End-of-the-year close-out

A long-term acquaintance of mine recently asked me why I'm so hard on Americans. My reply? They deserve it. Hey, they have it way too good and have no idea how good they've actually got it. Yes, yes, Thanksgiving has just past, but I didn't see (again) any sign that the celebration of the holiday had anything to do with its Spirit. For those who could: a big stuffed turkey and we're all a bit fatter, a bit dumber, and, of course, a bit happier.

C'mon. What do you say about a democratic nation in which less than 40% of the registered voters (notice I did not say eligible voters, or it would be even lower) turn out for an election? What do you say about a democratic nation that gerrymanders so that incumbents win and constituencies lose? What do you say about a country that overwhelmingly re-elects a legislative body that has an approval rating under 10%? I'll tell you what I say: it's just what I'd expect of a fat, dumb, and happy populace.

OK, OK, I'm being harsh again ... sorry. It's too easy, or, well, it's just too hard not to be. Oh sure, most Americans I know like to tell me that American society is so complex that no generalized statement is possible. They know, and I know, that such a statement is simply and blatantly absurd, but it's said anyway. Why? Because otherwise, somebody might have to do something about, well, anything.

Affordable-Care Act or no: 40 million un(health-)insured Americans; child poverty rate of more than 22% and rising; infant mortality rate ranked 34th (behind Croatia and Cuba); most extreme wealth-poverty divide in the industrialized world; world's 3rd largest population (whereby #s 1 and 2 have over three times as many people) but world's 2nd biggest polluter. Oh yes, there's just so much to be proud of.

It all wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't have so many other people I know telling me what a great place it is. When you look at it from the outside, it's anything but great, but the propaganda machine is churning both inside and out in a measure unknown ever before. I'd like not to be so critical, but I don't know how. With all that going on, I don't see a shred of evidence that anyone there really wants to do anything about anything. If the blacks protest (e.g., in the Ferguson aftermath), they're turning everything into a race issue. If Occupy protests against the banks, they are being radical. If one protests against Eternal War, one is being unpatriotic. If you feed the homeless on the streets, you go to jail. Give me a break. What about any of that makes sense?

No, the end of the year is upon us, and I'm going to turn my attention to other, more important matters. If Americans were all alone in their bubble island, I don't suppose I'd care, but they keep reaching out and touching the world, and what's even worse, most Americans think everyone else wants to be touched. No, if Americans want to do something, if Americans want to change something, then there's no better place than home. Get your own house in order before you start telling others how to clean up theirs.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Giving thanks

This is a pretty special time for Americans. In a couple of days, it will be Thanksgiving, for many Americans the closest thing they'll have to vacation (a four-day weekend), for others, the day before Black Friday when they can go out and commit legal acts of violence to get the best deals on their Christmas shopping. It's when deer season begins in a lot of places, so you can go out and kill something. It's time to buy that much-needed symbol of a good Christian Christmas, the tree, though Christmas itself is almost a month away and will last twelve nights longer than that tree will. It's a time when we are supposed to give thanks, but when so many families can't get over their petty differences to even spend time or have a meal with one another. It's a time when far too many Americans won't really be able to afford a decent meal or a place to eat it in. It's a time when most Americans I know, who are pretty much out of touch with reality anyway, will wonder why things just can't be normal like they used to be when Norman Rockwell was their hero.

How do I know this? I see it in their actions. The really well-to-do are never heard from. They simply live their lives beyond the pale of down-and-dirty everyday life. They are the most silent, obscure, unknown group of citizens on the planet. Then there are all those who are going to have to work even though it's a holiday because their corporate overlords have deemed it unnecessary to have a holiday when there's money to be made and hordes of consumers who are willing to spend what little money they (don't) have. Then there are all those still downtrodden: the immigrants (too many illegal, of course), the massive number of unemployed (not counting people who are no longer looking for work doesn't make them not unemployed) who don't have enough to make ends meet when it's not a holiday. After all, it's their own damn fault that they have no marketable skills and are too lazy to get a job anyhow. Then there are all those tried and true, born-again-or-close-to-it Christians who wouldn't invite a homeless family in for dinner any more than they'd sacrifice their own time to go down to the local soup kitchen to maybe make even a little difference (unless you're a disgusting individual like Paul Ryan and need a photo-op). And then, there are my personal favorites, the majority of those who still think they're middle class and who deserve the holiday and who don't take kindly to people like me pointing out what hypocrites they really are.

