A good article, but I must say how shocked I am that well intentioned well-meaning americans still don't get that supporting candidates and parties (both major ones) is a support for terrorism ("war on terror" is actually terrorism itself) - is that we dont' see the destroyed lives, the murdered bodies, or is it the color of their skin, their religion being different? Why is it o.k. to vote for policies of murder and terrorism, insisting that the other party is far worse? Which lives are valuable to YOU? It breaks my heart. I would move out of america if I could, does this make me anti-american??

Carol

You know everyone says something bad about the United States. When we came here in 1955 when my father became ill with a stroke. Mind you my father worked for the United States Government in the Panama Canal Zone and helped to build the Canal. He became ill with a stroke and we had to leave because he worked as a Civilan Engineer. They gave us fourty-eight hours to get out that meant four children and two adults. When we landed in the United States we were like we had a disease and mind you my father gave up his life everyday working almost twenty four seven trying to get the canal buid. He spoke seven different languges and tranlated books in high math in different languages he drove himself so hard.
When we came here the United States didn't want to help us to find housing so we ended living in a hotel for one year, we were on out own. If it weren't for my wonderful Uncle we don't know what we would have done.
Yet when the Cubans came in the same year they got everything they ever wanted and more they got housing, food, clothing all on the house I mean your house my house. They didn't like the food so they threw out into the streets and I mean the streets because we would find it there in the morning because it wasn't Cuban Food. But us as Americans couldn't get any of it my mother asked and they refused her. So we did the best we could and that wasn't the best of times for our family at all it was horrible.
When I became very ill with my appendix my mother went to public hospital (Jackson Memorial Hospital) for help to pay the bill they refused her so she had to go to a loan shark and it took years--- to pay off the bill. The Cubans got everything for free no matter what they wanted so I know ugly first hand and Cubans today get everything they want no questions asked.
But all of that happened to me and my family I will always Love the United States because we are FREE.

"No nation can forever be bad and getting worse." That is what they said in Rome. Where are the Mongols when you need them?

Farrell sez: "... John McCain, who claims to put "Country First," should re-read "The Ugly American." Sarah Palin can watch the movie."

***
Nicely put.
I Wonder how many readers here know how Alaskans refer to the rest of the U.S.

Answer: "Outside"

Even on her Race-to-the-Bottom 2008 tour, Palin is a stranger in a strange land.

Senator Ted Stevens could get life in prison whether his sentences are consecutive or concurrent.

No nation can forever be bad and getting worse. That is why I do have some measure of hope in Obama. I think that it is possible to push him (unlike Bu$h the inferior and old white haired dude) to more reasonable positions. Also a good slaughter of incumbent Congress members is good for focusing the rest of them on better legislation.

I hope the grass roots will push extra hard on the whole political system. If business as usual returns we will get some form of Sarah Palin soon enough. The corporate fascists who pander to violent nuts and religious wackjobs will polish her or someone slicker up and we will plunge further into disaster.

Here's a letter I sent to a friend. This is, sadly, one of the few times anyone's going to hear anything positive from me about my homeland on this board.

I know I’ve been a real anti-American lately. I denigrate patriotism and constantly try to show up America as a bad society filled with elitists manipulating the ignorant short-attention spanned masses by means of religious and capitalistic propaganda…and reality TV.

And that’s all true.

But, there are a lot of really great things about the US that I think any other nation would do well to emulate, our ideals:

Free speech (really free, not the kind where you can get arrested for hailing Hitler or cursing Queen Beatrix, or blaspheming Jesus or Allah)
No established religion
Lack of rigid classes (all are *presumed* to be equal)
The ability to move upward for probably a greater number of people than anywhere else.
Almost zero *official* racism
Technological advancement (The personal computer, the internet, space flight, the airplane!!!!)
Honesty and frankness in speech
We are unbound by useless, archaic traditions
A rather large segment of the population believes in working toward greater equality and justice
The people feel and really are empowered – whether they use that power or not.

All these things have only come gradually and most of them in the last 50 years. Some are still only ideals. But, we are moving forward and we are even ahead of many other worthy nations in some respects.

We just aren’t the end-all be-all of human civilization. The rest of the world is not a cesspool with America standing in contrast as a shining city on a hill. Other nations are also making progress along with us, including so-called “backward” nations. If we seem to have come further, it’s because we’ve taken SO GODDAM much from others.

