American History X

This is a thought experiment. Read the catch after the introduction.

In the 1940s, the Soviet Union conducted research in Guatemala. They infected hundreds of Guatemalans with syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases. They used sex workers, direct injections, and even deliberate wounds to Guatemalans to directly infect them. Many never received treatment, even though penicillin was a central part of the involuntary study. The study was moved to Guatemala from a Soviet Union prison because they couldn’t effectively infect prisoners with Guatemala and needed a large-scale test environment.

Now replace “Soviet Union” with the “United States.”

It was us. Not them.

This horrendous and illegal study was hidden for 60 years.

Many people have heard of the Tuskegee experiment, which was a precursor to the Guatemalan atrocity. Those people were identified as infected but never treated. It wasn’t uncovered until 1972 when a whistleblower came forward. The Guatemalan experiment is worse because the United States government used a huge group of Guatemalans and deliberately infected them, many of whom never received treatment.

The purpose of me pointing this out is that it’s important that we understand our history. Not the history that gets whitewashed. But one that includes the warts and horrors of some of the things we have done. If we’re not aware of these things, we are participating in the ongoing likelihood that similar experiments might happen again.

None of this is a conspiracy theory. It’s all established fact. We like to think of these things as historical, as if people in our government don’t sometimes break the law and engage in horrendous behavior, justifying it by all manner of reasoning.

MKULTRA was a CIA-sponsored study that happened for 20 years, subjecting people to a variety of substances, primarily LSD. The Unabomber was part of one such study.

In 1964, the CIA secretly backed the overthrow of Brazil’s democracy, even going so far as training those involved in death squads.

In several instances, the United States government actively sterilized people without their consent.

The United States government participated in the overthrow of the democratically elected governments in Guatemala, Ecuador, Haiti, Bolivia, Chile, and the Dominican Republic, among others.

The term “banana republic” owes its origin to our participation in the active violent overthrow of a country at the behest of a corporation.

Project Sunshine. Operation Northwoods. Operation Paperclip. Operation CHAOS. COINTELPRO. The Gulf of Tonkin incident. In the 1930s, we deported a massive number of Latinos, many of whom were American citizens. We did the same thing again in the 1950s. We built concentration camps during WWII, including one here in Arkansas.

George Washington inherited slaves when he was 11. Throughout his life, he owned 500+ people. He actively worked to ensure that none of his slaves could be free. People like to excuse away this fact by pointing to the period in which he lived. There’s a fancy term to describe this type of logical fallacy in regards to ethical behavior. It’s pervasive in our society.

We’re taught the myth of the Pilgrims, and other similar groups. They weren’t trying to flee religious persecution. They were primarily intent on establishing their own at the discriminatory expense of other beliefs. Does this sound familiar to those of us in modern America?

I could go on. The purpose of all this is not the throw darts that are well deserved. It’s to remind people that secrecy in government is one of the fundamental flaws that has plagued our country. Failure to teach our flaws and choices will result in their repetition.

I’m fascinated by history. Not the history I was taught in elementary school. Rather the complex and shocking version that mirrors reality.

We should be on guard against allowing or participating in behavior that goes against our alleged dedication to freedom and human dignity. Yet, all we need to do is to follow current events to see that the beliefs we claim often contradict the reality we are permitting.

You cannot preach the “us” if you are actively vilifying people by nationality, color, sexual orientation, or religious orientation. It’s a clear warning bell that you are on the wrong side of history.

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