American Disgrace

It's been a while since I wrote a post so let me update you. Since my last post, I have been illegally evicted among a laundry list of other crimes against me and am writing this while temporarily sheltered in the home of a "friend" who is actively participating in more abuse in spite of having full context of my situation. That is my life, in short. It is what you all have attempted to train me to believe I should expect from you all and this world.

The point of this post is not to have a pity party for myself, but rather to simply and declaritvely reject your notion of the world. I write this especially to America and Americans, who in my mind are utter failures of the founding vision of this country, and who will surely be celebrating themselves with great gusto and pride this year, as this country turns 250 years old.

My question for America and Americans is this: how have you made this world better, in the vision of the founders? My guess is that Americans will answer in two ways: money and power.

America's legacy to date has been material wealth, usually to the point of excess, and military might. And they go together: we use our military to further ensure we lack real competition in the markets. Laissez faire? Non. Ultima Ratio Regum.

We are a country and a people without soul. We not only - in spite of having all of the world's knowledge not just at our fingertips, but the capacity to summarize it into digestible tidbits our tiny little brains can process - perpetuate the same crimes against humanity as we always have. As I write this, Sudan is being ravaged by war sponsored by economic proxy ruler governments; children in Congo are forced to mine for minerals that we use to build technology that will further subjugate them beneath us; Iranian society teeters on the edge of a revolution they may not fully understand the potential violence within; Israel (as far as I know) continues to starve children in Gaza. The list goes on. And as the leading global superpower that exports its culture all over the world and trains the rest of the world to believe in, we cannot avoid accountability for the morality of this world.

Let me make that point extremely clear: when you have soft power to the extent that America does and you use it to sell Real Housewives and Squid Game and FOX News and MSNBC, what do you expect the world to be like? It is going to be more like you.

The problem with America and Americans is that it and they (I no longer identify as an American in any common usage of the word - I do not see myself as having any uniquely defining matching characteristics with the broader group) are so caught up in their self-aggrandizing delusion of greatness that they fail to see that they are, in fact, a failure, and that this world - plagued by war, famine, preventable disease, etc - for all its material and technological progress, is the inheritance that they are leaving their children.

That is what it means to be an American: to kick the can down the road; to run from accountability; to self-promote and peddle your wares regardless of quality; to make others do your work for you while you sip your lemonade and profit.

This is the America we live in today, and have been living in for some time now, perhaps nearly 200 years. The founding fathers would be ashamed of what we have become as a people.

So as we look forward to this 250th year since America's birth - that country which sold the world a dream from the start, but only for some - I want you to consider the notion of what a graceful America would look like. Because this country is dis-graceful and, in most ways, a disgrace.

Note that an astute American might make the argument that Americans are just a subset of humanity - that we are no different than the people of any other country. I accept this argument on your terms, but all that does is further diffuse responsibility for your depravity. All people are shit? Fine. That does not change the fact that you are still a piece of the colletive pile of shit that is humanity. Just more of that American lack of accountability.