Nobody wants to believe they’re the villain in the story. Nobody wants to believe their government is run by psychopaths who are inflicting unfathomable evils upon populations around the globe in order to rule the world.
It’s much nicer to believe you’re the Good Guys. Much easier to sit with the idea that your government might make an innocent mistake here and there, but overall is a driving force for the good of humankind, and is certainly superior to the villains it makes war with.
That’s a fiction, though. It’s a comfortable lie. A fairy tale that westerners tell themselves to avoid a profoundly uncomfortable truth.
The truth is that we are the villains.
We are the terrorists.
We are the tyrants.
We are the evil regime.
Our soldiers aren’t out there defending our country, they’re out there murdering people for defending their country. They’re not fighting for freedom and democracy, they’re fighting for money and power.
Daniel Crimmins from the US Army 3rd Infantry Division wrote the following about the Iraq War in 2015:
“Then you realize you haven’t seen anything to support the idea that these poor fuckers are a threat to your home. You look around and you see all the contractors making six figure salaries to fix your shit, train Iraqis, maintain the ridiculous SUVs the KBR dicks ride around in. You consider the fact that every 25mm shell costs about forty bucks, and your company has been handing those fuckers out like shrapnel flavored parade candies. You think about all the fuel you’re going through, all the ammo and missiles and grenades. You think about every time you lose a vehicle, the Army buys a new one. Maybe you start to see a lot of people making a lot of money on huge amounts of human suffering.
“Then you go on leave, and realize that Ayn Rand has no idea what the fuck she’s talking about. You realize that Fox News and Limbaugh and John McCain don’t respect you or your buddies. They don’t give a fuck if you get a parade or a box when you get home, you’re nothing to them but a prop.
“Then you get out, and you hate the news. You hate the apathy, and you hate the murder being carried out in your name. You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire, and you start to accept the startlingly obvious truth that these are people like you.”
That’s the reality right there, folks. We can wake up and start living in reality, or we can remain asleep in the fiction.
It’s time to wake up to the reality that western civilization is a depraved dystopia where most people are sleepwalking in a propaganda-addled stupor under an empire that is fueled by human blood. And it’s time to awaken to the fact that as westerners it is our duty to tear that empire down brick by brick, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, and for the sake of our fellow man.
________________
Caitlin’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
Feature image via Adobe Stock.
From Caitlin’s Newsletter via This RSS Feed.
Like the other one, and one before, alongside the other one and remember that one a which was while before that?
Good times…
Yea, so no one ever even heard of them, got it?
… Always have been 🤌🏼
Revisionist history to suit current hatred at it’s finest
The country started with genocide, grew bigger with chattel slavery, consolidated its regional power through gunboat diplomacy and coups and established itself as the global hegemon through countless worldwide massacres. It just started a new one some weeks ago! So no, have the least amount of courage to admit that America is, if one had to decide one way or another, an evil nation, and comparable only to other evil, bloodthirsty empires.
World war 2 seemed like a strong exception to “always”. WW1 too, since America joined late and their biggest help was the sudden influx of resources like food and manpower to the Entente.
“Seem” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, and thanks to public schooling, the historical truths disproving that sentiment are largely ignored.
Sure, the PR campaign was a smash hit by all accounts, but the corp activity and myriad back-room deals/politicking made possible by (dependent upon) the US’ involvement? Rampant.
The profiteering was key to the entire event, and irrevocably shaped the modern world as we know it. Hell, if people hadn’t lapped up the “Good Guys” propaganda as fervently as they did, we might not have such robust “Exceptionalism” programming in full-effect today. 🤷🏽♂️
It was about making sure the power vacuum was “properly” filled more than a humanitarian act, right?
