It's simple but shouldn't be.
If you're a citizen of a superpower armed with nuclear weapons and with a long history inextricably laden with slavery, genocide, broken treaties, blatant lies, racism, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, and brutality and repression routinely employed by the government, it seems unlikely that you'd be complacent and ignorant.
This is the United States. Our history has more redactions than the Epstein Files.
Here's a quick quiz you can take (or give to a friend from the US if you're from elsewhere). How many of the following events do you recognize? How many can you explain?
[It's not unpatriotic to be aware of history and mistakes made. No matter what the government might claim.]
"We have undeniable proof that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction."
The protection and evacuation of wealthy of Saudi Arabians after 9/11.
Drone strikes in dozens of countries between 2006-25 in violation of US and UN articles regarding assassination while also blatantly violating the sovereignty of those nations.
Chile and Augusto Pinochet
MK Ultra
The assassination of Martin Luther King
The assassination of Fred Hampton
The assassination of Malcolm X
Cointelpro
The My Lai Massacre
House Un-American Activities Committee and blacklisting.
Massacres of Korean refugees during the Korean War.
The Port Chicago disaster.
Internment camps for citizens of Japanese descent during WW2
The Tuskegee Experiment
Banana Wars
US troop participation in the Russian Civil War
Red Summer
National Guard and Federal troops used for strike-breaking.
The American Legion hiring on as strike-breakers.
The Phillipine-American War
William Randolph Heart's role in the Spanish-American War
Black Wall Street
Wounded Knee
The Trail of Tears
New Orleans Massacre
Memphis Massacre
Sand Creek Massacre
Opelousas Massacre
Chinese Massacre
Thibodeaux Massacre
Wilmington Massacre
East St Louis Massacre
Elaine Massacre
George Stinney
The Johnstown Flood
"Filibusters"
Manifest Destiny
Three-Fifths Compromise
Smallpox blankets
Sacco and Vanzetti
The Know Nothings
Whigs, Tories, and Southern Democrats
Percentage of colonists who actually supported a war against Great Britain to achieve independence.
Joe Hill
The Wobblies
The Bonus Army
Percentage of combat troops who were African American in WW2 as compared to in Vietnam
Zoot Suit Riots
Eugenics and Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh's vocal support of Hitler and the Nazis
The US has accumulated all of that, and much, much more, in a little more than two centuries. But we don't really get taught this stuff and we don't want to get bogged down in all that bad shit. If we actually paid attention to the past we'd be seeing all those red flags going up now.
Life is scary enough already. The other day the wifi went out at Starbucks!
