While you are right that we cannot escape our history, that is, IMO, more of a benefit than a hindrance to turning this around.
First being that we have a very short history; second being that most of that history we were the little guy our self working to get out from under the big guy's control. We build a national ideology around our belief that we had a right to be free from that control, and we succeeded in achieving that vision. I believe that oppressed populaces around the world still look to that example, still look to the "idea" of America as the first colony of western Europe to stand up and be free.
It is only a relatively short history (though longer than my life) that we have stepped from the role as an example of achieving freedom and slid (through the controlling efforts necessary to contain the Soviets) through our Cold War engagement into a place where we are now more of an obstacle than we would like to admit. Like when I look in the mirror and see that I look more like I think of my dad, and my sons look more like I picture myself. We have grown up and become our parent. It happens; but unlike for us as humans, for us as a nation it is a reversible condition.
But you have to stop doing what you're doing and start a new approach. Doing the same old thing in the same old ways rarely leads to much change.
De Oppresso Liber, brother, De Oppresson Liber
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