Americans have to start being honest with themselves
by digby
You've probably already read the shocking story in the New York Times about the thousands of Nazis the United States protected and hid all the way up until the 1990s. If not, go read it. I only mention it here to point out that this was done even as the United States was seen as a beacon of freedom and justice to the world. As we were telling ourselves how moral and upright our role in WWII had made us. We did great things --- we handled the Nuremberg trials with great dignity and spent vast sums to help rebuild Europe and Japan. But we also protected and hid Nazis for cynical reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with freedom and justice.
America is a very contradictory nation and always has been. We're the slave holders who simultaneously declared that "all men are created equal" after all. We stole land and committed genocide even as we created a great immigrant nation with immigrants and refugees from all over the world. As Americans it's really important that we recognize all this about ourselves.
When I hear Clinton going on about how we need to tell better "stories about ourselves" I despair. She's talking about the myths of America and that's not what we need. Our vast power means we need to be honest with ourselves and strive to do better not bullshit ourselves into believing we've been perfect.
We were hiding Nazis until the 1990s.
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