In his essay collection, The
American Presidency, Gore Vidal reveals some interesting
facts about the American plutocracy and its "Chiefs of
State," facts you won't find in your typical high-school/college
American "history" textbook. Here are just a few, with
added commentary:
The
Constitutional Convention was actually a meeting
of landowners frantic to prevent both monarchy and true
democracy. Instead, they established something they could
all agree on, writes Vidal: "the best sort of government
for white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men of property to do
business."
George Washington,
the Father of Our Country, acquired "his fortune in the
most honest way," Vidal quips, "by marrying it."
Of course the real source
George and Martha's fortune was their slaves' misfortune.
The Washingtons, Jeffersons and the rest of the American
plutocracy built their luxurious lifestyles with the blood,
sweat and tears of African people.
America's first slave-owning President was also America's
first millionaire.
Andrew Jackson broke
93 treaties with Indian tribes during his two terms
in office. (Great White Mafia Godfather speak with Major
Forked Tongue!)
The reason is simple: land is wealth. (Hey thar, pardner,
we cain't jes leeve all thet thar welth to a bunch o'
unsivilyzed savigez now, kin we?)
Lincoln became
a bona-fide dictator during the Civil War. He shut down
newspapers, suspended habeas corpus, defied the Supreme
Court — all in the name of "military necessity."
He also levied troops without consulting Congress —
or the troops, for that matter.
The Civil War was the
time of America's first military draft. Working-class
men actually rioted against the draft in New York City.
All to no avail. Go to war or go to prison — them's
yer choices in "the land of the free." (And home of the
knave.)
Rich knaves, however, had another option.
Men belonging to the
wealthy ruling class, and their sons, could openly and
legally buy their way out of the draft. The father of
racist, rabid war-monger Teddy Roosevelt was one of these
hypocrites.
While the sons of poor
men were dying in bloody, butchered agony in places like
Shiloh and Gettysburg, the sons of rich men were going
to parties and competing in boat races between Harvard
and Yale.
A privileged plutocracy
ruled America then — just as it does now. People
like George W. Bush never have to go to places like Vietnam.
Their fathers are too rich and powerful.
In the 1860s, the propaganda
used by the Northern ruling class to convince thousands
of working-class men to die horribly consisted of fine-sounding
ideas like "Freeing the Slaves," "God's Will," "His Truth
Is Marching On" and "Preserving The Union." Aside from
a tiny minority of Abolitionists, however, the Northern
elite didn't want to free the slaves any more than their
Southern counterparts did. Nor did they honestly give
a hoot about things like "God's Will."
What the Northern ruling
class actually cared about, of course, was money and power.
Therefore they really did want to preserve "the Union."
A United States — under their control —
would be far more profitable than a divided nation in
which they would have to compete economically with a "Confederate
States of America."
The propaganda spun by
all ruling classes will always be some deceitful concoction
which covers up their only true motivation — private
wealth and power. Today we see the plutocratic hypocrites
of America, the world's greatest terrorist nation, rapidly
dispensing with all pretence of democracy under the guise
of "fighting terrorism."
Before that the U.S. Corporate Mafia Government claimed
it was "protecting" us from crime. And before that the
genocidal capitalists claimed they were "protecting" us
from communism. New times will always bring new excuses
for the same old plutocratic tyranny. They, or rather
the whoring PR flacks in their employ, will always dream
up some excuse, something the psychologists they also
employ tell them the masses will fall for. And it will
always be some sugar-coated version of: "It's For Your
Own Good."
In 1898 the U.S. went
to war with Spain, taking over the Philippines, which
was seized with the aid of nationalist guerrillas to whom
we promised independence. But, writes Vidal:
"President William
McKinley decided we ought to keep the Philippines
in order to Christianize the natives. When reminded
that Filipinos were already Roman Catholic, the president
responded, 'Exactly.'
"So
we betrayed the nationalists and began our own conquest."
Mark Twain saluted
the resulting genocide
of 200,000 men, women and children writes Vidal,
"by suggesting that we replace the stars and stripes in
our flag with the skull and crossbones."
A fine suggestion indeed, and just as appropriate today.
When Colombia refused
to give Theodore Roosevelt the land America wanted
for a canal, Teddy engineered a rebellion in the section
he wanted, and then, writes Vidal, "recognized the result
as the new 'free' Republic of Panama and dug his ditch."
Pretty neat, huh? Nothing
beats "good ol' American know-how."
Teddy Roosevelt, by the
way, was truly a man of his times — an openly racist
demagogue. It's quite fitting, therefore, that ol' TR's
favorite expression of enthusiasm was to say "Bully!"
In his day, "Bully!" meant the same as "Great!," "Wonderful!,"
or "Cool!" That pretty much says it all about the grossly
perverted American "morality" of the turn of the century.
It was "great" in America to be a racist bully. It was
"cool" in America to be a racist bully.
And for all the social dinosaurs in America today, it
still is.
After World War II, Franklin
Roosevelt seized on the opportunity afforded by the
devastation of Europe to command the former colonial powers
of England, France and Holland to give up their empires,
allowing them to adhere, Vidal writes, "like metal filings
to the American magnet."
And to this day America's NATO "allies" continue to kneel
before their American Master like the cowardly, venal
whores they are.
And now, a word on the Brave New World Order of
2003:
George W. Bush
has the gilded distinction of being the first President
in the history of the United States to openly steal an
election. And the poor guy can hardly read.