Capitalism, which is freedom of economic activity, can be a wonderful tool for helping the downtrodden. But, it’s not magic and it doesn’t work in a vacuum. It can’t remain unfettered and unregulated. Its benefits must be shared by all. And power and wealth cannot be allowed to accumulate in a few hands.
Not everything ought to be for sale. The stuff of life and culture shouldn’t be on the auction block: toasters and automobiles, yes. Education and food, no.

We’re not totally lost, yet. I hope we don’t squander the world’s faith in our ideals. I hope it’s not really all just propaganda. I think it is, but I truly hope I’m wrong.

No gods, no kings

I watched every re-run of "MASH" I could, none are available. It was the best Morality Play in TV, ever. Did you know that our soldiers were ordered to massacre civilians running ahead of the invading forces in South Korea? The secret came out about a year or two ago. So much for Integrity, Honesty and telling the truth to the American people.

The problem ignored in America is that we never asked, or answered, what is the purpose of Public Education. In our efforts to not offend sectarian views, children are taught nothing about the purpose of life or the meaning of the values in the Proclamation of Independence. We have religious minorities, some of which are extreme, and agnostics that believe in nothing and some in between.

Full freedom requires educated voters that know what they want and why. Something beyond "what's in it for me!" Sen. Obama often mentions what Pres. Bush said after 9/11: "Go shopping, buy something!"

I would like to say more but I have no ideas. Yes, I did read the "Ugly American" but never saw a book that linked behavior in other countries to something in the US, other than American become their real self when they think they can get away with anything.
A bomb explosion in a bar in SouthEast Asia, notorious for child prostitution, killed many Americans. It seems they blamed American money for destroying their children. Some refused to accept the responsibility for their own mores, familiar?

No other site is comparable in concern, topics and, oh yes, the wise comments, except mine, of course. Thanks you all!
MikeSar

"There is this idealized "America", often spread by US culture, around the world which stands for everything America thinks it still stands for but in reality doesn't, a kind of road movie ... "

But in reality does not and never did. And yes, I am an American citizen.

-- EKATON --

Really great. Yes, this is the way I've experienced it, too.

I am happy that it was written by an American, because I was beginning to think that I had been deluded in my younger days when I did experience America as a far more tolerant and pleasant place than now. At least, this mean streak of fascism and its shocking pervasiveness outside the very big cities came as a shock to me later on. And I've been wondering whether this was something I simply didn't see during my first visits.

But "later on" was already at a time when the right had taken over America and had poisoned so many people's minds. They were no longer as easy-going as I had thought, the veneer of friendliness was pretty thin. If you disagreed, particualrly as a visiting foreigner, they could get pretty mean. You "hated America", obviously.

"America" in many people's mind (outside the US) creates a schizophrenic split these days.

There is this idealized "America", often spread by US culture, around the world which stands for everything America thinks it still stands for but in reality doesn't, a kind of road movie into an Arizona sunset, a kind of mental Disneyland which people really like.

And then there is the "America" of the daily news reports which is the opposite of what it claims it is and which comes across as pretty ugly.

So as a result, our European etc. brains have stored two completely different Americas side by side in our brains and it makes us all a little dizzy.

I didn't know that T-shirts were improper dress. Or that it defined people that wore them.

Frankly I don't think for one minute there are a lot of people here at CD that hate America or Americans, yes there are a few, but very few and they count for nothing. Most love America or they wouldn't care. We may fight among ourselves, have differing opinions about which way to go, but we always end up together.

I know we've all seen the ugly American tourist, I know I have and yes its embarassing, but hopefully that to is passing.

The harshest judgements come from within or from envy. People forget (even us) how big we really are. Just think yiou could go thru 7 or 8 countries and meet that many different nationalities while I drive from one end of my state to another. Maybe thats part of it?

As to McCain/Palin and Bush/Cheney....lets just sing that song from the ball parks..."Goodbye"

"Even with chaos at the doorstep people look for hope, for change, for reason to believe that the America of song and story persists."

Part of what I was trying to say.

This political season has been especially bad, as I've seen politicians attack other politicians for being compassionate - like assuring immigrants have some access to medical care, or even suggesting the utterly obvious and uncontroversial notion everyone shares in the nations wealth.

One community near me is up in arms because an agency wants to open a group home for reatarded people in the neighborhood - the attendees at the meeting wer angered when the offcuial of the agency stated that they picked the location because it would be a "nice place to live". Apprently these concerned residents believe mentally handicapped people only deserve a life of misery.

