Now I Know the Truth!

I was born when Harry Truman was president. I was raised in America of the ‘50s. If you were around back then you remember that times were purer and things were simpler and America was far more innocent than it is today. Here is a “mental picture” of life in the Fifties.

Dad, Mom and the kids all pile into their Chevy, Ford or Plymouth and head off to the park by the lake for their 4th of July picnic. Dressed in modest apparel they frolic, grill hamburgers and generally enjoy the day, ever mindful of what it represents to our wonderful, wholesome country. Dad works hard at his blue-collar job and Mom takes good care of the kids, the house and is an “out-of-this-world” cook.

Although this is merely a “snapshot” of live in the ‘50s, it is refreshing when compared to what we have today. Some of us still remember what it was like, But…NOW I KNOW THE TRUTH about this idyllic scene: I have since learned that Mom was having an affair with the pastor of their church while Dad was at work. Meanwhile, Dad was molesting his daughter and the young boy in the family grew up to be a homosexual. Worse yet Dad even told racial jokes!

The land the park was on had been stolen from peace-loving, environmentally friendly Indians who once had a casino there. Trees were murdered and helpless animals were displaced to put in the picnic area. The lake was polluted by greedy industrialists. The food they were eating was full of evil chemicals. The car they drove to the park in was inferior to anything built overseas. Even the air they were breathing, although it looked clear, was filled with industrial pollution from those same, greedy industrialists who were coldly destroying the lake. The very lake had been – God forgive us! – MAN-MADE! Yes, helpless people had their houses confiscated and their lives uprooted and destroyed so selfish Americans could water-ski!

The holiday they were celebrating was about the founding of the most warlike nation in history. That red, white & blue flag was actually the symbol of world oppression. Those veterans who died fighting for it were nothing but baby-killing criminals bent on forcing their government’s will on peace-loving nations like Germany, Japan and North Korea. The steel made at the mill where Dad worked was part of the “Military Industrial Complex” and was being used to build guns, tanks, ships and airplanes so the evil United States could invade a more helpless nation, like a place no one had yet heard of called Vietnam.

The children in the family went to public schools where they were taught that the Communists who ran the Soviet Union and Red China were evil. When actually they were just two more victims of ruthless U. S. aggression.

The people in the neighborhood where they lived, with ethnic backgrounds from all over Europe, only got along together because they had been mentally robbed of their “proud heritages”, their language and even the correct spelling of their family’s name just so they could successfully “melt” into that great “melting pot” of the evil United States.

This “Greatest Generation” which had just won another world war had interned innocent Japanese, fire-bombed Hamburg, Germany, and “nuked” 100,000 helpless, peace-loving Japanese in Hiroshima.
What I now know about that idyllic scene is that nothing was at it seemed! I have now learned that everything about my country is corrupt, greed-ridden and shameful. I have learned that the best the United States produces can’t compare in quality to what the rest of the world produces. Our cars are worse than those of the Japanese we murdered. Our companies aren’t environmentally responsible. Our food is artificial and deadly. Even our chocolate can’t compare in taste to the junk made in Sweden!

I have learned that “Mom, baseball, hotdogs and apple pie” are not wholesome symbols of a society superior to any other on the planet, but rather evidence of a corrupt, and corrupting, society that needs to be destroyed and banished from the earth. I now know that absolutely every good thing I grew up believing about my country was a lie and there is nothing – NOT-ONE-THING – about my country to love, to be proud of, or worth fighting for. The sooner America is eliminated and passed unloved and unwanted into history the better!

All there is left for me to do is get all I can while I can. I should lose myself in hedonism. I need to sell myself to every form of pleasure I can since there is nothing else worth living for but myself. My family is corrupt, my nation’s history is shameful, my church is full of hypocrites and our way of life is a curse to mankind.

Who informed me of all these truths? Who “liberated my mind” from all the lies I’d been told? Who is this “friend” whose “truth” had set me free? Well, it started with my public school which, during the ‘60s, was eager to inform me of every shameful act my country had perpetrated on mankind. Then Hollywood rode to the rescue with movies that showed how corrupt Christians were, how greedy industrialists were and how my country is actually a blight on mankind and the world. And, of course, absolutely, everyday, without stop, those wonderful, truth-loving folks in the News Media inform me of another area of my society that is corrupt in a way I could never have imagined.

I am now, and rightfully so, ashamed of my country. I am even more ashamed of having been deceived into believing there was anything good about it. Now, even at my church, I join in condemning it’s food, cars, interstate highways, system of government and every other thing connected with it. It is actually hard to believe there isn’t one redeeming thing about my country. I know this because if there was the News Media and Hollywood would have told me. Wouldn’t they?

How thankful I am for being rescued from the “Great Lie” of ever believing there was something good, wholesome or lovable about my country! I am so thankful I am no longer a mindless robot loving such a corrupt nation when there are such truly great nations like China, North Korea, Cuba and Saudi Arabia that are truly deserving of my love and adoration. I am so glad my country is finally being overrun with “undocumented American citizens” who will restore it’s greatness by their love of freedom. I am finally aware that real spiritual truth is found down at the Hindu-run motel or the Muslim-run convenient store. If I hadn’t been rescued by my three, self-appointed “saviors” I, in my natural American-bred racism, would probably see these truly wholesome, peace-loving groups as “threats” to my country!

But you know, sometimes in my patriotically overzealous mind, I miss the “ignorant bliss” of that July 4th picnic. I still like to remember playing in the polluted creek shooting imaginary “Indians.” I like remembering Mom as pure and Dad as hard working, honest and brave. I like remembering America as a good place. I like remembering gazing at my flag without shame and guilt, and singing about a “beautiful” America. One I truly loved and was proud to be a part of and worth defending.

And I wonder, Were these really my “friends” who enlightened me on everything bad about the country I grew up loving?