Bear
12-03-2006, 11:14 AM
I have to admit: that as an American citizen, my standard of living is pretty good (all things considered). I don't afterall have flies swarming around my eyes, dysentery, malaria; but I do have access to decent--although not great or necessarily fair--health care.
I can by pineapples, fresh, whenever I want; and clothes that suit me--at close to reasonable prices.
I work--though for never enough it seems--and I own my own car (1992 Buick Century), TV and DVD player.
And yet, somehow, I know that things still just aren't quite right with my country--at least not as far as employment is concerned (the way that my grandparents have always described it to me--the way it once was, long ago).
There is the tendency of course to exaggerate on their part; and I comprehend that. But it does not seem that, as a country, the United States really cares at all about it's own citizenry, does it?
I watch Dobbs sometimes, and I can't say that I agree with him totally. He is really down on Mexicans; and I don't think that is right. This was supposed to be the land of opportunity once; and morally speaking, it just doesn't seem fair to turn anyone away (aside from terrorist plot keeping individuals).
How many people afterall--who were completely screwed up before they came here (100 or so years ago)--made good on their promises to GOD, Allah, or whatever, to do right by the world, and their family, by simply starting over? Probably my own family, just the same as all of yours, and theirs also I'm sure.
But when we were growing up, of course, they used to say "Buy American, and support American jobs." And I believed at the time; though admittedly, not much anymore.
It seems to me, anyway: that it is not the Mexican, or the Vietnamese worker, or Chinese, or Indian that detracts from our way of life--truly it is they that, in some sort of ironic twist of Capitalism, seem the most to idolize our supposedly superior "American way;" though they remain merely the pawns of it, just as we "the people," surely long before they were.
One thing that Dobbs does most certainly pinpoint with amazing accuracy: is the CULPABILITY of--not just the ignorance and blind faith of the American people, in their psuedo-pleasantly beaming leadership--but also, and much more so of those same "American" corporations that: once long ago, would attempt to stir up our patriotism; only now instead, repeatedly sell our pride to the children of some other nation (or several simultaneously).
It is certainly difficult to "buy American" these days, no doubt, when hardly anything at all is actually manufactured here. And no I don't suppose it is really fair for us at all to ever get angry at either "Charlie, Pueblo, Ling," or "Ha-beeb" for wanting to replicate what our only export (television and movies) keeps preaching to them is what it's really all about: lookin good and killin time.
As Eddie Izzard once said: "He's cool, he's American! He's a fuckin doughnut!"
We are at the stage now it seems (in the world), that we kind of used to be smart and cool, but now we're fuckin retarded--and everybody hates us of course--because our "representative government" (the robber barons and corporate scum, aside from political affiliates) "spread our way of life" (in the form of smoke stacks and delinquent salaries) to other nations of poverty stricken people WHO ACTUALLY BELIEVE THE BULLSHIT that this is the highest standard of living. "Well, to them at least--it's a step up in the world!"
"It's the economy stupid!"
Yes, Corporate scum: who have robbed us of any source of pride in industry we might have had left following the Viet Nam War, now manufacture our "Sneakers" there.
And my Toy Biz Captain America? Well, his ass at least was made in China (I'm not so sure about the rest of him, but yes his ass is definitely foreign born).
Think about how crazy this would have sounded (not 50 years ago mind you, but even 15 years ago): that we do business (as a nation) with Communist!? Run over you and your shopping bags with a tank, Communists. Capital "C;" not beatnik pussyfooting lowercase "c" commune, peace, love and grass kind of communists. Communists--that we fought two wars with--and now potentially a third because (as someone once said) "what's a guy got to do to get a weapons inspection?"
Trying explaining that to your grandfathers--if they aren't dead yet from Korea, or Viet Nam.
It is one thing to forgive and forget; it is quite another to impoverish the dignity of your own people in favor of that of your former enemies--whom we are now indebted to.
"American" used to mean fair opportunity--not the opportunity to screw people (including your own) for love of the corporation.
History buffs help me out here. At what point in History did Capitalism become our religion, and not Democracy? To me is nothing more than the front put up by the corporation to extort citizens of the world beyond our borders.
I am ashamed of what I am, not proud, to be an American; because the ideology of my grandfather and granduncles, when they went to Normandy, is no more.
We have been disgraced by our leadership, not by our neighbors in Mexico, or China.
I believe in the notion of "world citizenry;" but not like this. Fair play for all!
Star Trek could be tomorrow--people would do great things merely for the satisfaction of doing them. But if that is the aim of humanity, then we cannot fight with one another over jobs at the Sneaker factory; though that is exactly the position we have been put in.
