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I’m a pragmatic person. I know that power corrupts and I have never had any illusions about politicians. But I figure our systems worked for 200+ years, while a lot of countries have come and gone, so it was, I thought, doing okay.
I was always proud to be an American -- because of the “little” things. We were the good guys. First, we never attacked unprovoked. We played fair and we fought clean. And we were patient, preferring diplomacy over war. But now we are occupying Iraq. Sure they had a tyrant dictator, but so do a lot of other countries. So now I learn that oil is more important than morality. But I’m not quite sure where that oil is, because I haven’t seen any of it, myself.
I got past that shame because 911 at least created an asterisk in the record books, so when I would see pictures of our men and women rolling towards Baghdad, I was still proud of them, because (after the unprovoked invasion) we were at least playing fair. We were still Americans. And then came the photos from the prison. Men hooked up to batteries? Facing dogs on their knees? Wait a minute. This isn’t American. Where are the good guys? When did Lyndsie England become the symbol of my country, with her cigarette hanging from her lips, pointing to a prisoner’s genitals and sneering? How do I explain this to my students at school? That THIS is how America behaves when she is marching freedom down an occupied country’s constricted throat?
Next I find out that we don’t believe in torture, and so we prosecute these shameful acts. Whew. But wait a minute! There are people out there who will do our dirty work FOR us! We can fly our prisoners by dark to terrifying places and they will break the fingers, maim and even kill. But when you think about it, it makes sense. We like foreigners to do the things we won’t do. We welcome them here in this country to take the jobs that are beneath us.
But they are not the only jobs given away. Because here in my beloved country, corporations with the patriotism of a sewer rat, up-end families and destroy lives by moving entire factories overseas. And somehow this is legal. We allow this. We encourage it. How nice for India!
I understand hurricanes and destruction; I have lived through many, including weeks with no power. It is no fun. It is scary. Kids cry. They wake up at night for weeks afraid that the hurricane is coming back. But I always knew that if we had to evacuate, our government and its agencies would see to it that we had food and water. And I knew that if I died suddenly, my body would not be left in the street to decay while my family sits hunched yards away, protecting me from dogs. Because, you see, that happens in India. (where the jobs are, remember?) That doesn’t happen in America. I understand when clean-up efforts are prolonged, and when FEMA gets mired in red tape and even when the trailers don’t arrive. It happened during Andrew. But never in the country’s history, that I am aware of, have we left our dead to stare into the sky, hang on fences or rot down to skeletons in houses. Even ants carry their dead away.
Now I hear that the very ports that control goods that enter our country are to be run by other countries. I have to wonder what Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would have thought of this concept. I know Ben Franklin would have had something pointed to say about it. And this is supposed to be okay. It’s been happening all along, evidently, but we just didn’t know. And guess what? Either did our beloved, esteemed President!
I’m a multi-cultural kind of person. I celebrate diversity. But this concept is just a bit too global for me. Maybe someday we will have an “Earth Federation” like on Star Trek, but we just aren’t there yet.
These are just little things, but they are the things that made me proud to be an American. And they are the things that shame me now.
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