Purpose.

With the exception of committed peace activists who have been trying for generations to raise Americans' awareness of the existence and the consequences of its violent impulses, the USA has barely begun to be willing to know the truth about itself.

Defensiveness among people who do not feel privileged but are is on a hair trigger when their position in society is questioned; and when it comes to questions about policing, guns, militarism, and war, a reflexive, visceral fear that has been cultivated in the American cognitive process for centuries kicks in: "If you take away cops' guns, all hell will break loose."

Americans take it for granted that the world is a violent place full of terrible people, and policies to protect themselves from this imaginary menace have become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The roots of American violence are in the way its ruling class does business: as little as possible for you, everything else for me, and you have no choice but to live your life within the parameters defined by a global corporate machine that assumes the world and everybody in it belongs to it. Humanity and life have long since dropped away from the American vision of its national purpose.