| Mar. 1st, 2006 @ 02:04 pm What's wrong, America? |
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Current Mood:  angry
Current Music: Clash; 'Koka-Kola'
It's been a while since I bitched about American culture so I really thought I should have another go. People here tend to get very defensive when a 'foreigner' such as myself starts knocking on their sacred country and its many faults but these folks tend to forget several things. One, is that I am an American myself. I was born here, I'm a citizen of this country and I always have been. Another thing people don't tend to get is that it somethimes takes an 'outsider' to see the most fundamental faults with a system - especially when the populace has been generally misinformed about their nations place in the world and have been, effectively, brainwashed en-masse into believing they live in the greatest country in the world.
Well, of course, even the idea of their being a greatest country in the world is preposterous. Nowhere is perfect, everywhere on the planet has serious faults sociologically. The problem I find with America is how willfully ignorant people seem to be that they live with a flawed system that has repurcussions not only for them but for the rest of the planet.
The media is to blame to some extent. Televison news would be laughable if it wasn't so alarming. Let's face it, as a nation America is lazy. In a 'consumer society' the most common thing to do it to consume, naturally. In a consumer society with no ceiling to the consumption people will not stop. So, as long as Walmart is stocked up with everything you think you want you don't really care about what's happening beyond your countries borders. Keep them fat, keep them stupid is the order of the day. The terrifying thing is that people seem content with this. Therefore, as long as the media keep on churning out inane sitcoms and wall-to-wall sports networks, as long as Fear Factor and American Idol are turning people into mindless, zombified proles you're going to think you're free. Incredibly simple, but effective - the media knows this, and so does the governement of course.
CNN is seen here as a bastion of 'real' news reporting, which it clearly isn't. Its loaded reports on 'Gulf War II' and its feeble world news don't hide the fact that it sorely lacks any kind of investigative news reporting at all. The few Americans who can even be bothered to take an interest in recent events in Iran will never know that this country has had a nuclear program for years now but that the US turned a blind eye to it in order to secure Irans allowance for American troops to invade Iraq. Instead we get a 'brave CNN war reporter' in a tin hat on the front lines of Bagdhad talking to US troops about operation Enduring Freedom. It sure looks like real news, if this is what you've been fed all your life.
Is it any wonder, however, given the jingoistic 'God bless America' attitude that is foistered on the populace from such a young age? Let me say this, NOBODY should be 'proud' of their country - wherever it is. We are born where we are born, or maybe we choose to move there, but pride is a dangerous thing, and pride in our country is the most dangerous of all.
Why?
Simple really, because countries are run by governments. These governments rarely have the best interests of their people at heart. Sure, there is no harm in being proud of things your country might have achieved, at the great artists, even the great politicians it may have spawned and yet they, just like you, had no choice in where they were born so being proud of your 'country' just makes no sense.
But we're talking about America, specifically, here and what would anyone truly have to be proud of, as an American, in the 21st century? That their country is stuck in an illegal and unjust war with no obvious resolution? That it has turned its back on the Kyoto protocol to lessen the effects of global warming? That its government is spying, without warrents, on its own people - directly contravening its, once hallowed, constitution? Americans don't even seem to care about these things, which gives a very good explanation to those naive citizens who wonder why their country is so universally despised by the rest of the world right now.
The media and the goverment would both like you to believe this is jealousy. Most of you would like to believe that too. The truth, though, is very different. Nobody, certainly nobody in the countries I have visited in recent years, envies Americans any more. Maybe they did once, but we all have what you have. In fact, Europeans enjoy far more freedom than Americans in almost every way. Americans don't want to hear this, it makes them uncomfortable, because it leads to the realisation that they are being lied to on multiple levels. You can buy cool stuff, but that has nothing to do with being free. Capitalism and democracy are mutually exclusive, but people here believe one cannot exist without the other. This makes no sense, there is no logic behind it all all, but if you're told a lie enough times it becomes accepted wisdom.
I've had people tell me, in all seriousness, that America is a 'kick 'ass' country that takes shit from nobody else. Well, you know what? The US might be able to bully the world, although its recent success rate (say, over the last thirty years or so) is not good but that endears it to nobody. US foreign policy is directly responsible for most of the terrorist actions performed against this country in recent years. Shockingly, post 9/11 most people here never asked themselves 'Why has this happened?'. Bin Laden was simply 'evil' (which is true enough, of course) and years of insipid Hollywood action fare and shallow media coverage helped ensure only a few asked what his motivation might be.
I dated a girl here who, despite having fairly rapid and reactionary views on numerous politically charged subjects, told me that she didn't want to hear what her country was doing in her name because it 'upset her'. She looked incredulous when I told her which country financed and trained Al Qaida troops in Afghanistan to fight Russians or pointed out the child casualties of US-led bombings on Kosovo or Iraq that had been screened on European television. She said she'd rather be ignorant (her words) of these things because they messed with her view of her country. Sad to say, she was not an exceptional case. Far from being envious of Americans, most Europeans - aware of the lessening of civil liberties over here and the populace's general apathy towards this - believe people here increasingly have the society they deserve.
I was going to rant a while about fundamentalist Christianity and the, frankly incredible to me, general disbelief in such accepted wisdom as basic evolution but I think I'll save that for another time. |
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