4th of July, from one Veterans eyes.
Americans love a great excuse to grill out and drink some alcohol and 4th of July is one of the best holidays to do that. It's mid summer so partying is prime, the weather is warm, the beer is cold and we all love to celebrate something that we actually agree upon.... FREEDOM..
I believed in freedom so much that I joined the military shortly after high school so I could fight in Iraq when the war first kicked off in 2003. We were stoked, [us soldiers] were going to fight for all the people who died in the twin towers and protect America from more terrorist attacks. We were so proud and believed what we were doing was saving lives, even though we were in a totally different country than were the attacks had come from. But somehow we were convinced that Saddam Hussein was more important target than Bin Laden so we carried on "saving the world." Or so we thought.
It took me years for me to realize what was truly happening. We were never fighting for our freedom, we were just dumb kids manipulated into fighting a war that was completely fake. Our enemies were paid by the same people we were paid by, the United States Government. We even saw them using our weapons, tents and vehicles!
In truth we were terrorizing innocent people while simultaneously destroying a country and re-inventing their government to make it more "democratic" so we could essentially control it. We had already tried to get more control in the 90s (during the gulf war) when we help to put Saddam Hussein in power in the first place, but that obviously blew up in our faces so an overhaul on the entire country was needed. So we invaded on a lie, then harassed and killed innocent people for holding onto their beliefs. No wonder so many people hate Americans, we come into their country, ruin their way of life and tell them to change to be more "free" like us. Then we leave the country after desecrating it, but not before we have complete control over their government. 'Merica bitches! So much FREEDOM it hurts!!
My brother was also in the military during the kick of to Afghanistan and Iraq wars and served a tour in each. He had the awesome privilege to "help fight terrorism" by protecting poppy fields in Afghanistan? Tell me again how protecting drug fields is a soldiers duty? That's what they have us giving our lives for, drugs... Not freedom.
What I am trying to say is that freedom isn't free because governments all over the world manipulate the majority of the population into believing that we are somehow at risk of "being hurt or killed by terrorist" when that couldn't be further from the truth. Humanity for the most part wants peace, only warmongers and powerful people want war and like I said before it is always to advance their agenda.
I honestly believe that people are more good than bad, if you don't believe me watch people at the time of a crisis, most everyone will go out of their way to help complete strangers! It's a beautiful thing really. I honestly believe if we weren't manipulated so often (by governments) then we wouldn't have so many problems in the world. War would be a thing of the past if people would actually think about what is going on. Seriously, think about it. Somebody you don't know has a problem with some other guy you don't know and they can't come to a conclusion. They don't want to fight amongst themselves so they fight with innocent lives of soldiers. People they have never met and know nothing about their true agenda are giving their lives over the guise of "freedom". You are told someone wants to kill you and/or your family/friends/loved ones which scares you enough to kill strangers without question! Sounds ridiculous right?
Because it is, but we are somehow convinced that the ruling class would never lie to us about war?? War is All a racket, it is about making money and taking power, NOTHING ELSE. The powers at be just manipulate us into believing these lies so we can fund their wars, which in turn advances their power, it's all a scam.
If you look into most of the wars that ever happened in the world it is all about gaining power, they are not about freedom at all. When was the last time you felt free? We have more rules and laws and are less free than ever before (along with non stop wars for most of Americas history). They splash the freedom title all over wars and use indoctrination and straight lies to boost their agenda. Don't get sucked into their lies!
Many people even believe that 911 and Pearl Harbor (and others) were inside jobs by the US government to manipulate people into a wars that American people didn't want any part of. Where is the freedom in that? Killing our own innocent people to create a fake war and kill more innocent people? That doesn't seem like freedom at all! Kind of the opposite really. (And don't you find it a little odd that all the countries we keep fighting with (lately) are ones without central banks? Don't worry with every country we invade we make sure to leave them with a central bank. Iran, North Korea and Cuba are the only countries left without a world bank, do you think it is a coincidence that we are having issue with all of those countries right now? I think not). But I digress.
How many years has America been at war since its birth?
The U.S. Has Been At War 222 Out of 239 Years. This morning, I discovered an interesting statistic, America Has Been At War 93% of the Time – 222 Out of 239 Years – Since 1776, i.e. the U.S. has only been at peace for less than 20 years total since its birth.Mar 19, 2017
So please tell me again how much America loves peace and freedom? They don't, it's all a sham! Americans love peace and freedom but the American Government does not! If they did love freedom we wouldn't have agencies like the NSA who spies more on it's own people than anything else. We wouldn't have tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon sharing all your information with all 17 of the notorious three letter agencies.
I know this sounds more like a rant than anything but the truth is we are all manipulated into believing false Ideals and then we celebrate them like they are good for us. WAR IS NOT GOOD FOR PEOPLE, so please stop pretending like it is. It wastes valuable resources and lives that could be used to better our society instead of destroying it. Think how much further ahead we would be if we invested that money into the economy or peoples futures rather than into war!?! Where would we be as a whole? Probably much farther ahead then we constantly fight with each other and destroy societies.
I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy this beautiful day or the fact that we have our independence (from one oligarchy to another). I am just saying that you should remember that all the lives lost to war doesn't equal freedom. Freedom is a thought, an action and following blindly into war is the wrong action.
Standing up for what you believe in and never backing down is what freedom truly looks like, NOT war!
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY
This veteran agrees! We were duped!
Great post! Keep forcing people to answer the tough questions. Hopefully, more and more will start using that thing between their ears. You were featured this week in the #payitforward contest by @viking-ventures. Congrats!
