America, by an American

I hear a great deal of protests from Americans when world opinion does not subscribe to America’s points of view. 
The foreign press is labeled anti-American when they disagree with America, and we launch righteous indignations from our perspective. 

Conversely, we seemingly do not have a problem with lambasting countries and governments – we have this notion that we should be immune but others may not.  I cite France’s position on the Iraq war.  We were hot with steaming emotions and wanted to tell them a thing or two. And, we pretty much did. We strained our relations with France, and France is not the first country we have had a war of words with. 

The question becomes why the dual standards.  Perhaps it is our attitudes that the world sees and doesn’t appreciate. 

We also demonstrate our bloated self image overseas.  When I landed in Moscow, several Americans going through customs started complaining loudly that the customs officers had no business going through their luggage because they (the Americans) were AMERICANS.  The Americans were in a sovereign country that does not have to bow down and worship us.  The protests only made things that much worse, because now, the Russian customs people brought in the dope sniffing dogs – add another half hour in customs.   This type of behavior that got us thrown out of France, and the riots in the early 60’s in South America – the Ugly American we were called. 

We can’t seem to show respect, but we demand it. 

We send our missionaries abroad to convert people to Christianity.  We tell them their soul is damned to hell, God is going to strike them dead, and whatever else.  We insist that they adopt a belief system that is different than theirs. 

Why can’t we respect their belief system?  

We tell countries to adopt our way of doing things, and maybe they don’t want to change.  Back in the 70’s, the Philippines was a very laid back society – we push them to go 24x7, just like us.  America has the highest heart attack rate, per capita, in the world. 

We can’t respect other countries traditions, life style, and value systems.  We claim to appreciate diversity while under our breath we say “mixed ethnicity” in the same tone as we say ‘Bubonic Plague’.  

We feel we have the right to change everything to parallel the American way.  We muddle in their politics.  Iraq is a problem of our own making, we backed the Iraq dictator and we armed him.  Bin Laden, same story.  Noriaga of Panama, the Shaw of Iran, Diem and Tu of Viet Nam.  Everyone of them a cold blooded killer. 

Ho Chi Minh and Castro were rudely snubbed by our state department when they came here to ask for our help – no wonder they went the way they did.  Both of them came to the US first for help, we told them to take a hike, and they did.  Then we turn around and hate them for it? 

Just after the Civil War, we slaughtered with impunity a whole civilization – the American Indian. We stripped them of their heritage and their past – without those two, we took away their future.  Everything west of the Mississippi is actually stolen land – our attitude is, so what. But it was still, in reality, Government level ethnic cleansing and genocide. 

Teddy Roosevelt toppled the government of Panama so we could build our canal. Thousands of Panamanians died and did we really care? 

World War Two – FDR knew about the death camps in 1940.  His response, “It is a Jewish Problem”.   

From 1939 to 1944, we let Europe take the full brunt of the Nazi juggernaut.  Meanwhile we did business with Nazi Germany – there is one electrical utility here in Minnesota that bought water values from Germany – how can one tell?  Perhaps the swastika welded on them might offer a slight clue.  

We helped fire bomb Dresden to nothing but cinders and a civilian population almost completely cremated..  A totally civilian target. 

Nagasaki and Hiroshima – again, completely civilian.  Over 160,000 people vaporized within the first 4 seconds of the blasts.  Had we hit Tokyo, a government installation, the world would have raised an eyebrow, but to take out civilians is a completely different story, morally and ethically. In the eyes of the world, that is never going to go away.  

Yes, we can whine that Germany and Japan committed atrocious too – but they were not the ones bantering self righteousness like it was a religious tenure.    

We think nothing of what Europe went through and the horrors – but we want them to bow down to us because we entered into the war only after Hitler had been badly weakened. 

The world owes us nothing for our minimal participation in the European theater.  We tell the world they owe us big time, we demand God like status for our 11 month participation in the European front.  The war has been over for 60 years.   

We don’t see us from our own history as the rest of the world does.  We don’t listen to what the world is saying to us.  But we sure bitch like hell when they say it. 

We bitch about human rights and we have people starving on our streets.  We bitch about ethnic cleansing and refuse to admit we committed the same thing ourselves right here on terra firma Americana.  

A well know tennis shoe manufacturer sent their production to Asia.  The glue that is being used is causing lung cancer and we don’t care. We pay those people dirt, and those tennis shoes are sold here at the top of the price bracket. 

Toxic baby formula was sold to overseas countries.  Did we stand up in righteous indignation at our own actions?  No we didn’t. 

We order Columbia to cease making cocaine, but it is the America demand for cocaine that is driving the market.  Try figuring that out. 

We send genetically altered grain overseas and our own FDA won’t approve it for American consumption. 

We tell other countries to live in peace and they see things like Columbine High School and they ask: You mean that kind of peace?  

Let me ask this – of all you people who write the foreign press and tell them how anti-American they are, how many of you are flocking to the recruiting offices of the American military knowing our troop levels are strained?   

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, take a closer look at who is really anti-American.  You love our life style, but yet you won’t help protect it?  You love your country, and you will not serve it?  

Refusing to wear your country’s uniform is about as anti-American as an American can get. Don’t even try pointing the finger at me; I did well over 12 years, and I have the scars to prove it. A by-product of going to all the steamy hot places the Army likes to send people to. 

Perhaps, we should listen to what the world is saying to us.  Acknowledge that we are just as bad as the governments we like to lambaste.  Drop this macho image.  Stop demanding our way.  And respect others. 

Our position in the world is slipping and it is by our own hand. Our words and our deeds are our judge.  We’re losing friends fast and I hate to see what will happen when it is just us against them. 

The world doesn’t hate us for our liberties, or what we have – they dislike us for our attitudes and our actions and our behaviors.  We flaunt our life style as if it is the apple in the garden – just taste of it and be like God.  But it just never really turns out that way for them, does it? 

We have yet to learn from history.  Napoleon Bonaparte got too cocky and Europe made short order of him.  Hitler declared that German was over all – and when the world had had enough, that was the end of that.  

Before you elect to write to other newspapers in off shore countries, in scathing high minded idealism – think first about what you are saying.  Are you adding to the problem? Have you foremost written your congress person telling them to start helping solve our own problems first?  If not, then stand down, for he that is without sin cast the first stone.  

Michael Berglin