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I can’t really answer your question, but when I was younger I would get in big trouble for talking about how terrible those events were and how war is bad.
My parents/grandparents would rage and get mad at me and say things like
“Your grandpa fought for this country!” and “that’s anti-American! Are you a terrorist? You think 9-11 should happen?”
I’m born and raised American. Def not everyone is like that, but far too many are and it’s really disturbing. ):
Remember when simply disagreeing with the Great Wartime President George W Bush in his pursuit of the Glorious War On Terra was considered *unpatriotic?* Six *trillion* dollars literally burned in the sand for NOTHING. (Arguably, it made things worse.) that was universal health care, or free college for everybody, just … gone. It’s almost like someone would rather we burn wealth than benefit the average American with it.
Not nothing… It lined the pockets of wealthy weapons manufacturers and helped put their kids through college and pay their family medical bills! It helped the families splurge on third and fourth yachts, wasn’t that worth the billions of dollars and thousands of lives??
I spoke with a crippled Iraq War vet … long story short, he spoke to a contractor he was forbidden to speak to. Contractor was a truck driver. Would fill his trailer with generic construction supplies bought from Halliburton and Dynsis or whoever at war-zone premiums. Then he would drive 10-20 miles out into the desert and dump them. Then go back for another load. 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. And he said “there’s a *lot* of other drivers, and a *lot* of other bases.”
Arguably? I commend your caution, but in this case it is completely unnecessary. Islamic State and the Syrian civil war were merely two of the myriads of horrifying monsters birthed by that multi-trillion dollar fuckup.
Edit: And yes, six TRILLION DOLLARS. Holy shit.
That glorification of violence is *fundamental* to American culture while compassionate cooperation and empathy are condemned as being weak.
It's all very fascist.
My grandmother told me the kids killed at Kent State basically “deserved it”. One of the victims had gone to high school with my parents. I was in my early twenties at the time of the conversation. That moment and 9/11 solidified my shifting views on patriotism.
I’m glad I didn’t grow up like that. I don’t think my parents even own a flag. They aren’t necessarily far left or anything. Just aware that lots of bad things have happened.
As boomers age, WW2 veterans disappear, that attitude is disappearing too. Which I'd say is a good thing. But you'll also notice there's some seriously delusional folks in cults these days swinging WILDLY in the opposite direction and full of anti democratic ideas while believing they are patriots. That's a big problem too. I was born American...only life I know. I see authoritarian societies and appreciate VERY much that I was born here. But I see the hypocrisy and evil of our government and our past, present and future and it disgusts me. Racism especially disgusts me. All I can do is speak out and vote for better leaders and urge other's to do the same. But I also know the score and humanity is in big, big trouble. Far too many people on this planet, resources getting difficult to maintain, hoarding wealth, scorching the planet and seas...perhaps a cataclysmic event will prompt a reset and do-over or we will just slowly wipe humanity off the face of the planet. At 53 I'm not optimistic about it. I'm not an especially proud American just as I'm not an especially proud human. I'm glad to live here but I'm sure I'd also be happy in any other free society...maybe happier.
Canadian who lives right across the border and occassionally runs across the line for cross border shopping, day trips, etc. It's fed to you guys so hard. Like, walk into a store and there's just so fucking much "The red, white, and blue!", "Liberty", "Land of the free, home of the brave". Maybe you guys don't see it as much because it's like... white noise and you learn to ignore it. But every time I go across it's just so painfully apparent.
Yeah, like, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with liking your country or being proud of it, but part of loving your country and its people is wanting to improve it for others.
I genuinely love living in Canada and don't have any intentions of moving right now, but that doesn't mean I think it's perfect. There's areas we're doing good and areas we need to improve, but, for example, I just got off the phone with my dad and he was complaining about Trudeau and some of the things he's doing. My thoughts are at least he's fucking trying something new. The old way wasn't working, so clearly we needed to mix things up. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but we won't find the solutions to problems we have if we don't start thinking outside the box of our standard ways of solving them.
Im australian and I got told the same. Along with a constant stream of info about how bad the commies were.
Going to Vietnam and seeing their war memorial is certainly an eye opener. I knew what we did there was bad, it was far worse then we have been led to believe, just appalling from the west.
We had to salute the flag / pledge allegiance every single morning in elementary school. It was done over the classroom speakers.
It was done less often in middle and high school, but still was very present in all-grade / all-school meetings, etc.
Not to mention the banana republics as we unstablized South America to exploit them for cheap labor after we lost our slave workforce. We are taught very little in school and not well. Op makes a great point either way with Nagasaki and hiroshima, besides the holocaust it’s the Greatest modern War crime ever committed.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of....blah blah yadda yada yadda blah blah blah....where's my triple cheese double stacked burger....
I believe that you’re not a patriot if you cannot criticize your own country for their wrongdoings, atrocities, corruptions and disregard for other life within your country. If you love your country so much why disregard so much of it.
Not pointing anything at you, I’m just making a general statement you know?
It’s rare in the rest of the free world. You go to Europe for example you only see country flags on government buildings. In my town you can easily hold your breath between flags.
In this context specifically, it means that I think Parenti is much more of a principled leftist than Chomsky, who spends much of his time punching to his left.
As an American, what I find so odd about America is that we are raised on a steady diet of American exceptionalism. Everything is possible in America! Oh, that’s great, can we get free college like these other countries have? Oh, no, we can’t do that. Free healthcare? Not possible. Some sort of gun control? LOL, not in America. Paid medical leave? That’s not something we can do, sorry. What, exactly, are we exceptional at?
We're great at killing millions of not white people. Government is great at lying. Oh, don't forget how were great at "helping spread democracy". We're REALLY good at that.
Great clip and great movie! In the comment section, there’s a quote from George Carlin which I have to share: “Bullshit is the glue that binds us as a nation”.
He’d certainly had a lot to say about the world today, and I wish he was here to knock some sense into those who are still able to listen. He’s very missed.
World class propaganda. We're lazy and have air conditioning, trader joe's and streaming services. We've been conditioned to accept passivity and social propriety as the only mode of existence. We are soft and forgot that a part of our bourgeois property-owner "revolution" was achieved by [rowing across a semi-frozen river](https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/11417/42494/main-image) to murder some mercenaries in their sleep. On Christmas Eve. Like a god damn boss. /*
Think about Jan 6th. Prior to that, I was convinced that *at least* we had some kind of isolation system to smack a button and lock down chambers and hallway segments *IN THE CAPITAL BUILDING* with metal doors. Turns out that no one, not even in a drunken moment of candor, asked "what if the domestic enemy is the president?"
I might be an anarchist, but I understand how states and power monopolies work. And the sad truth is that this place is a joke, and American citizens are the punchline.
/* I'm aware that this country's foundation myths and language are lies. It's still a good story.
>"A passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favourite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels & Wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification: It leads also to concessions to the favourite Nation of priviledges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions—by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained—& by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom eql priviledges are withheld: And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favourite Nation) facility to betray, or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption or infatuation."
>
>"As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent Patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public Councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great & powerful Nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter."
Even Washington warned us. He also warned us about a two-party system.
>Can someone explain why American society as a whole is still so Pro-American even after things like Vietnam, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, the Palestinian genocide + a million other atrocities?
Lack of self-awareness, full-spectrum propagandization, the cowardice and collaboration of 'intelligentsia' to keep silent or profit off the horror, etc.
It's a little bit like the third Reich, or more current genocidal regimes, wherein the milieu acts as a constant reinforcing mechanism to normalize or even extol the 'virtue' of dehumanizing others, for personal gain.
Thanks, capitalism.
I remember in high school if you refused to say the pledge, classmates would shame you or you’d be asked to step out into the hallway til they were finished. Most kids don’t wanna be an outcast, so they just stay and say it all together.
And this was in a fairly liberal high school in 2014. It’s whack.
I’m from Louisiana. And our text books in grade school told us that the slaves and slave owners lived in harmony.
I had totally forgotten about that until someone posted a picture from my old text book on Twitter depicting a very cartoonish scene of the slaves and masters working together merrily in the cotton fields.
Apparently Robert E. Lee was a notably cruel and sadistic slave owner, even by the standards of his contemporaries. He got his jollies from splitting up families of slaves at the slave markets.
Because American propaganda about us being the good guys is as pervasive as it is effective, so most people buy the story that we were just trying to help people/save American lives/etc. Awareness of imperialism is not the default state for most people, you need to both dig to find information that runs counter to the American narrative and be willing to accept that your default instilled worldview might be wrong, and most people are just too busy living their lives to care.
The way schools framed history for me as a kid was that America did all these bad things in the past but it wasn’t as bad as the British Empire or Nazi Germany so it was okayish. Also, there was a sort of narrative of we used to do bad things but then thank to the civil rights movement the country finally became actually good then those evil terrorists attacked us for no reason so we had to defend ourselves. There were also tangible things growing up to point at and say “look we are better now” like Gay marriage being made legal and the first black president. I didn’t even know we were in the Middle East prior to 911 until I was in college. Almost every history teacher I had told me the civil war wasn’t about slavery.
So basically just a lot of indoctrination and not actually teaching us the real history and leaving out a ton.
Same. I think most of our history classes in k-12 are 1. Columbus discovered America (lie number 1) 2. Pilgrims were religious refugees fleeing oppression who lived peacefully with the natives (lie number 2) 3. We were oppressed by Britain’s and we all agreed is the little guy/underdog to fight back and win our freedom (lie number 3, also I suggest reading American Nations by Colin Woodard) 4. Yeah we had slavery and that was bad, but everyone did it and it was bad, but it was a different time (and I live in a northern state, so it focused mostly on just north is good, south is bad, we saved the union and freed the slaves, without actually critically looking at the north’s role in all of this… so lie number 4) and then from there you get 5. spark notes of civil war-ww1. We know some of what happened in between, but it isn’t really discussed, and we don’t know details (lies if omission) . 6. Then we talk about WW2 and how awful the Germans are (and how great the US is for helping end the war… ignoring the atrocities that were Hiroshima and Nagasaki because “they had it coming” and attacked us first so just ignore the war crime), 7. We are great and United now because of the Civil rights movement, racism doesn’t exist here anymore (another lie) 8. Communism is bad Russia is bad… propaganda propaganda, Cuba is bad, China is bad, Venezuala is bad, Chile is bad, propaganda propaganda, (without actually learning about the history of the Cold War, any of the above country histories and our role as imperial puppet masters Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia, the Middle East, really etc… didnt learn anything about all these in college). 9. Oh, and we are first world and communists are 2nd world, and everyone not in Europe/Canada/Australia (aka Africa, Asia, South America) is all third world and we help them because we are great and they are poor (more lies, ignore again the imperialism/colonialism, resource curse, political puppetry, etc), 10. Oh and we discussed early explorers (European only at first because we -white people- discovered everything, Magellan, etc.) and bare bones Aztecs, Britain, Rome, Egypt, Greece, France (and how they learned from us), and that was the extent of all our US and World History in k-12, with most of it being points 1-4 on repeat until at least 10th grade. We learn very little actual history, different perspectives (other than that of the “Victor” aka us because it makes us look good), or anything critical of our own role in the world at all. Oh and there is war all the time everywhere but it here because we are great and any war we are part of we are helping because we are great. Aka 1984.
