Dark days are upon us

Dark days are upon us.

The heartless command, our attention at the very least. It may be a
madman with an Arabic name; it could be a finance minister whose
madness won't allow him to admit he is wrong.

Our minds are not being molded, they are being violated, bludgeoned,
abused, every bit as debilitating as any comparable physical abuse, but
as Stockholm taught us, it is possible to love one's abusers. It's not
mentally healthy, but it is a survival strategy.

Democracy hasn't been taken from us. You can't lose what you never
had. What has been taken from us, though, is our democratic ideals and
beliefs. In the United States, money talks; it's speech is free. Here in
Europe, we politicize instead - it's so much more sophisticated - and we
simply deny sovereign states their sovereignty. Both methods are
employed in the name of "unity", but we're not one, nor of one mind, nor
should we be, but we will be made to be alike.

It's not the silence of the masses that frightens me. What does
frighten me is the moment of their awakening to the realization that
they have been lied to, manipulated, and extorted. No, right now, what
makes me so uneasy is the silence of those who should know better.
Perhaps they have been bought; perhaps they have been intimidated;
perhaps they have simply lost hope. It doesn't really matter when the
results are the same.

The paternalization of society, not just here in the West, and
misguided feminism (only in the West) have made everyone just a bit more
manly: we're so easily distracted by shiny, glittering, but ultimately
worthless little things. We can argue for days about meaningless,
trivial, irrelevant details, yet we won't admit, neither to ourselves
nor to others, that there's a real problem that needs to be solved.
We're in crisis mode all the time. Men are, as you know, always in
crisis mode.

Dark days are upon us. And, they will not find the light as long as
we can be distracted, frightened, threatened, intimidated and bullied
into thinking that different is dangerous, that otherness is
ostracizing, and that only each of us can save him- or herself.

Almost the same sh1t, different day

It is probably clear to most readers that my American friends get tired of me picking on the USA. Oh sure, they provide ample material, there's no doubt about that, and in reality, the only real complaint that I have is the hypocrisy of it all: claiming one thing and doing another. In this regard, I can assure you, the USA are not alone. The most recent developments here in Europe have shown that we have learned well from our mentor and we can be every bit as hypocritical as our big brothers across the pond can be. So, today, as a change of pace, I thought I'd let off a bit of steam for many of the same reasons, but with a different focus.

On more than one occasion, quite recently in fact, I have taken a very critical look at what the EU has done and is doing to Greece. (If you missed that or forgot, look here, here, and here.) What I did not do in those posts, and what has been bothering as long as it has been going on, is the role that Germany has played in all of this. Yes, the dismantling of representative democracy in Europe, the quasi-colonization of a (once) sovereign state, and the oppression of a whole people has taken place under the guise of a pan-European project, but, the truth of the matter is, it was a German-led action. And that bothers me to no end.

To be honest, I don't care what the motives are, nor am I all that concerned with the "reasons" or alleged "justifications". I don't care about the political rationalizations. What I have long maintained and what I never tire of saying: I don't care in the least what you say, I'm only concerned with what you do. Actions always speak louder than words, and that is the purest case for my problems with the USA these days, and it is the same reason that I've been ruminating over Germany for a while.

Most of you are not aware that everything that any of hears about the situation in Greece is propaganda. Over the past few days, as the Greek government "debated" the latest "emergency financial package" and "more quickly than expected" managed to "pass the appropriate legislation" to allow themselves to be "helped", I had to fight back the desire to "projectile regurgitate" on whatever media I was engaging at the moment. Seldom in my time on this planet have I been exposed to so much BS in such a short period of time.

It could very well be that the Germans were forced into the euro. It could very well be that so many mistakes were made in introducing the currency that there's no turning back now. It could very well be that political solutions to problems are always messy and always miss the point. It could also very well be that I'm seeing motives where there are only reactions. But, the fact of the matter remains that the Germans (Merkle in the background, coward that she is, and Schäuble in the foreground, power-addicted know-it-all that he is) believed it was their right to do what they did. But it wasn't. It never was, it never is, and it never will be.

