Unless you've been living under a rock for the past decade or you've intentionally buried your head in the sand, you've probably noticed the avalanche of dissent and disdain dripping one sound bite at a time from the likes of network television, the global media, world leaders (including psychopaths outfitted in 1970's Members Only jackets), Hollywood actors, internet sites and some of our own elected officials in Washington depicting the United States as the mother of all that is wrong with the planet.
Is there a significant problem anywhere in the world with a global scope that America is not implied as a “country of interest”? Should we just stand up now in the universal court of law and announce ourselves guilty of everything that we have ever been accused of, forget about the sentencing phase and insist on an immediate lethal injection! The quicker we collectively breathe our last breath as a nation the sooner the world can move on toward the utopia we have so deprived it of.
As with any perceived evil, the embodiment of the movement is typically defined by the leader. Enter George W. Bush. Like him or hate him, Republican or Democrat, born in Texas or got here as soon as you could…in my lifetime I have never seen a president incite such hateful and toxic emotion as those who oppose him. The Dixie Chicks expressing their embarrassment that the President was from the Lone Star state surely signaled a low point. Well, maybe for the Chicks.
He has become the poster boy for the evil empire wearing a cape of red, white and blue (or blood if you're Sean Penn or Code Pink). The catalyst of the Zionist regime known as the United States, Bush is defined as a bumbling bully with a thirst for oil, an appetite for conquest and a quick trigger finger. I for one will be relieved when the new President is elected in 2008, whoever it might be. If nothing else it will alleviate temporarily the constant bombardment of blame Bush receives, that is until the newly elected Oval office occupant realizes the shortcomings of their own administration can be grandfathered under the residual incompetence of the former President.
This reckless quest for domination that America is accused of having is apparently executed by mindless military minions acting on faulty intelligence, misinformation and blatant lies. Some of our elected representatives would suggest it to be nearly impossible to find a single American soldier in Iraq or anywhere else in the world for that matter who isn't killing innocent civilians, torturing innocent insurgents, frightening innocent children or raping innocent women. With a broad stroke of the brush, these arm chair quarterbacks in Washington paint a picture of our military as widely undereducated, cruelly motivated and naively loyal.
Perpetuating the undercurrent of disdain within the hallowed halls of Washington by some towards Bush was the suggestion that he finds a morbid amusement in young soldiers getting their heads blown off. With this kind of graphic verbiage emoting from the Capitol of our country and from the lips of an elected official, is it any wonder the rest of the world finds it quite easy to jump on the proverbial bandwagon of adding to the list of reasons to hate the United States?
We have yet to mention the freedoms we are envied for and the abundance of wealth we are hated for. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…you know those selfish proclamations etched in our history that give us an innate sense from birth that freedom creates opportunity and opportunity mixed with a little desire and hard work might create what we so arrogantly call “the American Dream”. In the minds of those who despise us, this cancer of consumerism is simply one more reason for us to be ashamed of ourselves and our lifestyles.
Lost in the vitriol of the accusations of our bloated indulgences is the rather important reality that we are the most generous nation on the planet, both in time and money. In 2005, Americans contributed more than $122 billion dollars in foreign aide. Over $95 billion came from private foundations, universities, individuals, corporations and religious organizations with the balance coming from the U.S. government.
Facts such as these are conveniently ignored or dismissed when you are predisposed to cling to a belief in order to sustain a hatred for a person, a group or a country.
The collateral impact of our collective greed is of course the greenhouse gas effect and the gigantic carbon footprint we are leaving on the planet. If you follow the global footprints ( including the rather sizeable one Al Gore is leaving in the wake of his private jet circling the world talking about carbon footprints…huh?), you would conclude once again that the primary suspect in global warming is a repeat offender. Again, that would be us.
