It seems so long ago I was what a
modern ‘red’-blooded American would consider a patriot. When I joined the army
when I was 18 (and for the better half of my military career) I was a
Republican, I believed in the rule of law, I believed in the country’s elected
officials, and I believed that – all things considered – the United States was
a country every other country should be looking up to because her citizens
warranted that respect. Three decades later, I could not have been more wrong.
While I have figuratively renounced my U.S. citizenship years ago, this morning’s
news item finally caused me to spit, “Fuck the USA.”
Various news agencies reported
that the owner of a Massachusetts ice cream parlor decided to close his door
one day after re-opening during the current pandemic due to the harassment of
his employees because…because people had
to wait in line to get ice cream. (Please read that again, pause, and let
it sink in.) Apparently his best employee quit at the end of her shift due to
the harassment. It is absolutely unbelievable that this happened because,
again, ICE CREAM was at stake. Although the operation basically returned to ‘normal’
soon thereafter, what with a renewed emphasis on safety and ordering procedures,
it cannot be dismissed that people simply forgot their manners after weeks of
being in quarantine.
It’s a common criticism by the
alt-right that the alt-left hates America and I dare say the alt-right is not
totally incorrect. But the alt-left also has a point insofar is that a love of
the U.S. is simply not warranted and in fact perhaps should be hated. Donald Trump’s favorite saying ‘Make America Great
Again’ really gives a thinking person a moment’s pause as it is not known
exactly when America was so great. (Perhaps briefly upon entering WWII?) While
many of you reading this right now may think ‘hate’ is a bridge too far, let us
not forget the very recent history in which a black man, Ahmaud Arbery, was peacefully
jogging until he was hunted down by apparent white supremists and shot to
death, and then his assailants went
free for two months until a video of the incident surfaced. To be certain, the
assailants were not arrested because Georgia law enforcement saw the video but because
the rest of the country saw the video. So is this the ‘great America’ the
current U.S. president thinks the country should be? If it seems like I’m
digressing, I’m not.
The Polar Cave Ice Cream parlor
incident is indicative of almost everything that is wrong with the U.S. (By the
way, this happened on the same weekend a group of white men carrying
large-caliber weapons went to a Subway sandwich shop in North Carolina in an
apparent attempt to protest lockdown orders.) Because Americans are not
particularly well known for their intelligence, I will briefly enumerate what
makes the U.S. such a terrible place to be these days (assuming you’re a non-white,
unarmed, non-male person, though, the alt-left is certainly not without
problems given their philosophy).
·
The Polar
Cave Ice Cream parlor incident reveals the utter entitlement Americans feel
they have to everything they want and to have it immediately. (Surprisingly,
Americans haven’t yet stormed Amazon warehouses because they have to wait two
whole days for their Prime shipments to arrive.) Americans feel so entitled to
everything – including ice cream – that to too many people it was acceptable to
harass ice cream shop employees for having to wait too long (a few minutes?)
with language that would embarrass a sailor. Americans feel so entitled to what
they want that involuntarily celibate men think it’s okay to shoot up college
campuses because they shouldn’t have to do anything to get laid. And naturally
Americans feel entitled to the guns they use in such incidents because they are
part of a well-regulated militia. FFS, these days, Americans even feel entitled
to their own facts. And when Americans don’t get their way, the play the victim
card.
·
Being
entitled to their own facts demonstrates America’s now nearly complete war on
intellectualism short of killing university professors. A friend recently
posted a blog (here) on the intellectual dishonestly so often associated with
memes that is, of course, so completely on point we should be thankful
Americans are able to communicate through posting memes at all and not still smashing
rocks together to make crude music. Can a country that made the Kardashians,
creationists, and flat-earthers famous and can’t answer basic questions about how
their government works but is somehow mind-controlling them really be
considered great? The U.S. is a country whose citizens can’t be asked to wear a
facemask for a few months for everyone’s protection. It’s not like these people
are being asked to go off to war to fight Nazi’s – which they wouldn’t do now
anyway – or suffer a famine ala The Great Depression or stop taking selfies.
The U.S. is a country that elected a president that cannot maintain a train of
thought for more than two minutes, which no one should have sought to do because
most people should not be electing people like themselves to high office seeing
how unqualified the average American is for such a task. Exerting power by fiat
has never worked out well for anyone, but the average American has no idea what
I mean when I say that anyway. America is the same country whose Republicans
foam at the mouth when the word ‘socialism’ is spoken but gladly took their
pandemic stimulus checks and think big businesses and farmers deserve government
bailouts.
