wausfpp.org
Americans are surrounded by patriotized information. When we say surrounded, we mean that it permeates practically every aspect of life. This patriotism is found in conversations, books, movies, TV, newspapers, sports articles, religious literature, in gardening, burial, food, welding equipment, facial tissue, toys, games, banking, dentistry and countless other institutions, situations and things. With the massive US influence outside US borders, people in other countries are also often enveloped in this blanket of US patriotism.
Much of this patriotized information creates a false history in which the US government's actions are changed or omitted. Even critics and victims of the US government often hide or rewrite reality in ways that create a reversed image of what the US has done. So do newspapers, TV programs, the leaders of other countries, and international authorities. Many people creating the patriotized information are probably unaware they are distorting reality; they may be true believers, or be simply repeating falsehoods they heard elsewhere. Others probably do it deliberately, or find themselves encouraged when they say some things and despised when they say other things, and so end up learning to speak in ways that don't offend. When you are as powerful as the US, a lot of people have a lot of good reasons to try to make you look good, or to not say things that would make you look bad.
Other, weaker forms of patriotized information don't create a new history; they merely express support for the US government or define events and actions as "good" to the extent that they follow the US government's plans. These forms are ubiquitous as well.
It is commonly thought that there are two sides to any debate. This is generally not true of the patriotic information. Liberals and conservatives and socialists, hawks and doves, pacifists and militarists all generally agree on the assumptions of patriotism. Even the leaders of the victims, leaders of foreign countries that criticize the US, and the officials of the UN itself often assume and repeat the assumptions of US patriotism.
It is our job to discover these samenesses, these recurrent elements, to identify them, and to categorize them by type so that we can recognize them when we see them. We want to categorize patriotized information.
If you pick up your newspaper on the morning of October 1, 1990, and read about what the US is doing in a particular country, you will be told a particular story. If you pick up a different newspaper on the morning of June 18, 2005, and read about what the US is doing in a different country, you will read a different story. But the two stories will be the same in many ways. They will both be telling you that the US was doing certain things and was not doing other things. Both stories will differ from reality in the same sorts of ways. Both stories may even use the same linguistic devices and omit the same sorts of facts. Our job is to figure out the ways that patriotized information stays the same, year after year, text after text, about country after country where the US has been doing things. We want to be able to turn on the TV or pick up a magazine, and say, "Okay, this is an example of history rewriting pattern number five, this is an example of number six, this is an example of linguistic device number nine, this supports stock myth number twelve," etc. etc. If we do our job properly, we won't have to experience every new story as new; we will be able to recognize it as an old friend.
This means that we are not interested in a lot of topics that interest other propaganda analysts. We don't want to try to figure out why people produce patriotized information, nor are we interested in saying that what the US is doing is morally wrong, or in pointing out how the US should behave differently. We don't have a theory about where patriotism comes from. Nor do we theorize about why, despite the fact that there is no guiding hand that controls it, US patriotized information has so many samenesses. We just want to point out what those samenesses are, and leave it at that.
For us, the most important of these samenesses are the patterns of difference between what has happened in the world and what the patriotic texts keep saying has happened. The same patterns of difference tend to be found in text after text.
The US is the only country that routinely relates to the citizens of other countries all over the world by bombing, shooting and burning them in their own homes, and by establishing means of controlling their countries. Other countries do this from time to time, or they do it to the citizens of one or two perennial enemies; the US does it all over the world as a perfectly routine aspect of its foreign policy. American citizens are in the dark about a lot it this, but even they now calmly discuss whether or not "we," should kill certain people in their own homes, or bomb this or that country; it is taken for granted that this is the US's decision to make. US ideology, as found in the patriotic texts, says that US interference in other countries, including killing or injuring millions of their people or replacing their governments with those that will follow US wishes, is always either nonexistent or beneficial to the people of those countries. This makes the US ideology limitlessly expansionist and limitlessly self-justifying, and fundamentally at odds with democracy and freedom for people outside the US.
America, we are told, stands for freedom, and pushes democracy on others. America is the highest ideal, the gleaming tower of freedom and bravery, the greatest achievement in the history of humankind. It is a loving guide, parent to the children (the citizens of other countries). It is the light for the people of the world, who were in darkness until America came. America is helping, not harming. America is giving, not getting.
The problem, say a few brave individuals, is that it doesn't act like it. It doesn't live up to the ideals that it stands for.
We think this viewpoint is backwards. It shows a fundamental failure to understand the power of information and ideology.
The problem is not that America doesn't live up to the ideals it stands for. The problem is that in people's minds it always stands for those ideals, regardless of what it does.
It is because America always stands for freedom in people's minds that it is free to establish its unelected self as dictator over the people of so many other countries, deciding who dies and who lives there, on a routine basis.
It is because America always stands for human rights in people's minds that America can get away with capturing, injuring, and killing so many of the world's people, on a routine basis. It is because people can't think of America as selfish that it can repeatedly take what belongs to others. It is because whatever America does is always thought of as helping others that America is forever blowing up what others have built.
The solution is not to try to make America act differently while allowing the idea that it is the great freedom-pusher, the light of the world, continue to dominate the description of reality that everyone lives under. The solution is to stop it from being regarded as the light of the world. As long as it is regarded as the light of the world, it will keep on conquering and stealing and murdering, because it can never be successfully accused of conquering or stealing or murdering.
We want everyone who is committed to opposing US imperialism or to helping its victims to think seriously about concentrating on fighting US patriotic propaganda itself, rather than merely continuing to try to stop what the US is doing or to mitigate its harms while allowing the falsehoods that cover for it to go on uncorrected. As long as the false picture of history remains, your efforts to stop the US government's acts in other people's countries will probably be futile; at best you will be running around helping a tiny fraction of those harmed as the US goes right on killing people in their own homes and establishing US domination in country after country all over the world. Meanwhile, as the US establishes its unelected self as dictator over them and proceeds to kill all of them who resist US domination, back in the US there will be a big debate over whether this US attempt to help those people is succeeding or not, and whether this US effort to bring them freedom is worth it. The only way to end this ridiculous situation is to consistently attack the five myths themselves, to deal directly with the false picture of history, rather than trying to stop US actions while leaving US propaganda in place.