The FREEDOM to Dominate, Exploit, Plunder, Destroy, Rape & Murder

There's a form of "freedom" too often unspoken or even considered, and I declare that because contemplation of it is so scarce it has grown to define the Land of the Free. Join me for a few moments in this crash course that proves that ignorance truly isn't bliss.

Our odyssey begins in 1941, when President FDR described the "Four Freedoms" in a famous speech:

"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb."

— Franklin D. Roosevelt, excerpted from the State of the Union Address to the Congress, January 6, 1941

Also from that period, in the US W22 propaganda film, Why We Fight, it was declared that the common theme of Italy, Germany and Japan that we were fighting against was "just plain old militaristic imperialism" (at minute 11:00):


About Vietnam, President LBJ said we were fighting against "tyranny and oppression". In hindsight, it's easy to see the hypocrisy in that statement especially on account the pretext for war there was a staged false flag attack.

It was situations like that compelled Noam Chomsky to define the "Fifth Freedom":

"We actually have a declassified record, a released internal record of the background… what they were afraid of at the time. Remember, that at the time the world was mostly colonies and the colonies, in fact, often welcomed, especially, the Japanese. They welcomed the Japanese because the Japanese were throwing out the colonial oppressors – they were throwing out the British, and the French, and the Dutch, and the Americans and so on.

And it was understood, internally, that it was necessary to make some appeal to the huge part of the world which was the colonial world – we now call the south or the Third World – which would make them believe that we were really fighting for good things. Not just to restore colonialism.

And out of that came the Four Freedoms. And by the ‘fifth’ freedom, I meant the one that they didn’t mention. But the crucial one. Namely the freedom to rob and exploit, that’s a freedom that we and our powerful countries, the imperial countries, insist on. And that was the real freedom that was being fought for.

And the colonial world, if they didn’t know it already, discovered that very fast after the Second World War. That’s a good part of the history of the last 50 years… is the record of how the great powers – primarily the United States, because it’s the most powerful – pursued their own freedom to rob and exploit and oppress and so on. That’s the real history. It may not be taught in school here but the real history of British imperialism wasn’t taught in British schools either. It’s known by the victims."
chomsky.info...

I know a lot of people are probably scratching their heads over what did that really have to do with US, but consider the Spanish-American War. At first glance it might come off as being an initiative to kick the last of European Colonialism out of the hemisphere, but that too was founded on a false flag attack and climaxes in a near genocidal scorched earth campaign against the people of the Philippines. You see "we" didn't merely liberate the last of Spain's imperial holdings, we took them from them from the Caribbean to all the way across the Pacific. A lot of people might wonder why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it ultimately flowed from this. If only we could claim altruism in the colonies we took command over there that would be one thing. Instead, the USA engaged in brutal barbarism in the Philippines against a people who had already suffered generations of European oppression.

The resulting Philippine–American War was a total bloodbath:

The war and occupation by the U.S. changed the cultural landscape of the islands...
Estimates of combatant deaths range from 25,000 to 36,000; estimates of the number of civilian deaths during the conflict range from 200,000 to 3 million.en.wikipedia.org...

When considering this defining event in US history alongside what went down with the Native Americans, coupled with the fact we were born from the British Empire, in 2007 I came up with "The FIRST Truth" concept:


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What would be the most fundamental Truth about the system that our society is subject to and a product of? What is the one concept that best defines where our nation has been led from day one, and can be applied to virtually any one point or example in our history? [And after we establish that we can get to the big story...]

If you answered "it's a civilization" then you're close. From our "American" perspective, it's important to distinguish "Western Civilization", so what then is "Western Civilization"?

If you open any basic Western history book to 'civilization' what do you see as the prime historical examples? You may be surprised to learn that each example can answer the initial question above. Each "civilization" that we're generally presented with is an empire: Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and then last but not least European "Colonialism". With the "First Truth" viewpoint, it's rather striking to note that the period between the fall of Rome and the beginnings of colonialism is considered to be the "Dark Ages".

American Empire is thus the answer to the first question. It's the most fundamental, irrefutable, undeniable, in your face yet completely unacknowledged truth that can be said of the United States. Think back to virtually any historical American event or period and you can find American Imperialism behind it. Imperialism is our heritage.

