What it means to be American

this blog is a post on one of the boards I frequent. The question was what it means to be American these days. I'm still working on the idea of "purpose".

Best I can tell being American means buying into the idea of freedom and deciding that it's worth sending your children to go kill and be killed for. The problem with this 1776 patriot ideal is that it died a long time ago. It existed once in the history of this country...maybe? I wonder what the Native Americans thought about the white man's revolutionary war? We're raised to believe that America represents this grand ideal that you write your own destiny because we have freedom like nobody else has it. The truth is that it's a load of shit. In many important ways we are more enslaved to our government masters than any other nation.

The only thing that makes us any different than any other country is that we can own guns as civilians. As many as we want! We're supposed to be able to say whatever we want to as well, but that's only true situationally. For instance I can't tell a patient that they are stupid, and I can't tell my supervisor that he is incompetent, and I can't tell the CEO of the for profit corporation that I work for that he can take his bonuses and shove them up his ass. I'd be fired...I'd lose my house...I'd be part of the 25% unemployed standing in line for government hand outs. Where's the freedom in that?

I can live in communist China and think the same shit I think. So I can't write it down. What about the guns? The government doesn't care about us having guns because they have millions of minions who are good at busting your head open with the butt end of an M-16. They only need half a brain cell to do this...cannon fodder...expendable. Guns and hunting shit is a multi billion dollar industry. A large chunk of the controlling oligarchs are makin' their electronic dollars selling this shit to us.

So other than believing in a crock of shit, what does it mean to be American? Eating a lot of high fructose petroleum sugar? Diabetes? 100 pounds over weight? A gargantuan hybrid vehicle that gets 12 mpg? A McMansion made out of particle board and vinyl? A prescription med, alcohol, football, nascar, HFCS, fast food, air conditioning, credit card, consumer, violence addiction? Being conned into going 60,000 dollars into debt for a "higher education" that ain't worth the paper the degree's written on? The ability to waste as much resources possible in the name of laziness? Supporting a bunch of bull shit wars started under false pretenses in the name of an oil addiction and suburbia?

I've fought in a war for this country. Mostly I was just responsible for a lot of Afghani deaths. People I never knew or saw or had any beef with.

So what does it mean to be American if not all of the shit I have just listed? The idea of America might have been a good one at the beginning (again, that's if you give us a pass on the whole genocide of the natives thing). Democratic republic. A government for the people and by the people. All people created equal in the ultimate egalitarian orgy (but if you were black or native than fuck you). We broke the bonds of English oppression and drafted this great document that we've spent the last 200 plus years shitting all over. Best I can tell being American means having the freedom to take other peoples shit from them without having to apologize.

And what do you have to do for this beautiful gift of freedom? You have to give it all back to the government in exchange for protection from terrorism. You have to be afraid of the rest of the world because they all want to kill us (which isn't true but should be since we act like a bunch of sadist on the world stage).

After saying all of that I'll say this. Being American doesn't mean anything. It's a lie you have to buy into. Lines on a map do not appear on the actual land. Us against them. We are better than the rest. No were not!! We're just people just like them. We bleed the same, love the same, pretty much look the same, have the same organs, the same descent and evolution, and ultimately the same destiny. We all have to struggle to avoid as much misery as possible. We are born on our way to dying. It doesn't mean shit to be American other than that you bought into a line of shit and probably have a lower I.Q. than your peer on the other side of the boarder. Start identifying with your humanity.

(and I probably said "shit" one too many times).