Reply #19: Actually America has not changed all that much. [View All]

[Kailassa]

The main changes are in the visibility of what is going on.

Check out non-American accounts of the war against the Philippines, 1899-1992.
That was just one of many rehearsals for the invasion of Iraq. Filipinos fighting then to get the foreign invaders out of their country were labeled insurgents, and terrible things were done to them, too.

What is much harder to find in history books anywhere is the way aid and loans given to countries have been used as a way to persuade the local governments into manipulating the economies in ways that are detrimental to the welfare of their people and beneficial to America.

America has interfered for at least the last 100 years in the politics of other countries, ousting governments who are good for their country and replacing them with greedy dictators who will do anything for America, provided they get something out of it themselves.

America has worked to make sure that all oil has to be paid for in American dollars, and having Iraq start trading oil for euros was definitely one of the reasons for invading Iraq. After WWII the American dollar was detached from gold reserves and left to float freely. Having oil all paid for with dollars meant this could work, but only for as long as there was an oil supply.

This has meant that America's most valuable trade item for the last 50 years has been American dollars. Other countries have had to trade with Americans in order to get dollars, or they could not buy oil. This has meant trades did not have to be fair, and Americans have become accustomed to having a much higher standard of living than most people in the rest of the world because of the economy being bolstered by millions of unequal trades.

Both sides of government have been the same. Once the people in power see how things have been running, they have seen that they will be hated and considered traitors if they undo the system that America has come to depend on. The biggest danger to the American governments who have been doing this has been the American people, many of whom have a deep concern for fairness and justice, and who would not like to be leeches sucking the blood from poor countries, using power to make other countries unable to look after their own.

So the kiddies are fed pro-American propaganda right through school, with anything that refers to the skeletons in America's cupboards being censored out. The media have run along the same lines, always exaggerating the good and minimizing the bad, and giving Americans the impression their country is immensely superior to the rest of the world, and that they are superior to people of other nationalities.

Once the internet became easily accessible, there seemed to be a good chance that the more intelligent, inquiring Americans would find it easier to start educating themselves and questioning their history books, as many here have been doing. But any questioning of the propaganda is dangerous to the government, who do not want to to have to try to manage the wreck that America would become if they had to suddenly stop ripping off the rest of the world.

So now the government wants to find ways of controlling the internet. They have seen how Google could censor what the Chinese were able to see on it it response to pressure on it, and there are good indications that it is doing the same in America, cutting out access to items the government does not want people to see. The difference between the photos you could see in google if you typed in hurricane Katrina and looked for images, and the ones you could find the same way on Yahoo was incredible. Google was just not showing the death and suffering in the weeks after that.

The big question is, what happens next? Can you guys here, who are the ones who must lead the way in America if anyone is going to, find a way to get information freely circulating again? Can you research history and see the implications for the future, and change the direction America has gone in for so long?

There is no deus ex machina to bring a happy end to this story.

Whether there is a god who cares, or friendly aliens keeping an eye on things is irrelevant.

The only god in this machine who we can look to for help is ourselves.
We can be, we must be, the gods in this story.

More and more people are taking the first baby steps of learning to do things they thought they couldn't. We must each work at seeing one thing we can do that will help, however small it is, and then finding more and more things we can do.

And we must support and encourage each other. We must be independent and see things for ourselves, but what we do will achieve nothing on its own. We must look after the group, and show kindness to each other. Fear and hatred are being directed against us as weapons, in an effort to shut up anyone who might be listened to.

When the times call for courage people develop courage, and Americans have plenty, but we need to nurture each other to help that courage grow, so we can take on the bastards and keep standing tall together.