OPINION: The United States of America

Journal List of FAILURES's Journal: OPINION: The United States of America 8

Journal by List of FAILURES on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @10:08AM

This is kind of a disorganized opinion piece. I still hope that it will get some people talking:

History is something that I've never really been interested in at all. No interest. Period. But, it looks like it will be necessary to delve into it to gain some understanding of the path the United States has followed to become what it is today. Specifically, I am interested in trying to deconstruct a few myths that permeate the American mindset. This was all spurred on by my viewing of the film, "The Atomic Cafe". It illustrated that we:

1. Knew nothing about what we were doing when we dropped it. We had no idea what would actually happen save for a few scientists involved in it's development.
2. The boys who dropped the bomb and were interviewed in some of the film's clips appeared to be stunned by what they had done. I don't think they understood what they had done until after they did it.
3. As a whole, it appears that the United States was largely made up of poorly educated farm boys who had good intentions. Today, it seems that while we don't have as may farm boys, we still have a very provincial mindset. Why is this? Is it intentional? (These are questions for you to think about)
4. The supposed "victory" and "peacetime" that the U.S. achieved by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki seemed to be nothing more than P.R. spin for a shocked nation. It's almost like we didn't want to accept the fact that we were no better than Hitler or Tojo, it's just that our toys were better. It seems that "peacetime" was just a collective head-in-the-sand period for Americans. We didn't want to think about what a horrible thing we'd done in Japan was. It really was the equivalent of someone pulling out a gun and plowing someone's head to bits just because they stabbed us with a few toothpicks. It was way out of proportion.

The historical basics that I know of at the moment are what any grade schooler should know. I will admit, I slept through most of my history classes throughout my academic career. So correct me on points that are wrong, but point me to references which back your corrections. Said references should be non-partisan as there are too many agendas these days:

1. The United States gained it's independence from England. The intention was based mainly around religious freedom. The original colonists wanted to practice their own religion without the oppression of the monarchy. The only question in my mind from this, is: What did the founding fathers believe when they spoke of religious freedom? Freedom for "christians" only, or freedom for ALL religions? I would assume the latter myself as it seems more in keeping with deists.
2. Our country has touted it's freedom regularly since it's founding. However, I think that the definition of freedom has been a moving target with ideological shifts over time. Initially, we spoke of religious freedom (and we still do, but oddly it doesn't appear to apply to buddhism, satanists, wiccans or even Scientologists [yuck] in public school issues). Then later we started arguing amongst ourselves over the idea that all men are created equal. Freedom of a different type became an issue. This new issue was freedom for the black slaves. We still fight the freedom for minorities battles today because some people out there don't want minorities to get a little help.
3. Again, enter WW II and we are talking about freedom from totalitarian rule. We were fighting dictators who were, unquestionably, a bad element in the global arena. However, it doesn't appear that we really did this out of the collective goodness of our own American hearts. We were trying to break out of the depression and war can be very profitable. We also had the threat of communism here in the United States, thanks to the poor economy, which we had to provide some alternative to. I won't claim that the post-WW II boom was planned. I believe it was a happy side effect. But, there really was no actually end to WW II. It just kind of morphed into WW III with conflict going on all over the world that we ignored for some time. Once we did get involved, we didn't do a whole hell of a lot other than fight and fight and fight. (Korea, Vietnam, The Middle East)
4. Which brings us to present day. Iraq is a distaster. It's time to admit that we've fucked up big time. Sure, we got the tin dictator, Saddam Hussein out. But we are responsible for putting him there in the first place. Can you imagine what the world would think of us if we had put Adolph Hitler in power before WW II? Iraq is a totally different ballgame. The average American knows nothing about what people from Iraq are like other than the "freedom hating" propaganda that we are fed on TV. This is the same as all the "dirty Jap" stuff we were fed during WW II. There is the "truth" that the government wants you to believe. There is the "truth" that the opponent wants you to believe. Then there is the real, honest truth. How can we hope to "win" Iraqi mindshare without knowing what they actually believe and want? Do they really want to live our version of "freedom" and "democracy"? Why are we telling them that their new democractic government will give them free health care and education, when we don't do that here in America, this supposed bastion of freedom?

How did we get here? Why are we so obsessed with freedom when, apparently, no one can really define what freedom is? I'm not free to say certain things here in the U.S. without raising the suspicion of our government. Hell, I'm not free to make an idle threat against someone in a heated debate without getting in trouble. Is that REALLY freedom? If I were gay, I'm not free to equate my union with a same-sex partner to a heterosexual marriage. If my partner and I adopt a child, we wouldn't be free to call ourselves a family. If I was black, regardless of my abilities, I would not be able to make it into certain colleges if it weren't for Equal Opportunity. As much as the bible beaters want "freedom of religion" in the schools, are they going to let my three year old excuse herself from creationism class in order to go read up on majick in the library? Or maybe even do something as innocent and simple as reading a Harry Potter book? How can we try and espouse freedom to the rest of the world when we are still having trouble with it here? This is a lot like the stereotypical psychologist who is counselling other people on their marriages, while filing for divorce. Somewhere along the line, we became a nation of hypocrites. Right now the hypocrisy is at an all time high. It hasn't been higher since the mid 1940s. But there is a signifigant difference now. At least, back then, more people actually had good intentions. Today, I do not believe most Americans have good intentions. They have selfish ones. They want us to win so that we may "rule the world". Most Americans are more concerned about themselves than they are about other citizens of their own nation. With that collective approach, how can we hope to help the rest of the world achieve freedom and peace?

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