**TW/CW: Mentions of murder, assassination, torture, colonialism, and rape**
What we now know as the "United States of America" is a nation with a history rarely told in the depth which it deserves, leading to a difficulty of the average person fully understanding the level of control, exploitation, and brutality that it has ruled with. This dictatorship was established to ensure the continued existence of itself, of the former European powers, and of Capitalism, of Empire. We should know that the history of the former European powers and their offspring all stand on a foundation of broken bones, bodies, and burnt flesh. This devastating reality commonly goes ignored, unmentioned, or skewed for the sake of Empire. It is wise that Empires obscure and mythologize their wars of conquest, colonialism and imperialism, because if they were to represent the facts, give the full descriptive information of their campaigns across the globe, no human being with a sense of feeling, empathy or humanity could stand to fight for such a regime. That is the situation that Empires from Rome to Britain to the US have fought long and hard to avoid, and one which commonly creeps up in their rearview, and is coming up in their blind spot today.
But this trajectory leads the Empires on a path towards ultimate collapse; as the populations of the world have shown us, in many ways the control or "hegemony" of Empire is fading- ever so slightly, but significantly, and surely towards a new situation in which more than one or a handful of nations will have a deciding role in the formation of international society. In order for the Empires of Europe and North America to truly be brought to their end, they must be reckoned with squarely, their material and economic interests studied, the concrete actions they took and are taking understood, and what levels they go to in order to continue their reign analyzed honestly, not leaving anything up for assumption.
The anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist forces around the world have staked their claim against the Empires, citing evidence for guilty verdicts of genocide, showing the systematic forms of torture, enslavement, exploitation and oppression. They have fought and wrested back (to varying degrees) their political, economic and social institutions from the colonial powers, and have armed themselves to push back their oppressors. These struggles have led to further developing societies based on different forms of cooperation, economic integration, political change, social uplifting, and "redistribution of wealth" ("" because it is not always among the masses). For all intents and purposes, whether socialist or not, those anti-US and anti-European forces which fought strongly against the largest militaries the world had ever seen, shook the world into a different situation. Empires could no longer enslave entire continents without redress, without consequences of their own.
But who were these forces fighting for Liberation?
Why did so many Third World nations fight against the US and Europe? We are told that Empires throughout history are the "Liberators" and shares "civilization and modernity" with the world, but is this true?
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North American and European Empires exist as two connected but separate poles which formed the "leadership" of history from the earliest slave societies in Greece and Rome, through Feudal times, into Capitalism's earliest breaths, and into today's imperialist world. By this I mean they ruled and reigned over the majority of the world's population, through forced labor, constant war, racist and sexist tactics of divide and conquer, siege warfare, coups, starvation, threat of nuclear war, and genocide. The different Empires would eventually go on to enslave and colonize the entirety of the globe, first in its entirety, then they would (and do) continue to re-divide and re-conquer parts of the world from one another. This cannot be understated, as it stands as a human historical phenomenon unseen before which created the devastating context of the world we are living in today. From the Crusades to the "World Wars" to their war on China and Russia - in countries like Vietnam, Korea, Grenada and Guatemala, Panama, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, and too many others to name in one sentence - the North American and European Empires have tortured, brutalized, stolen from, enslaved, conquered, and murdered billions. That is the story of Empire, that is Colonialism, that is Capitalism, and that is Imperialism. Call it what you want, the story, and especially the actions taken, are as similar as can be.
To get a full grasp, we might start as early as the conquering of Europe by the Ruling class aristocrats, monarchs, Churches, slave owners, Kingdoms, Empires, and governments (all one in the same in some sense) which forced poor, oppressed people - many of whom were agricultural slaves - further into relations of exploitation. More and more the labor of their mere existence was stolen and put into the service of the Ruling class. We could look at the destruction of ancient Asian civilizations, which stood tall in the East, long before the British, the French, the Dutch or the Americans ever existed. We could zoom in and see how this connected to the early "exploration" into the African continent, leading to exploitative deals and relations which led to the systematic enslavement of Africa's people. We could look at the genocidal campaigns against the indigenous nations of the Americas, who for centuries had formed international ties and relations of all kinds. All stand as clear examples of the hypocrisy but also the catastrophic terror of Religion, of Ideals, and of Morals or Values which the Christians, Catholics, Enlightenment, Renaissance, Puritans, Protestants, Whigs, Democrats, Republicans and others threw up as justification for the onslaught which would come to engulf the Earth.
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In Asia, millions were forced into addiction, died from disease, from famine; those who were not so lucky as to die saw the worsening of Feudal and Warlord relations in the nations which previously towered over Europe. They saw themselves further enslaved in exploitative relations - agricultural and manufacture slavery - and all sorts of cultural and social traditions of collectivity and cooperation were destroyed and corrupted from this. Some of the oldest civilizations known to mankind in Asia were barbarically annihilated by way of gunpowder, opium, disease, slavery, famine, serfdom, inequality and impoverishment. There was no "opening up" that was not forced by way of gunpoint, there was no "modernization" that didn't come at the expense of the population. Soon, the British, the Americans, and others would go on to capture (to greater and lesser extents) the whole of Asia through economic impoverishment, encirclement, colonialism and exploitation, which Asia as a whole still is fighting back against. The civilizations, populations, practices, culture, traditions, values and relations which could have existed, which could still exist today, were wiped out and replaced with capitalist virtues of competition and exploitation.