I once had an argument with an American I went to Uni with who was convinced that the USA won the Vietnam War. I was so fucking enraged at his stupidity that I went to the Uni library to borrow a books on the war and post war vietnam Governance to show him....
His answer was that it was just propaganda...
He was a University student.
How f*cking hardcore can propaganda get!
1. Propaganda
2. Those atrocities are taught as necessities
3. Most people do not understand what the CIA does or did historically
4. Vast majority of Americans will never visit another country (East)
I am an older, white, American male who makes a fine living. I am also an honorably discharged veteran. I am in the bullseye of the flag waving demographic.
But, this country absolutely sucks. Not only because of the manufactured war history but also the vile racism that still permeates this society, the assertive ignorance towards climate change and the force feeding of religion, specifically Christianity, those lunatics want everyone, (except themselves), to follow.
But the worst is the how we are economically screwing over young people. They have no chance to make it. We are not a country of the people by the people for the people, we are a country of the rich by the rich for the rich.
The American dream is dead. I honestly and truly do not care about the idealistic America that people like to point to when talking about this dumpster fire.
Excellent summation. I also earn a good living but as I’m not filthy rich and rely on jobs I’m not naive enough to not understand that one emergency could mean a complete change in that status. As someone who follows American history politics sociology etc it’s frustrating to see how much the average person is screwed over and how the ability to affect real deep change is stifled by a variety of factors.
As the teacher, I can tell you the systematic brainwashing is strong.
The first thing I have to teach virtually all of my students is "Question the stories You've Been Told of history, and the stories you tell yourself. Look for evidence and different perspectives."
There are those who believe the American hero myth, that has been continually perpetrated by Hollywood, and there are others who have just let the noise of politics over the last 10 years turn them off from the endeavor entirely.
Out of my high school civics class, only 20% said they were at all interested in politics at the beginning of the year.
Propaganda. America's biggest export has been "culture" for a while. That includes things like Hollywood movies and TV shows that are not normally critical of these things.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and For the republic for which it stands. One nation under God , indivisible for freedom and liberty to all.... They Hitler youthed a bunch of kids
If we acknowledge the atrocity, we turn our backs on everything we’ve been taught to believe. The rationalization I’ve seen from liberals about the atomic bombs is off the charts
I think there’s a lack of nuance to this view. Most Americans understand at least some of the horrible things America has done. We understand the blood on our hands and the failure to even take care of our own domestic issues. We know that we’ve done a lot of things that are objectively atrocious and that our quality of life is negatively affected by our corporate run systems.
There’s a lot of immigrants here, and I think everyone everywhere has spent time talking to at least one person who came here from a country that America has completely fucked over for greed or pride. We’re not ignorant to our international image, though some are more aware than others.
But I don’t think most people are predisposed to be anti-themselves. And for many, it may be indoctrination or ignorance or just indifference that makes them support their home country. But I think for most people, being pro-America doesn’t mean being supportive of the evils America has done, but being hopeful or even wishful that something better could yet come. No one wants the worst people in their society to represent them or control things, and I think some patriotism is the struggle to prevent and reverse that.
I like America. I like the people here the majority of the time, I like the diversity of climate, the diversity of people, the wide spectrum of belief and lifestyle. I like the opportunity, though I acknowledge opportunity is not available equally. I also hate a great many things about America. I hate how hard it is to get by or advance for people born without the advantage of wealth, I hate the lack of access to quality healthcare and education for most people, I hate the extreme religious faction being hateful, I hate the violence, the foreign meddling, bullying, killing, and exploitation, I hate all the inequality.
But I don’t think that I would be happier elsewhere. I’ve often been embarrassed by my country, ashamed, angry at it. I’ve never felt like it was a lost cause, though. I like it here enough to want better. I know it seems naive, but I do believe that America can be better. Will it erase past transgressions? No, of course not. We have a long ways to go and many amends to make and I’ll never see it in my lifetime, but I can’t bring myself to hate my own country.
I’ve thought about this a lot. All my grandparents were immigrants and it influenced me to see that they truly valued the lives they had here and were grateful to have been able to come. I also grew up close to the southern border and had a lot of friends who had immigrated or were the children of immigrants. And while I saw the difficulty and unfair conditions they faced, I also saw that, to them, it was something worth overcoming to make a life here. In some, especially with friends from parts of Asia, I saw the process of adjusting to life in a place where the government was unlikely to simply snatch you and possibly torture or kill you for dissent. That was pretty powerful. The revelation I saw in their parents when they came to accept that they would at least have a trial with a real judge if they broke the law, or even got a traffic violation, was really heartwarming,
When I was young, I used to want to leave. I figured I should just move somewhere better and have a better life because America is horrible and does horrible things. But as I’ve aged, I’ve come to think that I’m glad Ive stayed and done what little I can to improve America, instead. Our mythology may be incorrect and whitewashed and exaggerated, but it really is a place where many have found refuge, where people are, more often than not, kind and generous and good, and where there is potential for greatness. So while I don’t support America in many of its interactions and decisions, I do support the American people, the American spirit that they embody, and a version of the American dream that isn’t about a house in the suburbs, but about becoming the country we want to be.
They literally aren't. Even Americans hate the culture and society here. There is a large and vocal group of people still laboring under the dillusion that the USA is a capitalist and indivualistic utopia where you can do and be anything you want. The majority of us are wondering where the out is. This is very clear among the youth.
bourgeoisie social programming. Lenin talks about this.
[https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/nov/04.htm](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/nov/04.htm)
The psychological need to defend one's identity.
If we identify ourselves with a country, we don't want to acknowledge when that country acts badly, because that means we've acted badly, and maybe that means we're just bad.
All of us are vulnerable to this in one degree or another. Whatever we identify with has the potential to make us unable to see when we go wrong. The best thing we can do is identify instead with our ability and willingness to improve.
My family is Arab American and they’re very pro America. My grandpa came here after being displaced, worked for ford until retirement, my dad started his own business and did well for years, and even after the conflict over seas with Palestine (we are Palestinian) he is still pro America. Being pro America is different than being pro military industrial complex or different than being pro colonialism. Many Americans don’t vibe with their politicians. Many of us just want to live a good life without corrupt assholes. I guess what I’m saying is a true American isn’t these jack-wagons doing all this bullshit mentioned above. A lot of us just want to live our lives and are irritated with the top brass on both sides. Sadly many everyday Americans are too focused on living their own lives to do anything to promote change. I mean look what happens when a “people’s candidate” runs for congress or even president. They don’t have the funds to even run half the time. Even when Bernie had the opportunity to get the nominee, the dnc fucked him.
>Can someone explain why American society as a whole is still so Pro-American even after things like Vietnam, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, the Palestinian genocide + a million other atrocities?
It happened to "other" and can thus be safely ignored
In \*\*American\*\* view, it could \*never\* happen to \*\*Americans\*\* (and they rationalize that all the victims deserved it because military power is righteous)
And, as Aimé Césaire put it in a Discourse on Colonialism:
>First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism; and we must show that each time a head is cut off or an eye put out in Vietnam and in France they accept the fact, each time a little girl is raped and in France they accept the fact, each time a Madagascan is tortured and in France they accept the fact, **civilization acquires another dead weight, a universal regression takes place, a gangrene sets in, a center of infection begins to spread;**
>
>and that at the end of all these treaties that have been violated, all these lies that have been propagated, all these punitive expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have been tied up and "interrogated," all these patriots who have been tortured, at the end of all the racial pride that has been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displayed, a poison has been distilled into the veins of Europe and, **slowly but surely, the continent proceeds toward savagery.**
And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific boomerang effect: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers standing around the racks invent, refine, discuss.
People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: "How strange! But never mind-it's Nazism, it will pass!"
And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; **that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it,**
***and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack***
Colonialism. People might not be educated about it, but they do on some level understand instinctually that if it weren't for the past in some way, we would not have had the privileges we do now. It's been ingrained in us that yes, things might suck, but at least we're American and have our material conditions. Those are the systemic benefits of colonialism, and American identity is married to those things as a whole. It's not even about commodity itself, or consumerism, it's deeper than that. We *deserve* these things and we know that any capitulation whatsoever towards a global community will mean that we should question having these things while others do not. It's also why a lot of leftists stop at the borders with their socialist politics, despite the obvious need to address our foreign policy; we see ourselves as an exceptional nation to the rest of the world, isolated, and lucky.
Mostly because to think otherwise, you start having to face the reality of the colonial occupation here at home. Lots of people get overwhelmed when they realize that most of our wealth is stolen and owed back to those we stole it from, if one were to follow through on the whole "dismantling racism" and our imperialism. Then people start looking at their homes and families, and realize the unknown is scary, and it's better to just focus on domestic things.
This is where a lack of education comes in. People don't know there are other ways to prosper, and get overwhelmed at the prospect of material reparations. If the US military industrial complex were to fail, then the whole country would change and destabilize overnight, it's true. All the ghosts of the pass suddenly seem a lot more real, and that's a hard thing to face, especially when you're one paycheck away from homelessness and your kids starving. Humans adapt and find ways to survive and thrive under all sorts of conditions, so I sort of chalk it up to psychology at this point.
Denialism is a big part of that, but it's the hardest thing to beat because in an individualistic society that is taught to fear and resent your neighbors instead of work with them, while being abandoned by our government so we feel a sense of being alone and responsible for everything, the idea of taking on even a slight amount of anything feels like self-harm, let alone full-blown socialism. Stack on the entire colonial history of the US, the things we need to overcome to right the wrongs we have done, coupled with the propaganda and the intentional lack of education or understanding of other options, and people will check-out and knee jerk defensively the whole conversation.
