Open Your Eyes! Your Eyes! Your Eyes!
In 1776 the New World was ravaged by a conflict between Britain and the people living in the colonies on the east coast of America. In history this conflict came to be known as the American Revolution in which the brave and the free fought for liberty and justice. The true face of the revolution was somewhat different. Property, money and greed were the motives that drove the colonists on their road towards the Revolution and fueled the hearts of men who fought and died in the struggle against the British.
Money makes the world go around - it's the bloodstream of the economy. In the XVIII century, farming and trade were the greatest sources of income. In 1763, the British parliament passed an act known as the Proclamation of 1763, which disallowed farmers who lived in the colonies, to expand their plantations west, beyond a given geographical point. The act was supposedly passed to protect the human rights of the Native Americans. The real reason for it was money, because Britain didn't want to start a war with the natives in order to preserve their very profitable fur trade with the Indians. The colonists were furious when they saw this act. A very similar restrain put on farmers over eighty years earlier lead to a revolt know in history as Bacon's rebellion. Without the possibility to expand their plantations the colonists couldn't growth more crops. It hindered the farmer's abilities to farm more and in turn sale more goods making more profit, and making money was a major issue for the southern colonies. Many people would like to believe that the Proclamation of 1763 was a mean to protect the natural rights of the Native Americans who have been living there for generations, but this act was nothing more then a struggle for money and profit between the colonists and Britain.
Superiority and power over are very important things in the modern world - so important that people are willing to lie, fight and even die for it. Countries and nations wage war just to prove that they have the upper hand. The French and Indian War was fought for superior control over the Ohio river valley. The colonist wanted to extend land they could farm and make profits from. A major reason for the war was the extremely profitable trade with the Native Americans. Who controlled this region also controlled a large source of revenue. Lots of back-farmers and trades were big supporters of the war, because of the perspective of large profits they would claim after the war has ended. The colonists living in the New World were very eager to fight a war with the French as long as it was Britain who was doing most of the jobs. They were a lot less happy to later on pay the costs of the war through the increased taxes the British had placed on them - this is the point at which they began to protest and rebel. Both the British and the French wanted more land and control other the trade in the region. Power, domination and control are the reasons that stud behind the conflict which we today call the French and Indian War.
Greed is among the strongest human instincts. Both the British and the people who would soon call themselves Americans were greedy. The Stamp Act is a great example of this. With the Navigation Acts in place - which allowed the colonists to trade only with Britain, and a high tax on a monopolized good - the people of America were being ripped of to the extreme. Placing even more taxes on items like tea, lead to acts of anarchy like the Boston Tea Party. The very popular "no taxation without representation" is a good example too. As long as the people weren't taxed they didn't want liberty or representation. As long as people are allowed to work and get richer and richer they have no real reasons to overthrow those who rule them. Their greed was the reason they began to revolt not their beliefs.
Many events on the road towards the Revolution clearly show that it was a war fought because of the self interests of the colonists. People try to justify this by coming up with claims that they value independence and freedom. The reason that we do this is because we feel ashamed to be greedy and have a desire to posses. Ask yourself: if the drugs that stop the development of AIDS were to be given out for free, would they even be here in the first place? Without the motivation of profitability, would we have these drugs? Pharmaceuticals are very expensive in terms of research and development. It cost Pfizer 800 million dollars to bring Viagra to the market - a drug that only enhances our life quality - how much more did it take to develop the one for AIDS? If you want to live happily and see the world clearly knowing what is really important to you, don't persuade yourself to believe that people act on behalf of their ideals in whatever they do - open your eyes.
