The Conditioning of America
By Michael Boyajian
When I was a kid in the 60s we would all hang around talking scary talk about how the Viet Cong or communists would break you down, exercise mind control on you, or brain wash you until you betrayed your country. Evidence was in North Korea where American soldiers went AWOL and chose to live forever there.
Well the Republicans have managed to condition Americans so that they oppose their own government. I went to meet voters with a candidate and we were talking to one very nice woman about how we would pay for healthcare and the candidate said we will tax the rich. Well this fixed income woman went ballistic and started defending the rich saying why are we always taking money from these poor pitiful rich people.
Now this type of person will probably never have the opportunity to help a poor African American or offer a job to a Latino immigrant or take action against teabaggers who characterize President Obama as Hitler. But God forbid we tax the rich!
This same type of voter disregards JFK’s immortal words, “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” Yes, today government is bad unless oh yes you try and take away my Medicare or Social Security payments.
Well didn’t government pull us out of the Great Depression, land a man on the moon and avert another depression during the recent financial meltdown. Didn’t government turn a bankrupt GM into a profitable corporation once again?
There is also distrust of educated people as if Americans had suddenly turned into superstitious villagers out of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. Why I saw a picture of one person holding a sign out west that said, “I don’t hold with the tenants of science and I vote.”
Some politicians have even turned once proud and defiant Americans into fearful fools afraid of people with brown or yellow skin or of men that hold hands with other men as if they were all bogeymen. I got news for you those without white skin have dominated history. Ancient Egypt ruled for over 3,000 years as did Ancient China. And our greatest generals were gay. Have you ever heard of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Emperor Hadrian? Have we forgotten FDR’s sacred words, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” It makes you wonder if we are the same people as those who landed on the beaches of Normandy or raised the flag on Iwo Jima.
This is all the result of conditioning that has thrown America under the bus. Big government is bad, taxes are bad, and liberals are bad. It’s as if the Republicans had created a nation of Manchurian Candidates out to kill the country and that is what America has become, a nation of zombies living out a Night of the Living Dead.
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