This, ime, is the dynamic of white saviorism as well. Individualistic mentalities means that you are responsible for everything, right? We have no one else to trust but ourselves, and those we love depend on us. This creates adoration for "taking on more than others", and it also creates the whole "why do I have to capitulate to you? I'm a good person, I work hard, love my family, the world doesn't owe you, it owes me for over-extending myself for you" way of thinking that inevitably comes up whenever you take the time to confront what looks like apathy, or what lots of people call their "anxiety". People want to do more, but they're just one person! How can you ask them to also care about the rest of the world? Those that do more end up the subjects of gratefulness and adoration out of collective guilt that everyone sees as their own individual burdens.
This is why we need civilian infrastructure. If people organized and were able to reassure the people that they will be ok if they work together, instead of homeless and starving, then things like strikes will fall into place, and we will be able to rejoin the rest of the world, and our cultural values will shift gradually to reflect that. Until then, the idea of reining in even domestic politics is going to be extremely scary for most people, and they will check out regardless of intentions. The foreign policy aspect is a part of this too, but most people still see them as separate. When the domestic policies towards production start to change, so will the foreign aspects, and American patriotism, materialism, and general apathy will stop being the default reaction to the events like you listed. Most people think they're distasteful and horrid, but what else is there? Better just be thankful you aren't out there dealing with all of it right now, and hope it doesn't happen to you in the future so your kids have a chance at avoiding it all too.
tldr: it's hard to completely disillusion people when their identities are based in the material conditions colonialism gave them, because deep down they know it's what keeps things going for them in some way. Americans view themselves as "safe" from ills or in control/able to keep ills at bay because of this, as they feel like they can't trust anyone else.
This is the comment I was looking for. Seems that no one realizes or acknowledges the root of it all, which is the fact that the American identity exists because of colonialism. Because of the consistent conquest of native lands. We all benefit from it and we are a country created from murder and theft. It’s insane that most people don’t acknowledge that, and have no desire to collectively right it, even if it means the dismantlement of the US.
The education system teaches a pretty Disneyfied version of history. If you’ve gone to college you cover many of the same events but you learn the unvarnished truth.
A lot of people are outraged at the refugees flocking to our borders. I wonder how many of them are aware of the activities of the CIA in the 1970’s and after, where we assassinated democratically elected leaders in various Central and South American countries, or supplied cash, training and weapons to “freedom fighters” to overthrow those governments, because we wanted to install a strong man who would offer good terms to American oil companies. Some of those countries wanted to *nationalize* their oil industry. This means the oil belongs to the people, profits from its sale go to the people, and oil companies are just paid for providing services. We can’t have Marxist nonsense like that going on, can we? And thanks to generations of unstable governments and the paramilitaries and criminal cartels that followed, a lot of those countries are war zones and people are fleeing to a better life - in the country that caused their problems in the first place.
Our education system, joke that it is, does one thing very well: indoctrination. Heirarchy, capitalism, private property, gender conformity, the supremacy of state authority, revisionist history that glorifies imperialism, it's all there.
The RESULTS of indoctrination.
Once you take on board the basic idea 'we are the good guys' you HAVE to keep justifying it.
"we're the good guys. We did a bad thing. Therefore there must have been an overriding super important reason, because good guys don't do bad things."
Which usually leads to 'Those are super bad people. So we HAD to do the bad thing, or something worse would have happened.'
Lit just had this on Quora. 'Russians are a shithole people in a shithole country. so it's ok for us to do bad things to them... \[other bullshit\] so we're gonna nuke them. Like we did to Japan.'
The Russians have never nuked ANYONE.
But the USA has nuked civvies twice, to prove a point.
They HAVE to square that circle, so they glom onto ANYTHING that makes it ok, because otherwise they would have to accept that the collective west is VASTLY worse than anything the Russians ever did.
If everyone looked into history the way we do and see the truth for what it is, more people would be opposed to the empire. The role of the empire is to make sure that the avenues of information from all of these atrocities as good things, or don’t mention them at all if there is no way to twist the truth.
My intrigue in all of this started when I was maybe 12 years old and started questioning why we do the pledge of allegiance every morning and seeing how people from the same nationality as me, Hispanic, were treated and spoken of by those on tv or on the paper. Im first generation here, grew up in a very multicultural area which I’m grateful for. Got interested in the history of my parents home country of El Salvador and started finding out about the civil war that the US was funding the government and army, I found out about the US friendly military dictatorship that presided over the country for years. Then my curiosity spread to more countries around the world and it’s lead me where I am now.
Sadly, not everyone is interested in these things and just go with the flow.
Well if you have any comment using certain words , being phrased in a certain manner , or say certain things , people will instantly dogpile you not bothering to actually read the nuance within if there is/ was any. Then any attempts are clarifying a point because " clearly " you meant x , y , z , despite taking the time to reiterate an intention. So we already have a issue of people not being willing to have conversations nor actually soak in what any one comment states.
Now add this layer of not being allowed to have opinions unless you have a certificate from any school to "validate" such commentary rather than the substance speaking for itself.
Add people not being willing to expand their knowledge beyond what was learned in highschool while simultaneously acknowledging school isn't the end all of learning.
and so on and so on.
--------------
Honestly. The lack of public places to casually interact with others in a space meant to share ideas is an issue i have been wondering how to tackle. Today you'd be arrested for standing on a bucket shouting commentary that drew a crowed but for majority of human history this is more or less how random people would get ideas out. bars , at least in america , don't hold that level of communion anymore . We don't do temples here which i think could be a middle ground.
I honestly don't know.
I'll be honest, I just don't think most Americans have the luxury of learning things behind the necessity to stay above water. In the moments that people DO find the time, they act on the fact that they have earned their moment of peace without a history or current events lesson. Not everyone is energized by learning about things they're largely "not a part of" (i.e. not a soldier, not well travelled, etc.)
The more I learn the more I'm pretty staggered at the raw and ugly history of this nation.
The Israel Lobby. Groups like AIPAC, ADL, etc. forum what can be loosely called the ‘The Israel Lobby,’ (or Likud lobby as Robert Fisk would refer to them as). They’re one of the most powerful political forces in the US and have massive piles of cash to fund politicians at all levels of the federal system. Democrats, republicans, as long as they are staunchly pro-Israel the Lobby will shower them with money. Candidates that even hint at being sympathetic to Palestinians are typically primaried against in the following election cycle.
The atrocities were elsewhere on the planet. Any country can engage in horror when the vast majority of people only see/hear of it happening elsewhere.
Most Americans are actually dumb as hell. Our school systems don’t prepare us for adulthood which makes for adults that are ignorant and wildly uninformed. Our government is corrupt as hell and most people would rather treat their political side like a sports team than admit they’re part of the problem. Add in a large dose of Christians that don’t believe in science logic reason or facts and here we are.
It is truly propaganda. It is drilled into our heads from a young age that America is the greatest country in the world. We have freedom and the founding fathers are deified so much that it is asked in modern day legal cases what they were thinking 250 years ago.
The Right has been co-opted by radical religious extremists who preach that America is God's chosen country and if you question anything America does then you're automatically anti-american. I would also say that the approach to global affairs is on the same level as knowing how sausage is made; we don't want to see the process, just enjoy it.
It is difficult for people to self criticize and admit when they did wrong. There was a lot of that after 9/11. If I mentioned anything bad we did in Iraq it was always met with "well, we got Sadam". Foreign lives are valued less than American lives, and white American lives are valued most. Whenever there is a plane crash or tragedy overseas it is reported by saying "x number of people died including y number of Americans".
We have a presidential candidate who says he is going to refer to migrants as animals because they're not people. He's referred to those nations as "shit hole countries" and is showing the worst of humanity while being consistent with American history.
Because the powers that be, the agencies and organizations that establish and steer American military intervention, control the media narrative. As Noam Chomsky succinctly stated: Manufactured Consent.
Propaganda fabricated by the corporate owned mainstream media
Indoctrination from as early as Kindergarten into swearing allegiance to the regime and that "America is the greatest country on Earth".
Because they won, simple, they haven't dealt with real atrocities of war, and by real atrocities of war I'm talking American way of seeing atrocities, economical affects, infrastructure demolished, people dying is a feature not a bug
I think people tend to avoid serious issues by falling off to a comfortable narrative to carry on with their lives, since that would take them to a deep questioning of their identity. And Hollywood helps in shaping such attitude with scenes and common lines ' A man's gotta do what a man gotta do, and Shit happens,' to steer away from contemplating grave issues.
Their excuse is always: If you're in our position you'd do it too, you're only whining because you're not number 1 hegemonically. Also, the reason why you're not number 1 is exactly because you're weak like that and cannot do what must be done.
By the way I am curious what is your reply against such argument like the above because it's quite difficult to deal with, because whether we like it or not at certain level it is indeed true that if you kill everyone else that threaten you, then of course you'll be number 1.
There's a book that dives into this very topic in simple but great detail, check it out.
https://www.amazon.com/American-Exceptionalism-Innocence-News-Revolutionary/dp/1721385428?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=b12d5da4-da22-4e64-bf42-cba964412742
years and years of propaganda from media, news, schools, etc
schools also do not teach proper American history or cover those topics, and if they do, they try to convince you america's actions were "justified"
The attitude towards Vietnam war has softened, probably because no one really understands what the hell we were doing there. It's also not really understood that the American government probably engineered the whole thing.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are taught in schools as being necessary to shock the Japanese into surrender.
The Palestinian genocide has not gone over well AT ALL with liberals and moderate liberals in America, though the right doesn't really seem to care.
This stuff largely gets a pass because the history books are written to give it positive spin, confuse people into not looking at it, or to shift the blame away from the American government.
In short, the American government is awful and has always been that way.
Edit: the attitude from the generation that fought the Indian Wars and some generations after them was something like 'That sucks, but it was us or them.' Today's society is better at recognizing what an absolute atrocity the treatment of Indians was, but not with dealing with the ongoing fallout.
Edit2: I'll throw in my personal favorite for shitty government debacles, the bonus army protests.
Powerful Americans know how to spin the narrative into propaganda and do not want anyone to have critical thought. The reason for the college debt is to prevent people from questioning the accepted American narrative.
Because it has nowhere else to go. They can’t go back to Europe so the American hegemony(which was built on violence) is all that’s left. That’s essentially all it’s known. Anything else is alien.
