Back in October a poll was published declaring the USA to be the world’s most admired country – which gave my cognitive dissonance a horrible case of whiplash. Assuming there is any substance to the poll results at all (a huge assumption IMO), I hate to ponder what it means for the rest of the world.
Sure, we overcame our racism enough to elect Barack Obama, but beyond that what have we really accomplished? We are still living a nightmare. We are still massively screwed. We are still the hapless victims of our own so-called ‘leaders’ who cannot pass up a single opportunity to sell us all down the river.
God damn them all: every corrupt politician of either party who sell their overpriced souls for filthy lucre, every single scumbag war profiteer in the Military Industrial Complex, every Wall Street rip-off artist who plots to transfer wealth from the masses to the plutocracy, every belly-crawling corporate lobbyist who colludes with two-faced politicians to benefit the few at the expense of the many, every lowdown corporate criminal who perverts our government for their own greedy purposes, every lying pundit, every corrupt talking head, every unethical corporate-owned journalist, every rightwing oxycontin-gobbling, vicks vaporub-crying douchebag polluting our airwaves and distorting our values, every crooked lawyer, judge or CEO, every last slimy lying son-of-a-bitch responsible for undermining our democracy and screwing us out of our birthright as Americans – a government of, by and for the people...you know, that thing that was never supposed to perish from the face of the earth?
I’m tired of the excuses, the rationalizations, the sheer bullshit...’single payer is just not possible, we couldn’t possibly withdraw from Afghanistan, we’ll be out of Iraq...eventually, only Wall Street assholes can understand Wall Street assholery, we wouldn’t want to do anything to disrupt the system.’
Bush is gone. Cheney’s gone. But sadly, somehow, some way, for some fucked-up reason their brainless criminal moronic asshole policies are still very much with us. Tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires? Check. Bush wars? Check and double check. Lobbyist infestation of government? Yessirie bob. Secrecy? Domestic spying? Gitmo? Torture? Police state tactics? Yep, yep, yep, yep and yep.
And now suddenly, supposedly, we’re the most admired nation in the world? Go figure. The land where war criminals and torturers get off Scot-free? The country that didn’t have the common decency to impeach Bush/Cheney? The country that gave up single-payer without a fight? The land where the opinions of war criminals are deemed worthy of publication in prominent national magazines? 37th in healthcare, 19th in preventable deaths, 16th in secondary education, first in warmongering imperialism, first in the imprisonment of its own citizens, unemployment, homelessness and foreclosures through the roof, world’s biggest debtor nation at 12 trillion dollars and counting, home of Fox News, corporate personhood, compulsory health insurance, those awesome teabaggers, the dead-assed dollar and way more than our fair share of the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet – what’s not to admire eh?
But if some goofball organization no one ever heard of says we’re the world’s most admired nation, it must be true. Who knows why and who the fuck cares?
We’re number 1 baby!
P.S. On another matter, a recent diary dumped on the boomers again. It is absurd to blame anything on an entire generation. People of a certain age cannot be said prima facie to have anything other than their age in common. No generation is monolithic. Every generation has heroes, saints and assholes. Every generation. If you go to blame the assholes of any given generation for their assholery, please be specific. If my entire generation is held to blame for electing Reagan, then the present generation must be accountable for GW Bush – TWICE! But you didn’t vote for Bush did you? No, and I didn’t elect Reagan and I didn’t ruin the economy and I didn’t assist or cooperate in any way with the assault on the American people and the Constitution, in fact I fought it with everything I had. Blame me for losing the battle if you want, but don’t blame me for the assholery of others. Thank you very much.
Now, is my generation responsible for what happened on our watch? Sure. But different members thereof are responsible in different ways and to different degrees. Martin Luther King or Howard Zinn are not as blame-worthy as say Ronald Reagan or Bill Bennet. Liberals are responsible for losing the fight, sure. We should have fought harder. We should have been smarter. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. But at least we fought them. Yes, I believe it is the conservatives of my generation with whom you have a real beef. And the conservatives of your generation are no better. In fact they’re worse. Do you want to be blamed for their every action? No, I didn’t think so.
Peace,
OPOL
And finally, I am one of those kossacks who believe that liberals matter more than moderates or conservatives. I’m not arguing that they are not equal under the law or that their votes shouldn’t count, only that their opinions, thoughts, philosophies, and etcetera do not and will never have an equivalent value to those of liberals. The following chart illustrates why.
Heh.