Why I am Ashamed to be an American

[babylonsister]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17810.htm

Why I am Ashamed to be an American

By Doug Soderstrom

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Due to what appears to have been a rather serious lapse of judgment on the part of tens of millions of Americans, the voters, for whatever reason (perhaps it was a matter of fear), chose to place into power a President (a presidential administration) that: may well have laid the groundwork for 9-11 (the “new Pearl Harbor”) that, according to PNAC (Project for the New American Century) was needed in order to pave the way for our country’s military/economic takeover of the world; is in the preparatory stages of going to war with Iran (a conflict that will no doubt reign havoc upon our nation as well as that of the world); lied to the American people in regards to why we went to war with Iraq; lied to citizens in that our government has no intention of leaving Iraq given the fact that it is in the process of building as many as fourteen “Enduring Military Bases” (enough to house at least 100,000 soldiers) along with that of having built the world’s largest Foreign Embassy located in Baghdad (a 592 million dollar, 104-acre, 21-building complex); committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, as well as high crimes and misdemeanors for which several of our leaders should be impeached; condoned the systematic use of torture against prisoners; violated the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution by intentionally choosing to interfere with the free flow of information to the American people; enacted laws (such as that of the Patriot Act) that are seriously eroding our freedoms; through the use of the Military Commissions Act, granted the President the right to arbitrarily detain, imprison, and torture U.S. citizens at that of his own discretion (and without the right of Habeas Corpus!); allowed the President to disobey more than 750 U.S. laws through the use of so-called “signing statements”; through the passage of the Defense Authorization Act of 2007 set the stage for, essentially creating the likelihood that, our country might one day become a military dictatorship; allowed the United State’s military to develop an extremely sophisticated, website-based video game (America’s Army) to be used as a recruitment device that is teaching millions (perhaps as many as nine million) of our children to kill human beings with an increased degree of efficiency, all of such having desensitized our teenagers to kill others with little, or no, psychological pain; has enabled politicians to profit immensely from funds awarded to corporate enterprises associated with the military-industrial complex; bankrupted the nation by allowing the national debt to rise to nine trillion dollars in spite of the fact that the nation’s actual debt is a little over 59 trillion dollars due to the government’s use of unorthodox (essentially unethical if not illegal) accounting practices that intentionally disregard (essentially misinforming the American people with respect to) unfunded promises to reimburse (that is to repay) Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and an assortment of federal retirement programs; and has been absolutely unwilling to take responsibility for the fact that we, as a nation, have done more to destroy the ecosystem of our planet than anyone else on Earth.

For anyone who has taken the time to study the history of the human race, there can be no doubt that one of the primary, if not the primary, cause of harm is that of people taking up arms in the name of God. No one in their right mind can deny that Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammad, Confucius, or Lao Tse were men of good will. However, over the centuries the simple yet profound truths taught by these wonderfully wise men have been perverted beyond recognition. And, as far as the West is concerned, the greatest perversion has been that of the religious right’s willingness to accommodate the needs of neoconservatives in Washington D.C., a well-thought-out, although no doubt surreptitious, plan to allow the Bush-Cheney presidential administration to utilize their faith (a plan of salvation that rather conveniently ignores the teachings of Jesus, the fact that we should love rather than kill others) as a theologically-based (no doubt divinely inspired) justification for a cadre of militants all to ready to go to war in order that they might one day rule the world……. and all of such in exchange for political presence, an increased opportunity for the religious right to publicize a gospel of family values (a rather fabricated attempt to “sugarcoatedly-disguise” an undoubtedly well-documented ideology of out-and-out social-political conservatism). Looking back at history, there can be little doubt that much the same occurred in the 1980’s when Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority decided to align itself with Ronald Reagan’s tenure as President, and, before that, when Germanically-oriented Christians decided to go along with, and therefore to support, Adolph Hitler’s Nazi inspired efforts to rule the world.

Concerning the education (or shall I say the mis-education) of our children it is high time that we do the right thing, that we stop lying to our kids and begin telling them the truth. The school’s job is not to make “good citizens” of our children, for in doing such a thing our children end up being duped, conditioned, slowly but surely brainwashed, into becoming truckling sycophants, bootlicking followers of the status quo. As one who has taught college students for the past 41 years, the only task worthy of a teacher is that of teaching our kids how to think for themselves, critical thinking skills that might perhaps enable them to counter the outrageous mendacity of those in power, chauvinistic jingoes who would, through the use of propaganda, have our children believe a lie rather than that which is true.

Regarding our economy, a capitalistic enterprise focused upon one, and only one, thing (the enrichment of the rich euphemistically referred to as that of “the American Dream”), we, as Americans (those of us who are rather well-to-do), should be ashamed of ourselves, ashamed of having become an island of enormous wealth stationed in the midst of a poverty-ridden world (not to mention an ever-expanding proportion of our own people who are poor) in that we go to bed every night with a willingness to anesthetize ourselves to the needs of billions of folks whose lives are inextricably mired in an absolutely desperate attempt to simply survive. And then due to what appears to be a rather natural correlate of capitalism (activities that no doubt follow capitalism wherever it goes), the American people (folks so terribly possessed by that which they possess) have developed an apparently insatiable appetite to be rich (the capacity to consume anything and everything they want), the need to be constantly entertained, a near addictive fascination with sex, drugs, gambling, pleasure, power, and violence, and all of such no doubt nullifying any legitimate interest in the “finer things of life” such as that of developing a meaningful philosophy of life, a desire to understand what it means to be a human being, and that which might perhaps be worthy of our time here on Earth.

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The final, and perhaps most important, reason why I am ashamed to be an American is due to the fact that we, more than any other people, have used our accumulated wealth (part of which comes from money earned from having sold more weapons of war to the rest of the world than the rest of the world combined) along with having developed the largest, most destructive military force (larger than the accumulated defense budgets of the rest of the world combined) since the beginning of time (next year’s defense budget will be nearly 700 billion dollars!), all the while realizing that if we had proven our love for God by using such funds to feed the hungry, medicate the sick, clothe the poor, house the homeless, and liberate the oppressed, we would have become a nation loved and revered by all…… rather than, as things have turned out, having become a land hated by nearly everyone in the world.

In conclusion, in order that you might understand where I am coming from, you need to realize that I do in fact have a bit of respect for my country, or at least for that which was envisioned by our forefathers, the founders of, what has turned out to be, a once great nation. However, just as we would with someone we love, we have no choice but to call attention to weakness, since in doing such a thing we give our loved ones an opportunity to address the problem. It is, and must be, the same with that of the land in which we have been born. If we truly care about our country, if we really do want our nation to flourish, then we should realize that we have not only the right, but, much more importantly, the responsibility, perhaps even, one might say, a moral responsibility to point out its deficiencies in order that it might once again be revived. For we must remember, as our nation goes, so do we……. in its flourishing we, as a people, will no doubt thrive, but in passing away, we, as a collective society, might well cease to exist.

Doug Soderstrom, Ph.D. is a psychologist and can be reached at dougsoderstrom @ sbcglobal.net

[MethuenProgressive]

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