Failure to recognize what’s really happening and who is really behind current events is going to cost us our lives, our country and our planet.

Although the thought has been in my mind for decades, it took a trailer from the controversial new Turkish movie "Valley of the Wolves" to jar my consciousness into really recognizing what is happening.

America is being set up to take the fall for everything that's wrong with the world.

In the movie, Americans are portrayed as heartless killers, reminding me of the way Germans were portrayed as the evil perpetrators of World War II. And I sensed at that moment that very soon, if not already, Americans are going to be the targets of a worldwide backlash that will be far worse than anything the Germans ever experienced.

And rightly so, because what Americans have done to Iraq, Afghanistan and so many other countries is far worse than anything the Germans ever did to anyone.

But have you ever thought about the common factor that links Americans and Germans in their tragic fall from grace in the eyes of the world?

Created from well-known accounts of real events, the principal scene in "Valley of the Wolves" shows ruthless U.S. soldiers shooting up a wedding party in Iraq, butchering women and children, and then reveling in it, like they were slaughtering beings whom they regarded as less than human. Wonder where that idea came from?

I remembered a similar story in the real news from Afghanistan a few years back that curdled my blood, and was mostly covered up by mainstream media. And of course you’ve heard variations on this story for decades from that tortured territory called Palestine, and more lately, Iraq.

But this sense of foreboding about what is happening to Americans ­ how they have become mindless killer robots who enthusiastically rationalize the need to torture innocent people ­ led me to realize that the movie lacks one important component.

Namely, who is behind this reversion to barbarism and senselessness? How did all this come to pass, where the country known for its freedom and tolerance had suddenly turned totalitarian, and was even persecuting its own citizens who wanted accountability and justice, or even wanted to ask legitimate questions?

And why is it almost no one can see or describe it, or, for most, even fail to recognize what has happened, never mind bring it up in polite conversation?

How have Americans become so blind to the pain they are inflicting on the world, even as through draconian new laws they are actually inflicting the same pain on
themselves?

The process of the perversion of America from a nation of God-fearing, community-loving folks didn’t happen overnight. Some people say it took about a century and a half. But over the past 50 years, Americans has morphed from a compassionate sanctuary for the oppressed into the world’s worst oppressors themselves.

Why? And how?

It all involves the subject we can’t talk about. If you mention a certain word, otherwise competent news organizations won’t touch the story. Ordinary people cringe at the mere mention of it. Many supposedly democratic countries have passed laws prohibiting even discussion of this topic.

Yes, it’s the elephant in the living room again.

What if the mysterious force behind all of these atrocities is the very same bunch that has provided all the information you have ingested throughout your life? How will you ever detox from deception if the very tools you have been given to think and act in this world were provided by the same folks? Which they have.

Think about the decline in morals we have experienced in the last half-century that has turned young females from prim ingenues committed to marriage, family and community into pill-popping prostitutes with no hope for anything except luxurious servitude. How do you think that happened, or who made that happen?

Think about newspapers, TV, and movies, and how they’re willing to tear down America, its people, and its religions, but always fail to mention one particular group, the same group that is behind all the changes, and owns all these media outlets.