What Makes America, America?

What Makes America, America?

Hi! Happy Monday!

Just a reminder, this blog is not about punditry, but solutions. When this country was founded the expressed goal of the founders was to make a country morally superior to Great Britain. Two popular slogans of the American Revolution were "Don't Tread On Me" and "No Taxation Without Representation." George Washington was asked why he refused to torture British prisoners. His answer? He wanted to build a country that he would feel good to live in, he wanted to build a better country.

Here are some choices for answering what makes America, America:

1. Technical Superiority
2. Military Superiority
3. Trade Superiority
4. Moral Superiority
5. Land Superiority

To be clear the categories include things like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness being under moral superiority. The founders believed first and foremost that moral superiority to British tyranny was number one, followed closely by trade and land superiority. Religious liberty goes under moral superiority and so on.

The U.S. dropped atomic bombs in WWII and this single act added technical superiority and military superiority to the list.

When I answer the question what makes America, America then I think of Washington sacrificing any intelligence that would save his own life and all those involved in the war by refusing to torture prisoners even before the U.S. Constitution codified this into law. I also give this credit understanding Washington was a slave owner. It is kinda hard to claim moral superiority owning slaves. The principle stands. What makes America, America is the desire for moral superiority. When Washington was asked about his position on ending slavery his reply was that now was not the time. Washington said it would take many generations for slavery to die out and further Washington said that letting slavery end on its own accord was the correct approach, otherwise too many people would die.  However, for all that the financial coward couldn't bring himself to free his slaves in his own life, but instead dumped that on his wife. So pardon me if I find his position more than a little too convenient and self-serving.

Still, I'm with Washington when it comes to what makes America, America: I want to live in a country that is morally superior to tyranny and oppression first and foremost. This is not to say the Land and Trade superiority were not pivotal as motives for those conducting the war. What I am saying is that "Give Me Land Or Give Me Death" was not the rallying cry. Liberty was the one ring to rule them all.

What Makes America, America for you?

I thought about what makes America, America yesterday. Yesterday the U.S. President celebrated killing a terrorist leader on the same day that was a remembrance day for a mass shooting in a synagogue killing twenty-seven people. The President reported that we not only killed the terrorist leader, but his two wives along with three children were killed as well.

Is that America? For you? Killing women and children? If the police chased a terrorist on U.S. soil and this resulted in his two wives and three children being killed would this be America? to you?

The President wanted to release the video of the killing so as to teach the terrorists a lesson. How is this different than the terrorists showing us videos of throwing homosexuals off of buildings or beheading journalists?

Is it just a numbers game of five innocent collateral damage of wives and children versus twenty-seven church goers? Is it just the land superiority where we would never allow this on U.S. soil? or would we?

Where is the media in all of this? Why isn't the media at least debating the ethics and morality of collateral damage? Isn't that the job of the fourth estate?

Journalism does have a long history in this country of exposing moral atrocities committed by the U.S. And yet now we don't even bring up the topic?

For example, let's recall the fire bombing of Dresden and Tokyo during the "good" war, WWII. Kurt Vonnegut in his book, "Slaughter House Five",  writes about journalism that exposed an American P.O.W. camp was bombed. U.S. soldiers were killed. Outrage? If I remember correctly the reporting was such that the official American position is that the U.S. had no knowledge of this P.O.W. camp but subsequent reporting contradicted that.

Killing our own American soldiers was the source of outrage. This moral outrage did not apply to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman always defended his dropping those bombs because at that time fifty American soldiers per day were dying in the Pacific theater. I ask you is that morally superior when hundreds-of-thousands of Japanese were killed...and even more were killed in the fire bombings?

Sam Alito is a current U.S. Supreme Court Justice. The summer before he took office Alito said he taught a summer session at Harvard with a purpose to define the word terrorist where that definition did not include the U.S. He said they could not because of the bombings in WWII; you know the "good" war. I mean we have the moral authority to teach those terrorists that terrorism can't win a "good" war, right?


The Vietnam War stands out because America asked itself what American meant. Journalists reported on the deliberate killing of women and children by U.S. Soldiers. This reporting is the basis for Vietnam Vets having been spit on and shunned when they came home. What was America's, American response? Was our response to proclaim that killing women and children was off limits or was America's American response to forbid journalists to go into war zones except where escorted by the military?

The current President made good on his campaign promise that not only would he kill the terrorists, but also their families. He killed the wives. Yea.

