America is really a sick country

[blues90]

I am an american , I was born here in 1949 .

As I look back on all we have done then bring my thoughts to the present .

Here many of us are going on with our lives , sure many suffer from all sort of ills and poverty , worry about how we will cover our health care and keep our jobs . Some sit and watch the tv to entertain our minds or go shopping , bitch about the price of gas and traffic jambs , thing we brought on ourselves .

We sit de-sensitized by death on fake movies and mindless computer games .

However we know no war or bombings on our soil , we know no years of no power , food or a roof with heat or clean drinking water .

Yes we had a depression year ago but how many live today to tell the tales and who can realize the impact . Still we were not being bombed or be-headed , we were not shot in the streets or blown up while our intent was to just go to work for a few dollars a day .

We are spoiled and ignore our own who are in trouble .

I can't imagine what it must be like for the masses of people whom we bomb into nothingness , this haunts me to no end and not a day goes by when I don't think about this . Not a day .

Yes , I feel guilty to be an american . No longer the home of the brave or the land of the free can it ever be .

[Bronyraurus]

1. Here's a question

Would you give up the comfort and security of living in the US to alleviate the plight of the world's poor and molested?

[Dora]

2. Here's a question

Would you alleviate the plight of the world's poor and molested if it meant you had to give up the comfort and security of living in the U.S.?

[Bronyraurus]

3. Here's an answer

If giving up my own life of luxury ensured that the world's poor and molested would be no longer poor and molested, then the answer is yes. Who wouldn't?

[Dora]

5. If there was no guarantee, then you would not?

Too many people want a guarantee that personal deprivation (for lack of a better word) will benefit the communal good before they'll pony up and share. It used to be that giving for giving's sake was enough.

[Bronyraurus]

8. Of course not

And unless you're writing this from the Sudan, you wouldn't either.

[Dora]

11. You don't know that.

:eyes:

[Bronyraurus]

12. You're right.

I'm just guessing. Was it a good guess?

[Dora]

13. Guess again.

[blues90]

14. At this point in my life , yes I would

I would , and without any guarantee , it would be my own risk taken .

I realize I don;t need much , just to be able to find the place I could do the most good and actually pull it off would be more worth while than having all the products america has to offer .

I am not a mad consumer , the point of a job is just to maintain a sense of a false life-style . Certainly one needs a form of shelter and food to maintain one self but it does not have to be more than sufficient . It does not have to be grand , just the necessity basics .

I find no joy or reward in a job that renders only a paycheck fought for through a rat race each day . There is nothing to invent there is only how to find ways to simplify and continue on .

I find great sense of guilt using oil which is the basis of survival here , the price is to high to pay , not at the pump but for the daunting sacrifice it involves .

[Bronyraurus]

19. I sympathize more or less

I'm certainly not in any position to donate money to any causes, but I plan to when I'm able. Until then, I have to build a little net worth so that I can take care of a family when I get one. In fact, I'm shopping around for spouses as we speak!

[irislake]

20. FACE it!

Most other Western countries DO take better care of the poor than you do. And I feel guilty about what we still need to do in Canada to eliminate poverty and especially to improve the lot of First Nations people --- which Bishop TuTu said is a scandal. The gap between the rich and poor in the U.S. is HUGE.
There is absolutely no chance of socialism ever having any impact there. (Canada is not a socialist country but the NDP has influence on legislation.) I wonder if you will ever get Health Care for all. Every other Western Country guarantees it as a right. And yes -- we WILL pay higher taxes so we can sleep better at night knowing most citizens are cared for. And we have quite a high standard of living even so.

Seymour Martin Lipset (who recently died) has explored in a number of books why socialism never got anywhere in the U.S. He said the main difference between Canada and U.S. --- countries that went two different ways at the time of the Revolution was "religiosity". I wonder if he really meant "fanaticism" because the U.S. seems to spawn so many of them. Religious nuts, raving fanatics or zealots.

I always wonder why more Americans don't flee across the border. It's warmer now so why don't yu'all come on up?

[blues90]

25. would if I could

Got a road map ?

[tavalon]

37. Because you have tough immigration rules

I could come but the rest of my family couldn't. I do the next best thing. Live in Seattle which is almost Canada. If things get bad enough down here (and they aren't there yet) we can sneak over and live in a cabin. Goodness knows it's been done before.

[irislake]

40. I have a cabin you could use

but I am too far away. Southern Ontario.

[Bronyraurus]

39. Well

The gap between rich and poor isn't a problem as long as the poor are being taken care of. As long as no one is starving, it doesn't matter how rich other people are. I don't know all that much about Canada (except for the fact that my favorite director, David Cronenberg, is from Toronto), but there must be a reason why it's Canadians who want to come to the US and not the other way around.

[irislake]

41. No no no no no

that's propaganda. Canada exists BECAUSE from the Revolution on we prefered not to do it your way. We are not Americans because we chose not to be and still prefer our way of life -- Health Care and so on.
United Empire Loyalists flocked here, slaves escaped here, draft dodgers. I am not happy that we are turning away those who are fleeing the war in Iraq now. Very upsetting to me.

