Part Three
Poncho Speaks: Poncho Threetrees interviewed by Won Hung Lo
NATION WORSHIP
WL: Well Poncho, I have been doing a lot of talking about various ideas. I would like to hear your opinion about some things. Let’s start by having you tell me why you feel the need to write at all, and specifically, why are your interviews with people that are so negative about the American and Western peoples, governments, etc., and why are you so negative about America, the West, and the state of the world in general.
PT: Well, look around you. The world seems to be in quite a mess nowadays. I’m not sure that it hasn’t always been this way. I put together these books because I would like to see things change for the better. You can’t do this unless you step on a few toes, just as you can’t make an omelet unless you break a few eggs.
I know that the things in my books always seem to concentrate, or at least start off with America, but the things that are problematic for America are also problematic for all countries, peoples, and cultures that one could name. America has just been at the forefront of things for so long, that I feel it is appropriate to concentrate on it. America is just the latest nation to turn fascist, and lead the way for other nations to do so as well. One could go back to Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, England, and all the way back to ancient Rome and Egypt for examples of nations and peoples that have gone astray. I just start with America, and the American people, as an example of what is currently wrong, and to try to point out faults that need correcting.
One might think that I hate America and its people, but this is not correct. While I don’t start my critiques with “I love my country, I would die for my country, but…” I don’t really hate any particular country or another. I do hate to see stupidity, naiveté, and exploitation of the people, but if these things could be corrected without changing anything in the basic structure of the status quo, I would be perfectly happy. I just don’t see this as happening. Things have gone too far. Governments, corporations, elites, and so on are too ruthless, entrenched, and against the people. The people are too naive, ignorant, and have too much misplaced patriotism for change to happen within the current system. (I think that any degree of patriotism is misplaced.)
WL: What do you mean by “Any degree of patriotism is misplaced”? Isn’t love of one’s country a good thing?
PT: Of course not! You never had the freedom to choose where you were born. Unless you choose the country you live in, you don’t owe it any “Love”. You owe it obedience of its just laws, reasonable taxes, and even help in its defense if needed – in a just cause. If your country does not deport itself in a moral manner, you owe it nothing. Having said this, you would be wise to not overtly fight against it, if it is rogue, unless you want to feel its response to your opposition. You should, however, have enough concern to try to point out any errors you feel it has made, if you can do this without incurring its wrath. Maybe you might love a country more if you are coming from another, less sympatric one, but even here, you should avoid unconditional support of it if it does not behave as it should. Nations have moral responsibilities also.
But let’s look at exactly what we are talking about. What is the nature of America? What is its culture? What does it stand for? What we find could probably be applied to any other modern state and its people.
If you ask the average man on the street, he will tell you that America is that bright shining city on the hill, a beacon of freedom and justice, and all the rest of the crap that you constantly hear. What is America really? Let’s take a look at some of its attributes.
I believe that America should ideally be described as a nation of rednecks and the super-rich psychopaths who control them. After all, this would be the ideal dream of any good American, who loved their country, and wanted to see it at the ultimate pinnacle and expression of its culture and power. They just don’t ever step back far enough to take a good look at themselves or their country, and really see what an outside observer would see.
WL: What? What about the minorities, liberals, etc.? They don’t want to see a “Red necked” America, and they certainly don’t want to be ruled or controlled by anyone, especially the super-rich or psychopaths.
PT: Of course they do, at least the real Americans do. As for the few that don’t, they are not true Americans. We are talking about the ideal America and Americans here, the America and Americans that are sought after and nurtured by the government. After all, it is the government that defines and controls the society, not the people.
WL: What kind of a warped place are you talking about? This is all backwards and not right. Most people don’t want to live in a society like that.
PT: No, but true Americans do. Let me explain. You have to look at what you actually have. Unless you are a member of one of the two groups mentioned above, the super-rich psychopath or the loyal red necked supporter, you have no place at the American table. You are not wanted by the people that control and support the status quo. The Goal of these two groups is to eliminate you, and thereby purify the society. You just don’t want to admit that this is how things are, or just can’t see it.
This is why I and others say that the problem with this and many, if not all, other countries is not the government, or the corporate raiders, or the bankers, etc., but the people. The people have to wake up and look at the true nature of what they are dealing with. Then maybe they will be able to change things. Until the people actually see just how far off of their idealized picture of things the reality has strayed, they cannot hope to ever improve things. If they ever do wake up, they will see that, for the past several generations, the laws and ideals of their masters have created a nation and a culture that is designed to destroy them, and the nation that they thought they were living in.
We are living in a nation that glorifies a Fascist, Racist, Fundamentalist, Christian, fanatical, feudal, system and people that are dumb as skunks, and fightin proud of it, with a population that is naive, ignorant of the world, and obedient beyond all reason. It is time to stop trying to “Find a place in this society”, and to try to change things. Maybe the result will be that this change will have to be to start over again with something totally new.
I can understand the government and other elite sections of the society. They are easy to figure out. They have it made, and want to keep it. What I can’t get, is how the people can be so vested in the system that is bent on destroying them, along with the rest of the world. How can they see the world as their elites want them to see? Is it that they can’t see without first being told what they are seeing? I could go on and on about this, and I will, but there are many other things that I would like to talk about in addition.
WL: Well, give us one.
PT: The other night, I was watching Democracy now. They were talking about a book by Nick Turse, “Kill anything that moves: The real American war in Viet Nam”. It’s basically about how atrocities were not unusual occurrences in that war, but an everyday occurrence, and by all of the divisions of the Army, and the rest of the military also. Listening to the discussion, made me think that, yes, this is the real America and Americans. America isn’t a great nation that, somehow, lost its way, or forgot its high moral past, and so on. America and Americans have always been capable of this type of behavior, and have, in fact always done it. The civilians have always supported their marauding “American Hero Troops”. The people have always supported their nation’s imperial wars and support of dictators. They have not questioned their nation’s motives or conduct. They have always believed the propaganda that they were fed from cradle to grave. They always “Knew” that they and their nation were special. They were always able to turn a blind eye to the massacres and torture that their beloved shining city on the hill perpetrated. They were always eternally ignorant, naive, and willfully blind.
The thing is, while the Americans were busy turning a blind eye
to what their country did to other people, they failed to see the increasing brutality with which their country was treating them and their needs and wants. They never saw their government and police turn more and more toward the needs and wants of the corporation. They never saw that they were being looked at more and more as objects, as useful idiots and cattle, to be milked and herded for the benefit of the government and their cronies in the corporate and banking world.
Now, the same people and mindset of the military that committed the atrocities in Viet Nam are in Iraq, Mali, Yemen, etc., and the people are now supporting them, and the government that uses them. The few, who realize that something is amiss in their society, will have to face an increasingly brutal and distant government and elite class, with a police force and laws to match. They will also have to deal with the majority of their fellows, who are increasingly brainwashed to support their government and their police’s actions against them.
The forces that the dissidents in this country have to deal with includes a police force made up of loyal, nation worshiping returning vets, joining the police, FBI, CIA, and so on, and continuing their war on anyone that has not been