The Shaping of American Character

[ajax13]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43678.htm

"As Berman points out, only in America is it possible to be “un-American” by disagreeing with one’s government. There is no such thing as being “un-Italian” or “un-Danish”(ibid., 284)."

[Froderik]

Excellent posts you've been putting on here recently, Ajax.. the dark underbelly of American history..

[ajax13]

I don't consider it the dark underbelly of American history.  I consider the perception of history of the last hundred and fifty years or so to be a completely imaginary construct.  The US has been the most powerful state in the world for about one hundred years.  Currently the US military has the entire world broken up into commands, a situation unequalled by any previous empire.  There are US Special Forces operating in over one hundred countries, and US bases in 65 countries.  This is not consistent with the rhetoric about other states and non-state actors being the aggressors in economics and geopolitics.
As any example, the Russians used the Tu-95 Bear in combat for the first time in November.  This is more or less the equivalent of the B-52, both entering service in the mid-fifties.  So in sixty years, the wicked Russians have never used their heavy strategic bomber.  The same cannot be said about the B-52, which has dispensed freedom from corporeal existence to people for fifty years, from Vietnam to Yugoslavia to Afghanistan.

[Froderik]

I don't consider it the dark underbelly of American history.  I consider the perception of history of the last hundred and fifty years or so to be a completely imaginary construct.  The US has been the most powerful state in the world for about one hundred years.  Currently the US military has the entire world broken up into commands, a situation unequaled by any previous empire.  There are US Special Forces operating in over one hundred countries, and US bases in 65 countries.  This is not consistent with the rhetoric about other states and non-state actors being the aggressors in economics and geopolitics.
As any example, the Russians used the Tu-95 Bear in combat for the first time in November.  This is more or less the equivalent of the B-52, both entering service in the mid-fifties.  So in sixty years, the wicked Russians have never used their heavy strategic bomber.  The same cannot be said about the B-52, which has dispensed freedom from corporeal existence to people for fifty years, from Vietnam to Yugoslavia to Afghanistan.

Precisely; it's not dark to you because you've been paying attention. But reality is hidden from the dumbed-down and the occluded by the propaganda machine of corporately-owned media, and a fountain of distractions and li'l gadgets. For instance, just look at the numbers that the gov't is putting out about the unemployment rate, GDP, etc. (and how they are constantly manipulated) compared with the real numbers (provided by a certain independent source). On that note, I wonder how many people still don't realize ISIS is the US proxy army. (Or should I say was, as they have been being demolished and pushed back by Russia, not by the US, as they would have you believe.)