The crisis is far from over, regardless of how the media try to spin it. The damage to be wrought will become more than obvious. The suffering of the people will become more than apparent. But the propaganda machine is running at full power here, just like it runs in America 24/7.

And, all of this is avoidable, if we would only stop talking and start listening, if we would only stop griping and start engaging, if we would only stop fighting amongst ourselves and realize that everyone who believes that they have even the least bit to say, is doing their best to ensure that we little folk don't ever, ever realize how much we're being manipulated. And that's all I have to say about that.

It's not all Greek to me

Most folks have not taken the time to read the tons of documentation that has been produced in regard to the Greek crisis. Tsipras is trying to buy some time to get through the next phase of the storm, but has anyone seriously asked themselves what he's doing and why? I don't know. I really don't know, but what I do know is that we're being fed an official line of distraction and confusion, and they're using every trick in the book to see that it stays that way.

The Greeks have been forced to put up all their public assets for sale. Just over a week ago, Warren Buffet took advantage of the sale and bought himself an island for a mere €15m. Not unsurprisingly, just this past week, it was -- quietly, subtly, almost unreportedly -- that the Americans are going to be given access to Greece's (not insubstantial) gas and oil reserves (just like they silently and forcibly moved in and took over the Ukraine's). In the meantime, just like in the USA where Social Security and Medicare are on the block for the upcoming elections, top priority was given to privatizing and gutting the pension system and the Value-Added-Tax, the most regressive of all taxes, was almost doubled.

The official line is that these "reforms" are necessary to get Greece back on its feet. When you call a program whose sole results is the destruction of what was there before a "reform", you have to be pretty damn cynical at heart. In the five years of the crisis, and here, in the last round, where it was do-or-die, the creditors (as if they should be given credit for something) demanded these changes, but not once in all that time have they demanded that a tax on the rich or super-rich be instituted, not once have they demanded that the government immediately clamp down on tax-evasion. Instead, the Greeks have been encouraged to "modernize" their administration (for example, by issuing very limited, but very lucrative IT-infrastructure tenders to be implemented whenever) and over all this time, the Greeks had submitted to continuous reviews, all of which were approved by those very parties who decided it was time for the Greeks to turn over their democratic sovereignty to extra-democratic institutions.

In light of the documentation, and in light of the actions of the Greek government in the last couple of weeks, I'd say they know what's what. At the very slightest indication of non-cooperation, I would be willing to bet that what has so-far been accomplished below the radar will simply burst to the surface. There will be a radical, perhaps even violent, change of government right here on the edge of Europe. Greece is being made an example of, but there is growing distrust of the current powers-that-be, not only in Greece, but elsewhere, and it is very likely that Greece will begin living its myths and become Pandora's Box.

Just how insane does it have to get?

The past couple of weeks have been trying, at least for me that have been. I'm not talking about my personal life. It's as "normal" as it's going to get, but what I see going on all around me is taking its toll.

It's not just the colonization of a nation within the European Union; it's not just the war-mongering and sabre-rattling towards Russia including supporting fascists in the Ukraine; it's not just the Turkish flip-flop on not knowing whether the Kurds or ISIS is the biggest perceived threat to them. No, it's the insanity that accompanies even the smaller issues.

It's the sheer ignorance that comes with ignoring anything that looks like a fact and stating one's opinion as if it was worth listening to. It's the hypocrisy of claiming to help when all you are really doing is harm. It's the perverse way that history gets twisted to make us think that Iran, for example, was responsible for 9/11, or that we can't identify terrorism when it's homegrown, or we rush to suspect terrorism where there is none but it suits our purposes, or how it is possible to believe the answer to gun violence is more guns, or how it is possible, in the allegedly freest country in the world that a former general can float the idea of internment camps for those not loyal enough to America. And this, in the 21st century.

There can be no violence great enough that will make us believe that violence is not the answer. There is no belief so distorted that it can't hide reality from us. There is no self-righteousness so great that it can't allow us to believe that we're the good guys and everybody else is bad.

