In any discussion about who is left and what positions do left-leaning people adopt can not be meaningful without setting in the context of American political culture.
It must be noted that pigeonholing people as left or right is a mugs game. There is a wide range of issues to consider and all the nuances of those issues. Nevertheless, there are some general observations that are important to make.
History, as it is taught in the United States, is very patriotically skewed presenting almost a Disney-like view of events. The very fact that Americans celebrate Columbus day is a testament to the one-sidedness of American history lessons. Few Americans are aware of the fact that Columbus returned in 1493 and set himself up as the governor of Espanola (Caribbean). He proceeded to brutally slaughter 8 million natives setting a precedent for future explorers and colonists. European colonists on arriving on the shores of what is now the United States murdered 12 million natives. As a matter of fact, when the colonists arrived on Plymouth Rock, they were welcomed by the natives who fed them and taught them agriculture. Once the colonists were independent, they slaughtered all the natives. So both Columbus Day and Thanksgiving are the celebration of mass murderers. Don't turn this around on me and blame the messenger.
The same distortions apply to most historical events as taught in American schools. Every American military intervention was not only based on a lie but was, in fact, a war crime. The Gulf of Tonkin leading to the Vietnam war was a lie; the warnings about the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala are lies; the secret bombings of Cambodia and Laos were lies; the story about Serb ethnic cleansing in Bosnia was a lie; the justification for the war on Iraq was a lie; and now the stories about Iran are a lie.
Then the question arises about how much Americans learn about the outside world. Think about your own education.
It would be difficult for most Americans to fully understand events in the world given such a distorted education in history. Basically, one would have to pursuit the truth about the world outside the classroom or be lucky enough to have had a really good teacher.
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