You may have heard of the 13 Colonies, but have you ever questioned what exactly was their nature? They were imperial colonies. That's what "colonialism" was; it was the new breed of European naval imperialism. Virtually every European "civilization" took part in the domination and exploitation of every place they could locate to conquer. The phrase "colonialism" is what is known as a "euphemism", which is a 'soothsaying' phrase to remove the harsh reality of what the concept being symbolized is. These are used so the public doesn't think much about their establishment's behavior. It's a tool of propaganda, or the science of persuasion and distraction.

Now of course Eurasian's were always going to conquer the Native American's. It's just 'how it was', especially considering it was communicable diseases that wiped up the vast majority of them. They were skilled warriors and quickly adopted Eurasian technology and with a fury, but losing something like 90% of their numbers to disease they never had a chance.

So we shouldn't inherently have to beat ourselves up too much about the general concept of it historically speaking, as imperialism its in the DNA of all Homo sapiens (especially so when it goes completely unacknowledged). What 'was done with it' now that's another story. If 'it was used for good' ultimately then we could have a reprieve. The problem is how the remaining natives were done following their defeat and perpetual surrender is downright shameful. And then there's what came after that and continues that forces us to effectively wear all that shame on our sleeves to this very day...

Taking WW1, WW2 and the Korean War's off our list of militarism, that combined with the fallout's of CIA covert operations leaves us with a total body count somewhere around 30,000,000 total.

Consider the September 11th Attacks were at best a legitimate response to our military adventurism in the Middle East. If we didn't have bases across the Middle East, propping up police state dictatorships mind you, the "blowback" would have never happened like that.

And what was the response? More hardcore imperialism. Many millions of people have died as a result of 9/11, that day when some 3,000 American's died a most horrendous death.

Yet to honor their memory the first thing Bush and the entire Congress did in solidarity was declare that "freedom had been attacked" (as I detailed in ""Freedom" = Imperialism: It's in the Language"). The real irony there is they weren't actually lying, depending on what circles you run in as to our ruling imperials elitist masters it made perfect sense as it was the Fifth Freedom that was attacked. Yet to the majority of US it was one of the most diabolical lies ever told.

No where in the discussions they were trying to have was the fact that Al Qaeda the men who actually hijacked the planes was essentially a CIA creation, an tool of US imperialism. The name Al Qaeda even comes from the CIA themselves, as it means "the database" (on a CIA computer no joke).

Here again the same dark pattern that played out after the fall of the Native American's emerged as not even a decade later we found Obama, Hillary, McCain, the Pentagon and the entire CIA arming, training and supporting ****ing Al Qaeda in the resulting imperial conquest across the Middle East.

That part there is perhaps the most tragic development in American history, especially as essentially nobody seems to even care not Democrat's / liberals, nor Republican's / conservatives. Here we have proof that Al Qaeda is a CIA creation, and that the response to their attack (which was at best anticipated and allowed to occur) was more of what the actual hijackers were attacking US for, and here not a decade later Obama has Al Qaeda out as United States foot soldiers overthrowing governments and destroying the lives of millions of people.

And nobody even cares?

In Syria alone over 400,000 people are dead because of our ignorance and hypocrisy. Something on the order of ten million lives there disrupted. A cultural heritage site obliterated.

Human beings in groups have such a tendency to commit hypocrisy even wittingly that there's just no room for such recklessness in ignoring ourselves on these issues. So to willfully ignore these insights is pure insanity. Yet that's what we as a nation persist in doing while wondering why its is foreigners refer to US commoners as "stupid American's". Well they're right, and I know I'm sick of it.

Ignoring these realities continues to foster the ultimate in hypocrisies in triggering untold human suffering and resulting environmental & historical destruction across the planet by our hands, by the dictatorships we support and all the rest.

That's some kind of irony as half the people in the US would surely hang themselves if they merely went several months with no power, water or Internet with no end in sight. All just another day in the life for tens of millions of people worldwide every year as we celebrate the '4th of July" (independence from the British Empire).

So keep ignoring these patterns and they'll continue to persist, and the blood is on everyone's hands while at some point unless corrected we will get our comeuppance.

Right now as it stands I hate to have to inform that we deserve it.

-Ignorance Isn't Bliss

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

All I can say about any of this is:

Bloody well said!

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Right now as it stands I hate to have to inform that we deserve it.

Nobody deserves anything of this, we shouldn't blame the duped for all this deception. Anyway. Excellent thread, I'm glad to see you addressing the big issues and look forward to the replies.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Dig.


The thing about body counts is, they only tell a faction of the true costs like human suffering.

