History Is Not Patriotic

So true.

Life in the United States is great, if you’re of European descent and were born into an affluent family with laudable values. If you wish it to, as most people do, this more or less insulates you from the entirety of U.S. history, defined, as it was, by slavery, the slaughter of the Native Americans, constant imperialistic conquests around the globe, the pillaging of the environment and natural resources, the exploitation of the world’s poor, systemic racism before and after the emancipation, the waging of aggressive wars, the cruel treatment of asylum seekers, our $750 billion annual military budget that comes at the expense of education and healthcare, our constant slipping in the world freedom rankings, and the support of totalitarian regimes.

And that before the last four years, where we found ourselves at the brink of losing the American democratic republic.

Perhaps it was this brush with disaster that will represent a watershed event that ultimately moves this nation forward into what it could have been all along: the land with liberty and justice for all.