The Greatest Nation On Earth

[expatriate]

That's what I've heard all my life - and all the other stuff:

"America, Breadbasket of the World!"
"We can feed the world!"
"America, Number One"
"Liberty and justice for all"
"The Land Of Opportunity"
"The Only Country Where Any Boy Can Become President"
"Land Of Plenty"
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

And there are people starving and dying for want of water in New Orleans.

A nation full of motor vehicles. A nation rich with aircraft and boats. The nation with the largest amount of wealth on the planet. A nation with a huge military budget.

And an airplane or two can't be sent to Louis Armstrong Airport with food and water for people who have been without for five days. Starving people. Old women dying in their wheelchairs. Babies dehydrating and wailing in the heat. The disenfranchised, the sick, the helpless, the old - ignored, pushed to the side, triaged out.

Of course, I stopped believing all that stuff about America by the time I was about eleven, and I could see that it wasn't the case - but how anyone, after this disaster, after this criminal negligence and indifference, can still chirp that America is the greatest nation on earth, I don't know. I'm sure there will be those who will.

My voice will not be among them. I know, from long experience, the truth about America, and America's poor.

[Robert Oak]

1. yup

They constantly say "send support overseas" while Americans have been in dire straights for years.

For example, the "Christian Children's Fund". I mean I do not have a problem with wanting to help children world wide...
but the way the United States treats it's children, no health care,
single mothers, absolutely no support and on and on, it makes me sick.

This is finally bringing the attitude to light.

[sarcasmo]

2. The Greatest Nation on Earth is OVER as we know it.

Welcome to the new Amerika.

[Faygo Kid]

3. Great post. But, I am fed up with giving my country away.

This country does have a great, if deeply flawed, history. We have the worst administration in American history that is trying to destroy the good of this country. Actively. They will be held accountable on this, all the Rush Limbaughs and Fox News notwithstanding. Those slogans can ring true, and this time for the first time.

[expatriate]

4. What I want to know

is where is the outpouring of relief seen when disasters happen elsewhere. I'm sure there are donations going in, but I've seen American aid on the ground faster in foreign countries than in New Orleans - and with better coordinated efforts.

The poor are invisible - they tarnish the false notion of the American Dream. They are an embarrassment.

In all that big country with all its excesses, people are dying in a cesspool of toxic filth. Mothers are handing their babies over to strangers, hoping to save them. Amputees and people with cerebral palsy, old people with dementia, are being left out in the sun and humidity of a New Orleans summer to die.

The Secretary Of State is going to Spamalot, the President swooped over in his air conditioned jet, and the RW pundits are blaming sick, poor, old, helpless and crippled people for their fate.

I'm glad I live somewhere else now. I am sick, so sick. New Orleans is dying. Please, please tell me that the American people are waking up and getting angry.

[mtnester]

5. Where? n/t

[babylonsister]

6. People are starving and dying in Africa. We're just now

perhaps able to understand what that means.

"And there are people starving and dying for want of water in New Orleans."

I now know what I've been glossing over.

[expatriate]

7. So it doesn't matter then?

Since there is starvation and dehydration elsewhere?

America has sent aid to African countries for decades. I have always understood what starvation and want means. It hasn't suddenly come home to me in the last few days. I realize that many Americans probably have not comprehended what is going on, but believe me, in my career as a poor person who fell through the cracks in America, I know what desperation and want is, and I know the frustration of being ignored, shunned, ridiculed and blamed for my situation.

I will not diminish the plight of those starving in Africa, and I can only see the similarity in the situation between almost all African starvation and the present situation in New Orleans - in both cases, the starving and desperate people are being IGNORED by their own damn governments. Most African starvation is not necessary, but corrupt governments either engineer the famines, or do not release the aid given by other nations, including the USA.

Now in New Orleans, on the mainland of the USA, United States citizens are being ignored in a moment of crisis.

Glossing over? Hell, gloss this over - my kid is down there, somewhere, if he isn't floating in a pool of toxic filth or being eaten by RATS! In the fucking Greatest Nation On Earth.

PUt that in your pipe and smoke it. Shit.

[rosalux]

8. Wake up

There have been starving, suffering, homeless people by the 100s of 1000s here for a long time, and moreso in the last 5 years. NO has just added to the problem.

[expatriate]

9. Do you think I don't know that?

You wake up. I've been homeless. I've been desperate in America. My adult son is without the lifetime institutionalization he desperately needs because of the political policies of people who just consider people like him expendable. I've been through shit that would probably drive you fucking insane within a week.

I don't think it all just happened with Katrina. I was pointing out these absurd slogans that I'm afraid most Americans still swallow down like so many Flintstones vitamins.

Hell, what's the point - there's always someone who is going to try to play "top this" and point out at a time of crisis that there's worse going on "somewhere else" - while they do nothing to help those in desperate need right at home.

[halobeam]

10. I see what you are saying but it is targeted toward our govt.

...which I believe they bear the responsibility.

I define our nation by the people in it. It is the people and their spirit and their hope and vision for a better future.

Out of the population of this country, it is a handful.. ok maybe a bit more than that, that are going for the gold and stepping over and on top of innocent people to get it. It is the majority of people in our country who are bursting with spirit.

I am not naive and I am not in denial. I am simply living by following my heart and believe most people do as well. When I see injustice, I stand up and fight. That is the call of the spirit of the American people and it got us through everything before and it will again.

I loathe the control that was stolen from us, the people. I am still standing because I am still fighting. In the end, I may go down, but NEVER in spirit.

[expatriate]

11. I understand

but the American people are allowing this terrible government to stay in office. Only the will of the American people can change what is running the country now.

They've managed to remove a bad President in my lifetime, and this President and his administration and much, much worse.

I keep thinking "this is it, no-one can let him stay in office now" and another year goes by.

[SmokingJacket]

12. It simply isn't any more.

I just read an article about how Norway is the most livable country on earth. Canada made the list too... but the article didn't even mention good old USA. It's just taken for granted now that we are rapidly slipping toward third world status.

:cry:

I used to love it here....

[Rude Horner]

13. All those bullshit lines

have been drilled into us since we've been born. Propaganda is what it is. And what it's led to is a nation of people who think that somehow we are better than the rest of the world. That we are god's chosen nation.

Ya know what pisses me off a lot lately? The phrase "God Bless America". I get so irritated with that lately, because I realize that that seemingly harmless three words has led to a country of people believing that we are special. Like God GIVES A FUCK about our stupid boundaries between nations. Like God GIVES A FUCK about us more than anybody else.

[walldude]

14. "I used to think that only Americas way was right

but now the holy dollar runs everybody's lives, gotta make a million doesn't matter who dies! Revolution Calling, Revolution Calling, there's a Revolution calling you".

-Queensryche

[Canadian Socialist]

15. My bad. I thought this thread was about Canada. n/t