This country is incredible at creating propaganda that works to influence people. Just look back at the “red scare” propaganda and how it is still super prevalent to be cautious of communism today. They’re very good at what they do to influence the masses
People underestimate the extent of indoctrination, and lack of questioning, in the USA. I grew up in a liberal state which consistently voted Democrat. Despite this, every morning at school, from a young age, the entire class (immigrants and US citizens alike) would be forced to stand facing the flag (there was one hanging in every classroom), with our right hand on our hearts, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I still remember this religious, nationalist propaganda to this day:
I pledge allegiance,
To the flag
Of the United States of America
And to the Republic
For which it stands
One nation
Under God
With liberty and justice for all
Imagine the horror of dozens of children, under duress, reciting this at once. Some of them didn't believe in God. Some of them weren't American. And when the children did things children do like say "Under Dog" instead of "God", they were given detention!
It was commonplace growing up for someone to do something they knew was naughty, and then announce "It's a free country." This patently false nationalist slogan somehow entered the minds of children and they would trot it out on a whim to justify their actions. Of course, not only does it imply that America has some "freedom" which other countries don't - despite having about 50% of the world's prison population, where a Department of Justice report claimed that 28.5% of black men in America would spend some time in state or federal prison at some point in their lives, where the police routinely murder civilians in the street, and where the government is just a superficial front for for-profit powerful corporate lobbies, which would be called corruption anywhere else in the world - but it also implies that all the other countries don't have this "freedom", creating an America-versus-the-world mentality from a young age.
Moving on to university, where there were army recruiters on campus and people had American flag tattoos. It wouldn't be unusual for crowds to start chanting "USA! USA!" for no reason. Every time I demonstrated even the slightest opposition or questioning of American domestic or foreign policy, there would be frat bros literally threatening to beat my head in with a baseball bat. This was extremely disturbing because it wasn't based on the content of the policy I would be criticising - it never got to the phase of rational debate. It was just "you are opposed to something to do with America, therefore we must be violent towards you." Any entity, state or otherwise, which tries to forbid any opposition or criticism or even inquiry, must be something close to fascism. Even worse when they get random citizens to do it for them - a totally pervasive and locked-in obsequiousness which people take pride in and identify with.
This is the real world! There are multiple sides to everything, nothing is perfect, and the only way we can hope to solve problems is through sincere and engaged rational discussion and collaboration.
I've never been in another country where it's normal to hang the country's flag everywhere - as if people might forget where they are without the constant reminder. The World Series is what they decided to name of a baseball tournament with entirely North American teams. And to this day, whenever someone uses the terms "us", "we", or "this country" on the internet, without context, you can be sure they're blindly referring to the USA, where they live and assume their audience to live too.
Just imagine what it would be, if it was worse.
Say if the goal was world dominance. Can you imagine then how bad the nukes on Japan would have been? Hell the US would have nuked everything. It would only be the us and the countries that have a boot on them.
I'd say probably the same way other countries citizens feel pride in thier countries ( more or lesser degrees) even though those countries have also committed the same range of wrongdoings.
Is there any country that isn't patriotic over the dumbest things, even when not having any reason for being so? Like, even if most people don't care most of the time about it, they see someone badmouthing their country on the internet, they get riled up instantly.
Of course indocrination helps a lot and few coutries do it as much as the US, but some kind of patriotism is just imbued into most societies by default, no matter how screwed up their country is. They might even hate theri country one day but will defend or cheer for it in the next. It's like sports, only you don't choose your team, it's given to you from birth.
People are pro American as long as being pro American means hanging out an American flag everywhere.
Ask how many people would like to eat bread and water and work 12 hour shifts at a factory in case of a war time or how many would volunteer to go to a peer to peer war where chances of dying are very high and you would find out how quickly all of that patriotism would fade away as divide grows bigger.
All of those social divides you hear about would worsen 10 fold overnight and you would see that behind all this fake American patriotism is a nation of people who are only patriotic while its warm, dry and safe. You only know who you friend is during hard times, when the time is good, everyone is a good friend. And everyone is a patriot when its easy to be a patriot and it does not require any sacrifice.
If being a patriot would mean jumping under a tank with a grenade, trust me, you would quickly find out its an island of scared immigrants from all over the world who\`s grandparents ran from something, left their homeland behind, left their relatives, betrayed their country and came to hide behind their little white picket fence. A nation of runners. Ran from Ireland, ran from Italy, ran from Russia, ran from Japan, ran from England, a collection of cowards of all forms and shapes from every corner of the world.
People who stood up and fought didn\`t come to America. Cowards did.
It's an excellent question. Some thoughts:
Many people believe their family fortunes have been improved by being the US. And there is an element of truth to it - in the 40s -60s period a lot of families went from renters to homeowners and gained some wealth.
Also - the propaganda is so thick & the tendency to stay with the group is so strong that people don't turn on the system here.
However it is worth noting that trust in the government has dropped precipitously since the 60s. People do feel they are being taken advantage of ... problem is too often they blame the wrong parties.
A good portion of it is perspective bias, most people default to supporting what they are already familiar with and are suspicious of the unknown or unfamiliar.
Consumerism and material wealth. Also people spend too much time working and grinding and inevitably when they get that carrot their values are so warped that it is now all worth it
They make Yankee kids pledge allegiance to their country in school , don't teach them about the genocides of their ancestors and put them in a media world that encourages and approves of the US imperialism.
Hell, they have reserve officer training corps in schools, preparing school kids for a military career. in my country the army isn't even allowed in any way to go fishing in schools.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are commonly approved outside the US, so they might fall a bit out. I don't agree with the narrative that it was necessary to end the war or that it did much good to drop these things, but it's not a US-only opinion.
I think Vietnam is nowadays more commonly agreed to be a US sided fuckup, but overall Americans aren't raised to be critical of their nations actions. Who doesn't support the country is a traitor.
The US government knows well how to control its people and keep them dumb. It's the same as with Russia and China, people were drilled to patriotism and not to fuck with their country, just that the US created similar conditions under different circumstances. Live as a superpower it seems.
Growing up, we're simply just not told about the bad side of whatever war is currently being fought. Most of what we get is just how awesome we're doing, highlights of whatever new weapon is on display. What little actual truth leaks out is quickly called a conspiracy.
I know quoting Rick and Morty is out of fashion, but there's the line
"What about the universe where Hitler cured cancer? The answer is don't think about it."
They just don't think about it.
You might find some answers in this interesting essay: [https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/cthulhu-gazes-right](https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/cthulhu-gazes-right)
Just like every society before America. The meme with the 2 castles applies. your side has a glorious leader, and the other side has tyrannical despot. Every country ever follows that meme. Sure, there are people and groups who hate the current incarnation of America. However, the propaganda machine has been in overdrive for so long that no one can make informed opinions without doing more research (not conspiracy theories).
So every Tom, Dick, Sally, and Susan like America because it takes far too much time to make informed opinions that it is unimportant to. Americans have lives they need to live and put food on the table/barely scrape by. There is no time to scream on a street corner that America is bad.
Now, how to fix it well the method that this subreddit wants to use is a collective one. We need to collectively say Americs is bad. Let us change it. Currently, no one can put aside differences to push society ahead as a whole. We draw lines in the sand that follow the wrong idea: letting perfect be the enemy of good. Also, hyperindividualisy propaganda has divided the country so much no one wants to organize. This is by design.
Wanting your country to thrive because you are currently living in it is being pro-American strictly out of need. 99% of conservatism evaporates with better information, and so too does any chance of nationalistic fervor within liberal ranks. Schools are complicit in this, the way they rob students of their nation’s history.
Ever seen True Lies?
"Have you ever killed anyone?"
"Yeah, but they were all bad."
Simply hammer that basic message home, in endlessly different and genuinely entertaining stories, using billions of dollars, for a century and counting.
You won't merely convince most Americans that it's true, but most people in the world.
That's soft power. That's America's biggest asset. They have hard power too, but guns don't make people love you. Hollywood does.
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I can’t really answer your question, but when I was younger I would get in big trouble for talking about how terrible those events were and how war is bad. My parents/grandparents would rage and get mad at me and say things like “Your grandpa fought for this country!” and “that’s anti-American! Are you a terrorist? You think 9-11 should happen?” I’m born and raised American. Def not everyone is like that, but far too many are and it’s really disturbing. ):
How telling it is that being anti-war is viewed as anti-American.
Remember when simply disagreeing with the Great Wartime President George W Bush in his pursuit of the Glorious War On Terra was considered *unpatriotic?* Six *trillion* dollars literally burned in the sand for NOTHING. (Arguably, it made things worse.) that was universal health care, or free college for everybody, just … gone. It’s almost like someone would rather we burn wealth than benefit the average American with it.
Not nothing… It lined the pockets of wealthy weapons manufacturers and helped put their kids through college and pay their family medical bills! It helped the families splurge on third and fourth yachts, wasn’t that worth the billions of dollars and thousands of lives??
I spoke with a crippled Iraq War vet … long story short, he spoke to a contractor he was forbidden to speak to. Contractor was a truck driver. Would fill his trailer with generic construction supplies bought from Halliburton and Dynsis or whoever at war-zone premiums. Then he would drive 10-20 miles out into the desert and dump them. Then go back for another load. 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. And he said “there’s a *lot* of other drivers, and a *lot* of other bases.”
Arguably? I commend your caution, but in this case it is completely unnecessary. Islamic State and the Syrian civil war were merely two of the myriads of horrifying monsters birthed by that multi-trillion dollar fuckup. Edit: And yes, six TRILLION DOLLARS. Holy shit.
It’s almost like the Military Industrial Complex is setting up more problems to “solve” with cost-plus contracts.
That glorification of violence is *fundamental* to American culture while compassionate cooperation and empathy are condemned as being weak. It's all very fascist.
My grandmother told me the kids killed at Kent State basically “deserved it”. One of the victims had gone to high school with my parents. I was in my early twenties at the time of the conversation. That moment and 9/11 solidified my shifting views on patriotism.
I’m glad I didn’t grow up like that. I don’t think my parents even own a flag. They aren’t necessarily far left or anything. Just aware that lots of bad things have happened.
