The Ungrateful American

It seems our political history is strewn with the blood and scars of a conflict regularly waged between two types of Americans: those who would keep, and those who would share. In every instance, we have groups who, more than anything, ought to be thankful for what this land has given them, and instead have turned around and denied the same blessings to the next wave coming in.

At Thanksgiving, we show our children pictures of thankful pilgrims, sharing the blessings of the land with their native friends. Those same Puritans turned around and denied true liberty to anyone who would practice their own religious belief.

Colonist-entrepreneurs gouged a profit from the land most of them got for a pittance, and turned around and purchased kidnapped Africans to bring in that profit for them; worse, they then claimed ownership of the children of those same Africans.

Out-"mastering" the plantation owners, Andrew Carnegie and his ilk had his working-people working for slave wages in unsafe conditions, thus creating a massive "plantation" of his own. How nice of him it was to endow libraries all over the country with profit made on the backs of his "slaves."

The ordeals faced by so many in the "great migration" of the late nineteenth/early 20th century period, is one more case of the "we-got;you-can't-have syndrome.

Now we have this battle being played out all over again. It's interesting to note the types of people drawn to the effort against the incoming. They are undisguised hate-mongers, racists, and neo-fascists.

I believe there is acually a way to bring this disgrace to an end. All people sensitive enough to recognize the problem need to see it, not as a passing event, but as an ongoing struggle. The haters never stop, never leave, never let it go. They need to know that people who really are proud of the best in America, have the endurance to fight them until they are exhausted.

The "Know-Nothings" are alive and well in our land; we "Know-Somethings" need to send them back into their holes where they came from.

End of ruminations for today: 4.24.06