One can only hope so! Thanks for the support :)
Congratulations! I have featured your post in this week's entry to the Pay it Forward Curation Contest
As such, I've resteemed and upvoted this post. Hopefully, you'll get some extra traffic from the contest this week.
Keep up the great work!
That is so kind of you! Thank you :) I appreciate it so much.
An excellent post which I've resteemed. I'm a decade or two older than you, and I was totally duped by the first Iraq war in the early 1990s. I was living in London at the time, and the media built Saddam Hussein into such a powerful figure of terror that I was seriously expecting his fighter jets to bomb us at any moment. Later on we saw horrific photos of the charred bodies of his troops who had been fired on in their tanks by Daddy Bush's men as they tried to surrender.
I was horrified by 911, but didn't think war was the answer, so I demonstrated with a banner that displayed photos of Bush, Blair and Bin Laden and said "Stop the Warmongers!" Initially there was just a small group of demonstrators, but by 2003 there were millions of us in the UK saying "Not in our name".
But the government ignored us.
I hope future generations are not duped. I think what we need is independence from governments. But that has to be managed in a way that doesn't bring more war, chaos and tyranny.
I am glad that you saw it early on, I wasn't so lucky and was brain washed for a bit before I realized what was truly going on. People like you standing up for what you truly believe in will be what one day will stop these tyrannical governments from continuing their wars and chaos.
You are correct, government needs to go.. Unfortunately way to many people still believe that governments are needed for societies to exist, even though time and time again all it has done is lead humans down the wrong path. People like to think of government as our shepards because we the people are sheep, however the truth is that the government is wolves and we are sheep being manipulated and eaten.
I don't know how this will all unfold but I hope with things like the block chain that we can start to have trustless systems in place instead of politicians who lie through their teeth! Things are changing slowly, hopefully we can still save this world and get rid of these corrupt governments once and for all and allow people to be truly free! Not continue to be duped..
Yes, decentralisation, the blockchain - it all offers hope. Just doing things for ourselves instead of expecting the powers that shouldn't be to do it for us!
Thank u for taking the time to read my article and leaving a comment. I really appreciate it.
I agree, if we dont open our eyes and stand up for the right things then this country will soon fall apart..
Thanks for sharing your heart. I believe one day all of this will be out in the open for all to know and see, bless you and your family!
I hope your right! People need to wake up and see what is really going on here. Thanks for checking out my article and taking the time to leave a comment :)
I wish more people understood your perspective. I have to say that I suspect the situation is even more dire now, because we have large corporations and some large mainstream corporate-driven media engaging in massive legislative capture that hurts the majority of people, while building a false narrative to convince people that they are being hurt by “others,” whether those others are poor people, immigrants, Muslims, etc. The truth is that too many businesses want to profit as much as possible by doing as little as possible, including exploiting workers and the environment. This has driven down wages and opportunity for productive work that leads to a living wage. At the same time, the stranglehold that many professional organizations and educational institutions have on training requirements, combined with well-intentioned but costly regulations on training, has dramatically raised the cost of education to where many cannot afford it and those that do often have massive debt when they successfully finish. At least in the U.S. both the right and left are engaging in similar tactics to pit people against each other. Neither side is very balanced, and neither actually takes the time to analyze and define problems, much less devise solutions. Instead, they would rather use labels and slogans (e.g., snowflake, libtard, “lock her up”, etc.) to distract us from the real problems and their causes.
As you know @viking-ventures featured you in this weeks #PayItForward Contest @pifc.
Very honest and real posting. I agree we've been manipulated by our government for too long. Fighting wars in places we have no reason to be there. The lives that have been lost in these 'wars'.
I took a different approach on my 4th of July post. I posted the primarily about the Preamble and the things we fail to see about our rights and our own government. I was very much moved by your post.
Im really glad you enjoyed the article! Thanks for taking the time to check it out.
Unfortunately corruption, lies and manipulation is what our government has become and they have become extremely good at it. We the People have a duty to continue to remind people that this isn't what the founding fathers wanted for this country and try to stand up for our dwindling rights and the safety of the children who are being sent off to die in wars that don't even matter.
Anyhow, I am getting a bit long winded so I will end this now.. thanks for the comment, take care! :)
LOL you can ge long winded any time. To me it shows you're passionate. I love that type of interactions. We do have a duty to ourselves, our families and our country. It's getting to be time to put the Constitution back into action and take back our country. Which it does allow for. Funny we've had the right all along but we're not exercising it. No more 2 party system, its proven corrupt. No more wars, it is not our job to take care of the world. Yes there are countries that need help, putting guns in their hands is not the way.
Spot on. From one veteran to another..
You are spot on my friend, I have mentioned these same things on many occasions and will keep mentioning them in the future. People need to wake up and take off the rose colored glasses so they can see the shit as it really is.
If countries feel the need to be at war with each other that's fine , but put leaders in ring and let them fight too the death. To many lives are ruined by war and in the end no problem is solved, only more created.
The central banks are the main culprit in all this mess and I hope that crypto currencies really take hold and displace the banking / fiat system we currently are forced to use. Thanks for speaking up loudly and clearly.
I agree on so many levels.. Why is someone elses problem my reason to go to war and die? Its not, and they know it so they make up some bullshit lie to feed to kids to make them feel like they are doing something that will help change the world. And like you said, nothing is solved after war, only more problems are created.
I totally agree the central banks are the problem, I just wish more people would understand that and try to do something about it. The 99% have the power, we can just never agree on anything so we have no power.. Hopefully one day we the people will figure that out and stop this tyrannical government from ruining any more lives.
Thanks for the support!
You are most welcome Hippie, we agree on many things and this is certainly one of those topics.