That's our world today ... day in and day out. It's not just that the inmates are running the asylum, they've got most of us cheering them on.

Was what just happened in Europe a coup?

The recent Greek situation was as close to a coup as you can get without involving the military. Let us recall, that a coup d'etat is, most often, when a democratically elected government is ousted by the military (our most common 20th century experience) which then sets itself up as a junta. No, it doesn't have to be the military, which is why Greece is so interesting: for the first time in a long time, the coup came about not from within and not by the military, but from without, by civilians, namely technocrats and bankers.

As part of the "deal", the Greeks must ask permission of the Troika (the current powers-that-be) even to discuss certain topics. If they want to pass a law, they must present it to the powers-that-be for their approval before it is debated. Think about it. The Greeks, for all intents and purposes, are no longer a sovereign nation. They cannot alone decide what is good for them, in their own interests, and they may not decide how they want to solve their problems. Others will now tell them what, how and why ... well, not why, for that would unmask the whole charade.

My American friends, no doubt, have trouble understanding the problem, I am sure. Oh, it's not as many of you think that they are somewhat ignorant and ill-informed. No, that's not it at all. They can't understand it because they've been living in Greece all along but never knew it. They have no national healthcare to speak of, they have private insurance that will soon take its revenge for the sins of Obamacare. They have no real unemployment or welfare benefits because they all know that whoever is out of work, for whatever reason, is solely responsible for his or her plight. If you had done better, you wouldn't be in that predicament. Americans have a rapacious tax agency, and point-of-purchase tax-collection agents (it's called sales tax for those not following). Americans are personally swamped by debt, lose their homes daily, "enjoy" (in the meantime) somewhat lenient bankruptcy laws (which are necessary when so many "citizens" have to take advantage of them), and Americans, even the Creationists among them, that social Darwinism is a mere fact of life.

That my American friends have been deceived, manipulated, cajoled, coerced, even brainwashed into believing that their oppressors are benevolent is clear to me and most people in Europe. You can't ever miss what you never had, whether it was a good idea or not. It turns out that social cohesion is a defining characteristic of humanity. Destroy that and you destroy humanity itself. And there we are at modern-day capitalism.

The "money" that Greece owes is a paper -- no, digital -- fiction. Every rule of economics as we were taught them in school has been violated to create the situation in Greece (and elsewhere, including simple American households). All the so-called "laws" have been twisted, contorted, bent and broken in order that a fortunate few can live in excess at the expense of the unfortunate many. And there is no dearth of die-hard cheerleaders, from all walks of life and from every social stratum, who are willing to praise these thieves, these merchants of death, these heartless, mindless, and senseless parasites as idols, heroes, demi-gods. If they could only get just a little slice of the pie.

At the moment, it doesn't matter. We need to pay attention. We need take heed of what is really happening. A modern, sovereign nation has been declared mentally incapacitated, but as Ken Kesey exposed over a half-a-century ago: it's the inmates who are running the asylum.

What just happened in Europe?

There has been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth going on around Europe the past couple of days, as well there should be. What is playing out is something for the history books, to be sure, but I suspect it will be reported very differently than it actually went down.

We've known since 2008 and since the leaks around the TPP, TIPP, and TISA that the banks and big business has taken over. This is not a conspiracy theory, it is pure and simple fact. There's not a government in the western, industrialized world that has 10 cents to spare for a single humanitarian program, not even for its own citizens, but there are tons of cash, in the form of bailouts, tax breaks, and subsidies for the most wasteful of things. What is different about the past few days here in Europe, however, is the fact that we have now seen (a) just how much power they possess and (b) to what lengths they are willing to go to deal with opposition of any kind.

I would be the last to maintain that the Greeks need to reform their governmental apparatus, start collecting taxes, and try to reduce unnecessary expenditures. However, in contrast to the EC, the IMF, the ECB, and the Eurogroup, I'm not willing to maintain that these reforms should be obtained at any price. For those of you both inside and outside Europe: this is not about the EU; this is not about the euro, as currency, per se; this is about power and what it means for us everyday little people.

