Why I Don't Like America

It should be obvious from the previous entries that I have some problems with the USA. I want to make it clear, my problems are with the Government of the USA and many of its corporations - not with Americans as people. Shit, most of my heroes are Americans. Or were before they died. A list of absolutely fucking amazing Americans would take a long, long time to complete. Way longer than a list of amazing Icelanders (Bjork and the members of Sigur Ros). It would take me longer to make a list of amazing Americans than it would to make a list of amazing people who aren't American. Mostly that's because, as a Canadian, I am constantly bombarded with American culture. That's not really a complaint. American culture is the best culture going, if you're talking about music, movies, books, magazines, computer gadgets, consumer products of all kinds, essays, critical thought, etc.

And American politics is the most entertaining in the world. Sure, every once in a while members of the Congress of Thailand, or South Korea, or somewhere will get in a fist-fight. But American politics is consistently fascinating. You couldn't make Michele Bachmann up. She's too weird to be fiction. And the constant back and forth between Fox News and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert is more entertainment in a single night than Canadian politics provides in a year.

My problem with America is that it is the new Rome. And like Rome, it tended to be less than kind to places that were not Rome and people who were not Romans. Kindness was not what I would call a Roman characteristic. Strangely, kindness is an American characteristic. Every time I go to the States, I'm amazed how kind and friendly the people are. I have a friend (a white guy) who is doing graduate research on Detroit, specifically on the poorest, most desperate parts of Detroit and when he goes there I always half expect to see him on the news the next night, "Stupid Canadian killed for going somewhere no one would ever go if they had any sense." But everyone he has met (with the notable exception of the guy who mugged him) has been friendly, kind, and generous. Hell, I got my wallet stolen in Rome less than an hour after I got off the plane. So the Rome and America analogy has some flaws.

I get exercised about America for the same reason so many Americans are exercised about America. Your government and your corporations are fucking the world up.

So while I love Noam Chomsky, Lou Reed, Susan Sontag, Howard Zinn, Jimmy Hendrix, Sarah Vaughan, Lyle Lovett, Cornel West, Weird Al Yankovic, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chet Atkins, Eugene Debs, and so many others - I have to hate what Rome is doing to itself and the rest of the world.