biggest-gaudiest-patronuses:

biggest-gaudiest-patronuses:

it’s only when you get older that you realize how much your average american childhood resembled being a cult

I’m specifically referring to all the brain-washing (key characteristic of cults). It is terrifying the extent to which american education & media actively works to brainwash the populace. If you grow up in america, you are continuously surrounded by propoganda and narratives that:

• Science isn’t real
• Science is the ENEMY
• Science is lying and you should listen to the Church instead. The universe is 6000 years old, evolution isn’t real (and the earth isn’t round, and vaccines are poison). Any Good Christian agrees with at least one of these. Teachers are not allowed disagree. (There must be “balanced treatment” of “alternative facts.”)
• To remind School Children of their Duty to Obey, they are required to voluntarily recite a Pledge of Allegiance every morning. (Other countries don’t do this; it would be considered “creepy” and “government overreach.”)
• (But those countries overreach in other ways, such as by providing healthcare & food & housing to the Undeserving. These countries are not to be trusted. It is a Sin to be UnAmerican, even if you are not American and do not live in America. In fact, that’s even more sinful.)
• America is Great. In fact, it is the Greatest. We are better than all other countries. (We are not taught very much about other countries, but we know that we are Better Than Them.)
• We are God’s favorite country. God Protects Us, because we are the Greatest. We must be, to have God on our side.
• Other countries are a threat to the Spirit of Democracy. It is our duty and God-given right to Protect Our Interest Abroad.
• Other Countries Are The ENEMY. (Especially Russia, China, the Middle East, Latin America, Cuba, Vietnam, Korea, and whoever the Military Industrial Complex wants to sell us weaponry to invade.)
• (Even if we don’t always attack the right people, they are still sinners. It is a sin not to be American.)
• Other Americans (minorities, immigrants, socialists/communists, political activists, the poor) Are Also The ENEMY. They are less “American” than we are. That makes them dangerous. These people must not be allowed to attack our Way of Life.
• (Even if they are Americans, they are not real Americans. Therefore they are sinners.)
• The Police/FBI/CIA/Military are there to protect us. When the Government hurts people, it is because those people are the ENEMY.
• Slavery was “bad” but many slave-owners were Great Men. We surround our cities & parks with Monuments & Flags to venerate our Founding Fathers, and the Great Leaders of the Confederacy. These things must be remembered bc they are Historical. They are not harmful because Slavery is over now. It’s in the Past.
• (Slavery is also Historical, but it does not need to be remembered)
• Racism is over bc of Dr Martin Luther King (who was a peaceful man without socialist leaning) who uncontroversially ended racism, then died tragically (with no governmental wrongdoing). He is loved and respected by white people now, who name Buildings & Streets after him, to remind themselves that Racism Is Over.
• MLK’s photo is in every History Textbook, so students can read about how racism ended (and about how MLK was not a radical harassed by the FBI, but simply a mild-mannered pacifist). Students are happy to learn that the Civil Rights Era fixed everything and was a very long time ago. (You can tell because the textbook photos are always in black-and-white. No living person actually remembers it. It was so long ago.)
• Everyone is Equal now, but obviously not actually equal, that would be Communism. Poor People exist because they are Lazy and Undeserving, and do not pull themselves up by their Bootstraps. Billionaires are deserving because they pulled themselves up with their Good Ideas. We should Admire them, and not Steal from them out of Envy. Taxing them would be Stealing.
• Taxation Is A Form Of Theft. (That is why brave rich white men founded this country.)
• (Taxation is not a form of Theft when it funds the most overfunded military in the world. It is Theft when it pays for the breakfast of school children. We need a Powerful Military to Protect Our Interests Abroad. It is the Job of The Parents to feed their hungry children. Sometimes parents are Poor and Lazy, that is not the Government’s Responsibility.
• (Every year the Military spends Billions on equipment it does not intent to use; these purchases are stored in “graveyards” throughout the country. America is a young country, filled with many types of graveyards and corpses, so many corpses, some of whom stand upright and walk around and perform labor for crumbs. They stand behind cash registers and stoop at desks, and crumble before your eyes. Your country is crumbling, crumbling its people to dust.)
• (One day you will crumble too. You will be nothing but crumbs and bones, and confusion over how this all happened.)
• (It happened by design.)

It’s not helpful to act like this is a universal American experience, because it very much fucking isn’t.

ginasholtsoundboard:

it’s the 21st day of the 21st year of the 21st century.

you can only reblog this today.

aupair:

aupair:

sometimes you start reading a fic and immediately you’re like OH this was written by a child. okay. please know that i am proud of you but also i cannot keep reading this

bakwaaas:

!!