Crossposted from Axis of Logic
The inward-looking United States 'patriots'
Patriotism, the military and the economy have morphed into the present-day trinity of a religious faith that has taken over the United States and steeped its citizens in the deep belief of the unconditional superiority of their country. Mammon is God, Greed is the Son and Expansionism is the Holy Ghost. Modesty is the devil and Compassion is an unknown entity. Arrogance, Selfishness and Greed are among the major saints that lead the way for the rulers in this once so mighty empire.
In one way you can see it as a trend that began with the deregulatory policies of Ronald Reagan, when money got to be the fruit of speculations. The production deriving from the working people took a backseat and was increasingly outsourced to the economically least-demanding countries. Wall Street turned into a casino where the money holders invariably won and the workers always lost.
However, seen from a different angle, it has been going on ever since the Puritans grabbed the land away from the native Americans. With ups and downs, the citizens of what became the United States, the immigrants of those days, have experienced its growing from a grabbing and growing nation into a military powerhouse and an economic giant. They have learned to cultivate the faith that whatever is done in the name of the greatness of their country is for the good of the world. If you don't subscribe to this unwritten law you are not a patriot, which is the first of the deadly sins. The countries outside the U.S. borders, if they ever got the attention of this great empire, would be helpless without the United States to show them the way to civilization and to allow them to share a piece of the comfortable greatness of this superior country.
And of course all this power grabbing was disguised as spreading democracy and freedom. In the view of United States citizens only their hallowed country was truly a free country. Europeans were socialists (which to their minds equals communists), so clearly they could not be free countries. Socialism bad, capitalism good. Capitalism equals democracy and no democracy is possible without capitalism. The two go hand-in-hand. Thus goes the propagandized gospel of the United States. The truth is of course just the opposite, but propaganda wins the day. Until the day darkens.
This blatant lie is what is hammered into the brains of children by parents and teachers, and only very recently has it begun to dawn on some United-States citizens that maybe their so much touted greatness is not there to last for generations to come. For centuries there hasn't even been any serious questioning of whether this perceived moral and economic greatness was founded in reality or if it was merely a mirage fostered by the astronomically wealthy so as to leave them a freeway to increased wealth and power, unhampered by the common sense of educated and well-informed citizens.
The world is not static
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