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.
No comments:
Post a Comment