{"id":74282,"date":"2021-03-12T04:13:12","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T04:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=114026"},"modified":"2021-03-12T04:13:12","modified_gmt":"2021-03-12T04:13:12","slug":"washing-away-one-trail-of-tears-after-another","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/03\/12\/washing-away-one-trail-of-tears-after-another\/","title":{"rendered":"Washing Away One Trail of Tears After Another"},"content":{"rendered":"

White Washing:<\/strong> According to one Merriam-Webster definition, to whitewash is to \u201cgloss over or cover up,\u201d which, in a sense, is what the racial form of whitewashing does. It creates a White world where sins against people of color, including Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, Latinos, and other minority groups cease to matter because, in revisionist history and reality, those minority groups barely exist.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s one example believe it or not which ties into my neck of the woods on the Central Oregon Coast, and even Portland, OR: ‘Daniel Boone was a man. Yes a big man. With an eye like an eagle and as tall as a mountain was he. Daniel Boone was a man. Yes a big man. He was brave, he was fearless and as tough as a mighty oak tree. The rippin\u2019est roarin\u2019est fightin\u2019est man the frontier ever knew.’<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We get to Boone in a moment, and all the mythology and falsified history of his very existence.<\/p>\n

There are all sorts of ways to wash away complicity or guilt, and the color wheel is just one way to describe this highly sophisticated form of propaganda-marketing-PR spin-Revisionist history\/thinking\/mythology. Whitewashing is a form of fabrication.<\/p>\n

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Part of the fabrication are those scared cows like \u201cwe support our men and women in uniform.\u201d I personally have a few hundred examples of going up against many armies of the lie, or battalions of the bullshit.<\/p>\n

There are good journalists and good teachers, for sure, but the majority, for the most part, are not sacred or holy or fool-proof agents of democracy. There are many ways I have been hobbled for not supporting the illegal wars of this country, especially Bush\u2019s \u201cdeclared victory\u201d in the Middle East. Hobbled by fellow journalists and educators.\u00a0 I was living in El Paso, and Cocaine and Southern Comfort W Bush was the governor of that Tex-ass state. El Paso is a huge arena for military and retired military. The Mexican-Americans (88 percent of the population in El Paso\/El Paso County) may have voted straight democrat on their ballots (Bush and other retrograde redneck vicious governors have come to town courting that vote), but many Latinx love their USA flags and military men and women from their ranks. So, going against Reagan\u2019s wars in Central America or Bush I\u2019s against Panama, Malvinas and his Desert Shield, I was up against supposed liberal left fellow teachers and journalists. Even supposedly disenfranchised Latinx.<\/p>\n

Once the Prez or Congress or whomever (CIA, NSA) gets us into a war, we all must support the troops, no, tie a yellow ribbon on the chain-link fence sort of thing …\u00a0 support the mission, support whatever the Commander in Chief does with his tin soldiers. How many times have I gone up against college\/university presidents and provosts and department chairs and even my own fellow faculty when I questioned the veracity of rationales for bombing other countries. As Kim Peterson illustrates in his recent DV article, \u201cNorth Korea Steadfastly Resisting US Hegemony<\/a>,\u201d by illuminating A.B. Abrams’ \u201c\u2026 comprehensive book, Immovable Object: North Korea\u2019s 70 Years at War with American Power,\u00a0<\/em>there is a whole lot of rooting for war and destruction by the average North American:<\/p>\n

US wars are not only a function of its government and military. It is important to realize that the US carries out it warring and provocations against foreign countries often with overwhelming approval of the American populace. Abrams writes that the majority of American citizens supported using nukes against North Korea. (p 131) American public support for warring was also evident by support for intensified bombing by the US during armistice negotiations. (p 224) That this American public support for militarism was not an anomaly was revealed during the US attacks on Muslim nations following 9-11, with 70% of Americans indicating a belief in Saddam Hussein being connected to Al Qaeda. (p 390)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

You can fiddle with terms like illegal alien, positing that no human being is \u201cillegal,\u201d or debating how the term \u201calien\u201d ascribes more than a negative otherness to the person \u2014 it dehumanizes the person.<\/p>\n

These are important discussions, especially in politics, in journalism and in educational circles. Yet, these discussions have lingered in academia, and have withered at the root of American enlightenment.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had to confront people about what it means to be humanistic and abiding by the Earth Charter and Dignity and Rights of All People. You know, that socialistic and humanistic and democratic and communist set of principles of for-by-with-because-of the people:<\/p>\n