This summer I am moving to Germany, first to attend an MBA program in Hannover, and then, with some luck, to live as an expatriated Amerikan. I seek to find a new life outside this country where materialistic wealth and self gain is placed above all other priorities in life; where I as a honorably discharged veteran with 8 years service to my country am riduculed by the republicans as a traitor for voting Democatic; and where I am constantly ,villanized, and denegraded by members of the party in power for my beliefs as a human being. My wife, a middle school teacher, who works 60 hours a week and more, was accused of belonging to a terrorist organization by the secretary of education, and this individual was never called to account for his hateful and insensitive speach by our so called president.
As I sit here in New England these last few days of my stay in Amerika, I am struck by how much this country has turned away from its values of fair play and honesty in the last 20 years, to be replaced by the attitude that "me first screw you " is the only modern way to conduct business of any kind here. In the town where my wife works, the school board has to beg for money, and the very parents of the children she seeks to educate, and dedicates a very large portion of her time to do so, go to town meetings and rail against properly funding the schools, paying a living wage for teachers etc. The story is always the same, you teachers are lame, you do no work, its your fault my kid didn't get into Harvard, MIT etc. Parents in this neauvau riche town have bought into the Garrison Kellior adage, that all children are above average here, and that if anything goes wrong with them, its the school systems fault, not the parents. As I sit here, I realize that this has been one of the mantras of the Republican right for over a decade: The undermining of trust in our public institutions, starting with the school systems.
Ignorance is now celebrated as religous enlightenment by the right. They seek to destroy our schools, and any other public institutions they can, because their core belief is that all government is bad, and eliminating government is the only way to uber wealth. Sadly, over 50% of the population has bought into this Svengali like mantra and believes that they too will be uberrich if only the republicans close down the government. They seek to replace science in the schools with religous superstition and myth, and think that if they proclaim it over and over again it will become the truth. In fact, the very idea of objective truth has been buried by the spin-meisters from the Republican right; simply pound your ideas hard enough into peoples heads and it must be true has been their modious operandi for 15 years. Sadly it has undermined the very basis of our society, that of honest and factual discourse.
Self centered greed has become the be-all end-all mantra of life in 21st century Amerika. It has infected citizens everywhere and permeates every part of our daily existance.
We see it in the aggressive driving on our freeways, the fight for parking spaces in shopping malls, the uber competitive atmosphere in our schools, everywhere. And it has destroyed our soul as a nation.
I have spent the last two years working as TA at an elite New England private engineering school. I cannot believe the things I hear from the 18- 22 year old crowd on a daily basis, such things as the people in the Army who are in Iraq and Afganistan want to be there; that its not my problem what happens to them, as they volunteered for it; who cares they are poor people anyway. All of these comments have been made to me at one time or another in the last 2.5 years. We live in a country where responsiblity to the country as a citizen isn't even optional anymore, it's totally not required. And only idiots and dreamers think that service to your fellow man or citizens matters.
Over the last 6 months it has finally dawned on me that the disease here is greater than George Bush and his cronies. The republican hate and propaganda machine has posioned all of us, permamently. I don't believe there will never be a focus here on solving serious problems, becuase as a country we have given up the notion that serious problems can be solved, and replaced it with the sad self serving notion that the free market will solve everything, if we only let it. We have a massive educational crisis in this nation, which our elected leaders wont even touch. A severe issue with healthcare, and we stick our head in the sand about it.
A major problem with energy effiency yet not a single leader on the right or left will advance a serious solution. These are just some of the issues, there are others, but that is not the point.
We as a nation have lost our ability to focus on problem solving over serious issues. That is want, at this point, I know see as the future of Amerika. As I write this, our president rachets up the rhetoric about attacking Iran, possibly with nuclear weapons, and no one on the left or the right is willing to confront him on the serious and grave nature of the stakes involved with this approach. Once again, a petchulant child who was elected President by a uncaring populace leads us further down a path of pain, agony, destruction and evil, and there are precious few voices who are willing to stand and say enough.
That is what I see, at this point, from here at my desk. Well I am voting with my feet. I am getting out of this, and not coming back. To those who will criticize my spelling of Amerika I say that I have a right to spell the name as I see fit, as a political statement. So too damn bad, if you dont like it, save your whining for someone who cares. I am glad to have the opportunity to leave. I wonder, if the my relatives who came here 100 years ago seeking a better life are rolling over in their graves. I would be, if it were me.
Here are some additional articles that are relevant to my thoughts:
What is wrong with America: My reasons for leaving this country.
Torture is the normal way of punishing people here in America:
http://news.yahoo.com/...
Republicans have made the world more terrorist ridden not less:
http://www.latimes.com/...
Bush/Republicans don't believe the laws of this land apply to them:
http://www.boston.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Health care in America is worse than England, :
http://www.hindu.com/...
If you have a subscription to the Financial Times here is the original article
http://news.ft.com/...
Americans are ignorant of the world around them
http://www.cnn.com/...)dex.html
The myth of rags to riches in America is just that a myth
http://news.yahoo.com/...