Sins of the U.S. Empire Part 1
An Introduction
Sins of the U.S. Empire Part 1
An Introduction
Introduction
I grew up in the U.S. south, my family other than a few “black sheep” in the family were very conservative Christians, always voting for the republican candidate regardless of that candidate’s particular policies. They also were and still are devout attendees of Church every Sunday morning, and most Sunday evenings as well as frequently attending Wednesday nights. Most of the time while growing up I attended VBS (Vacation Bible School) during summers, and accepted Christ into my heart a number of times in case the previous ones didn’t count due to me being too young etc.
I had a few family members that had served in the military, the most influential on me was my maternal grandfather who had served in the Pacific during WW2. He spent many evenings watching John Wayne movies, among others of the Western or WW2 era genre, and was a stand-in father figure to me for much of my childhood. He never glorified anything that happened to him during the war, in fact he barely mentioned anything about it. He also never promoted military service to me. I do know that he marched into Japan under MacArthur after the bombs were dropped, so I suspect he may have seen or done some things that haunted him. (Evidently due to the altitude of the detonations very little residual radiation was left behind, although my family has joked that this may explain some oddness in certain family members.)
In school I got used to saying the pledge of allegiance every day, some years we even had the super patriotic videos with the national anthem that would play and show jet fighters flying over, among other impressive military displays to really get into our young heads how awesome it would be to have the honor of serving our country.
In high school this was amplified even further with actual recruiters showing up during our lunches and giving out free lanyards, pens, business cards, and wanting our contact info. I actually fell for this and ended up being signed up for the ASVAB test which claims to show you what you’re good at, but also puts you on recruiters hot list to show up and harass you at your house. Especially if they know that you are low income, so unlikely to be able to afford college / healthcare, without huge amounts of debt.
In history I was taught very little, mostly by various coaches. What I did get taught highlighted “American Exceptionalism”. Essentially how amazing the settlers were for surviving in the new world against the “savages”, then “manifest destiny” spreading to the west coast and eventually discovering gold. Then how the US saved the world in WW1 against the evil Germans, then again in WW2 against the evil Nazi Germans as well as the Japanese, then against the evil Soviets in the Cold War. They never really got into the details of the causes of any of these conflicts, other than “bad guy did bad thing so we came to help”, always painting the U.S. as the saviors. They kind of skimmed over Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War…I wonder why? The Civil Rights movement as well as anti war/hippie movement was briefly mentioned, but never went into details.
Beginning to Wake Up
I’m in my late thirties, so while I was in high school 9/11 occurred. I remember the teachers and staff bringing us into a large room with the TV going and watching live news as the second plane hit.
In the aftermath the recruiters really upped their game, and a number of my friends ended up enlisting. I remember the news where President Bush would mention Saddam Hussein then quickly Osama Bin Laden, almost always mentioning them in the same tangent.
My cousin is a year older than me, so once he could drive we would ride to high school together, and one morning on the way to school we were discussing what had happened during 9/11.
He asked me who I thought was at fault, and I mentioned Iraq and Saddam Hussein, he explained to me that it didn’t seem like he had anything to do with it. That the terrorist group that had done it wasn’t even from that country, and in the end he was absolutely right. I’m still grateful to him for waking me up a bit out of the hyper patriotic / religious mindset I was in at that time. Unfortunately not everyone was as lucky to have someone in their life to wake them up, and some men and women I knew from then died or came back with mental or physical wounds they are still dealing with to this day.
I tell you all of this as a introduction to myself and who will be telling you the stories I plan to go over in this series of articles, and how I went from a patriotic conservative gun owning Christian, to someone who decided to leave my home country and raise my son elsewhere.
As I’ve studied history in my own time as an adult I’ve had my eyes opened to all of the atrocities that my home country has committed on the world. In school and the general media we are taught that the US is the shining beacon of hope for the entire world, we invent the best stuff, we have the best of everything, and if we invade a country it’s for their own good, so they can have freedom too! We are taught how lucky we are to have been born in the states, which considering what we do to other countries…perhaps there is truth to this.
Our military is so big and strong that we can conquer anyone if we need to. We are also told we need it that strong because we’re busy “helping” protect all of our allied nations from the “bad” guys. This explains why we spend more on military spending than the next 7 nations combined…As I’ve learned more this “protection” feels an awful lot like the type of “protection” the mafia offers people and businesses.
The mind-washing and programming in the US starts at a very young age, just look at all the toy guns, and military style toys and action figures, plus the cartoons of G.I. Joe. Then progress to movies and TV glorifying gun fights and the military, and of course video games.
The most glaring example was a video game that was developed by the Pentagon, and distributed for free, “America’s Army”. The video game was literally used as a recruiting tool, and since it was free it gained more followers than it would have being up against paid titles such as “Counter Strike” or “Rainbow Six”. Mix all of this with what I mentioned above about the daily pledges of allegiance, and recruiters coming at you aggressively, making sure to remind you of how expensive college is, and how you’ll also get health benefits, and a poor kid who can’t even afford a video game starts thinking about their future. Conveniently not informed fully about how they essentially lose their protections as a citizen by signing up for the military.
I’ve had friends from other countries tell me how weird it is that the pledge is said daily, not to mention having huge school debt or any debt related to healthcare…
So why is it like this in the U.S.? If the U.S. isn’t spreading freedom around the world when they invade and intervene, then what is it doing? What is the motive? Don’t we only go after bad guys?
If you follow along with me I plan to go into the darker corners of U.S. history, but a fair warning to any U.S citizens, once you know more you won’t be able to look at your home country the same way again.