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December 09, 2004
Embarassed to be American
Well I guess that's a mis-wording of my feelings. It should read "embarassed by my fellow Americans." This week has pretty much rekindled those feelings in me after the post-election depression that proved there are more idiots and religious fanatics in this country than decent human beings and intellectuals. I tried to swallow the unhappiness the election stirred in me, but it's so hard to hold it in when things like this happen. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm referring to the call by a number of Republican (of course!) Senators for Kofi Annan to step down on charges that literally have nothing to do with him directly. The people that are calling for a wonderful world leader to step down are the same people who vehemently defended the Bush administrations mishandling of every single thing that occurred during the last four years.
The second thing that is embarrassing me as an American is that Canada has just ruled that they can go ahead and OK gay marriage, and when the measure passes before Canadian parliament, it is expected to fly by with very little resistance. Here in the US, it's the exact opposite! We're moving centuries backwards into the dark ages! What's next, are we doing to start having witch trials again?
Let's see, what else has been going on to hurt my confidence in this country's leadership, let alone it's citizens:
- Rumsfeld dodging troops' questions about why they don't have adequate vehicle armor 3 years into the war
- US troops coming out and admitting they were ordered to murder innocent civilians by their commanding officers
- the US economy continuously getting weaker and weaker
- no progress on our part in any world issues since well before the election... only it's now more than a month after the election; shouldn't progress be being made? It is, by everyone except for us... The EU is working to halt Iran's nuclear program, South America is working to build a continental union like the EU, while Africa is strengthening theirs, the rest of the world is fighting global warming by finishing the ratification of the Kyoto Protocal... what have we done? Nothing except for attacking the rights of gays.
I love America. However, to me, America is an ideal not central to any geographic location. America is love of freedom, pursuit of happiness and truth, and lifting up the downtrodden. We don't live in America anymore; we live somewhere else. But we can see America, those ideals, popping up in new places all over the globe. It really saddens me to think that this country, which has tried so hard to show the rest of the world that democracy is the best way to live, is ultimately failing at everything it has stood for.
I think it's too late for us to regain our place as leader and example of the world. It's not too late, though, to join the rest of the world in leading. I do worry about what horros the Bush administration will commit this term, but I worry much much more about the fact that our country has a majority of people who support those kinds of horrors.
Posted by dminky at December 9, 2004 01:37 PM
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