Even though we had a little bit of warning about federation, I think we're off to a rocky start. Maybe we should have compiled a list of things we think that may make other people very upset. That way they can quickly get to know what we're about and go hide in a social media bubble if it scares them.
I figure I'd start with a good one. America deserved 9/11. I'm burying the lede a bit with that one. I don't think random acts of violence really accomplish much and I don't think randos, albeit imperial core randos, should die. But this wasn't a random act of violence, was it?
There's a little something called Foucault's Boomerang. Basically it's the tools, means, and experiments carried out by imperial countries tend to make their way back home one way or another. Military gear gets tried out on the battlefield then next thing you know cops at home have the same equipment. It also works for cause and effect. America did 9/11 to itself.
After WWII America courted the monarchy of Saudi Arabia, who had some really "interesting" religious ideas at the time, to ensure a source of oil. Oil was very important to American manufacturing and the war effort. Our domestic reserves helped us get through WWII. We needed more. So the US decided to look the other way on Saudi foreign policy while they ensured us first dibs on the oil. The UK also made deals on building their infrastructure and finance needs, to which the US eventually pushed them of the back rooms where such deals were made. But that's another story.
The US also backed anti-Soviet/anti-Communist groups in the Middle-East as they had in other parts of the world. This meant giving aide and weapons and training to those groups. In exchange they would beat up all the communists and pro-soviet people in their country and keep the borders open for US trade.
Not to "yadda yadda yadda" through a lot of interesting history but the US made a lot of enemies and ruined former alliances in these places because we valued the exploitation of their resources more than the actual relationships formed. Once the Soviets were gone, we could just do what we wanted to them and there was nobody left to oppose us.
So our former (and some current) friends stabbed us in the back. The imperialism boomeranged back home and we got a terrorist attack on US soil.
The people who died didn't particularly deserve it but people die when an imperial power does imperialism. That's part of why it's bad. Imperialism will never benefit the common person, it will only hurt us in the end. You best believe all this funding, weapons, and shit going into Ukraine will come back on us too.
What are some other real-ass takes for our visitors who need disillusioning?
I just like pointing out how much the National Guard and Army are responsible for fucking over labor rights in the US. It's not even over, either. Arizona used the troops as scabs when the teachers were largely chased off, or how the troops were used as intimidation when the rail workers were on strike. That they rape and slaughter women and children overseas is hardly a hot take.
Daily reminder that the first bombs on US soil were not dropped in Pearl Harbour, but the US bombing itself to kill communists and labour unionists.
I always heard it was the fire bombing of Black Wall Street in Tulsa. That wasn't US military though, just racists with an aeroplane.
Yeah, Tulsa happened about 3 months before Blair Mountain.
Also, I always dispute the fact that it was "just racists" in Tulsa, because we know cops and national guard were on some of the "private planes" and where did the bombs come from?
Good point.
probably https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
there were multiple armed insurrections in the eastern mountains organized against capitalism and ultimately put down by the US military because the threat to powerful northeastern capital formations was existential.
it is not a coincidence that this part of the US has experienced extreme poverty and wildly uneven development ever since, while it is repeatedly slandered in popular culture as a place of backwardness and incest.