U.S. Exceptionalism vs. Our Faults, Failures, Fraudulence, Fratricides….
.
Sitting atop our high horses’ asses, Americans exude amazing piles of waste product. We have done a lot of good, but we have done almost as much at pretending it was all good, in many cases doing our best to cover up the badly done, or at least whitewash it. It hurts to be wrong, and have others point it out to us. That is why I have always done what is exactly perfect; I hate the feelings that come from being, or doing something, wrong, especially when it hurts others.
.
Of course, I only know about making mistakes from a friend who is kind enough to confide in me. Although his kindness is usually conditional. He tells me why such criticisms and revelations hurt, scar the psyche, and even piss a person off! Boy, that feels better to finally get off my chest, again for an alternate persona friend.
.
America is like a supposed boy genius who is outsmarted by an actual girl genius, and then covers it up by telling his friends no such thing ever happened, or covering his ears, and saying loudly, nah nah n nah nah, any time she says it in front of his friends.
.
While that may seem as if it was my life story, I will admit it is plagiarized, inside information I got from someone I know very well. Like me, he had four sisters, two on either side, who knew at least one thing better than him. You can never know how frustrating that was for a supposed boy genius. Again, as he has told me, many, many, too many times. Though many may have called him a big whiner, I suggest we not judge others so harshly, especially a person I know so intimately, and who would be hurt to core of his being by such savagely, on-the-mark judgements.
.
Why is America such a big whiner about its failings, and ongoing fratricides? It has something to do with a myth making culture. Believing all the hype is an easy thing to get caught up in. It makes life a lot better. The slings and arrows bounce off, are obscured by shields of time, and buried by the victors’ gravediggers. Bury the wrongs, ditch those caught in the crossfire, and muzzle the real truth prisoners. Our society is so open to the cover up and whitewash, it is difficult to see much reality through our purposely fogged up history glasses, hard to spot the honor and valor framed forgeries, and tough to get a bead on the hyperactively trumped up foolishness.
.
While I am able to live off my high and mighty righteous perch, few others can, or should even try. However, a huge portion of Americans go along with the pristinely virtuous image of our nation. Few Americans are immune from its fragrant, specious lure, but there is a core who never mention a failure, let alone admit to one, unless it has to do with political opponent vilification. You can tell your myth-bliss latherers from their inability to dissect historical events without a partisan tinted, tinged, or more likely singed element.
.
This kind of (truth to befall a person) avoidance reminds me of when I,… my very close friend was working in my… his parents’ attic as a teenager, which was unfinished, meaning no floor. It was very hot, and the loose, T-shirt he was wearing decided to gather up a wasp. He said, I saw it enter under the shirt, and I immediately started doing a special eye, hand, and feet coordination dance…
Where is the damn wasp?! He said, I can’t see it! Right foot there, left foot there… Now here, now there, now here, there, there, here, here, there!… He thought in what have seemed like a growing panic, I must flush the wasp out… Swinging his hands under, and swatting at the T-shirt…
.
Soon the dance became apoplectic, and comically endangering, after the wasp stung me once, then twice, then…. Finally the only thing that he could think of was to… Jump out a three story window… Ahhhhhh!…
.
Luckily, I… I mean… he did have one more thought; rip off the f’ing T-shirt!
.
This was before sweat wicking Under Armor, so up in our thousand degree summer 1980 attic, it was a standard white underwear T-shirt, common in the day, worn through almost clear, rips already in it. Allowing the wasp to escape, he says he had never thought about hurting it (until it got under my… his f’ing shirt), meant the third sting never happened! Yes!
.
So he had saved me… That’s him, and the parent’s ceiling! Praise be my inherent dancing skills! He said.
.
Once an American, usually white, is confronted with a historical failure perpetrated by its own people, ancestors, or Constitution, they also become apoplectic, feeling as if something stung them unwarrantedly. The reactions to this truth telling would be comical if the depth of it didn’t put so many other Americans in danger, particularly those not of the dominant skin color. Americans cannot face the depth of their past, skimming the surface is much more palatable. Moving passed their thin white skin color, leads in directions they cannot, and will not, go.
.
Ask many white Americans if there is such a thing as systemic racism, and their apoplectic radar is breached, and screams out bloody myth murder. Considering something like systemic racism could survive their pure-hearted traditions of gooey goodness, valorized cloud nine historical existence, and christian clan-laden nation is much too overwhelming a prospect. The stinger plunges too deep, and a tear stream whitewashes away any painful thoughts of betrayal. They can never believe their slave holding founders, white supremacist historians, first grade conservative parent-fearing teachers, and pungently polarized pundits could have ever mislead them so long.
.
I want to be clear. I personally, never got sucked into these lies. Yes, the intimate one I partner with, and plagiarize from, has sadly fallen for the subtle fabrications, and not-so subtle falsehoods of a nation on the make, and take, and take. Yet the fratricide of our multi-colors, religions, and genders of our American siblings, we have imbibed in for centuries is the obvious lie we forever let lie there, lying; lying about those atrocities, and lying to ourselves about their continuance in various forms.
.
Nothing of such a nature, that we have never cared about from day one, could still be systemic after all these centuries.When we avoided seeing all those problems or admitting to them originally, how could these problems still be going on?No one could fool us if they tried, since Americans have never been wrong. And even if we were wrong — not that I can safely say here we have been — we would have corrected those wrongs before they were wrongs like only Americans can, and have. NOTE: American Ingenuity was coined by the same person who wrote the previous sentence.
.
Yet American Exceptionalism is a truism, not some kind of fraudulent concept. The proof is in the putting of it here: Our exceptionalism is recognized and respected around the world by every nation that we have conquered, or threatened, or that owe us. Respect like that you cannot buy! Unless you are America with more money than god’s son Jesus allowed the money changers to keep… on their tables.
.
The White Anglo-Saxon Pundit will say that I am unpatriotic, a radical liberal socialist, and should live in another country like Venezuela. These allegations and suggestions may all be true or helpful, but what they cannot say to me is that I am caught in a vortex of illogical thinking and whitewashed history like they are. Well, they could say that, or anything, I guess. But what I mean is they can’t handle the truth! Which I may also have plagiarized. Many Republicans, and the right wing white supremacist specifically, are addicted to the stinging rebuke of their waspy whitewashing activities.
.
They seem to love their fake, failed, fraudulent, and fratricide past, current, and future. Forever reveling on the wrong side of the sane politics fence. It has become an overarching delusional goal to deny their growing irrelevance. Layering more and more scales over their eyes is the only escape remaining for them. Unfortunately, they are also the drowning victim pulling you and I down with them. Soon they will be jumping out some third story window into a flooded with failures and falsehoods oblivion…
.
The question is, will we continue to dance their apoplectic dance, and get pushed out or pulled through the window with them, or will we put in a sturdier democratic floor, then construct a better political and societal environment, and quickly deploy a planetary climate plan?
.
Comments
Post a Comment