Take Syria.

The latest body count number I'm seeing is 480,000+.

But the number of internally & externally displaced is some 11,400,000, apparently.

If that math were universal in conflict, well taking Native Americans off my list that leaves some 20,000,000 killed directly by conflict and death squads.

But the people displaced that number would be a staggering....

475,000,000

Or nearly 1.5 times our total peak population so far....................

Isn't this basically the history of humankind? There is a reason humans are the top predator on this planet, so it is not just an American event. We can pretend we are not the velociraptors of the mammal world but that sweetness can change in a heartbeat.

America today was England, Spain and Dutch of yesterdays and most likely China for tomorrow. When I say America today that doesn't mean we are the only one, just the winner from many contenders....

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

I think it is an insidious and false type of patriotism which stops most people thinking in a realistic fashion about these things, to be honest. No one wants to believe that their nation is responsible for these outrages, and yet their unwillingness to consider the truth, only prolongs the agony they refuse to acknowledge.

a reply to: Xtrozero

It is. Meaning this is primitive backwards stuff. And over a long enough timeline we'll be back on the crap end of the stick, the whipping boys. That is if we dont go extinct first (which on our current track could very well happen in our lifetime).

Unless that is we break the pattern, and lead the charge in universal human acknowledgment of this evil that lurks within us all, and socially evolve for the first time in history.

Otherwise, brace for licking Chinese boots on Chinese feet. May they not kick US in the teeth with them as every new crisis "we" cause each year that's that many more people whom aren't going to have cause to give a #### about sticking with US to keep them from turning out tyranny.

i don't have anything to add, but well said OP

The concept of ignorance is bliss applies to children and grown ups who think like children.

Once they grow up ignorance is no longer bliss but Iblis!

Ergo, ignorance--as Buddha taught--is the bane of humanity.

The basic ignorance which prevails is ignorance of our selves and then you can spread out and consider other things like history, current events and science.

The wisest amongst us is he or she who removes all the layers of reality and takes a peek.

Analogize that to the present common ignorance pervading this country regarding current politics. The average person only sees the outer layers of news and the political biosphere. They know not -- nor even seek-- the inner layers of this reality---therefore they are dangerously ignorant and as far from bliss as the moon is from the sun

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Unless that is we break the pattern, and lead the charge in universal human acknowledgment of this evil that lurks within us all, and socially evolve for the first time in history.

Otherwise, brace for licking Chinese boots on Chinese feet. May they not kick US in the teeth with them as every new crisis "we" cause each year that's that many more people whom aren't going to have cause to give a #### about sticking with US to keep them from turning out tyranny.

I see it as small steps and technology will pay a big part in it all. As far as human's going extinct...we could loose power over the whole planet and more than 1/2 the population would continue on as if nothing happened in a short period of time.

For one thing we should not be at 7 billion, that is not natural and technology can help in controlling population...give it 200 years and hopefully we are down to a workable 2 billion or less.

Even with that I think there will always be oppressors, tomorrow's oppressors are not born yet and can receive all the love the world can muster and they will still be oppressors since 2 million years of evolution just can't be changed very quickly. That evil race that goes to another planet and pillages all its resources and eats everything that moves is us, humans...lol

We do try though and I do see changes though we have an up and down graph that still tends to have a slow upward direction. As to America, as much as we have done that was bad/evil in our eyes is no where near the top when we look at what others have done in comparison, so yep we have done things but WOW when we look at others...

a reply to: Xtrozero

Even with that I think there will always be oppressors, tomorrow's oppressors are not born yet and can receive all the love the world can muster and they will still be oppressors since 2 million years of evolution just can't be changed very quickly. That evil race that goes to another planet and pillages all its resources and eats everything that moves is us, humans...lol

I'm not sure about this Xtro. As you suggest, this has been our history,oppressor after oppressor. They rise to the tops of our tribes and societies and guide the rest of the common men into war and oppressing others. Over the millinia those who have risen or been born into the top of societies have used the ''common good'' as the motive for oppression. And the common people have fallen for it forever.

Now though, things may be changing. The common man is now not quite as ignorant, though maybe not by much, as people in the past. We now know that for a person to rise to being a leader of a tribe or society requires what might be considered a more complex mental capacity. And in that more complex mental capacity, psychopaths are born and developed.

We are not all psychopaths or sociopaths. Our problem is allowing our leaders to be. To not understand that they are not really great leaders or warriors but rather sick people suffering from unrestrained power.

