Ugly Americans

Part of becoming a mature adult, I suppose, is developing self-assurance and confidence. It's not supposed to matter what others think of you. Trust your own instincts. Stick to your guns. Feel at home in your own skin. These are goals of the second half of life. However, suppose your instincts are wrong- dead wrong. Suppose you see yourself as a divinely appointed representative of God on earth. What if your deluded mind leads you to horrifying behavior? Then the part about trusting your own instincts becomes problematic. If you are driving the wrong way on a one-way street, and you assume that everyone else is wrong, that you are going the right way and everyone else is going the wrong way, then you are in trouble.

I have personal experience with this right-wing fundamentalist approach, though on a much smaller scale. A close member of my own family by marriage once brought it home to me. It was all over an innocent conversation about Halloween. I was told that Halloween was of the Devil and, therefore, inappropriate for children to celebrate. When I tried to put Halloween in its historical perspective, even pointing out that it has religious beginnings, I was told that people who think that way have been deceived. Who does the deceiving, you might ask. Why, the Devil himself, of course. This made perfect sense to my relative. No need to go any further. Case closed. This, of course, put me on the outside, looking in. I was now in that group of The Deceived. Like Bush said in his first SOTU, "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists!" When I ask myself, "How can people vote like this or think like this,?" my answer is fundamentalism. Fundamentalists do not like questions. They cannot tolerate dissent. And they know they are right. It is a matter of invincible ignorance, clothed in righteousness. George Bush thinks this way. The neocons needed a guy like him in power.

The reason I bring this up is this: Our president has taken this haughty position that he is right and everyone else in the world, if they disagree with him, is wrong. And he has surrounded himself with people who will, a la "The Emperor Has No Clothes," praise and encourage him. He has become entombed in a impenetrable cocoon of admiration, possibly bordering on worship. It appears that Bush could care less about the rest of the world. Yet our friends, or former friends, on the planet are quaking in their boots, worried sick about what will become of us all in the next four years. Or they are sickened and appalled at American ways. We are showing our worst side to the world at this time in history. Greed, insensitivity, callous disregard for humanity, lust for power- all these and more are becoming our trademarks.

If you, like me, have been reading the foreign press the last few years, you have a different perspective on America than those who rely on the American press which is under the nearly total control of either the Bush administration or corporate America, which is under the thumb of the Bush administration. What a cruel joke it is when people say that the media is too liberal. Nothing could be further from the truth! Here is an article which appeared in the Sunday Morning Herald (Australia) on January 21. It compares Bush with Napoleon, especially in regard to Bush's obscenely lavish inauguration festivities.

The article points out that the US has already begun its war with Iran through clandestine activities by our special forces on the ground there which are staking out nuclear targets for future bombing whenever Bush feels like it. This information was first divulged by Sy Hersch, the distinguished writer for The New Yorker magazine. Hersch also broke the story of My Lai in 1968 and the Abu Graib torture scandal in 2003. Our government denied those stories, too.

The Pentagon, namely Donald Rumsfeld, now rules the roost. It has been given almost total sway on everything now that the CIA has been marginalized. Two other men, Douglas Feith and Jerry Boykin, are undersecretaries, both of whom are scarier than Dracula.

Do you feel as humiliated as I do to be an American? I felt so uncomfortable even traveling in Canada and Italy last year. I didn't even want to wear my hat with a tiny American flag embroidered on it. I felt I had to let people know that not all Americans support George Bush and that we are not all monsters. It would have been easier to blend in and pretend to be from Italy or Australia, except I didn't have the accents.

This is the first time in my life that I feel a sense of shame about our country. Every so often, when a member of Congress stands up and speaks truth to power, I see a glimmer of hope breaking through. I really long for the day when America is known for her goodness once again.

[Click on the blog title to read the article from The Sydney Morning Herald.]