Had a truly strange experience the other day. My cousins are over from the States and are travelling round the country with their kids for whom this is the first time here. We were having dinner together and started to talk politics. The topic of the last elections came up and my cousin opined that they had a hard choice to make between Bush and Kerry, going on to justify this claim by saying all sorts of things about Kerry’s wife. I was flabbergasted. Here they have the single worst administration that the US (and the world) has ever had the misfortune to have, a president who has managed to grievously harm the country’s economy, society and international standing, a president who first ignored the terrorist threat and then used the attacks to make war against a country which was not involved in them thus leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans, all while greatly strengthening the terrorist groups and magnifying the threat they pose to Americans, and what are they worried about? The personality of the wife of the man who stood opposed to him? Their brains have been spooned out of their skulls, put through a blender and shoved back in with a liberal helping of BS to fill the holes! It made me remind myself of what I had earlier said – do not think of Americans as rational human beings but as unfortunate individuals who are suffering from a particular form of socially contagious dementia. It isn’t them but the disease speaking. They are not be argued with but to be taken to therapy.
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As an American myself, I refuse to stand by and watch my country-men elect a man who's wife wears last year's fashions. Imagine her showing up at the U.N. wearing something from Calvin Klein's 2005 lineup. Oh the inhumanity!
Exerting my influence over this sort of issue helps me feel in control. I feel the same way when I talk about other important issues like abortion and gay marriage. I know my ancestors who founded this great country were courageous and brave men who were in control of their government, and I want to think I'm courageous and brave too. If I admit that there is something really horribly wrong with this country, then I either have to get up from my TV set and do something about it, or admit that I'm really a coward.
Unlike my revered Founding Fathers, I've never had to face anything like this before. A lifetime of living in the land of plenty has made me soft. Deep down I'm terrified of my government. The IRS has made me that way, among other things. Now my news media says they are data-mining my phone calls too.
You have no idea how many lies I am told every day, and how much propaganda I am exposed to. Unfortunately, as a typical American, I have no idea either. Sometimes I do get the impression that something is very wrong, but I'm told the solution is to ban video games and rap music, or to elect "Democrats" instead of "Republicans" (and I continue to think there's a difference), or perhaps the solution of the week is to invade another country.
Part of my culture is to ridicule people who try to tell me there is some big "conspiracy" controlling my media. When someone points out the lies of my media and the atrocities of my government to me, then either they are tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy-theory fruitcakes, or I have to face the fact that I'm a coward. Easy choice, isn't it?
It's a huge part of my cultural and personal identity to believe I'm brave and courageous like my ancestors. We have songs about it and everything. I absolutely cannot admit I'm a coward, so I can't admit there's a problem in this country that would require truly brave men like my forefathers to solve.
So what's Maria Kaczynski been wearing lately?
Drenched
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