US Martyrs Pose Questions for Negroponte

[Say_What]

<clips>

If patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, anti-Americanism is currently the first. The Bush regime uses it to deceive the United States people while enriching its corporate buddies. Spreading fear, anxiety, and hatred under the pretext of fighting terrorism, Bush and his team tear up the US constitution and pawn the country's future. The McCarthyite suggestion that a menace exists called "anti-Americanism" is a potent weapon in the Bush plutocrats' disinformation armoury. It makes it much harder for rational criticism of US government policy to be heard--let alone accepted. The sleight of hand is to pretend that the regime installed in the White House represents the United States people.

People throughout the Americas know better. After such long experience of US government aggression, opportunism and duplicity, maybe they are harder to dupe. As Bolivia tries to remake itself and the peoples of Venezuela and Colombia gear up to resist yet more White House sponsored terrorism,1 now may be a good time to remember some United States citizens who had a very different vision from that of their government. In Central America thousands of communities have been victims of terrorist aggression by the US government or its open support for genocidal military-dominated regimes in the region. Yet it is in those places that a more authentic voice of the United States people has been taken to heart. This truth counteracts the mindless racism encouraged by the neo-cons' beloved cop out, "anti-americanism".

The assassination of Ben Linder 2

When Ben Linder was murdered by US government trained and funded Contra terrorists in 1987 in northern Nicaragua, he was installing electricity for impoverished rural communities. At his funeral in Matagalpa, that northern Nicaraguan city overflowed with mourners for the young man from Portland, Oregon who came to work for them and finished by dying for them. Writing about what was needed in order to resist the US terrorist war against Nicaragua, Linder wrote once "everything you can do should be done". So, apart from fixing up electrical generating plant, he also helped with vaccination programs, dressing up as a clown to amuse parents and children waiting in line, riding his unicycle, juggling.

How exceptional was Ben Linder? Perhaps it was his murder that made him an icon for those people determined to show solidarity with Central American victims of US government aggression. Tens of thousands of US citizens worked for longer or shorter periods in Central American countries before and after Ben Linder. The great majority stayed for brief lengths of time with poor rural and urban communities in Nicaragua during the Sandinista revolution. But many others worked long term on human rights and grass roots community development throughout the region.

http://www.counterpunch.com/solo10282003.html

[CBHagman]

1. Thanks for posting this.

We must never forget the horrific policies and deeds of the recent past...