It’s All Connected: Imperial Colonization 3.0
Happy Independence Day, Republica Dominicana!
As I listened to commentators on WNYC (National Public Radio in NYC) lament the consequences of closing USAID around the world (children not getting clean water and/or dying of HIV, mothers not getting prenatal care, war-torn regions not getting any food), I had an Aha! moment: I understood WHY the trumpons did it and how it was all connected. The new era has arrived, Imperial Colonization 3.0.
Humanity was born in Africa, we all know that. Not everyone knows that the first human skulls were found in the Savanna of the Masaai tribes, what’s now Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. I was there last July with my 18-year-old daughter.
Humans dispersed over to the Middle East, Europe and Asia. The tribes that crossed over to the Americas from Russian steppes became the Native Americans. The Jews, expelled from the Middle East (Judea) settled in Egypt and Southern/Eastern/Western Europe. When the Spanish Jews were pushed out again, America was “discovered” by Christopher Columbus (a Jew from Seville) as he was looking for yet another territory to flee to. Enter the North and South America, as well as the Caribbean being settled by Spaniards. Add the British and the French entering the race and colonizing parts of the same lands.
The Russians were not quite as successful in their North American ambitions. They did claim Alaska, but failed to stake out in Fort Ross in California (where Russian River valley remains). And they grabbed the entire swath of Siberia such that to this day Russia has eight time zones and the largest amount of land for one country.
All of those empires ware “successful” in slavery. The Western Europeans enslaved the tribes of Africa while the Russians enslaved their own, it was called serfdom. Remarkably, both slavery in the U.S. and serfdom in Russia were abolished practically at the same time, independently: February of 1861 in Russia, December 1865 in the U.S. However, the Imperial ambitions never died; they evolved, transformed and flourished.
The Nazi Germany’s invasion of Europe during WWII is still remembered, with its horrors of concentration camps, burnt villages, millions of killed, thousands raped. But before that, the same was done in the “original” imperial outreach. It all ended in death, devastation and despair of the native people. A few most glaring examples:
Spain: Colonization of South America and parts of North America led to slavery, followed by decades of wars and dictatorships;
England: Colonization of North America led to slavery and the U.S. Civil War, the division of India and Pakistan led to millions of people displaced and lives ruined; abandonment of British Palestine is to this day one of the most horrific and throbbing wounds in human history;
France: Haiti and West Africa colonized then abandoned: the most horrific wars are still raging in all those lands;
Germany: two World Wars, millions dead, displayed and traumatized
Russia: the Gulags (labor camps) grew out on the example of the concentration camps used on African slaves (which Germany later swiftly learned from the Soviets); World War II was won thanks to the sacrifice of the Soviet People, millions of soldiers were used as “canon meat”; it is repeating in the war with Ukraine that is raging for the fourth year.
You probably knew most of the above, but I connected the dots to today just this morning.
Now the United States - the new Empire - is fighting the other empire, China, while using the playbook of and soliciting help from its former rival, Russia. Yes, America has now taken on the role of what Spain, Britain and France used to play, and is carrying the torch of destruction from all sides.
Cancellation of humanitarian aid to Africa: once the sick and the weak die, the U.S. will have easier access to the rare minerals, a key component in important new technologies (fighting China for world dominance).
Tariffs: access to food by people around the world, including in the U.S. (soaring prices) will kill off sick, poor and old.
Deal with Russia on Ukraine: easier access to raw minerals by the U.S. while helping Russia’s imperial ambitions = future partner against China.
Mass deportation of immigrants - “making America white again”: getting rid of non-white populations.
Slash federal government: become the emperor of North America for years to come, like his buddy putin has been for almost three decades in Russia.
Slash social programs, including health and food assistance: kill the elderly and the weak;
Destroy independent media and education so that the people forget how to think critically, rule the meek;
War on women and minority rights: “you’re not a white straight man, so you don’t get to share the world’s bounty”.
Orwell wrote about it, as did Solzhenitsyn and Huxley and Arendt, and many others before them, including Marx, Aristotle and Plato.
We don’t forget our history. But some don’t know it. As they taught us in graduate school (Tisch School of the Arts/NYU): “Everything has been done before. Steal well.” And that’s what trumpons are doing, literally and figuratively.
And there you have it: we’re living through another ring of the same spiral, and it will all end the same: more deaths, more land grabs, more super rich at the expense of regular folks, like you and me.
Industrial Colonization 3.0 = White Patriarchy 101, this time starring the United States of America.
P.S. The U.S. colonized the world for centuries, of course, but concealed it as a good deed in the name of democracy and freedom (Vietnam, Korea, etc.). Now it’s all out in the open and former enemies are friends. I give this empire 10 years before it self-immolates and crumbles.