The US Problem Referred to as Capitalism
“In love of liberty and in the defense of it, Holland has been our example.”
Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia Convention 1787)
I have a rather wide variety of acquaintances, which naturally complicates the ability to speak freely without offending anyone. But, as an artist and a seeker of truth I cannot help from speaking what I believe is the truth, and it will inevitably displease some people. I do not favor one race over another, and maybe that is the advantage of being bi-racial, (Dutch and Indonesian-Dutch,) just as I don’t favor any gender, as a gender non-conforming person, (also without any conflict or dysphoria.) I am well aware the white hetero-cis-male system is the problem in society at large, but I want to take it further than that.
After having lived in the US for the last 25 years, as a Dutch citizen, (and 19 years in the Netherlands/Europe previously,) this is my impression of Americans, (and I really mean average ones but there are way too many of those around.)
The average American (of any color) seems to be under some vague impression, or at least acts like they are under the impression, that the world somehow started with the US, (either the foundation of it, or the “discovery” of it,) while in reality the formation of the US was the conclusion of a centuries old battle between the European powers that ruled the world in those days, (16th, 17th century primarily, and of course the world did not start there neither, but our current conflicts here mostly did, including the very real black and white racist conflict still prevalent today.)
It did not start out as a racial conflict in Europe, (as we know it to be today,) in the pre-colonization days, but a religious conflict, between basically the Protestants of the North and the West of Europe and the Catholics of the South, commonly referred to in European history as the Age of Enlightenment, (which is Protestant in origins and eventually grew into the concept of Individual Rights, which was essentially an anti-Catholic concept.)
By the time the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade started, world colonization by the Europeans was in full force, and black people were brought over here against their will from already existing European colonies. (Otherwise Europeans would have never been able to ship them over here, as these things did not happen overnight but were the result of years of domination already.)
Pre-colonization, (when people in Europe were indeed of European descent,) just about everyone in Europe was under the rule of the monarchs, and if you weren’t royalty you were pretty close to living in slave-like conditions. The end result of that was pretty much the plague, which wiped about half of Europe out.
I know I’m rushing through history here but European history is a long, complex and bloody one, of conquerors and conquered, and just about every country had their turn in being either one. (The combination of poverty and Catholicism is what made the Irish in particular unpopular in Europe, and after the great potato famine, had them coming to US Shores in droves, in many cases also not exactly out of their own free will, and many of them as indentured servants/“temporary slaves.”)
The Age of Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason, started more or less with the Reformation, in the North and West of Europe, and resulted initially in Protestantism as well as Puritanism, the latter mostly adopted by the British, and eventually in Europe secularism or atheism. The Reformation was in turn to some extent an outgrowth of the Renaissance, which to an extent took its’ influences from the Greeks.
And I’m oversimplifying vastly of course but if there is one thing I have noticed as an artist from Europe living in the US, it’s that philosophy is absolutely not appreciated here, and that this country runs on emotions entirely by now.
My home country of the Netherlands got annexed into several empires before it became a real ruling power of its own, and even then got defeated once again, by Hitler this time around, losing in the process its’ own biggest colony of Indonesia, my mother’s home country, then the Dutch-Indies, (some 350 years of Dutch colonization, 1600 until WWII, although started initially as a place of trade, and after the Dutch owned United East-Indies Company went bankrupt the Dutch government took possession of their debts, the whole country of Indonesia.
After the Dutch lost the colony finally and Indonesia claimed Independence in 1949, my mother and her family, along with thousands of mixed Indonesian-Dutch, those who were born or acquired Dutch Citizenship in Indonesia through bloodline, including the parents of Eddie and Alex Van Halen as well as the family of Geert Wilders, yes that Geert Wilders, had to leave for the Netherlands, where they were met with much resistance, which resulted in the Van Halen family moving to the US and Geert Wilders becoming a right-winger.)
This seemingly endless European bloodbath is how our current borders in Europe got established after all. And the European Union was the (final) conclusion of that really, and that is why Brexit is so dangerous in Europe.
