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"Give
me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. -
Engraved on Statue of Liberty"
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At some point in our relatively recent American history,
this line as engraved on the Statue of Liberty, has been reduced to just so
much more “Yankee Bullshit” associated with the “American myth”. At least, that
is what an apparent great number of current Americans want us to accept, White,
Black and even Hispanic.
Granted, as observed by many conservatives, the United
States does have a lot of problems which would be more easily dealt with by
closing our borders or sticking our heads in the sand or slipping into whatever
state of denial best suits the need of the time, But ‘whatever the case’ this
is only a temporary measure, allowing current authority to pass off the
responsibility to the next generation or administration as is the case.
What so many of us ‘Americans’ have forgotten, or
selectively made a personal ‘right’, is that our nation was founded on certain
ideals. Ideals which are difficult to live up to, yet we have all or mostly all
received the benefit of.
“American” has been reduced to ‘what benefits the current
resident citizens of the United States of America”, to which we recruit and
send our ‘patriot’
son’s and daughter’s to enforce around the world, with little and mostly NO
concern as to the realities underlying our political and military interests. We
are “American”, we can kick ass, we are the best and can and will bomb whoever
‘back to the stone age’ if you don’t buckle under and submit to ‘our’ will …
“We’ve got the drones that can do it to you, from the security of our bunkers
12,000 miles away … fuckin’ gooks, chinks, brown skinned ragheads … camel
fuckers … “ And in the tradition of American capitalism, we will sell our services
to the highest bidder, or if you prefer, sell you the means to accomplish your
task on your own. Of course you understand, we may come back at a future time
and date and reverse what has previously been established to suit our, or our
allies, needs and desires as it is deemed most to our benefit at that time. Of
course we will make every effort to create an image, to our liking and
appearance, which presents us in the most favorable light, all the while
appearing to be sacrificing our self-interests as we best determine is in your
interest. Yet always remember, our plans are well thought out, with our
ultimate interests are our primary objective.
American ideals, as currently expressed in our International
policies, enforced by our military, are essentially the extension of the early
nineteenth century doctrine of Manifest Destiny. This in actuality growing out
of our colonial period where establishing ourselves in the ‘New World’ was demarcated
as entering the new Promised Land to become a “City set on a hill”, a nation
dedicated to ‘God’ and defined by Biblical principles. The problem always
narrowing down to “What defined whose Biblical principles?”
The fact being the United States of America was a
conglomeration of philosophies, partly Christian (with no distinct adherence to
any organized religion) and Enlightenment ideals, some Deistic and some of no
particular religious affiliation. As such, we are not a distinctly ‘Christian’
nation. As a nation, defined by the Constitution, we are not distinctly joined
to any specific economic or political ideology. Corporate Capitalism as it currently dominates
is only a matter of the failure of “we the people” to take the responsibility to
actually govern ourselves rather than turning it over to so called experts in
the law and any setting themselves up as most capable to do our thinking for
us.
No doubt, this is a great responsibility. It means work …
learning and thinking. It is much easier to pass off the responsibility to another
as our ‘so called’ representative. And that may be necessary, to a degree. But
how many of us are willing to make the effort to hold these ‘representatives’ accountable,
and not just on a whim, but educate ourselves as to the issues? I fear in truth
it is very few.
When words like ’socialist’. ‘Fascist’ or ‘freedom’ are
used, how much do we know beyond the common rhetoric, which uses catch phrases
to elicit an emotional response from us?
What does being an American mean to you? Should we tear down
the Statue of Liberty because its ideals no longer fit into what is currently
espoused by so called ‘patriots’?
