My Country ‘Tis of Thee (Dale Allen Pfeiffer)

  The settlement of this country is the story of the extermination of these original inhabitants. This country was purchased, not with wampum, but through a most-bloody genocide.

  Dale Allen Pfeiffer -- Mountain Sentinel

  Feb. 24, 2007 -- All school children are taught that -- while it might not be perfect -- this country is the best thing under the sun right now, based upon cherished principals of freedom and liberty for all. We are taught that the U$ stands squarely as the champion of human rights throughout the world. But is this true? Are we morally superior to the rest of the world, and do we have the right to challenge anyone else on humanitarian grounds? To answer this question, we can do no better than to look at our own actions throughout the history of this country.

  First, let us attend to the founding fathers, who -- through their great magnanimity and perspicuity -- established the system we live under. Who were these men of legend? From the “father of our country,” George Washington (the richest man in the country in his day) to the father of the constitution, James Madison, the founding fathers were all members of the privileged class, who had built their fortunes through slavery and indentured servitude. They had wanted to simply shift the reins from King George to some new royalty in this country. Unfortunately for them, with all the talk of democracy circulating around, they could not establish a new monarchy outright, but had to dress it in the trappings of representative democracy. They were very fearful of the laboring class and the slave population, fearing that the people could not be trusted with real democracy. And so, through the U$ constitution, they established a system that would protect and insulate them from the masses while allowing them to retain the real power. So much for our founding fathers.

  What of the land, itself? Was it a free land, open to settlement and colonization? No, this country was stolen from its former inhabitants. At the time when white men first landed here, there were approximately six to seven million native Americans in the territory that would someday constitute the United $tates. The settlement of this country is the story of the extermination of these original inhabitants. This country was purchased, not with wampum, but through a most-bloody genocide. And then the remnants of these once free and proud people were herded onto reservations where we starved them, poisoned them with alcohol, and attempted to beat their culture out of them. That they have survived at all is a testimony not to our humanitarianism, but to their powers of endurance.

  To work this stolen, bloody land and generate a profit from it, we had to forcefully enslave the natives of another continent and drag them to this country under the most dire and despicable circumstances. The wealth of this country was generated by slave labor. And that slavery was not ended until that wealth was ensured and the means of generating yet more wealth had been revolutionized by technology. And, as with the natives of this land, every attempt was made to eradicate the African culture of these slaves. Likewise, once they were declared free, they had to endure over one century of beatings, hangings, shootings, burnings, drownings and all manner of torture. Their oppression continues even to this day.

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