The Wake

“I have lived within the monster and know its insides; and my sling is the sling of David,” said José Martí, a Cuban poet, journalist and activist, near the end of the 19th century in reference to the United States’ government. Martí feared that if Cuba successfully broke away from Spanish rule, then the U.S. would annex his home country. Martí ultimately died in this fight for Cuban independence and racial equality in May of 1895.

Three years after Martí’s death, the Spanish sunk the USS Maine in February of 1898. This act officially began the Spanish-American war and the certain usurpation of Cuba by the U.S.

The U.S. would win in 10 months time, gaining Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and Cuba as its prize. None of these islands were represented at the treaty signing after the war, none of these islands were allowed a voice in their fate and none of these islands received the independence they had, above all, fought and died for.

As a result, Martí’s dream of independence and racial equality for Cuba would not be realized. The Spanish segregationist rule may have left, but the Cubans would continue to endure the same oppression under the Americans.

This was, as expressed in Anders Stephanson’s Manifest Destiny: American Expansionism and the Empire of Right, the revitalization of the Jackson Democrat term: Manifest Destiny. The original 1840s concept of manifest destiny was amended and altered to justify U.S. involvement outside of its borders in the 1890s and after. According to journalist John O’Sullivan, the 1840s interpretation of manifest as, “that claim is by the right of our [America’s]…to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us…”

O’Sullivan’s “continent” of the 1840’s was redefined as north of the equator in the 1890s by the U.S. government. The idea that remained unchanged was that Providence — God — endowed the U.S. to expand its borders.

America’s annexation of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam was a result of continued manifest destiny—to spread its Anglo-Saxon values and enlarge its boundaries.

America still maintains ideas of manifest destiny and insists on the spread of its Anglo-Saxon, capitalist ways. Puerto Rico, Guam, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are still territories.

Shortly before his second inauguration as governor of Texas, George W. Bush said to Richard Land, “I believe that God wants me to be president.” Land later recalled this statement in the Frontline documentary in 2004 titled “The Jesus Factor.”

Following Bush’s election as president, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October of 2001 and established an American-like government where democracy was not asked for. In April of 2002 when most Latin American countries condemned the Venezuelan coup d’état, the U.S. supported and acknowledged the overthrowing power. Hugo Chávez, the removed president, was an outspoken critic of the U.S. government. The de facto government favored U.S. business relations and it is suspected that the U.S. played a role in the uprising. Perhaps it is only a coincidence that Venezuela supplies the U.S. with 12-15 percent of our oil.

Next, in 2003, the U.S. attacked Iraq in order to create a new democratic power that, like in Afghanistan, was not wanted by its citizens.

Bush, the man that God wanted to be president, has manipulated the language of manifest destiny to justify his acts outside of U.S. borders. O’Sullivan’s continent has again been redefined, but this time by Bush to include the entire world. Bush no longer calls U.S. global actions manifest destiny. However he certainly justifies these actions, like O’Sullivan, in the name of “providence” and “liberty.”

Cuba did not want U.S. rule at the turn of the 20th century. Afghanistan, Venezuela and Iraq do not want America’s God or liberty. These countries do not want Bush, yet Bush wants them.

…In the olden days, Goliath was slayed and everybody nowadays looks back
and sees how cruel Goliath was. Nowadays, there are crueler Goliaths who do
crueler, crueler things; but one day they’re gonna be slain too, and people 2,000
years from now can look back and say, “remember when Goliath the Second was slayed.”

-Bob Dylan, “No Direction Home” album