My best of friends are
Americans, all good people. I have family who had elected to make America home,
business investments that are dollar-wrapped and an American/British
indoctrination that pursues the suspicious with hard questions and reprimand. I
was raised that way and set in it by virtue of that indoctrination. I look at
things and ask why? I see their remedies and wonder why not?
You know, somehow and in so
many ways America
is plugged into all of us. We are all, quite some, American nationals, by
affiliation, exposure, business, choice, marriage, accident, history,
conscription and abduction. From another perspective, it is also true for the
U.K and France,
societies and systems, some say, looked forward to the breaking of the African
spirit and family, to take away our capacity for civil dissemination and the
legitimate. But that is another story. Yes America
may be plugged into all of us but this is not to say we are all plugged into America. We are
not. I find studying American foreign policies fascinating, not for its
political double-speak and dexterity but the pressures and stresses it brings
to bear on its home society. I have often, also, wondered why this is.
I think what is truly
confounding about the American society is how unlike it its leadership has
become. The warmth and liveliness found in the American persona does shine
through in its leaders and that pursuit of liberty is all but near-absent today.
There is a disconnect, between its people and their leaders, most recently,
that projects to the outer world a cold and merciless persona and its bears a
face chiseled out of granite. Clearly, American foreign policies, these days,
cannot be American nor does it add up as such and it would be really absurd to
say it was borne out of the cradle of its founding fathers.
There are reasons why America is
plugged into all of us. To start with, a little bit of everybody lives in America and a little bit of America lives
in all of us, somewhat. Through what we read and watch, how we dress, think and
even eat. We read America
to find out how loved ones who have decided to call it home cope. And this
interest and concern are universal. We eat and think American, mainly because
of aggressive corporate mercantilism or big business and a tingling urge to get
a ‘feel’ of it. From ‘I love New York’
T-shirts to home-made burgers, all are expressions of global fondness. You find
all peoples of the world reaching out to loved ones in America. From China
to the Korean peninsula. Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, Iran,
Indonesia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and everywhere you care to turn, people are
shouting out to loved ones resident in America and associating with it. America
belongs to the world, just ask a pair of Wrangler jeans!
So, in some very peculiar way
we are all connected to the American enterprise and one is not more impacted by
the conducts of that nation-state merely because he was born in it or dwells in
it. We all do have a say in its affairs by virtue of its global connect,
investments and by democratic affiliation. And even by proxies that reside
within. This is why its foreign and domestic policies cause such uproar and
outrage when they are skewed. That’s why there is so much revulsion at home and
abroad when expeditionary presidents go on rampage without realizing that those
brutal incursions are in actuality, an assault on a section of the American
society itself. By this, these political leaders fracture social cohesion to
emit upheavals that weigh the country down. The question is; why would any
right-thinking president want to retire or discharge such goodwill and global
bonding? Yes, I am scared by the monster America is becoming and the fact
that our oil endangers my nation to it. I know it is only a question of time
before she comes calling.
The democracy it professes
and proffers is in serious jeopardy and ill-regarded. The American constitution
is under assault and the very gifts served on it by its founding fathers are
ridiculed by inordinate ambition and corporate lust. Leaders no longer pay
attention to the led or have their fingers on the national pulse. Things really
have changed for Americans and America.
But why are American leaders
so unlike the real American? I think there are some concerns which pressure a
somewhat wrong attitude. The fear of losing the good life appears to be the
dread that informs domestic quest for a strong leader and whereas this may not
necessarily be the good leader. The uniting concern is for a leadership that is
strong enough to guarantee internal security and make the right of passage safe
for American families. But this worthy concern ignores the causative factors
that bring this unwholesome condition into effect. It is, consequently,
preventive and not the cure. My feeling is that the group most responsible for
these situations is America’s
corporate bodies. They are the ones who seek out new frontiers and show America’s
granite face to the world. In truth, what they bring is the face of corporate America masked with Hollywood
cosmetics as the American face. They come telling us; this is what we do and
eat, what we drink and how we live; this is what makes us American. But it
isn’t always true. They come preaching the American dream, searching out our
vulnerabilities and then they extort our livelihoods in the name of America. But
just like anyone else, the ordinary American only aspires to be himself and get
on with his life. He is not always the cowboy on the Marlboro pack or the guy
in the White House.
“Last time I heard, it was a farmer
killing the slave of another farmer… it was a property issue”
I believe that the only thing
different from the above quote, today, is that the entire world to an
insignificant few, is a property issue. The world as we know it today, is owned by
this lingering minority through their control of banks, media,
telecommunications and technology; instruments that are, in fact, political
devices for the attainment of a unique economic prosperity for them and their families.
Devices rigged against the much larger part of humanity in the name of its
emancipation, to bring about the greater disillusionment and discontent of
global society that would excuse the rule of force, emergency powers and
tyranny. All the muscle the devil ever needed to become and excel.
Fact is, it is America’s multicultural content
that binds it to the greater global society and not democracy. It is also this
consideration that makes it so appealing and desirous. Democracy was not
synonymous with the American state and is originally a Greek word. It is a
societal system of government that has endured longer than the American state
and which had managed to stay politically contemporary. Its conception and
evolution have had to endure even longer. But here today, it is a political
contraption that mirrors the chameleon. It has been abused, battered, faked,
stretched and remodeled to fit personal and corporate interests as well as
western objectives. You do not impose democracy on anyone, as the Bush
administration appears to be doing in Iraq, because that imposition in
itself orders the absence of choice, freewill and individual freedom. It is, to
say the very least, wickedly undemocratic.
It is therefore, indeed
ironic, that America
should be seen as stemming the natural flow of democracy, or more precisely,
that the Bush administration should. It is a historically deadly blow that
George Walker Bush Jr has dealt to democracy. It is an almost irreparable
damage that he has inflicted on our democratic culture and model which may yet
deny it of useful universal political resuscitation. This deadly crunch on
democracy was bred from a conspiracy of convenience between eager jurists,
politicians and crooks in government. In fact, they are all crooks, in their
naked essence, answering to some other name. All are, by virtue of this
conspiracy and conduct, political confidence tricksters that look to abridge,
and when they can, annul all our personal freedoms. Democratic ambiguities
fixated on power who stretch civil vocabulary to the fringes of primitive
vernacular and they all are, nothing American.
On the pages of history, America is starting to bear some resemblance to Rome of old. Rome at some point in
history was the premier civilization and keeper of the universe. It only sought
to conquer far away lands for their spoils and treasures; it was a ruthless and
oppressive empire. It had the greatest imbecilic tyrant that ever answered to
the name of Emperor. Nero is a four-lettered name and the man loved his wine
and the sound of his own voice. He was at it, fiddling, when Rome burnt and if ever there was an example
of the failings of womanhood, he was it. Perhaps too, like Nero, Bush fiddles
while America
and the rest of the world smolder.
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