You know the first line of the Marine Corps Hymn, ends with "to the shores of Tripoli" So, why, exactly, was Tripoli so important? Well, since American Capitalism was and still is heavily dependent on goods and services produced by Slavery, an important slave-shipping region like the Barbary Coast (North Africa from western Egypt to the Gibraltar Straits) was the "Raw Material" source for American, British and French Capitalism. Slaves. Human cargo. The Bush family and the Harvard trust and the Yale trust got simultaneously Fantastically Wealthy through the 'necessary evil'. Capital can only work if the Richest make other HUMAN BEINGS poorer. The "rising tide lifts all boats" bullshit is simply that. In a system of finite resources, and there is no resource which isn't... the Rich can only gain and maintain their wealth at the expense of everybody else. Just as with Roman Capitalism, the foundation of that wealth has to come from conquest. The "free" market = the Slave Market. The Barbary Pirates as they're usually called in American History also made huge amounts of money selling captive Africans to White European-stock Americans like Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson. Those who didn't own slaves, benefited by transporting, selling and providing the "seed money" Capital to the Slave Industry. They rode the whip-shredded backs of African slaves to "freedom" and wealth. For a short while the Barbary Coast slave traders worked it in both directions. Not that the American and British and French "christian" Slavers were averse to white people being enslaved, heck no. They had plenty of white slaves themselves, just held in bond through chains of debt. Get the Suckers to believe that if they work really hard for really low wages and then turn around and re-invest part of their meager fortune into the Corporations of Their Masters, like a 401-k plan, and they too might become wealthy. It was a lie then and a lie now. But the "pirates" perhaps by mistake sold some of the Aristocrats into slavery. OOPS. So, the Marines were sent in. Actually, the Marines lost. It would be considered humiliating, if they couldn't spin it somehow. While they were busily trying to arrange a coup-d'etat, which failed, The "pirates" renegotiated their supply contract with the American envoys, with a clause that they should refrain from taking White Aristocrats as slaves. So the Marines, to save face, have to say that their machinations, which failed, and cost Marine lives, must have frightened the "pirates" into compliance. When instead it was just (slave) business as usual. A miscommunication between divisions of essentially the Same Corporate Entity. Nothing to see here, SLAVE Citizen, keep moving, get the Hell back to work, nothing to see...
Tag: Original Intent
The Census and Original Intent of the Founding Aristocrats
Since we have a lot of loudmouth Know-it-all know-nothings running their collective head, in chorus, paid by the richest men in America to cement the notion of an American Aristocracy based on personal wealth, Who tell us every hour of every day that they, and ONLY They, know the original intent of a group of arbitrarily assigned White Aristocrats they call the "Founding Fathers", a group which includes up to ... actually less than, 100 of the richest men in America. Out of the 3,929,326 MEN and only MEN counted in the first census in 1790. Never mind that even the very tiny INSIGNIFICANT representative sample they define as the "Founding Fathers" never unanimously agreed on any single issue, and that John Adams, one of the Richest of the bunch, granted himself arbitrary powers in a definition of the Sedition Acts to jail people who disagreed with his personal agenda. Or that there wasn't a Majority Consensus on the Bill of Rights, which wasn't included in the Original Constitution. Or that of those 3,929,326 MEN more than half weren't allowed to VOTE for who got to represent them... No Taxation without representation? How about "No REPRESENTATIVE DICTATORSHIP without Representation"? Their "original intent" is considered irrelevant by the Pompous Ass Pseudo-Intellectuals who are trying to force their Elitist (just not actually "elite") agenda on the rest of us. What of the OTHERS who had to bear the burdens of the conflicted and contradictory mandates from the Tiny Minority Even Of The Landed Aristocracy who are arbitrarily assigned the title "Founding Fathers" but not only weren't given the Vote, they weren't even COUNTED. Women, Children, Bonded (slavery through debt) and people Born Slaves weren't counted. Nor were the Native Americans in the territories claimed by the White Aristocratic Tiny Minority. Actually, slaves were counted as "Property" not as human population. Wonderful group of Role Models you Right Wing Extremists have there. In 1860 American Indians were counted, but only those who had "renounced" tribal affiliations, and of course, the sovereignty CONSTITUTIONALLY defined by Treaty (Article VI) which was recognized on paper but virtually never at gunpoint. Nor were these Americans who had given up their tribal rights accorded any citizenship rights until 1911, more than a half century later. The United States in 1790 consisted of the 13 original states and the territories that later became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. Notice that save for Maine and Vermont, (two French words actually) the other territories have American Indian names. There's a reason for that. Actually "Indiana" was designated as an entirely Indian territory, hence the name. Then number of American Indians IN WHAT WAS THE UNITED STATES at the time was far greater than the number of those Americans counted as "citizens" and a HUGE difference between their population and the fewer than 100 Rich Bitches who are said to be the Last and Only deciders of American Law. So, are we to join their Rush to turn
Tennessee Fire-Non-Fighters and the Bible
The language used by the fire-non-fighter is heavily ingrained indoctrination. There's a movement with some familiar names on the letterheads, spokesfreaks not leaders, Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly, Malkin... people whose ambitions are to create an American Sha'ariah based on their own interpretation of the Word. Or more importantly how the words of the Word get translated into English. They believe that somehow King James was a Liberal. Rather than the really vicious killer he was, and point to speculations on his sexuality, which really doesn't make three quarters of a fat rats ass. The dude was a killer, that trumps any other social or moral consideration you could think of. But the contention is that the Shakespearian English, and they toss in the "Shakespeare was queer, you know" wink wink nudge nudge low-flying canard as evidence, used in the KJV 1611 was "effeminate". Oh, he's a lumberjack, he's okay. (so gay?) And they're actually Re-Writing the Bible to reflect what they think it should be. Nothing new there. Even by their own admission. Many of them cite the "Thou shalt not Kill" commandment, saying that "They" meaning, not the person speaking who is as ignorant of who "They" are as he is of the actual grammatical structure of Classical Hebrew, BUT "They" Apocryphally proved that it really should have said "Thou shalt not Murder" and thus place a distinction among the concepts of Killings not authorized by the King-du-jour and those which are authorized. AND then make the silly ass demand that WE, the "peasants", never question "Their" word on it. Does Hannity or Malkin or Beck or Jack van Impe or any single one of their Demented Demonic Disciples actually speak Classical Hebrew fluently? I've never met one who does and I've been in fundamentalist churches all my life. The same way the Lying Freaks say that They, and only They, can possibly know the Original Intent of the "Founding Fathers" who just by a coincidence aren't the ones who actually FOUGHT the revolution, but those Wealthy Landed Aristocrats who commanded it. And the sources of their Arcane-yet-Unquestionable Knowledge of the Constitution are the sources of the Religious Revisionists. Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich are also in their sorry lying ChickenHawk lot. But they're going to, just like the Fire-Non-Fighter, claim that somehow They have been given the revelation that Thou Shalt Not Kill is a grammatical error in a language none of Them even speaks. Apparently the concept has been sold to more than a few individuals. And it's Mighty Convenient if those who seek to rule over everybody else offer up their version of the Word of God as being the unquestionable basis of their so-called "Authority". God Himself hath verily told us through secret Revelation that we of course are not obligated to prove in any way, that YOU must bow down before us, and accept our Mighty Rule as surely as you would His, without question or dissent Nothing new there either. The contention against "bad" kings as opposed to