A Dark Side to Democracy?

6/18/2019

Many people ask me: "Why would major news outlets, historic institutions, museums and academia have a problem with your project?"

Here is an excerpt from the BBC coverage of Trump's UK State Visit, June 3, 2019.

Trump Reads Roosevelt Prayer

During a radio message, President Roosevelt led the nation in a prayer ahead of the D-Day landings. President Trump takes to the stage to read the same prayer:

"Almighty God, our sons, pride of our nation, this day, have set upon a mighty endeavour; a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilisation; and to set free a suffering humanity.

"They will lead thy blessings for the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces, but we shall return again and again.

"And we know that by thy grace, and by the righteous of our cause, our sons will triumph.

"Some will never return. Embrace these father, and receive them, the heroic servants into thy kingdom. And O Lord, give us faith, faith in thee, faith in our sons, faith in each other, and faith in our united crusade.

"Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen."

It was a crusade. For freedom? And for whom?

I guess people like Trump.

According to the BBC:
The Queen and the Prince of Wales attended the commemorations on Southsea Common, along with representatives from the countries that fought alongside the UK in the Battle of Normandy including French President Emmanuel Macron, US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Also attending were German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as leaders from Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Poland and Slovakia.

Many Japanese Americans fought in Europe during WWII, recruited or drafted out of US concentration camps, Native Americans out of reservations and Blacks from a Jim Crow South.

My Freedom from Fear project was excluded, despite being told repeatedly my work was in the show, from The New York Historical Society, CUNY's Roosevelt House, sidelined at The Ford Museum and removed from The George Washington University Museum. I was told my work would not be included in the Four Freedoms exhibition in France at The Memorial de Caen, in Caen, France.

5 Comments

Robert Feuer link

6/21/2019 12:35:15 pm

As Simon replied to my suggestion that he might read a book titled, "Web of Debt" by Ellen H. Brown; "That doesn't sound like fun to me. If it's not fun, it's not of interest to me."

Perhaps that scale of measurement is also being applied by those entities shunning your work on the Yellow Bowl project.

I suspect the disregard runs deeper on both counts.

Setsuko Winchester

6/23/2019 06:55:35 am

And I agree with Ellen Brown. The banking system is operating not for the people but to keep the banks solvent and profitable. They can write up as many loans as they like and sell it off to investors who care or know nothing of the quality of the debt underlying their investment vehicle. But trust in the government to take care of "the people" is dependent on whether you are considered part of “the people.”

In the last election, almost all the candidates invoked FDR, whether it was Trump, Hilary or Bernie. They are doing it again now. Which means we’re going to get a government that will look a lot like FDR’s game plan…a government that helped “his people.” FDR, did not consider US citizens of Japanese ancestry part of “the people” as illustrated from the wholesale exclusion of these people from any protections from their government of their freedoms or property. Nor did he consider blacks part of “the people” as illustrated by one of his earliest economic plans to help the poor with the creation of the Home Owners Loan Corporation which he instituted in 1933, which put a “red line” around black neighborhoods impeding their opportunities of getting a mortgage or loans. Nor did he get rid of Jim Crow laws passed by his southern democratic allies. He also maintained the ban on Chinese people from immigrating to the US for all of his first and second term as President and only well into his third with a war raging in China did he finally lift the ban for the first time, but only allowed in a very few. During the war years, Mexican laborers - who Hoover forced out of the US with the “Repatriation Act” in order to make jobs available for “Americans" from 1929-1936 were recruited back by FDR to do the farm labor that was no longer being done on the Japanese farmers' lands because those US citizens had been forcibly removed and mass incarcerated in to US concentration camps. As for Native Americans, while a large portion were still excluded from being able to naturalize, the US government had tried to put the Japanese Americans on their “reservation” land because nearly every state in the Union had refused to take these people, saying, if they were dangerous over there, they were dangerous here. To many of the tribes credit, most refused saying they did not want to do to another group of people, that which was done to them.

The idea of “the people” not necessarily being entirely inclusive is not just an American problem but one that’s faced by many a minority in many nations, whether it be China, Nazi Germany, today's Germany or in Japan. But America wasn’t supposed to be like other countries. It was supposed to be this brand new experiment, with slogans like "justice for all” and “All men are created equal”. While we’d like to think that in America, the government treats all it’s "people” the same, it appears race still matters, as we can see from the round up of non-white immigrants at our southern border as opposed to white immigrants from our northern borders. As for this deep-seeded disregard you acknowledge exists for the history and the fate of an American like me, is it a matter of race which is engendering this? And where would someone like me fit into Ellen Browns's narrative of "the People"?

And many thanks for responding to one of Simon's comments on my blog.

Yes...I believe the disregard runs deep indeed.

Your feedback was much appreciated.

Robert Feuer

6/23/2019 03:39:14 pm

I can't speak for Ellen Brown's position on race. Rather I look to her as a teacher with a profound understanding of current economics, coupled with an ability to explain the foundations of our currency, and the complex financial, debt based dealings undertaken to prop up our currency and economy.

I would like to see both your Yellow Bowl Project, and Ellen's book, each become a mandatory part of every USA high school's curriculum. To allow our youth out into this world without these awarenesses does not bode well for the improvements of our nation's future.

Thank you for all the intelligence and efforts you and Simon have poured into saving the peoples of these United States from further racial oppressions. Believe in the Wisdom and Vision of Dr. Martin L. King. Know that we shall overcome.

I am privileged to know you,

Bob Feuer.

Kristi Cardoso

10/14/2019 06:13:08 pm

Slightly off subject but hopefully still of interest, Honolulu Civil Beat's recent article on the rise of Japanese book stores in the early 20th century due to the unwillingness of the Hawaii library system to procure any materials in Japanese, despite the fact that 40% of the population was of Japanese descent at the time.

https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/10/new-research-shows-how-honolulus-japanese-spurned-by-the-library-made-their-own-bookstore-culture/

Wisconsin Architecture Firms link

1/21/2023 07:59:33 pm

Thank you for writing thiss

Freedom from Fear/Yellow Bowl Project

A Dark Side to Democracy?

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Setsuko Winchester

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