Iraq War WMD. Syrian chemical weapons. 9/11. Russiagate. Libya. Iran. Ukraine. Venezuela. George Floyd. Gaza genocide.
Which lie related to these events or others started your awakening?
Caitlin Johnstone recently penned a column about people waking up to the truth of the US empire.
“You start pulling on one thread and then the whole thing unravels. Maybe you start with the Iraq war lies. Maybe 9/11. These days for a lot of folks it’s Palestine.”
For me, it was the 2003 Iraq War. Before that, I had not questioned most of the lies coming out of our government. But I knew there weren’t any WMD, and even if there had been, the US, Israel and many other countries have giant stockpiles of WMD and yet no one massacres their populations for possessing them. I saw the US bombs raining down on innocent people in Iraq LIVE on our TV screens and I felt my eyes open for the first time.
It was horrifying. But it also ignited a fire in my soul.
But looking back, my eyes weren’t fully open. The US system is carefully designed to force even those who start to question it back into the vomitous fascistic two-party theater. My youthful rage about the Iraq War was aimed squarely at the Bush administration and Republicans in our federal government. It took several more steps for me to finally see the full matrix.
The two-party charade revealed itself to me when we all watched — popcorn in hand — as President Obama committed war crimes and completely betrayed the working class, the poor, immigrants, foreigners — the list goes on. I can still hear myself thinking:
“Oh! It’s not two parties. It’s one capitalist war machine with two faces!”
I next became aware of the long history of the US empire fighting against peace, love, equality, and justice. Learning that our government had executed Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK was pivotal for me. (If that’s even remotely shocking to you, then see the 1999 civil trial related to the murder of MLK. Next read The Plot To Kill King, JFK & The Unspeakable, and Mary’s Mosaic.)
The next step was understanding how the US empire crushes countries around the world even when there’s no “war” to speak of. Confessions of An Economic Hitman helped me understand the system of economic war and dollar hegemony. Smedley Butler’s War Is A Racket also helped shock me free of any remaining tether to the concept of US justice or morality. It meant all the more that Butler is still one of the most decorated US military veterans to ever live.
Waking up to core reality is a process. It takes time and at least a small degree of curiosity. It’s a process the imperial rulers work very hard to interrupt. They suppress thought. They cover up videos and books. They insult and malign those of us telling you the truth. One of their favorite tactics in recent years has been to “flood the zone” — fill the digital platforms with so much garbage like ancient aliens or flat Earth bullshit or other “science isn’t real” crap. Who can focus on Israel’s genocide of Gaza when the algorithm is pushing us all to watch a video about extraterrestrials using their gooey tentacles to build the Egyptian pyramids?!
And unfortunately, it works. Some people who start to wake up to the US empire’s criminal enterprise suddenly get pulled away into a swirling eddy of bullshit, never to be seen again.
But the rulers can’t stop or confuse everyone. As Caitlin Johnstone said,
“But more and more people are choosing truth. More and more people are spotting a loose thread labeled ‘Gaza’ or ‘Epstein’ or what have you, and giving it a curious tug. Despite the discomfort, despite the required effort, and despite the great cost of having to sacrifice the world they thought they knew, they’re pulling that thread, and they keep on pulling.”
Just look at the numbers. Far more Americans now identify as independent than as either Democrat or Republican.
For the first time since polling started, Americans’ sympathies lie with Palestinians, rather than with Israelis.
The great awakening is happening. It just takes time and energy and a little sliver of hope shining down on us.
No matter how bad things seem, don’t give up.
For me it was an ongoing series of things, step by step, layer by layer being pulled away, from NAFTA, to the ultra bad 96 Telecommunications Act (which, working in media, I could very much see was going to be harbinger of the kind of complete rot we’re living through in today’s corrupted mediasphere), up through 9/11, and my learning of the truth of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, having learned more of what really went on in Vietnam, watching Israeli settlement expansion continue on unabated in spite of Oslo, etc etc. layer by layer
All that to culminate in the final nail of awareness, the Rubicon being fully crossed never to go back, was for me, like Lee, the U.S. led attack on Iraq. The sheer audacity of the reasoning and excuses for it were such clearly unmitigated bullshit, I knew the empire had made its fatal move, and from then its only been a matter of time as to how long, and how much suffering, how many casualties would have to be amassed, before this thing finally comes to its inevitable end.
For me it was the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War. I was 15 when Kennedy was killed and I joined the anti-war movement when I was in my senior year in high school (1966). It all coalesced through my 20s and went full blast after the stolen election of 2000.
I have also read JFK and the Unspeakable and Mary's Mosaic. Also, Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg and became a full-fledged Marxist at the age of 50.