The Debt of
Independence
By Shakeel Syed
Culver City, CA
The United States of America
tends to glorify, simplify and sanitize more than
two centuries of its horrid past. The Declaration
of Independence may state that “all men
are created equal,” but that was not the
case in 1776. Two hundred twenty eight years later,
the Declaration still has not found a home in
the hearts of all Americans. This 228th year of
freedom, we must try to see beyond the mundane
rituals of afternoon barbecues and evening fireworks.
The lonely Native American warrior as the statue
of freedom atop the Capitol Dome was cast in bronze
by a foundry that housed slave labor. In fact,
slaves, whose only wages were pain built the house
that now claims to be Lady Liberty’s home.
In recent times, we have been hearing the rhetoric
of "No Child Left behind” but today
more children suffer from lethal diseases, grinding
poverty, and malnutrition than ever before.
City leaders endlessly debate over allocating
$100,000 for a classroom but they do not even
blink to approve $200,000 for a mile of new sewer
line! I think you need a different example here,
since sewage is an important amenity. Maybe an
example of frivolous spending, e.g., $44 million
for a bridge to Treasure Island in Florida in
a spending bill in December
Leaders of the country are proud to approve a
$400 billion Department of Defense budget while
they are not ashamed to allocate a mere $70 billion
to the Department of Education.
The overseer of the justice (a.k.a. Attorney General),
says Walter Cronkite, is “the Torquemada
of American law. Tomas de Torquemada was the 15th
century Dominican friar who became the grand inquisitor
of the Spanish Inquisition. He was largely responsible
for its methods, including torture and the burning
of heretics – Muslims in particular.”
1
The modern Tomas de Torquemada is yet to be found
with a bloody ax in his hand but he does own a
blood stained pen that has “legalized”
indefinite detentions of the very citizens he
was sworn to protect.
While the “free” America continues
to insist for a safer world for itself , at any
cost, it fails to protect its own. The “free”
media had a field day when some men, perhaps jobless,
assaulted a rich keeper of justice, the Honorable
Supreme Court Justice David Souter.2 Conversely,
the same “free” media in camaraderie
with Mickey Mouse and White House was mostly quiet
when Fahrenheit 9/11 was much too much of a painful
reality for the America. I don’t think the
media has been quiet ABOUT the documentary, but
the documentary does illustrate how silent the
media was about important issues, such as Bush’s
ties with oil companies etc.
The indefinite detentions of innocent, desperate
youth looking for a job, and the (mostly) enslaved
press3 perhaps best represents a modern free America
that deprives freedom to any one who dares to
be free.
The growing socio-economic divide and disparity
is highlighted in a recent study, that “the
top 1 percent of (American) households owned 39.1%
of the nation’s household wealth. To put
this in perspective, the top 1 percent of households
had more wealth in 1997 than all of the households
in the bottom 95 percent combined.”4
Independent America has become more debt-ridden
than ever before, with a total debt of $37 trillion5,
or $128,560 per man, woman and child. Today’s
politicians do not seem to share the ideals of
founding father Thomas Jefferson who said, "I
place economy among the first and most important
virtues, and debt as the greatest of dangers to
be feared."
As we continue our worrisome journey of life we
must set afoot a new and whole of ourselves. Not
clear what this means , we cannot simply ignore
the immeasurable human pain and poverty all around
us in this land of abundance.
The true concept of independence is simple, "To
free oneself from vices and to inculcate virtues.”
Collectively, a society, must strive to establish
good and banish evil. Pursuing independence from
the shackles of evil is a mandate and not a choice.
Gaining independence from the yoke of oppression
in this world is not only necessary but also imperative.
The true independence lies in absolute servitude
to the One Creator and freedom from the created.
It is time that we reflect rather soberly on our
individual and institutional triumphs. We now
seem to be fighting for a penny when we owe a
fortune as our debt of independence to those who
were enslaved and are now camped in an exit less
home, called America.
(Shakeel Syed is a freelance writer and lives
in Culver City, CA)
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