Schuldgefühl

American authorities insisted in the aftermath of the Second World War that Japanese and German schoolchildren be forced to face into the facts of what their governments had done in their name.

A people who do not accept the wrong of their actions cannot move forward and beyond their crimes.

Germans still debate to this day whether it is right and proper that later generations should also carry a “National Schuldgefühl” – a sense of collective shame.

Perhaps trans-generational shame is a bridge too far, but at least these nations have some sort of trans-generational awareness of historical truth.

In a classic case of “Do as I say, not as I do”, the USA made post-war moral demands on Japan and Germany, while indoctrinating its own children back home with “patriotic”, hyper-selective, jingoistic, theocratic, wilfully blind, self-righteous, white-washed, self-aggrandising, historical bullshit.

Consider just one aspect of USA history.

What were the ten longest wars fought by the USA?

The list below does not include the ceaseless wars against indigenous peoples between 1609 and 1890, such as the ten-year-long Northwest Indian War (a US war against an indigenous confederation in Ohio and Illinois territories).

1)   War in Afghanistan – 19 years, 10 months
2)   Vietnam War – 19 years, 5 months
3)   US Occupation of Haiti – 19 years
4)   Somali Civil War (USA intervention) – 18 years, 1 month, still ongoing
5)   Yemen Intervention – 15 years, 1 month, still ongoing
6)   Philippine or Moro War – 14 years
7)   War in Northwest Pakistan (USA intervention) – 13 years
8)   Jihadist Insurgency in Niger (USA intervention) – 11 years, 6 months
9)   War Against Islamic State [ISIL] – 10 years, 8 months , still ongoing (Iraq, Syria, Libya)
10)  Iraq War – 8 years, 9 months

How many of these military interventions were really about “protecting our freedoms and liberty”?

How many enemies of the US would have never existed in the first place but for USA and European colonialism and resource theft?

How many readers here have heard of the Les Cayes Massacre of 1929 in Haiti?

Be honest.

You haven’t heard of US Marines murdering peasants in order to protect US business interests?

Of course not.  In 1929 the stock market crashed. “Show Boat” was a massive hit in US movie theaters.  Al Capone was murdering rivals in Chicago.  The US Supreme Court had decided that pacifists could legally be denied US citizenship.

What are a few thousand dead Black farmers in Haiti?

What about the Moro War which had ended 16 years earlier?  Not heard of the Bud Dajo Massacre of 1906?

Of course you’ll have never heard about the 900 Tausug villagers – men, women, and children – who were mowed down and butchered by machine gun fire as they cowered in a crater with nothing but swords and knives to defend themselves.

President Theodore Roosevelt sent his congratulations to these “brave” Marines…

All that’s left in American culture of these times and atrocities are phrases like “down in the boondocks” – a phrase used by many, with no idea whatsoever of its source.

We could share a new essay every day detailing similar events, and remain busy writing for years.

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Is it any wonder that our society is so dysfunctional, in a nation where history and much self-identity (“whiteness”, “Scots-Irishness”, “military greatness”, etc.) is often based on an utterly fabricated, conjured reality?

Where reality itself has always been twisted to suit a preferred narrative, making everything and nothing real or true?

A nation where, if our collective conjuring of a fake reality fails, we simply choose amnesia?

Donald Trump is simply the final destination, the ultimate expression of a centuries-long denial of facts, truth, and reality.

Only in the USA was it possible for people to live a life of light entertainment and consumerism for decades, able to say words like “I’m not really interested in politics”.

Because most of the consequences of US politics happened to “other people”.  Black people.  Indigenous people.  Southern Appalachians.  Mexicans.  Filipinos.  Arabs.

Only in such an environment can someone like former presidential candidate Mitt Romney appear to be a “voice of reason” when placed as a counterpoint to the current incumbent.-

A recently retired Republican senator who made a dubious fortune in management consultancy and private equity investment.

A lifelong buddy of the criminal and murderous thug Benjamin Netanyahu.

A multi-millionaire who follows a religious cult invented by a man in the 1800s claiming to have received “golden plates” from “the angel Moroni“, and believed the ancient Garden of Eden mentioned in Hebrew texts was actually located in Daviess County, Missouri…

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They say laws are for people who need laws.

And humans need very little legislation, if some basic things within the heart of every human child are encouraged and respected:

Truth.  Knowledge.  Fairness.  Love.

Yet how can we raise our children to recognize truth, real knowledge, fairness, and love, when half or more of the adult population of the USA are unable to recognize such things?

When sociopathic billionaires control social media, communications companies, arms companies, satellite networks, data farming systems, streaming and broadcast networks, search engines, and news outlets?

These same sociopathic billionaires are now gutting the education system, and dictating what constitutes history in our schools.

They are waging a war on “wokeness” precisely because “woke”, in its original sense, meant being aware of the real story, the real dangers to our very humanity which emanate from corrupt power systems.

The current fascist regime, while oafish and vulgar and stupid in many ways, are backed and supported by billionaires smart enough to understand one thing:

The population they exploit will never rise up, if they are too ill-informed to even realize that something better is possible.

This is the origin of the wonderful aphorism “You never know you’re in a prison until you try the door”.

This is why J. D. Vance, Musk, and others are abandoning NATO, Europe, and Ukraine – hoping to collapse the EU in the process.

Having between 450 and 750 million people still living in relative freedom would be a shining beacon to beleaguered Russians and Americans, and a constant reproach to authoritarians.

*****

Anyone who begins to study and understand real history will invariably become less tribalistic, and more thoughtful and empathetic – unless they are a sociopath.

Sociopaths land regularly on my social media pages and website, claiming that my writing is attempting to make “white people” ashamed of themselves.

Deep down they know this is not true.  As a lover of history, I do not believe that anyone should be punished for the sins of their fathers and mothers.

History is for helping us understand how we got here, and how we can plot a better course forward.

The truth is, many MAGA sociopaths do not want to hear real history, because it would force them to confront the truth, which is this:

White Christian Americans are not inherently “smarter” or “better” than any other people in the world.

The USA is not wealthy or “great” because of White Christian American values.

The USA empire had a Golden Age, in which land and labor theft created a long economic boom making it possible for even uneducated “white” people to do very well for themselves.

The end of slavery, and the gradual accumulation and concentration of land, resources, and wealth in the hands of the few, spelled the end of the “white” working class Golden Age.

There is no longer any free land to buy the loyalty of “white” male citizens, and highly-paid, skilled manufacturing jobs have been moved abroad.

On the other hand, “non-white” minorities have made great strides in access to education and employment.

The “white” working class is now being treated just like everyone else in US history, and indeed, being treated like most underclasses throughout much of world history – as serfs for feudal lords, the corporatocracy, and now, the new Broligarchy.

Most of the current MAGA types will never read real history, so they will never have to confront “Schuldgefühl“.

The authoritarian state unfolding before our eyes will be a nasty hybrid called White-Christo-Fascist-Technocracy.

And MAGA cult followers, however put upon, abused, and impoverished by this system, will still support it.

Because they aspire to its ethos of greed and power.

So they’ll settle for some low level participation in violence and subjugation.

They will supply law enforcement.  They will supply soldiers.  They will join militias.

They will create a God and a Jesus in their own image, and they will gleefully force its odious theology on others.

They will settle for “owning the libs”, or abusing minority groups.  No shame, no guilt.

Admitting they are just the same as other exploited underclasses would be simply too much to bear.