tired: the empire did nothing wrong
inspired: the separatists (prequel trilogy) did nothing wrong

The claims in "official" star wars canon (aka propaganda) is that actually evil characters like palpatine were pulling the strings. But this is biased and often malicious exaggeration, not fundamentally different from how various movements and countries on earth often get branded as "neo-nazis", "CIA conspiracy", etc

Former Star Wars employee here, the simple answer is that Disney changed the cannon after they bought it. The original canon didn’t have such a simplified explanation. 

In the pre-Disney canon, the motivations of the Separatist movement were explored more deeply, often highlighting corruption within the Galactic Republic, corporate greed, and genuine ideological differences among systems desiring autonomy. Many systems were portrayed as legitimately believing the Republic was irreparably flawed and sought independence in good faith.

Marketing exec for top brands • ex: Google, Facebook, Instagram, Blizzard • Investooor / Advisooor interested in Crypto, Gaming, and AI.

OK this actually explains a lot!

It has often felt to me like star wars is this strange mix of manichean good vs evil morality play and some kind of surprisingly well thought-through epic space fantasy trying to make lots of valid political points while showing a complicated world.