...of the Environment.
"When push comes to shove, shove comes to fists, you either show and prove or get dissed."
Fred On Everything: "The United States is the most hated country in the world, followed closely by Israel, and then by nobody. Why? Why not Ecuador? China? Russia? East Timor? The hostility puzzles many Americans, who genuinely believe their country to be a force for good, a pillar of democracy, a defender of human rights.
To the rest of the world, none of this is even close.
If you have lived abroad, as so very few Americans have, the explanation for the hatred is obvious: Meddling. Relentless, prideful, uncomprehending meddling, frequently military, often with horrendous death tolls. Americans, adroitly managed by a controlled press, historically illiterate, incurious, decreasingly educated, either have never heard of the American behavior that angers others, or believe it to have been inspired by virtuous motives. Nobody else thinks so. Add to unfamiliarity with the wider world the constantly inculcated assertion that America is the greatest, most wonderful nation ever to exist, a light to the world, a shining city on a hill, and you get a dangerously delusional state. Especially now. In the past, American economic and military supremacy were such that the US didn’t have to care what others thought. The times, they are a-changing."
Fred On Everything: "It might be wise to compare briefly the view through American and foreign eyes. Consider Iraq. To most of the world, the war on Iraq was brutal, unprovoked, and murderous. More than a few, looking at the ruins of Fallujah, thought of Guernica—of which few in the States have ever heard. Many Americans do not believe that we destroyed Iraq for oil, empire, and the Israel lobby, as was in fact the case. No. We wanted to topple an evil dictator and dispense the precious gift of democracy. It was a question of goodness. Many apparently still believe that Iraq had something to do with the attacks on New York. Again, controlled press, poor schooling, little curiosity."
Fred On Everything: "Similarly, Americans tend to see the war on Afghanistan as having to do with ending Terror or sprouting democracy—not as the Great Game (“Hanh?”) redux, or the quest for the TAPI pipeline (“Say whuh?”) or Caspian hydrocarbons. (“Caspian? You mean the Friendly Ghost?”) To most of the world, Afghanistan is just another sorry spectacle of American fighter-bombers killing peasants, of gutted children and drone attacks on half-identified targets. This, the merciless use of overwhelming firepower against lightly armed campesinos, is what the world sees, over and over. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan. It isn’t pretty."
Fred On Everything: "Nobody beyond the borders buys our song about spreading freedom and human rights. America has supported countless sordid dictators ruling by army and torture chamber (the Saudis being a current example). We have put many dictators on their thrones, such as Pinochet (“That little wooden guy, his nose got long when he told a lie, right?”) in Chile. (“Isn’t that Texmex soup with beans in it?”)"
Fred On Everything: "This is why they hate us—meddling, bombing, invading, droning, telling them how to run their countries. No, George, it is not because of our freedoms."
"Those who love the Institution of the Roman Catholic church just love the Pope and all the drama surrounding the change from one old fuck to a slightly less old fuck. They overlook the fact that a huge part of the Popes' and exalted next-in-line Cardinals' job, now, is to control the bimbo eruptions. Yea, "bimbo," as in: altar boys and candle-lighters and helpers in general and whatnot who trustred that you & ilk said the Church was good.
And they wanted to be good. Their innocent, salutary virtue got them fucked in the ass, literally. In payment for their trust in you & ilk—as you continued to overlok the evil of rape that you heard about in whispers over decades—they got bent over forcibly, or seduced by an authority of your own propped-up making."
No comments:
Post a Comment