Contrary to the "catapulted propaganda", Enron, Haditha, and Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents or the work of a "few bad apples". American savagery and oppressive behavior pervades our society and predates our nation's birth. Building its patriarchal wealth on the backs of Black slaves and cheap labor while acquiring its territory through Native American genocide, predatory exploitation of non-Anglos, the poor, women, and the working class emerged as a pillar of America's socioeconomic "success" before we even declared our independence.
With the advent of the Industrial Age, transcontinental railroads, and the rapid proliferation of Capitalism, an increasingly empowered young nation with an insatiable lust for more land, resources, and profits began to seek prey beyond its borders. At the close of the Nineteenth Century, the American Eagle spread its wings as it began mimicking the rapacious behavior of its Western European ancestors.
With the sun finally preparing to set on the British Empire, the days of conquest and expansion dawned for the nascent American Empire. Pathologically hubristic notions like Manifest Destiny and American Exceptionalism served to dehumanize indigenous people to justify invasion, theft and murder as acts of necessity to bring civilization to "primitives".
What is it that they are spreading?
The Bush Regime's launch of the Project for the New American Century with the invasion of Iraq was not really out of character for the United States. While it was certainly executed with more blatant disregard for international law than America's previous imperial endeavors, it typifies the American sanctimonious belief that it can do no wrong.
George Bush was simply reiterating America's long-standing mendacious rationale for its exploitative behavior when he stated:
"What I'm trying to suggest to you that this program is a part of a strategic goal, and that is to protect this country in the short-term and protect it in the long-term by spreading freedom."
Consider some of the freedoms the United States is spreading:
1. Freedom to work under miserable conditions for a pittance.
2. Freedom to exist in an environment permeated with depleted uranium.
3. Freedom to sell precious resources to soulless multinational corporations at garage sale prices.
4. Freedom to experience a Kafkaesque nightmare including arrest with no charges, no trial to determine guilt or innocence, the endurance of torture, and indefinite detention.
5. Freedom to realize the inherent inferiority of one's culture, religion, and language, and to cast them aside like sacks of rank-smelling garbage.
6. Freedom to be maimed or killed if one dares to reject the "gifts" of these freedoms.
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