The person in the street will tell you right out that without a land registry office, without a functioning tax system and tax authority, you cannot expect to get a grasp on your national income. Since 2010, the Troika -- the big players in the field -- have been placing one requirement after the other on the Greeks. If you take the time to look at the Memoranda of Understanding that direct this process, one significant feature become conspicuous by its absence: the demand, specifically, to set up a necessary tax infrastructure. There is a whole list of things To-Do, no question about it, but if placed in order of priority, it almost seems as if it has been inverted. Not the most necessary things to do were placed at the top, but the easiest to do. All the necessary reforms, the ones that may, perhaps, if everything went perfectly well, were placed at the bottom of the list. They are still to come, but there is other business to be attended to in the meantime, like bludgeoning the defenseless, cutting pensions by 30%, eliminating healthcare for a third of the population, driving the poverty rate from 26% to almost 35%, increasing unemployment to 25% overall and over 50% among the youth of the country, shrinking the economy by 25% and increasing the debt by over 25% as well.

In contrast to what is floated as common wisdom, neither Ireland nor the Baltic states were in a comparable situation to Greece, so they are not the success stories that everyone would like to maintain. Estonia, for example, had as good as no debt when their crisis hit; Ireland had a functioning governmental infrastructure. When the smoke clears, it's obvious that, well, a lot of folks are simply blowing smoke.

No, Greece had the audacity to elect a leftist government. That will not be tolerated. They had the courage to throw out the Troika. That cannot be tolerated either. They demanded reforms that work. And that cannot be tolerated in a world in which you are to do as you are told or you'll be squashed like a bug. In the end, the entire population said "no", and, strangely enough, when asked to present a list of reforms, the Greek government laid on the table, more or less, the take-it-or-leave-it agreement that the EC had dictated. The result: go back and do your homework, such a list is simply unacceptable.

So now, the Greek parliament has approved the plan they've been given. They had three days to do so. Private institutions and non-elected technocrats have desovereigntized a country in the 21st century, right before our very eyes. And that, my friends, is the Europe of today. It is not the Europe I migrated to (yes, I am a mere immigrant here), and it's not the Europe that encouraged me to say.

The message is clear: hold all the referendums you want, cry democracy and the will of the people all you want. In the end, it's the money people who have all the say. It's the simple Golden Rule: he who has the gold, rules.

The myth of freedom

As promised last time, I'm going to turn to the other half of Ben Franklin's equation: liberty, or freedom, as we most commonly call it. No, I'm not going to go into a discussion of the details of differentiation between the two. We all have a general understanding of the word, and we all profess with certainty that we are, in fact, free, but just short of an outright, apparent dictatorship, we couldn't be more wrong.

Another wise man, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, once remarked that "None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free." I would maintain that this statement applies to some degree to just about all of us, but it hits the proverbial nail on the head as far as Americans are concerned. Going back even further, no one less than Aristotle noted, that whoever prefers security to freedom is rightfully a slave. That pretty much describe post-9/11 America.

You can't voluntarily gut your own Bill of Rights, limiting or suspending your rights to freedom of expression, speech, and assembly, eliminating of the right of habeus corpus, allowing yourself to be arrested on mere suspicion of terrorism only to be potentially turned over to the military and suspension of all legal rights, gutting the 4th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, allowing your elected representatives to gerrymander you out of the value of your vote, standing by while certain segments of the population are denied even their right to vote, and introducing so much money into politics that only those who have have a say and think you are living in a free country. You can't see one video (since you don't often see it on the news) of the dispersal of an Occupy demonstration or almost any demonstration for that matter and think that you live in a free country. And, especially if you are a person of color, you cannot begin to imagine how tenuous your own existence is should the State decide to clamp down on you, as was the case in the wake of the Ferguson demonstrations, for example.

None of that, my dear friends and readers, speaks of freedom. None of it. Each and every one of these is evidence of how severely your rights, and hence your freedoms, have been restricted. The worst of it all, of course, is that Americans, at any rate, demanded that it be done to them. They voluntarily gave these rights and freedoms up, in the name of -- quite ironically -- national security. Mr. Franklin was right all the way around.

