Feelings of A Common US Citizen **************************I...

Feelings of A Common US Citizen
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I lived outside the United States from August 14, 1975 until February 7, 1998. Some of this period was my choice; quite a lot of it was not of my choosing at all. During quite a lot of this period, I dreamed of coming back to the United States, which I regarded as "home" to me. I felt that I had to be back on home soil again for reasons that I now question.

Maybe my memories aren't so accurate. I do remember even when I was growing up in the United States that Americans seemed to think it was fun to put one another down. It was very true when I was in grade school, even truer when I was in high school, and even truer when I was in college. This game of putting others down seemed to grow in popularity constantly over the years. However, it still remained more or less a game; it was not an integral part of the culture of the country -- or at least, so I thought.

Today I can't say that any more. Today I see that it's the nature of Americans to put down everyone, including one another. Persons living outside the United States see Americans as arrogant and crude because of their loud, boisterous nature and their assumed superiority. Americans have the attitude that others "just don't get it" because if you don't get their jokes, don't understand their jargon, and aren't American in mind and spirit, you're worthless. Even if you do, however, the first thing they will do is put you down for it, so you can't win. If anything, it is very easy to understand why the image of the American abroad is a negative one and why Americans are not admired outside their country.

Before George W. Bush was elected in 2000, none of this was a real problem, because the United States was still holding its own. Even when the recession began in the United States, the United States had faced recessions before and had weathered them. It was not as if the United States could not handle its own problems; the world had seen that. Even once Bush assumed office in 2000, there was no immediate change of status for Americans. Americans remained a rather curious people that were not well understood outside their country, but the United States remained a country that was able to stay on steady footing and the American dollar was still the major currency of the world.

All that has changed. The United States is now a major debtor nation with a catastrophic trade deficit. Its currency is no longer desirable in many parts of the world that used to respect it. American involvement in a controversial war in Iraq that threatens to spill over into neighboring countries as nuclear capacity develops in other nations in the region leaves the other nations of the world wondering what will be the end. The President who took so many unpopular steps that alienated the United States from other nations has been reelected by the American people, and now the image of Americans has been tarnished permanently.

Americans themselves are at a loss. The nation is divided. The "my country, right or wrong" group tolerates no discussion and responds in characteristic arrogance. Nay sayers, predictably, moan about everything, claiming Armageddon is upon us and that disaster is imminent. The silent majority -- and I do believe it is the majority -- just want to go to sleep, wake up, and discover that it was all a bad dream, that it's all over, that we can go on with a normal life, because what we have now is just awful.

Most of us did not want this situation. We had to have a President and a government, but we ended up with a mess instead. We want competent people to run the country but don't seem to be able to get any such people to do it. We're frustrated because we were served up a list of candidates who were not to our liking and were stuck with bad choices that left us with no alternative but to take the lesser of two evils, and we feel we were shortchanged, no matter how you slice it.

We want our country back. It is our right. It's time to storm the Bastille.