Like people, no
country is all good and no country is all bad.  Great heroism can occur in the worst of times and great evils can happen among the most enlightened of peoples.  That said, the impact of some countries has been better than
the impact of others.  Genghiz
Khan’s empire comes to mind as an example where the positive accomplishments,
which were significant, do not make up for the slaughter and oppression.  The Vikings during the time of their
raids are another example.  But as
contemporary Sweden shows, cultures can change, the balance shifting in a good
way.  Germany under Hitler
demonstrated the balance could shift in the other direction as well.  Like people, countries and cultures can become corrupted, debased, and they can heal.  With this preamble let’s look at ourselves.

Historically the
founding principles of the US held out hope that a better society is possible
to millions dominated by far more brutal and corrupt governments.  When they could, these people often
immigrated, their letters home often encouraging others to make the
journey.  Here religious liberty
and political freedom  was
pioneered on an unprecedented if never perfect scale.  After our revolution a few states gave women and blacks the
right to vote, something that had never before happened in human history.   Our Founding Fathers, unlike every
other major revolutionary elite, did not fall into killing one another, setting
a vital precedent of loyal political opposition and toleration of that
opposition that has done us great good. 
The poor were a minority here before any other major nation and our
culture has provided many of the inventions that have made the world a more
prosperous and healthy place.

That said, the
American record is not all good. 
Our ancestors committed genocide against the Indians, and it is not for
lack of trying that they did not entirely succeed.  Women and blacks did not keep the right to vote, and when
they finally received it nationally it was belatedly.  A great many other countries finally gave women the vote
well before ours. Our country’s record with African Americans, and for a while
with Asian Americans, was a prolonged exercise in brutality, oppression, and
all too often, murder. Our labor history was among the most violent in the
world, workers and their families being shot down by hired thugs.  Beginning in the early Twentieth
century we have an almost continual record of invading and occupying countries
that were no threat to us.

Of course both
paragraphs could be expanded into books – and have been.

One of the most
difficult things people can do is hold a balanced sense of their country, for
it inspires great love and also great loathing and anger when that love is
disillusioned.  Like all societies,
ours has been engaged in an intricate dance between decency and oppression
throughout its history.  Our best
moments as a culture have come when we recognized both, and sought to make
amends for past unjust actions.

But the balance
has shifted dramatically in the wrong direction in the 21^st century.

Under Bush II we
attacked an innocent country and in the process killed between a hundred
thousand to well over a million of its citizens.  For comparison’s sake, this is in the ball park of the Rwanda genocide, maybe less, maybe more.    Our military has refused to
provide statistics on the number of people it killed.  Significantly, in a country fascinated by opinion polls,
rarely were we informed of opinion polls regarding Iraqis, and when we were
they overwhelmingly wanted us gone. 
For example, Iraqi opinion was that the “Surge” made matters worse, even
as we were being told otherwise by our government.  (And of course we are being told the same thing about Afghanistan.)

Before we
attacked Iraq, millions of people demonstrated world wide against such
violence.  Most American Middle
East experts opposed the attack, as did a huge number of American
citizens.  The press did not report
much on these demonstrations – even when 100,000 to 300,000 demonstrated in
Washington.  (a few tens to over 75,000 Teabaggers
got vastly more coverage).  The
media also ignored the war’s critics while mindlessly parroting the government
line about weapons of mass destruction and the certainty that Iraqis would
welcome us as liberators.

When photographs
of torture finally emerged, Bush and others blamed a few “bad apples” and the
press swallowed these lies.  Later,
when torture was shown to be standard operating procedure, the press failed to
point out its illegality, or the fact that these methods had been devised to
get confessions regardless of their accuracy.  Torture wasa too, of tyrants, not law enforcement and
justice.  Now we were the
torturers.  Many Americans endorsed
such methods, as they still do.

Being complicit
in encouraging mass murder and spreading lies, the mainstream media (except for
McClatchy news) has done nothing to investigate this bestial period in American
life.  My friend Jim suggested this
is why we see such dishonest and venal people getting major positions in the
Washington Post and New York Times. 
Honest reporters and commentators would be drawn to this national
dishonesty and seek to uncover and report on it.  Because the mainstream media is dominated by reporters who
cheered on the crimes and corporations who benefited from the slaughter, it
shares in the guilt.  Consequently it
does not want honest reporters. 
And so we get Neoconservatives like Bill Kristol and Bushies like Marc
Thiessen whose major qualifications are they are marginally more literate hacks
than the average.  To my knowledge,
no person proven right about the Iraq War has received a major position in the
media other than perhaps Rachel Maddow, who got her start on domestic issues. 

The US has
gradually become a culture of lies. 
While the Muslim world has rejected Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam,  Americans have yet to do the same about our own war criminals, torturers, and
murderers.  A substantial
percentage of Americans continue to close their ears, eyes, and minds to simple
facts.  The initial lies about Iraq
and torture have metastasized, and today we are surrounded by lies about
terrorism, Acorn , public health care  , global warming,  and much much more.  Those who defend the liars say “both
sides do it” and so no side is innocent. 

Yes both sides
do it, just as Hitler and Roosevelt both did things that were not always
right.  That does not make them
equivalents. Bad actions should be denounced and stopped, no matter who does
them, rather than defended because the other side is not perfect.

The culture of
the lie leads to the loss of America’s soul to the lure of power and fear of
truth. Domination, and corruption proceeds because if you can be strong enough
you can suppress reactions to whatever you do.  Now Dick Cheney has even confessed to genuine war crimes,
and so long as he stays here at home, obviously fears no prosecution. 

Germany after
World War Two bravely confronted the deeds of its rulers, and has made honest
efforts to ensure they never again participate in such horrors.  Not every German to be sure, but most
of them.  In this respect Germany
has demonstrated far more integrity and courage than the United States has to
date.  They lost their national
soul under the Nazis, but have regained it.

I hope someday
the Americans will be as courageous as the Germans, and hopefully will not have to lose a war to do it.