One important point to keep in mind, however, is that none of these rights is ever coming back. Oh, we were all told that these were temporary steps necessary to get the situation under control, but I'm going to let you in on a little secret: power never relents; once you give up anything, especially your rights and your freedom, you never, ever get it back. Mr. Franklin said you don't deserve them anyway, and I happen to think he is right.

Enter Mr. Goethe. Yes, those who took all that away from you have not tired since telling you, impressing upon you, suggesting to you, convincing you that nothing has really changed. But it has. Those who took all that away from you lied to get it, just like they lied to start the wars that would increase your fear which would demand more action and more restriction and more control. Enter good old Aristotle: keep me safe and I'll do your bidding.

Americans, for the most part, have never really been all that free, but they are less free now than they have ever been. Depending on where you live, you know which sports teams to root for, which church to attend (and you'd better attend one of them), which religion to believe in, which party to vote for, and whom to associate with. Peer pressure has never been writ larger than in America, and, I have to admit, America is really good at it. But whether you're pressured by your peers or by the police or by the legal system, it doesn't really matter. In the end, you adjust, adapt, and submit. You like to think you're free. You love to tell yourself you are, but in reality, you're just grist for the mill.

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.

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.

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.

Lack of responsibility?

While I'm on the subject of freedom and just how free any of us really are, I can't help but mention, at least in passing, the notion of "responsibility". I'm literally sick and tired of hearing about how people in need are responsible for their own plight. I'm outraged that the culture in which I was raised now considers it "common wisdom" to blame the victims for their tragedies.

Recently I read a Facebook post by a former high-school classmate which was obviously aimed at "proving" (or at least demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that the US was in a "death spiral" because of all the people on welfare. Nowhere was the term defined, and included were also the working poor (for example, those poor Walmartians who get paid so little that they need government assistance to survive) and with a broad statistical brush it was presented that folks on welfare "earn more" than the average working American. Who comes up with this crap?

If welfare is so lucrative, why aren't people deserting the middle class in droves to take advantage of it ... Oh, yes, I forgot, they are being forced to, but that's all their fault. I have a childhood friend who went to college, got a decent job, worked hard, did all the right things, till the company he was CFO of went belly-up. He couldn't get a job to save his soul: he was too old (not even 60 at the time, and obviously (as he was told in more than one interview) too expensive. He became a Walmartian. According to my classmate, it was all his fault.

It's your own damn fault if you're at the wrong place at the wrong time, if your company went under and you were thrown out of work. It's your fault if you are too old (a rather subjective criterion), improperly trained, have skills or experience that make you expensive ... yes, and it's your fault if you are sick, your spouse dies, or you've just been offered the option of taking a 25% cut in pay or not working at all. It is obvious as well that it was these individuals' fault that they bought a home in a particular neighborhood so they could send their kids to better schools. It was all their fault that they developed a circle of friends, as did their kids, because when all the jobs in the area went away, housing prices fell and they were left sitting on pile of debt. Anybody can see that these folks are just lazy, no-account screw-ups who are living the life of Riley at the rest of our expense.

OK, OK ... I know I'm getting a bit edgy again. I'm not apologizing though. This attitude that it's-all-your-own-damn-fault speaks louder than I can ever complain. It is an attitude that is rooted in pure and simple inhumanity. It is an attitude that knows nothing of compassion, understanding, care, concern, justice, hope or charity. It is simply ignorant and selfish. And that's who so many I have grown up with have become. That's what bothers me most, I suppose: I know these people when.

Lack of freedom?

Now that we've seen that maybe we're not as educated as we believe ourselves to be, the question raises itself whether we're as free as we believe ourselves to be. It's not a silly question, it is a dead serious one, for as Goethe once noted, "None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free." That was a bright guy; Goethe was truly, and in every sense of the word, a highly educated man. No, there certainly aren't many like him anymore. We could use a few of them though. Just a few would be a really good start.