What fun; another four
years, another Bush-league chief executive. Naturally
he couldn't have done it without a whole lotta help from
his friends. Particularly the five closet-fascist Injustices
of the U.S. Supreme Court who stopped the vote count in
Florida and ruled that the majority of American people
have no right to elect the American President.
In spite of such dubious
favors, however, one gets the definite feeling that ol'
Gee Dubbya would be a lot more comfortable just drinkin'
whiskey and playin' golf with his millionaire friends
instead of trying to sound intelligent in front of news
cameras. But darn it, dear old Dad insisted he do this
Presidential thing, and now Gee Dub is just gonna have
to fake it the next few years. Of course, he'll have plenty
of help with that too.
Besides, just because
incurious George got himself miselected Commandeer-in-Chief
doesn't mean the party's over. After all, cocaine is plentiful
indeed to people as closely connected with the CIA as
the Bushes have been from the beginning in '47. And residency
in the White House has never been a hindrance to any sort
of criminal behavior before, so a hearty cocaine habit
won't present any problems now.
But regardless of how
Gee Dubbya occupies his time in High Office, the Bush
regime represents Big Oil, Wall Street and the State of
Israel, and those are the only people they'll answer to.
The majority of American people certainly don't count,
not even at election time.
Big Oil is a big part
of the real reason the unelected Bush regime unleashed
its military dogs on the civilian
people of Afghanistan. The so-called "war on terrorism"
is a total sham, nothing but a cover for the U.S. government's
geopolitical strategy. Control of Caspian Sea oil has
been planned for a long time, and a pipeline from the
Caspian Sea basin has to run through Afghanistan in order
to get the oil out.
Most importantly of all, the control of Caspian Sea oil
— and central Asia in general — will give the
American Empire a fatal military/economic advantage over
Europe and China.
Here's a prescient quote from what was the Foreword (mysteriously
removed; by the publisher?) to Gore Vidal's latest essay
collection, The Last Empire:
"I am writing this
note a dozen days before the Inauguration of the loser
of the year 2000 presidential election. Lost republic
as well as last empire.
"We are now faced with
a Japanese seventeenth-century-style arrangement: a
powerless Mikado ruled by a shogun vice president and
his Pentagon warrior counselors. Do they dream, as did
the shoguns of yore, of the conquest of China? We shall
know more soon, I should think, than late. Sayonara."
— Gore Vidal
11 January 2001
Excerpt from The Last Empire:
"Shredding the Bill of Rights"
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/v/01vida.html
See also The Exceedingly
Strange Case of George W. Bush, for a good collection
of amusing quotes from this semi-literate prodigal son.
The Gee Dubbya page also contains an interesting bibliography
which reveals the sordid history of the Bush dynasty.
“...for the first
time in its history, Western Civilization is in danger
of being destroyed internally by a corrupt, criminal
ruling cabal which is centered around the Rockefeller
interests, which include elements from the Morgan, Brown,
Rothschild, Du Pont, Harriman, Kuhn-Loeb, and other
groupings as well. This junta took control of the political,
financial, and cultural life of America in the first
two decades of the twentieth century.
“The Bush family,
beginning with Prescott Bush, have served as satraps
of the Rockefeller, Brown, and Harriman interests. President
Bush is simply a puppet of this powerful cabal, and
their schemes will be carried out by whatever next president
comes to power unless we the people can deflect them
from this insane, murderous plot for global dominance.”
— Dr. Norman
Livergood
“The World Dominance Plot”
http://www.hermes-press.com/domplot.htm
Related books
The Decline and
Fall of the American Empire
by Gore Vidal
The American Presidency
by Gore Vidal
A People’s
History of the United States:
1492 — Present
by Howard Zinn
Lies My Teacher Told
Me:
Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
by James Loewen
Dumbing
Us Down:
The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
by John Taylor Gatto
The Decision
to Use the Atomic Bomb
by Gar Alperovitz
Democracy for the Few
by Michael Parenti
Market Elections:
How “Democracy” Serves the Rich
by Vince Copeland
Corporate Predators:
The Hunt for Mega-Profits and the Attack on Democracy
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
What Uncle Sam Really
Wants
by Noam Chomsky
Rogue State:
A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
by William Blum
Killing Hope:
U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since WWII
by William Blum
The Beast
Reawakens
by Martin A. Lee
Blackshirts
and Reds:
Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
by Michael Parenti
The Sword and the
Dollar:
Imperialism, Revolution and the Arms Race
by Michael Parenti
Western
State Terrorism
Alexander George, editor; essays by Noam Chomsky,
Edward S. Herman, Gerry O’Sullivan and others
Terrorizing
the Neighborhood:
American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era
by Noam Chomsky
Pressure Drop Press, 1991
Pirates and Emperors,
Old and New:
International Terrorism in the Real World
by Noam Chomsky
The Culture of
Terrorism
by Noam Chomsky
Apocalypse
1945:
The Destruction of Dresden
by David Irving
The Habits of
Highly Deceptive Media:
Decoding Spin and Lies in Mainstream News
by Norman Solomon
War, Lies
& Videotape:
How media monopoly stifles truth
edited by Lenora Foerstel; multiple authors
Toxic
Sludge is Good for You!:
Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry
by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton
from
http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/plutocracy/PlutocraticPresidency.html