What is to blame for all this injustice?
I can by pineapples, fresh, whenever I want; and clothes that suit me--at close to reasonable prices.
I work--though for never enough it seems--and I own my own car (1992 Buick Century), TV and DVD player.
And yet, somehow, I know that things still just aren't quite right with my country--at least not as far as employment is concerned (the way that my grandparents have always described it to me--the way it once was, long ago).
There is the tendency of course to exaggerate on their part; and I comprehend that. But it does not seem that, as a country, the United States really cares at all about it's own citizenry, does it?
I watch Dobbs sometimes, and I can't say that I agree with him totally. He is really down on Mexicans; and I don't think that is right. This was supposed to be the land of opportunity once; and morally speaking, it just doesn't seem fair to turn anyone away (aside from terrorist plot keeping individuals).
How many people afterall--who were completely screwed up before they came here (100 or so years ago)--made good on their promises to GOD, Allah, or whatever, to do right by the world, and their family, by simply starting over? Probably my own family, just the same as all of yours, and theirs also I'm sure.
But when we were growing up, of course, they used to say "Buy American, and support American jobs." And I believed at the time; though admittedly, not much anymore.
It seems to me, anyway: that it is not the Mexican, or the Vietnamese worker, or Chinese, or Indian that detracts from our way of life--truly it is they that, in some sort of ironic twist of Capitalism, seem the most to idolize our supposedly superior "American way;" though they remain merely the pawns of it, just as we "the people," surely long before they were.
One thing that Dobbs does most certainly pinpoint with amazing accuracy: is the CULPABILITY of--not just the ignorance and blind faith of the American people, in their psuedo-pleasantly beaming leadership--but also, and much more so of those same "American" corporations that: once long ago, would attempt to stir up our patriotism; only now instead, repeatedly sell our pride to the children of some other nation (or several simultaneously).
It is certainly difficult to "buy American" these days, no doubt, when hardly anything at all is actually manufactured here. And no I don't suppose it is really fair for us at all to ever get angry at either "Charlie, Pueblo, Ling," or "Ha-beeb" for wanting to replicate what our only export (television and movies) keeps preaching to them is what it's really all about: lookin good and killin time.
As Eddie Izzard once said: "He's cool, he's American! He's a fuckin doughnut!"
We are at the stage now it seems (in the world), that we kind of used to be smart and cool, but now we're fuckin retarded--and everybody hates us of course--because our "representative government" (the robber barons and corporate scum, aside from political affiliates) "spread our way of life" (in the form of smoke stacks and delinquent salaries) to other nations of poverty stricken people WHO ACTUALLY BELIEVE THE BULLSHIT that this is the highest standard of living. "Well, to them at least--it's a step up in the world!"
"It's the economy stupid!"
Yes, Corporate scum: who have robbed us of any source of pride in industry we might have had left following the Viet Nam War, now manufacture our "Sneakers" there.
And my Toy Biz Captain America? Well, his ass at least was made in China (I'm not so sure about the rest of him, but yes his ass is definitely foreign born).
Think about how crazy this would have sounded (not 50 years ago mind you, but even 15 years ago): that we do business (as a nation) with Communist!? Run over you and your shopping bags with a tank, Communists. Capital "C;" not beatnik pussyfooting lowercase "c" commune, peace, love and grass kind of communists. Communists--that we fought two wars with--and now potentially a third because (as someone once said) "what's a guy got to do to get a weapons inspection?"
Trying explaining that to your grandfathers--if they aren't dead yet from Korea, or Viet Nam.
It is one thing to forgive and forget; it is quite another to impoverish the dignity of your own people in favor of that of your former enemies--whom we are now indebted to.
"American" used to mean fair opportunity--not the opportunity to screw people (including your own) for love of the corporation.
History buffs help me out here. At what point in History did Capitalism become our religion, and not Democracy? To me is nothing more than the front put up by the corporation to extort citizens of the world beyond our borders.
I am ashamed of what I am, not proud, to be an American; because the ideology of my grandfather and granduncles, when they went to Normandy, is no more.
We have been disgraced by our leadership, not by our neighbors in Mexico, or China.
I believe in the notion of "world citizenry;" but not like this. Fair play for all!
Star Trek could be tomorrow--people would do great things merely for the satisfaction of doing them. But if that is the aim of humanity, then we cannot fight with one another over jobs at the Sneaker factory; though that is exactly the position we have been put in.
What is to blame for all this injustice?