I believe everything that happened up to and including 9/11. But since that day we've been lied to and manipulated 100 different ways. We weren't even allowed to know why it happened. We weren't even told that Osama Bin Laden himself said that the reason for 9/11 was the continued presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia and our refusal to legitimize Palestine. But the bigger tragedy, IMO, was that 9/11 was used as an excuse to invade Iraq, station even more troops in the middle east, make big government even bigger, and empower them to take away more and more of our privacy and our freedoms so that we can have the illusion of safety.
The illusion of safety. The idea that we are somehow more protected from poor, minor countries half a world away, whose only beef with the U.S. is that we've been meddling in their affairs for 70 years or so. Don't believe the bullshit we've all been fed for the last 12 years - they don't hate us because we're infidels, or because we're decadent, or because we're free. They hate us because we won't stop trying to control their lives.
Serious question: Who are we to tell any sovereign nation what they can and can't do? What gives us the right to do that? What gives us the right to say who can and who can't develop nuclear technology, or use a different form of government, or trade whatever they have freely with whomever they want?
We don't have those rights. We never did. But the American people have been made to believe we do. That these things need to be done. That the rest of the world is too backward to know what's best for them, too immature to play with such dangerous toys. It's all one big, steaming pile of bullshit. The real game to turn our planet into the United Earth of America. We've got 60,000+ armed troops in 900 bases in 130+ countries all over the world. Why? Because they need us there? Because they want us there?
And the worst part of all is that we Americans just gobble it up. It's natural to want to believe that those in charge know what they're doing and have our best interests at heart. So we do. We believe whatever is shoveled in our general direction. People have grown too lazy and too complacent to take off the red, white and blue blinders once in a while and really see what's going on here. The government doesn't care about our welfare. The government only cares about our votes and our taxes. And they'll do anything and say anything and promise everything to get them.
God dammit. It's not 10 a.m. yet and I already need a drink...