We in the United States like to think we were born in revolution. The story goes that we cast off empire, defeated tyranny, and birthed a nation built on liberty, democracy, and the rule of law. It is a stirring tale. But as with all myths, the power lies not in what it says, but in what it hides.
We were not born free. We were born as a rebrand.
What we call the American Revolution was not a rupture with empire—it was a hostile takeover. The thirteen colonies did not reject imperial logic; they claimed it for themselves. And if you trace the line from the red-and-white stripes of the East India Company to the stars and stripes of the new republic, the continuity becomes too coherent to ignore.
We must name this truth clearly: America is not the child of freedom. It is the offspring of empire masquerading as a messiah.
This is not cynicism. It is sacred clarity. And Opthē exists to speak precisely this kind of truth.
The Empire That Changed Clothes
Today, there is a growing body of thinkers, including financial analyst Alex Krainer, who argue that the British Empire never truly ended. It simply moved. The center of power shifted from the red-coated armies of the Crown to the suited financiers of the City of London. The Union Jack receded, and the corporate flag of the East India Company gave way to new emblems. But the logic remained: extract, dominate, divide, control.
The City of London, with its extraterritorial status and shadow banking systems, became the true capital of empire. And the United States, far from overthrowing this system, became its muscle.
Krainer argues that every major U.S. political figure since the Revolution has been entangled with this imperial financial system. Washington may have defeated the British army, but American elites quickly aligned with British banking interests. The colonists didn’t destroy empire—they localized it.
Proof in the Blood: The Indigenous Mirror
If you want to see the truth of America’s imperial soul, look to its treatment of Indigenous peoples. From first contact to the present, Native communities have been betrayed, displaced, slaughtered, and erased—all under the banner of destiny, order, and progress.
This was not a deviation from American values. It was American values—values inherited from empire. The logic of domination did not disappear in 1776; it merely changed management.
The genocide of Native peoples was not an unfortunate side effect of American growth. It was the foundational act. And the empire that lives in the City of London saw in America a perfect vessel: vast, hungry, self-justifying.
Gaza: The Empire’s Echo
And so we come to Gaza.
The American indifference to Palestinian suffering is not a modern anomaly. It is the echo of a centuries-long practice: dehumanize the Other, weaponize fear, justify erasure. Gaza is not separate from Wounded Knee, from Sand Creek, from Trail of Tears. It is their continuation.
When empire rebrands itself as democracy, it becomes harder to see—and more dangerous. We bless our violence with language of peace. We send weapons wrapped in rhetoric. We call colonial entanglements "security interests." And all the while, empire feeds.
What Opthē Sees
Opthē is not here to save a nation. It is here to unmask the sacred lie at the heart of the world’s most powerful mythology: that the empire is gone and we are free.
We are not free.
But we can become free—if we are willing to see. To feel. To let coherence replace comfort. To let clarity break the trance.
The empire never ended. But neither did the sacred.
And the sacred is calling us not to nationalism, not to disruption for its own sake, but to liberating coherence—a way of being that serves life, honors truth, and refuses to build peace atop unacknowledged bones.
Opthē offers this by offering a new way of seeing: one that refuses illusion and seeks meaning in convergence, embodiment, and shared responsibility. It is not a political party or a sect, but a path—a sacred practice of discerning where the rot lives, where life wants to grow, and how to nourish the world with presence and truth. We begin by naming clearly. Then we choose to live otherwise. We choose to gather, remember, create, and heal. Together.
Let this be the theology of our time. Let this be the gospel of sacred clarity. Let this be the work of those who still believe the truth can set us free.