The Phillippine Exportation/ Notes from the Inside

pem style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Lucida Grande, Lucida Sans Unicode, helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"Editors Note: Jose H. Villarreal is one of several power-FUL PNNPlantation prison correspondents. As currently and formerly incarcerated poor and indigenous peoples in struggle and resistance with all plantation systems in Amerikkka, POOR Magazine stands in solidarity with all folks on the other side of the razor wire plantation./span/em/p pThe Spanish ndash; Amerkkkan war of 1898 was an event which began an important development in World political affairs. It began the rise of U.$. imperialism. This rise was reflected in the U.$. annexation of the Philippines./p pThe ldquo;Spanish- Amerkkkan Warrdquo; as it is referred to was actually an inter-imperialist conflict where Amerikkka and Spain were fighting over who will colonize who essentially./p pOn the surface it appeared that Amerikkka was attempting to guard from Spanish expansion, there were deeper reasons for this war and to blame it simply on propaganda machines like the hearst corporation or a fear of ldquo;another Black Republicrdquo; is a big mistake and misjudgment./p pAlthough the Amerikkkan press did hype up the call to way, there were bigger factors involved./p pKarl Marx addressed the contradictions within the capitalist system which exists solely by accumulation and the need to expand. Vladimir Lenin took the ideas of Marx further in his work ldquo;Imperialism : the Highest Stage of Capitalismrdquo;. In this work Lenin explained that capitalism MUST expand or die. As it expands it becomes Imperialism which, I might add, is simply capitalism on a global scale or to be more precise itrsquo;s the exportation of exploitation./p pAmerikkka, during the rosy dawn of capitalism, HAD to expand when it did. It began to look to other countries in which to exploit their resources. The Philippines was ripe for the picking. It was ripe for Amerikkka to devour its timber industry and use its geographical location to further the U.$. sphere of influence in the region./p pThere was some push back and resistance to this from anti-imperialists of the day such as Carl Schurz, E.L. Godkin, William Jennings Bryan, Jane Addams and the writer Mark Twain. These people all criticized Amerikkka for its deeds and plunder. They formed the ldquo;Anti-Imperialist Leaguerdquo; in 1898 in order to organize their resistance./p pAlthough there was opposition within Amerkkka to annex Philippines on a small scale, the most important resistance came from the Philippino people themselves. In the 1890rsquo;s, under the command of Emilio Aguinaldo, the Philippino people organized an independence movement who at first unleased Guerrilla warfareon the Spahish colonizers and later on the Amerikkkan colonizers./p pDespite the opposition, those in favor of annexing the Philippines had more power and influence at the time. Racism was even more dominant at the time, with Amerikkan Presidents even talking about ldquo;threats to the white racerdquo; and other things which left out non-whites. nbsp;/p pThe same can be said for the annexation of about half of Mexicorsquo;s land by Amerikkka in 1848. The Amerikkkan public was mostly all for it as well. Imperialism is in power in the U.$. , as a result capitalism is the dominant culture because they control the big business, the press, the kkkourts, the schools, the police and military. They talk of ldquo;freedomrdquo;, but all of the above institutions work to uphold and enforce the capitalist way of life. These same institutions would be shut down if they promoted tearing down U.$. imperialism or overturning capitalism. Exporting exploitation equals imperialism./p pJose H. Villarrealnbsp;/p p1-6-16/p