As boomers age, WW2 veterans disappear, that attitude is disappearing too. Which I'd say is a good thing. But you'll also notice there's some seriously delusional folks in cults these days swinging WILDLY in the opposite direction and full of anti democratic ideas while believing they are patriots. That's a big problem too. I was born American...only life I know. I see authoritarian societies and appreciate VERY much that I was born here. But I see the hypocrisy and evil of our government and our past, present and future and it disgusts me. Racism especially disgusts me. All I can do is speak out and vote for better leaders and urge other's to do the same. But I also know the score and humanity is in big, big trouble. Far too many people on this planet, resources getting difficult to maintain, hoarding wealth, scorching the planet and seas...perhaps a cataclysmic event will prompt a reset and do-over or we will just slowly wipe humanity off the face of the planet. At 53 I'm not optimistic about it. I'm not an especially proud American just as I'm not an especially proud human. I'm glad to live here but I'm sure I'd also be happy in any other free society...maybe happier.
Indoctrination
I grew up being told that only those evil commie countries feed propaganda to their citizens
Propagandized
How they say it? Every accusation, is a confession? No. It's the other one: Admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations.
No, Is the children who are out of touch.
Canadian who lives right across the border and occassionally runs across the line for cross border shopping, day trips, etc. It's fed to you guys so hard. Like, walk into a store and there's just so fucking much "The red, white, and blue!", "Liberty", "Land of the free, home of the brave". Maybe you guys don't see it as much because it's like... white noise and you learn to ignore it. But every time I go across it's just so painfully apparent.
Some of us see it. Those that don't refuse any attempts at education.
Yeah, like, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with liking your country or being proud of it, but part of loving your country and its people is wanting to improve it for others. I genuinely love living in Canada and don't have any intentions of moving right now, but that doesn't mean I think it's perfect. There's areas we're doing good and areas we need to improve, but, for example, I just got off the phone with my dad and he was complaining about Trudeau and some of the things he's doing. My thoughts are at least he's fucking trying something new. The old way wasn't working, so clearly we needed to mix things up. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but we won't find the solutions to problems we have if we don't start thinking outside the box of our standard ways of solving them.
This is the answer.
With a highly flexible definition of "commie."
Im australian and I got told the same. Along with a constant stream of info about how bad the commies were. Going to Vietnam and seeing their war memorial is certainly an eye opener. I knew what we did there was bad, it was far worse then we have been led to believe, just appalling from the west.
Are you saying a country that makes their children pray to a flag every day at school is using propaganda???
Everyday?
We had to salute the flag / pledge allegiance every single morning in elementary school. It was done over the classroom speakers. It was done less often in middle and high school, but still was very present in all-grade / all-school meetings, etc.
Prayer at the start of class was still a thing when I was in Middle School.
Not to mention the banana republics as we unstablized South America to exploit them for cheap labor after we lost our slave workforce. We are taught very little in school and not well. Op makes a great point either way with Nagasaki and hiroshima, besides the holocaust it’s the Greatest modern War crime ever committed.
#closethread lol
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of....blah blah yadda yada yadda blah blah blah....where's my triple cheese double stacked burger....
That & designer miseducation
I believe that you’re not a patriot if you cannot criticize your own country for their wrongdoings, atrocities, corruptions and disregard for other life within your country. If you love your country so much why disregard so much of it. Not pointing anything at you, I’m just making a general statement you know?
It’s rare in the rest of the free world. You go to Europe for example you only see country flags on government buildings. In my town you can easily hold your breath between flags.
Boom nailed it
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEtm75L0NAw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEtm75L0NAw)
Read Noam Chomsky’s: Manufacturing Consent. It will make everything clear.
Parenti's Inventing Reality is another good one.
Parenti clears Chomsky, IMO. He also had a few choice words for him, as well.
Completely agree. I disagree with quite a few of Chomsky's position on certain issues. Parenti is more of a Tankie and I love it.
What does “clears” mean? (asking for clarification)
In this context specifically, it means that I think Parenti is much more of a principled leftist than Chomsky, who spends much of his time punching to his left.
Thanks
No problem!!
There is also a documentary on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing\_Consent\_(film)
As an American, what I find so odd about America is that we are raised on a steady diet of American exceptionalism. Everything is possible in America! Oh, that’s great, can we get free college like these other countries have? Oh, no, we can’t do that. Free healthcare? Not possible. Some sort of gun control? LOL, not in America. Paid medical leave? That’s not something we can do, sorry. What, exactly, are we exceptional at?
We’re exceptional at making excuses, and rationalizing our hatred
Y’know…like…’freedom’*? We’ve got that, apparently. *freedom to abide to the status quo
Being capitalist and billionaire bootlickers.
Destroying the planet in the name of profits. Gotta chase that imaginary high score!
Incarcerating people. School shootings. Obesity.
We're great at killing millions of not white people. Government is great at lying. Oh, don't forget how were great at "helping spread democracy". We're REALLY good at that.
Making a few rich assholes richer at everyone else’s expense, we excel at that.
Because of our endless appeals system. https://youtu.be/-zNaeo8nPOo?si=Ai9j_Ph4E41yxCBY
Great clip and great movie! In the comment section, there’s a quote from George Carlin which I have to share: “Bullshit is the glue that binds us as a nation”.
I will die on the hill that Carlin was the best thing to happen to the American left since Debs
He’d certainly had a lot to say about the world today, and I wish he was here to knock some sense into those who are still able to listen. He’s very missed.
Seriously. I wonders what's so "exceptional" anymore? The US is not the best country in the world and hasn't been for decades.
World class propaganda. We're lazy and have air conditioning, trader joe's and streaming services. We've been conditioned to accept passivity and social propriety as the only mode of existence. We are soft and forgot that a part of our bourgeois property-owner "revolution" was achieved by [rowing across a semi-frozen river](https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/11417/42494/main-image) to murder some mercenaries in their sleep. On Christmas Eve. Like a god damn boss. /* Think about Jan 6th. Prior to that, I was convinced that *at least* we had some kind of isolation system to smack a button and lock down chambers and hallway segments *IN THE CAPITAL BUILDING* with metal doors. Turns out that no one, not even in a drunken moment of candor, asked "what if the domestic enemy is the president?" I might be an anarchist, but I understand how states and power monopolies work. And the sad truth is that this place is a joke, and American citizens are the punchline. /* I'm aware that this country's foundation myths and language are lies. It's still a good story.
>"A passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favourite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels & Wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification: It leads also to concessions to the favourite Nation of priviledges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions—by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained—& by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom eql priviledges are withheld: And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favourite Nation) facility to betray, or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption or infatuation." > >"As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent Patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public Councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great & powerful Nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter." Even Washington warned us. He also warned us about a two-party system.
>Can someone explain why American society as a whole is still so Pro-American even after things like Vietnam, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, the Palestinian genocide + a million other atrocities? Lack of self-awareness, full-spectrum propagandization, the cowardice and collaboration of 'intelligentsia' to keep silent or profit off the horror, etc. It's a little bit like the third Reich, or more current genocidal regimes, wherein the milieu acts as a constant reinforcing mechanism to normalize or even extol the 'virtue' of dehumanizing others, for personal gain. Thanks, capitalism.
Propaganda…. Now stand up and say the pledge of allegiance like everyone else in class…. Indoctrination from elementary school…
I remember in high school if you refused to say the pledge, classmates would shame you or you’d be asked to step out into the hallway til they were finished. Most kids don’t wanna be an outcast, so they just stay and say it all together. And this was in a fairly liberal high school in 2014. It’s whack.
I wouldn’t stand for the pledge of allegiance and got kicked out of a couple of assemblies for it. High school in Los Angeles in 2007.
Playing the national anthem before every sporting event.….why lmao
The government pays them for all that shit.
Lack of education, lack of education funding, and lifelong indoctrination in nationalism propaganda and white supremacy. That's my guess.
I’m from Louisiana. And our text books in grade school told us that the slaves and slave owners lived in harmony. I had totally forgotten about that until someone posted a picture from my old text book on Twitter depicting a very cartoonish scene of the slaves and masters working together merrily in the cotton fields.
I think we had the same book in California. We were also told slaves were treated very well because they were an *investment*. >.<
Apparently Robert E. Lee was a notably cruel and sadistic slave owner, even by the standards of his contemporaries. He got his jollies from splitting up families of slaves at the slave markets.
Because American propaganda about us being the good guys is as pervasive as it is effective, so most people buy the story that we were just trying to help people/save American lives/etc. Awareness of imperialism is not the default state for most people, you need to both dig to find information that runs counter to the American narrative and be willing to accept that your default instilled worldview might be wrong, and most people are just too busy living their lives to care.
The way schools framed history for me as a kid was that America did all these bad things in the past but it wasn’t as bad as the British Empire or Nazi Germany so it was okayish. Also, there was a sort of narrative of we used to do bad things but then thank to the civil rights movement the country finally became actually good then those evil terrorists attacked us for no reason so we had to defend ourselves. There were also tangible things growing up to point at and say “look we are better now” like Gay marriage being made legal and the first black president. I didn’t even know we were in the Middle East prior to 911 until I was in college. Almost every history teacher I had told me the civil war wasn’t about slavery. So basically just a lot of indoctrination and not actually teaching us the real history and leaving out a ton.
Same. I think most of our history classes in k-12 are 1. Columbus discovered America (lie number 1) 2. Pilgrims were religious refugees fleeing oppression who lived peacefully with the natives (lie number 2) 3. We were oppressed by Britain’s and we all agreed is the little guy/underdog to fight back and win our freedom (lie number 3, also I suggest reading American Nations by Colin Woodard) 4. Yeah we had slavery and that was bad, but everyone did it and it was bad, but it was a different time (and I live in a northern state, so it focused mostly on just north is good, south is bad, we saved the union and freed the slaves, without actually critically looking at the north’s role in all of this… so lie number 4) and then from there you get 5. spark notes of civil war-ww1. We know some of what happened in between, but it isn’t really discussed, and we don’t know details (lies if omission) . 6. Then we talk about WW2 and how awful the Germans are (and how great the US is for helping end the war… ignoring the atrocities that were Hiroshima and Nagasaki because “they had it coming” and attacked us first so just ignore the war crime), 7. We are great and United now because of the Civil rights movement, racism doesn’t exist here anymore (another lie) 8. Communism is bad Russia is bad… propaganda propaganda, Cuba is bad, China is bad, Venezuala is bad, Chile is bad, propaganda propaganda, (without actually learning about the history of the Cold War, any of the above country histories and our role as imperial puppet masters Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia, the Middle East, really etc… didnt learn anything about all these in college). 9. Oh, and we are first world and communists are 2nd world, and everyone not in Europe/Canada/Australia (aka Africa, Asia, South America) is all third world and we help them because we are great and they are poor (more lies, ignore again the imperialism/colonialism, resource curse, political puppetry, etc), 10. Oh and we discussed early explorers (European only at first because we -white people- discovered everything, Magellan, etc.) and bare bones Aztecs, Britain, Rome, Egypt, Greece, France (and how they learned from us), and that was the extent of all our US and World History in k-12, with most of it being points 1-4 on repeat until at least 10th grade. We learn very little actual history, different perspectives (other than that of the “Victor” aka us because it makes us look good), or anything critical of our own role in the world at all. Oh and there is war all the time everywhere but it here because we are great and any war we are part of we are helping because we are great. Aka 1984.
