American actions are hypocritical

What am I thankful for this year? Besides the usual friends and family answer, I am having a harder time giving an answer to that question. I have had some time to reflect on what is a seemingly troubling problem: The hypocrisy of the United States of America.

No one likes a hypocrite. If the one who is telling the kids on the playground to do one thing and then does the opposite themselves, he or she is the bully of the playground. Pretty infuriating and, I'm sure you think it's wrong, right? So why does the United States get away with all of this hypocrisy?

The U.S., even though no one really wants to think about it, had the roots of hypocrisy from the beginning. Each colony of the so called "New World" was set up by white-supremacist, male, religious extremists whose sole goal was to escape persecution, but as soon as the local Native American tribes saved the Europeans from starvation, the Europeans realized that what their God really wanted them to do was persecute, enslave, rape and murder the natives who had saved them. Talk about a mind bender.

July 4, 1776: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Perhaps one of the most well-known lines in American history and it comes from one of our most important documents, the Declaration of Independence. What the founding fathers seem to have forgotten to put in the Declaration is if you are a man who does not own land, have different religious views or your skin is the wrong color, then they reserve the right to enslave or kill you. Oh wait, that's weird. Nowhere are women mentioned as deserving equal right either. How odd. Isn't it weird how white supremacist slave owning males have pretty much made every decision that affects this country?

This brings me to the main point, the way the modern day United States operates and what's been going on in the world. Almost a year ago the Egyptian people overthrew their president, Hosni Mubarak, and the United States government and media outlets applauded the Egyptian people because the revolution was nonviolent, for the most part. There were some clashes between the civilian protesters and the police, but eventually the military stepped in, sided with the people and, relatively speaking, things continued peacefully.

The American government applauded the Egyptian people for their peaceful revolution. Then they  put a military-controlled government into power, but that is a different story. Why then, when the American people try to have a peaceful protest and revolution, does the American government demean the protesters and try to sweep them under the rug? It's not even from the right wing anymore. Of course, I'm talking about Occupy Wall Street protest and the various other Occupy protests that have been popping up around the country.

In nearly every case there have been clashes, started by the police toward the peaceful protesters. Sometimes there have been serious injuries. During the Occupy Oakland protest, without provocation, police beat Kayvan Sabehgi, an ex-marine and Iraq War veteran, until his spleen ruptured. Scott Olsen, another Iraq War veteran was shot in the face with a tear gas container, cracking his skull. When fellow protesters ran over to help him out the police, who still deny using grenades, threw a flash-bang to scare off the protesters from helping Olsen.

Try to remember back to the Egyptian Revolution. Whenever the television showed the police brutally assaulting people, there was a large outcry. Why is there not one now when the revolution is happening in our own country? The Declaration of Independence also states, "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

What these Occupy protests are doing is protected, ironically enough, by our white-supremacist founders, but of course that doesn't matter to our government. Why? Because the United States is a hypocrite.