I received this from a friend of mine that now lives in Vietnam. Thought that it was good enough to share with this community
Hello people. This one's overdue but it took me a little while to regain some composure.
Disclaimer: For some of you it will seem like I am preaching to the choir. I send this to you just to let you know that I share your pain. Then there are those that will most likely take offense to what I have to say and I apologize for not being able to apologize for stating what I think and feel. That said...
A few days ago when every fiber of my being was still saturated in an all-consuming, raging anger I was going to send a very different email than the one you are now reading.
It would be dishonest to claim that I have now risen above my animal nature and no longer feel abandoned by a nation I can't help but feel quite humiliated to call home. Actually, as I will illustrate further, I'm still pretty pissed off but I won't go down easily. I will never back down from my convictions and my drive to back them up with action. Never.
In the last year I have been taken aback by my own patriotism. In fact, I have been utterly shocked to find myself passionately defending my native country when those around me have verbally abused and attacked my homeland and its people.
You might want to know what kinds of complaints and grievances I have faced. They can all easily be boiled down to one simple question:
"Do the American people really care about the world outside US borders?
59 million Americans have answered that question with what amounts to a global bitch-slap, a staggering, unapologetic "NO!!"
59 million Americans don't care about finding alternative energy sources no matter how many more people and ecosystems will perish as a result.
59 million Americans don't want to live up to our promises to help the people of Africa in their grueling defensive battle with AIDS.
And at least 59 million Americans do not want the most basic of freedoms for ALL people regardless of age, sex, religion (or lack thereof), skin color, nationality, sexuality, physical and mental health, or financial standing.
But 59 million Americans are not ALL Americans.
A lot of irresponsible, insensitive jerks like to say "It's just politics, it's not personal. Well, if a spade is a spade then that is just bull shit.
It's not just politics and it is personal, very personal.
It is personal to the people of Iraq who are losing not only their friends and family, due to horribly misplaced American paranoia, but also their autonomy.
It is personal to the 93-year-old woman in Vinh, Vietnam who lost all 10 of her children to American ammunition.
It is personal to those Americans who lost loved ones on that infamous day in September and who had to beg and plead to form the 9/11 Commission only to have their resolutions brutally dismissed.
It is personal to those couples who want nothing more than to spend their lives together in peace and are denied the basic right to marriage by an intolerant, spiteful American government.
It is personal to the parents who have had to bury their children because they couldn't afford the medical bills.
It is personal to the thousands of women that would have deadly, back-alley abortions because 59 million Americans would revoke their freedom of choice.
IT IS PERSONAL.
59 million Americans have effectively bitch-slapped the world but 59 million Americans are not ALL Americans. While the latter fact allows me to cling desperately to a negligible and still shrinking shred of hope, it can not change the fact that the rest of the world will not take the time to make the same distinction.
To the world, ALL Americans now appear to be viciously selfish and painfully ignorant assholes. When, not if, America is attacked again the global audience will find it very difficult if not impossible to shed a tear. In fact, they might find it down-right strenuous to restrain themselves from participating in a standing ovation. The world wants us to wake up and when diplomacy and reasoning fail humans will revert to their primitive brains where survival is the one and only issue at hand.
I have a theory about why this election came out the way it did. Perhaps it is the case that those 59 million Americans were absent from school the day they were teaching Newton's laws of physics. Allow me to educate those of you who lack knowledge of the most basic laws of nature. There's this one law that I think everyone should know about which states that "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In layman's terms this means that if America terrorizes, America will be terrorized.
There used to be this idea that to be a patriot was to be involved in the system of checks and balances upon which the American system was supposed to be founded. It used to be true that an American patriot was a person that wasn't afraid to get up and speak out. Ironic and hilarious enough, the so-called "Patriot Act" has demolished true patriotism. Now, too many Americans have traded in their soap boxes for idiot boxes, their drive to stand apart for their submission in a fear-driven, unthinking herd. And now it's the sheep that are called "patriots" for keeping their mouths shut.
Obviously I like the old definition better and I don't plan to shut-up anytime soon. Personally, I don't have the luxury of giving up mostly because I have a 105-year-old great-grandmother and 3 very healthy grandparents. I figure I'm physically, if not mentally, healthy and even despite some of my extracurricular activities, I'm going to be around for a long time to come. Right now I'm getting by because I keep reminding myself that although this species often fails miserably to reach its potential, we are still capable of good as well as bad.
We can find alternative energy sources, we have found them already and with some more creativity and dedication we will actually use what we already know. We are capable of tolerance and compassion even if our leaders are not. We have everything to prove. It will be even more exhausting than it has been already but if we aren't trying we're dying. I'll quit my ranting when I'm dead.
I know a lot of you are down and some of you are up but remember that the only thing in this world that endures is change. We can never step in the same river twice.
Keep on keeping on.