Saturday, September 12, 2015

America - Land of Opportunity ??? Land of the Free ???

Mohamed said, "Mankind is one community."

Moses conveyed the idea, "Thou shall not covet that which is thy neighbor's."

Confucius said, "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."

John 8:32, "The truth shall make you free."

The Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal."

     Men saw freedom within America and turned their faces to it.  For what?  Anti-gay, anti-minority, discrimination, religious persecution, sexism, chauvinism.  
     The quote scripted on the Statue of Liberty hints that things will get better...



     It's merely advertising.  It doesn't actually say that the immigrants will get a better life.  Just a faint twinkle.  Thus, it's only an advertising campaign to lure cheap labor into the grinding machines of America's Industrial Revolution and support profiteers.  The same kind of advertising campaign got people to settle the colonies, and to settle the Western Frontier, and to dig for gold in California and Alaska.  (At least it seemed a tad nicer than the slave labor used for cotton  reaping and diamond mines).  
     Maybe the robber-barons and "captains of industry" calculated that if immigrants survived and propagated, they'd produce "cells of batteries of consumers" who will blindly pay for future corporate growth.  Even today, corporations (that avoid paying taxes) prompt the government more than the taxpayers do.  
     The immigrants (legal, smuggled and trafficked) came, like the characters in Sinclair's The Jungle.  They were funneled into sweatshops, extremely long work weeks, child labor in factories, coal mines, iron foundries, Bessemer furnaces, glassworks, laying railroad tracks, cutting down forests, farming the Dustbowl, blasting tunnels, building damns, picking cotton, digging canals & oilfields, and welding skyscrapers.  They got murdered by uncaringly insufficient safety standards.  They got shot by company owners for demanding better conditions/rights.  They were treated as disposable parts.
    In NYC, they were boxed into disgusting tenement housing, lorded over by "slum landlords".  Slum landlords are still allowed to exist in modern NYC, and they consider it cheaper to pay occasional "violation fines" than renovate their buildings.  Such is the way city gov't condones their behavior.


     Yes, America was a melting pot.  One of sweat, blood and tears... while all of the "lured participants" from other countries...



...lost their family name (thanks to uncaring immigration officials who altered them), and many had family members killed at work.  
































Nobody should be surprised from a hypocritical country (so-called Republic) that exploited and eradicated the Native American Indians and its imported slaves.  TV shows like HBO's Deadwood and The Newsroom showcase our history.


     Nowadays, society romanticizes it in musicals like "Newsies" (which was a great show, btw, above).  We may fondly recall how women and minorities were finally given equal jobs, during WWII... 


even if nobody recalls that the 1930s "New Deal" progressive workers rights were repealed during WWII.  And never put back.  (Essentially, "Big Business" demand their repeal, in exchange for increasing productivity towards the war effort). 
    Look at modern-day subsidized schemes that prop up the Fanjul brothers' Sugar business in America.  (I met Pepe at a party).  They use what CNN called "slave labor"--which they underpay at the last minute anyway, claiming that the workers still earn more than in their homeland.  Look into it, and you'll be amazed that your taxes guarantee that all their overpriced surplus sugar is paid for by your voted politicians.  While other food subsidies have been removed, theirs stays in place.  And while other sugar producers are required to pay for the cleanup of the pollution they've caused to the Palisades, the rich Fanjuls offered to pay a tiny fraction.  Your tax dollars will be diverted to pay for the rest... which your tax dollars helped cause in the first place.  Did you authorize your elected officials to create this scheme?  After all, politicians are YOUR representatives.  Who said we have "taxation without representation"?  Well, they were right.
    Also nowadays, American citizens--along with new (legal and trafficked) immigrants are "milked" for surcharges, electric bills, tolls, finance charges, late fees, excessive taxes, exploding costs of living, rising tuition, loan interest rates, and the loss of retirement funds and investments via entities like Enron, Madoff and innumerable others.  Our forefathers fought against taxation without representation, yet the situation has returned.
     Even today, so many Americans are fighting for their rights and to be treated fairly, without discrimination.




Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty or give me death."

The Declaration of Independence: "All men are entitled to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness."  

Seemingly, the federal rules offer entitlement to a few.  They love it:



     A century later, you can compare America...      
Outsiders still know that Americans get stuck being ground into smithereens at work.  Only Tokyo has a harsher culture.  The Japanese even have a name for when overworked exhaustion kills someone: Karōshi.  (At least the rest of Japan is more peaceful and even-balanced... unlike the USA).
     Americans get the least paid vacation time in the world.  U.S. workers are legally entitled to no paid vacation, although many get 10 days.  Compared to 64 other countries, Americans are overworked.  Brazilians get 30 paid days, plus 11 national holidays.  The United Kingdom mandates 28 days, including public holidays.  The standard in Europe is 25 days.  France is famous for its 30 paid days (most businesses close during summer) and the lowest hourly work week.  India mandates 12 days, but with public holidays, it equals 28.  China also gives 10 days off (21, including public holidays).  Considering how productive America was, after WWII, its amazing how Americans have gotten ground down again, now overworked, overcharged, and under-compensated.  Ever talk to citizens of other countries?  
    Trafficked illegal aliens suffer more.  Through America's feeble Border Patrols and Customs, they funnel in.  Despite so many tax-paid anti-crime organizations (the CIA is not tax paid) and military prowess, it continues.  Your taxes support the special investigative units, Secret Service, FBI, NSA, military intelligence, satellite imaging, INSCOM, MIRC,  military surveillance brigades, National Guard, Coast Guard, US Army Cyber Command, military Special Reaction teams, Homeland Sec, Immigration Dept, Justice Dept, ATF, DEA, US Marshals, State Troopers, Highway Patrol, and local police.  Rifle-holding soldiers "guard" NYC's train stations, as illegal aliens scoot past them... just like Prohibition-era speakeasies operated notoriously under the noses of authorities.  Migrants are funneled to forced labor, domestic/agricultural/mining servitude, the practice of begging, sex tourism exploitation, child pornography, illegal adoptions, the sale of human organs, and organized crime.
    The international OAS (Organization of American States) is supposed to stand up for human rights.  “Trafficking victims and survivors are criminalized instead of being provided with the services and assistance they need,” Commissioner Felipe González said, “We don’t see significant increases in investigations and convictions for the crime of people trafficking, even though this is an extremely serious violation of the most basic human rights.”  
     Consider the lyrics from the 1928 Broadway musical, "Showboat":
You and me, we sweat and strain
Body all aching and wracked with pain,
Tote that barge! Lift that bale!
Get a little drunk and you land in jail

I get weary and sick of trying
I'm tired of living and scared of dying
But ol' man river
He just keeps rolling along

Niggers all work on the Mississippi
Niggers all work while the white folks play
Pulling those boats from the dawn to sunset

Getting no rest till the judgement day...


     Even as the pope's visit to NYC approaches, in a few days, the city's citizenry questioned the money appropriated by the Church.  NYC's Cardinal Dolan saw the sensitivity of lavishing $177 million on his cathedral (ready in time for the pope's "appearance" during a mere Evening Vespers), while the Archdiocese closes schools and churches around the city.  He replied, "When we have a a renewed, restored, repaired St. Patrick's Cathedral, we're going to be more effectively able to preach the message of service to the poor."  Hmmm.
     [This was spoken from a man who got fame by hiding Catholic Church monies ($57 million) in St. Louis, so they couldn't be taken during lawsuits from families whose boys were molested by priests].
     
James Otis said, "Men are free-born."

Thomas Jefferson, "It is the right of the people to alter or abolish government and to institute a new one."

      *Incidentally, all the aforementioned quotes are from War Information films, created by the U.S. War Department's Army Pictorial Service.  They were used to bolster morale for higher productivity and self-sacrifice.  
     The same slogans are used for the same purposes, time and again.  It's a shame that it's not a two-way street of reciprocation and appreciation.

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