I Ask, "Why?"

by: Joe Gaston

As I monitor the day's trending news on the internet, and as I watch the network news on television, I often turn to the radio to escape the perpetual madness. The radio, contrary to mass perceptions, seems to be the only place where you can listen to two strikingly difficult opinions while on the same channel.

I appreciate the premise of free speech, even when the speech is displeasurable to me and my personal views. However, there are many brethren and sistren in the United States of America who will berate, castigate, and vilify anyone who disagrees with them. In this article, I will attempt to illustrate a topic which I feel is meritorious and worthy of intellectual debate. The phenomenon known as the United States of America should be exposed for what it is; a mere tale; a saga filled with myths, misguided narratives, and docile ignorance.

One of the earliest and most prominent lies about the formation of America is the Boston Tea party. This party and the ensuing revolution should be re-examined. The constant and prevailing doctrine paints a picture where the poor colonists wanted to be liberated from the British Crown’s Authority. While expressing their verbal displeasure to the British troops, these troops—without good cause—fired flintlock muskets at the protesters.

Today, we know from historical documents and investigations that this story is artfully decorated and fallacious. The poor colonists were not the people who devised to break away from the British crown. Instead, it was a cartel of wealthy bourgeoisie who came up with the idea of breaking away, since they then could amass large fortunes without paying taxes nor tributes to the British crown. The poor and the working class were used as pawns and puppets for the elite establishment. Many colonists who were poor wanted to remain as British subjects. Because of their choice to remain loyal to the crown, the revolutionary heroic founding fathers declared war on them, hunted them down, broke into the loyalist homes at night and then killed the adult males, raped the adult females, kidnapped the loyalists children, and then set their homes on fire. Yes the founding fathers were the original “good ole boys.” They never meant any harm…

Yes, the British troops fired into the crowd of protesters that night in Boston. Historical documentations indicate that the peaceful protectors were in fact armed with clubs and sticks, and that they made the British troops back up against a wall with no avenue for escape. After being pelted with stones, some of the British troops fired their weapons into the protesters. Yes, some people died and some were injured, and it was a terrible tragedy: however, the cunning puppeteers were not in the front lines, and thus were able to escape unscathed. Another untold element of the story is that the British troops were put on trial in a court of law with the colonist society present. The attorney representing the British troops was none other than John Adams, who also was a prominent founding father. At trial, the British troops were acquitted and released. From that point in time, and to this present day, the United States of America has been governed by wide-eyed tycoons, hustlers, international con-men, prominent bankers, Wall street titans; and to this very day, the citizenry of this nation still fall victim to the puppeteers, the magnates, the rich and powerful, the elitists.

I advocate that now is the time to re-examine the political structures which govern the United States of America. I ask why has the United States of America failed so badly, over and over again when it comes to social equality and neoteric idealism? Let’s examine this from an academic viewpoint: first and foremost, never in the history of the United States of America, have we, the citizen voters, ever elected a president who possessed a university degree in sociology, and who was recognized professionally as a sociologist or social scientist. I ask why?

At one time the nation’s states and cities around the globe sought out the highly revered advisements and directives from sociologists. For those who have been fortunate enough to have matriculated from a university, the following names are well known: Auguste Comte, Alexis de Tocqueville, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Adam Smith, W.E.B Dubois, Herbert Spencer, Harriet Martineau, Michael Foucault, Jose Marti, Emile Durkhiem, Thomas Robert Malthus, Patricia Hill Collins, Charles Horton, Kojin Karatani, George Herbert Mead, Eruing Goffman, Otto Bauer, Sylvia Pankhurst, Edward Bernstein, Pierre Boudieu, Rose Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Anthony Giddens, Robert K. Merton, Alexandra Kollontaai, Otto Ruhle, Talcott Parsons, Paul Mattick, Ho Chi Minh, Georg Simmel, Judith Astelarra, John Stuart Mill, Cornelius Castoriadis, and, yes, there are many more. Some are no longer living amongst us, yet their theoretical systems have affected billions and their names reverberate in academia all around the world

What’s ironic is that you never hear of them during political election cycles. I ask why?

Instead the media, along with their political pundits, prefer to expound on what Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama, Harry Truman, William Clinton, and others of their ilk have said. No mention is made about the failures sociologically because of their theories and their misguided actions. All of them caused senseless death and destruction around the globe, and all of them failed to unite the hearts of Americans for a common good. Yet American citizens close their eyes to the disasters of their administrations both here in the United States and abroad. Yes, they were respectable individuals, and they were loved by many. But none of them, nor anyone else who has been elected as president of the United States, have been certified as a legitimate sociologist or social scientist. They might very well be affable persons, yet they are bankrupt when it comes to sociological discourse, and collective societal advancements.

Yes, we should love everyone. But everyone is not competent to lead a nation comprising a population in excess of 300 million individuals. The American people have systematically been forced to choose between charlatans as leadership for the United States of America. No matter how advanced this nation has become through technological advancements, we still are one fully bathed in racism, sexism, oppression, bigotry, discrimination, and income based class conflicts. We still have the same social diseases which existed when the founding fathers were alive. I ask why?

I posit that we need to advance a new body politic. One where we can openly demand that the leaders or our great nation must be persons who possess university degrees in sociology. Perhaps I am asking too much?

It frightens me to realize that on election day, when I travel to the polling place and present my identification to the poll workers, that the poll worker will hand me a ballot for electing the next president of the United States of America. As I open the ballot, I see two names: Donald J. Trump and Joseph Biden… I immediately scream out at the top of my lungs, “Are you kidding me?” I ask why?