I frequently say history for most Americans starts from the first day they were shocked and noticed some international event. Hardly any Americans know what happened in our nation prior to September 11, 2001. A significant number don’t even have a handle on that. There was a 100 year period when terrorism was a way of life here.
The following is a clip from Wikipedia. It matches other sources I have seen.
“3,959 black men, women, and children were lynched in the twelve Southern states between 1877 and 1950”
No guilt trip is required. There is not a soul alive today who had any part in this. If we held descendants of criminals responsible for what their ancestors did, we would have to go to places like Nigeria and find descendants of the folks who sold their prisoners of war as slaves to whoever would pay for them.
In the current time frame, we have unrestrained violence in Milwaukee. Is this not terrorism? Of course it is. The point in this is not to rationalize terrorism as a tool to for Muslims to use against United States citizens. I am bringing this up because most Americans know absolutely nothing about our history. It is also silly to see these riots as being any kind of justified payback to the white race. What we all need to know is that terrorism is an extremely useful tool people use to get what they want. It works. The lynchings of blacks during the 19th and 20th century were extremely successful in accomplishing their intended purpose.
In 2008 we witnessed bloodless terrorism. It was financial terrorism. George Bush went on television and scared the holy hell out of the citizens so that he could get his TARP bill. Of course the TARP bill was sophisticated robbery. Since Americans know next to nothing about how government works most are clueless as to how much wealth and income this bill cost ordinary citizens. We may be the only nation in the world that actually celebrates ignorance. Folks this approach is going to be very costly.
