Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade or you’ve intentionally buried your head in the sand, you’ve probably noticed the avalanche of dissent and disdain dripping one sound bite at a time from the likes of network television, the global media, world leaders ( including psychopaths outfitted in 1970’s Members Only jackets ), Hollywood actors, internet sites and some of our own elected officials in Washington depicting the United States as the mother of all that is wrong with the planet.
Is there a significant problem anywhere in the world with a global scope that America is not implied as a “country of interest”? Should we just stand up now in the universal court of law and announce ourselves guilty of everything that we have ever been accused of, forget about the sentencing phase and insist on an immediate lethal injection! The quicker we collectively breathe our last breath as a nation the sooner the world can move on toward the utopia we have so deprived it of.
As with any perceived evil, the embodiment of the movement is typically defined by the leader. Enter George W. Bush. Like him or hate him, Republican or Democrat, born in Texas or got here as soon as you could…in my lifetime I have never seen a president incite such hateful and toxic emotion as those who oppose him. The Dixie Chicks expressing their embarrassment that the President was from the Lone Star state surely signaled a low point. Well, maybe for the Chicks.
He has become the poster boy for the evil empire wearing a cape of red, white and blue (or blood if you’re Sean Penn or Code Pink). The catalyst of the Zionist regime known as the United States, Bush is defined as a bumbling bully with a thirst for oil, an appetite for conquest and a quick trigger finger. I for one will be relieved when the new President is elected in 2008, whoever it might be. If nothing else it will alleviate temporarily the constant bombardment of blame Bush receives, that is until the newly elected Oval office occupant realizes the shortcomings of their own administration can be grandfathered under the residual incompetence of the former President.
This reckless quest for domination that America is accused of having is apparently executed by mindless military minions acting on faulty intelligence, misinformation and blatant lies. Some of our elected representatives would suggest it to be nearly impossible to find a single American soldier in Iraq or anywhere else in the world for that matter who isn’t killing innocent civilians, torturing innocent insurgents, frightening innocent children or raping innocent women. With a broad stroke of the brush, these arm chair quarterbacks in Washington paint a picture of our military as widely undereducated, cruelly motivated and naively loyal.
Perpetuating the undercurrent of disdain within the hallowed halls of Washington by some towards Bush was the suggestion that he finds a morbid amusement in young soldiers getting their heads blown off. With this kind of graphic verbiage emoting from the Capitol of our country and from the lips of an elected official, is it any wonder the rest of the world finds it quite easy to jump on the proverbial bandwagon of adding to the list of reasons to hate the United States?
We have yet to mention the freedoms we are envied for and the abundance of wealth we are hated for. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…you know those selfish proclamations etched in our history that give us an innate sense from birth that freedom creates opportunity and opportunity mixed with a little desire and hard work might create what we so arrogantly call “the American Dream”. In the minds of those who despise us, this cancer of consumerism is simply one more reason for us to be ashamed of ourselves and our lifestyles.
Lost in the vitriol of the accusations of our bloated indulgences is the rather important reality that we are the most generous nation on the planet, both in time and money. In 2005, Americans contributed more than $122 billion dollars in foreign aide. Over $95 billion came from private foundations, universities, individuals, corporations and religious organizations with the balance coming from the U.S. government.
Facts such as these are conveniently ignored or dismissed when you are predisposed to cling to a belief in order to sustain a hatred for a person, a group or a country.
The collateral impact of our collective greed is of course the greenhouse gas effect and the gigantic carbon footprint we are leaving on the planet. If you follow the global footprints ( including the rather sizable one Al Gore is leaving in the wake of his private jet circling the world talking about carbon footprints…huh?), you would conclude once again that the primary suspect in global warming is a repeat offender. Again, that would be us.
One of our high profile Senators recently suggested that the horrific fires blowing through southern California stoked by the Santa Anna winds were possibly a result in some way of global warming. I’m surprised the Senator stopped short of suggesting President Bush somehow had a hand in it as well, perhaps ordering giant turbine fans into Wyoming to jump-start the disaster!
I am not overtly political although as I get older I find myself being more passionate about what is going on in my country and the world, nor am I a simpleminded loyalist of any party or President. I try to stay informed enough to be aware of our shortcomings, missteps and problems as a country. History is a great teacher and facts are indisputable as we attempt to learn from our past mistakes and move ahead to a more enlightened future.
America has her problems. We know this and are reminded of it in graphic and sometimes unbalanced detail every single day. The laundry list of our flaws from corporate greed to overreaching foreign policy and everything in between is verbalized and debated in such detail and with such frequency that we would have to be asleep at the wheel not to get it. We do.
However enough is enough. As I watched a Code Pink member with fake blood on her hands practically assault Condoleeza Rice recently in a Senate hearing room, as I watched Ahmadinejahd speaking on our soil at the United Nations inciting holy hatred in the hearts of those who long for the day that America will cease to exist and finally one of our current presidential hopefuls suggesting that putting his hand over his heart during the national anthem did not reflect true patriotism, I had reached my limit.
I am an American and proud of it. For the life of me I am trying to understand why I should be made to feel uneasy with my national pride or ashamed of my country of birth. I sometimes feel like America is the proverbial school kid presumptuously singled out in the classroom for some rule violation, publicly humiliated and told to stand in the corner for the rest of the day. With all due respect to those who have an axe to grind against the United States, may we request permission to get out of the corner?
Count me as one of those patriotic types that believe the world in general is a much better place because of American values, sacrifice and good will. For those who suggest we have lost respect and appeal on the global stage, I would recommend you take a random poll of any immigrant attempting to get into the United States right now.
You might find them swimming across a river, walking miles of desolate acreage, clinging to a makeshift floating device or huddled in the back of a tractor trailer truck in 100 degree weather. Stop them long enough to tell them in great detail all that is wrong with our country. Pull no punches in your description of the United States as a greedy, narcissistic, and arrogant population of self indulged and heartless people led by a renegade cowboy with a gun slinger mentality.
Allow a minute or so for the impact of your words to really sink in. Then MOVE THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY before you get crushed by the rush of people that have enough common sense to figure out what we enjoy in this wonderful country is worth risking life or limb to have one shot at!
Dennis McCaslin is a freelance writer from Texas offer random observations from politics to psychology and everything humorous in between.
