by Skald
Im trying to contain my fury... but its not working.
To be blunt-- I dont like America and Im not thrilled about being here. Everyday I ask myself, "why am I back here?". At first I tried to convince myself that it was a good decision. But Im running out of believable positive answers.
What I see is a civilization in its death throes. Some Americans ask, "Why do they hate us?". Im amazed when I ponder, "Why dont they ALL hate us?" Just what the hell do some foreigners admire? In truth... mostly its an image of boundless wealth. In other words, lies and propaganda.
My first impressions are of a sick, infantile society. Americans... and particularly American men... strike me as emotionally and intellectually retarded compared to their Asian peers. My "conversations" with men here have been confined to the following topics:
Dumbass jokes about bodily functions... not unsimilar to the conversations I had when I was 12 years old.
Vile demeaning comments about women.
Idiotic posturing to appear "cool".
Jokes about "fags" or "homos" (which always makes me suspect the teller is repressing something :)
Endless chatter about media virtual-reality (bands, movies, TV shows)... ie. "Did you see Survivor last night. Wow"
That pretty much covers it. I return to my own country... where everyone speaks my native language... and find I have nothing to say to people.... and can't bear to listen to them. I had much better conversations in Thailand and Japan.. with non-native English speakers. They may have struggled for words, but they had ideas. Americans, on the other hand, talk all the time... but say nothing. And so I find myself sitting silently... Occasionally shaking my head and wondering, "How can grown men act like this?"
To escape the awkward silence, the guys will often turn on the TV. Last time, they switched on Comedy Central. For three hours I was bombarded with despicable "jokes" about ethnic stereotypes and insulting comments about women.... this is the American norm for "comedy".
When I walk outside, everywhere I look I see fat people.... overweight, self-indulgent, spoiled, bratty, impatient, cranky.
Within the country, Americans cling to the notion that they live in "the best country in the world". For decades, their immensely powerful media convinced a lot of foreigners of this notion too. But no longer. Americans may still believe the bullshit, but the rest of the world is waking up to the truth. In Europe. In the Middle East. In Latin America. In Asia.
They are seeing what I see. And it aint pretty.
2 comments:
Hello AJ,
Don't despair. While America appears to be a lost cause in so many exaggerated ways during the Bush era, your experience living under sometimes difficult conditions abroad should enable you to get the hell out of here when you decide you've had your fill... But you know that.
Ironically, I lived in S.F. after getting my post-grad studies to get away from the neurotic East Coast, and was amazed at the surreal world in relatively beautiful SF where where the homeless predominated on Market Street. I had endless dreams of walking through hordes of homeless there - where the wretched live in a sea of wealth and indifference.
Thank God for the Mission district and the ethnic diversity which gives the city some soul.
And American men are losers in so many ways. So out of touch with what Jung called the feminine shadow that the anti-Gay remarks are just a predictable form of repression which leads nowhere -- like flicking through 500 T.V. channels to find nothing but infomercials for impotence drugs. But I feel just as bad for American women, who live in the land of the "founding fathers" and have virtually no impact or power (economic power is relative to the rest of life) in a totally patriarchal society.
Thank God(s) that much of the rest of the world has retained some semblance of identity even as U.S. neo-colonialism is turning into daily begging for loans from the likes of China without which this country would collapse in debt...
There is no here here.
- Greg H.
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