Yes, the people I'm talking about are those who believe they deserve to have what they have to be thankful for: their "homes", their "jobs", their luxuries, their American citizenship ... all the results of their own devotion, dedication, and hard work.

How does 5% of the world's population believe it is entitled to 25% of the world's resources? Since when is a big mortgage a sign of worth? Why does one nation feel it is empowered to impose its will on others? What gives the most wasteful people on the planet the right to destroy the environment in the name of economic gain?

I really don't know. But there is one thing I do know: for those Americans who are celebrating Thanksgiving, why not give thanks for what really counts, that you were lucky enough to have been born where you are and not to have to be the victims of American thankfulness.

On this day in history

Yes, on this day in history, November 22, 1963, more than half-a-century ago, John F. Kennedy, then President of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The assassin was allegedly Lee Harvey Oswald, but the circumstances surrounding this event, the consequences, the actual facts have been long obscured in conspiracy, fantasy, and delusion. We'll never know what really happened and why, and I'm not sure that it really matters in the end. Sure, I was an impressionable adolescent when it happened, and, yes, I think about that day from time to time (and sometimes when the date rolls around again), and, yes, it makes me wonder. (I told you: I wonder a lot; I always have and with each additional year of my life, I am given more reason to as well.)

So what am I wondering about this time? Simple: why do only Americans assassinate their major political figures? Sure, every once in a long while, someone flips out in the Middle East or in Israel and a well-known politician or Prime Minister is killed, but it's almost always someone "from the other side". No, Americans are pretty unique in that they elect someone to the highest office in the land, and then, later, for myriad, stupid reasons, they decide to end their term of office prematurely. Think about it:

• Including the current one, the US has had 44 presidents thus far.
• Four presidents have definitely been assassinated: Lincoln (#16), Garfield (#20), McKinley (#25), and Kennedy (#35).
• Two more presidents are at least rumored to have been assassinated: Taylor (#12) and Harding (#29).
• Two additional presidents were injured in assassination attempts: Roosevelt (#26) and Reagan (#40).
• And, there have been 13 assassination attempts on presidents not mentioned in the points above.

That's a pretty impressive list, if you ask me: 21 of 44 (that's 47%) have been killed, injured, or attempts have been made on their lives. Just how democratic is this? With the exception of Johnson (#36), every single president since Kennedy has been at least threatened with assassination. That doesn't make you wonder? It makes me wonder, I can assure you of that.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know what to think about that. My first reaction is, "the US is one violent society." Another thought that crosses my mind is, "why is assassination (well, murder, actually) considered a solution to anything?" More generally, "what does this say about the state of American democracy?" And the cynical side of me wants to know why America is held up as an example for anything political? Be honest. Who really wants a job in which almost half the holders have been murdered or someone attempted to murder them? And the country isn't even 300 years old! So young, so reckless, so irresponsible.

Yes, I wonder a lot ... more some days that others ... sometimes merely because the calendar gives reason to.

In a bind or facing a dilemma?

Some of you have probably asked yourselves at some time or another, "Just what does he do with all his time everyday?" It's a legitimate question, and it deserves a legitimate answer. It's very simple, really: I wonder. Yes, I wonder a lot.

Obviously, as anyone who has read even a small selection of these posts will tell you, I wonder about a lot of things. But the thing I probably wonder about more than anything else is whether "things" (whatever they may be, or whatever you may perceive them to be) are ever going to really change. Oh sure, there are little things here and there: the distribution of parties in Congress or parliament, the price of fuel, the weather ... everyday, normal, things. No, I'm talking about significant changes, like saving the planet, stopping global warming, invoking a more equitable economic system ... not-everyday, big things. The more I wonder, the more I wonder why I wonder.