George W. Bush shredded the identity of America previously defined. Bush redefined legally the concept P.O.W. as "enemy combatants" so as to get around the Geneva Conventions treatment of P.O.W.s. Most notably this included water boarding and removal of habeas corpus, both prohibited by the U.S. Constitution itself. I guess as long as we waterboard and suspend habeas corpus on foreign soil that is just fine because it is not happening on our land - land superiority, yeah. Then there is the Patriot Act and the introduction to the American vernacular the word, "collateral damage", for killing civilians. The U.S. bombed multiple wedding parties where there were no terrorists under Bush. Our response? "Oops! I did it again!" Seriously? A journalist looked into why. Turns out the U.S. was paying upwards of twenty-thousand dollars for intelligence. Who wouldn't want twenty-thousand dollars? How did they verify that intelligence? Bombing weddings ensued.  

What Makes America, America for you?

The press today does have a few moments of conscious. Two such examples that come to mind are first the drone assassination attacks during the Obama administration. Journalists reported that the son of the terrorist was killed as well the son was known to be in the room. The son's killing was no mistake but deliberate. Is that America, deliberate family killing? Another example is reporting on bus load of children in Yemen killed with American weapons used by Saudi Arabia. What I find confusing about that is that of all the hundreds of thousands of people killed in Yemen by Saudi's using American weapons then why just this bus? More children have died than that?

We have no conscious today.

We have no conscious today. The journalists today have no America-awareness that two wives and three children being killed in pursuit of a terrorist should be cause for concern. The journalists today are not asking if the President's campaign promise of killing terrorist family members factored into killing the wives.

The journalists today are not questioning the facts the President lay claim even though he's a proven liar. I have questions. Is there a a forensic DNA test that can verify within fifteen minutes on the battlefield? Why would someone set on suicide run away with a heavy vest on just to blow themselves up in a tunnel? Why? Just blow yourself up where you are? Here's a thought: it wasn't him. Terrorists have being using body-doubles since at least Saddam Hussein and Saddam didn't have a beard. Saddam's double looked damn close. My version is the terrorist leader sent his double and three of his children to run one way while he slipped out the back. Prove me wrong. My point here is not my theory, but rather why aren't journalists fact checking someone they believe to be a wanton liar? Is that America?

We had a day of remembrance for people killed in a terrorist act on the same day the President celebrated killing a terrorist that resulted in the deaths of two wives and three kids. Where is our self-awareness?

America is failed.

This is not a blog about punditry, but solutions. War is just one domain where American Democratic ideals have died. George Washington would have never waterboarded his war prisoners. The stakes were much higher for him personally and those who depended on him. America's stated identity of moral superiority has washed away. The current President wants to show the video of the terrorist killing to teach terrorists a lesson. This is the same motivation behind the terrorists showing us beheading videos. I ask you, what's the difference?

What makes America, America? Is it our U.S. Constitution or rather the ideals used to fight for the creation of that constitution? The ideals that included first and foremost a moral superiority to tyranny and oppression, to using the ends justifying the means?

Irreni World Scale is a political solution that is founded on the ideals that founded this country, not the U.S. Constitution. Irreni World Scale is designed to constantly improve morality and to constantly demand we be better. The founders believed Democracy was the ideal form of government for constant moral improvement. They were wrong. We need to admit this and replace our Democracy with Irreni World Scale. We need to do so gradually, however, and not with revolution. The Irreni World Scale design requires two-hundred years to implement.

What makes America, America? Is it the ideals that motivated a revolution that culminated in the U.S. Constitution or, to paraphrase Mark Twain, loyalty to a petrified document that has run its course of being effective at breaking a chain and freeing someone from oppression?

Shout Out To Journalism

I'd like to give a shout-out to journalism. Journalism has taken big hits these last thirty years. I'd like to give them a shout-out though because the failure of journalism to be America's conscious is nothing compared to that of religion. Religion is evil. Where is religion's moralizing in all this? The religious in this country have always been its biggest faction supporting warmongers. The religious are certainly not batting an eyelash regarding the killing of two wives and three children on the same day there is a remembrance of killing in a place of religious worship. Journalism, not religion, has exposed all the un-American atrocities going on a century now with minor exceptions like Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. But lets get real, he wouldn't have accomplished what he did but with the help of journalism. Journalism supported MLK. The religious right in this country are a bloodthirsty lot and those religious who are opposed to the religious right are complicit by being quiet as a church mouse. It is only journalists who have had the courage to speak truth to power and religion today. The religious won't hold their own to account. F off religion. For that all religion can be labeled evil and can be told straight away to sod off. You can f off religious people and well met journalists even if journalists have been failing since the advent of the Internet; religion has been failing as a moral conscious since Prohibition.



Cheers!

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Well come! and well met!