Freedom Force International -

LET'S LEAVE FOUNDNG-FATHERS BASHING
FOR THOSE WHO HATE AMERICA
Analysis © 2009 Updated 2009 October 1 by G. Edward Griffin

Mr. Griffin,
I have stepped back and taken a look at the larger picture. You helped me do that with your book, World without Cancer. Contrary to claims that our government is taking over the corporations, in reality, a cartel of banks and corporations have taken over our government, by lobby and campaign contribution influence. Big business + legislature = collusion + corruption. This is the larger picture. Our founding fathers said that power corrupts... then proceeded to give us both. Their first move toward it was slavery = cheap labor... Already, we were not all "created equal".

Hello Grace.
Congratulations on being able to see through the smokescreen and recognize that the new reality in Washington is a merger of government and corporations, with government the captive. By definition, this is corporate fascism.

The slavery issue is worth re-examining. In no way do I condone slavery, but please be aware that our founding fathers did not invent it. It was not their "first move." They were born into a world at a time when it was commonplace. Many of our ancestors were outspoken against slavery and were working to bring about a shift in public opinion that was inexorably moving in the direction of universal emancipation. It is easy for us, 200 years later, to look back and be judgmental about how slowly the reform was moving, but one does not change the economic and ethical base of an entire society overnight.

Most people alive today, if suddenly transported back in time to find themselves living in the world that existed then, would be unable to sway many minds, no matter how eloquent they may be. If they found themselves as estate owners with scores of slaves producing crops, it is highly unlikely that they would discharge those workers and close down their enterprises. Some would reply that all they would have to do is free them and then pay them a wage for the same work, but that would have been impossible. Most slaves in those days lacked enough education to count their wages, negotiate their lodging, purchase their food, obtain medical care (such as it was), or perform any of the other functions of free men. They were born as slaves, and that’s the only mode of existence most of them knew. They may have wanted to be free, but, just as at the end of the Civil War many years later, most of them didn’t know how to be free.

Genuine reform of that magnitude takes time, and I believe we can be proud to know it was underway at the time of the American Revolution and just as advanced, if not more so, as similar reform anywhere else in the world. If we are to condemn early Americans for the institution of slavery which they inherited, then we must also condemn Europeans, Asians, and Africans of that time. Yes, Africans. It is true that slaves brought to Europe and America were transported by Dutch and British ships but they were captured into slavery and sold to those slave traders by African chiefs and warring tribes. Elsewhere in the old world, slavery was the norm. The Roman Empire had slaves. The Ottoman Empire had slaves. The Mayan Empire had slaves. In other words, no one's ancestors are free of this taint.

It took centuries for the world's advanced cultures to reject slavery, and we should not single out the American colonists as though they were the originators and advocates of that dying institution. Let's leave Founding-Father-bashing to those who hate America.