Most people who are in a position to read these posts don't really want to change anything at all. They've got a little bit of whatever that allows them to at least think that things aren't all bad and that, basically, they're doing OK, and they're concerned that if anything fundamental changes, the world as they know it will come to an end. I can understand that. Really. I think it's unjustified and unnecessary, but I understand how someone can come to think like that. In fact, in the course of my wondering, I believe I know why it is so easy to start thinking like that: fear. Yes, simple, basic, fundamental, existential fear.

The life we lead, the lives we live are tenuous at best. They can drastically change or end suddenly, without warning, for no apparent reason at all. Just ask anyone who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness without having even suspected they were ill, or someone who lost a loved one in a traffic accident or plane crash, or someone comes down with a major illness and sees their life savings flushing down the drain. There are more than enough of these people around, and there is not a thing that any of them ever did to "deserve" their fate. It was simply the luck of the draw, bad luck, if you will. It wasn't their "fault". They didn't do anything wrong. They are not being punished by any Higher Power. Whether you like it or not, and whether you want to admit it or not, lots, if not most, things in life are simply decided by pure chance. Or are they? We know all that rags-to-riches, Horatio Alger crap is no more than that: just crap. If working hard translated into financial success then practically all the women in Africa would be billionaires, but they're not.

And that brings me to my bind, or dilemma ... I haven't yet decided which: how do I get any of you to see that things really aren't the way you think they are? You, I, we all live under the delusion that those simple platitudes we were fed as children, those inspiring Bible quotes we get at Sunday school, those "authoritative" descriptions of how things are are, well, untrue. And if that's too strong a word, how about inaccurate? inadequate? irrelevant? impractical? less than factual? I don't care. You choose.

Oh, I know that there is a good number of you who know that you need to sit down and seriously re-evaluate a lot of things you believe. I also know that most of you will give it a bit of thought and then you'll put it aside. At some point, though, what we think and what we believe has to line up with what we do. It's this latter part that is so often ignored. It's about what we do.

And that's what I wonder about more than anything else: when are we going to actually DO something?

False dichotomies

We all like to think we're free ... we're not. We like to think we're secure ... we're not. We like to think we know something ... we don't. We like to think we can handle things ... we can't. We like to think we're on top of things ... we aren't. We like to think we have a say in what's going on ... we don't. We like to think we ... well, we like to think whatever we think.

Elections were just held in America. Did anything change? Nope. The Europeans are getting restless about TTIP. Has anything changed? Nope. The crisis in the Ukraine has been mollified by recent elections. Is the situation less tenuous? Nope. ISIS is still on the march. Are we any safer? Nope. The climate is changing. Are we any closer to a solution? Nope. The banking industry is acting as crazy as they were before the last crash. Are we going to see the next one coming? Nope.

We like to think we live in democratic societies. Do we? Nope. We like to believe that we're the good guys (politically, religiously, economically ... and I'm talking about the West here). Are we? Nope. We want to believe that everyone's out to get us (because we're the "good guys"). Are they? Nope. We like to think that we have a say in what's going on (wherever it is we happen to be living). Do we? Nope. We want to believe that things are going to get better. Are they? Nope. We want to believe that our children will have it at least close to as good as we had it. Will they? Nope.

Taken in isolation, none of these things is all that bad. It's the fact that we have to deal with all of them all at once that makes us uneasy. As good, everyday moderns, we think that things should either be one way or the other. Truth be told, it's hardly ever that way. That whole "50 shades of gray" thing was off the mark and beside the point. There's a lot more shades of gray and we have to deal with them every single minute of every single day of our lives.