The independent-minded Dutch’s own war for independence from Spanish rule and imposed Catholicism lasted 80 years, known as the Dutch Revolt, and in 1648 the Dutch became its’ own country, the Netherlands. The Dutch Declaration of Independence contains several elements later found in the US Constitution, which is not coincidental as the Pilgrims’ 11 years stay in the Netherlands, before boarding the Mayflower, resulted in them studying Dutch politics thoroughly.
The Netherlands and England were two dominating world powers, warring it out before the US got established, in what’s referred to as the Dutch-Anglo Wars (on and off some 100 years,) and this resulted in both countries having colonies in what is now the US. (One should check out some YouTube videos by Russell Shorto to get a quick summation of the Dutch influence in the US.)
Americans generally speaking only remember the English side of things, (if they remember anything at all,) as history is written by its victors and England took the New Netherland, (everything between Virginia and New England,) including New Amsterdam, which they renamed New York.
The Netherlands did everything in its power to defeat the English, and so helped the US enormously in its search for independence, eventually basically just to go against England when they themselves couldn’t rule here anymore neither. It assisted the American revolution with money, (an enormous bank loan,) weapons, (smuggled in through the Dutch colonies off the US coast,) and yes, enslaved people, or slaves, (as they had colonized South Africa. The very word apartheid, or segregation, is a Dutch word, and ultimately a Dutch invention. In the Dutch-Indies they practiced another tactic altogether, a complete whitewashing of the Asian race through basically rape.) The Dutch didn’t necessarily invent slavery, as many people had practiced it in various forms, and women in particular have to a large extent often been slaves of men, but the Dutch surely accelerated this insanely cruel practice and made a business out of it.
There is a lot of confusion as to how the concept of Individual Rights behind the Enlightenment as well as the US Constitution could co-exist with slavery, and to denounce capitalism and its’ underlying philosophy of Individual Rights, is the easiest way to denounce slavery, in the process denouncing the Constitution itself as well, (and so Individual Rights with it of course.) The two however are not compatible and a misuse of the grounding principles behind Capitalism, namely Rationality and Science, led to slavery.
The underlying root of the misuse of Capitalism lies in greed, which is a form of lack of self-esteem, and also manifests itself through non-capitalistic practices such as rape, revenge and all forms of jealous and envy. The monetary system did not invent these human emotions, the lack of rationality and lack of self-esteem, of self-love, did.
To say Capitalism, the monetary system, which rests on the philosophy of Objectivism, an Individual Rights, Free Will and Pro-Choice philosophy,) created slavery is to say something to the extent of love having created rape. Rape is created in the absence of love, self-love primarily, and is created by an obsessive need for power, not money nor sex. Rape is the absence of love, just as slavery is the absence of the recognition of individual rights, to own one’s mind, one’s body and the fruits of one’s labor, as pertaining to all people equally, of all races and genders that is.
Before European colonialism, which is not the same as Capitalism, but rather Imperialism, all other Empires, (Roman, Greek, the very one who invented Democracy it its’ earlier forms, Persian, Ottoman and Egyptian,) practiced forms of slavery. Besides this all men who still deny women full equality of individual rights, including bodily autonomy, (and by extension LGBTQ rights,) practice a form of slavery. All empires, governments, societies, religions and philosophies, that regard a woman’s value to be her fertility, rather than her intellect, is a proponent and perpetuator of slavery.
The US is a young country still. however convoluted, corrupted and divided, and suffers from a short-term memory, or lack of knowledge and implementation of philosophical knowledge altogether, and has replaced all promise of rationality with emotionality instead, Left- and Right-Wing alike, which could become the downfall of this country.
The Pilgrims also camped out in the Netherlands for years before heading this way, and were heavily influenced by the Dutch, who were engulfed in their own search for individual rights, (and had written their own versions of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution over a century before the Founding Fathers here,) as were the French, and their alliance with the US is slightly more commonly known here.
In reality the Dutch, along with the French, lend the original 13 colonies an enormous bank loan, in their fight for independence from England, which was never properly repaid. The Dutch Bank of Amsterdam’s unpaid loan was in the amount of 10 million, (imagine how much that would come out be in current times.) The Dutch also supplied weapons to the American Revolutionary war through their islands in the Caribbean, as well as as yes, slaves, enslaved, primarily Black people, from their already existing colonies. The Dutch were the first to recognize the US’ independence with a military salute from St. Eustatius Island.
