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LETTERS / Americans Are Drowning In Propaganda

Dear Editor,

John Pilger speaks of growing up inside The Matrix as we all did:
“I grew up on a cinematic diet of American glory, almost all of it a distortion. I had no idea that it was the Red Army that had destroyed most of the Nazi war machine”. American war dead were about 450,000 worldwide where Russian war dead were more than twenty million.

Opinion management, Western corporate/government’s goals, involve emphasizing or minimizing events and manipulating importance given to them to shape your perception of events. It’s done together with “history lessons”. Some states are prohibiting “unpatriotic” history lessons. If you don’t learn from history you know nothing.

Americans are drowning in propaganda. American media gets paid to keep “consumers” in line. What the police are to people’s bodies the media are to people’s minds. One is mental deception. The other is physical force. This combination of deception and violence is the cost-effective way to control you. Schools are where this begins, teaching you America is exceptional. There are words for that.

Some state legislatures resist advanced placement history saying things like; AP History emphasizes “what is bad about America” and doesn’t teach “American exceptionalism”. This criticism is spreading among mostly conservative state legislatures. Georgia’s Senate rejected AP History for presenting a “radically revisionist view of American history”.

AP history is controversial in both Carolinas, and Colorado, where students in Jefferson County protested when the school-board said it should be modified to promote “patriotism” and discourage “civil disorder, social strife, or disregard of the law”. The Texas Board of Education, whose fictional/nationalistic views prejudice history textbooks nationwide, asked that the course be rewritten “to accurately reflect U.S. history without a political bias”. They must mean a different bias than theirs. History shouldn’t have “versions”.

North Carolina educational critic Larry Krieger, a former history teacher from Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools, has written articles attacking AP history for conservative websites. Krieger wants American History 1, to be required before the AP course, so students won’t be learning about American lynching, concentration camps, invading small countries/genocide unless they’re motivated. Krieger complained that AP history suggests Manifest Destiny was “built on a belief in white racial superiority and a sense of American cultural superiority”, rather than “the belief that America had a mission to spread democracy and new technology across the continent”. Who decided we have this “mission”. Seems he believes we shouldn’t teach unbiased history.

The New Hanover County school board passed a resolution saying AP history “emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history”. Napoleon said; “what is history but a fable agreed upon”.

Evidently the fear is if students are taught the full story they’ll “hate America”. To prevent this, our history books must have the parts that disagree with some preferred mythology ignored, solidifying American Exceptionalism. It’s not pleasant to learn that Americans made use of Smallpox Blankets, MK Ultra and Palmer Raids, etc. These things are a part of who we were and are.

We’ve abandoned our strengths in manufacturing, education, and technology to other nations. Our welfare state is an embarrassment. Our law enforcement, justice system, federal and state legislatures are lessons in corruption. Industrialized nations laugh at our health care system. Inflation adjusted wages have stagnated since 1970. The rising cost of living is making 99% of us poorer as we work longer hours without vacation. “Conservatives” want Americans to be taught it’s still “1955” with history lessons to reinforce that.

What does the Washington clown show excel at today, beyond wasting energy/resources, spying on everyone, imperialist invasions, and keeping a giant hoard of nuclear weapons for “our” huge expensive military?

Before America destroyed Libya, Iraq and Syria there was no ISIS. In response, Obama seeks unlimited war power. “Our royalty” have no incentive to reconsider the foundation of American foreign policy: that America can and should run the world. It’s “our” manifest destiny and don’t question it because we’re the “greatest”. What looks like failure to “consumers” may not be failure for our overlords.

Turmoil is essential to the political perpetual motion machine, supplying “threats”, justifying policies, which create those threats. Evidently you ignore the criminal aspects of the Empire’s past, applauding every destroyed nation in our wake, or you’re not a patriot because patriots only speak about our wonderfulness. This of course leads to more American created death and destruction, because we’re exceptional, therefore without responsibility.

“Our government” is a common nationalistic beast that focuses on control over legitimacy. Humans have the right to live peacefully however they choose, as long as they’re not infringing on other’s rights to do the same. Our politics and laws should reflect this emphasizing tolerance, instead of force.

There are times in our history when legality separates from morality. America resulted from a violent revolution that was outrageous treason against the established order of the day. If “consumers” lose their willingness to recognize these things, we surrender our rights, and our freedom in determining our future, to “government”. The law doesn’t defend us; we defend the law and when it becomes contrary to our morals, we have the right and responsibility to change it toward just ends. If we don’t accurately know our past we have no chart towards a just future.

Accusations of “blaming America first” come from those who don’t accept criticism, insisting “we’re awesome”, as if somehow criticism removes the good parts. If you’re a loving husband who only beats his wife on Saturday, who are you?

If America is “the exceptional country,” it implies that others are disposable. “Our government” speaks of its promise to protect smaller countries from aggressive larger countries, ignoring our history. True exceptionalism stands on its own. History that’s cleaned to support a preferred worldview is Indoctrination.

Across our media/political/educational range, there’s an ongoing effort to cover up reality, including ignoring well established facts. Those not taught history’s dishonesty accept obvious lies. How will America become what it says it is, if our history lessons only contain what nationalists prefer? How is destroying freedom saving it?

A State Department spokesperson said during a recent press briefing “the US has a long-standing policy” to not support coups, saying “the US does not support political transitions by unlawful means”, they must be “peaceful and legal”: No other nation on earth has destroyed more lives and nations than “our” Empire. According to one recent study, America is responsible for an estimated 30 million deaths around the world, just since World War II. Any sovereign nation refusing their forcible acquisition by the Empire, becomes a “threat to US national security”, the New World Order.

Most “consumers” only notice what they’re determined to see. The Empire lies openly to get its way. We’d do well to call things by their real name: it makes things easier to understand. Exceptionalism will be a term describing the speed of our decline, not any special quality within us.

If you doubt that the history of America is murder and chaos, read Howard Zinn’s: A People’s History of the United States. The Nuremberg Tribunal defined “the supreme international crime” to be “to initiate a war of aggression”.

Craig Dudley