The result? We end up creating false dichotomies that we have have to deal with and that we don't really understand: liberal/conservative, democracy/totalitarianism, capitalism/socialism, givers/takers, friend/enemy, saved/damned, freedom/slavery ... and the list goes on and on. Who really knows the difference? Where do we accurately draw the line? How do you really tell one from the other? To me, these are all legitimate questions that demand legitimate answers, or how am I to understand the drone-killing, war-waging, president who got more money from Wall Street than any of his predecessors being called a Marxist-socialist-imperial-dictator? It just doesn't make sense, but a lot of things don't make sense to me anymore. I used to think it was because I didn't understand, but I'm coming to realize that a whole lot of people who are claiming to know something, in fact don't know very much at all.

No, dear reader, the weirdness index is simply rising.

I would like to think

... that things aren't as bad as I think they are, that things are getting better, that we're somehow "getting it", that we're moving "forward" (whatever that means) or "making progress", that we're somehow more secure, smarter, or wiser than we used to be. But, alas, we're not.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that things used to be better and that we need to turn back the clock or calendar, or whatever. They weren't. We shouldn't. What I am saying is that you would think that we might have solved a couple of problems by now, but in truth we haven't. Think about it. Oh sure, we have a supposed cure for this or that illness, but it's only available to those who can afford it, and most can't; there are more people worldwide suffering from hunger than ever before; the extremes of poverty and wealth are getting more extreme; there hasn't been a year of my life (and I'm not youngster anymore) in which there hasn't been a war somewhere (and most likely in which my country of birth has been seriously involved); prices have never really ever gone down; and more than one economy in which I have been participating has tanked more than once.

It makes you think. Well, it makes me think, at any rate. But it's not getting any easier to make sense of it all.

Far be it from me to think that I'm some kind of isolated case. I'm not. Most of the people with whom I have to do, day in and day out, have historical biographies much like my own. For those of us who were once "in the middle", things aren't all that rosy. For those of us who got an above-average education without having to leverage the rest of lives, we realize that no matter who's in power, their power seems to somehow increase, while ours seeps away before our very eyes. For those of us who still like to think that we can think, well, I would like to think that we're not as dumb as so many would like us to be. But I'm starting to have my doubts. Serious doubts.

For almost a decade-and-a-half, I lived and worked in Silicon Valley in California. There were lots of bright people running around, to be sure. Some of them are rich beyond our wildest dreams today. Some are poorer than church mice. Some had the most clever ideas for products and services. Some believed the weirdest stuff that you can imagine. You would think that I most like had seen and heard it all. But I haven't. Today's world is weirder, crazier, more unpredictable, more elusive than anything I saw, heard, or experienced there. Why is that?

To be perfectly honest, I'd really like to know. From time to time in these posts, I try to explore the reasons. I've not decided on anything yet, except that we're not going anywhere fast. In fact, we're not getting a grip on anything at all. So, if you'll bear with me for the next couple of posts, I would like to air some of that thinking. Maybe you'll recognize where I've missed something, overseen something, misinterpreted something.

Who knows? I would like to think ...

The gods of Mammon

Be patient, gentle Reader, be patient; I'm almost done.

Sometimes you just have to get it off your chest. Sometimes you just have to let it out. Sometimes, you just have to vent as well. But, sometimes, you have good reason to.

I think I've isolated the real heart of the issue, the reason why, at bottom, America is the way it is and why most Americans are the way they are. I hate to be the one to break it to you all, but the True Religion of America is materialism. Down-and-dirty, straight-up, unabashed, self-effacing worship of the gods of Mammon.

It's a long and complicated, deep-seated infestation from the Puritans, I am sure, but everything in America in America is measured in terms of things. Things, not just clothes, make the man. The house (even if it's a McMansion), the car (which says more about one than just about anything else), the phone, the tablet, the watch, the jewelry, the places one goes to eat ... that's what counts.

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to see friends from America from "way back when". What did we talk about? Property, investments, retirement options, cars (or pick-ups), vacation opportunities ... that is, pretty much things ... things that one can "have". Value(s) translate into dollar values. You are what you have.

There are those who would hasten to point out that my position on "things" is the result of the fact that I really don't have a lot of things. I don't own property. I do own my car (but it's four years old and over-mileaged). I don't have "investments" to speak of. And I'm about to start drawing modest retirements from both the US and Germany (in other words, two almost-halves almost make a whole ... though it may be more like a "hole"). But, I really don't mind. That's just the way things are. I don't feel like a lesser person because I can't measure up to all the things that others have acquired. It's nothing I ever really wanted to do, and in that, I can safely say, I believe I have been quite the success.