It's a myth that most people all over the world want to move to America. BBC did a poll last year. Only a tiny percentage of people anywhere would prefer to live there. (Mexico excepted.) Canadians going south must be highly successful professionals who want more money --- or actors who want more recognition. Our "tired and our poor" know better than to believe America is the land of milk and honey.

We know where we are well off. I don't think Canada is the best place in the world to live. Wish I could live in Europe. But I'm too old to leave and have family here. Why would I prefer Europe? Older richer cultural life and less influence of right-wing America.

[Bronyraurus]

42. I disagree

I don't know about "most" people wanting to move to the US, but many times more people want to move to the US than people in the US wanting to move elsewhere. Furthermore, thanxxx for David Cronenberg, he rocks my world.

[specimenfred1984]

28. What if there were no hypothetical questions?

Huh, huh?

[sui generis]

4. actually

America is an idea, and a liberal idea at that. Who goes into politics? Who supports the structures of power? Absolute power attracts the absolutely corruptible, and we are a nation of followers, not leaders. So we follow whoever is in power because they are powerful, not because they're right. And the rest of us just complain about it.

It's not a fixed idea either. Democracy and human kindness are not the natural acme of evolution. Those are values that have to be taught and reinforced from diapers to foreign policy, so we are in a struggle to make this idea work, and we're taking some serious hits.

We run scattered at fear of inconvenience to ourselves; we've lost some essential toughness. The worst among us fear everything, and are led around by their fears; reject the risks of critical thinking over the comfort of being told what to think.

That's why we're here, in places like DU and everywhere else we give a damn.

[Az]

6. The price of praising freedom

Is that freedom means the right to be as stupid as you want to be as long as you don't hurt anyone else.

See I have this theory. I believe that people are basically good. But that we are also basically stupid. That is we have a basic drive or need to do the good things as we percieve them. But that our ignorance or lack of understanding gets in our way a lot. And unfortunately it seems a lot of the time that willful ignorance may play a part in it as well.

Unfortunately with such a mindset it leaves us open to those who would abuse our desire to do good or just simply manipulate us. The media has become our constant companion. We spend more time with the TV than we do with any person. Its voice is the single most important voice in our lives. The reality it paints and the ideas of what is good or bad carry a lot of weight in our world. And mostly it paints a picture of people on their own struggling against other people in order to get ahead. To consume. To be #1 at any cost.

This continuous message is more in keeping with social darwinism or corporate mindset. It is not humanity. So yeah... our society has become ill. We have had poison poured into our ears. We have lost our way. We have become confused with information overload.

[Imagevision]

7. Do you really believe this country was this sick, B-E-F-O-R-E Bush entered the game??

[movonne]

9. Yes I think we were that sick before, it's that we just didn't notice it..

[blues90]

15. Yes , but more so now

I did feel we would finally pull out of this insane madness in the 90's .

Since bush forced his way and will it has become obvious that america is willing to indulge in yet more mass murder and the ease of giving up the rights so many others died for , all for the sake of lies .

The 2006 elections brough a moment of hope but then we had the majority before and look how well this worked out .

Politics is nothing more than a game with a prise attached . All these years and we still face many of the very same problems .

[Greyhound]

16. Absolutely.

As a young hound in the 80's I was shocked, stunned really, at the speed and thoroughness that the amerikan sheeple denounced our duty to our fellow citizens. At how readily we embraced the "greed is good" and "I've got mine, fuck you" attitude that is considered normal today, and how quickly we abandoned the principles that the "counter culture" had established, in favor of a new beemer and a bigger house and the false sense of security that a few thousand in the bank gave.

[porphyrian]

17. (...small pox blankets to Indians, slave labor...)

Yes, America was sick from the beginning.

[Karenina]

18. *Dauphin is a very accurate reflection

of modern day American collective consciousness.

[CJCRANE]

10. America is a split personality:

A saint and sinner.

On one side there's Al Gore, the conscience of America and on the other side there's *, the American Id.

[intaglio]

21. As a Brit I completely disagree with this council of despair

People who identify themselves, culturally, as American are part of a great movement. The phenomenon of a group of hugely disparate peoples pulling together and identifying themselves by their culture is a massive change in human behaviour. What is more you are coming together despite the damage done by one group to others.

I will not try to minimise your problems; you have a government that too easily falls prey to the influence of money, a minority who have obtained power under false pretenses and an elite whose only desire is that their country serves them not they their country. Curiously both right and left of your political spectrum seem to see these faults but the cure is where you seem to come to blows. Of course there is an idiot fragment at the extremes of this spectrum but despite this you have so much in common with your (political) enemies that it might be worthwhile to work out how both could be best served despite these partisans

I believe in the USA and am proud that my country has played a part in the making of yours. I come to DU because I hope and I believe that the vile bubo which holds the infection of injustice, aggression and torture can be cauterised before it poisons the whole of the world.

