Why I Hate America (Mickey Z.)

[SeveneightyWhoa]

Why I Hate America

September 18 2006
Counterbias.com
by Mickey Z.


“Why do you hate America?” This is a remarkably easy question to provoke. One might, for instance, expose elements of this nation’s brutal foreign policy. Ask a single probing question about, say, U.S. complicity in the overthrow of governments in Guatemala, Iran, or Chile and thin-skinned patriots (sic) will come out of the woodwork to defend their country’s honor by accusing you of being “anti-American.” Of course, this allegation might lead me to ponder how totalitarian a culture this must be to even entertain such a concept, but I’d rather employ the vaunted Arundhati defense. The incomparable Ms. Roy says: "What does the term 'anti-American' mean? Does it mean you are anti-jazz or that you're opposed to freedom of speech? That you don't delight in Toni Morrison or John Updike? That you have a quarrel with giant sequoias?" (I’m a tree hugger remember? I don’t argue with sequoias.)
When pressed, I sometimes reply: “I don’t hate America. In fact, think it’s one of the best countries anyone ever stole.” But, after the laughter dies down, I have a confession to make: If by “America” they mean the elected/appointed officials and the corporations that own them, well, I guess I do hate that America—with justification.

More.. http://www.counterbias.com/752.html

[SeveneightyWhoa]

1. kick. n/t

[Wiley50]

2. At this point, I hate it too

Our two biggest problems are the corporate monopoly on media
and lack of publicly funded elections.
Our media blacks out almost all dissent and makes sure
that any dissenters shown are weak and easily overpowered ones
straw men that they then tear up.

The lack of publicly funded elections means, ultimately,
that all politicians are in corporate pockets
those pockets being the only ones deep enough
to buy the media exposure that it takes to get elected

We once had strong unions, but they have been busted
by state "right to work for peanuts" laws and well-publicized
strike breaking like Reagan did to the Air Controllers union.
People are scared to death of losing their jobs
because easy credit has put them in hock up to their ears.

We are, indeed, passengers on a high jacked plane.

We hold mass demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people
They are ignored on the news
They fill the newscasts with an endless stream of "fill" stories
from Martha Stewart to Michael Jackson to husbands who kill
their pregnant wives and ignore real news in the process

I'd like to think we could stage a revolution
but no one would know about it
so very few would come
only to be ignored

We, here on DU, are the very few who know the truth
everyone else is asleep
and we can never scream loud enough to wake them

I don't know what will change it
Some tines I hope that the Shanghai Cooperation Agreement
is strong enough that Russia and China will retaliate
if we attack Iran. Maybe that would shake things up enough
that a revolution would be possible here.