No, in my life, other "things" have been more important than things: what one thinks, what one believes and why, what one knows, how one treats others, regardless of one's relationships, whether one practices what one preaches, how open one is, how tolerant, how forgiving, how honest, how true, how loyal and devoted, how caring, show sharing, how loving, how humble.

In this regard, I have found that I have been pretty much of a rebel, no matter where I have lived or worked. That's OK. I don't mind being different. I wish that more Americans wouldn't mind either. I suspect that there are lots of potentials there, but besides the gods of Mammon, Americans have to also endure the Caretaker of Conformity.

But, it's time to stop. It's time to review and re-evaluate. It's time to reconsider. There are going to be hard times ahead (and this is not just my curmudgeonly cynicism talking), and we are going to need each other more than ever before in our lifetimes. Maybe it's time to convert.

Don't shoot till you see the fear in their eyes

Some of you are probably thinking that I'm being pretty unpatriotic at the moment. There, I suppose, you are right. Personally, I see it as being non-patriotic, not unpatriotic. America could be such a nice place, but it's like I said back in July: it's just hard to deal with all the hypocrisy. I happen to agree with Einstein: patriotism is pretty much an infantile disease, like measles. But, if you like itching, well, hey, who am I to stop you? Isn't that what freedom's all about?

Truth be told, I'm just a bit frustrated at the moment. Since most of you Americans have never been anywhere else, you don't know what it's like to the "token Ami". Yes, I'm the one that family, friends, and acquaintances turn to for the explanations as to why America is bombing this place, or what Americans have against universal healthcare, or how it is that some many apparent "idiots" (their term, not mine) get elected to public office, or why there's a race problem, or how can so many so-called Christians advocate the death penalty. (And, yes, dear reader, I've been asked about every single one of those issues, and many, many more. As the great comics have all noted: you can't make this stuff up.)

In other words, since I was born there and since I still carry a blue passport, I am somehow, magically supposed to know why America ticks the way it does. And all I can tell them is, I didn't really understand it all when I lived there, and now that I'm here and I see what's going on, I understand it even less.

One of the issues that parents, teachers, educators, etc. have to come to terms with when dealing with children and adolescents is how to make them see that their actions have effects on others. That relationship between "me and thee" is a tough one to grasp when you're young. We all know, however, that some of them just never get it. They grow up still not understanding this simple fact of life. And it is this behavior that so many "outsiders" (Americans call the "foreigners") just don't get.

America spends more on defense and less on actual humanitarian aid than any developed country. They have the audacity to demand that others follow suit. While Americans like to think of their country as a benevolent patron, what the benefactors of that "benevolence" experience is more like a mafioso patron. America has unmasked itself: drone assassinations of "alleged" terrorists, the deceits, lies and threats from the perpetual surveillance state, the economic extortion and terror imposed by American manipulated "organizations", such as the WTO, the IMF and World Bank, the perpetual war machine ... this is all America seems to know anymore, and that is, to put it simply, a sad, sad story.

There was a time, and maybe even rightfully so, when America was looked up as the beacon of freedom in the world. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that beacon of freedom in more and more looking like a death-ray of terror. It may be time to regroup.

A deeper view from the outside

Let me say that I am fully aware that some readers were simply offended by the last post. How could I ... how dare I besmirch the image of "the greatest country in the world"? But who thinks it is? That's the party line inside the borders, and I know that for a fact from my childhood. But who else thinks so? Those immigrants who are so desperate to get anywhere other than where they are who sneak in illegally, risking life, limb, and liberty only to be thrown out again if they are caught? Maybe? All those brown people near oil fields who have been shot at, bombed, starved, diseased, assaulted, mishandled, demeaned, denigrated, and demoralized? I doubt it, but who knows?