[blonndee]

22. Thanks for the nice

note of optimism and encouragement. Your perspective is refreshing.

[blues90]

23. Trouble is

We don't see our common ground here in the US . We are divided by religion and race and culture more now than ever before .

If anything we are now a country of rich and poor with a dying middle class .

Our education system is in the toilet despite well meaning teachers efforts .

We have been politically ignorent for so long that we are now stuck with this dictator , if we would have kept our eyes open this could have been avoided .

With all the years of a hope for a national medical plan we still have many against this with the attitude that those who are better off will be paying for those who are not doing well financially .

I doubt we will ever have this medical plan .

Most of all we are the terrorists of the globe , bush has made this evident in the last 6 years .

[JacksonWest]

34. America is eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil!

Look out kids....it's america! Shes ah com'n ta getch yah!!!!!!

[carolinayellowdog]

26. Welcome and thanks!

The self-doubt and torment I've experienced as an American these last six years, amplified in DU for the last four, find comfort in your kind words. Surely our history of self-questioning and reform has only been briefly diverted from its course by these maniacs.

[mmonk]

29. well

"I come to DU because I hope and I believe that the vile bubo which holds the infection of injustice, aggression and torture can be cauterised before it poisons the whole of the world."

Got any suggestions? Elections don't seem to work.

[WinkyDink]

24. 49'er here, too. I used to be proud.

[Superman Returns]

27. oh please

stop your whining. America like all nations has its sins. Like all man's constructs its imperfect. But our Constitution, our freedoms, and culture allow for for change and justice over time. Look at all the progress we made in this century alone. Sure, we have a long way to go but if you don't like something take action instead of just bashing your country.

[JacksonWest]

30. Welcome to the human race buppy. It ain't just america that's got a case of the "we ain't no goods"

The whole stink'n human race is a fucking pile of rat excrement. Hod diggity damn, look at a pretty picture or write a play. Sitting around sobb'n about how sick we are ain't even one tenth of one tenth of a squirt of gods piss, which is spread evenly throughout this miserable world. Drink one for the pain, and pass the bottle.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

31. Actually, We're Just Fine.

Our leadership sucks as do their policies, but as a country overall we are still some of the most generous, helpful, caring and outreaching that exists. I'm proud of that, even if you aren't.

Sure, there are some social policies and loads of poverty within our borders that we all could be better at tackling. Sure, there are those amongst us so selfish that they reach a hand out to no one. But you weren't talking about exceptions, groups, or otherwise. You were talking about America. You were talking about Americans. You were talking about all of us.

Well I stand before you here and now and say bullshit. I've seen the beauty within so many of us. I've seen how charitable we can be. I've seen heroes. I've seen those that sacrifice each day for others. I see how much outpouring of sympathy, money, goods and otherwise come from our masses when there is tragedy nationally or elsewhere. Americans may be culturally different than some other areas of the world. But we are every bit if not more so as charitable, beautiful, emotional and wonderful as anywhere else. Just depends on whether you choose to view things through the lenses of reality or the warped lenses of narrow perception based on personal resentment. That's also not a criticism, it is a mere factual truth of how one chooses to look at things.

No, I don't feel guilt being an American. As I know I am a beautiful person who cares immensely about others. I know my family, my neighbors, my friends and co-workers by and large are as well. I know there are countless numbers more outside of my small universe of immediacy. I know we deep down are good, decent and beautiful.

So no, we are not a sick country. We merely have our flaws and customs, as does everyone and everywhere else. But we're still beautiful.

[JacksonWest]

35. Your making it hard to self loath. Please stop, I want to relish the misery a little longer.

Just one more minute mom.....

[blues90]

43. I said america was sick not all americans .

I know there are good people , hell there are good people all over the globe .

My point is how we as america are consumed with products and crap and still we have much wrong in the country and still after all these years we have not brough these problems even close to under a reasonable control .

We have more homeless and more jobless then ever before and we have the Miss gulf coast and new orleans left to suffer for close to 17 months , an entire part of this america .

If you choose to see this through rose colored glasses this is fine and you are lucky you have such a good circle of friends and neightbors .

My main point is however , it is america who seeks to plummet the globe with it's policy of death and robbery . We have year of knowledge and yet we have regressed instead of moved ahead .

I suppose just say you are sorry fixes this all up just fine until it hits you directy .

[pitohui]

32. move to new orleans and you can experience all that stuff just fine

well not the bombs, not yet, although a man was stopped yesterday with four homemade bombs in his car so i suppose that's coming

never assume there is any such thing as a "we"

there are quite a few americans who have no roof, no power, and who fall asleep to the sound of gunfire even as we speak

[Cleita]

33. I have been feeling like you for a long time. n/t

[JacksonWest]

36. Let's give America some Sprite and Chicken soup. Fix this sick cazunkry up!

[GeorgeGist]

38. It has never been ...

"No longer the home of the brave or the land of the free can it ever be .

Just ask an aboriginal; if you can find one.