Now that we have this information, information that was not understood through out that two million hears of evolution, we may be able to cut off the heads of that kind of leadership. We might find a way to help those future leaders avoid the pit falls of psychopathy. What do you think about that?

Those four freedoms were more relevent in the forties when the majority of people were more respectful of their fellow countrymen. Our country has polarized and a lot more people now are thinking "what's in it for me" Our society is falling apart, we are being yanked from every direction.

originally posted by: TerryMcGuire

I'm not sure about this Xtro. As you suggest, this has been our history,oppressor after oppressor. They rise to the tops of our tribes and societies and guide the rest of the common men into war and oppressing others. Over the millinia those who have risen or been born into the top of societies have used the ''common good'' as the motive for oppression. And the common people have fallen for it forever.

Maybe the bigger issue than oppressors is the masses that allow it to happen. I think large numbers just do not care one way or the other unless it affects them personally. Is this all part of the pack mentality I think so, but in the end people go whatever direction improves their small group and whether it is good or bad for others they just do not care.

Now though, things may be changing. The common man is now not quite as ignorant, though maybe not by much, as people in the past. We now know that for a person to rise to being a leader of a tribe or society requires what might be considered a more complex mental capacity. And in that more complex mental capacity, psychopaths are born and developed.

Truth in knowledge helps that is why countries like NK really limit that since it is so powerful and we have minute by minute updates around the world. Even if a leader needs a level of psycho/Social path tendencies I still think the pack will go along as long as it benefits them and hurts others outside of the pack.

We are not all psychopaths or sociopaths. Our problem is allowing our leaders to be. To not understand that they are not really great leaders or warriors but rather sick people suffering from unrestrained power.

So you are an American and you have a choice to make lets say 200k per year in the military industrial complex or make 40k outside of it what do you pick? I would say 90%, of not just america, but the world would pick the 200k even though they know people will die from their industries. Its a lot more complex than as your example.

Now that we have this information, information that was not understood through out that two million hears of evolution, we may be able to cut off the heads of that kind of leadership. We might find a way to help those future leaders avoid the pit falls of psychopathy. What do you think about that?

A large number of the population just do not care...that is what I think...Why do the same idiots get voted back into office over and over for decades? It is all about being in the pack and not caring outside of it, and level of just being lazy and not lifting a finger for change from what they just get use to.

Why do people stay poor and create generation on generation of poor...they get comfortable with their lifestyle as it is even though it might be crappy. It was said that revolution in the past would be triggered when the daily amount of calories available to eat dropped below 800 per day per person. We are a long way from that.....

I wonder if our government will ever honor the wisdom behind 'Thou Shall Not Kill'. Even better, I wonder when the American citizens will start to demand that our representatives start honoring that ideal.

That simple act alone could change the world for the better.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

...and the oppressed allow it, and some begin, after a time, to call it freedom.

How does an individual define "freedom"? Do most of us define it for ourselves, or do we allow others to do so? The former is freedom, is the latter?

a reply to: ClovenSky

"Our" govt.? That seems to imply that some govt don't kill. Really? Point 'em out to me.

a reply to: ClovenSky

We're still the powerhouse in 'cultural imperialism' as they say in mass communications.

We can show the world a new way like we did at the start, or we can show them ongoing imperial war machinations, Jerry Springer and political parties hell bent on quazi-fascist goosestepping as it's been going.

I suggest we get it right now while we still have a chance to lead, because if people think we'll just wait until China stampedes on in our honor as we showed them by then it'll be too late.

a reply to: seagull

I agree that we are not unique in trampling the rights of other sovereign nations. By 'our' I was merely referring to the country in which I currently reside and support by paying taxes. As long as other countries are not invading our boarders and waging war on our homeland, I have no say and no right to dictate how they operate. I do not agree with trying to force upon other countries our version of 'freedom'.

I hope that was the question you were asking. I would hate to think that question was leading down the path of 'since all governments murder and kill, we can't hold ours accountable or hope for a change from our current destructive policy'.

As a taxpayer, I feel responsible for our government's actions. At this rate, I will never be able to pay off the blood debt already incurred.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Sing it from the rooftops brother.

It would be nice to take pride in my country again instead of being constantly embarrassed by our warmongering.

To shine out as a beacon of freedom through living the true ideal would be wonderful. I seriously don't see that happening when it is forced on others down the barrel of a gun.