How insulting is that very phrase, which is quick to fall from American lips for all those who did have the "luck" to be born there? Do Americans really think that there's no better place on earth? And upon what do they base that judgement: only 10% of the American population even possesses a passport, some never use theirs at all, and the majority who do use them to cross over into Mexico or Canada since the requirement for travel documents changed? So, who's seen what to know one way or the other? So again, we hear all the words, we know what each of them means, but together, well, they just don't give us much sense at all. Don't get me wrong, there are many positive characteristics about America and Americans ... and there are just as many for anywhere else and any other people, if you're willing to look. No, most of them never get out, and what's going on inside, well, that gives a lot of us on the outside pause for thought

What do we see? The greatest disparity between rich and poor in the developed world; lack of basic social safety nets (and a hard-line approach to getting rid of the rest of what is left); lack of universal healthcare; the most expensive healthcare system in the world; highest rate of child poverty in the developed world; highest infant mortality rate of the developed countries; a dysfunctional system of government; bizarros as holders of political office (and if you think Bachman, Cruz, O'Connell, Boehner, Gohmert, Paul, ... the list goes on and on and on); the gun fanaticism; the incarceration rate; the violence; the brutal police tactics; the science deniers; the religious fundamentalists who are forcing their beliefs into the school system; the most rapacious form of capitalism ever devised; the cult-like worship of money; the perpetual war machine ... you get the point. That's what it looks like from elsewhere. You need to maybe get out, take a step back, take a deep breath, and then look again.

It all wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so embarrassing for those of us who are asked why things are the way they are? Believe me, there is a lot of scratching-of-heads that goes on outside your borders. It also wouldn't be so bad if you would just stay where you are and only focused on yourselves. You could rape, murder, pillage and plunder each other all you wanted, and the rest of the world would have more than enough reason to respect your national sovereignty. Unfortunately, your government only wages its wars in other peoples' houses. The consequence is that when America implodes -- and it's doing its best to do so soon -- it's going to cause a lot of collateral damage, and the most likely victims are starting to get very uneasy about it all.

A view from the outside

It's that time again ... Americans are getting ready for their favorite unproductive activity: mid-term elections. Not being caught up on the inside, the view from the outside can be quite informative, if you allow it to be so.

Americans like to think they are special. They even like to think they invented modern democracy. What did the Greeks know? We' showed them, they say, and we showed everyone else how it's done. If it weren't for America, we'd all be oppressed in monarchical or tyrannical dictatorships or something of that ilk, or so the story goes. But, that view from outside is revealing in different ways.

Over in Hong Kong, students and others have been protesting and shutting down the commercial sector because the Chinese masters wanted to vet all candidates for their elections. The students asked what kind of democracy that was? And the answer is obvious: it's American-style democracy. Others, in secret or with a token show of transparency, determine who's going to run against whom. Where's the difference? And if that's not bad enough, the candidates selected aren't really all that different even if others -- mostly behind the scenes -- tries to color one of them red and the other blue. After all, how can you choose among more than two? So you're given the choice between red loser or blue loser. But, hey, this is America where losers can become winners! How long did it take me to figure that one out?

And then, right there in the land of the free, with all those billed rights: the highest judicial instance in the country decided that money talks, literally. It used to be one man (later, one person; most recently, one registered and validated ID-carrying person) one vote. Now the votes are counted in dollars before you even get started. Like I have long said, Americans truly have the best government money can buy.

The view from the outside shows us that in fact America has lost the plot. Yes, they love to think they are special, and the word they like best to describe that specialness (for there are negative kinds of "special" -- just think short busses) in positive and glamorous terms, so they call it "exceptionalism". But, let's face it: that's just another kind of "-ism", like consumerism, cronyism, or totalitarianism. And, let's not forget that aberrations are, by their very nature, exceptional as well.

Personally, I wish them a lot of luck in their predetermined game. They're going to need it. The world is watching, but rapidly tiring of all the senseless antics. It's time to get new clowns into the ring.

But, hey, maybe it isn't that way at all. Yet, it really looks that way from the outside.