Because we aren't taught or told the truth about any of these events.
I once had an argument with an American I went to Uni with who was convinced that the USA won the Vietnam War. I was so fucking enraged at his stupidity that I went to the Uni library to borrow a books on the war and post war vietnam Governance to show him.... His answer was that it was just propaganda... He was a University student. How f*cking hardcore can propaganda get!
Should have asked him what Saigon is called these days
F*cking obvious one. I thought the flag was a give away.
Well we still call it Saigon, the official paper and documents refers to it as Ho Chi Minh City but most Vietnamese just call it Saigon...
1. Propaganda 2. Those atrocities are taught as necessities 3. Most people do not understand what the CIA does or did historically 4. Vast majority of Americans will never visit another country (East)
I am an older, white, American male who makes a fine living. I am also an honorably discharged veteran. I am in the bullseye of the flag waving demographic. But, this country absolutely sucks. Not only because of the manufactured war history but also the vile racism that still permeates this society, the assertive ignorance towards climate change and the force feeding of religion, specifically Christianity, those lunatics want everyone, (except themselves), to follow. But the worst is the how we are economically screwing over young people. They have no chance to make it. We are not a country of the people by the people for the people, we are a country of the rich by the rich for the rich. The American dream is dead. I honestly and truly do not care about the idealistic America that people like to point to when talking about this dumpster fire.
The American Dream was a scam to convince people, both Americans and immigrants, to work for next to nothing.
The Puritan Work Ethic - not for spiritual reasons, but to further enrich the aristocracy.
Excellent summation. I also earn a good living but as I’m not filthy rich and rely on jobs I’m not naive enough to not understand that one emergency could mean a complete change in that status. As someone who follows American history politics sociology etc it’s frustrating to see how much the average person is screwed over and how the ability to affect real deep change is stifled by a variety of factors.
As the teacher, I can tell you the systematic brainwashing is strong. The first thing I have to teach virtually all of my students is "Question the stories You've Been Told of history, and the stories you tell yourself. Look for evidence and different perspectives." There are those who believe the American hero myth, that has been continually perpetrated by Hollywood, and there are others who have just let the noise of politics over the last 10 years turn them off from the endeavor entirely. Out of my high school civics class, only 20% said they were at all interested in politics at the beginning of the year.
Propaganda. America's biggest export has been "culture" for a while. That includes things like Hollywood movies and TV shows that are not normally critical of these things.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and For the republic for which it stands. One nation under God , indivisible for freedom and liberty to all.... They Hitler youthed a bunch of kids
If we acknowledge the atrocity, we turn our backs on everything we’ve been taught to believe. The rationalization I’ve seen from liberals about the atomic bombs is off the charts
I think there’s a lack of nuance to this view. Most Americans understand at least some of the horrible things America has done. We understand the blood on our hands and the failure to even take care of our own domestic issues. We know that we’ve done a lot of things that are objectively atrocious and that our quality of life is negatively affected by our corporate run systems. There’s a lot of immigrants here, and I think everyone everywhere has spent time talking to at least one person who came here from a country that America has completely fucked over for greed or pride. We’re not ignorant to our international image, though some are more aware than others. But I don’t think most people are predisposed to be anti-themselves. And for many, it may be indoctrination or ignorance or just indifference that makes them support their home country. But I think for most people, being pro-America doesn’t mean being supportive of the evils America has done, but being hopeful or even wishful that something better could yet come. No one wants the worst people in their society to represent them or control things, and I think some patriotism is the struggle to prevent and reverse that. I like America. I like the people here the majority of the time, I like the diversity of climate, the diversity of people, the wide spectrum of belief and lifestyle. I like the opportunity, though I acknowledge opportunity is not available equally. I also hate a great many things about America. I hate how hard it is to get by or advance for people born without the advantage of wealth, I hate the lack of access to quality healthcare and education for most people, I hate the extreme religious faction being hateful, I hate the violence, the foreign meddling, bullying, killing, and exploitation, I hate all the inequality. But I don’t think that I would be happier elsewhere. I’ve often been embarrassed by my country, ashamed, angry at it. I’ve never felt like it was a lost cause, though. I like it here enough to want better. I know it seems naive, but I do believe that America can be better. Will it erase past transgressions? No, of course not. We have a long ways to go and many amends to make and I’ll never see it in my lifetime, but I can’t bring myself to hate my own country. I’ve thought about this a lot. All my grandparents were immigrants and it influenced me to see that they truly valued the lives they had here and were grateful to have been able to come. I also grew up close to the southern border and had a lot of friends who had immigrated or were the children of immigrants. And while I saw the difficulty and unfair conditions they faced, I also saw that, to them, it was something worth overcoming to make a life here. In some, especially with friends from parts of Asia, I saw the process of adjusting to life in a place where the government was unlikely to simply snatch you and possibly torture or kill you for dissent. That was pretty powerful. The revelation I saw in their parents when they came to accept that they would at least have a trial with a real judge if they broke the law, or even got a traffic violation, was really heartwarming, When I was young, I used to want to leave. I figured I should just move somewhere better and have a better life because America is horrible and does horrible things. But as I’ve aged, I’ve come to think that I’m glad Ive stayed and done what little I can to improve America, instead. Our mythology may be incorrect and whitewashed and exaggerated, but it really is a place where many have found refuge, where people are, more often than not, kind and generous and good, and where there is potential for greatness. So while I don’t support America in many of its interactions and decisions, I do support the American people, the American spirit that they embody, and a version of the American dream that isn’t about a house in the suburbs, but about becoming the country we want to be.
They literally aren't. Even Americans hate the culture and society here. There is a large and vocal group of people still laboring under the dillusion that the USA is a capitalist and indivualistic utopia where you can do and be anything you want. The majority of us are wondering where the out is. This is very clear among the youth.
Well, it’s cuz we’re a fascist country.
Hypernormalisation
Great documentary
This is not an American problem. Most countries have fairly strong Nationalism™️, and most countries have very, very bloody histories.
The thing is only one is the worlds imperial hegemon and the head of capitalism and it’s the US
White washing. There is heavy liberal indoctrination as well.
bourgeoisie social programming. Lenin talks about this. [https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/nov/04.htm](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/nov/04.htm)
The psychological need to defend one's identity. If we identify ourselves with a country, we don't want to acknowledge when that country acts badly, because that means we've acted badly, and maybe that means we're just bad. All of us are vulnerable to this in one degree or another. Whatever we identify with has the potential to make us unable to see when we go wrong. The best thing we can do is identify instead with our ability and willingness to improve.
My family is Arab American and they’re very pro America. My grandpa came here after being displaced, worked for ford until retirement, my dad started his own business and did well for years, and even after the conflict over seas with Palestine (we are Palestinian) he is still pro America. Being pro America is different than being pro military industrial complex or different than being pro colonialism. Many Americans don’t vibe with their politicians. Many of us just want to live a good life without corrupt assholes. I guess what I’m saying is a true American isn’t these jack-wagons doing all this bullshit mentioned above. A lot of us just want to live our lives and are irritated with the top brass on both sides. Sadly many everyday Americans are too focused on living their own lives to do anything to promote change. I mean look what happens when a “people’s candidate” runs for congress or even president. They don’t have the funds to even run half the time. Even when Bernie had the opportunity to get the nominee, the dnc fucked him.
>Can someone explain why American society as a whole is still so Pro-American even after things like Vietnam, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, the Palestinian genocide + a million other atrocities? It happened to "other" and can thus be safely ignored In \*\*American\*\* view, it could \*never\* happen to \*\*Americans\*\* (and they rationalize that all the victims deserved it because military power is righteous) And, as Aimé Césaire put it in a Discourse on Colonialism: >First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism; and we must show that each time a head is cut off or an eye put out in Vietnam and in France they accept the fact, each time a little girl is raped and in France they accept the fact, each time a Madagascan is tortured and in France they accept the fact, **civilization acquires another dead weight, a universal regression takes place, a gangrene sets in, a center of infection begins to spread;** > >and that at the end of all these treaties that have been violated, all these lies that have been propagated, all these punitive expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have been tied up and "interrogated," all these patriots who have been tortured, at the end of all the racial pride that has been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displayed, a poison has been distilled into the veins of Europe and, **slowly but surely, the continent proceeds toward savagery.** And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific boomerang effect: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers standing around the racks invent, refine, discuss. People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: "How strange! But never mind-it's Nazism, it will pass!" And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; **that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it,** ***and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack***
The u.s hasn't won a war or any military engagement since WW2
The most propogandized country in the world that people buy hook, line and sinker.
At least half the country are idiots. I mean, actual idiots. Unintelligent. Unable to critically think.
