16 maps that Americans don’t like to talk about by Max Fisher.
Max lists the following maps:
- The US was built on the theft of Native American’s lands
- The Trail of Tears, one of the darkest moments in US history — and we rarely talk about it
- America’s indigenous population today is sparse and largely lives in areas we forced them into
- America didn’t just tolerate slavery for a century — we expanded it
- This 1939 map of redlining in Chicago is just a hint at the systematic discrimination against African Americans
- School segregation is still a terrible problem
- Kids born poor have almost no chance at achieving the American Dream
- American has the second-highest child poverty rate in the developed world
- The US ranks alongside Nigeria on income inequality
- The US tried to replace Spain as an imperialist power
- The US outright stole Hawaii as part of its Pacific colonialism
- The firebombing that devastated Japan — including lots of non-military targets
- Agent Orange: the chemical we used to destroy a generation in Vietnam and harm our own troops
- The US backed awful dictators and insurgencies of the Cold War
- The thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths in the Iraq War
- Syria’s refugee crisis; the humanitarian catastrophe we could still help address but won’t
As far as Max’s maps:
Truthful? Yes.
Informative? Yes.
Not widely known? In some cases.
Will result in different outcomes? No so far.
The repetition of these narratives is part and parcel of Chompsky’s Propaganda System that we were discussing yesterday.
People make entire careers at keeping old injustices alive. Taking up historical causes is safe because the past is beyond our ability to change. You don’t want to be the March of Dimes when they discover a cure for polio.
Is bringing up old injustices speaking truth to power? After some amount of discussion, those in power will stop pretending to pay attention, a majority of citizens will lose interest (until next time) and present injustices, will continue without effort or change.
Ask yourself, whose interest does distraction from current injustices serve?
Power can tolerate a lot of truth, so long as it is beyond being changed by anyone. The crowd can vent its righteous anger, speeches can be made, marches held, and other for cleaning up after crowds, the system grinds on.
PS: On Syrian refugees, Saudi Arabia is a lot closer than the United States and the oil states of the Middle East have the resources to more than adequately care for Syrian refugees. US involvement will only continue its tradition of weak/corrupt governments in the Middle East.