VERS UNE AMERIQUE DU NORD GENTER 2040

The title of our article today, translated from the French, is "Toward a gentler North America, 2040". It's in French, because we here at the Alaska Progressive Review, admire Canada, as a healthier (but by no means perfect), gentler country, than the U.S. A Social Democracy, with universal health coverage, and more strictly regulated capitalism, in general. Which is why their economy is much healthier than ours now, they have strict regulations disallowing banks to venture into risky, destructive, loaning and investing programs, unlike those in the U.S.

Growing up in the 1970s, in San Diego, I suppose some people from other parts of the U.S. would think that my junior and senior high school education would have been very "liberal", biased with "revisionist" history. But that really wasn't the case, I think. The history and social studies curriculum did change quite a bit in the 1970s, all over the U.S., as our society liberalised, in general, to teach slightly more about the real history on this continent, concerning for example, what happened with the indigenous people. But not nearly enough.

I didn't read historian Dee Brown's shattering compilation of stories from indigenous peoples on this continent, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee", (first published in 1970) until 1990, when I was 25.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781402760662-1  It brought tears to my eyes on many occasions, documenting the broken treaties, forced relocations, battles, and massacres that occurred from 1492 until 1890 (the massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota). This massacre occurred when troops fired on a fleeing defenseless band of Lakota Souix people, killing over 300, well over half of whom where women and children. 

As we have mentioned before, if all the treaties with indigenous people that the U.S. government ratified through Congress, and signed by the President, but were later broken, were forced to be honoured, the U.S. would cease to exist, as we know it. And indigenous people in the U.S. are still suffering, with the highest infant mortality rates, unemployment, and lowest life expectancies, of any group, on their reservations.

In fact, one of the World's most well-known political prisoners, Leonard Peltier, resides in Leavenworth Federal Prison, where he was framed for the murders of two FBI agents, on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation, in 1975. http://www.leonardpeltier.net/newsroom.htm  He has garnered support from people and well-known figures world-wide, such as Desmond Tutu of South Africa, and the Dalai Lama. Yet he has been denied parole every year since 1980, and will probably die in prison. His story makes for heartbreaking reading.

Another book we were never exposed to, growing up, is USMC Lt. General Smedley Butler's shattering expose of the wars and subversions the U.S. was involved in when he was in the prime of his career from 1905-1930. "War is a Racket". http://www.powells.com/biblio/18-9780060838652-0  This should be mandatory reading for every U.S. citizen, as should be "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee". Butler's book documents how all the invasions and subversions of many Latin American countries he was involved in, were for corporate interests, and how they all profited. He also documented how the corporate world and politicians benefitted from World War I as well. It makes for sad, but eye-opening reading. The publisher's description reads:

"Smedley Butler took his Constitutional vows seriously, repelling threats to America both without and within. Shortly after retiring from a lauded career, the popular Marine brought down a Fascist corporate plot to sieze the White House. Concerned for the future of Democracy, Butler began to speak out against the venal motives behind many of this country's military actions. Written during the Great Depression, War is a Racket pulls no punches against a corrupt military-industrial complex, eager to murder both foreign and native-born  children for the sake of profit. This edition includes two other anti-intervention screeds written by Butler, in addtion to photographs taken from the astonishing 1932 antiwar book, The Horror of It. Adam Parfrey's introduction reveals names suppressed from a Congressional investigation that verified the right-wing coup plotted against President Franklin D. Roosevelt by corporate bigwigs."

And unfortunately, nothing has really changed, since this book was written, as several of our previous articles will attest.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/10/capitalisms-dirty-warssecrets.html

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/08/making-out-like-bandits.html

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2010/01/remembering-what-he-died-for.html The current Democratic, Obama administration, is in every way, just an extension of the previous Republican Bush administration, with a more eloquent speaker at the head, the only substantive difference. Consider. Obama's administration is packed with the same banking/financial criminals who through their greedy, short-sighted actions nearly derailed not just the U.S., but the global economy, and who continue to receive "bail-outs" from the government. The insane U.S. defense budget, which is over $700 billion annually, over 8 times that of the next largest country's, China's, continues to rise every year. The immoral, and illegal invasion and occupation of the sovereign country of Iraq, in which over a million innocent civilians have died, continues apace, with no apologies or acknowledgement of the crimes committed, including torture. And, further escalation in the empire-destroying country of Afghanistan also continues, for no real reason (except corporate profits and political gain). Both of these imperial actions are costing hundreds of billions of dollars annually, with no end in sight.

When "health-care reform" was to be a highlight of the new administration, what has come out has been a capitulation to the greedy, deadly, health insurance companies, whose sole purpose in existence seems to be denying coverage whenever possible to people in need, to maximise profits. And, no recision of the unconstitutional Patriot act has been attempted, or even criticism of previous officials of the Bush Administration, when they tried to justify it, and tortures committed as part of the Iraq and Afghanistan misadventures.

Since both the Democratic and Republican parties are thoroughly under corporate domination, and the corporate media won't allow third parties any significant exposure, nothing seems likely to change in the U.S. Which means that at some point, it will bankrupt itself, or other countries will be forced to work together to force it to change. Which could easily be done economically. If China were to stop supporting our economy by investing in our currency, and if the global oil market were to switch to pricing in Euros, instead of Dollars, this country would be destitute, and would be unable to support it's bloated military and imperial actions. Much like what happened to the Soviet Union, in the 1980s.

This probably will happen at some point. Because the greedy corporations and oligarchs who actually control U.S. policy are not going to change, and the U.S. population is just too misinformed, apathetic (some say lazy, but we at A.P.R. think that is not entirely the case), and splintered into mistrustful ethnic/class groupings to come together and force real changes.

We think this will happen within three decades, if not sooner, helped along by people like this:

I think this satirical political sticker says it all, about her and her supporters, don't you?

To prepare you for this eventuality, for the past few weeks, we have been working on our vision of what a kinder, gentler North America will look like, by 2040, after the forced dissolution of the U.S., brought about by it's unsustainable greed and exceptionalist mentality, and concerted actions by the rest of the World.

We will tell you the story of this future history, how this continental realinement comes about, and describe each of these interesting, and some very different, smaller nations, in future articles. Stay tuned. Cheers.