The United States of America was founded as a racist, sexist, classicist, bigoted nation. From the start, our government only recognized wealthy white male landowners as having a voice in government. Yet their words in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution declared all “men” as equal.
We have since come to reconcile this inherent bigotry by giving minorities and women the rights to vote and to fair treatment under the law. We did not reconcile this by changing the words of the Constitution to specify that only wealthy white landowners have a say in government or deserve special treatment. Yet throughout history and even today, the tradition of sexist, racist, classicist bigotry is alive a well and very much practiced by those who effectively run our government.
In every war we engage in, it is standard practice to dehumanize the “enemy” by labeling them as “kraut”, “gook”, or “hodgie”. We consider all the people of the nations we go to war with as less than human. This is our rationalization for killing millions of innocent people in our wars. We don’t even bother to count the innocent dead that we kill.
But this is not uniquely an American trait. America does not, in effect, harbor some special quality of democracy and justice that our govrnment likes to have us sing about. All countries who wage war use these tactics of dehumanization and bigoted propaganda to justify wars that are truly crimes against all humanity. If they did not do this they could not wage wars. They would have to have a more civilized way to bring those to justice who they consider criminals.
Within our own boarders we don’t bomb entire neighborhoods, killing hundreds of innocent people, when we seek to bring justice to criminals.
In the information age with instant communication around the world it becomes harder to cover up the dehumanization and mass killings of innocent people because of their race or nationality (which is, by definition, genocide) and the bigoted propaganda that is meant to cover it up. The people of the world are onto these practices. The jig is up.
I don't believe that these practices have been solely designated to the United States throughout history. It is common place for large governments that inflict their own will on the world and feed the public false truths to fuel the racism, hate and indifference. You say “We” in error, considering that the government is out of control and the actions of the government do not necessarily reflect the wants of the people. The big corporations and big media/news reflect the views of the corrupt bankers that feed the propaganda machine to keep the uneducated masses believing the lies about the war in Afghanistan and accepting what the U.S. military does. The United States has the potential to be a safe haven of diversity, however, when the bankers control all, they have to keep the people uneducated and fighting amongst themselves so they can continue their globalization. I, as an American citizen refuse to take credit for what my uncontrollable government has done. I will not feel as though I am at fault for this. I am well educated and I educate those around me. America is a place of diverse cultures AND thought. Instead of writing a piece just blaming the American people as a whole, maybe it's time to educate them about the powers that be that are tarnishing our individual reputations. THAT is how we make a change, not blame without solution.