The collapse of these Asian civilizations was also a part of the further development of enslavement in Africa, the deepening of colonial interests in the resources, not only but also human, in Latin America, and the further "exploration" into "the New World". Africa's strongest civilizations were toppled, kingdoms that had been in existence prior to European Catholicism and Christendom were destroyed, and replaced with what might we ask? Slavery, mass slavery. This was instituted through a process which eventually engulfed the whole world. The missionaries, explorers, colonists, and settlers that came in disrupted traditional and cultural ties, obscured and dismantled religious practices replacing them with their own, they raped the women and beat the children, enslaved them without "discrimination" and forced the entire continent into a whirlwind of war, conquest, and death. This slavery was inhumanity personified - mass death, disease, suicide, torture, rape, forced labor which many of us cannot even imagine, beatings as a weapon of control, executions as a form of entertainment for other settlers, psychological and physical torture of levels we cannot expand on here - and yet, what do our history books tell of this time? What do we hear and see in our media, in our government, in our stories, stereotypes, and social relations? Lies, absolute mythology, idealism, and hysterical (of the insane not humorous sort) hypocrisy. The levels of dehumanization that Black and non-white people now face is a symptom of that awful practice of slavery, and the further criminalization, incarceration, and murder of non-white people across the globe is a sign that this system of slavery hasn't fully gone away.
The Indigenous people and nations of the Americas can tell the history of untold horrors which would make the skin crawl of any "desensitized" person. From the southern-most tip of South America, all the way to Alaska and beyond, the indigenous nations had ties of economic, social, spiritual and nation importance that went back centuries. These relations, though not perfect, stood and still stand as a testament to the ultimate example that indigenous nations can represent and should represent today - but with the onset of colonialism, much of this would come to an end as they knew it. What is told of in books like "Our History is the Future" by Nick Estes, and "Open Veins of Latin America" by Eduardo Galeano is sickening, filled with rape, torture, disease, corruption, crime, bribes, assassination, poison, bombs, guns, slavery, aka: genocide. That is the story of "the New World" thanks to the colonial bloodsucking murderers from Europe - the one we are told is far from this truth. This stands as an example of what information we must bring to the popular discourse and discussion when speaking of Socialism or Revolution in "America" or the Americas, and what we must break down and away from. Millions were forced into mines, completely destroying natural landscapes and religious practices of respect and harmony with nature; economic institutions, social relations, and the very population of nations like Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, and elsewhere were thrown into despair. Others who died would only miss enduring the further collapse of nations and people which had stood the test of time for far longer than Europe has existed to this day. The campaigns of starvation encapsulated in the murder of millions of Buffalo in the "Midwest" of North America, to the destruction of traditional agricultural practices and trade, forced labor, and death by disease - all these were tools of the Colonizers to oppress and enslave the Americas. But amidst all of this, indigenous people fought, are still fighting, and will fight to see an end to any continuation of the oppression or exploitation of the Americas, of Pachamama and of her peoples.
The Caribbean is a special story which I know very little about but which, as each of these places in the world do, deserves its own telling by the people and resistance themselves. When Africans were brought into Jamaica, Barbados, Haiti, and other places for the first time, it created a situation which is still confusing to some today, and where some of the most revolutionary forms of resistance to slavery came from. On the other hand, some of the most disgusting acts of human violence against other human beings have happened here. (This is also where one Christopher Columbus made his "mark" on the world, though commonly "confused", he never DID set foot in or on "American soil") Then, once the African and indigenous populations had staked their claim through resistance and struggle for their freedom, new forms of indentured servanthood, along with new servants from other places in the world, like India, were slammed down onto these revolting people. Further complicating the situation of course was the racism so prevalent in society, after the establishment of African enslavement, and its formalized belief system: White Supremacy. Campaigns of terror were acted out by France, England, Spain, and others in order to "stamp out" the seeds of revolution - this would never fully succeed. Home of the earliest successful slave revolt and Black republic, Haiti is one sign that resistance can and will never be tolerated by the oppressors, but also a fight that will never be given up by the oppressed. Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, Grenada, and others have similarly fought and struggled for freedom, for justice, and in some cases like Grenada, for Socialism. What did they get for that? Reagan's invasions, the assassination of Maurice Bishop, the destruction of the New Jewel Movement and the popular forms of organization, through torture, incarceration, forced labor, capitalist shock-therapy, and Imperialism. Other Caribbean nations, too, have taken the brunt of the Empire's boot for so-much-as simply wanting an end to slavery, to indentured servanthood, to Colonialism - a worthwhile venture for certain - which led to genocidal campaigns the people of this region cannot soon forget.
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Here we see one clear pattern, Empires extract, exploit, and exterminate oppressed people.
There is no "moral" Colonialism, no "Capitalism" that can be squared away by religion, or idealism, no mythology which can erase the true history of this planet for the last 1000+ years. Since the invasions of the East in the earliest recorded centuries, to the war on the East today, Europe and her bastard children have declared themselves enemies of the people many times over, it is high time we recognize this fact, make our clean break from them, and fight to establish a new world together with the struggling Third World and colonized peoples around the globe.
All power to the people - long live revolution!