Sorry to say, but sometimes I arrive at the concluson that USAns are in general the most callous, uncharitable, un-hospitable, self-centered, narrow minded, and provincial race on the planet. Hate America? Not really, but I do pay heed to the data that comes in through my eyes and ears and draw my own logical conclusions.

we'd all like to think there is a more sane theme to american life but i have grave doubts about that

true mccain is preaching hate to the trailer parks - you can't help but notice the tee shirt is the most popular mode of dress for his rallies - but given the state of american education the sad reality is that america has become synonymous with hate, death, and moronic intelligence

where else in the world could the greedy elite get away with making the case that no health care is better than good health care

only an ignoramus can follow that logic

cheers, b

"There is hope. There is truth. If the people demand them."

What a pathetic platitude. Hope and truth are worth little in the face of corporate fascism.

-- EKATON --

Mike said: "quaint American values of tolerance, generosity, equality and fairness, replacing them with chauvinism, avarice, confusion, fear and despair."

COMMENT:
Americans as a people, especially but not exclusively white people, never had these values.

Never.

Blacks, browns, tans, reds, "Reds", homosexuals, "Yankees" or "hillbillies", "Dodgers or Yankees", "Eastside" or "Westside", "niggers" or "white trash", "city slickers" or "country bumpkins", "greasers" or "Wops" or "Pollacks" or "Hunkies" or "Honky's" or "Chinks" or "Japs" or "Wetbacks" or "Kikes" or "Mackerel Snappers"....

– just what glorious and completely mythical "American" past had values of tolerance, generosity, equality and fairness?

None.

Not in my lifetime, nor my parents, nor my grandparents - and they go way back deep into the 19th century. Zinn's history can fill in the rest. So-called American values are like belief in gods: people try to believe that they exist. They don't. Never have.

No big mistery. Conservatives are either stupid, misguided or rich. The rich keep the stupid scared and the misguided thinking they are going to get rich.

How does the saying go... Love America but hate the Americans... or is it the other way around. The problem here of course is we were initially talking about health care, the economy, international relations, the right to privacy... things which matter to folks and they have distracted us with bombast and glittering generalities. Well, at least they're shiny.

I tend to look at this from a perspective of the stages of creativity. Lots to absorb, mull over, sit with, walk with, talk about, wrestle with and begin to hear reflections of options.

It is important to realize that media culture is a brittle shell, relatively recent, based on violation of individuality, needling into your emotions to make you desire what is not needed. Turn the tables on perspective, make it a creative game. Be patient and listen for what is good inside the fear. Turn the fear on its head.

There are innumerable conservatives and liberals who are being alienated by those lables. Shed the shell! Maybe one day we won't be embarassed by simply calling ourselves human beings. A humility of the highest dignity.

When I was a fledgling conservative in the '70s, I was, nevertheless, a huge fan of M*A*S*H, which presented American viewers with a humane & imaginative vision at least equal to the one presented by the Twilight Zone.

Mike Farrell has been belittled by the rightwingers for years for his engagement with humanitarian & anti-war causes. "He thinks the tv show was real!" they always smirk.

In the disordered progressivism too often voiced here, Mike Farrell would also have to be a brainwashed, delusional Obama voter.

There is also HOPE SMASHED, too. That's what this writer will get with his Obama in office.

I've kept thinking the "real" party would somehow save themselves and us from what the past four years has wrought. Apparently they're waiting for that magical leader to lead them the way most of us are.

Bush, Cheney, Rove, McCain, Bachmann, Palin, James Dobson, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin ARE now the real Republican party. The days of Dwight Eisenhower and Nelson Rockefeller are long, long gone and aren't coming back any time soon. The religious fanatics, the nationalist psychopaths, the beer hall brawlers and Wall Street swindlers have no place to go beside the Republican party. They will, literally, kill to keep it to themselves. They will be seeking a smoother, less malodorous presentation in the future. Do you smell Jeb Rancid Bush? I sure do.

Part of this country were just that for decades and I base this assertion on life experience. It was only these last 8 years that other states also got to feel the roughness. I think Obama realized that since a bad feeling can spread, it's not a bad idea to penetrate through the red as well. Given Obama's cool calm and his proven ability to penetrate through all this madness, I think he'll surprise more people in the end hopefully for the better. Who knows?

Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota

Unfortunately, the GOP has always been about patriarchy, the exploitation of capitalism, corporatism.

QUOTE: Embraced as true conservatives and stoked by hate-radio millionaires, these changelings seduced the Republican Party, laid claim to the flag and launched a "culture war." Adopted by anti-government hucksters, empire-seekers and profligate free-marketeers, they divided the nation with a 'God and Country' ethos that declared the Bible inerrant, reviled homosexuality, "permissiveness," liberalism and critical thinking, denied women equal rights, children any at all, and cowed the media into submission. UNQUOTE

After all, these are the hatreds and exploitations of humanity and nature upon which patriarchy and organized patriarchal religion is based.

Indeed, so was much of the Democratic party.

Yes, we had a revolution in 1776, but it was quickly undone by patriarchy,
capitalists and the power of buying a stake in a people's government to
undue "equality for all."

Our first hint of economic democracy in America came with the New Deal --
and we never actually succeeded in delivering it -- but what was accomplished
at that time has already been undone\ -- and the GOP led the way in that war
on the New Deal and equality.

"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"

Canada also has its problems.
We have gun violence,
a truly hideous policy towards wildlife(clubbing seals, endorsing whaling etc)
as well as the well hidden legacy where tribal kids(I have trouble saying aboriginal or Native Canadian since anyone born in Canada is technically a native, so First Nations is probably best but it feels PC to me) were forced into church run schools and kidnapped by the good ol RCMP. And tribal leaders being replaced by Government stooge versions in cahoots with logging companies.
All this is very well hidden by Canada's Soviet style media.

I think Canada differs from the US culturally because it didnt rebel and its environment does not lend itself to the type of rugged individualism that the US claims to endorse.
And frankly, Canadian culture is a joke. Our movies and books are utter garbage(excluding Quebec, since it has a distinct culture and my french isnt good enough to judge its cultural merits).

In Canada we have things like Corner Gas where sitting Prime Ministers can appear without worry of ridicule(compare it to the Simpsons).

And bear in mind too that the favorite past time of Canadians seems to be to make fun of the US. That smacks of an inferiority complex.

Anyway i think there are many good things about the US-most of my friends are American. Canada suffers from a lack of passion and you have to take the good with the bad.
Again--we have violence, just on a much smaller scale(Michael Moore was full of sh!t to suggest Canadians dont lock their doors). We have a much smaller population.

Canadians have no right to be smug or to have an Ugly Canadian complex--it does exist.

I read "The Ugly American" in 1965. In it was a chapter called "The Ugly American". He was ugly, looks wise. However, he was one of the few Americans living abroad who actually "got it".

"Sarah Palin can watch the movie."

ha! Or perhaps she can browse the comic book version. So little time left to watch movies... now that she has all those fancy new clothes to try on.

Thanks.

Writing as former US expatriate, there were many times when I cringed at the boorish behavior of my fellow Americans and was glad that I knew enough French and German to pass as European. Dubya, Cheney, & Co. were the logical extreme of this, therefore it was not surprise that the USA became the punch line of many jokes. Before the Bush crime family, the most despised tourist was the British lager lout or the German sex tourist: now its' an American Bush supporter.

Bang On! Mike Farrell played a very decent character on MASH- he is the real deal as a human being. I totally agree with his analysis- it is very sad for your Canadian neighbours to see our friends and fellow North-Americans so caught up in hate, greed, ignorance and the like. Not that we don't have our own...just that America is a very much larger, much more powerful nation AND- is so often bragging about it's "special" Democracy/place at the top of the world/God given hegemony over other peoples and Nations...it goes on and on...
I do hope and pray that America can find it's TRUE soul- the one I love and respect, the one that would also serve to help heal the WHOLE World because it is a profoundly decent SOUL.
PS Read The Postman by David Brin...not at all like the Kevin Costner movie- the book graphically takes our present situation to one logical conclusion...and it is most instructive, scary, and uplifiting all at the same time. Namaste...

Well said!!!!

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta

Great peace! Thank you for the hope!

Excellent article. And I appreciate that you mention the fact that "changelings seduced the Republican Party". I believe there are plenty of honest Republicans who simply have a different political philosophy from Democrats, but by and large still view politics as disagreement, not a "battle". I recall there being a book, something like "God help me rescue Jesus from the Christians". In the same way a true Republican needs to write a book "Help me save Republicans from the Fascist Neocons."