How free are you when your government knows your every move (potentially), knows what you are thinking, knows on a daily basis what your opinions are? How free are you when private companies collect so much information about you that they can present you with custom-tailored advertisements, individually tailored products, and offers you simply "can't refuse", but in a truly non-Godfatherish way? How free are you when you owe so many people so much money that you can't afford -- literally -- to lose your job (or even for your significant other to lose theirs), take a cut in pay, or even take the day off because of other pressing needs? These are all legitimate questions whether you like them or not.

I know plenty of Americans who define freedom in terms of how many and what types of weapons they can own, or where they can build their houses, or where they throw their garbage, or what they do with their property. As I mentioned two posts ago: freedom is one of those words that is simply defined different ways by different people. Still, it is legitimate to ask whether any of these people, in any of the just-mentioned situations or holding the just-mentioned beliefs are really "free".

If anyone, be they public or private, is gathering information on you personally so that they may at some point in the future use that information to ensure that you act in a certain way, you are not free. If anyone has more right to your assets (e.g., your house) than you do, then you are not free. If you are so obligated to others that you cannot simply act and decide according to your own desires and wishes, you are not free. If you are a citizen of an allegedly democratic society but you are not allowed to vote because of some ridiculously restrictive rule, you are not free. If you speak your mind, express your doubts, or raise critical questions without being pressured from without, you cannot be free.

And all those things are simply a part of our everyday, mundane reality. They are things we are confronted with and are exposed to and with which we have to deal each and every day. Oh yes, we believe we are free ...

Lack of education?

Just because the Egyptians might have a long (democratic) row to hoe does not mean that we should advise them against it. Remember, Jefferson said that education was essential to the proper functioning of a democracy, but he did not say that it was a guarantee.

We only have to look at ourselves, or at the United Kingdom, or Germany to know that having a well-educated populace does not guarantee effective democracy. This is particularly questionable in light of the degree of surveillance that the Anglo-axis in the West has been pursuing. So many people acted so surprised when they found out because they didn't "know" how bad it was.

Does this make them uneducated or simply uninformed? Obviously they were uninformed, but does that excuse them for (a) being so surprised and (b) not being willing to do anything substantial about it. Anyone who has a critical slant of mind has suspected for quite sometime that there's more going on behind the scenes than "they" (in this case, the "powers that be", or PTB) are telling us. After all, there are a lot of facts and tons of information available to all of us in the newly declared Information Age, so apparently access to information isn't all that helpful in certain critical areas, such as our rights to privacy and freedom from intrusion, or even oppression.

What my little digression into literacy rates last time tells us is that in the West, at least, we're sending everybody to school, and just about everybody can read and write, but not everybody can think. When I say "think", I mean "think critically". Thinking critically is not complaining about anything and everything, it is not whining about others doing things I don't agree with, it isn't viewing everyone with a different opinion as mentally deficient. No, in fact, critical thinking is precisely the opposite of all that: it's raising questions, especially uncomfortable ones; it is trying to understand why others act as they do and why it is different from how we ourselves might act; it is engaging other opinions and testing them for their accuracy and validity. And that, my dear friends, is what I hardly see at all anymore, especially in all those allegedly highly educated societies (whereby I am including the US here, for simplicity's sake: we know they don't have nor want a society anymore, they are apparently more than satisfied just with their economy).

Yes, the reactions of those around me to what has happened in Egypt said much more about us than it will ever say about them. We are in the process of equating information with knowledge, of assuming that being informed is being educated, of believing that everybody else is all screwed up but we've got our ducks in line. What's becoming ever clearer to me, though, is that we really don't know if they're ducks, and we've got even less idea what order they are in.

Lack of education

The recent events in Egypt tell us a lot, not necessarily about the Egyptian people, but about ourselves. The first step in self-recognition is your own "opinion" about what's happening there. For the moment, I don't care whether you're for or against, think it's a good idea or bad. What I would be more interested in, though, is how you would use the words "freedom" and "education" in your arguments. An unlikely pair in this context, I know, but they belong together nevertheless.

