Submitted w/o comment
Bipolar America
by Ed Cobb
"Don’t feel like Satan but I am to them.
So I try to forget it any way I can."
~ Neil Young
Most of us recognize that we fall short. If we are honest, we acknowledge that others might have legitimate grievances with us. For a man to dislike me and perhaps even wish me ill it is not necessary for him to be evil or stupid or misinformed. All that is necessary is for him to see not my aspirations or my efforts to fulfill them but the dark chasm that divides the two. Being able to see yourself as others see you is a blessing, however difficult and distasteful the sight might be.
But as Americans, we seem not to recognize this same gap between aspiration and actuality in our national behavior.
The reasons we ignore it are many. Not least among them is the fact that our rulers and their media lapdogs misdirect and misinform us for the very purpose of keeping us ignorant. They like their power and their privilege. They like us fat, dumb and happy. Those sins are theirs to answer for but their sins do not excuse ours.
A man is not excused for the evil he does because those around him tell him what a great guy he is. It is up to each of us to discover and act on what is right. And the fact that our politicians, media, and power brokers tell us that America is nothing but wonderful and that is why some other people hate us does not mean that we are excused if we fail to find and acknowledge the truth for ourselves. This is not a call to self-loathing but to truth. And the truth, and the truth alone, will keep us free.
When another country is struck by disaster - earthquake, hurricane, flood - America and Americans are the first to help. We are also the first to rain bombs down on other nations. We did it in Serbia. We continue to do so in Iraq nearly every day. If the people of the nation in question do not do as we wish - dump Saddam, give their homeland to the KLA, whatever we want that day - we drop more bombs. Our bombs kill innocents, women and children. They destroy churches and marketplaces and pharmaceutical factories. This is also a true thing about us.
We say that the people who have perpetrated Tuesday’s terrorist attacks on us are different from us. We say that they do not place the same value on human life as we do. Is that true? Do Islamic fundamentalists kill a million and a half of their unborn babies each year? I don’t know if they do or not, but it seems like a reasonable question. I know that we do. It is one more true thing about us.
We rebuilt Europe, enemy and ally alike, and Japan after World War II. Americans fed, housed, and doctored most of a continent. We asked for nothing in return, which is exactly what we got. Americans can’t even get a kind word from many of the people we put back on their feet let alone a few bucks worth of the interest on the loan. But we would do it for them again. Even the French. Another true thing about who we are.