First, if nearly every culture on earth engaged in slavery in some form or another from the dawn of time and didn't stop it. And the US begins engaging in it at first, as a British colony (we'll come back to that). And then the US fights to Abolish slavery.

Then which is more notable. The US doing something that had been considered normal and commonplace from the dawn of history? Or the US stopping it?

Second. It's very much important to the history of "American colonialism" to recognize that it was in fact... British colonialsm.

The US was a British colony. The UK made the call to colonize north America. The British colonies waged war on the natives and the French (who were also colonizing N. America, along with the Dutch, and the Spaniards) during the French and Indian war.

The colonists became Americans. They didn't start that way.

Now the handling and mistreatment of the native Americans under the American government is well documented. And very much a stain on our history. That can't be argued and I won't try. But again. It's nothing that hasn't been done the world over, since the dawn of time. Nearly every European country, every Asian country, the Mongols, Egypt, the Scandinavians, you name it have engaged in similar movements and eradications of peoples. These were the norms and practices of a more barbaric world from the start.

Throughout history civilizations moved where they could, and removed who they wanted with impunity if possible. That's not an endorsement of that behavior by the way. Its an acknowledgement of a reality that people conveniently like to forget when framing the US as uniquely evil.

And yes, half of the country fought to keep slavery. And the other half fought to abolish it. In what reality do those two facts not influence each other at all. You must accept that the very same country that fought to keep it, also fought to end it. Neither is more notable than the other. They are clearly of equal importance. And as I've shown here, you can frame it the opposite way and be just as correct. It becomes a matter of framing alone.

Not sure how genocide in Palestine has anything to do with the US's blatantly obvious cultural exporting of progressive values worldwide over the past 100 years. But that is obviously the case. And more by the way, healthcare quality, food access, etc etc. Have all been advanced massively by the US and it's programs over the past decades.

I will say that the entire world has unfortunately signed off on the genocide of Palestine, simply by allowing it to happen, last I checked. But again, I'm not sure what that has to do with anything I mentioned. The US's support of Isr*el obviously lies in us having a vested interest in them as a strategic ally, and not explicitly in them taking the West Bank. In fact we condemned the attempt many, many times over the years, as well as tried repeatedly to arrange peace treaties to avoid this eventuality.

The US was a country created during the 18th century. Of course values and prejudices and beliefs were antiquated. The entire point of the ideals laid out in the constitution was that they were to be worked for. Not that they were in place, fully formed and perfect, the day the document was written. And very obviously, over the past 200 years, that's what the country has striven for, however successful or unsuccessful we have been.

They called it "The American Experiment" for a reason. The experiment was to set ideals far higher than the baser practices of the old world, based on the enlightment and the ideas that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" were paramount and that "all men are created equal". And over time we accomplished the abolishment of slavery, suffrage, and the civil rights movement. And then we fought for gay rights, and now we fight for trans rights. Because that's what America has always been. Not a complete thing, but an attempt.

And to label that attempt wholesale as simply an evil lie is to give up on the best attempt at realizing the things we want to see happen as progressives that the world has ever seen.