The first thing that the two words have in common is that they have no universally accepted definitions, and I'm not talking about their other-language equivalents, though that too shows an endless variety. No, I'm simply talking about all of us who speak the same language ... allegedly. I've kick around the "freedom" concept on more than one occasion, so I'm not going to go over all that again here. Instead, I want to look at the role education plays in all this, for, after all, I have been going on a bit about education lately.

Ever since Jefferson, the accepted wisdom has been that a well-educated populace is essential to the proper functioning of a democracy. When we look at literacy rates, for example, that is, the proportion of the people who can read and write, we find that it still varies considerably, even 500+ years after Gutenberg (all values rounded to whole percentages):

Country	Overall	Males	Females
United States	99%	99%	99%
Germany	99%	99%	99%
Egypt	72%	80%	63%
Saudi Arabia	87%	90%	81%
Syria	80%	86%	74%
West Bank	96%	98%	93%

Now before anyone gets the idea that I'm picking on the Middle East, I would like to point out that Saudi has a relatively high literacy rate, but is not a democracy, nor is Syria, but there is something of an intuitive correlation between literacy rate and stability on the one hand. Egypt is striving -- uneasily, I'll admit -- toward self-determination, but if there is anything to Jefferson's notion of what's required, they certainly have a long way to go.

Granted, literacy rates are one, rather limited, way of approaching the issue, so next time, we'll dig a bit deeper.

The Guy II

So, why do I think I understand that guy, and what difference does it make?

Most of us like to think we're that guy, but we're not. Most people aren't even close. I'm not accusing anyone of anything. That's just the way it is. We'd like to stand out, but we don't want to feel the heat. We'd like to oppose, but we don't want the pain. We'd like to be the one who's different, but we don't want the rejection. Most people I know would be cheering and saluting. Why? Because they are merely everyday people like everyone else, like most of the people in that picture. We think it's the Germans, but it could be anybody. It could just as easily be Americans.

No? Think about this:

The leaders of America (for the past decade at least) are guilty of war crimes, just like the German leaders back then. America engages in unjustified and unjust military actions to further its own interests (e.g. Iraq), and it will exert great pressure on countries which dare to resist falling into line (e.g. Iran). The government has passed a number of laws that suppress, if not oppress, its weakest and most vulnerable citizens (or why is Social Security on the budget-bargaining table?). The State is anything but adverse to using excessive violence against anyone who takes it upon themselves to call them on their misdeeds (e.g. Occupy and Bradley Manning). It has instituted and enforces draconian laws that target certain ethnic minorities (e.g. highest incarceration rate in the world and a disproportionate number of these are Blacks and Hispanics). It is also willing to manipulate its own legislative and judicial processes to benefit certain, selected, special interests at the expense of the greater population (e.g. the 0.1%). It indoctrinates its young with revisionist history (e.g. was the US' treatment of the Native Americans genocidal or not?), and it declares unabashedly that its own patriotism is of far greater value and of a higher moral quality than anyone else's in the whole world (e.g. the Global War on Terror) ...

Oh, I could go on, but being able to come up with so many parallels so quickly, so easily, truly unsettles me. Americans today are really not all that different from Germans then. The motivations, the causes may be different, but the effects are too disturbingly similar to ignore.

It's hard for me to believe that Germans now are all that different from Germans then. I find it difficult to believe that Americans then are so different from Americans now. But, appearances can be deceiving – both then and now. I can't help but wonder what someone like me sixty years hence is going to be thinking when he looks at a picture of Americans now?

The guy in the picture stands out in his crowd. Are you standing out in yours? It would seem to me that if you're not condemning what is wrong, your condoning it. Now, more than ever, we need to be that guy.

The Guy I

A picture someone posted on Facebook is haunting me. It showed a circle highlighting an unsmiling man standing in the middle of a crowd, his arms folded demonstrably across his chest. He appeared annoyed. Everyone else was standing with their right arms extended, palms down, giving the now notoriously infamous Nazi salute. Many were cheering.

