I was brought up with an American notion, that I lived in the most civilized country on the planet. Because of our culture, our history, our government and Constitution, our President, our Military, our Schools, and so many other things, we were SIMPLY THE BEST.
That meant, without it being fully said, that we were better, smarter, and more moral. We were then, not
Brute
Neanderthals
Vicious
Uncivilized
When I lived abroad, I found, being rebutted many times, that this in "US" Americans to believe all of this, came from:
1. a national centrism, not referring to being politically in the middle of the right and left politics, but being feeling your place is the center of the world, the best.
A form of Ethno-Centrism
We've had this for hundreds of years here, and it's a result of
being such a large country, being sheltered and distant from other countries, having a history of "leaving" the European countries, and more reasons.
2. Our leaders, and our society have used this in the form of Propaganda. When I go abroad, others always report to me, how Patriotic Americans are, proud, love our flag, love our teams. Some others do to, some countries don't. I watched in Brazil the rise of that country's use of their flag, following years of noting how Americans emulate our own. Now, you find that flag on all, house, special days, etc.....just like here. But when I live in Brazil decades ago, that was the opposite. In fact, for that time I was there, it was illegal to own a national flag, a state flag, and have it on defiling things such as a coffee cup, or your dog's sweater. That changed, and just a few years later, I was able to get the Brazil flag and state flags. When there, it was also illegal to talk to the policemen on their horses by the Minas Gerais President's office in Belo Horizonte, and to not carry your passport. Well, I did talk to the police that liked the attention and allowed me to photograph them, forgot my passport and did make it through check points, and Brazil moved past a dark time of military dictatorship that frightened my US family from the news.
Me, though, I was a naive traveler, and continue to be. The difference now, is that forgetting a document and such has greater consequences.
We are surrounded by this US ethnocentrism, and find it daily, all over.
This is a propaganda about some perfectly good nature, and this is a disinformation about our own Darkness. We are no different than others in other countries in this regard.
Now, the world has followed our own dirty laundry of
Daily mass shootings, especially in schools and malls
Dirty Drinking water and corrupt schemes
Continued punishment of Native Americans
Racism
Police brutality upon police brutality upon police brutality: the shooting in the back of blacks
Disparities in income, and the development of a new financial elite we often decried in other countries (for instance: "Well I don't have to go to Monaco to have fun because I have Las Vegas", and this is now tempered with, "I went to Las Vegas and found it was now geared only to the Rich Europeans, it's no longer for the common US Person.)"
https://thedarkknot.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-first-kgb.html
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220510-the-police-killing-that-shocked-france
Run, flee, tell others!
300 topics on this listed below in the Cloud Archive
And in 200 + articles in the list to your right.
Some of the books in Amazon links. If not there, search by title or "books Charles K. Bunch, PhD"
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