England had overtaken the Dutch colonies of New Netherland, stretched out between the English colonies of New England on the North and Virginia in the South. They renamed New Amsterdam New York, and erased much of the Dutch influence in the colonies, but it can be said that the whole character of US is actually Dutch in nature more than anything.
The US however was never able to completely successfully separate State and Religion, which would be the Constitutional thing to do, and which had indeed been the intent of its’ Founding Fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson, unlike the Dutch in the Netherlands, which allows for for freedom of religion but is ultimately Atheist in nature, and it is this major conflict which is the true problem of the US, not Capitalism.
Americans also seem to be under the impression that the Netherlands is a very small country, which purely geographically speaking it is, (about the the size of Southern California, with a total population of some 17 million people,) but its’ political powers were and are far reaching, (the Wall Street Stock Exchange was a Dutch invention, to name one. And the word Dollar comes from the Dutch currency named Daalder, or Rijksdaalder.)
This also shatters the false notion that the Netherlands is a socialist country, (they practically invented capitalism, even though it was practiced way before the Dutch as well.) And to equate capitalism purely with the need for money, without regard of people, (instead of the right to personhood it also truly represents, and which is so crucially necessary for women/female-bodied individuals who are still struggling for the right to own our own bodies in this anti-choice country,) and so greed, (which turns into slavery,) is to equate love purely with lust, without any regard to people, and so greed, (which turns into rape.)
The lack of self-worth, (which is the root cause of all greed,) existed well before money was invented, and will also continue to exist without it. (Needless to say the Netherlands is also one of the most pro-choice countries in the world, and has one of the lowest rates of teenage- and unwanted pregnancies in the world.)
It’s interesting to ponder what the current situation in the US would look like if the more liberal Netherlands had not lost its colonies to mostly religious England instead, (most likely more equality based on individual rights, as is the case in the Netherlands currently,) but my real point is not who owned who, but this distinction of recognizing the white patriarch system as having roots in a mental/religious conflict, (gone awfully wrong,) between the Protestants who believed ultimately in more individual freedom and the Catholics who believed in one ruling, supernatural power.
It is no wonder that the Netherlands ultimately became very atheist in nature, (the more you believe in individual rights and freedom the less religious you become,) and have a rather advanced human rights record compared to many other countries in the world, (and yes, I am quietly forever grateful my homecountry was the first one to legalize same-sex marriage in 2001, homosexuality itself having been legal as early as 1809, but they were also way ahead in abortion rights, legalized sex-work, soft drugs, euthanasia.)
The establishment of individual rights is atheist in nature, and there is no room for an intermingling of State and Church, as in reality is still the case in the US, and which is unconstitutional.
The 100 year Anglo-Dutch wars, (4 wars with intervals, starting in 1652 and ending in 1784,) was a war between the two superpowers of Europe battling it out for land, resources, money and power, during the 16th and 17th century, and which ultimately resulted in the formation of the US.
US history will never explain things this way but it’s important to know the original conflicts were steeped in religious differences, besides resource control, and not initially racial.
The ultimate conflict in Europe throughout the 16th and 17th centuries were ultimately about Free Will versus Destination. The reason this is such an important distinction to make is because it pertains to governing the people, how much freedom to allow them based on their human nature, or to control them to do the will of the state.
This conflict was the heart of the Protestant and Catholic wars, which ultimately defined the borders and national characters of each country, the Catholics believing in primarily Pre-Destination, and so a lot of control by the state, the elite, over the population, whereas the Protestants believed in greater individual freedom based on people’s ability to choose for themselves, so allowing for less state, elite, interference with people.
This is the true conflict which is behind politics today still and which has gotten extremely muddled and twisted in the US, between the Left- and Right-Wing.
The idea of Individual Rights which is the basis of the US Constitution is an outgrowth of Protestantism, while ultimately the idea behind Socialism is Catholicism, but in the US the Right-Wing mixed the two and hogged up both Religion and the Constitution, which is fatal combination.