·
Anti-intellectualism
and racism go hand-in-hand, so it’s no surprise that hate crimes increased
dramatically after Trump took over the U.S. presidency. True, it’s not like many
white Americans weren’t already racist, it’s just that the person they elected
to high office emboldened them to act on that racism. While we probably didn’t
have too many incidents during the
·
America no
longer appears to adhere to any rule of law. Just this past week, the Trump
Administration’s DOJ dropped charges against former national security advisor Michael
Flynn, a man who admitted to lying under oath twice. There are various reasons
for this which have nothing to do with Flynn being an honorable man, but as it
is for many in the Trump administration, being legally accountable is
laughable. (Yes, Bill Clinton lied under oath, too, but at least he paid for
it.) Meanwhile, President Trump has routinely said he is above the law as president…which
would mean all the crimes he’s accused Obama of committing in office are irrelevant.
Meanwhile, white men are walking into capitol buildings and sandwich shops with
guns in an attempt to intimidate elected officials, but they are not charged
with domestic terrorism because white. Meanwhile, in the 1960’s the Black Panthers
were charged with domestic terrorism for doing exactly this. Meanwhile, a white
salon owner in Texas openly defies a court order and judge and is hailed a s
hero while the people hailing her as a hero keep telling black people that they
wouldn’t get shot if they just did what they are told by law enforcement. What officials
in high office and white people get away with, to say nothing of corporations,
is reprehensible, to be polite.
·
Not
surprisingly, the current pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of capitalism,
that weakness being that it cannot survive something like a pandemic without
the aid of socialism as I mentioned earlier. The strange thing is, not even
liberals are questioning the fundamentals of capitalism. I expect such a thing
of Republicans, but not Democrats. Even Bernie Sanders is mostly silent about
the recent turn of events. I’ll say that capitalism may be the best monetary
philosophy going, but that is not the same as saying it’s good at all.
·
For those of
you who have forgotten, the U.S. consistently lags behind other Western and
some Asian countries in math, science, and reading. You don’t see the Trump
Administration doing anything to rectify that situation. No, instead Trump
installs a completely unqualified person (because that’s what he does with his
cabinet) to head the DOE because she’s a campaign donor with a vested interest
in college students repaying their student loans. No, trump doesn’t see to it
that Americans get an education because that would disrupt his base, that being
uneducated citizens. As we’ve seen from China, Japan, and the Scandinavian countries,
an educated population is in a country’s best interest. That simply cannot be
allowed in a country held hostage by mega-corporations, though.
So we’re left trying to figure out when the
U.S. was great and deserving of being loved. Was it when it institutionalized
slavery and even fought a civil war to preserve it? Was it during Prohibition
when the government was poisoning beer so it could use the dead as propaganda? Was
it during the Trail of Tears? Was it during the McCarthy era? Was it when it
dropped TWO nuclear bombs on Japan? Was it during the Tuskegee Experiment? Was
it during the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam? Was it when it lied its way into
invading Iraq post-9/11? Was it when the wholesale spying on Americans by the
NSA was greenlit? Was it when the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were
people or ruled that super-PAC money didn’t have to be transparent anymore? Was
it when the employee of an ice cream parlor quit her job because of the harassment
she received because people couldn’t get their ice cream on demand?
It might be argued that many countries
behave reprehensibly but this means nothing more than the U.S. being a country
no better than any other. Yes, the U.S. may have a higher standard of living
and all the money and goods it could ever want (gotta have the latest iPhone!),
but U.S. citizens seem to equate these enviable qualities with some kind of
moral high ground. That is how stupid Americans are. That’s how undeserving of
America’s status it is.
Is it really such a big deal to be an
American, to live in the USA.? Not when your job at an ice cream parlor entails
threats to your life. Not when it’s more important to re-start the economy than
to save people’s lives. Not when Americans are too stupid to see that
capitalism cannot survive without socialism. Not when a black man cannot go
jogging without being hunted down by Trump supporters. Not when the alt-left
has ruined any sense of fairness on college campuses (they’ve turned out to be
almost as bad as their alt-right counterparts). Not when you’re considered a
lower form of life because your credit score is terrible.
The next time you see someone post “We’re
better than this” on social media in response to the next example of human depravity,
please remind them that the U.S. is not and never has been. Given history, both
past and present, you might even want to say to them, “Fuck the U.S.A.” I sure
do.