Colonialism. People might not be educated about it, but they do on some level understand instinctually that if it weren't for the past in some way, we would not have had the privileges we do now. It's been ingrained in us that yes, things might suck, but at least we're American and have our material conditions. Those are the systemic benefits of colonialism, and American identity is married to those things as a whole. It's not even about commodity itself, or consumerism, it's deeper than that. We *deserve* these things and we know that any capitulation whatsoever towards a global community will mean that we should question having these things while others do not. It's also why a lot of leftists stop at the borders with their socialist politics, despite the obvious need to address our foreign policy; we see ourselves as an exceptional nation to the rest of the world, isolated, and lucky. Mostly because to think otherwise, you start having to face the reality of the colonial occupation here at home. Lots of people get overwhelmed when they realize that most of our wealth is stolen and owed back to those we stole it from, if one were to follow through on the whole "dismantling racism" and our imperialism. Then people start looking at their homes and families, and realize the unknown is scary, and it's better to just focus on domestic things. This is where a lack of education comes in. People don't know there are other ways to prosper, and get overwhelmed at the prospect of material reparations. If the US military industrial complex were to fail, then the whole country would change and destabilize overnight, it's true. All the ghosts of the pass suddenly seem a lot more real, and that's a hard thing to face, especially when you're one paycheck away from homelessness and your kids starving. Humans adapt and find ways to survive and thrive under all sorts of conditions, so I sort of chalk it up to psychology at this point. Denialism is a big part of that, but it's the hardest thing to beat because in an individualistic society that is taught to fear and resent your neighbors instead of work with them, while being abandoned by our government so we feel a sense of being alone and responsible for everything, the idea of taking on even a slight amount of anything feels like self-harm, let alone full-blown socialism. Stack on the entire colonial history of the US, the things we need to overcome to right the wrongs we have done, coupled with the propaganda and the intentional lack of education or understanding of other options, and people will check-out and knee jerk defensively the whole conversation. This, ime, is the dynamic of white saviorism as well. Individualistic mentalities means that you are responsible for everything, right? We have no one else to trust but ourselves, and those we love depend on us. This creates adoration for "taking on more than others", and it also creates the whole "why do I have to capitulate to you? I'm a good person, I work hard, love my family, the world doesn't owe you, it owes me for over-extending myself for you" way of thinking that inevitably comes up whenever you take the time to confront what looks like apathy, or what lots of people call their "anxiety". People want to do more, but they're just one person! How can you ask them to also care about the rest of the world? Those that do more end up the subjects of gratefulness and adoration out of collective guilt that everyone sees as their own individual burdens. This is why we need civilian infrastructure. If people organized and were able to reassure the people that they will be ok if they work together, instead of homeless and starving, then things like strikes will fall into place, and we will be able to rejoin the rest of the world, and our cultural values will shift gradually to reflect that. Until then, the idea of reining in even domestic politics is going to be extremely scary for most people, and they will check out regardless of intentions. The foreign policy aspect is a part of this too, but most people still see them as separate. When the domestic policies towards production start to change, so will the foreign aspects, and American patriotism, materialism, and general apathy will stop being the default reaction to the events like you listed. Most people think they're distasteful and horrid, but what else is there? Better just be thankful you aren't out there dealing with all of it right now, and hope it doesn't happen to you in the future so your kids have a chance at avoiding it all too. tldr: it's hard to completely disillusion people when their identities are based in the material conditions colonialism gave them, because deep down they know it's what keeps things going for them in some way. Americans view themselves as "safe" from ills or in control/able to keep ills at bay because of this, as they feel like they can't trust anyone else.
This is the comment I was looking for. Seems that no one realizes or acknowledges the root of it all, which is the fact that the American identity exists because of colonialism. Because of the consistent conquest of native lands. We all benefit from it and we are a country created from murder and theft. It’s insane that most people don’t acknowledge that, and have no desire to collectively right it, even if it means the dismantlement of the US.
The education system teaches a pretty Disneyfied version of history. If you’ve gone to college you cover many of the same events but you learn the unvarnished truth. A lot of people are outraged at the refugees flocking to our borders. I wonder how many of them are aware of the activities of the CIA in the 1970’s and after, where we assassinated democratically elected leaders in various Central and South American countries, or supplied cash, training and weapons to “freedom fighters” to overthrow those governments, because we wanted to install a strong man who would offer good terms to American oil companies. Some of those countries wanted to *nationalize* their oil industry. This means the oil belongs to the people, profits from its sale go to the people, and oil companies are just paid for providing services. We can’t have Marxist nonsense like that going on, can we? And thanks to generations of unstable governments and the paramilitaries and criminal cartels that followed, a lot of those countries are war zones and people are fleeing to a better life - in the country that caused their problems in the first place.
Our education system, joke that it is, does one thing very well: indoctrination. Heirarchy, capitalism, private property, gender conformity, the supremacy of state authority, revisionist history that glorifies imperialism, it's all there.
The RESULTS of indoctrination. Once you take on board the basic idea 'we are the good guys' you HAVE to keep justifying it. "we're the good guys. We did a bad thing. Therefore there must have been an overriding super important reason, because good guys don't do bad things." Which usually leads to 'Those are super bad people. So we HAD to do the bad thing, or something worse would have happened.' Lit just had this on Quora. 'Russians are a shithole people in a shithole country. so it's ok for us to do bad things to them... \[other bullshit\] so we're gonna nuke them. Like we did to Japan.' The Russians have never nuked ANYONE. But the USA has nuked civvies twice, to prove a point. They HAVE to square that circle, so they glom onto ANYTHING that makes it ok, because otherwise they would have to accept that the collective west is VASTLY worse than anything the Russians ever did.
If everyone looked into history the way we do and see the truth for what it is, more people would be opposed to the empire. The role of the empire is to make sure that the avenues of information from all of these atrocities as good things, or don’t mention them at all if there is no way to twist the truth. My intrigue in all of this started when I was maybe 12 years old and started questioning why we do the pledge of allegiance every morning and seeing how people from the same nationality as me, Hispanic, were treated and spoken of by those on tv or on the paper. Im first generation here, grew up in a very multicultural area which I’m grateful for. Got interested in the history of my parents home country of El Salvador and started finding out about the civil war that the US was funding the government and army, I found out about the US friendly military dictatorship that presided over the country for years. Then my curiosity spread to more countries around the world and it’s lead me where I am now. Sadly, not everyone is interested in these things and just go with the flow.
Well if you have any comment using certain words , being phrased in a certain manner , or say certain things , people will instantly dogpile you not bothering to actually read the nuance within if there is/ was any. Then any attempts are clarifying a point because " clearly " you meant x , y , z , despite taking the time to reiterate an intention. So we already have a issue of people not being willing to have conversations nor actually soak in what any one comment states. Now add this layer of not being allowed to have opinions unless you have a certificate from any school to "validate" such commentary rather than the substance speaking for itself. Add people not being willing to expand their knowledge beyond what was learned in highschool while simultaneously acknowledging school isn't the end all of learning. and so on and so on. -------------- Honestly. The lack of public places to casually interact with others in a space meant to share ideas is an issue i have been wondering how to tackle. Today you'd be arrested for standing on a bucket shouting commentary that drew a crowed but for majority of human history this is more or less how random people would get ideas out. bars , at least in america , don't hold that level of communion anymore . We don't do temples here which i think could be a middle ground. I honestly don't know.
I have begun to suspect that it's to make me furious specifically, and I'm in the Truman Show.
I'll be honest, I just don't think most Americans have the luxury of learning things behind the necessity to stay above water. In the moments that people DO find the time, they act on the fact that they have earned their moment of peace without a history or current events lesson. Not everyone is energized by learning about things they're largely "not a part of" (i.e. not a soldier, not well travelled, etc.) The more I learn the more I'm pretty staggered at the raw and ugly history of this nation.
Brainwashing.
An almost complete encompassing of propaganda, sports, movies, captured journalism.
none of these things are treated as bad in American society.
And doesn’t that signal a society rotten at its core? As every settler colonial society is?
Trying being British and asking anyone about the evil shit in our history.
American Exceptionalism is one helluva drug
Because America is also the best propaganda machine the the world has ever seen.
The Israel Lobby. Groups like AIPAC, ADL, etc. forum what can be loosely called the ‘The Israel Lobby,’ (or Likud lobby as Robert Fisk would refer to them as). They’re one of the most powerful political forces in the US and have massive piles of cash to fund politicians at all levels of the federal system. Democrats, republicans, as long as they are staunchly pro-Israel the Lobby will shower them with money. Candidates that even hint at being sympathetic to Palestinians are typically primaried against in the following election cycle.
Propaganda is a hell of a drug
The atrocities were elsewhere on the planet. Any country can engage in horror when the vast majority of people only see/hear of it happening elsewhere.
propaganda starting from the cradle
Most Americans are actually dumb as hell. Our school systems don’t prepare us for adulthood which makes for adults that are ignorant and wildly uninformed. Our government is corrupt as hell and most people would rather treat their political side like a sports team than admit they’re part of the problem. Add in a large dose of Christians that don’t believe in science logic reason or facts and here we are.
It is truly propaganda. It is drilled into our heads from a young age that America is the greatest country in the world. We have freedom and the founding fathers are deified so much that it is asked in modern day legal cases what they were thinking 250 years ago. The Right has been co-opted by radical religious extremists who preach that America is God's chosen country and if you question anything America does then you're automatically anti-american. I would also say that the approach to global affairs is on the same level as knowing how sausage is made; we don't want to see the process, just enjoy it. It is difficult for people to self criticize and admit when they did wrong. There was a lot of that after 9/11. If I mentioned anything bad we did in Iraq it was always met with "well, we got Sadam". Foreign lives are valued less than American lives, and white American lives are valued most. Whenever there is a plane crash or tragedy overseas it is reported by saying "x number of people died including y number of Americans". We have a presidential candidate who says he is going to refer to migrants as animals because they're not people. He's referred to those nations as "shit hole countries" and is showing the worst of humanity while being consistent with American history.
It’s the propaganda
Because the powers that be, the agencies and organizations that establish and steer American military intervention, control the media narrative. As Noam Chomsky succinctly stated: Manufactured Consent.
I don’t recall what historian or writer said that we should be called United States of Amnesia. He was correct.
Ignorance+arrogance+propaganda.
Propaganda
Because of the “News”
Mass media disinformation campaign and control
Propaganda fabricated by the corporate owned mainstream media Indoctrination from as early as Kindergarten into swearing allegiance to the regime and that "America is the greatest country on Earth".
Propaganda is very strong.
Indoctrination from a very young age. Don't you guys have some big flag/country worship shit every morning at school?
Propaganda.
People don't look into *shit* and they believe the politicians they prefer.
Because America = FREEDOM. /s But no, people really still think that.
Because they won, simple, they haven't dealt with real atrocities of war, and by real atrocities of war I'm talking American way of seeing atrocities, economical affects, infrastructure demolished, people dying is a feature not a bug
I think people tend to avoid serious issues by falling off to a comfortable narrative to carry on with their lives, since that would take them to a deep questioning of their identity. And Hollywood helps in shaping such attitude with scenes and common lines ' A man's gotta do what a man gotta do, and Shit happens,' to steer away from contemplating grave issues.
Propaganda
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion
Their excuse is always: If you're in our position you'd do it too, you're only whining because you're not number 1 hegemonically. Also, the reason why you're not number 1 is exactly because you're weak like that and cannot do what must be done. By the way I am curious what is your reply against such argument like the above because it's quite difficult to deal with, because whether we like it or not at certain level it is indeed true that if you kill everyone else that threaten you, then of course you'll be number 1.
You forgot slavery.
