Not counting the Vikings, this land, starting with the European culture of which it based these days, was first invaded by Christopher Columbus. He was a greedy tradesman and merchant who was hired by the Spanish Queen Isabelle to find a quicker trade route to India. He invaded North America, and infected the natives with all sorts of new and exciting disease. The outcome? Columbus Day is bullshit. Next to come along and fuck shit up were the Pilgrims. They were thrown / stormed out of England in the mid-17th century because they were a little too maniacal about their religion for post-Cromwell’s England. The pilgrim invaders needed a place to practice their special brand of religion, which included no dancing or singing in peace. They came, they saw, they conquered the natives more. The outcome? Thanksgiving is bullshit. The early colonists were then known as Puritans. They thought themselves pure, and when this purity was threatened they burned a few women at the stake. They were an incredibly chauvinistic and sexually retarded society. The outcome? A long American history of sexual oppression, and retardation in the religious sect. –Which is bullshit, anyway.
After a few years of life in the colonies, (and that's exactly what they were, colonies; land annexed from those who were already settled. The outcome? The term 'early settlers', unless applied to Inuits coming across from Siberia is bullshit.) things got expensive for the people living here. Taxes were too high, and the English crown was demanding more of its plundered land dwellers. Enter the founding fathers. Hiding behind the idea of liberty and freedom for the common man, they took on the English government. Freedom and liberty meant they wanted to be free of paying high English taxes. The terms freedom and liberty were used a lot to persuade the French to help. They did. The US constitution was essentially nothing more at the time than an economic breach from the English, nice and legal. It also included such an idea that there should be a separation of church and state, something which is widely ignored these days.
Invasion, Puritanism, and economic gain. These are the ideals that this country was based on, and honorably enough, these are the ideals that still stand today. Not Kerry, not Bush, not Clinton, not even Nader don't discuss these things. We still have reservations, for fuck’s sake. Reservations!! Slavery is in our history, witch trials, etc... now that's not to say these things didn't happen all over the world, and they still are, but you don't see those countries touting their policies, their "freedom" across the globe. They are not self-entitled to such things as America thinks it is. America is incredibly self-entitled, and this is what causes the resentment around the western hemisphere, and now into the Arab nations as well. What gives the US the right to invade Iraq? What gives the US the right to have military bases in Saudi Arabia? It’s protecting its assets. By what means did America come to those assets? For what reasons do Americans require these assets?
So my problem is when people say they love this country because they love freedom. We’re not free. We’re slaves. Slaves of TV, slaves to cars, slaves to materialistic 'necessities.' I know I am. And I hate it. That’s one of the many reasons I feel sad that I had to grow up this way. I’m not going to denounce it all, either.
But I wish for fucks sake that Americans would stop kidding themselves with this holier than though, almost martyr like approach to freedom, liberty and justice for all. Instead, I see slavery, reservations, and a severely non-functioning democracy. But that's no need to drastically denounce everything you've grown up with, or even take huge steps to change it. Change it one little thing at a time. The first change you can make is to choose to not be bothered by right-wing hotheads who won't listen to educated reason.
In the end, it's not that bad. Before you know it, we will be at war with both Eurasia and Eastasia, celebrating Dubya-day, the day which remembers when a valiant president saved the world from Saddam Hussein, disarmed his nukes, and freed the masses. And only the bad people died. Just like on the cowboy shows. Soon enough it won't matter anymore that the arts in this country are being run by powerful business majors. Just keep getting spoon-fed the sports/music/TV culture, and soon enough you even care that the earth is rotting away underneath you. We are humans. We are lemmings. We are self destructive. We are weapons of mass destruction.
This is why I occupy myself with Linux and beer and my motorcycle.
So why do Americans get so defensive when someone expresses dissatisfaction with this country? Happyok had a good point above, that her not wanting to be an American affects no one but herself. The negative points are fine, obviously they are disagreements. But that's no reason to dislike someone. I don't like football. Big fucking deal. You probably don't like Edgar Varese. I won't judge. I was raised by English parents in this country as an atheist (3 generations back) and I’ve had my share of shit my entire life. It’s made me bitter, and incredibly disenfranchised with the whole melting pot idea. Sure, America is made up of foreigners, but you're fucked if you don't fall into the mold of a true 'merican. Even the most liberal people in this country get offended when I rudely mention that the name America comes from Amerigo Vespucci, a pirate, and that freedom doesn't exist outside of a marketable word that's thrown around in order to sell cars with "hemis" in them.
Now just because I say all this stuff doesn't mean that the true idealistic and utopian freedoms and liberties can't be a reality. We just need to be aware of the current reality. The reality of the past, and if things don't change, the reality of the future. America’s not such a scary place as long as you know your roots. Only a small population is really malicious, and out to enslave, oppress, and silence others. The problem is that the majority of the population never looks at the big picture. They’re too focused on trivial points, and trying to fill that trauma hole left by archaic religious ideals that floated them up to today. The bottom dropped out for me a while ago. What now? I know of at least one or two others in this very thread who know what I’m talking about. The sad thing is that I’m finding out - life's too short to worry about it. So will anything ever actually be done about it?
