absolutely no idea what this paper is going to be about. Koyaanisquatsi provoked too many thoughts for me to conceptualize anything.

Two screen shots from Koyaanisqatsi overlayed together. I made this while watching the film.

"My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations," John Green once wrote. God was he right. I've pressed backspace too many times and the words won't come. This screen is too white; where are the words to paint it black? 

I keep returning to the film's visual appeal. I was mesmerized by the natural world Reggio captured and I felt a strange nostalgia creep up my spine every time those clouds flowed past by my eyes in a rush of watery motion. I felt as if I were looking into the eyes of the world, through those deep blue oceans to the soul and the essence of existence. But existence is questionable and I cannot draw anything from the unknown other than more questions and speculation. Maybe this is precisely why I struggle to form concrete conclusions and reflections - because I cannot get past questioning. Reggio, you bastard, this is exactly what you wanted to happen. 

I’m so bothered by my inability to draw conclusions from this film because it felt so enlightening to watch. It felt important, but I have no idea why. Maybe it’s because I was watching the world from above, instead of playing one of its parts below. A word from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows surfaces in my mind when I think of this:

Sonder n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

          
 Koyaanisqatsi portrayed the realization “sonder” describes. No longer was I part of the traffic, but rather, its audience. Coming to this understanding opened my eyes to a dynamic, breathing world. Because we live in an individualistic society, we often think of the world as stagnant and foreign; but this documentary portrayed quite the opposite. We see the universe in constant motion. We watch it grow and decay and wake, but never do we see it rest. We intimately witness the world in its life and in its enormity.

            Sometimes seeing the world so large can trivialize its beauty to insignificance. Koyaanisquatsi portrayed quite the opposite. We see a story in every mountain, every ocean wave, every factory, every city, and every human. There is a story in every shot.

In class today, someone said it's unrealistic to believe humans are born from fire and air and the elements, that we are only protons, neutrons, and electrons. I was bothered by this statement. This idea strips the earth from its beauty. The mountains are magic, human interaction is magic. Love, hate, song, pleasure, sadness. These are all magic. And even though we are chemical, mechanical creatures, we are still able to feel, and this is the essence of life. That is why I love the painting below by Alex Gray so much - because it depicts the human existence so poignantly. 

I could not remove this image from my mind all throughout class today. I see people and nature as fascinating, creative, insightful, thought-provoking, and beautifully unbalanced. I may not know if you or I exist, but I take comfort in believing we do. And I think of the hundreds of thoughts I took away from the film, this is what Koyaanisqatsi reiterated to me the most. 

Philip Glass.

You are pretty but you make me sleepy.