I'm sure everyone has seen the video of the lady crying at the town hall meeting that she was scared of the direction our country is going and, with real passion and sincerity, “I want my America back.”
Now, I fully acknowledge that, as a Northeasterner, I do not live in Sarah Palin's "real America." Regardless, this "my America" to which the aforementioned town hall speaker refers seems way faker than the America I happen to live in.
To which "my America" is she so nostalgically referring? Andy Griffith's or the Hardy Boys'? Sorry, that's fictional. Definitely not Woodstock or life in the Haight-Ashbury. Hopefully not the days of slavery, sweatshops, and wars against Indians. Previous to 1900, a healthy person's life expectancy was less than 50 years. Let's not forget that 100 years ago women could not vote! Frontier America is nice to romanticize, but an honest reflection sees it for what it was: a nearly-lawless expanse which was ruled by whoever had the biggest guns and the most money. Liquor flowed, gambling was rampant, sex-for-pay was easy to find, and if you didn't die young from a horrific accident, a drunken bar fight or in childbirth, you probably died from fever, measles or a host of other now-eradicated diseases.
Up until the 1970s companies thought nothing of pouring toxic waste into public drinking water. In the 1950s someone who had a grudge against you could devastate your career simply by pointing and shouting "communist." I'm sure the "my America" she's talking about is absolutely not the America of millions of African Americans, Chinese, Native Americans, Polish, Quaker, Catholic, etc., etc., US citizens who have made this country their home for hundreds (in the case of Indians, thousands) of years.
Personally, I cannot imagine an America I'd rather live in than the one I live in today. I am thrilled to be a member of this society--with all the craziness that entails--and I wouldn't have it any other way. I am more free than I ever could have been as an American in any other decade.
Thank God I live here now.
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1 comment:
I want to thank you for your compelling and wonderfully written comment.
It was thought provoking and for me it came through as being very sincere in its message.
Again, thank you.
peace
fm
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