America Needs Rebuilding
I came to America in 1977 lured by its progressive attitude and open way of life. Yet now I feel it is time to leave precisely because those things are gone. America is not what it was. Nor will it be any time soon.
I have learned that the image of America propagated around the world, that of freedom, democracy, initiative, competence and compassion, are an illusion. It is dangerous for the world to fall prey to the misconception that the America of its own mythology is the America of today’s reality; dangerous because it would cause an unhealthy reliance on an America that does not exist.
Today America is self-indulgently avoiding the consequences of its budget deficit; it is expecting the world to continue to pay for its luxurious lifestyle; and it persists in avoiding responsible discussion of the consequences of its expensive and inefficient health care system. Nor is it willing to plan for the burdens of the looming retirement of millions of its citizens. It blithely ignores the devastation its private pension system is wreaking on its companies. And it callously has reduced its care for the poor while handing out fork loads of cash to its richest citizens.
Today America still believes its own homilies about its democracy despite the evidence of vote tampering, the partisan rigging of congressional districts, the politicization of the Supreme Court, and concerted efforts to exclude poor or minority voters in some states.
Today America conducts unilateral wars on foreign countries despite its long history of avoiding and protesting against such endeavors. Today America is conducting a debate in its highest legislative chambers about which forms of torture are acceptable; and it incarcerates people without trials, without evidence, and without access to legal aid.
Today America is the world’s largest polluter and contributor to global warming, yet it refuses even to enter into the international discussion about such matters.
Today America still stares at the absence of anything at Ground Zero, and simply shrugs rather than indignantly demanding action. And today America has a government so infested by incompetence that it effectively abandoned an entire city in the wake of a natural disaster, and which has yet to provide adequate security for some of its vital infrastructural installations five years after declaring a war against the people who might target such installations.
My advice to America is that it should shed its hubris, quit its self-congratulatory references to being “the land of the free” and start earning back the respect of the world: creating an illusion to fool the world is one thing, self-delusion is another. We should start by admitting that America needs rebuilding. Let’s begin today.
