Proud to be an American

Political discussions both anger and sicken me. Much like religion, politics require that one surrender any shred of reason one might possess, in exchange for moronic flag-waving and histrionic performances. Speciousness may not be a necessity, but it sure helps. Try as he might, however, this anarchist finds himself unable to keep quiet for long, especially given the current climate.

Assaults directed toward my ears and my intelligence demand my immediate attention almost every day. One such assault occurs when a blue-pill robot claims it is “Proud to be an American.” What does that mean? What is this person so proud of?

What, exactly, is an American? Does being an American mean you reside somewhere between the Atlantic and Pacific, north of Mexico and south of Canada? If it means something more, I’d like to know just what.

There are those who would claim, in their didactic tones, that being an American means adhering to a certain code of ethics, honoring those who fought and died in combat to make us free. When pressed for specifics regarding the code of ethics, they vomit the crap they were fed in school, and are being fed today by the media. Honor, bravery, courage, blah, blah, blah. Doesn’t every country claim such a code?

As far as honoring the war dead, let’s look at the first hostile Caucasian deaths on this continent.

Personally, I’m proud that England, France, and Spain slaughtered and enslaved the indigenous people of North America. I mean, what could those people possibly have offered the world? They couldn’t even speak our language. How dare they try and deny us America the Beautiful!

Of course, the motivation for settling the New World was greed. Pure and simple. I can understand how many people today could be very proud of this. Even though much has changed on this planet since the 15th and 16th centuries, the motivation of the human animal has not.

I don’t mean to preach the same old message about the white man screwing the Indian. In fact, I believe this was inevitable. A prime characteristic of nature is that the strong always devours the weak. Sorry, Geronimo. Should have eaten those Wheaties.

I’m also not suggesting that anybody today be held accountable for these atrocities (although I‘m sure the Bush family is in some way responsible). Nobody I know ever hunted Indians. No Indian I’ve met had to hide from Custer’s search party. Still, is this something we should be proud of?

Should we be more proud that the Southern States had the gumption to secede, or that the Union had the strength to quash their rebellion? Or maybe we should be proud of our leaders of the day for seeing the light, making it illegal to own slaves.

In our search for American Pride, perhaps we should look to WWII. FDR, quite possibly our greatest president, leading us into battle. Who can forget the “Day that will live in infamy” speech? Looking closer, though, we can see the FDR manipulated both the American people and the Japanese. The Japanese were provoked into attacking Pearl Harbor, because Roosevelt cut off their oil supply. He knew exactly when and where they would strike, and the American people were misled. This, by the way is not conspiracy theory bullshit. It’s documented. Do a google search Roosevelt + Pearl Harbor.

So, after we cut through all the myths, what’s left to be proud of? Bush lies, Kerry’s not appreciably different, and everybody on this planet knows our intentions in Iraq are anything but honorable. We want to be proud. We deserve to be proud. In all this, however, where’s the pride?

It must be remembered, that we the people are not the government. We don’t call the shots. In fact, those who seek positions of power are the slimiest of the human population. We all know this. Those who order young men and women to their deaths, ALWAYS do so out of greed, their own and their supporters. Unfortunately, their names are the ones written in the history books. Not the soldiers, not the parents of the fallen. Only the slime.

I truly am proud of this nation. Not the “leaders,” but the people. I’m proud that, even though they were misled, the soldiers of WWII had the guts to do what they did, believing their homeland was under attack. Roosevelt be damned. I’m also proud of the soldiers in Iraq. Not because I believe we belong there. I don’t, and I believe many of the soldiers feel the same as I. Much like Vietnam, most probably don’t know why they’re there. They’re doing what they’ve been trained to do, however, even if the cost is their lives. Gotta respect that.

Then you’ve got everyday people, like my dad, who worked his ass of as a prison guard to feed his family. He hated that place. I can only imagine the kind of abuse he endured. Thanks, Dad.

In regards to pride, it’s important to look beyond what the establishment tells you that you should be proud of. There are millions of things that we Americans do every day that has nothing to do with war, conquest, policies, politicians, or government.

Does this mean that America is the greatest nation on the planet? Not at all. Every nation has people with integrity who work hard, help others, and raise families. Regular people could make this world a wonderful place in which to live. If only we could rid ourselves of our leaders.

Had a flashback today. Vietnam. Damn, I hate those.


Quote of the day:

Decades, possibly centuries, of warfare lie ahead. The remnants of monotheism are collapsing fast, despite the odd revival, before secularism and consumerism.

Peter J. Carroll, 1987

NPR did a piece today about prairie dogs. It seems the little critters have gotten out of hand, population wise. One farmer claimed to have lost upwards of $60,000, due to their feeding habits (some damn expensive grass, I’d say). The report said there are close to a billion prairie dogs just in southwestern South Dakota.

Legislation enacted to regulate this explosion is being met with intense opposition by the wildlife organizations. Their argument, instead of focusing on just the prairie dogs which are not an endangered species, looks at the black-tailed ferret. Only about 500 of these exist in the world, all in southwestern South Dakota. They claim these ferrets’ diets consist mainly of prairie dogs. Without the dogs, the ferrets would starve.

Last year, millions of prairie dogs were poisoned, but it seems to have barely made a dent in their population, or the problem. People are screaming at the government to do something, and the wildlife people are screaming right back.

All this bickering and politics aside, it starts me thinking about hierarchies and the food chain. If mankind so chose, we could eliminate the prairie dog population completely. Look at what we’ve done to smallpox and polio. Both are virtually non-existent. Humans can eradicate most threats to our species, be they life or merely economic threats.

How do we have the power to decide the fate of the prairie dog, smallpox, or the spotted owl, when the worst they can now do is eat our grass (and maybe a finger if we get too close)? We are intelligent. We know this, because we can look at the prairie dog and assess his threat. Can he do the same to us? Does he even know human beings exist? Would he know we were there, even if we stood over him?

My point is this: We deem ourselves Earth’s caretakers. We do this because we perceive no intelligent life forms higher than our own. If we see a surplus or a deficit, we seek to remedy that. If a species threatens our survival or way of life, we regulate it, until the threat disappears.

So, what is it that we threaten? As far as we know, the population of this planet is larger than it’s ever been. Yet, in the most populated regions, we see the most suffering. AIDS and war, both caused mainly from ignorance, threaten to wipe us out. Hmm, is there a relationship here, I wonder? Intelligence gives us power over the prairie dogs, while ignorance destroys us.

What if there exists an intelligence greater than our own? What if this intelligence determines that our population threatens something of value to it or them? Are AIDS and war the poison of the higher intelligence?

To those who would say that such maladies are simply natural or acts of God, I’d say that’s a cop out, and that human beings may be called “natural” or “acts of God,” at least as far as prairie dogs are concerned. Perhaps aspects of nature or God would be a more proper description.

I’m not necessarily advocating UFO’s, aliens, or the like (nor do I discount these). But, if I were to observe a colony of ants building one of their monumental structures, I wonder how many would notice my presence, much less perceive my ability to flatten their weeks of work in less than a second. Not many, if any, I would think.

Quote of the day

Science achieves, or approximates, objectivity not because the individual scientist is immune from the psychological laws that govern the rest of us, but because scientific method--a group creation--eventually overrides individual prejudices, in the long run.

Robert Anton Wilson

Quote of the day

My right-wing detractors will undoubtedly tell you that I'm an "obnoxious prick," a "smug asshole," and a "clear and present threat to our national security." I will not stoop to dignify such calumny with a response, except to say that Condoleezza Rice should watch her mouth.

Al Franken