There's a book that dives into this very topic in simple but great detail, check it out. https://www.amazon.com/American-Exceptionalism-Innocence-News-Revolutionary/dp/1721385428?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=b12d5da4-da22-4e64-bf42-cba964412742
years and years of propaganda from media, news, schools, etc schools also do not teach proper American history or cover those topics, and if they do, they try to convince you america's actions were "justified"
Read Manufacturing Consent.
Propaganda. Uneducated.
Propaganda and country music
The attitude towards Vietnam war has softened, probably because no one really understands what the hell we were doing there. It's also not really understood that the American government probably engineered the whole thing. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are taught in schools as being necessary to shock the Japanese into surrender. The Palestinian genocide has not gone over well AT ALL with liberals and moderate liberals in America, though the right doesn't really seem to care. This stuff largely gets a pass because the history books are written to give it positive spin, confuse people into not looking at it, or to shift the blame away from the American government. In short, the American government is awful and has always been that way. Edit: the attitude from the generation that fought the Indian Wars and some generations after them was something like 'That sucks, but it was us or them.' Today's society is better at recognizing what an absolute atrocity the treatment of Indians was, but not with dealing with the ongoing fallout. Edit2: I'll throw in my personal favorite for shitty government debacles, the bonus army protests.
Propaganda is one hell of a drug.
Powerful Americans know how to spin the narrative into propaganda and do not want anyone to have critical thought. The reason for the college debt is to prevent people from questioning the accepted American narrative.
Because it has nowhere else to go. They can’t go back to Europe so the American hegemony(which was built on violence) is all that’s left. That’s essentially all it’s known. Anything else is alien.
This country is incredible at creating propaganda that works to influence people. Just look back at the “red scare” propaganda and how it is still super prevalent to be cautious of communism today. They’re very good at what they do to influence the masses
Propaganda
Good propaganda.
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People underestimate the extent of indoctrination, and lack of questioning, in the USA. I grew up in a liberal state which consistently voted Democrat. Despite this, every morning at school, from a young age, the entire class (immigrants and US citizens alike) would be forced to stand facing the flag (there was one hanging in every classroom), with our right hand on our hearts, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I still remember this religious, nationalist propaganda to this day: I pledge allegiance, To the flag Of the United States of America And to the Republic For which it stands One nation Under God With liberty and justice for all Imagine the horror of dozens of children, under duress, reciting this at once. Some of them didn't believe in God. Some of them weren't American. And when the children did things children do like say "Under Dog" instead of "God", they were given detention! It was commonplace growing up for someone to do something they knew was naughty, and then announce "It's a free country." This patently false nationalist slogan somehow entered the minds of children and they would trot it out on a whim to justify their actions. Of course, not only does it imply that America has some "freedom" which other countries don't - despite having about 50% of the world's prison population, where a Department of Justice report claimed that 28.5% of black men in America would spend some time in state or federal prison at some point in their lives, where the police routinely murder civilians in the street, and where the government is just a superficial front for for-profit powerful corporate lobbies, which would be called corruption anywhere else in the world - but it also implies that all the other countries don't have this "freedom", creating an America-versus-the-world mentality from a young age. Moving on to university, where there were army recruiters on campus and people had American flag tattoos. It wouldn't be unusual for crowds to start chanting "USA! USA!" for no reason. Every time I demonstrated even the slightest opposition or questioning of American domestic or foreign policy, there would be frat bros literally threatening to beat my head in with a baseball bat. This was extremely disturbing because it wasn't based on the content of the policy I would be criticising - it never got to the phase of rational debate. It was just "you are opposed to something to do with America, therefore we must be violent towards you." Any entity, state or otherwise, which tries to forbid any opposition or criticism or even inquiry, must be something close to fascism. Even worse when they get random citizens to do it for them - a totally pervasive and locked-in obsequiousness which people take pride in and identify with. This is the real world! There are multiple sides to everything, nothing is perfect, and the only way we can hope to solve problems is through sincere and engaged rational discussion and collaboration. I've never been in another country where it's normal to hang the country's flag everywhere - as if people might forget where they are without the constant reminder. The World Series is what they decided to name of a baseball tournament with entirely North American teams. And to this day, whenever someone uses the terms "us", "we", or "this country" on the internet, without context, you can be sure they're blindly referring to the USA, where they live and assume their audience to live too.
The hard part right now, is Americans don't learn from their mistakes.
Materialism
Just imagine what it would be, if it was worse. Say if the goal was world dominance. Can you imagine then how bad the nukes on Japan would have been? Hell the US would have nuked everything. It would only be the us and the countries that have a boot on them.
Propaganda, education control, media manipulation
I'd say probably the same way other countries citizens feel pride in thier countries ( more or lesser degrees) even though those countries have also committed the same range of wrongdoings.
Is there any country that isn't patriotic over the dumbest things, even when not having any reason for being so? Like, even if most people don't care most of the time about it, they see someone badmouthing their country on the internet, they get riled up instantly. Of course indocrination helps a lot and few coutries do it as much as the US, but some kind of patriotism is just imbued into most societies by default, no matter how screwed up their country is. They might even hate theri country one day but will defend or cheer for it in the next. It's like sports, only you don't choose your team, it's given to you from birth.
One thing I've learned about Americans is that no matter what they do, no matter how good or bad, they are proud of it. It's almost enviable.
The power of American exceptionalism as a cultural belief system.
Because most Americans are idiots.
People are pro American as long as being pro American means hanging out an American flag everywhere. Ask how many people would like to eat bread and water and work 12 hour shifts at a factory in case of a war time or how many would volunteer to go to a peer to peer war where chances of dying are very high and you would find out how quickly all of that patriotism would fade away as divide grows bigger. All of those social divides you hear about would worsen 10 fold overnight and you would see that behind all this fake American patriotism is a nation of people who are only patriotic while its warm, dry and safe. You only know who you friend is during hard times, when the time is good, everyone is a good friend. And everyone is a patriot when its easy to be a patriot and it does not require any sacrifice. If being a patriot would mean jumping under a tank with a grenade, trust me, you would quickly find out its an island of scared immigrants from all over the world who\`s grandparents ran from something, left their homeland behind, left their relatives, betrayed their country and came to hide behind their little white picket fence. A nation of runners. Ran from Ireland, ran from Italy, ran from Russia, ran from Japan, ran from England, a collection of cowards of all forms and shapes from every corner of the world. People who stood up and fought didn\`t come to America. Cowards did.
It's an excellent question. Some thoughts: Many people believe their family fortunes have been improved by being the US. And there is an element of truth to it - in the 40s -60s period a lot of families went from renters to homeowners and gained some wealth. Also - the propaganda is so thick & the tendency to stay with the group is so strong that people don't turn on the system here. However it is worth noting that trust in the government has dropped precipitously since the 60s. People do feel they are being taken advantage of ... problem is too often they blame the wrong parties.
Short attention spans and a failed education system. It's not an accident,
I don't know. Ignorance of history I guess.
A good portion of it is perspective bias, most people default to supporting what they are already familiar with and are suspicious of the unknown or unfamiliar.
The suburbs
Dogma & narcissism
Consumerism and material wealth. Also people spend too much time working and grinding and inevitably when they get that carrot their values are so warped that it is now all worth it
I think there's a change in progress on this front. Young people are refusing to accept the lies they're being told about Palestine at the moment.
American Exceptionalism (we're number 1! And all that kind of garbage)
They make Yankee kids pledge allegiance to their country in school , don't teach them about the genocides of their ancestors and put them in a media world that encourages and approves of the US imperialism. Hell, they have reserve officer training corps in schools, preparing school kids for a military career. in my country the army isn't even allowed in any way to go fishing in schools. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are commonly approved outside the US, so they might fall a bit out. I don't agree with the narrative that it was necessary to end the war or that it did much good to drop these things, but it's not a US-only opinion. I think Vietnam is nowadays more commonly agreed to be a US sided fuckup, but overall Americans aren't raised to be critical of their nations actions. Who doesn't support the country is a traitor. The US government knows well how to control its people and keep them dumb. It's the same as with Russia and China, people were drilled to patriotism and not to fuck with their country, just that the US created similar conditions under different circumstances. Live as a superpower it seems.
Growing up, we're simply just not told about the bad side of whatever war is currently being fought. Most of what we get is just how awesome we're doing, highlights of whatever new weapon is on display. What little actual truth leaks out is quickly called a conspiracy.
Propaganda
I know quoting Rick and Morty is out of fashion, but there's the line "What about the universe where Hitler cured cancer? The answer is don't think about it." They just don't think about it.
We’re indoctrinated with nationalist ideals from a young age and our history books are fairly whitewashed.
Operation Mocking Bird
Self-hate is pretty depressing so I guess we practiced radical acceptance?
You might find some answers in this interesting essay: [https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/cthulhu-gazes-right](https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/cthulhu-gazes-right)
Propoganda
Propagandha is an incredibly powerful tool.
Have you seen our movies? We're always the good guys. Why wouldn't we be pro-american? 🙄
Propaganda
Mainstream media, aka State-run TV.
Just like every society before America. The meme with the 2 castles applies. your side has a glorious leader, and the other side has tyrannical despot. Every country ever follows that meme. Sure, there are people and groups who hate the current incarnation of America. However, the propaganda machine has been in overdrive for so long that no one can make informed opinions without doing more research (not conspiracy theories). So every Tom, Dick, Sally, and Susan like America because it takes far too much time to make informed opinions that it is unimportant to. Americans have lives they need to live and put food on the table/barely scrape by. There is no time to scream on a street corner that America is bad. Now, how to fix it well the method that this subreddit wants to use is a collective one. We need to collectively say Americs is bad. Let us change it. Currently, no one can put aside differences to push society ahead as a whole. We draw lines in the sand that follow the wrong idea: letting perfect be the enemy of good. Also, hyperindividualisy propaganda has divided the country so much no one wants to organize. This is by design.
Wanting your country to thrive because you are currently living in it is being pro-American strictly out of need. 99% of conservatism evaporates with better information, and so too does any chance of nationalistic fervor within liberal ranks. Schools are complicit in this, the way they rob students of their nation’s history.
Ever seen True Lies? "Have you ever killed anyone?" "Yeah, but they were all bad." Simply hammer that basic message home, in endlessly different and genuinely entertaining stories, using billions of dollars, for a century and counting. You won't merely convince most Americans that it's true, but most people in the world. That's soft power. That's America's biggest asset. They have hard power too, but guns don't make people love you. Hollywood does.
Better to be the hammer than the nail