Emails from the Fourth Reich
Aliens in their own land.
Anwaar Hussain
Published courtesy of Anwaar's blog Fountainhead
I received hundreds of emails from readers the world over as a
response to my article “I
am Become death—The destroyer of the Worlds”. Most of these were from
American citizens who were appalled at what their administration is doing in
their name. These emails, moving as they were, put me in a conflicted state of
mind. Here is the greatest of all countries. The glories that it has achieved
can only be marveled at. And here is what it has come to, brutally pulverizing
peoples and nations abroad like a giant gone berserk. Why?
While we the world stood by and watched agog, the unmatchable American spirit
catapulted itself from strength to strength with vision, vigor, perseverance and
courage. From the smallest of silicon chips embedded with the tiniest of details
to the sinking of giant steel shafts piercing the hardest of earth’s crusts in
the building of its massive skyscrapers and wondrous bridges, America has made
the finest.
A hitherto noble country, America has ensured the greatest prosperity and
freedom to its inhabitants. A product of human enlightenment, America is a
country where the rule of reason and logic reached its zenith while blind faith
and dogma were pushed to the back seats. It was this enlightenment that led
America to recognize the inalienable rights of the individual to life, liberty
and pursuit of happiness.
This spectacular triumph of reason and logic freed the spirit of inquiry from
the stifling stranglehold of prophets of doom. With a questioning mind set free
from state’s control, scientific and technological progress gushed forth in
full force. That in turn further spurred on the pioneering spirits into ventures
that ultimately turned America to the mightiest of nations.
America has won more Nobel prizes than all other countries combined, is home to
scores of the world's finest universities and half a dozen of the world's best
symphonies, has built the world's most vibrant economy, is the world's only
military superpower. Americans have landed on the moon, sent robots to Mars and
set up stations to communicate with aliens who may one day possibly land on
planet earth.
Ironically, until now a power house of moral, intellectual, artistic and
scientific greatness America is fast turning into an Orwellian farm. The key to
America’s success has always been inextricably linked to the heroic legacy,
which she inherits, from her history, culture and society. The achievements of
her past heroes has so far catalyzed and facilitated even greater achievements
from generation after generation of Americans.
Why then can’t a huge mass of contemporary Americans perceive the distorted
values that their current leaders radiate at a frequency that has in no time
sunk this great country to murky depths unprecedented in its past? How then has
this marvelous nation allowed men of such abysmally horrendous moral and
intellectual standards to lord over them? How then has it permitted them to turn
their once great country into the sham that it is fast becoming? Is it all
coming to a tragic end? Are blind belief and dogma back to bring about an
inglorious end to that glorious age of reason?
When speaking of his sterling discoveries in science and mathematics, Sir Isaac
Newton said, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of
giants" In all fairness, he was probably a giant himself standing on the
shoulders of giants. Are current American elites mere pygmies who, even when
they stand on the shoulders of their past giants, still cannot see any further?
Has America turned into a Fourth Reich or will it yet come around? The following
are highlights of some of the very welcome emails I’ve received from
Americans. My hope is that these voices may find their way into their body
politic, serving as an antidote to the arrogance of power and its insidious
stench.
The blood is on our hands.
We can't escape to Canada, or wait for Europe to sanction GW Bush. It's up to us
to stop him, to put our bodies on the line for peace, to cross the line for
justice. We must continue our struggle for peace and justice regardless of what
the election said or did not say. We don't even have to be a majority to win our
election of peace and justice. We can be the small but certain pressure that
creates the hairline crack, bursting the dam and flooding the valley with
surging water. We don't need huge numbers to be powerful in our resolve to stop
the killing.
The blood is on our hands.
-------x-------
Pervasive fears of speaking one’s mind, highly un-American one must admit,
are often spoken about. One correspondent writes, “I am afraid to speak out as
much as I would like, I am afraid of the backlash I feel. . . . While the US
administration works their war on terror on the world they simultaneously
dismantle our constitution one piece at a time.”
-------x-------
Other correspondents point to the corrupting influence of materialism, and an
election believed to have been stolen. Some see the executive branch leading the
country into fascism, while shamefacedly demanding democratic action in the
Ukraine.
-------x-------
Spirituality is emphasized in one email, the writer acknowledging our call to a
higher consciousness, a world citizenship of the enlightened, whereby “we are
freed from greed, anger, hatred or the arbitrary and false social constructions
of nationalism, race and religion.” For this person, a call to arms would be a
“surrender to the sword of destruction that has swept through every
generation.”
-------x-------
Military veterans are appalled by the indefensible acts carried out in their
name and with their tax dollars.
-------x-------
A Texan, ashamed of what is being done to Iraq and its citizens by the United
States, despairs at futility of conventional attempts to have a political voice,
having contacted the relevant Congressperson on numerous occasions, getting only
“the usual crap from her office.”
-------x-------
Another contrasts pro-life people “who hold up posters with pictures of
aborted babies”, while at the same time seemingly indifferent to small
children “torn apart by a bomb.”
-------x-------
Then there is the person who points to the fanaticism of those wielding
power, finding them as destructive as those conventionally branded as
“terrorists”. “They will use the power given to them by those who support
them as ruthlessly as did Nazi Germany, to be unleashed against any who dare to
oppose them whether they be Iraqis or Americans.” “I hope the world will
rise up to stop them quickly but I do not expect it.”
-------x-------
And finally there is the mother who writes in pain for the children of
Fallujah. She asks for no mercy for herself or forgiveness for her country.
Confounded by the cruelty of the world and of her country, she hopes only that,
somehow, her children may be spared.
-------x-------
The writers of the emails spoke in so many voices, touching on so many themes.
But there is one common thread. Their country has become hostile terrain and
they feel as aliens in their own land. Their government is not a government of
the people and certainly not a government for the people. There is a deep shame
over the horrors perpetrated in their name, at home and abroad. Alienation and
fearfulness reign, rather than community and hope. They experience a culture of
greed and corruption, rather than one of sharing and transparent accountability.
The Americans who have written would not choose to be warmongers. They would
choose peace. They would choose for mankind to relish in their common bonds,
rather than feed a military machine that tears those bonds asunder. These many
wonderful voices; will they, in time, find the power to speak with all their
collective strength, in the sure knowledge that they are not alone? Or will the
current American elites, pygmies all, finally, rub out the last vestiges of
hope?
America…the Fourth Reich? Will it, won’t it?
Copyright: Anwaar Hussain - Email : eagleeye@emirates.net.ae
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