No separation of State and Church and State and Economics in this country is what led to the Fascist regime in the White House today. And Socialism is not the answer to this. A real enforcement of the constitutional principles of Separation of State and Church and State and Economics is the only way to stop government overreach and corruption. The government’s role is to ensure Individual Rights are protected, not to interfere with every aspect of our personal lives.
I personally believe in Individual Rights, because when applied right, it is the true salvation for minorities, (the individual being the biggest minority of all,) especially women and their right to free will over their minds and bodies. Individual Rights, by nature, can never be at the expense of another person’s exact same rights to individual freedom. (“One person’s rights end where another person’s rights begin” is the motto behind the principle of Individual Rights.) This is applying it the right way, and with the right to individual freedom comes great responsibility for humanity, while it is at the heart necessarily atheist in nature. But applying it the wrong way it has absolutely disastrous results.
The opposite of the right to one’s free will in all basic matters of life, with its’ roots in rationality and science, is self-sacrifice, or as it is more popularly stated, compassion, with its’ root in emotion and religion, of any sort. In all forms of religion there is no basis for equality and so equality of Individual Rights.
Religion, by nature, requires inequality and submission to something other than one’s mind and body, and has therefore disastrous results. Religion, by nature, requires the female body to be validated on her ability to give life, her fertility, and not her mind. In religion, the first person to be sacrificed is necessarily female. If one believes a woman or female-bodied person’s validity in life is in her ability to give life, versus the contents of her mind, there is no need for her to have Individual Rights to free will.
This is also extremely convenient for those who want not only unrestricted access to a woman’s body but to create surplus population for the purpose of cheap labor and slavery. A woman and her will, in contrast, would naturally control world population instead.
It wouldn’t be so bad for us all to start considering, and studying, this mental conflict at the root of what became a racial conflict, without diminishing the real racially unequal treatment of Black and Brown people in the US.
This is my only point in this post. Peace, love and respect to you all.
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My name is Gabriella Bregman, I am a Hollywood-based Writer, Filmmaker and Producer, currently in production of a Feature Documentary about LGBTQ US-Immigration Exclusion-Policy, including my personal story of US immigration discrimination during DOMA, (Defense Of Marriage Act, of 1996–2015,) titled ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights,’ through my film production company Bregman Films.
The 2001 John Cassavetes Film Retrospective ‘Gena and John: A Cassavetes Retrospective’ at the Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles is a Bregman Films Production.
I am also the Founder of a Nonprofit Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles — A Media Site & LA Film Mixers (2018.)
In 2018 I am publishing my story and essays in a book, titled ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights & Other Essays.’
I identify as a Gender Nonconforming Lesbian, “non-op” Trans-Masculine, and Bi-Racial, from the Netherlands, Los Angeles-based.
My pronouns are: they/them/theirs.
Please check out my other articles on LGBTQ- and Immigration Issues, the State of Women and LGBTQ People in Film, and Lesbian/Queer Film as well as Queer Female Sexuality and Gender Identity at medium.com/@gabriellabregman
A few titles:
Resume/FILM BIO: Gabriella Bregman (2018) (2018)
2018 Update on Documentary ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights’ (2018)
A Note on the State of Women in Film (2016)
A Few Notes On LGBTQ Filmmaking (2017)
Some Thoughts on the State of Lesbian Filmmaking in the US (part 1 of 5) (2018)
John Cassavetes Film Retrospective (2001) (2018)
On ‘Moonlight’ and the Subject of Positive Representation (2017)
My 2018 Oscar Pick for Best Picture (2018)
In Defense of Rationality (2018)
In Defense of Individual Rights (2018)
A Few Notes on US Immigration Exclusion Policies Towards Women- and LGBTQ Immigrants (2014)
The Root Cause Of Misogyny, And The Necessity Of Free Will (Gender Binary System notes, part 1 of 7) (2016)
The Male And Female Brain, And The “Cause” Of Transgenderism (Gender Binary System notes, part 2 of 7) (2016)
The Gender-Binary System Was Created For Population Control And Slavery, Including Sex Slavery (Gender Binary System notes, part 7 of 7)
All Articles Written by Gabriella Bregman (TM). All Pictures Owned by Gabriella Bregman (TM). All Rights Reserved (2018)