The picture's caption was simple. It said: Be this guy.

I can't get that picture out of my head. I'm assuming the people in the picture were Germans. They don't have to be, but it really doesn't matter. Just about everyone who sees that picture is going to think they are Germans anyway. That's just the association most of us will make. We like to think Germans – Nazis – nasty – cruel, mean, violent, vicious.

It's not a good thought. It's not accurate. It's stereotypical.

Not everyone in that picture was a Nazi. Not everybody who was saluting was a Nazi. Not everyone in that crowd was a bad person either. But, that also doesn't matter. Most of us think: you're saluting, you're cheering, you're a Nazi, you're guilty.

That's not a good thought either. Be the guy. That's a good thought.

We cannot know whether any of those saluting and cheering was doing so out of conviction or only because they didn't want to draw attention to themselves. We know where one guy stands. The rest? It's all speculation. But, even that doesn't really matter.

We think we know, even if we're not sure. We act according to what we think we know. That's what we believe.

For a long time, most people simply thought the Germans were not very nice people. There are a lot of Germans today who still think they not very nice. These folks feel like they, as a people, should have tried harder, and because they didn't, they let a lot of bad things happen. I can tell you that it's going to take a long time for all of them to come to terms with that past – whether deserved or not. Some of them will never get over it completely.

The Germans are, though, at heart, good people, as people go. They are warm, hospitable, friendly, open, curious, interested, and socially minded. Their basic life philosophy these days is "if my neighbor's doing well, then chances are that I'm doing pretty well too". Sure, they can be direct to a fault and they may not laugh at every joke (or even know a joke's been told), but they mean well and they try.

So, what's haunting me?

I identify with the guy. I've been told often enough in my life to get with the program, to get back in line, to get in step, to stop being the oddball, to, well, conform. I don't particularly mind people (parents, pastors, teachers, coaches, commanding officers, bosses, to name a few) telling me that. It doesn't bother me all that much. As far as I'm concerned, if they're telling me that, well, then I must be doing something right. No, I may not be the guy, but I understand him.

Why? I'll tell you next time.

What does it mean?

Over the past few posts I really haven't said anything that most of us don't know or suspect to be true. And a lot of you are simply asking yourselves why there is such a discrepancy between what we know and suspect and what we experience. Let's face it: it really doesn't look like things are getting any better "out there". I'm not saying the answer to the dilemma is simple. It isn't. What I am saying is, the approach to a "solution" is. Please note: I didn't say it was easy, I said it was simple. Nothing worth having comes simply.

No, the reason why things aren't getting any better, even though we know deep down what is wrong, is because at heart, we're probably just frightened, little cowards. Oh I know that sounds harsh, but how do you say that gently? I don't know either, that's why I said it that way.

Let's face it: Americans know they live in a violent society, yet they still scream for more violence (harsher prison sentences, more guns, more suspicion of others). We all know that the banking industry literally got away with murder, not just theft, and we let them get away with it. We know that capitalism as currently practiced benefits the smallest minority, but we shout down, insult, and condemn anyone who dares question its validity. We in the Western democratic societies all know that we're being systematically stripped of our rights and our freedoms, and most of us just sit by and think that it's not up to them to change the system.

And that's why all of us share in the guilt for the crimes and the blame for the situation. It's not somebody else's fault, it's ours. And as long as we don't own up to it, we're being irresponsible on top of everything else.

Why don't we act? Why don't we speak up? Every time we think, "well, I got mine, everybody else has to see how they get theirs" we retreat into our cowardice. Every time we complain about the government intruding into our lives, we are showing our fear. Every time we argue that you can't fight city hall, we are declaring our impotence. Every time we simply say nothing at all and only think our part, we betray our integrity. And every time we say, "it's not my problem", we betray our humanity as well.

You have to be able to say "no". You have to want good things for others as well as yourself. You have to stand up and speak. You have to stand up and be counted. Wake up. Get involved. Do your part. It's that simple. It's not easy. It's simple.